by Susan Moody
Table of Contents
A Selection of Titles by Susan Moody
Title Page
Copyright
Dora
One: Kate
Two: Magnus
Three: Kate
Four: Janine
Five: Magnus
Six: Kate
Seven: Jefferson
Eight: Kate
Nine: Jefferson
Ten: Kate
Eleven: Janine
Twelve: Jefferson
Thirteen: Kate
Fourteen: Janine
Fifteen: Jefferson
Sixteen: Kate
Seventeen: Magnus
Eighteen: Kate
Nineteen: Jefferson
Twenty: Kate
Twenty-One: Magnus
Twenty-Two: Janine
Twenty-Three: Jefferson
Twenty-Four: All Together Now . . .
Twenty-Five: Melvin
Dora
A Selection of Titles by Susan Moody
LOSING NICOLA *
DANCING IN THE DARK *
LOOSE ENDS *
DOUBLED IN SPADES
DUMMY HAND
FALLING ANGEL
KING OF HEARTS
RETURN TO THE SECRET GARDEN
writing as Susan Madison
THE COLOUR OF HOPE
THE HOUR OF SEPARATION
TOUCHING THE SKY
* available from Severn House
LOOSE ENDS
Susan Moody
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain 2012 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
First published in the USA 2013 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of
110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2012 by Susan Moody.
The right of Susan Moody to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Moody, Susan.
Loose ends.
1. Traffic accidents–Ecuador–Fiction. 2. Suspense
fiction.
I. Title
823.9'14-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-355-6 (epub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8227-1 (cased)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
Dora
The body didn’t surface for several days. When it finally did, drifting languidly in the oily olive water of the canal, bumping against the ancient Victorian brickwork which had for the most part withstood the test of time, though here and there over the years, it had been resurfaced with patches of concrete, it was unfortunate (not that anything, by then, could have been done in the way of first aid) that the first three dog-walkers along the tow path did not notice the raft of waterlogged clothes and bloated flesh, or if they did, simply assumed that someone had dumped their rubbish in the water and, lifting eyes mentally to heaven and condemning the way the world had deteriorated since their young days, had simply walked on by.
The fourth dog-walker that morning was a Mrs Dora Harding, recently widowed by an industrial accident at the local iron foundry and trying, not very hard, to assuage her guilt for the relief she had felt when, thanks to the compensation plan, instead of her brutish husband, Ed, a large cheque came through the front door. She saw the bundle of material now swinging out into the middle of the canal, since a bit of a breeze had got up, and recognized it instantly as a body. Digging into her pocket for the mobile phone she had not been allowed before Ed’s death (‘rot your brains, them things will’), she dialled 999. While waiting for the police and ambulance services to make their way along the narrow canal path, she let Livingstone off her lead, urging her into the rough litter-strewn grass to do what she was supposed to do, and sat down on a convenient bench some yards further down the path from where the body drifted in the little eddies stirred up by the breeze before veering back against the brick wall with a damp squelch which she found interesting, although faintly disgusting. It was – had been – a man, she could see that from the shortness of the dark hair matted above the corpse’s neck and from the soggy remnant of what must once have been a good-quality thorn-proof jacket. Plus, of course, the wide-wale corduroy trousers, cherry-red, always a dodgy option for a man, she thought, gave off the wrong messages (though on the other hand, it did imply a certain self-confidence), together with the size eleven or twelve leather lace-up (she’d worked in a shoe shop before marrying Ed) which remained on his right foot, though the left one was now devoid of either sock or shoe.
Further along the water’s edge, Oprah came stepping daintily along the towpath towards her, curly black spaniel ears hanging just above the ground, followed by Mollie somebody or other (Mrs Harding hadn’t caught the surname when Mollie offered it, and didn’t like to ask again, not that it mattered since their paths were unlikely to cross in a social sense).
‘Morning,’ Mollie said.
‘Morning. How’s Oprah – she just had a little operation, didn’t she?’
‘Fine, fine. The vet’s very pleased.’
‘That’s good.’
Mollie hadn’t noticed the body, and Mrs Harding decided not to call her attention to it. Mollie was, in Mrs Harding’s experience, the sort who would succumb to hysterics, given half a chance, involving all sorts of tedious action on the part of those round her like pats on the back and murmurs of ‘There, there,’ and smelling salts being waved about. (Whatever happened to those? Did anybody use them any more? And didn’t there used to be something involving feathers being burned under someone’s nose, though when you thought about it, how many people had feathers lying around on the off-chance someone went into hysterics?) Mother had had a small brown bottle of salts which she kept, for some reason, in her sewing basket, but Mrs Harding could only remember them being used once, when a man walked into the back garden when poor Cora was sunbathing, and pulled down his trousers to flash his thing at her. Mrs Harding routinely thought of her twin sister as poor Cora, though Cora herself would have much resented the label; she was doing very nicely with her B&B, thank you very much, Dora, although she often discussed her dream, if funds were ever to permit, of upgrading her place a bit (‘Boutique, Dora, that’s what I’m aiming for’) to which end she played the Lottery weekly, and bought Premium Bonds whenever she had a spare tenner (‘Well, you never know your luck, Dora, do you, someone’s got to win the million pounds’).
Occasionally the body dipped in the riffled water, turned to one side and then another, and Mrs Harding was able to catch a glimpse of a torn and battered cheek, large ears and what she at first took to be a nasty cut under the chin, bleached though it was by immersion in the unhealthy waters of the canal, until she took in the fact that the throat had been slit.
<
br /> Mafia, Mrs Harding decided. Not that this was Sicily, or New York, or anything like, but it had to be something gang-related, stood to reason, people didn’t just go round slitting other peoples’ throats and dumping them into the canal because they didn’t like the look on a person’s face or because someone had pushed in front of them in the queue for the cinema, did they? Unless it was drunks or druggies, plenty of those round here, and maybe the man in the water was just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. More likely a contract killing, she decided, having watched a lot of telly, the assassin up from London for forty-eight hours, casing the joint, studying the victim-to-be, then catching him from behind, forcing him to his knees, pulling out a knife and dragging it across the tender skin of his neck. Maybe there’d been two of them; you’d probably need two. Someone had beaten him up first, she was sure of it, and then you’d need help just to get him over the handrail and into the water; he seemed a fairly hefty sort of corpse, from what she could see. Probably chased him to the footbridge a bit further down (he must have run right past where she was walking now), did the deed, and over the rail he went. Live by the sword, Mrs Harding thought, somewhat inappropriately, die by the sword.
Babylon, they called this area, and very suitable too; she’d seen a reference to it in the local newspaper only the other Wednesday – a modern-day melting-pot of vice and dissipation, the reporter had said, making reference to the fact that gays were buying up all the overpriced loft conversions and the number of immigrants swarming into the place, not that Mrs Harding was prejudiced, far from it, her own late husband having more than a touch of the tar-brush about him, and none the worse for that, though none the better, either, terrible temper on him and his attitude to women had to be seen to be believed – slaves, in his book, in bed and out.
Olga and Andrei came shimmying towards her, feathers streaming behind them. He must spend hours brushing them, she thought, those beautiful white and orange coats, picking up burrs and grass seeds soon as look at you, she couldn’t be doing with it herself.
‘Morning, Doctor Lennox,’ she said.
‘Good morning, Mrs Harding. How are you today?’
‘Fine, thank you. Apart from—’ She was about to indicate the body, him being an educated man and unlikely to fall about alternately laughing and shrieking his head off, like poor Cora had done all those years ago, when Olga spied something in the distance and took off like a rocket, dragging Andrei and Dr Lennox behind her.
Livingstone was barking at something, on and on and on, barking mad, Mrs Harding thought, and laughed internally at her own joke, rather clever, if you asked her, rather witty. ‘Oh stop it, Livvy,’ she said, glancing at the sluggishly moving corpse, ‘show some respect,’ but the dog went on ferociously barking at something hidden among the clumps of grass and the empty baked bean tins (did they come down here all prepared, with a tin opener in their pocket?) until her owner got up to see what was agitating the creature and found her prancing around a clump of faded brown grass. Mrs Harding bent down and parted the grass-blades and there was a silver dolphin – not a real one, of course, it would have taken up most of the path and half the canal if it had been, quite apart from the fact that dolphins were a kind of fawn or beige colour, rather than silver. ‘Why are you making such a fuss?’ she asked Livingstone. ‘It’s not something you can eat.’ But the dog went on yapping, jumping up at Mrs Harding’s hand as she picked up the dolphin, then started licking at the red-brown stains on it.
It was about three inches long, heavy for its size, made of some kind of shiny grey metal, and attached to a key-ring with one of those flimsy little keys that came with suitcases or padlocks. Not a house key or the key to a car. She could hear sirens in the distance – the police arriving at last, better late than never – so she dropped the dolphin into her pocket. Nobody was likely to go to the police to say they’d lost a suitcase key, and anyway, they always came in pairs, those kind, so the suitcase owner would be all right. The dolphin was rather nice; she might hang on to it, finder’s keepers and all that.
On the other side of the canal, old Mr Gilmour from the flats was slowly making his way along the towpath, led by Betsy, his guide dog – now there was a worthwhile charity if you liked, Guide Dogs for the Blind (stood to reason it was for the blind, didn’t it, no-one else would need one, unless them St Bernards with a barrel of Famous Grouse round their necks could be called guide dogs, in which case someone buried in an avalanche might indeed require one, not that she’d know, avalanches being few and far between in this neck of the woods).
She sat down again as Chaz came lurching along as though he’d been up drinking all night, breathing like a bad case of asthma, studded collar round his neck, red-spotted handkerchief hanging in a jaunty V over his broad chest, followed by Jazz, shaven-headed, gold earring in one ear, ripped jeans, spider tattooed on his neck, three silver studs attached to his eyebrow and another through his upper lip.
‘You all right, Mrs H?’ he said. ‘Don’t often see you sitting down.’
‘Right as rain, thanks, Jazz. And yourself?’
‘Great. Doing great.’ Chaz snarled, and lurched on his thick lead, leaning heavily to one side while his short pit-bull legs scrabbled around on the gravel of the path.
Mrs Harding indicated the other side of the canal. ‘Seen that?’
Jazz stared at the body, taking a moment to realize what it was. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ he said. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘A body’s what it is.’
‘Blimey.’ Jazz reached for the back of the bench and leaned against it. ‘I never seen a dead body before,’ he said faintly. At his side, Chaz snuffed and snorted, pointed face swinging from side to side as he looked for something to shred to pieces.
The body rolled slowly on to its side, letting out a distinctly audible burp, and they could both see the tattered remains of its face, shreds of white flesh fronding its eye sockets and a mouth full of horribly gleaming shards of teeth.
Jazz said, ‘Strewth,’ thinking it looked just like his old man on a bad day.
‘It’s fish,’ said Mrs Harding, ‘nibbling, like,’ and Jazz, turning pale, indicated that he wouldn’t be coming down the canal with his fishing rod any time soon.
‘I called the police,’ Mrs Harding added, looking past him, not wanting to admit her own ignorance of death’s cold face, Ed having been removed to the undertakers directly from the factory, and having heard about his injuries, she’d elected to have the coffin sealed, which she might have done anyway, even if he’d died peacefully. Not having much enjoyed looking at him alive, she wasn’t especially keen to see him dead, unless it was to assure herself he was no longer in the land of the living. ‘Looks like them coming now.’ She shook her head. ‘Take their time, that lot do.’
Half-running towards them came two police officers, one male, one female, clad in fluorescent yellow jackets over their uniforms, and behind them, two paramedics in red gilets, though why they bothered, Mrs Harding couldn’t imagine; they weren’t likely to be giving the kiss of life to the sorry piece of former humanity in the water. They were followed by two men carrying a stretcher and two firemen with a ladder.
‘Looks like the ruddy Keystone Cops,’ Mrs Harding said but Jazz didn’t hear her, being too busy slipping a muzzle over Chaz’s snout before the police reached the bench.
Mrs Harding answered all the questions they asked her, although it was obvious to everyone, including herself, that she knew absolutely nothing germane to the case at all. Then she took Livingstone home to her neat little semi, washed her hands which despite Livingstone’s tongue were still covered in brown stuff (where’d that come from?), fed the dog and looked again at the dolphin key-ring with its little key. Briefly she considered inching the key off and dropping it into the mug commemorating the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, which had belonged to her grandmother (‘that’s a real collector’s piece, Dora, you mark my words’) but decided against it as
being too much of a nail-breaking fag and instead, transferred her own keys to the ring, hung them from a hook on the dresser and poured herself a nip of whisky. She brought down the coronation mug and spilled its contents on the table – a pile of golden one-pound coins she was saving up, a couple or so at the end of each day, to add to what remained of the compensation money (she’d paid off the mortgage and had the place redecorated from top to toe, bought a new bed (to replace the scene of Ed’s too-frequent grunting ejaculations), a microwave which Ed always refused to buy (‘do your head in, those things will’) and a decent washing machine (‘If you want your shirts beaten against a rock down by the river, the way your grandma in Jamaica did, you’re welcome to do it yourself,’ she used to tell him, to no avail, so until he’d died, it was down the Laundromat twice a week, lugging the dirty washing) and a lovely new three-piece suite.) Her dream was to save up enough to go on one of them cruises – Captain’s table, evening dress, drinks at the cocktail bar while being chatted up by a good-looking officer in tropical kit, her favours being sought by some handsome billionaire from Texas or the Deep South (all that Spanish moss and mint juleps on the verandah), locals crooning in the background. ‘A girl can dream,’ she told herself and poured another nip of whisky.
It had been quite a morning and here it wasn’t even nine o’clock.
There were no distinguishing marks on the body, apart, of course, from the extensive cut beneath its chin, the stove-in head and the shattered teeth. No kind of identification: wallet, car keys, diary, all removed, no jewellery. The clothes were expensive but standard; the only hope the police had was through dental records, and that would take time. Meanwhile, the body languished in the police mortuary, waiting for someone to come in and file a missing-person report.
Kate
One
Stale air, stale smells, stale stink of toilet-freshener and old pee wafting through the bar each time the door to the lavatories was opened. Stale job, stale life. Kate didn’t want to think about what she was still doing here, eight months – nearly nine, ever since the divorce – after she’d first seen the notice in the window and thought it would be an easy fill-in while she worked out what she really wanted to do and found herself a proper job. Leaning her elbows on the copper-clad counter, she looked round the semi-dark space full of thirty-somethings enjoying a glass of wine or a plateful of chicken ‘n’ chips. The designer hired at vast expense by the owners of Plan A had employed every wine-bar cliché in the business to make it the kind of place you’d want to come back to (‘a real home from home’), though as far as Kate was concerned, she had never decorated her home (when she still had one) with such an eclectic mix of dried flower garlands, fishnets scattered with plastic shells, Chianti bottles dripping multicoloured wax, and never would. ‘Looka dis place!’ Fredo, the manager, used to rant. ‘Nits onna walls, rubbish shells all over da place, empty bottles onna table . . . issa not like any house I ever bin in.’ But the decor must have worked, because people did come back, and not just once, but regularly.
