Fold and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 8)

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘One month’s notice to quit. And the rent of my shop has shot up. Yes, that’s why I took on this job. I need some capital for a deposit. Otherwise I’m homeless. I’ll be wandering the front of Latching like Eileen with her shopping trolleys laden with black bags.’

  ‘I’ll tell them not to pick you up. How much was Mrs Carter going to pay you?’

  ‘Fifty thousand.’

  He gave out a low whistle. I knew he would. It was overpayment for two weeks’ work, accommodation and food included. Mrs Carter was not in the celebrity pop star bracket.

  ‘That sounds fishy, Jordan. Has she paid you yet?’

  ‘I insisted on half of the fee on the spot and I banked the cheque before catching the train to Southampton. I knew it was over the top, but I couldn’t work out why.’

  James took off my baker’s boy cap and let the tangled tawny hair run wild in the breeze. He pushed the tendrils away from my face and sighed deeply. I saw so much in his eyes but not what they said.

  ‘Jordan, you innocent little sleuth. Push aside the sea mist and you’ll see that you have been set up. It’s the oldest story. Pay someone else to take the blame, to take the rap. The necklace was a plant. You have been framed.’

  I knew he was right but I was not sure who was involved or how it was done. I told him the whole story of the cruise, adding the odd wide-eyed description about the grandeur of the Norwegian scenery.

  ‘Quit the snow,’ he interrupted. ‘Keep to the story.’ ‘This keelhauling business was too bizarre for words. It’s a mystery how she got there and who put her there. And why? No one in their right mind would put themselves through such a terrifying ordeal. It was no wonder her mind went into a sort of trance.’

  ‘It certainly sounds weird. I’ll see what I can find out.’ ‘I know I’ve been framed but I don’t understand how. And the Norwegian country is so beautiful, it’s not easy to understand something so awful happening in a place I like so much.’ ‘Do you like it more than Latching?’ It was an observant remark for James to make. He was watching my face closely.

  ‘I suppose not,’ I said. ‘I am bewitched by the magnificent scenery. I’ve never seen anything like it before. But the bewitchment is temporary, I know that. Latching is my home. It might even be the same sea water washing around different coasts for miles. And I miss my noisy, cheeky Sussex seagulls. The Norwegian seagulls have better manners. Yesterday one swiped the carrot cake off my plate. But he used a plate. That was the difference.’

  He laughed, putting his arm round my shoulders. ‘You’re getting cold, Jordan. What are we going to do with you? You have to go back to your stateroom, pretend to lock yourself in while I make myself known to the captain.’ ‘Does he know you are aboard?’

  ‘Yes,’ James grinned. He hadn’t changed. He looked so much the same. ‘It’s all above board. I am here legitimately, to investigate the death of Joanna Carter. It needed a few strings pulled but Geoff Berry is not regarded with much favour. He might be able to cope with a drunken fight in a bar or a domestic in a cabin, but nothing much else. The captain emailed his complete acceptance of my arrival on board.’

  I was fazed with relief and amazement. It was difficult to stand upright in the gathering wind force. DI James was here officially. I had nothing to be afraid of. He knew I always told the truth, if possible. He knew I could not have pushed Joanna overboard. Good heavens, I was playing my twentieth game of quoits with the Sputniks.

  ‘I’ve been given a twin-bedded cabin on C deck,’ he said, knotting the scarf more securely round my neck. ‘You can share with me if you like. No funny business, mind you. I need my sleep.’

  ‘It’s very tempting but I need mine, too. I haven’t had much sleep lately. Awful nightmares.’

  ‘Think about it.’

  It was hard to resist but not right, not right at this moment. Berry thought I was locked in my stateroom. I’d better stay there for at least another night.

  ‘I’ll leave you to present your compliments to the captain. He doesn’t know I’m a private investigator so perhaps you needn’t mention that.’

  ‘I shan’t mention that we even know each other,’ said James, starting to walk me towards one of the heavy doors. ‘It could be thought of as bias in your favour,’ he added with a touch of irony. ‘A clean slate all round.’

  ‘Not too clean, please. I’d like it to be a little muddied.’

  ‘What are you going to do this evening? And where can I find you?’

  ‘I’d like to go to see a film in the cinema but it might be wiser if I watched a DVD in my cabin. My cabin number is A710 and that door is locked by our ever so security conscious Geoff Berry. I can open A708 as he’s forgotten they arc connecting cabins.’

  ‘How will you know it’s me, if I call round?’

  ‘A password?’

  ‘How about Trencher’s Hotel, scene of your first crime investigation?’

  ‘You’ve a good memory.’

  ‘How could I ever forget?’ he said with a resigned sigh. ‘That poor nun on a hook.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you and we’ll watch a DVD.’

  It was still daylight outside although the sun was low in the sky. The midnight sun was lasting more than a single night. It was more like three or four nights now. I was losing count. I leaned over the rail of the balcony, hugging my arms, and wondered what it would feel like to fall from that height. It was a terrifying thought. For a few seconds, I felt dizzy with vertigo. And to be swept alongside such a big ship in those churning waves. Joanna could have died of fright.

  Hamish had told me that few people survived a dip in these cold waters.

  It was getting late but my notes needed updating. I rifled through what I had written in the last few days. Some of my notes were wild and inconsistent. Sometimes I put all the facts on cards and shuffle them round on the floor until they make sense.

  Shopping list: more cards.

  But I couldn’t get to the ship’s shop. Out of bounds. It didn’t have to be card. I could accommodate paper. Not loo paper. It was back to the illustrated brochure of next year’s cruises but there were few pages that yielded any white space. I went to the desk drawers in Joanna’s stateroom. She might have a notebook.

  She had more than a notebook. She had a sketch book. She was not a brilliant artist but some of the pictures were recognizable. There was a tree with a noose hanging from a branch. There was a ladder with measurements scribbled in the margin. There was a head and shoulders sketch of a young woman in a T-shirt with her hair in a plait. I often plait my hair. The sketch was entitled Bait.

  I thumbed through the pages, not knowing what to expect. She had detailed her diamond necklace, sketching the largest pendant stones with their weight and insured value. There was also a sketch of a man who I did not recognize, a vague sort of man with thin hair and pale eyes. But he was wearing an expensive Rolex watch and smoking a thin, black cigarette.

  The last sketch was alarming. A woman was lashed to a rope and the rope was being passed under the keel of a ship through the water. It was called keelhauling in pirate days. A cruel and barbaric punishment if you dared not to salute an officer. I looked closely at the woman. She had her hair pulled back in a plait and the plait was floating on the water.

  I shut the sketch book quickly. I didn’t want to see any more. It was a strange, unnerving collection of pictures. If anything confirmed that Joanna was unbalanced, those pictures did.

  It was not easy to concentrate on a DVD even though I had chosen an old favourite, Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman. I was only watching it for that last scene when he carries Debra Winger out of the factory where she works. But tonight I could not even concentrate on that. My mind was mulling over those sketches, wondering what on earth they meant.

  There was a knock on the door of A708. I went to it. ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Maeve’s Cafe. Bruno, the fisherman, who doesn’t like you and the Mexican restaurant owner, Miguel, who does like you, v
ery much.’

  ‘That’s not the right password,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll do, won’t it?’

  James was standing in the corridor with a bottle of Australian Cuvee Rose. ‘I know all your secrets,’ he said. ‘Nothing is safe from me.’

  ‘No. you don’t know my secrets,’ I said, ushering him inside fast and closing the door. ‘You only think you do.’

  I was glad to see him. He was wearing several sweaters, feeling the cold even inside. He went straight to the drinks cabinet, uncorked the bottle with a pop and poured out two glasses of the pink fizz. Surprising choice, because he was normally a beer drinker.

  ‘From Tasmania,’ he said. ‘It says it has rich notes of vanilla and fudge.’

  ‘I like rich notes,’ I said, waiting to tasting it.

  ‘Turn that film off,’ he said. ‘You know how it ends.’

  He handed me a full bubbling glass and we raised them, ready to clink. His ocean blue eyes were focused intently on me. There was no way of telling his thoughts. He was always a mystery.

  ‘What are we drinking to?’ I asked unsteadily.

  ‘To the first time we have met since I was posted to Yorkshire. That’s good enough.’

  ‘It certainly is.’

  ‘I’ve brought along all the ship’s CCTVs. I thought we could look at them together and you could identify people.’

  ‘I’ve seen them all.’

  ‘It won’t hurt to look at them again. Sometimes you can miss something which becomes blatantly obvious on a second examination.’ He was talking like a policeman. He was here to help me. I could hardly argue the point.

  It was certainly more fun with James by my side on the sofa. We kept our voices down in case Berry was hovering outside. He might think it was a film. The rose helped. James made notes while I talked.

  ‘That’s the captain’s cocktail party. That’s Ron and Flo Birley, from our table, a couple from Guildford, regular cruisers. And that’s Natasha, a larger than life character. Quite a woman.’

  ‘In more ways than one,’ James murmured.

  ‘And that’s the famous necklace. So she was wearing it at the party,’ I said. ‘I wondered if she had been mistaken and not put it on, left it back here. But there it is, round her neck, looking a million dollars.’

  ‘Looking a hundred thousand pounds’ worth.’ Even on film, the diamonds were twinkling and catching the light, like long-distance stars. ‘And, good heavens, who is this willowy creature in a floaty black dress? I’d like to meet her.’

  ‘Don’t know who she is. It’s chiffon with a frilly hem.’

  ‘Like the look.’

  ‘Perhaps you could tell her sometime.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’

  James filled my glass but not his own. We were still sitting on the sofa but not touching. He was not the cosy, hand-holding type. I’d be lucky if I got a goodnight hug. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

  He stopped the film and pointed to a man in the middle distance. It was the nondescript person, the grey person, a merging into the wallpaper person. He was standing on the edge of the crowd, alone.

  ‘I don’t actually know but he does keep coming into the picture, doing apparently nothing. I noticed him before when I was looking through the film. A grey man. Yet I’ve never seen him on deck, or speaking to anyone or in the Delphi dining room. Here he is again. And here, look. He keeps popping up.’

  I caught a flash from the watch the man was wearing. I’d seen that flash before but couldn’t remember where.

  ‘A passenger obviously. But who is he? I’ll try to find out tomorrow. Someone must know. The crew and hotel staff are good with names.’

  ‘They are wonderful, the way they remember names. And the cruise passengers change every two or three weeks. I don’t know how they do it.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because we are creatures of habit. One orange juice equals Miss Lacey. Four brandies equals Mrs Carter. The dining room waiters make a diagram of their table and put in identifying things like red hair, glasses, overweight.’

  The equation leaped dramatically into my mind. One grey man equals a sketch book. I stumbled to my feet and went over to the desk drawer. Joanna’s sketch book was where I had left it. No poltergeists.

  I turned the pages to the sketch of the head and shoulders of a man with thinning hair and pale eyes. It was the same man. This was the grey man in the CCTV film.

  ‘This is Joanna’s sketch book.’

  James was peering over my shoulder. ‘So Joanna knows him. The grey man. She knows him well enough to have sketched him. That’s strange.’

  He began thumbing through the pages and stopped when he came to the sketch of a young woman with her hair in a thick plait.

  ‘This is you without a doubt,’ he said, tapping the page. ‘I don’t like the look of this at all. Jordan, I’m not leaving you tonight. You’re not safe for a moment.’

  EIGHTEEN

  At Sea

  James slept in Joanna’s stateroom with the connecting door open. It was near but not near enough. I wanted to feel him by my side so I could reach out and touch him, feel his warmth. It was a long time since I had slept with anyone, and that had been a hormonal mistake. But this was an improvement on our normal platonic state of affairs. I could hear him breathing. There was time to check if he snored.

  No, he didn’t.

  Nice.

  The rose almost put me to sleep. And the rocking of the ship was another lullaby. The day was going to be difficult enough. I did not want to think about it. For the moment, it was enough to know that James was here and I could rely on him for support.

  The Double O was suddenly a prison. A floating prison and I couldn’t get off. There was no way I could escape. Her hull had become a steel cave, high and unclimbable. Fear swept through me like a tidal wave, unstoppable tremors that had me wide awake in a second. I was on an island that was crumbling, birds swooping. I sat up in bed and cried out.

  James was beside me instantly. He had not undressed but his shirt was unbuttoned, open to the waist.

  ‘Jordan? Are you all right? What’s the matter?’

  ‘It was a dream, a bad dream … I think. I don’t remember. It was frightening. Something about birds.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen to you. I’m here.’

  His arms came round me and he buried his face in my hair. It was the closest he had ever come to tenderness.

  This was James. It was real. I was not dreaming any more. Somehow the memory of his dead wife and those two children was receding, becoming sometimes fainter, perhaps less painful. He was learning that life was still worth living, that another woman would love him.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was feeling threatened. Nothing under my feet. It was scary.’

  ‘It’s not surprising, Jordan. You are being threatened. And I’m going to find out why.’

  I think James stayed until I fell asleep. I was not sure. How could something almost perfect come from within something so awful? If the Double O had to be a prison, then I was willing to share it with him.

  But he was already up, showered and dressed when I awoke. He arrived at my bedside with a cup of tea. He looked the same as always. No morning after face, except that this one needed a shave. No fisheye, but then nothing had happened.

  ‘Sorry, no honey,’ he said.

  ‘I have to steal honey from the cafeteria. They have these little plastic packets which are the devil to open.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about your petty pilfering. I have to go, Jordan. Don’t leave the cabin. I’m going to track down this grey man, if he’s still aboard. He’s part of this investigation.’

  ‘Yes, James. Of course, James. Thank you, James.’

  He looked at me suspiciously. ‘I don’t trust you when you get that polite.’

  ‘You remember telling me to go back to my first meeting with Joanna? Something that might be a clue? She did say something funny. She said: No one wants to get involved
with the police. Now why would she say that?’

  ‘Maybe she was hiding something.’

  He left without attracting any attention so this must mean that there wasn’t a guard from the crew posted outside my door. Normal procedure, I would have thought, in the circumstances.

  I leaned over the balcony, clad only in the free towelling robe. I wondered if I was allowed to keep it, that is, if I was ever allowed off the ship. Probably not. They got laundered in the great laundry lurking somewhere below. Got the fancy folding treatment, sleeves in pockets, and returned to the staterooms.

  We were still at sea and the waves were as familiar as those at Latching. Only they moved past a lot faster and the white horses looked racier. The pier at Latching was stationary except in a force seven when it seemed to move and creak on its centipede legs.

  I had a quick shower and was in my blue track suit when there was a knock at the door of A708. It was Ali with a tray.

  ‘Your breakfast order, Miss Lacey,’ he said.

  ‘But I didn’t order any breakfast.’

  ‘Ordered for you, on behalf of,’ he said, his English getting mixed up.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Very kind.’

  James, I guessed, from the choice. There was sliced melon, paw-paw and pineapple, some cheese and a Danish pecan pastry, a brown roll and a couple of packets of honey. Also a pot of hot coffee. I was hungry and demolished the lot.

  The phone rang. ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Just checking. You’re still there?’ It was Berry.

  ‘I could hardly abseil down the hull.’

  ‘Glad you haven’t lost your sense of humour.’

  ‘How long are you keeping me here?’

  ‘For as long as it takes.’

  I was already sick of this conversation. But I dare not annoy him. He was powerful in a pathetic way and I was at his mercy. He thought I was at his mercy. He could think what he liked, Miss Brown was not under his control.

  ‘I shall ring on the hour, every hour,’ he added.