Dex Challoner will be at Chichester Waterstones, talking about his new book, High Rise Murder.
7.30pm Friday 21st September. All welcome. £3 including complimentary glass of wine.
8
Harbinder
Murder in the Title
WHEN SOCO HAVE finished in Peggy’s flat, Harbinder and Neil enter the airy room where, only a few hours earlier, Harbinder had chatted with the Rev. Jenny and co. about Peggy. Outside, the sun has set and the sky is almost navy blue. Harbinder puts on the light and surveys the piles of books on the floor.
‘Jesus,’ says Neil. ‘Why would anyone have so many books?’
‘She liked reading,’ says Harbinder. ‘She liked murder mysteries. I think she was a bit of an armchair sleuth.’
Some of the books are in boxes but others are lying on the floor. Clearly Natalka and Benedict had been in the middle of sorting them out. The desk—the sort with a lid that folds down—is open and there are some letters and papers visible. Why hasn’t Nigel taken these away?
‘Did SOCO find anything?’ Harbinder asks.
‘They were looking for fingerprints.’
‘He was wearing gloves.’
‘Oh well, he might have sneezed or something. Left DNA.’ Neil is always vague about forensics. He would have preferred to live in one of those old-fashioned crime novels, where the detectives trampled all over the crime scene, pausing only to beat up suspects and drink beer.
‘What’s going on?’ says Neil, all twitching nose and ruffled whiskers. ‘Who were those people in here just now?’
‘Natalka, one of Peggy’s carers,’ says Harbinder, ‘and her friend Benedict. He owns the Coffee Shack on the seafront.’
‘I know it,’ says Neil. ‘Good coffee.’
‘Natalka was the woman who first raised the alarm about Peggy,’ says Harbinder. ‘She found the “murder consultant” business cards.’
‘Natalka,’ says Neil. ‘And what kind of a name is that?’
One, two, three, four, five, six . . . ‘She’s originally from Ukraine,’ says Harbinder. ‘I’m sure that she thinks your name is equally strange.’
‘Neil’s not strange,’ says Neil. ‘Everyone’s called Neil.’
‘Only ex-footballers,’ says Harbinder. ‘The point is that Natalka thought there was something suspicious about Peggy’s death and this rather proves her right. A man with a gun is certainly suspicious.’
‘If there really was a man with a gun. We’ve only got their words for it, the carer and the coffee guy.’
Harbinder knows that this is true but somehow she believes them. It was the shoes, she thinks. Benedict had noticed the shoes. He’d given a pretty good description too. ‘CCTV should have picked something up,’ she says. ‘There are cameras in the car park.’
‘Why would a gunman threaten them? And then go away without doing anything?’ Neil sounds aggrieved now, a squirrel deprived of its nut.
‘Apparently he took a book,’ says Harbinder. She checks her notebook. ‘It’s called Thank Heaven Fasting by someone called Sheila Atkins.’
‘He took a book? Why?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Peggy’s neighbour, a chap called Edwin Fitzgerald, found a postcard in another one of her books. It said, “We are coming for you” .’
‘Do you think this is all mixed up with that “murder consultant” stuff? Was the old lady murdered after all?’
‘I don’t know. But something’s going on. Dex Challoner, the author of these . . .’ she points to the pile of books with Murder in the title, ‘he was at the funeral. I think we should go and talk to him.’
‘Dex Challoner,’ says Neil, ‘he’s famous. Kelly read one of his books in her book club.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ says Harbinder. ‘Sure he’ll be delighted.’
Neil nods in a satisfied way, taking this at face value. It’s too easy sometimes.
Harbinder goes over to the desk. In the cubbyholes are pens, pencils, paperclips, stapler, a book of stamps. Peggy is obviously an organised person. Harbinder is wearing gloves so she pulls out the letters to examine them. They seem to be in the same handwriting, addressed, in formal style, to Mrs Peggy Smith. Harbinder puts the letters in an evidence bag to read later. As she does so a postcard falls out. It shows a cadaverous man, smiling in a sorrowful kind of way. Next to the man’s face are the words: A people who elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices. Harbinder turns it over. For Peggy, Love and thanks always. M. This too goes in the bag.
The papers spread out on the writing surface seem to be from a manuscript, she can see dialogue, quote marks, words like ‘suddenly’ and ‘ominous’.
‘Listen to this,’ she says to Neil. She reads in a deadpan voice.
‘“Ah, Mr France. I’ve been waiting for you.”
‘Tod swings round, all his highly-trained senses on alert. The figure is in darkness but he recognises the voice. All too well. But how can Sergei have traced him here, to the top of the Gherkin in London? But it’s him all right. He would recognise that lisp anywhere.
‘“Sergei Baranov.”
‘“You thought I was dead. How charming. Rumours of my death were . . . how does the phrase go? Premature.”
‘“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Mark Twain.”
‘“Still the same Tod France. So erudite. So English.”
‘All this time Tod has been moving forward, rearranging the molecules as the sensei taught him, all those years ago, high in the Himalayas. Now he’s near enough to smell Baranov. Vodka and cigarettes and cheap scent. He can see the gun too. A limited edition [fill this in later] that looks as if it means business. And Baranov, he remembers, is a crack shot.
‘“Stop!” The gun is pointing at him now. And he can see Baranov’s eyes, ice green with the scar over the left that was the legacy of his last encounter with Tod France.
‘“Go no further, Mr France.”
‘“MI5 knows I’m here.” Tod risks a bluff.
‘“No, they don’t. I took care of them. And of your sidekick, the enterprising Miss Thomas.”
‘Oh God. Not Tilly. Don’t let him have hurt Tilly.
‘“Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t just kill you now, Mr France?”’
‘Don’t stop there,’ says Neil. ‘It’s great.’
‘That’s all there is,’ says Harbinder. ‘But there’s a handwritten note below it.’ She passes the sheet of A4 to Neil.
Peggy, darling. Please help! I can’t think of any reason why bloody Baranov doesn’t kill Tod and get it over with. Tod has to have some cunning plan up his sleeve but I can’t think what. Slow-acting poison? Have we done that before? Maybe it isn’t Baranov at all? Maybe it isn’t Tod? Twins or is that too much of a cliché? Do help me, darling. I’ve got to give Miles the rough draft next week.
‘That must be from Dex Challoner,’ says Harbinder, ‘because that’s a Tod France book. It looks like Peggy helped him with his plots.’
‘He wouldn’t need help,’ says Neil. ‘He’s a famous author.’
‘I think I should ask him,’ says Harbinder.
Neil looks like he’s about to argue but, luckily, Harbinder’s phone rings. It’s Olivia, at the station. Harbinder listens to her message then turns back to Neil.
‘We’ve got a gunman,’ she says. ‘CCTV picked him up in the car park. Gun and everything. Let’s go and talk to Donna.’
Neil looks at his watch. It’s eight o’clock. Harbinder knows that he hates working late on a Netflix night.
9
Natalka
Buying and Selling
‘IS THAT YOU, Natalka?’ Her landlady, Debbie Harper, calls from the kitchen.
‘Yes,’ says Natalka warily, her foot on the bottom step of the stairs.
‘Do you want some supper? I’ve made lots.’
This should be Debbie’s middle name. She has a husband and three children but she always
ends up cooking for an army. She should try living in a country where food is rationed, thinks Natalka. Or where you don’t know where your next supplies of bread are coming from. But then she feels guilty for these thoughts. Debbie is a very good landlady. And, besides, Natalka is hungry.
Natalka joins the family around the big kitchen table. Along with Debbie, presiding over the lasagne, there’s her husband Richard, a teacher, and their children Lucy, Andrew and Sophie, ranging from fifteen to eight. There’s a buzz of conversation that Natalka actually finds quite comforting. It reminds her of home, in those far-off days before her father left and reduced their family group to two sulky teenagers and their frazzled mother.
‘How was the funeral, Natalka?’ says Debbie. ‘I was thinking of you this afternoon.’
Of course. This must be why Debbie was so keen for her to eat with them. She knew that it was Peggy’s funeral today. Natalka herself can hardly remember it. So much has happened since then. She’s hardly going to say, ‘It was fine but afterwards a man tried to kill me.’ So instead, she just says, ‘It was OK. As good as can be expected. The vicar was nice.’
‘Jenny,’ says Debbie, who knows everyone. ‘She’s very good. She visits lots of people in hospital.’
‘Do you have women priests in your church, Natalka?’ says Richard, who is always trying to learn more about Ukraine.
‘I don’t think so,’ says Natalka. She’s pretty sure that, whatever else has changed since she left home, this won’t have. ‘I think you can be married though.’
‘Oh, Natalka,’ says Debbie, ‘that reminds me. Someone was looking for you.’
Natalka freezes, a mouthful of lasagne halfway to her mouth.
‘Two men,’ says Debbie. ‘They came to the door yesterday. I thought they might be Ukrainian.’
‘Did they say what they wanted?’ says Natalka.
‘No,’ says Debbie. ‘They said they wanted to surprise you. They seemed like nice boys.’
This is no surprise. Everyone seems nice to Debbie. But, if Natalka is right about her mysterious callers, nice is definitely not the word to describe them.
* * *
IN HER ROOM, Natalka opens her computer. This is often her favourite part of the day. After hours spent hoisting, toileting, chatting and preparing food in kitchens where she doesn’t want to touch the surfaces, she looks forward to the moment where she can sit in her neat little room and lose herself in money. Natalka had been quick to appreciate the potential of bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that operates without a bank. In the old days you used to be able to ‘mine’ bitcoins and then trade them, creating what is called a blockchain. The biggest trading hub was called Magic, which seemed appropriate. It was all about numbers and algorithms, which played to Natalka’s strengths. She had once studied pure maths at university. Nowadays, though, you need multiple computers, all of them spewing out numbers, to make any money from bitcoin. Natalka still makes the odd transaction, just to keep her hand in, but mostly she just looks at her bank account, Motherland, which now contains almost five hundred thousand dollars. The trouble is that every empire has to start somewhere and Natalka’s started with a theft.
Downstairs, the doorbell rings. Natalka goes to the door and listens. She hears teenage voices and Debbie laughing. Then Richard says, ‘Only if you’ve done your homework.’ Thank God. It’s just one of Lucy’s friends calling for her. The Harper children are as sociable as their parents. The house is always full of youngsters, coming home from football practice with muddy boots, dumping violin cases and gym bags in the hallway or just hanging about playing computer games and eating crisps. Natalka doesn’t mind this as long as she’s left alone but the events of the afternoon have made her feel twitchy. She used to be gregarious. She had been popular at school, one of a trio with her two best friends and fellow blondes, Dasha and Anastasia. They had played havoc with the hearts of the boys in their year, secure in the knowledge that their friendship came first. ‘A triangle is the strongest shape,’ Natalka the mathematician used to say. She has no idea what Dasha and Anastasia are doing now.
Even at university in Bournemouth Natalka had a wide circle of friends, some of whom also doubled as lovers. But now she seems to have lost the desire to socialise. Occasionally she goes to London to meet with her uni friends but mostly she sits in her room counting her money. Her best friend in Shoreham is probably Benedict, which is depressing when you come to think of it.
Natalka goes to the window and sees Lucy and her friend setting off, shoving each other and laughing. Suddenly she remembers walking with Dasha and Anastasia, so close that she could feel their hip bones jutting against hers. She can recall the exact smell of September evenings in Donetsk, grass and woodsmoke and petrol fumes. Natalka watches until the two girls cross the road by the church and disappear from view. She’s just about to turn away when she notices a white car parked opposite, where there’s usually a battered camper van.
Natalka can’t see very well but she thinks that there are two people in the white car. Two men came to the house yesterday, asking for her. Are these the same people? Are they lying in wait for her, those nice boys who just wanted to surprise her? Of course, it might be nothing of the sort. The inhabitants of the car could be parents waiting for their child to come back from Scouts, they could be an adulterous couple, snatching a few minutes together before going back to their respective spouses. But something about the car—engine off, its occupants in shadow—makes her feel uncomfortable. She thinks of the man with the gun, of Benedict’s lips moving in prayer, of the moment when she thought that she might see her brother again. Natalka goes back to her computer and makes herself stay there for ten minutes, staring at the screen.
When she returns to the window, the car has gone.
10
Harbinder
Millionaires’ Row
THE CCTV SHOWS him clearly, black leather jacket, black wool hat, mask covering his face up to the eyes. And there’s the gun, held casually in the man’s left hand before he threw it into the back of his car and set off.
‘Left hander,’ says Donna.
‘Very sinister,’ says Neil. ‘That’s what left means in Latin, you know. Sinister.’
‘Left in Latin is “sinistram”,’ says Harbinder. ‘Interesting how superstitions prevail amongst the uneducated.’ She is left-handed, as Neil knows full well.
‘Have you put a trace on the car?’ says Donna.
‘Yes,’ says Harbinder. ‘It was stolen from Shoreham High Street at approximately five-thirty this afternoon. The owner can’t remember if she left the keys in when she popped into Tesco Metro.’
‘Idiot,’ says Neil. Though Harbinder thinks she may have done the same thing herself a few times. ‘Shows opportunism though,’ she says. ‘Our man saw his chance and took the car. Might imply this is a spur of the moment thing.’
‘What about the gun?’ says Donna. ‘They’re usually traceable.’
‘I asked Firearms,’ says Harbinder. ‘But it’s not a good enough image to identify a make. They said it could even be a replica.’
‘If it’s a replica,’ says Neil, ‘then the gunman didn’t mean to kill, just to scare people off.’
‘But why?’ says Donna. She always becomes peevish if criminals don’t behave exactly as she expects them to. ‘Why take a gun, even if it is a replica, to steal a book?’
‘Why steal that particular book?’ says Harbinder. ‘Benedict Cole says that it was an old book called Thank Heaven Fasting by someone called Sheila Atkins.’
‘Never heard of it,’ says Donna.
Neil is looking at his phone. ‘Amazon says it’s out-of-print. Good thing too by the sound of it.’
‘What about the postcard?’ says Donna. ‘That was in a book. Was it by the same author?’
‘No,’ says Harbinder. ‘That was in a Dex Challoner book called High Rise Murder.’ The postcard, in its evidence bag, is on the table in front of them. It’s clear now that the handwriting is
actually printed in a loopy font. We are coming for you.
‘And one of Peggy’s neighbours found this?’ says Donna, frowning at the piece of white card.
‘Yes, a man called Edwin Fitzgerald. He has the flat across the hall from Peggy.’
‘And there’s no address on the postcard?’
‘No, so it must have come in an envelope.’
‘I think we should talk to Dex now,’ says Harbinder. ‘If he was involved, it’s better to see him before he gets his story straight.’ Getting his story straight, she thinks, doesn’t seem to have been his forte, given his relationship with Peggy.
‘You can’t think Challoner was involved,’ says Neil. Harbinder waits for him to say ‘he’s famous’ again but Neil meets her eyes and subsides.
‘Do you know where he lives?’ asks Donna.
‘There’s only one place it could be,’ says Harbinder.
* * *
SHOREHAM IS ALMOST the last place you’d expect to find a Millionaires’ Row and yet one exists. Harbinder knows it well. She’s quite an expert on luxury accommodation. She loves looking at house details, the more expensive the better. She wonders if it’s because, deep down, she’s scared of leaving her parents’ house so she only looks at places she can’t afford. She’ll save that thought for another day.
The Postscript Murders Page 6
