‘Paradise General,’ says Edwin, betraying his daytime viewing. ‘She plays Dr Diaz.’
‘So presumably she’s got money of her own,’ says Benedict. ‘What about Peggy? Who would benefit from her death?’
‘Nigel,’ say Natalka and Edwin together.
‘Why would Nigel steal the book though?’ says Benedict. ‘Surely they were all his anyway?’
‘He could be a spy,’ says Edwin. ‘He read modern languages at Cambridge. That’s always a sign.’
‘In Ukraine,’ says Natalka, ‘priests are often spies. That’s you, Benny.’
‘Except I’m not a priest any more,’ says Benedict, hurt despite the ‘Benny’. ‘I sell coffee from a kiosk.’
‘The perfect cover for a spy,’ says Natalka.
Benedict is about to answer when there’s a sharp tap on the door. They all look at each other.
‘Who is it?’ calls Edwin, rather querulously.
‘DS Kaur,’ comes the answer.
They all jump up to open the door. Natalka gets there first.
DS Kaur is wearing a black, official-looking jacket and looks more like a police officer than usual. Edwin bustles to make more coffee and Benedict pushes the brownies towards her.
‘Thanks,’ says DS Kaur, taking a bite. ‘I’m starving. Haven’t had time for breakfast.’
‘What happened?’ says Natalka. ‘Is it murder?’
Kaur hesitates, as if wondering how much to share with them, but then she says, ‘It’s murder all right. He was shot in the head.’
From the doorway, Edwin gasps. Benedict finds himself making the sign of the cross but then stops when he sees both Natalka and DS Kaur looking at him.
‘When did it happen?’ asks Natalka.
‘The cleaner found him when she came into work this morning,’ says DS Kaur. ‘Looks like he was shot when he got home last night because he was wearing the same clothes. Nothing stolen, as far as we can see, but I’ll be paying close attention to the books.’
Edwin brings in a cafetière and some posh-looking biscuits. DS Kaur downs black coffee without waiting for it to cool.
‘Thanks, Edwin. The press have been a nightmare, swarming over the place already. Someone leaked it early on.’
‘I heard it on the Today programme,’ says Edwin.
‘Well, it’s a very Radio 4 kind of murder,’ says Kaur. ‘Crime writer shot dead.’
‘Any leads?’ says Benedict. He can’t believe he’s asking such a Murder, She Wrote question. He can’t suppress a twinge of excitement.
‘Nothing that I can share,’ says DS Kaur. ‘I shouldn’t really have told you this much. If it gets out that he was shot I’ll have to kill you all.’
She looks as if she might do it too.
‘I just came round to tell you to be careful, Edwin,’ says Kaur, in a different tone. ‘We’ve got plain clothes police watching this building and I’m sure the gunman won’t come back but it might be wise to be extra vigilant. Don’t let anyone in unless they have ID. You too, Natalka and Benedict. I’ve asked the local police to keep an eye on your houses too.’
‘Two men came looking for me the other day,’ says Natalka. Benedict and Edwin both turn to look at her. Benedict is surprised to see that Natalka looks very serious, twisting the silver ring she always wears on her little finger. She almost looks scared.
DS Kaur must sense this too because she says, gently, ‘What do you mean, “looking for you”?’
‘Debbie, my landlady, said that two men came to the door asking for me,’ says Natalka. ‘She thought they were Ukrainian. Apparently they said they wanted to surprise me.’
‘And you’ve no idea who they could be?’ says DS Kaur.
‘No,’ says Natalka, twisting the silver band. Suddenly Benedict is sure that she’s lying.
Edwin says, ‘Peggy thought that two men were spying on her. Two men in a car parked outside her window, by Benedict’s café.’
‘She told me too,’ says Benedict, ‘but Peggy did like to . . . to dramatise things.’
‘But now she’s dead,’ says Natalka. ‘That’s dramatic enough, don’t you think?’
‘We don’t know that Peggy was murdered,’ says DS Kaur. ‘Though, I have to admit, a gunman breaking into her house was suspicious. Especially when you think how Dex died.’
This has the effect of silencing them all. Benedict thinks of Kaur’s words, ‘shot in the head’. He tries to imagine the reality of this, as opposed to the Cluedo ‘in the library with the revolver’ scenario.
‘Have you spoken to Dex’s wife?’ asks Natalka, so maybe she’s thinking the same thing. ‘It’s usually the husband or the wife, isn’t it? Where was Dex’s wife last night?’
‘At home in London apparently,’ says DS Kaur.
‘It’s so awful,’ says Benedict. ‘Did they have children?’
‘Two,’ says Kaur, ‘aged ten and thirteen.’
‘What an age to lose your father,’ says Benedict.
‘I haven’t seen mine since I was twelve,’ says Natalka, ‘he’s no loss.’ She tosses her hair back and turns to DS Kaur. ‘What are you going to do now, Harbinder?’ Benedict can’t believe that Natalka is calling the detective by her first name, even though she invited them to do this last night.
‘Go back to the station for a team briefing,’ says DS Kaur, stifling a yawn. ‘Then checking, checking and more checking. Then home to see my mum and bully my brothers into helping her more.’
‘How is your mum?’ asks Benedict.
‘Not too bad,’ says Kaur. ‘She loved it in the hospital. You’d have thought it was a spa day. She’s made Indian sweets for all the nurses, all tied up with ribbons. Drives me mad.’
13
Harbinder
How the Other Half Lives
IN FACT HARBINDER is on her way to interview Dex Challoner’s wife. She doesn’t know why she didn’t tell her new friends this. Partly it’s just because they are civilians and this is a police matter and partly it’s because they seem a little too interested in the case, especially Natalka. They are involved, because of the gunman, but it’s probably best to keep them at arm’s length.
At Millionaires’ Row Neil is waiting for her by Dex’s entryphone. Harbinder wonders whether the gunsights flag will soon be flying at half-mast.
‘The wife’s just arrived,’ says Neil. ‘Someone from the Met drove her down.’
‘Does she know we want to talk to her?’
‘I don’t know. She must be expecting it, surely?’
But Mia Hastings doesn’t seem to be expecting a visit from the grandly named West Sussex CID. She looks quite shocked when Harbinder and Neil appear in the room with the sea view and the bookshelves. The woman sitting beside her also glares at them, as if they are intruding. She introduces herself as Helen Marks, a family liaison officer with the Metropolitan Police.
‘It’s great that you’re here, Helen,’ says Harbinder, though she’d rather it was their FLO. ‘Can you stay while we have a chat with Mia?’
‘Chat’ always sounds better than ‘interview’.
‘I’ll stay,’ says Helen, managing to make it sound like a threat.
Mia Hastings is familiar to Harbinder because she stars in a medical drama beloved of her mother. In fact, it’s an effort to remember that Mia is not Dr Diaz, who has recently survived both drug addiction and being stalked by a murderous ex-patient. This is the final straw, Harbinder wants to say, now your husband has been killed. But Mia is simply a forty-something actress, a slight woman with short dark hair and large, thickly lashed eyes. She’s wearing an oversized jumper and shivering slightly.
‘Are you warm enough?’ says Harbinder. ‘It’s quite cold in here.’ The day is bright but the sun hasn’t warmed the room much. Helen Marks has kept her coat on.
‘Dex never has the heating on during the day,’ says Mia. ‘He’s got excellent circulation.’ Her eyes fill with tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Harbinder, sitting
beside her. ‘Do you feel up to answering a few questions?’
Mia looks at her, eyes huge in her pale face. ‘Was Dex murdered? I can’t believe it.’
‘We don’t know what happened yet,’ says Harbinder. ‘That’s why these first hours are so important. We have to put the picture together.’
‘Like a jigsaw,’ says Neil. Nibble, nibble, flicks tail.
‘Can I see him? Dex?’ says Mia, addressing the question to Helen.
‘I’ll take you,’ says Harbinder. ‘Just as soon as we’ve had a quick chat.’ The cleaner, Reyna, identified Dex’s body but they will need an identification from next-of-kin as well. Harbinder hopes that the mortuary has tidied him up a bit. ‘When did you last hear from Dex?’ she asks.
‘At nine-thirty last night,’ says Mia. ‘He texted to say that his talk had gone well and that he was going for a drink with some friends.’
Neil looks rather accusingly at Harbinder but she doesn’t feel that the time is right to out herself as one of Dex’s drinking buddies.
‘Nothing after that?’ she says. The coroner estimated that Dex had been dead for between five and seven hours. Reyna discovered the body when she arrived at the house at seven. Harbinder had seen Dex drive away from Chichester at eleven last night; he would have been home by half past. This means that he must have been killed between midnight and two a.m. She assumes it was earlier because Dex was fully dressed and the whisky glass on the table still contained a generous double.
‘No,’ says Mia. ‘Dex knows that I go to bed early when I’m on my own. Normally he comes home on Friday but he had the event and . . .’ She stops, rubbing her eyes. Helen pats her shoulder.
‘What time did you go to bed yesterday?’ asks Harbinder.
‘About ten,’ says Mia. ‘The children went at the same time. I let them stay up a bit later on Fridays and Saturdays. I watched a film on my iPad for a while and then I went to sleep. I think I was asleep by eleven.’
Harbinder supposes that it’s not impossible for Mia to have driven down to Shoreham, while her children were asleep in bed, killed her husband and then driven back. Not impossible but pretty improbable.
‘Where are the children now?’ she asks.
‘With my mother,’ says Mia. ‘I couldn’t bring them with me. It would be too upsetting for them.’
‘How did Dex seem when you spoke to him?’
‘Fine. In good form. He was hoping that High Rise Murder would be number one for a second week. We’ll find out on Tuesday and he won’t be here.’ Her face crumples again.
‘Mia,’ Harbinder leans forward, trying for her most soothing tone, ‘has Dex ever mentioned a woman called Peggy Smith to you?’
She half-expects a denial but Mia says, ‘The old lady in the flats? Yes, I met her once or twice when we visited Weronika.’
‘Peggy helped Dex with his books, didn’t she?’
Mia bristles slightly. ‘I wouldn’t say helped. He used to say that she was good at coming up with murders.’ She looks at Harbinder. ‘Peggy died recently, didn’t she? You can’t think . . . Is this connected in some way?’
‘As I say, we’re still putting the picture together,’ says Harbinder. ‘But there have been a couple of slightly strange events recently. Someone broke into Peggy’s flat and stole a book called Thank Heaven Fasting. An old crime novel. Have you heard of it?’
‘No,’ says Mia. ‘But I don’t really read crime fiction. Except Dex’s books, of course.’
‘We also found a rather strange note in Peggy’s copy of one of Dex’s books. Has Dex ever received a threatening letter from a fan? Something that seemed out of the ordinary?’
‘You should see the nutcases who write to us,’ says Neil. He smiles at Mia and receives a tremulous twitch of the lips in return. He’s quite useful sometimes, bless his furry whiskers.
‘Dex does get lots of emails from fans,’ says Mia, ‘but his personal assistant answers his book emails and messages to his Tod France Facebook account.’
‘Who is his personal assistant?’ says Harbinder.
‘Cathy Johnson,’ says Mia but doesn’t offer contact details. Harbinder will have to get them later.
‘What about Twitter?’ says Harbinder. ‘I’ve seen a few tweets from him.’
‘Cathy mostly deals with that. He does tweet occasionally.’
Harbinder remembers the picture of the messy desk #writeratwork. If Dex had posted that, did he realise that it also advertised his address?
‘Do Dex’s publishers know?’ she asks. She doesn’t want to add ‘about the murder’.
‘I told Jelli,’ says Mia. ‘Dex’s agent. She was devastated. She will have told them.’
‘Jelli?’ says Harbinder. She remembers the name but surely it can’t be real?
‘Short for Angelica,’ says Mia.
Harbinder writes it down. She’ll have to talk to these exotic creatures soon.
‘Have you finished?’ says Helen. ‘Mrs Challoner wants to see her husband’s body.’
Mia starts to sob, doubling over as if she’s in pain. Helen looks accusingly at Harbinder, although it was actually her fault.
‘Of course,’ says Harbinder. ‘We’ll take her now. I’ll ask our family liaison officer to meet us there.’
* * *
‘THE WIFE’S IN the clear then?’ says Donna.
They don’t have their briefing until five o’clock. Donna ordered in pizza at four and the grease-stained boxes are still on the table. Harbinder can tell that Neil is dying to clear them away.
‘I think so,’ says Harbinder. ‘Of course, technically she could have done it but I can’t see it somehow.’
‘Of course she didn’t do it,’ says Neil. ‘She was heartbroken.’
Neil has always been a sucker for a pretty face but Mia Hastings had seemed devastated at her husband’s death. At the mortuary, she had actually thrown herself across his body, something Harbinder has only seen in films. It had taken Maggie, the FLO, almost ten minutes to get her out of the room.
‘You saw him the night before,’ says Donna. ‘How did he seem?’
‘Fine,’ says Harbinder. ‘He did his talk, he signed some books and then we went for a drink.’
‘How the other half lives,’ says Neil, as if he’s never visited a pub.
‘Anyone dodgy-looking in the audience?’ asks Donna.
Harbinder remembers arriving late and seeing a sea of grey heads. ‘Definitely not,’ she says.
Donna finds a bit of pizza crust and chews it meditatively. Harbinder says, ‘Dex talked about his mother last night. Her name was Weronika and apparently she was a spy in the war. The schoolgirl assassin, they called her. I think that might be the link. His mum knew Peggy Smith too.’
‘Sounds a bit far-fetched,’ says Donna, ‘but let’s get Intel onto it. There’ll be records or something.’
But Harbinder doubts if there will be records of this desperate, murky period of history. She thinks of her grandparents’ stories of the partition of India; of families split apart and never reunited, of unsolved murders and places that simply disappeared from the map. This was 1947, just after the war. Is there anyone alive who remembers the Polish resistance? Was Weronika the last of the freedom fighters?
‘Anything from SOCO?’ says Donna, turning to the present with what sounds like relief.
‘He was shot in the head,’ says Neil. ‘One shot so it could be professional. No weapon found but, from the wound, it looks to have been a semi-automatic pistol. There’s no sign of forced entry.’
‘So Dex must have known the killer,’ says Donna.
‘Either that or they had a plausible story,’ says Harbinder. ‘Security’s pretty tight in those houses.’
‘CCTV?’ says Donna.
‘Lots of cameras,’ says Harbinder. ‘But most of them don’t seem to be working, including the one over Dex’s front door. We’re working on it though. The neighbours’ cameras might have picked something up. They’re away on holi
day at the moment.’
‘Dex was shot as he sat on the sofa,’ says Neil, ‘and the bullet lodged itself in the cushions. The fact that he was sitting down implies he didn’t feel threatened.’
‘Or the killer ordered him to sit,’ says Donna. ‘Sounds almost like a punishment killing.’
Harbinder had thought this too but wondered if she was getting carried away with the schoolgirl-assassin stories.
‘His phone was next to him,’ she says. ‘That might mean that he’d just made a call or sent a text.’
‘Or played Panda Pop,’ says Neil.
Harbinder ignores him. ‘I’ve got onto the service provider but it’s an iPhone and Apple often refuses to give up the password.’
‘Maybe the wife will know,’ says Donna. ‘It’s usually one of the children’s birthdays or something. What are you doing tomorrow?’
Harbinder looks at her list of names. ‘We’re seeing Dex’s editor and publicist,’ she says. ‘And his agent.’
‘Do you think they’ll have anything useful to say?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Harbinder. ‘But so much of this seems to come back to the books. That’s the link between Peggy and Dex. That and her friendship with his mother.’
‘What about the book that the gunman took?’ says Donna. ‘The one with the odd title.’
‘Thank Heaven Fasting. Dex said he hadn’t read it.’
‘Have you?’
‘No,’ says Harbinder. ‘I haven’t had much time for reading, what with my mum and everything.’
‘What about the other writers?’ says Donna. ‘The ones who mentioned Peggy in their books. Have you contacted them?’
‘It’s on my “To Do” list,’ says Harbinder.
* * *
BACK AT HER desk, Harbinder looks at her list. According to Natalka and Benedict, there are three writers who mentioned Peggy Smith in their acknowledgements: J. D. Monroe, Lance Foster and Eliza Bennington. Taking them in alphabetical order, she contacts Bennington’s publishers to be told that the name is a pseudonym. The author is a man called Sage McGannon and he’s currently ‘at a writer’s retreat in the South of France’. Nice work if you can get it, thinks Harbinder. Next she tries Lance Foster but his publishers, Cassowary, don’t seem to exist any more. She has more luck with J. D. Monroe because there’s an email address on her website. Harbinder sends a message including her phone number and, ten minutes later, there’s a call.
The Postscript Murders Page 9
