Jest and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 5)

by Stella Whitelaw

The floor of the bathroom was polished teak and hard. My hip bone protested but I ignored the discomfort. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I reached up on my elbows and locked the door.

  ‘Jordan? Jordan, open the door.’

  Detective Inspector James was on the outside, rattling the handle. I could sense his impatience, could imagine his eyes becoming glacial. My hero, such a gentleman.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Jordan. Open the damned door and let me in.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Don’t play around with me. Get off your butt and unlock the door.’

  ‘Butt? What sort of expression is that in front of a lady?’

  ‘I’m not in front of a lady. I’m behind a door.’

  It hurt too much to laugh. I tried to move but strangely there was little response from my legs. They’d gone somewhere else.

  ‘Jordan, are you all right?’ His voice changed to concern. He was using probes on the lock. His keys? Samuel’s keys? ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Only a bit winded … ’

  ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘He hit me in the stomach.’

  ‘Who hit you?’

  ‘This burglar … the intruder, the man who was running away, who got away.’

  ‘Don’t move. I’ll get the door open. Don’t do anything, Jordan. I’m coming in.’

  ‘Hold on. Don’t break the door down. This is a Grade II building.’

  I shuffled over to the door, reached up and unlocked it. I’m not sure how it happened but then James was on the floor beside me. He was very close. I could smell his closeness and the night air on his clothes. He was on his knees, an arm under my head, his fingers taking my pulse, eyes searching my face. I could smell the essence of him and it was wonderful.

  ‘You look awful,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Are you sure you are only winded?’

  ‘It was a punch in the stomach. Nothing more.’ I started coughing. He looked round the bathroom and spotted a glass. He filled it with water and came back to me. Again he supported me with his arm, tilting the glass to my mouth.

  ‘Drink, baby,’ he said. ‘But only a sip.’

  I could have choked. Baby. He had never called me baby before. No one had ever called me baby, only my jazz musician. I was past remembering. Moments like this only happen once in a lifetime. I snuggled into the circle of his arm so that he could not move. He was trapped.

  ‘Do you think you could stand up?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t move,’ I moaned a little louder.

  I drank some more water, making every trickle last. My face was pressed against his chest. I could almost hear his heart beating. If only … if only this had been different and I was close in his arms for relaxation not resuscitation.

  ‘Jordan, listen to me. This is important. I have to go back downstairs now that I know you are all right. I thought you had been hurt too.’

  ‘Scene of crime?’

  ‘You’re right. It is a scene of crime. Sorry.’

  He had gone and it took me a while to take in what he had said. Scene of crime. What crime? Forcing a lock? Hardly major incident. I thought you had been hurt too — that implied someone else had been hurt.

  I tidied up the towels, splashed water over my face again. It was time to re-enter the world. Still, those moments on the bathroom floor had been magic. Worth a punch in the stomach.

  There was a lot of activity going on downstairs. I held on to the bannisters as I went down the stairs. A yellow scene of crime tape was being stretched around the garden. Samuel Steel was sitting on a chair in the conservatory, his head in his hands. I did not speak to him. It was not the right time.

  A line of police were searching the grounds. Other uniformed men were searching the house. Something had happened that I knew nothing about. The familiar hollowness look hold of me. It was that bad news feeling.

  No one seemed to notice me going into the kitchen. I reheated some coffee and took it out to Mr Steel. He took the mug from me without looking up. I poured coffee into a second mug and took it and myself out into the garden. Someone must tell me what was going on. The caffeine steadied my nerves.

  The sky was changing. Was dawn coming already? Streaks of light were fragmenting the clouds, painting pale pinks across the linear dark in feathery strokes. The night had fled. Now we had to face the coming day.

  Everyone had forgotten about me which was perfect. I could disappear into the morning mist and make my way back to Latching. But I did not like what I was feeling or smelling. I could smell fear. There was too much activity in the garden and in the house.

  I saw the flash of cameras in the half light. I knew what that meant. Figures in overalls. And they were not just taking photographs of burnt grass. I searched for James. He was standing on the fringe of a group, talking on his phone.

  ‘James … ’ I had to know.

  ‘I thought you had gone home.’

  ‘No, I’m still here.’

  DI James did not have time for me. He was already walking away, his mobile close to his ear. ‘Yes, yes … ’

  ‘What have they found? You’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘A pair of gardening shears.’

  ‘Midnight pruning?’

  ‘In the back of a woman’s neck, severing the spinal cord.’ My blood chilled. His words, spoken bluntly without emotion, were horrific. I had been in the garden, up a tree, playing mental games, when a woman had died somewhere in the same garden. I remembered a sound, a small cry. I thought it had been a night creature but it could have been a woman.

  ‘I may have heard it,’ I said, ‘I heard a strange cry. I thought it was an animal.’

  ‘Can you put a time on this sound?’

  ‘It was a long night.’

  ‘Try.’ He ended his call and put the phone in his pocket.

  I thought hard, trying to put times to my movement. ‘I think it was around 2 a.m., something like that. I remember checking the time at 1.30 a.m. It was before the intruder arrived and before I climbed down the tree.’

  James ignored the tree bit. ‘But the intruder could have already been in the garden?’

  ‘I suppose so. But I thought I heard him arrive.’

  ‘This intruder could have approached from a different direction earlier. Directions are difficult to pinpoint in the dark. Can you describe this man?’

  ‘Black jeans, black ski mask. I’ve got a photograph.’

  DI James turned very slowly and looked at me as if I were from another planet. He passed a hand over his eyes. ‘You’ve got a photograph? Jordan, you tell me this now?’

  ‘What’s wrong with now? I took a picture of him in the conservatory. Said cheese. It probably won’t come out. I’m not very good at photography. I get the buttons mixed up or forget to wind the film on. My camera is nothing special, one of those disposable things. The kind you get on special offer, three for the price of two.’

  ‘Have you finished?’ He could barely contain his impatience. People don’t gnash their teeth these days. Dental care is too expensive.

  ‘I was going to tell you.’

  ‘Give me the camera.’

  ‘No please, I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I haven’t finished the film.’

  ‘Jordan. This is a murder enquiry. And you’re worrying about finishing a film. I want that photograph.’

  ‘I’ve got shots on that film, too, you know. My evidence. A certain footprint or do you want that, too? I’m working for Mr Steel, remember? My hard work is on that film.’

  ‘I’ll get prints made for you.’ His voice rose in exasperation. ‘How about that? Will that satisfy you?’

  I supposed I should have been grateful but I wasn’t. My agency ran on a shoestring. A camera was a camera.

  ‘Hand it over, Jordan. I’m warning you.’

  I gave DI James the camera without a word. Sometimes the numbing is so complete that I do not feel a thing for him.


  ‘Go home, take an aspirin and go to bed for what’s left of the night.’

  ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Thank you, Dr James.’

  James was as frozen as I was. Neither of us moved. Perhaps those moments on the bathroom floor had stirred him too. This was the slowest romance in history. I was 28 now. Maybe we’d get to holding hands by the time I was forty.

  ‘Have you identified the woman?’ I asked.

  I did not really want to know. Gardening shears. It was going to be bad news and there was enough bad news around. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘It’s Mrs Anne Steel. The wrong kind of face lift.’

  Seven

  Home was good. My two rooms wrapped themselves round me. You know how it feels. We make a cocoon for ourselves, no matter how small or basic, with the familiar. A few pictures on the wall, a bunch of flowers. It could be a cave or a mansion. Even a prison cell. There’s no proof but maybe cavewomen picked wild flowers, propped them on a ledge till they dried.

  Hopeless dreams invaded my state of dozing, tired legs stretched out. I’d thrown off the rose-patterned duvet. I was drifting like a cloud, looking for someone, a figure that was always out of reach. My body could not sleep at this hour even when I was exhausted.

  Yet, I did not want to wake up. Mrs Anne Steel, a woman I had never met, was dead and on her way to the morgue. A woman who was hated by Michelle, her stepdaughter. But Samuel Steel had loved her, doted on her, bought her jewellery and a fast car. I wiped out the agonizing moments when her spinal cord was severed. It did not bear thinking about. I wondered if you could feel it. There’d been a TV programme about the French guillotine and the victim’s last moments. Sometimes it hadn’t worked.

  About 8 a.m. I got up, showered, put on long-line bra, clean jeans and T-shirt, ate a banana, and went to my shop. My stomach felt better. My ribs felt better. First Class Junk deserved my attention. After all, it kept the baying wolves from the door.

  On the doorstep was a package. The postmark was smudged. The address was typed on an old-fashioned manual. I hoped it was a sample of some useful washing product.

  But it wasn’t. It was a scarf. One of those long, wrap-around things in floaty silk, shot with the colours of the rainbow, more like butterfly wings than real material, very beautiful and expensive. I held it against my face and I could smell perfume. Something out of my league … Joy or Gucci or Calvin Klein.

  I looked inside for a note but there was nothing. No clue to why this had been sent to me. No smart sell with an invoice saying you will be charged a bargain price of £24.95 if you don’t send it back within seven days and four of those had already gone.

  Yet I could smell perfume. It looked new but it was only almost new. It had been worn before, round a neck or carelessly over a slender shoulder … Was someone sending me a message or was it a threat?

  A young man came into the shop. He had a rucksack on his back. His face was vaguely familiar. It had a wild, intense look.

  ‘You sold me a chamber pot, last year,’ he said. ‘Fantastic value. You said you’d save me any that you got.’

  I remembered him. Twenty pounds for God Save the King.

  ‘And I didn’t forget,’ I said. ‘Although it has been a long time.’

  ‘I’ve been abroad. Doing VSO work.’

  ‘Good for you.’ I could feel my price going down. I went out the back for the chamber pot that I had saved for him. It would have made an ideal plant pot. A nice strong red-leaved plant called Moses Basket would have been ideal. The china was strewn with violets and rosebuds, the edge delicately fluted so as not to discomfort a feminine posterior.

  He went ecstatic, clutching his head. ‘Oh my God, it’s beautiful. Hand-painted. The workmanship … look at this. Victorian, don’t you think?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I agreed.

  ‘You aren’t going to overcharge me, are you?’

  ‘Now, would I? A VSO worker?’

  He relaxed. He got out some crumpled notes and tried to smooth them. I did not know what to charge him. I was not an expert on fluted Victorian female chamber pots.

  ‘Thirty pounds suit you?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Perfect,’ I said.

  I wrapped it carefully in tissue paper. The young man was wandering round the shop, peering at everything.

  ‘I like your commemoratives,’ he said. I’d put all the mugs and plates in a glass-fronted case. I’d bought the case at a car boot sale. No one wanted to buy Prince Charles and Diana mugs. Even less, the Princess Anne and Capt. Mark Philips. The market had been saturated.

  ‘This one at the back,’ he went on, peering. ‘The Wedgwood. I’m not surprised you are keeping it hidden. May I take a look at it?’

  I nodded, containing my expression of prior knowledge. I opened the case and took out the Wedgwood mug. It was a 1964 birthday mug for William Shakespeare, 400 years after the event. Hardly a prime market.

  ‘Do you want to sell it?’

  ‘This is a shop.’

  ‘Will thirty pounds do?’

  I peeled off the six-pound price label calmly. ‘You must look at it first. There’s the tiniest chip on the edge.’

  ‘You can’t find these anywhere,’ he said, crunching around for more notes in his pocket. ‘They increase in value virtually overnight.’

  It was too late for me to go on an antiques crash course. I smiled a sixty-pound smile and put the money in the cash box drawer. I had not graduated to a till.

  ‘Your lucky day,’ I said, handing him his purchases. He was looking well pleased. ‘Where are you off to now?’

  ‘The Sudan. People dying in their millions out there in the dust and the heat and the flies.’

  I had to do it. I gave him back ten pounds, it’s not much, I know. Put it towards buying some drugs for them, the medical kind.’

  He looked at me straight. ‘You’re OK, you know.’

  *

  My spurt of fast selling put me in the mood for working on the George Hill case. No disguise needed. Shopping list: new disposable camera, book of jokes, skin glitter. I was not sure why the glitter but as I was now edging into show business, it seemed appropriate.

  I planned surveillance at Chapel Court, the block behind the edge of Latching’s Co-op supermarket. George Hill was frequently out of town, doing nightly shows around the country, he’d told me. It meant a lot of travelling. He had one of those big people carrier type cars so that he could hang up his stage suits. I suspected that he also kipped down in the back. It would be big enough.

  It was pleasant walking along the coastal path towards Shoreham, past the fishing boats, mounds of nets and lockers on the beach to my right, landlocked fast cars to my left. The traffic noise was deafening. Time for a £5 congestion toll on these roads, exempt if there were children onboard or elderly in the car. I ought to be on the council.

  This was a short cut, quicker than roundabouting all the shops, traffic lights and estate agents. I cut inland to the left.

  I checked for his car in the cramped parking space behind the flats. JESI 08 was near enough for a personalized number plate, allowing for the misspelling. And if you were in any doubt, the jokey jester painted on the side door was confirmation. George Hill was at home.

  Inside, the car was a mess, so contrary to the man’s personal appearance. The silver-painted people carrier was littered with stale fast food containers, burger boxes, crisp bags, chocolate wrappers. Talk about monkey food. Didn’t he know how some of this stuff was made?

  It was time to sweep the building, trusty clipboard in hand. The front entrance was security dedicated. I waited until an elderly man came out and I slid in past him with a bright ‘Hello again! How are you?’ as if I lived there. It worked without a hitch. He smiled back, hesitantly. I climbed the stairs, knocking on doors, doing a tenant/owner survey. I made it up as I went along.

  As I cruised the floors, no one fitted the description of the Hill stalker. We talked about many aspects of the flats, particularly
security. The tenants/owners were pleased that someone was taking an interest in the awful state of their building: rubbish not collected, landings not cleaned, graffiti on the walls. I tut-tutted in a thoroughly reassuring way, made notes.

  If there was no answer from a flat, I questioned a friendly neighbour.

  ‘No, she won’t be at home, that one’s a nurse. Does shift work. About thirty. As thin as a rake.’

  ‘Does this lady have brown hair in a pleat?’

  ‘A pleat? God knows! She doesn’t have time to put a comb through it. And she’s got two kids.’

  A shift work nurse stalker with two kids? Unlikely. A stalker needs time.

  As I reached number 17, I barely had a chance to press the bell. George Hill was at the door instantly. He pulled me inside, his handsome face working with emotion.

  ‘Jordan, am I glad to see you! Thank goodness, you’re sent from heaven. I’m going insane. Come and see what she has sent me today. What am I going to do with all this stuff?’

  I did not feel sent from heaven but I was not going to argue.

  He was wearing a black polo-necked jersey, white jeans. Amazingly dishy. He pulled me through to the kitchen so quickly I barely had time to take in the layout of his flat. It was an ordinary box-like flat. It was not a home, more an office and somewhere to hang up his clothes and put his head down.

  The kitchen table was piled with offerings from his admirer. Flowers, champagne, Stilton in a jar. Belgian chocolates, silk ties, boxer shorts, towelling bath robe. There were other goodies on top of a refrigerator. These were unopened. Christmas was early.

  ‘There’s something in every post,’ he groaned. ‘She sends me presents every single day. I don’t answer the door now. It just piles up outside. My agent is furious. I missed signing a contract in time the other day. If I hadn’t read my e-mails, I’d have lost it completely. I have a living to earn.’

  ‘How do you know it’s all from the same woman?’

  ‘Look, lady. Who would send a comedian gifts like these? I occasionally get a drink or a bottle of Scotch. That’s my top. I’m not in the league for expensive gifts. I crack jokes for a living. I’m not a movie star or football hero.’

  ‘Any letters?’

  ‘No. She doesn’t put anything on paper. Too crafty for that. You’ve got to do something about it. This woman is driving me mad.’