‘He’s treating the death as suspicious,’ says Harbinder. She thinks there’s no harm in telling Benedict this much. ‘I understand that you found the body.’
‘Yes,’ says Benedict, with a slight shudder. ‘We were due to meet him for a drink. When he didn’t turn up, we went to his room. He was just sitting there in his chair . . . dead.’
‘How did he seem? Peaceful?’
‘I don’t know.’ Benedict rubs his glasses again. ‘He was very sweaty,’ he says at last. ‘I noticed that. It was odd because the room wasn’t hot.’
‘It’s a lot colder here than in Sussex,’ says Harbinder. She remembers how cold she’d felt last night, even in her puffer jacket. ‘Why were you meeting Lance anyway?’
‘We’d met him the night before,’ says Benedict. ‘I think Natalka told you. He was at Julie—J. D. Monroe’s event and he asked a question about Peggy. He came for a drink with us later and it turned out he’d had one of the postcards too. We went to his panel this morning.’
‘Panel?’
‘An interview discussion with two other writers. Lance never really explained how he knew Peggy but he said that, if we met him in the bar at seven, he’d tell us the whole story.’
‘But he never turned up?’
‘No. Unavoidably detained by death.’
Harbinder suspects Benedict of practising that line. She’s not quite sure how to cope with the new, confident Benedict.
‘And I gather you’ve seen Nigel Smith too?’
‘Yes,’ says Benedict, looking round rather furtively. ‘He’s actually staying here. Well, he was yesterday. And, guess who he had lunch with?’
Benedict has rather given away the punchline.
‘Lance Foster.’
‘Yes. I mean, that’s strange, isn’t it?’
‘It certainly is.’ Harbinder remembers Nigel’s scathing comments about crime fiction. What, then, is he doing at a crime-writing festival? She senses that Benedict has a theory.
Sure enough, he says, ‘I’ve been thinking about it and there are only three explanations that make sense . . .’ But Harbinder never gets to hear what they are because, at that moment, Natalka and Edwin appear from the outside doors. Natalka is in her jogging gear, leggings and hoodie, and Edwin is carrying a paper.
They both express surprise/shock/pleasure at seeing Harbinder. She briefly tells them the Jim/airport/propeller story.
‘So DI Harris must definitely think that Lance was murdered,’ says Natalka, sitting down with a plate full of eggs and bacon.
‘I don’t know what he thinks,’ says Harbinder, ‘but I’m due for a briefing at the Majestic Hotel now.’ She gets up.
‘Will we see you later?’ asks Edwin. He too looks none the worse for his experiences. He is smartly dressed as usual, with a spotted scarf tucked into a navy blue cardigan. He is spreading marmalade on his toast with great concentration.
‘I’m sure DI Harris will want to interview you again,’ says Harbinder.
‘He did tell us not to leave town,’ says Benedict.
‘There you go then,’ says Harbinder.
* * *
ABERDEEN LOOKS DIFFERENT this morning, the grey buildings sparkling after the night’s rain. ‘They call it the granite city,’ said the receptionist at the Travelodge, ‘but I like to think of it as the silver city.’ Harbinder approves of the place, the buildings seem solid and substantial, bristling with spires and turrets. It’s like a city in a story book.
The Majestic is a large, dour-looking hotel built of dark stone. There are police cars outside and, when Harbinder goes through the swing doors, the first person she sees is Miles Taylor, Dex’s editor. He is on his phone and doesn’t recognise her at first. The lobby is full of people trying to check out of the hotel, suitcases and tote bags full of books everywhere. A sign pinned to an easel says that the crime-writing festival has been cancelled ‘due to tragic and unforeseen events’. Two police officers stand guard at the foot of the stairs.
Miles looks up and half-smiles, not able to place Harbinder. Then he seems to register the police lanyard around her neck.
‘I know you, don’t I?’ he says. ‘You came to see me about Dex.’
‘That’s right. I’m DS Kaur.’
‘Was Lance murdered? That’s what everyone is saying.’
‘I can’t say,’ says Harbinder. Miles looks younger than ever with his backpack and headphones. He’s wearing black and white Vans trainers, too, like a student. But there’s something about him, in this milieu, that seems to command respect. Harbinder notices people looking over to him, obviously wondering who he is talking to.
‘The police want to talk to me,’ says Miles. ‘I don’t know why. I wasn’t Lance’s editor. He hasn’t published anything for years.’
‘You were Dex’s editor though.’
‘So this is connected with Dex’s death?’
‘Again, I can’t say. I’m not in charge of this investigation.’
‘Such an awful thing to happen,’ says Miles, almost to himself. ‘Jelli will be devastated. Jelli Walker-Thompson. She was Lance’s agent.’
And Dex’s too, thinks Harbinder.
‘Excuse me,’ she says. ‘I need to be going.’
* * *
JIM HAS SET up his headquarters on the first floor. The lift looks grand but ancient. It’s the open sort, with an elaborate bronze surround and wires and pulleys that look as if they’ve been there since Queen Victoria’s time. Besides the lift itself is nowhere to be seen. Harbinder can hear it groaning somewhere on the upper storeys. So she takes the stairs, which are carpeted in deep red with tiny gold antlers on them. The corridors have red flock wallpaper and the main interior decorating theme seems to be death: more antlers, stuffed animals, crossed swords, hunting scenes. Occasionally there’s an attempt at irony, a purple velvet deer peering out from an alcove, a painting of foxes chasing a man. Harbinder walks quickly, looking at room numbers. She passes a door marked ‘Prayer Room’ and can’t resist looking inside. It’s completely empty apart from a table containing the Bible and the Koran. She shuts the door quickly and, after a couple of meaningless twists and turns, finds the suite. It’s called ‘Darnley’ which strikes Harbinder as ominous, though she can’t think why.
‘You’ve found us,’ Jim greets her. ‘This place is a rabbit warren.’
He performs brisk introductions. ‘DS Sheena Macready, my number two. Tom McGrath, crime scene investigator. Doug Waterford, pathologist. Selma Francis, data.’ There’s another man called either Brodie or Brady, Harbinder never does discover which it is. It seems very odd to see the investigating team occupying a bedroom, complete with Day-Glo antlers and a giant photograph of the Forth Bridge over the bed. The door to the bathroom is open and she can see one of those free-standing baths, lonely on a plinth.
‘This is DS Harbinder Kaur,’ says Jim. ‘She’s from West Sussex CID. I’ve asked her here because there appear to be some links to the death of another writer, Dex Challoner. Does everyone know the case? Dex was a well-known crime writer, shot dead in his Shoreham home last Friday. Single bullet to the head, no signs of forced entry.’
‘Are you treating Lance Foster’s death as murder then?’ asks Harbinder. She could have guessed as much from the police presence outside but she wants to know the evidence.
Doug Waterford answers her, ‘I can’t conduct a full post-mortem until we have an official identification.’
‘Foster’s ex-wife is due in Aberdeen today,’ says Jim.
‘Nevertheless,’ says Doug. He has one of those Scottish voices that seems to make each word a yard long. ‘My initial examination did yield some findings that might be of interest.’
‘Of interest.’ It’s a very pathologist term.
‘Specifically,’ says Jim, maybe wanting to speed things up, ‘the marks of a hypodermic syringe injection on the deceased’s arm. This, together with an unusual amount of sweat on the surface of the skin, suggests death by insulin poi
soning. Benedict Cole, who found the body, reports that the pupils were dilated, which is another sign. He was a surprisingly good witness.’
Harbinder feels oddly proud of Benedict. He is observant, she has noticed before. He would actually make a good detective.
‘It’s a very different MO from this Dex character,’ says Brodie or Brady.
Maybe, thinks Harbinder, but this could be the way that Peggy Smith had died. There had been no post-mortem and no opportunity to study the body for puncture marks.
‘Insulin poisoning is difficult to detect after death,’ Doug is saying, ‘but blood taken from the deceased shows an abnormally low glucose content.’
‘So someone injected Lance Foster with insulin,’ says Jim. ‘It’s very different from a gun to the head.’
‘There is a link to Dex,’ says Harbinder. ‘They were both writers, for one thing, and Dex and Lance both knew a woman called Peggy Smith, who died a few weeks ago. We know that Dex, Lance and another writer, J. D. Monroe, all received threatening notes saying, “We are coming for you.” Also, they all have the same publisher, Seventh Seal.’
‘Natalka Kolisnyk mentioned this Peggy Smith,’ says Jim. ‘She said something about being held at gunpoint in her apartment. It all sounded a bit far-fetched to me.’
‘Peggy was an elderly lady living in sheltered accommodation in Shoreham-by-Sea,’ says Harbinder. ‘Natalka was her carer. Peggy used to advise crime authors on their books. Apparently she was good at thinking up murders. Dex Challoner called her his murder consultant.’
Someone laughs and then tries to turn it into a cough.
Harbinder continues. ‘When Natalka and Benedict were sorting out Peggy’s books, a gunman did burst in and steal a book. We’ve got the gunman on CCTV but haven’t been able to identify him.’
‘He stole a book, you say?’ Jim sounds astonished. Harbinder doesn’t have him down as much of a reader.
‘Yes, an out-of-print book called Thank Heaven Fasting by Sheila Atkins. We don’t know its significance but we do know that Peggy’s son Nigel was seen in Aberdeen yesterday. He was staying at the Travelodge but I checked this morning and there’s no Nigel Smith on their records.’
‘Are you sure it was him?’ says Jim.
‘I can’t be completely sure,’ says Harbinder, ‘but Natalka and Benedict both recognised him.’
‘Those two,’ says Jim. ‘I can’t make them out at all. What’s their game? And the other one too, Edwin Fitzgerald. I liked him though. Nice polite old chap.’
‘They’re here for the book festival,’ says Harbinder. ‘But they do fancy themselves as amateur detectives. They seem to have befriended Lance Foster, and J. D. Monroe too.’
‘We’re interviewing her in a few minutes,’ says Jim. ‘Harbinder, perhaps you’d like to sit in on that? Tom, anything from the scene?’
The crime scene investigator speaks from amongst a pile of deer-themed cushions on the bed. ‘We haven’t got all the results back yet but there’s a mark on the doorframe that looks as if it was made by a gloved hand. I don’t think we’ll find much in the room itself.’
‘It was the same with Dex Challoner,’ says Harbinder. ‘The killer fired from the French windows. Nothing from the room. Lots of CCTV cameras around but none of them working.’
‘Similar thing here,’ says Sheena. ‘There’s CCTV in the lobby but so many people came in and out all day that it’s going to be hard to spot anyone who shouldn’t be there. According to the receptionist, the only people on the third floor at the time Lance was killed were the cleaners. With so many guests, they were still doing the rooms in the evening.’
‘So the killer simply took the lift up to the third floor, injected Lance and walked away again,’ says Brodie/Brady.
‘Actually, we think they took the stairs,’ says Tom. ‘There are some prints that look as if they were made by someone moving at haste. I’ve got a forensic podiatrist coming to look.’
That’s a new one on Harbinder. She stores it up to tell Neil.
She says, ‘If the killer didn’t come into the room, did Lance let them in and then go back to sitting in the chair? It seems odd.’
‘Maybe they came in, spoke to Lance and then killed him as they were leaving,’ says Jim. ‘In which case there will be forensics in the room. Good point, Harbinder.’
Harbinder tries not to look smug. Jim is the sort of boss who makes you want to please him. But he’s not her boss; she must remember that.
‘We think Dex Challoner knew his assailant,’ says Harbinder, ‘or, at least, wasn’t threatened by them, because he was sitting on the sofa when he was killed. You’d think that, if someone turned up at your back door unannounced, in the middle of the night, you’d get to your feet at least.’
There’s a discreet knock at the door. Sheena goes to answer it.
‘Julie Monroe is here,’ she says.
* * *
THEY TALK TO Julie in one of the connecting rooms, a small sitting room with a sofa, which probably doubles as a pull-out bed, two chairs and another giant TV. Sheena makes tea and coffee from the hospitality tray.
‘No biscuits?’ says Jim. ‘I love a shortbread.’
‘You’re on a diet,’ says Sheena, which implies a certain level of intimacy. Harbinder seems to remember that Jim is married, but not to anyone in the force.
Julie Monroe is blonde and rather attractive, with long legs in tightish jeans. Harbinder, who is not tall (her brothers often sing ‘Hi ho, hi ho’ as she approaches), can’t stop herself looking at them enviously.
Sheena asks a few questions which establish that Julie is thirty-five, unmarried and lives in Hove. She’s the author of four published books ‘and several unpublished ones’. She’s the same age as me, thinks Harbinder, but she seems to have accomplished a hell of a lot more, not least living on her own and not in her parents’ spare room.
Jim asks her about the threatening note. ‘It was printed,’ says Julie, ‘and said, “We are coming for you.” I didn’t think much about it at first but, then, when Dex was killed . . .’
‘Did you know Dex Challoner well?’ says Jim.
‘Not really. I saw him at crime-writing festivals because you do see the same people again and again. He was always friendly. Not at all stuck-up, although he was nearly always the most famous person there. I told him that I sometimes had trouble thinking of murders and he told me about Peggy.’
‘And this Peggy thought up murders for you?’ Scottish people are very good at sounding incredulous, thinks Harbinder. Jim gives a particular sardonic emphasis to the word ‘murder’. Murr-dah.
‘I know it sounds odd,’ says Julie, ‘but Peggy had a very analytical mind. She read a lot and she was good at plotting. I’m better at people and relationships. Also, I get fond of my characters and don’t want to kill them off. Peggy was tougher than me.’
‘Did you know Lance Foster at all?’ asks Jim.
‘Slightly,’ says Julie. ‘We have the same agent and I saw him at Jelli’s Christmas party and events like that. We didn’t really chat. I didn’t realise that he knew Peggy until he asked a question about her after my panel. Apparently he acknowledges Peggy in his book but it’s in Latin. I didn’t go to that sort of school.’
Another thing Julie and Harbinder have in common.
‘So what did you do when you received the anonymous note?’
‘I didn’t realise what it was at first but then DS Kaur contacted me.’ She smiles at Harbinder. ‘She told me about Dex receiving the same message. I was really shocked. DS Kaur wanted to interview me but I was on my way to Aberdeen the next day. She sent a local police officer round, though, and I gave him the note. He didn’t seem too interested, to be honest.’
Jim asks for details and scribbles them on his notepad.
‘Did you see Lance in Aberdeen?’
‘Yes. I went for a drink with some people that I met after my panel. Benedict and Edwin.’
‘Benedict Cole and Edwin Fitz
gerald?’
‘That’s right. Lance turned up later with a woman called Natalie . . . no, Natalka. We talked about Peggy for a bit and then I went for a meal with Edwin. I went to Lance’s panel yesterday morning but I didn’t speak to him afterwards.’
‘Who were you with last night?’ Sheena’s casual voice keeps her from sounding like she’s asking for an alibi.
‘I ended up having dinner with a couple of other crime writers, Susan Blake and Helen Cray. I got back to the hotel at about midnight. I saw all the police outside and knew something was up but not what. I didn’t hear until this morning.’ She runs her hands through her hair and, for the first time, looks scared. ‘I mean, Lance had one of those notes too, didn’t he? Did Dex? Am I in danger?’
‘We’ve no reason to believe that you’re in danger,’ says Jim, ‘but there’s no point in taking any risks. I’m going to put you up in a safe house for tonight. DS Kaur and her friends will be there too.’
It’s the first that Harbinder has heard of it. She’s beginning to think that promotion has gone to Jim’s head.
* * *
MILES TAYLOR IS next. He looks ill at ease, lowering himself onto the sofa as if unsure that it will bear his weight. He pushes back his hair with one hand and crosses his legs, black Vans jiggling. As Jim asks the preliminary questions, Harbinder notices that Miles starts to take on the timbre of his voice. It’s probably unconscious but Harbinder thinks that it irritates the hell out of Jim.
‘Did you know Lance Foster?’
‘Hardly at all. I really don’t know why you wanted to talk to me.’
‘We spoke to Lance’s agent.’ Jim looks at his notes. ‘Angelica Walker-Thompson. And she said that you were his editor.’
‘In name only. Lance only wrote one book and I inherited him when his publisher was absorbed by Seventh Seal. I suppose my name was given to Jelli . . . Angelica . . . as a contact.’
‘So you never really worked with Lance?’
The Postscript Murders Page 21
