Expose!

by Hannah Dennison

  “You’ve been very busy, Barbara,” I said, gesturing to the walls and ceiling.

  The reception had undergone a huge transformation. Colored bunting in green, silver, and black suspended from the crown moldings. Helium-filled green and silver balloons bobbed along the ceiling. GIPPING-ON-PLYM SNAIL RACING FEDERATION was written in giant letters on a green-silver-and-black-checkered banner that stretched along an entire wall.

  Barbara beamed. “Olive and I finished decorating late last night.”

  “How late?” I said, recalling Dr. Frost’s assignation. I’d left Annabel’s at around nine-thirty.

  “We were here until ten. Of course, Olive had to come home with me and sleep in the spare room.” She lowered her voice, saying, “Hates being alone.”

  Good grief! Was Dr. Frost having an affair?

  “Time to get the party started,” said Barbara, knocking back her cup of wine.

  After promising to send Tony back downstairs to help with the betting, I made my excuses and escaped to the reporters’ room.

  I couldn’t wait to see Pete’s face when I told him Dave’s exciting news.

  14

  I stepped into Pete’s office. “You’ll never guess,” I said, waving Dave’s brown envelope.

  “I don’t do guessing games.” Pete didn’t look up, being too busy stuffing papers into a surprisingly smart leather briefcase.

  “The jumpers are getting the Larch Legacy.”

  “Bloody hell!” He looked up sharply. “How did you find out?”

  “I have my ways,” I said modestly, and handed him the envelope. “It’s all in there.”

  Pete tore it open and tipped the contents onto his desk. “We’ll have to use it next week.”

  “You said you wanted something other than snails on Page One,” I said.

  “There’s no time to go through it now, is there?”

  “I thought you didn’t leave for Plymouth until noon.”

  “Wilf wants to put the paper to bed early today. Get back for the Gala. Christ. I hate those fancy dos,” Pete grumbled. “Had to hire a bloody tux. The Larch Legacy can wait.”

  “Did I hear Larch Legacy?” I stepped aside as our il lustrious editor—already wearing his fedora and ready to go—hastened over to Pete’s desk. Wilf picked up Dave’s press release. “What’s all this?”

  Stop the Presses! Stop the Presses!

  Gipping Hedge Jumping Society was awarded the coveted Larch Legacy at the prestigious Gipping Gastropod Gala last night.

  As a gesture of our gratitude, GHJS created a new jumping style in Sammy Larch’s memory. The Larch Leap will join other famous names such as the Straddle, the Scissors, the Western Roll, and the notorious Fosbury Flop. Our Olympic dream will soon be a reality! Rock on Sammy!

  Wilf picked up a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Proposed Olympic hedge styles,” with computer-generated illustrations bearing various captions such as—BOX-SHAPED, A-SHAPED, CHAMFERED, TOPPED A, and ROUNDED HUMP. These categories were broken down further into hedge species—holly, blackthorn, hazel, beech, etcetera.

  “Do you know, young Vicky,” Wilf said, “it takes five hours to lay twelve feet of hedge and just a few minutes to destroy it.” He shook his head. “I must admit I don’t altogether support this barbaric sport, but it attracts readers, and that’s what the Gazette is all about. Readers. We’ll put it on Page One, Pete. Good work, Vicky. Oh! And good work on Scarlett Fleming’s obit, too.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Pete glanced at his wristwatch. “Bollocks. We’ve got to go.”

  “Speaking of Mrs. Fleming,” I said, trailing after them onto the landing, “I have a few questions about her accident and wondered if I could contact the Spanish authorities.”

  “The authorities?” Wilf stopped and swung round to face me. His good eye seemed to bore into my skull. “Good God, girl. Have you no feelings?” Wilf glowered at me with such displeasure I felt my face begin to burn. “The Gazette doesn’t want the gruesome details. Our obituaries are a celebration of life. Have you any idea how upset Dougie would be? The man is prostrate with grief.”

  “The obituary will be in tomorrow’s edition,” Pete scolded. “You’re asking Wilf to pull it so you can add more details?”

  “No. I just thought . . .” I bit my lip. “Sorry. You’re right. I was just curious.”

  “Your time is better spent investigating these rogue funeral outfits,” said Wilf. “I want a full report on my desk next Thursday.”

  “And photos. Don’t forget the photos,” Pete said with a nod, gesturing for Wilf to go ahead of him down the stairs. “Sorry about that, sir. Vicky tends to be overenthusiastic.”

  “Keep her away from Dougie,” I heard Wilf say as he descended into the gloom of the hall. “That man’s heart is broken.”

  I slunk back to the reporters’ room more frustrated than upset. Wilf’s schoolboy friendship was clouding his judgment. Idiot, Vicky! I should have kept my concerns to myself. Now I wouldn’t be able to make any international calls to Europe because the Gazette always received an itemized phone bill. Wilf had hauled everyone over the coals once for abusing the system and making too many personal calls—except for me of course. Dad had warned me of the dangers of caller ID.

  I stifled the urge to kick the wastepaper basket under my desk. Wilf ’s orders meant I could only make inquiries abroad via e-mail and the Internet. It might take weeks to get any sort of answer.

  The reporters’ room was empty. I could hear sounds of merriment seeping through the floorboards from the reception down below. No doubt Tony had got waylaid downstairs and was helping Barbara out.

  After leaving a fourth message on Neil Titley’s answering service suggesting the day-in-the-life feature would obviously give him free advertising, I got cracking on the Internet.

  How on earth did journalists ever manage without it? Presumably, they spent their lives in libraries or on the road. These days information was readily available at the touch of a button. Frankly, I still believed in old-fashioned journalism and the human contact.

  Despite Wilf ’s and Melanie Carew’s claims that Douglas Fleming was “prostrate with grief,” he’d reacted very strangely to some of my questions. I saw something in his manner and reactions and that something could never be detected from a phone conversation.

  I spent the rest of the morning searching Google for anything and everything connected to dying abroad. I trawled through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s website and discovered that “repatriating the deceased” was a complicated and expensive process. It seemed that every country throughout the globe had different rules and regulations.

  Money was key, and from what gossip I’d gathered, the Flemings hadn’t had much of it. If a person traveled with the correct insurance or similar, the body could be transported home within five to seven days—but only if death was from natural causes. If the police were involved—say a traffic accident or murder, in fact, anything suspicious—the process took much longer. Sometimes months! And as I suspected, the local authorities worked closely with the F.C.O. and the UK police.

  Fleming said he heard the news that his wife had died on the Sunday. She was buried at St. Peter’s first thing Thursday morning. Mary told me the coffin was already at Headcellars, which suggested it must have arrived sometime on Wednesday. Even if Scarlett had died of natural causes—and not a traffic accident—that had taken only four days. I knew for a fact that Fleming didn’t go to Spain himself to get the body, so he must have made a lot of phone calls or perhaps had friends in high places.

  I e-mailed the Information Commissioners Office citing the Freedom of Information Act and requested passenger manifests at Barcelona and Perpignan airports. It was a long shot, made even longer by an automated reply informing me of a twenty-business-day wait to process my request. Of course, I could have called in a favor from Topaz’s cousin, D.S. Colin Probes who most certainly owed me a few, but that was something I would rather die tha
n do.

  My thoughts turned to the redheaded copper. It was a pity he was a policeman. We’d nearly gone out for dinner once, but having heard my father say countless times, “The only good copper is a dead copper,” I bolted out at the last minute.

  I made myself a cuppa and carried on with my research. It appeared that a plethora of legal documents were needed to accompany a body: a death certificate, embalming certificate, “no objection” certificates, and a “sealing of the coffin” certificate undertaken in the presence of an embassy official from the country receiving the body, to name just a few.

  If the person had died in France—perhaps Scarlett’s car had veered down a ravine in the French Pyrenees—she would have been given a police tag and the local mayor’s approval before being embalmed and placed in a wooden coffin. But was it France, or Spain? I didn’t know the exact location. Yet.

  Following 9/11, new rules stated that the coffin had to be lined with zinc, not lead—supposedly too dense for security X-rays—and hermetically sealed. Scarlett’s coffin must have been incredibly heavy, but somehow Fleming and Neil Titley managed to navigate St. Peter’s the Martyr cemetery and the heavily overgrown Albert Square using nothing but a flimsy hospital gurney.

  I called at least a dozen funeral companies who said it was highly unusual to sell a coffin separately. Those coffins available online—and there were some beauties—took several weeks to build because they were all custom-made.

  Using Google Maps for names of towns, I turned my attention to yoga retreats, health farms, spas, and meditation centers across the northeast coast of Spain and southwestern France. I fired off e-mails to all and sundry pretending that Scarlett Fleming was my aunt and I wanted to send her something for her birthday. A few replies came back immediately saying they had no record of anyone ever staying there by that name.

  As the day wore on, my obsession with Google Earth satellite sky map grew. Good grief! I could zoom right in on San Feliu, the small town where I sent my letters to Mum and Dad in care of the El Matador pub. What if I could actually see them? Of course, I knew it wasn’t in real time, but it was a strange sensation having access to other people’s lives. Again, I wondered if the new CCTV surveillance systems were a good idea.

  “Oh, is that Spain?” Annabel said, leaning over my shoulder. Startled, I practically jumped out of my chair. I hadn’t heard her sneak up behind me.

  Instinctively, I hit the “back” button, but my computer didn’t respond. The street plan of San Feliu and its high-rise hotels was frozen in time. “No. I mean, yes. I think so.” How long had she been standing there?

  “If you’re thinking of going on holiday, I wouldn’t go to the Costa Brava,” Annabel declared, perching on the corner of my desk. “I’m told it’s full of ghastly British ex-pats and criminals.”

  “I was doing a bit of research on Scarlett Fleming’s yoga retreat,” I said quickly. “It’s amazing what you can find out from these maps. Her car ran off the road and into a ravine.”

  “What are you looking for? Wreckage?”

  “You should include this kind of thing in your CCTV report,” I said, ignoring her remark. “‘IS THE WHOLE WORLD UNDER SURVEILLANCE?’ There’s a great headline for you.”

  “Why are you bothering about Scarlett Fleming, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “Something feels off, that’s all.”

  Annabel leaned in even closer and whispered, “Maybe she never even got to Spain?”

  “I already thought of that,” I said. “I’m waiting to hear from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.”

  “You’ll wait forever,” Annabel said with a smirk. “Why don’t you ask the cops for help? I’ll put in a word if you like. I’ve got a few contacts with the boys in blue. As a matter of fact, they’re helping me on this exposé I’m working on.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not urgent,” I said quickly. “In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. Wilf thinks I should leave Fleming alone.”

  “They’re pals, that’s why. I already told you I think Fleming did it. She was such a pretentious woman, driving around in that flashy Range Rover.”

  “Look, no offense,” I said, “but why don’t you just work on your exposé and let me work on mine?”

  “I was just trying to help. I thought we were friends.” Annabel sounded hurt. “Look, I don’t want to force you to come tonight—”

  “Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” I felt guilty. “Of course I want to come.”

  “Would you like me to do your makeup?”

  “Yes, please!” I immediately brightened up. It was good to have a friend.

  “That’s settled then. I’ll come to your place around five-thirty.” Annabel got to her feet, gave a catlike stretch and sauntered back to her desk.

  After having to reboot my computer twice before I could shut it down, I put on my safari jacket and got ready to leave. Annabel was tapping away on her computer.

  I caught her muttering to herself, “God! Fancy that” and “Clever, clever me.”

  “Bye,” I called out. “See you later.”

  Annabel looked up from her computer screen. “Did you know that Wormwood Scrubs was featured in that film, The Italian Job?”

  “Why the sudden interest in Wormwood Scrubs?” I said lightly.

  Annabel shrugged. “Just curious.”

  I decided to leave the building through the side entrance, which opened directly onto the High Street. Judging by the number of voices, laughter, and Frank Sinatra singing “Fly Me to the Moon,” Barbara’s pre-Gala party was still going strong.

  Back at Factory Terrace I took a long hot bath and did some thinking. Annabel’s interest in prisons had unsettled me this afternoon, but I was positive it was just my own paranoia at work.

  To my joy, Neil Titley finally returned my call, full of apologies. Apparently he’d spent all day transporting six ladies from Plymouth’s Purple Hat Club to Windsor Castle for a sixtieth birthday celebration. I offered to buy him a pint at the Three Tuns but he said that he worked a second job at weekends and suggested we meet outside the Banana Club on Plymouth Hoe the following night at nine P.M.

  Just-call-me-Neil was very excited about the possibility of a feature and already had two full-page ads he’d like to take out—“free, per your voice mail,” which was slightly worrying. Like all independent newspapers, the Gazette relied on paid advertising to exist. I knew I’d never be able to slip a freebie past Barbara, let alone Wilf.

  By sheer fluke, the Banana Club was where Sadie, my landlady’s daughter, performed as a pole dancer. I made a mental note to mention this to Mrs. Evans. She was always sending Sadie care packages and it would save her a trip to the post office.

  Tonight’s Gala should prove interesting. If the “prostrate with grief” widower actually showed up at all, I resolved to watch him like a hawk.

  15

  “What an adorable little room!” Annabel bounded through the door carrying a Gucci evening bag and a red oval vanity case. Not only was she early but, much to my chagrin, she was also wearing the cobalt blue halter-neck dress.

  “How did you get in?” I was filled with panic. A postcard from Mum and Dad lay on top of a book next to my bed. “I thought Mrs. Evans had already left.”

  “I stopped their car at the end of the road.” Annabel glided around the room, inspecting my desk and examining the titles on the bookshelf. “She told me the front door key was under the mat.”

  “You should have called. I might have had no clothes on!” I tried hard not to look over at the nightstand. In my imagination, the postcard seemed to grow into a giant poster calling out to Annabel as if to say, “Vicky’s a liar! Her parents are alive! They’re hiding in Spain!”

  Annabel drifted over to the chest of drawers and peered into the wooden bowl that held moped, office, and house keys. She picked up a hideous porcelain clown that I had inherited when I took the room saying, “What an ugly little thing,” examined my camera, and finished up by taking the
last tissue from the box. “No photos of your parents?”

  Annabel turned to face me. I gave a cry of surprise. “What have you done to your eyes?” They were a piercing electric-blue. “And your hair! It looks different.”

  Annabel smirked, “You like?” She gave a dramatic twirl and ended up admiring her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe.

  “You look . . . well . . . amazing.” Envy and resentment surged through my body. Not only had she decided to wear the cobalt blue dress that she’d implied she disliked, Annabel had even stolen my eyes as well.

  “Contact lenses, obviously,” Annabel said, looking over at me via the mirror. “And frankly, I’ve been bored with Nice ’n Easy’s natural copper red for ages. This is a new shade. It’s called burnished eggplant. I don’t think I’ve ever looked more beautiful.”

  The effect really was mesmerizing and I just knew—knew—that my handsome lieutenant would only have eyes for her tonight. It was too depressing for words.

  “I’ve brought my makeup case.” Annabel pouted seductively at her own reflection. “I can’t make any promises but—good heavens!” She spun around. Her eyes zeroed in on my chest. “What’s happened to my dress? You didn’t let Mrs. Evans get hold of it with her needle, did you?”

  “Of course, not.” Instinctively, I clamped my arms across the bodice. “It’s just a padded bra.”

  The strapless black dress had looked fine as long as I stood still. Any sudden movement caused the elasticized bodice to fall down. Mrs. Evans had found an old crimson whalebone bustier belonging to Sadie and laced me into that. She’d then sewn the black dress to the bustier. Up until Annabel’s unexpected entrance, I’d been pleased at the effect. It pushed what little I did have, upward. I even had cleavage!