Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraphs
Prologue
1. Natalka
2. Harbinder
3. Benedict
4. Edwin
5. Harbinder
6. Natalka
7. Benedict
8. Harbinder
9. Natalka
10. Harbinder
11. Edwin
12. Benedict
13. Harbinder
14. Natalka
15. Benedict
16. Harbinder
17. Edwin
18. Benedict
19. Harbinder
20. Natalka
21. Edwin
22. Harbinder
23. Benedict
24. Natalka
25. Benedict
26. Harbinder
27. Harbinder
28. Edwin
29. Harbinder
30. Natalka
31. Benedict
32. Harbinder
33. Benedict
34. Harbinder
35. Harbinder
36. Benedict
37. Harbinder
38. Edwin
39. Natalka
Acknowledgements
Read More from Elly Griffiths
About the Author
Connect with HMH
First U.S. edition
Copyright © 2020 by Elly Griffiths
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Quercus
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
hmhbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Griffiths, Elly, author.
Title: The postscript murders / Elly Griffiths.
Description: First U.S. edition. | Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033853 (print) | LCCN 2020033854 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358418610 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358419181 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358450412 | ISBN 9780358450214
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6107.R534 P67 2021 (print) | LCC PR6107.R534 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033853
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033854
Cover design by Martha Kennedy
Cover photographs: mikroman6 / Getty Images (gun / hand); Pavel Abramov / Getty Images (book); Rosemary Calvert / Getty Images (rose)
v2.0221
For Rebecca Carter
Jove and my stars be praised. Here is yet a postscript.
—William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Do you feel an uncomfortable heat at the pit of your stomach, sir? And a nasty thumping at the top of your head? . . . I call it the detective-fever.
—Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
Prologue
THE TWO MEN have been standing there for eighteen minutes. Peggy has been timing them on her stopwatch. They parked on the seafront just in front of Benedict’s café. A white Ford Fiesta. Annoyingly she can’t see the registration but, if she uses her binoculars, she can see a dent on the nearside door. If they have hired the car, the company will have taken a note of this. Peggy makes a note too, getting out her Investigation Book which is cunningly disguised as A Seaside Lady’s Diary, complete with saccharine watercolours of shells and fishing boats.
There are several reasons why Peggy finds the men suspicious. They look out of place in Shoreham-by-Sea, for one thing. Sometimes, just for fun and to keep her observational powers honed, Peggy makes an inventory of people who have walked past her window.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 3RD 2018 10AM–11AM
7 x pensioners: 2 couples, 3 singles
1 x man on roller skates, 30s (too old)
4 x singles with dogs: 2 x collie crosses, 1 x pug, 1 x doodle (NB: people always remember dogs)
Woman, 30s, smartly-dressed, talking on phone
Man, sixties, carrying black bin-liner, probably homeless
4 x cyclists
2 x male joggers: one fit-looking, one looking on verge of collapse
1 x unicyclist (probably from Brighton)
The men outside her window do not fit this pattern. They are not cycling, jogging or accompanied by dogs. They are not pensioners. They are probably mid to late thirties, with short hair, wearing jeans and short jackets, one blue, one grey. What would young people call them? Bomber jackets? An ill-starred name if she ever heard one. The men look similar because of the way they’re dressed but Peggy doesn’t think that they are related. One is much darker-skinned than the other and built differently, compact rather than wiry. She doesn’t think they’re lovers either. They don’t touch or look at each other. They aren’t laughing or arguing—the two best ways to spot if people are a couple. They’re just standing there, maybe waiting for something. Occasionally, The One In The Blue Jacket looks up at the flats but Peggy keeps back behind her curtains; she’s very good at disappearing into the background. All old people are.
At first she wondered if the bomber jackets had driven over especially for Benedict’s coffee, which is excellent, but the men don’t move towards the Shack. There’s an alertness about them that Peggy finds most troubling of all, and they both have their backs to the sea. Who comes to Shoreham beach and doesn’t even glance at the shimmering water, looking at its very best today, dotted with sailing boats and accessorised with seagulls? But the crop-haired duo are facing the road and Seaview Court, the block of retirement flats where Peggy is currently lurking in a bay window. There’s no doubt about it. The men are waiting for something. But what?
At 11.05 precisely Blue Jacket takes out his phone and speaks to someone. Grey Jacket looks at his watch which is a chunky thing, visible through her binoculars even at a hundred yards away. The two men confer and get back into their car. The Fiesta pulls out into the road and Peggy leans forward to get the registration number.
GY something. Is that a one or a seven? She needs to go to the opticians and get her prescription changed. Then the car stops just outside her window. Peggy leans back into her curtains which are loosely woven cotton. So loose that she can see through the weave. It’s a little blurry but she thinks that one of the men is leaning out of the window taking photographs. Of Seaview Court. The Fiesta revs up and it’s gone.
11.07
1
Natalka
The Linking Words
SHE KNOWS IMMEDIATELY that something is wrong. It’s not anything tangible, the post is neatly stacked on the half-moon table, the flat is silent apart from the sound of seagulls mugging someone outside, the art-nouveau clock ticks serenely, set in its stainless steel sunset. But somehow Natalka knows. It’s as if the molecules have rearranged themselves.
‘Mrs Smith?’
She tries the Christian name too, although Mrs Smith is not one of the cosy ones.
‘Peggy?’
No answer. Natalka pushes open the sitting room door. The air hums with something like electricity, as if a device has been left on, but Natalka knows that Mrs Smith turns the radio on for The Archers at two and then off again at fifteen minutes past. She can’t stand the Afternoon Drama. ‘Full of self-obsessed people talking about their lives. That or time travel.’ It’s now six o’clock. Time for the evening call, to help clients get ready for bed. It’s insultingly early for bed, of course, but Natalka has five other clients to see so what can she do?
She enters the room. Mrs Smith is sitting in her armchair by the bay window. She likes to look out to sea and even has a pair of binoculars to spot rare birds with or, Natalka suspects, spy on passing ships. But she’s not looking at anything today. Mrs Smith is dead. Natalka knows that even before she checks the pulse and notes the half-open mouth and misted eyes. She touches the old lady’s skin. Cool but not cold. Natalka makes the sign of the cross in the air.
‘Rest in peace,’ she mutters as she dials the number for Care4You.
‘Patricia Creeve.’ The boss is in. Miracle.
‘Mrs Smith is dead.’ Natalka doesn’t believe in wasting words.
‘Are you sure?’ Nor does Patricia.
‘No heartbeat.’ In moments of crisis, Natalka often forgets prepositions and connectives. All the linking words.
‘I’ll come over,’ says Patricia. ‘God rest her soul.’
It’s an afterthought but Natalka doesn’t think any the worse of her boss for it. It’s going to be a long night.
* * *
NATALKA SITS ON the sofa to wait for Patricia. She would never just sit down in a client’s house, unless they specifically wanted a chat and Peggy wasn’t exactly the chatty sort. She was always polite but she knew that Natalka had a job of work to do and a limited time in which to do it. Now it feels odd to be sitting doing nothing, facing the silent figure in the chair which is angled to look out over the sea. Natalka gets up and walks to the window. There’s the wide blue sea with white-tipped waves and seagulls circling in the paler blue above. It’s a picture postcard view, if you don’t look to the right and see the power station and the sinister trawlers with Russian names. Suddenly Natalka realises that she has her back to a corpse. She also has the strangest feeling that she’s being watched. She spins round but Peggy hasn’t moved. Of course she hasn’t, Natalka tells herself. Peggy is dead. She’s not about to start dancing a mazurka. One floor below, Natalka hears a door open and shut. Then there are heavy footsteps on the stairs and Patricia is in the room. Natalka had left the apartment door on the latch.
Natalka gestures towards the chair and Patricia comes over. She takes Peggy’s hand with professional detachment but her eyes look sad.
‘She’s passed away,’ she says.
Passed away. It’s an English phrase that Natalka has never really understood. It sounds ethereal, ephemeral, something half seen and then forgotten. Clouds pass over the sky. But death is for ever.
‘Did you call an ambulance?’ says Patricia.
‘No,’ says Natalka. ‘I mean, I could see she was dead. What do you think it was? Heart attack?’
‘Probably. How old was Peggy?’
‘Ninety,’ says Natalka. ‘She was very proud of it. We had a little party for her at Benedict’s café.’
‘She was good for her age,’ says Patricia.
‘There are pills by her chair,’ says Natalka. ‘Perhaps she forgot to take them.’
‘Perhaps, but probably she just passed away in her sleep. It’s a good way to go,’ Patricia adds, patting Natalka’s shoulder kindly.
‘I know,’ says Natalka.
‘I’ll call the undertaker,’ says Patricia. ‘They’ll send a private ambulance.’
She has the undertaker on speed dial. Of course she does. While Patricia talks on her phone, Natalka approaches the body—Peggy—again. It’s only about fifteen minutes, but she’s changed. She’s no longer Peggy; it’s as if there’s now a wonderfully lifelike statue of an old woman in the chair. Her skin has a waxen quality to it and the hands, clasped in Peggy’s lap, look like they’ve been drawn by an artist. Who was it who drew praying hands? Dürer? Natalia is relieved that Patricia has closed Peggy’s eyes.
‘Rest in peace,’ she says again.
‘You should go home, Natalka,’ says Patricia. ‘This must have been a horrible shock for you. Take tomorrow morning off too.’
This is quite a concession. There are never enough carers at Care4You and Natalka is usually being asked to do extra shifts. The thought of a lie-in is intoxicating.
‘Have you told Peggy’s family?’ she says. ‘I think there was a son.’
‘I’ll look.’ Patricia is consulting Peggy’s file, which she’s taken from the half-moon table. The clients all have them, carers have to write in the dates and times of every visit: Toileted, gave meds, all well.
‘Here it is,’ says Patricia. ‘Next of kin: son, Nigel Smith. There’s a mobile phone number too.’
While Patricia telephones, Natalka turns back to Peggy. She looks at peace, that’s what Patricia will say to Nigel. Passed away peacefully. There’s a book open on the arm of Peggy’s chair. High-Rise Murder by Dex Challoner. Peggy’s binoculars are on the table beside her. There’s also a pen, completed crossword and a pill dispenser, the sort that has the days of the week on it. There’s something else too, a piece of paper just poking out from under the crossword. Natalka slides it out. It’s a business card, very official, with black, curly writing.
Mrs M. Smith, it says. Murder Consultant.
2
Harbinder
Panda Pop
DS HARBINDER KAUR is working late. She doesn’t mind particularly. If she goes home, her mother will only start talking to her about internet dating (‘It’s the latest thing. There’s even a special Sikh What’s Up Group’) and her dad will rant about politics. At least here it’s quiet. No Neil, DS Neil Winston, her partner—or ‘work husband’ as he sometimes cringe-makingly calls himself—brushing imaginary crumbs off his desk and doing those irritating bicep curls, as if every second not spent in the gym is time wasted. No Donna, her boss, DI Donna Brice, bringing in her weekly shop and complaining about the price of Pringles. Empty, the CID room feels orderly and manageable. Harbinder completes her last batch of filing and mentally awards herself a gold star. ‘Best Gay Sikh Detective in West Sussex’, first out of a field of, well, one. Still, a gold star is a gold star. What should she do now? Wash out the coffee cups? Water the drooping spider plants? Phone Clare and catch up with the latest straight gossip? Go on Twitter and become disgusted with the world? Play a round or two of Panda Pop? Surely this last is the best use of her time. She actually gets out her phone and is about to click on the game when the intercom buzzes.
‘There’s a woman down here for you. Says she’s got something to report.’
‘Really?’ This sounds potentially interesting. ‘I’ll come down.’
The woman waiting in reception, surrounded by old copies of Police Monthly, is not what Harbinder is expecting. She’s young, for one thing, with blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. And, when she speaks, it’s obvious that English is not her first language. She’s very fluent but she has a light, intriguing, accent. Young, foreign women do not often come into the police station at Shoreham-by-Sea.
‘I’m Natalka Kolisnyk,’ says the woman. ‘I’m not sure if it is right to come here.’
‘Come into my office,’ says Harbinder. ‘And we can talk about it.’
Harbinder takes Natalka into Donna’s office. She regrets saying it was hers when she sees how untidy it is. Also, Donna has got one of those awful cutesy calendars with babies in flowerpots. Natalka sits in the visitor’s chair and tells Harbinder that she’s twenty-seven and works as a carer for a company called Care4You in Shoreham. ‘Zero hours,’ she says with a grimace, ‘no benefits, no travel allowance.’ Harbinder nods. Shoreham is full of elderly people, many of whom need care in their homes. It’s no surprise that those who provide the care are poorly treated and paid the minimum. Natalka, though, doesn’t look as if she’s on the breadline. She’s dressed simply in jeans and a white T-shirt but her trainers are expensive Allbirds. Harbinder always notices shoes.
‘I have a client at Seaview Court called Mrs Smith,’ says Natalka, looking around the room with undisguised interest. Harbinder hopes she doesn’t notice the flowerpot babies. She knows Seaview Court, it’s sheltered housing, right on the seafront overlooking
the beach.
‘She was called Peggy,’ says Natalka. ‘Peggy Smith. She died two days ago. It was very sad but not a surprise. She was ninety. It could have happened any time. But today I helped clear up her flat. Her son is coming tomorrow and he wants everything in boxes. He wants to sell quickly. He’s that type.’
Harbinder nods again. She knows that type too.
‘The son, Nigel, asked me to start with the books. Mrs Smith had many, many books. All about murder.’
‘Crime novels?’
‘Yes. You know, man kills woman. Or woman kills man. Sometimes it’s that way round. Not so often, though.’ She smiles, revealing excellent teeth, white and even. ‘And the detective solves it on the last page.’
‘Yeah that’s how it works in real life too,’ says Harbinder. ‘Always.’
‘Well, I started putting the books in boxes. Then I got bored and started to read bits of them. Then I noticed something.’
‘What?’ says Harbinder. Natalka is obviously trying to string the story out but Harbinder is in a tolerant mood.
‘They are all written to her. Mrs Smith.’
‘Written by her?’
‘No.’ Natalka clicks her fingers, trying to come up with the word. ‘They are written to her. To Mrs Smith, without whom . . . et cetera, et cetera.’
‘Dedicated to her?’
‘Yes! Dedicated to her. All these murder books are dedicated to her. Isn’t that strange?’
‘I suppose so. Are they written by different people?’
‘Yes, lots of different people. But lots by Dex Challoner. He’s famous. I googled him.’
Harbinder has heard of Dex Challoner. He’s a local author and his books are piled high at every bookshop in the country. They seem to feature a private investigator called Tod France who doesn’t look like any PI Harbinder has ever met.
The Postscript Murders Page 1
