The First Stella Cole Boxset

by Andy Maslen

  She felt no nerves, no buzz of apprehension in her stomach. Just a predator’s alertness as she scanned the crowd of penguin suits and short frocks, looking for Howarth. The website of the chambers had dutifully served up his picture, along with a short biography, earlier that day. But at first glance, he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Don’t fret, Stel,” Other Stella said, close to her right ear. “He’ll be here somewhere. Mix and mingle, mix and mingle.”

  Stella pasted on her best social smile and walked around the edge of the gathering. The air was heady with the scent of jasmine, which was climbing up the brick wall surrounding the garden. The jasmine, combined with a potent mixture of aftershaves and perfumes, quickly overwhelmed Stella’s sense of smell until it switched off and she could detect nothing but the vague aura of money. She looked at each group of guests in turn, trying to be systematic as she searched for Howarth.

  The men were all variations on a theme. She’d met their type in courtrooms and at Paddington Green nick. Sleek, well-groomed lawyers with drawling voices and fine bone structure. The dinner suits rendered them comically alike, just like the men whenever she’d had to accompany Richard to one of his own legal parties. The women were also cut from a fairly standard cloth: more blondes than brunettes, a few with south Asian or Chinese heritage, but all with a look that said, “I’m on the way up, I’m not to be trifled with and don’t you dare call me ‘love’ unless you want one of these high-heeled shoes stuck in your foot—or somewhere far more painful.” Their dresses were much like Stella’s, although with the odd kingfisher blue, aubergine or emerald-green to break up the black.

  Just as she was wondering how she might break into one of the conversations, a hand touched her left elbow, causing her to start, and look round. Facing her was a man in his midthirties. Sandy hair slicked into a sharp parting with some kind of wet-look gel, and a wily look on his pink-cheeked face. His dinner suit was beautifully tailored and fitted his trim frame perfectly. The lapels were faced with a deep-indigo silk that seemed simultaneously to absorb and reflect the sunlight slanting into the garden. A dull gleam, like the barrel of a gun.

  “Jessica? Jessica Schubert?” he asked, though the question mark in his voice was clearly only there for reasons of courtesy.

  She smiled.

  “Yes. David?”

  He smiled, revealing sharply pointed canines.

  “That’s me. Chief clerk at Woodward Chambers. You’ve got a drink. That’s good. Thirsty work, writing about this lot all day long,” he said, gesturing with a sweeping hand at the increasingly noisy crowd of lawyers.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad. Beats performing in a courtroom, anyway.”

  He raised his own glass.

  “I’ll drink to that. Behind the scenes, that’s where I like it myself. Now, you’re probably wanting to meet our Mister Howarth.”

  “Well, that was rather the purpose of my attending, although it is a lovely party. And thank you again for inviting me.”

  He smiled that predatory smile again and tipped some more of the champagne down his throat.

  “Anything for the ladies of the press,” he said. “Although maybe you can help me out with something. You see, I called your office earlier this week, and they said they’d never heard of you. Which is odd, isn’t it?”

  The twinkle had left his blue eyes now and Stella felt herself growing uneasy under his watchful gaze. Other Stella drew close and whispered in her ear. Stella nodded slightly, involuntarily, and then spoke.

  “Oh, David,” she said, dropping her voice to a purring, conspiratorial murmur and leaning closer to him, “I’m afraid you’ve rather found me out. You see, I am writing the article I mentioned, but at the moment I’m between jobs. Freelancing, you know what it’s like.” She drew a long scarlet fingernail down the gleaming lapel of his dinner jacket, and smiled.

  The smile wasn’t for Burney. His gaze had dropped from her face to the spot where the fake jet necklace descended into the space between her breasts. Thank you, Wonderbra!

  He looked back at her, still grinning, and with no obvious embarrassment at having been caught peeking.

  “No problem, Jessica, it’s all this lot are really. Freelancers, I mean. Without me pimping for them, they’d have to send their Range Rovers and their Astons back to the dealer. Come on, let’s find Charlie and somewhere quiet for you to do your interview. Then later, maybe you and I could grab some dinner somewhere?”

  She smiled. “Yes, why not? You can give me some background to flesh out the profile.”

  He puffed his chest out at her last words.

  “Give me a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”

  He turned and threaded himself between the increasingly noisy guests.

  Stella tipped the remains of her champagne into her mouth and accepted a refill from a passing waitress. She found herself craving nicotine, a feeling she hadn’t experienced for a while. Looking around to determine if this was a no-smoking event, she was interrupted by a woman’s voice.

  “Excuse me, you haven’t got a light, have you?”

  She turned to find herself facing a tall, brown-skinned woman with sharp cheekbones and a mass of tumbling curls held at the back of her long, slender neck by a tortoiseshell clasp. Her dress was black like Stella’s but cut more modestly at the neckline.

  “Oh, yes, of course. I was actually just wondering if I could smoke here myself.”

  She withdrew her lighter and clicked it for the woman’s cigarette, which dangled raffishly from her purple-lipsticked mouth. The woman drew deeply on the cigarette, blew a plume of smoke into the air above her and smiled.

  “Thanks. I’m Hester, by the way.”

  Stella’s heart bumped in her chest and she covered for her momentary shock by fumbling in her bag for her own cigarettes, shaking one out from the packet and lighting it.

  “Jessica. Pleased to meet you.”

  She had out her hand and the other woman shook it. Stella was seized with an almost irresistible urge to crush the woman’s hand in her own until she felt the birdlike bones splinter and crack. Then it was gone.

  “You’re a lawyer?” the woman asked.

  Stella shook her head, blowing out smoke to one side.

  “Journalist. You? Lawyer, I mean.”

  “Mm hmm. Barrister.”

  Other Stella pushed her way past the woman who’d introduced herself as Hester, and whom Stella herself felt sure was Hester Ragib, the one remaining member of Pro Patria Mori she’d so far not encountered.

  “Don’t suppose you feel like a twofer, do you?” she asked, jerking a thumb at Ragib and smiling wickedly.

  Stella closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again. Other Stella had vanished. But her own pulse was fluttery and she felt the same lightheaded feeling she’d experienced shortly before floating away from her own body up to the ceiling, from where she’d watched – Who? Herself? Other Stella? – dismembering Debra Fieldsend.

  “Are you all right?” Ragib was asking, her deep-brown eyes narrowed with concern.

  “Yes, completely,” Stella said, just about remembering her put-on accent. “Must be the champagne. I haven’t eaten this evening. It’s gone straight to my head.”

  Ragib laughed.

  “And there was I thinking you journalists all had heads as hard as a jury bench.”

  Stella smiled.

  “Not all of us. Truth to tell, I have something of a problem with the demon drink. What you might call an uneasy relationship.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,” Ragib said. “Half the people here have got one habit or another.”

  “So, Hester, I’m here to interview Charlie Howarth for a piece I’m writing about up-and-coming lawyers. But it’s a bit skewed towards the boys at the moment. I don’t suppose …”

  The woman’s face broke into a smile.

  “You want to include me? That would be great! Plus, obviously, I’m Indian so you get two for the price of one.”


  “Oh, well, I didn’t mean—”

  “Ha! Don’t worry. It was me who said it, after all. Listen, I’ve just seen someone I really must grab before he disappears. Here’s my card. Call me.”

  Ragib shoved a business card at Stella, who took it between thumb and forefinger. Then she was gone, sidling up to a silver-haired man who was the centre of a small group of attentive listeners and slipping her arm through his.

  Stella tucked the business card into her clutch bag and took a drag on the cigarette before dropping it to the ground and stubbing it out beneath a twisting toe. She looked around, wanting to see Burney. And there he was. Weaving his way expertly through the clusters of gabbling lawyers, his cunning fox’s face split with a white-toothed grin.

  “Right,” he said, without preamble, as he reached her. “Charlie’s in his office on the fourth floor. Between you and me, I think he wanted to create the right setting. Up the stairs – no lift, I’m afraid; we’re listed – and it’s the office at the end of the landing. His name’s on a brass plate. I’d come with you, but there are people I need to touch base with. But when you’re done, come and find me, OK? We can think about somewhere nice for dinner.”

  Stella nodded, smiled, thought about how, precisely, she was going to murder Howarth, and made her way inside.

  61

  What Does QC Stand For?

  On her way to the meeting with Howarth, Stella stopped in front of a waitress who was opening a bottle of champagne.

  “Excuse me, I’m meeting one of the QCs upstairs. I don’t suppose I could take that, could I? And a couple of glasses?”

  Armed with the opened bottle, a wisp of vapour still curling from its neck, and the flutes dangling by their bases from between her fingers, Stella climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Although she’d let her training slip recently, she was still fit enough to reach the top without panting. She took a moment to adjust her dress, patted her wig into place, pasted a bright smile onto her lips, and walked down the corridor.

  Outside Howarth’s office she stooped and placed the flutes on the polished boards at the edge of the carpet. Into one, she tipped a half-inch of the flunitrazepam and topped it off with champagne. Then she filled the other.

  She stood and knocked smartly on the door, which swung open a little way. Without waiting, so that her entrance coincided with Howarth’s jovial “Come in!” she pushed the door fully open with the toe of her right shoe and stepped across the threshold.

  “Ah, Jessica! Do, please, come in,” Howarth said, his smile ever so slightly lopsided, and his enunciation off by a whisker.

  As he stood and came round the desk, Stella experienced a tearing sensation deep in her abdomen. Then a momentary wave of dizziness that made her close her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, she was able to see both herself and Howarth from a vantage point six inches below the ornate ceiling rose. He was holding out his hand and she, Other Stella, was shaking it before handing Howarth the flute containing the champagne and Rohypnol cocktail.

  “My pleasure, Mr Howarth,” Other Stella said, then raised her glass and clinked it off his, before looking up and winking at Stella as Howarth raised the glass to his lips and drank a quarter of the fizzing wine in a single draught.

  “Please, call me Charlie,” he said. Then, “Why don’t we sit over here? Otherwise I shall feel like I’m interviewing a client.”

  He gestured to a bottle-green, buttoned leather sofa, the type called a Chesterfield, and flopped into one corner of its embrace. Other Stella joined him, positioning herself at the other end and then half-turning to face him, crossing her legs. Howarth was having a hard time keeping his eyes off her chest, which was fine. It was the plan, after all.

  “Do you have a recorder, or a, a, you know, a notebook? Or something?” he asked.

  Other Stella smiled.

  “Of course, silly me.” She bent forwards to retrieve her phone from her clutch bag, lingering just long enough for Howarth to get the best possible view. Then she straightened, the little helper in her hand.

  “Wha’s that?” he asked.

  She held the leather tube up in front of her eyes as if she’d never seen it before.

  “This? It’s a something. I call it my little helper.”

  Howarth appeared to be falling asleep. His eyes were half-closed.

  “What’s that,” a three-second pause, “when it’s at home?”

  “Oh, I suppose you could call it a tool of my trade. When an interview doesn’t go quite the way I want it to.”

  “Oh. OK. Well, this one will. Go the way you want it to, I mean. So, I’m on the up and up and you wanna know how I do it, yes?”

  “I do. But first, maybe you could tell me what QC stands for?”

  Howarth frowned.

  “Don’t you know? You’re a law journalist, aren’t you?”

  “Why don’t you tell me anyway?”

  Clever girl, Stella thought. She’s playing for time till the Roofie kicks in. Should be running riot in his brain right about now, I’d say.

  “Well,” Howarth said, drawing out the single syllable so that it morphed into three, and pointing at Other Stella with a lazy finger, “as you know, it stands for Queen’s Counsel. And that means, I’m considered to be an eminent lawyer of especially meritorious—”

  “Oh. Because I thought it stood for Quickly Controlled.” She leaned towards him. “Like this.”

  Then she punched him on the nose, little helper gripped tight in her fist.

  Stella found it hard to judge exactly how much force had been behind the blow, as all she had to go on was a tingling across the knuckles of her right hand. But looking down at Howarth, who had been rocked back into the corner of the sofa, she saw blood spurt from his nostrils. He moaned with pain but was making no effort to touch his nose or stanch the bleeding. Or maybe he was trying, but couldn’t find any way of getting his muscles to obey him. Wasn’t that what Terzi had said?

  Other Stella had stood up and was leaning over Howarth. She poured the rest of the champagne into his mouth, which she held open by pinching her fingers into his cheeks. He was slumped back against the sofa, eyes rolling in their sockets like a stunned calf. Other Stella had crossed the ornately furnished room to a low wooden cabinet and opened it to find glass shelves groaning with full decanters of spirits in shades of amber, chestnut and mahogany. She pulled out the nearest and returned to Howarth, whereupon she poured a good measure of it down his throat. He was choking and spluttering, but she held him still and kept pouring until the decanter was empty. He’d probably only swallowed a third of it: the rest was soaking into his dinner suit and the front of his pristine white shirt.

  Then she pulled the chair round from the front of the desk and sat in it, facing him.

  “My name,” she said in a low voice dripping with menace, “is Stella Cole.” His eyes widened. “Yes. That Stella Cole. So you know why I’m here. You know what I’m going to do.”

  “Please,” he slurred, through the lethal cocktail of flunitrazepam, champagne and cognac, which was working fast to shut down his brain functions. “I—”

  “No! If I let you finish that sentence I may have to kill you far more messily than I’m planning. And that would make it harder for me to continue my work. Now on your feet. It’s time for you to take some evening air.”

  She jumped to her own feet, kicked off the stilettos and dragged Howarth to a standing position by his unresisting hands. Moving behind him she half-walked, half-pushed him to the window overlooking the garden. When the odd couple reached the window, she leaned him against the curtain bunched to the left and, holding him there with one hand, slid the catch open on the sash with the other.

  The window was either extremely well made, well lubricated, or both. At any rate, as Stella watched from her vantage point on the ceiling, Other Stella pulled the sash all the way open, creating a three-by-three-foot aperture. Immediately, the hubbub from the party entered the room, along with a f
ragrant, jasmine-laden breeze.

  Other Stella got herself behind Howarth and shoved her hands under his armpits, clamping them onto the fabric of his dinner jacket. Then she looked down at his left wrist.

  “Nice watch,” she said, before removing the expensive timepiece one-handed and slipping it into her bra.

  Then she placed her lips against his right ear.

  “Looks like you’re a low flyer, not a high flyer,” she whispered. Then she bent him forwards and pushed him, head first, out of the window.

  Stella sailed out of the window, floating just beyond the glass, and watched Howarth tumble towards the ground. On his second rotation, his feet hit a window ledge and he bounced outwards from the side of the house. In a graceful, curving descent from there, he hurtled into the flagstones in the middle of a group of women who were cackling with laughter.

  His final somersault brought his head into contact with the ground, where it cracked open with a noise like dry wood splitting. As the blood and brain matter splashed their legs, the women’s cackles changed to screams and one turned away to vomit noisily onto the polished black shoes of a judge.

  Stella found herself at ground level within the office, dusting her palms together and checking her appearance in a gilt-framed mirror above the marble fireplace. Time to go.

  She was halfway to the ground floor when she heard David Burney’s voice floating upwards.

  “Keep everyone out!” he yelled.

  She ducked into a recess in the hall she’d just arrived in and waited for him. As he rounded the final corner of the staircase, heading past her, she slipped out of her hiding place and descended the rest of the stairs in her stockinged feet, shoes dangling over a crooked finger, for all the world like a house guest trying not to wake her hosts. Burney evidently held a great deal of sway – the ground floor was deserted, although she could hear crying and the urgent voices of people phoning for the police.