Money Never Sleeps

by Whitelaw, Stella

  The chiffon was like a goodbye. The scarves were waving goodbye.

  FOUR

  Monday Morning

  There was a genuine sense of grief at breakfast. The news had spread fast and the committee were in a deep huddle. Rumours flew about that the conference would be cancelled, everyone sent home, money refunded. Two nervous women had already started packing.

  The police had been around since the middle of the night. Scene-of-crime tape was flapping from posts all round the shrubbery and the old lake. The drive was littered with marked and unmarked police cars. The police photographer had been and taken his shots. The medical officer had also viewed the body and given his opinion. White-clad forensic experts were combing the scene.

  Several of the smaller conference rooms had been set up as interview rooms. Apparently they wanted to talk to everyone: delegates, committee, conference and catering staff, speakers and visitors. It would take days.

  ‘We might as well carry on with the conference,’ said Fergus Nelson, stroking his severe beard. ‘It’ll help take people’s mind off the tragedy, and make it easier for the police if we are all in one place.’

  ‘It’ll be in the papers, on the news. Think of the free publicity,’ said the committee member in charge of publicity.

  ‘Not exactly an appropriate remark at the moment, Jo-Jo.’ Disapproving expressions all round. But it was, it could not be denied, still free publicity.

  There was a moment’s hushed silence. The drowned woman had been identified. A friend had reported her missing some time after midnight. Apparently they always had a cup of cocoa together on the stairs before retiring.

  ‘It’s Melody.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Melody Marchant, the speakers’ hostess. Always rushing about. She looked after the speakers. Very good at it, too. White hair, floaty clothes.’

  Melody Marchant had been a popular delegate, at everyone’s beck and call. It was a sobering thought that she had drowned in such a beautiful lake. It had not yet been established if it was an accident or foul play; Jed was keeping his mouth firmly closed and his thoughts to himself.

  Her husband, who was not a writer but a farmer, was driving up to Derbyshire straight away. They lived in Cornwall so it was a long journey and he was not expected to arrive until after lunch.

  ‘Everyone wants to know what’s happening,’ said Jessie. ‘We’ll have to tell them something.’

  ‘Let’s take a vote,’ said Fergus. ‘Yes, we carry on, or no, we disband the conference. I’m sure Melody would have wanted us to carry on. She loved the conference.’

  The vote was taken. The vice chairman made a short announcement in the dining room at breakfast that there would be a special meeting in the main conference hall at 9.30 a.m. All delegates to attend.

  There were no late-comers to this meeting. The hall was humming with subdued conversation long before Fergus strode onto the platform. He looked serious and not quite his usual assured self.

  ‘As you will all know by now, our dear friend, Melody Marchant, met with a fatal accident last night and drowned in the old lake.’

  There was a universal gasp even though most people already knew who it was. It was the starkness of his words. No padding, no poetic phrasing, no emotion.

  ‘It is a very sad time for Northcote and for Melody’s husband and family, but I am sure she would have wanted the conference to continue as per its tradition of taking all disasters in its stride. If anyone feels that they would rather go home, then of course, they may. But the police may want to interview them before they go. Courses and lectures will resume after the coffee break.’

  Fancy was surprised that the police wanted to interview everyone. If Melody had drowned herself or if it had been an unfortunate accident, then that could be established without statements from everyone. She would have to change the tone of her lecture: not so many jokes and nothing about death. It was too close at hand.

  But Fancy was second on the list for interviewing. She and Jed had been first on the scene. She was shown into one of the small rooms off the main conference hall. It was been transformed with a desk, two chairs, phone, laptop and tape recorder.

  ‘Miss Francine Burne-Jones? Please sit down. I’m Detective Inspector Morris Bradley. I’m very sorry about the circumstances. It must be distressing for you. Was Melody a personal friend of yours?’

  He switched on the tape and recited the usual time, date and personnel.

  ‘No, she was not a personal friend. I met her on Saturday afternoon for the first time. She was the hostess to speakers. She met me when I arrived and helped me find my way around.’

  ‘So you are not a regular delegate to the writers’ conference?’

  He said ‘writers’ conference’ as though it was somewhere custodial for difficult delinquents, a detention centre for rejected writers.

  ‘No, I’m a guest speaker and course lecturer. I write crime novels.’

  ‘Really? So you know all about crime, do you? So we have another Agatha Christie on hand. Maybe we shall call upon you if we need assistance.’

  ‘I don’t commit the crimes,’ said Fancy. ‘Or solve them. I invent plots and use my imagination to write a story. That’s what crime fiction is. A story.’

  He nodded, steepling his fingers. Perhaps he thought it looked intelligent.

  ‘And do you have a fictional detective?’ DI Bradley was enjoying himself. He was a burly ex-Marine, never read a book unless it was a police manual. He tapped his pen on a notebook as if beating time to music.

  ‘Yes. She’s known as the Pink Pen Detective, because she always uses a pink pen.’ Fancy guessed that this conversation was supposed to be putting her at ease, getting her to relax, but he was making fun of her. Crime writing was never taken seriously by non-readers or reviewers. She wished he would get on with it.

  ‘Ah, such as this pink pen we found by the lake? Does this belong to your Pink Pen Detective?’ He pushed a plastic specimen bag across the table towards her. Inside was a pink biro.

  Fancy recognized it straight away. It was one of hers.

  ‘No, it belongs to me. That’s my pen,’ she said. ‘I must have dropped it. Or it could be one of several that went missing yesterday after my lecture and someone else dropped it. The lake is not out of bounds to the writers.’

  ‘So you are the Pink Pen Detective? Ah, the plot deepens.’

  ‘I am not the Pink Pen Detective. She is my principal character and I write about her. Now, could you please ask me what you want to know? I have a lecture to give in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me exactly what you were doing by the lake so late at night and who you were with,’ he asked smoothly.

  ‘You know perfectly well that I was with Jed Edwards. We were discussing writing problems.’ She was reining in her impatience.

  ‘By the lake? At nearly midnight?’

  ‘It was 11.33 exactly.’

  ‘How do you know the time exactly?’

  ‘I looked at my watch. It’s a habit.’

  ‘And why were you by the lake? Had you arranged to meet Melody? Was she upset about anything?’

  Fancy groaned inwardly. She was not going to mention being drugged. ‘Jed took me to the lake because he thought it was a quiet place to be after a hectic day. No, I had not arranged to meet Melody. I have no idea if she was upset about anything. I hardly knew her.’

  ‘Yet you both found her.’

  ‘Because we were both there, Inspector. If anyone else had been there, they would have found her. I can’t see what this line of questioning is supposed to mean.’

  ‘I think it’s very strange that you should both choose to go to a remote lake in the middle of a garden so late at night. Unless, of course, you both had a reason.’

  ‘Our reason for going there had nothing to do with Melody.’

  ‘A romantic liaison, perhaps?’

  ‘One-track mind,’ Fancy muttered below her breath. ‘Hardly, Detective Inspe
ctor Bradley. I’m far too busy to have romantic liaisons, especially here at Northcote. My timetable barely gives me time to breathe.’

  ‘Yet you had time to go down to the lake at …’ he consulted his notes, ‘11.33 exactly. Very strange.’

  DI Bradley switched off the tape recorder and stood up. ‘Thank you, Miss Burne-Jones. That’s all for the moment. I shall probably want to speak to you again, so I would be grateful if you did not leave Northcote.’

  Fancy took a deep breath.

  ‘It’s plain Miss Jones, please. I have three more course lectures to give, a panel to sit on and my evening talk to deliver. It doesn’t look as if I shall be going anywhere, except rushing about Northcote, wondering where I am supposed to be next, losing my way and asking directions.’

  But DI Bradley wasn’t listening. Fancy could put him in a book. It was always gratifying to put a rude, unpleasant person in a book and make awful things happen to them. She might think up something really nasty for him.

  Fancy was glad that her second lecture and workshop went well despite the subdued atmosphere. The group were keen to become crime writers and every word from Fancy Jones was gold dust. Her books were popular and well read. The delegates were also going to write best-sellers, as soon as they got home, as soon as they found the time, as soon as they got a good idea. They borrowed her pink pens, hoping they contained some magic elixir.

  She was amazed at the number of writers who came to lectures and workshops with neither pen nor paper. No writer worth their pepper or salt ever set foot outside their front door without something to write on and something to write with. Even if it was a slab of slate and a piece of chalk.

  ‘Are you avoiding me?’ said Fancy as she joined the queue at the bar for a pre-lunch drink. She felt she deserved a drink. It was a long, impatient queue with a cheeky few jumping in by talking to someone well ahead of them.

  ‘No, not avoiding you,’ said Jed, looking grave. ‘But it might be diplomatic not to be seen together too much.’

  ‘Has the diplomatic Detective Inspector Bradley been hinting at a romantic liaison down by the lake?’

  ‘He asked me if you ever let your hair down.’

  ‘Is that what it’s called these days? And what did you say?’

  ‘I told him to mind his own bloody business.’

  Jed gave his order for a beer to the bar staff, including a Campari and ice for Fancy. She took the tall pink drink and thanked him.

  ‘I thought you might need something stronger after your grilling,’ he said.

  ‘Are we allowed to sit at the same table in a crowded bar or is that too intimate? As you say, we need to be particularly careful. What else did you tell the nosy detective?’

  ‘I had to tell him about an argument I overheard yesterday afternoon. I didn’t mean to listen but it was a bit heated. It was Melody and our treasurer, whatever his name is. I can’t remember exactly. Richard Gerard? I sent him my cheque in February and that’s about all I know of him.’

  They found a corner seat in the vinery. The big leaves of the vine were abundant and hung like curtains. It had spread everywhere in the glass extension and they were shielded from calculating eyes. Here the chairs were cane-backed with orange padded seats and the tables topped with round glass.

  ‘What sort of argument?’

  ‘Nothing too spectacular. It was about expenses. She was reimbursed for her petrol costs and they were arguing over one of the receipts. Wrong date or wrong amount, something like that. Perhaps she drove here via Rannoch Moor, researching the Ice Age. I moved on. It was none of my business.’

  ‘Ice Age?’

  ‘Rannoch Moor was once a reservoir of ice, fed by glaciers from the ice cap.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I know lots of useless things. I read books.’

  ‘So maybe Melody was depressed. Perhaps she had been fiddling her expenses and was upset about being found out.’ The drink was bitter and strong and soothing. ‘Or maybe she retaliated and accused this Richard of helping himself to the school’s funds. Perhaps she had taken a closer look at last year’s accounts and spotted anomalies that didn’t add up. Could be.’

  ‘Motives for both suicide and murder.’

  ‘There you go.’

  ‘We are speculating, Fancy, using our writer’s imagination,’ said Jed. ‘We must wait and see what the pathologist says.’ He was looking at her over the froth of his beer. ‘Is your name really Burne-Jones?’

  ‘I only use the Jones half. I know what you’re going to ask. Edward Burne-Jones, the Victorian painter. I am descended from him, but I’m not sure how or from whom. And I do live in Fulham, which is another coincidence, though not at the Grange, which was where he lived and painted his wonderful paintings.’

  ‘You look a bit like his Greek model, Madame Maria Zambaco. She was very beautiful, striking in fact, exotic. Masses of dark hair.’

  Fancy was stunned, forgetting her dark hair. ‘How do you know this?’

  Jed shrugged. ‘I like his paintings. I have a few prints. For my eyes only, you understand. I would not have such romantic and passionate paintings on public display. Bad for my image.’

  ‘You never cease to surprise me,’ said Fancy. ‘An ex-copper who likes romantic Victorian paintings. And knows about the Ice Age.’

  ‘Surprises are what keep a relationship alive,’ he said.

  Fancy reminded herself to jot down that phrase in her notebook. She would use it somewhere. She did not question whether their brief acquaintance could be regarded as a relationship, though; they were hardly at first-name stage.

  ‘Did you tell DI Bradley why we were at the lake?’

  ‘No, did you?’

  ‘No, I thought it would complicate matters if your strange happenings were linked to poor Melody when they are nothing to do with her. Someone else is out to scare you rigid, for some unexplained reason. I doubt if DI Bradley could cope with any complications. He likes everything to be straightforward.’

  ‘How will we know if it was an accident or suicide?’ Fancy drained the last of her Campari. The thirty-seven per cent alcohol was addictive.

  ‘I have a pal – another pal – who might be persuaded to tell me. Ah, the lunch queue is moving. We should sit at different tables.’

  ‘I’ll sit at the committee table. I might learn something.’

  But she didn’t. The committee were keeping their mouths closed. They were not into gossiping today. But Fancy did detect a slight hostility between the treasurer and the conference secretary, even though they were supposed to be long-time conference friends. It may have been her fertile imagination. They were all under a degree of stress. Everyone was guarded.

  Lunch was chilli con carne with either noodles, garlic bread or a jacket potato. Fancy went for the jacket potato. She was not really hungry. She slipped away when the dessert arrived, a big, oval plum pie with the statutory orange custard. She could not face more orange.

  After lunch she was besieged by writers wanting to talk about what they were working on and hoping that she could magically put them on the right track. She tried, sorted out a few problems. Some even gave her manuscripts to read.

  ‘I can’t read anything long,’ she protested. ‘Only short stories. No novels, please. Don’t expect me to read all night.’

  ‘Please, Fancy, just read a few pages, that’s all.’ The woman had a thick manuscript in a folder. ‘If you’d take a look at the first chapter. Tell me if I’m on the right track.’

  ‘A few pages, then,’ she relented. ‘Put your room number on the top of the manuscript in case I can’t find you, Peggy Carter, okay?’

  She saw herself slipping work back under doors in the middle of the night. Very cowardly. But she could hardly slip this one back. It looked like three hundred pages at least. And she would be expected to write a few lines of encouraging comment. More work.

  Fancy slept for an hour of the afternoon. The night had been disturbed and a nap on h
er bed seemed ideal. It was bliss. But she set the alarm to wake her for the 3.30 p.m. tea break. She wanted to go to a talk titled ‘The Inner Child’. It sounded fascinating. She was prepared to be disappointed, though; she was learning that some speakers had nothing to give beyond a catchy title.

  The Orchard Room was packed. Everyone wanted to learn about their inner child or perhaps the IT or politics talks – scheduled for the same time – did not appeal. There were not enough chairs so Fancy volunteered to sit on the floor. She could still get down and get up whereas many of the less mobile could not.

  They moved on to meditation. Fancy was not into meditation, even though she lived in part of a church. Still, she closed her eyes and did what she was told.

  ‘Imagine yourself in a nice place, somewhere that you really like. Imagine that it is sunny and warm and that you are walking, very happily, and then someone joins you.’ The voice was soft and hypnotic. The leader of the group was a sweet and tranquil woman, hair like spun silk.

  Fancy had been imagining a beach in the Seychelles. That holiday was a long time ago, when she was young and carefree. An empty beach with no footprints except her own and those of an island dog who had decided to join her for the day. She had swum in the azure blue water and it had been miraculous. A memory to last forever. Her best memory. Yes, it was her best memory.

  But her mind drifted away and she found herself walking along this riverside, a kingfisher singing on a branch, the water lapping by. A girl came. She was wearing a blue-check cotton dress with short sleeves and a white collar and her frizzy hair sprang out in all directions.

  Fancy lay down in the grass with the girl and they picked flowers and made daisy chains. It was all so peaceful.

  ‘Now I want you to draw this new companion,’ the group were told. ‘But draw with your left hand if you are right-handed, and with your right hand if you are left-handed. Then write some questions to your companion. Wrong-handed.’

  Fancy understood. She drew the girl easily in a blue-check dress and asked the girl questions with her left hand. Who are you?