Deadly Suspicions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 3)

by Jean Saunders

  The impressively large house was in the elegant Clifton area of the city, from which she deduced that the Frys were pretty well-heeled. Whatever the elder Fry did, he wasn’t short of a few quid, which meant he could surely have hired a private detective years ago to try to find his son. But she realized she was jumping fences. She had no reason to believe Lennie Fry had gone missing, or that his father hadn’t known exactly where he was all this time. Nor if banjo-playing Drew was his son at all.

  A sudden sense of uncertainty swept through her, knowing it was fatal to make assumptions. In this business, you had to pick through the evidence like a dog picking at bones until you had uncovered everything there was to see.

  ‘Mr Fry?’ she said to the neatly-dressed and well-preserved man who answered the door. He was in his late fifties to early sixties, she guessed, which would make him about the right age to have a twenty-seven year old son. ‘I’m Alexandra Best,’ she added, handing him her card. ‘You contacted me on my answer machine.’

  ‘Ah yes, Miss Best. Please come in.’

  She was shown into a light and airy living-room that, in estate agent’s jargon, had all the appointments of the affluent businessman. Her feet made no sound on the plush Persian carpet; the gilt-framed paintings surely had to be genuine, as did the highly-polished antique furniture and a glass-fronted case full of what looked like valuable Japanese netsuke. The quantity alone must make it a pretty expensive collection, Alex noted.

  Why the hell would any kid want to walk away from all this? But she didn’t need a crystal ball to answer that. Teenagers did. It was the nature of the breed not to be satisfied with anything their parents had. Hadn’t she been the very same?

  ‘Please sit down, Miss Best, and I’ll ring for tea. Unless you prefer coffee?’

  ‘Tea would be fine,’ she said, presuming from his words and his attitude that there was no Mrs Fry. By the time they had discussed the weather and the view over the city from this high vantage point, the appearance of a housekeeper and then a tray of tea and biscuits confirmed her thoughts.

  ‘You’ll be wondering why I contacted you,’ Roger Fry said finally.

  ‘I believe it has something to do with your son,’ Alex said.

  He gave a small smile. ‘Of course. In such charming company I was forgetting for a moment that you are a private investigator.’

  Alex hid a smile as his gaze quickly flashed over her. The old rogue. He’d clearly forgotten how much he’d already told her in his message. It hadn’t been that much, but it was enough to tell her he was agitated about something. And that Lennie — Leonard — had something to do with it.

  ‘Mr Fry, does your son still live at home?’ she asked, deciding on the direct approach. She saw his mouth tighten at once.

  ‘He does not. We had a serious falling-out some years ago, soon after his mother died. It pains me to tell a stranger, Miss Best, but I did not approve of my son’s lifestyle. It was not what his mother and I wanted for him, you see. We didn’t approve of the company he kept, the living rough and taking miserable little jobs as a small-time rock musician when he could have done so much better. There was a lot of nonsense of wanting to go to India and find himself that never came to anything. And then there were the drugs that you always associate with these people, though I never had any real evidence of Leonard’s involvement with them, I assure you.’

  And if you had, you’d simply have closed your eyes to it, Alex thought shrewdly. She’d met parents like this before. Pretend it didn’t exist and it would go away. Unfortunately, it rarely did.

  ‘So where is Leonard now?’ she persisted gently. ‘Are you asking me to find him for you? Forgive me, but unless you tell me what this meeting is all about, Mr Fry, I am unable to help you —’

  ‘He’s contacted me,’ the man said abruptly. ‘Well, in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘Yes? You won’t mind if I take a few notes, by the way?’ she spoke easily, hoping to disarm him for a moment. ‘Just so that I get all the facts correctly.’

  ‘Oh no, of course not.’

  ‘So how did he contact you? By telephone or letter? Fax? E-mail?’

  Or even by perishing carrier-pigeon, she thought, wondering if he was ever going to come out with it. In his ordered and preciously narrow-minded world, she could just imagine how disruptive a tearaway son could be, even though he would seem pretty harmless to anyone else.

  ‘There was just a card enclosed with a twenty-pound note to pay for the flowers,’ Roger Fry said.

  ‘Flowers?’ Alex echoed, a creepy feeling in her bones.

  Fry handed her the plain white card with no distinguishing marks on it. Alex read it quickly.

  ‘Please use the money to pay for flowers for Steven Leng’s father,’ it said. ‘Lilies for preference, for peace and harmony in the afterlife.’

  Her heart jolted. The words ‘peace and harmony’ shrieked out at her — it was the motto of the Followers. And the sender wanted lilies for preference, just like the one that had been delivered to her in Exeter, when she was damn sure there had been no suggestion of peace and harmony in that.

  She had always thought of it as the flower of death, which would seem to be confirmed in Lennie’s request for lilies for Bob Leng’s funeral corsage. If it was Lennie Fry.

  ‘Was there a postmark on the envelope, Mr Fry?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘I didn’t think to look. I’m afraid I just threw it away.’

  Typical. ‘Well, are you sure this is your son’s handwriting?’

  Roger Fry seemed to slump suddenly. ‘I couldn’t be absolutely sure, though it certainly looks like it. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. I don’t really know why I thought this might have been of interest to you, but it was just so odd coming after all this time, you see.’

  What Alex could see was that he was clutching at straws. He still missed his son. He wanted contact with him, but he still couldn’t forgive him for not being all that his parents wanted him to be. It was sad, and a far more common state of affairs than he might think.

  ‘Mr Fry, I presume you realize that I’m trying to trace all Steven Leng’s old friends,’ she said more briskly. ‘Do I take it that you also want me to try to trace your son? If so I need to have as many details about him as I can, including the latest photograph you have of him.’

  It was almost agonizing to see the conflicting emotions on the man’s face. Oh yes, he wanted to know that Lennie was all right, Alex guessed, but the barrier between them was probably too wide now for it ever to be breached. She spoke more gently.

  ‘You don’t have to do anything about it, you know. If I found out where he was, I would merely give you the information, and the rest would be up to you.’

  The man took a deep breath and gave a small nod. ‘Of course. And all I want is to know that he’s safe. His full name is Leonard Andrew Fry —’

  ‘Andrew?’ Alex said, her hand pausing over her notebook.

  ‘That’s right,’ Roger Fry said, turning to a drawer and bringing out several small photographs. Hidden away as if he couldn’t bear to look at them, thought Alex, which was even sadder.

  She looked into the soft brown eyes of the young man smiling out at her from the photographs. She had seen his photos before, in Gran Patterson’s scrap books, but he had been younger then. This young man was a few years older and more mature. His hair was still long, but in one of the photos he had it tied back, probably in a ponytail. He was holding a guitar, standing nonchalantly beside a tree, and the strong summer sunlight was dappling through the leaves and lightening the darkness of his hair. Turning it almost blond — blond enough for Alex to know instantly that Leonard Andrew Fry and Lennie Fry were one and the same, and that they were also the banjo-playing Drew, who needed no other name.

  ‘Mr Fry, I believe I know exactly where your son is,’ she said quietly.

  Chapter 13

  ‘I’m not really sure what he wanted of me,’ Alex reported to Nick that evening. Ther
e seemed no point in not telling him of her meeting with Roger Fry, since he already seemed far too aware of her movements for comfort.

  ‘To get his son back, maybe?’ Nick said lazily, his arm around her as they sat cosily on her sofa.

  ‘I don’t think he wants him back. He just wanted to know where he was, and to be able to say so if people asked. It’s a pride thing. Though I doubt that he’d admit that his precious Leonard was a busker with the Followers. In his eyes it would be begging. But I still think it’s just passing the buck, and shelving his parental responsibilities.’

  ‘He’s hardly got any responsibility towards him if the bloke’s twenty-six or seven years old, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Once a parent, always a parent,’ Alex said doggedly. ‘At least, that’s what my dad used to say. But Roger Fry seemed a pretty cold fish — the complete opposite to Jane Leng, who still wants to smother Steven with motherly love. Whether he’s alive or dead.’

  She gave a shiver. Obsessive love was harmful to the giver and the receiver, in her opinion, and that was how she saw Jane Leng’s feelings for her son. It was hardly incestuous, but it was unhealthy all the same. It was like one of those creepers that wound its way around a house and finally choked it.

  ‘Come back, darling,’ she heard Nick’s voice say. ‘I can think of better ways to spend an evening than thinking about the parents Leng and Fry.’

  ‘A better double-act, you mean?’ Alex said with a grin.

  ‘Precisely,’ Nick said.

  *

  Over breakfast the next morning, he asked her casually if she was dropping the case now. Not that there had ever been a case, he reminded her.

  ‘I can’t do that. Mrs Leng’s still paying me. Just because her husband’s dead doesn’t mean my involvement has ended.’

  Nick sighed. ‘Well, it should. Anyway, now she’s got no opposition she’ll probably be glad enough to let things lie. Be satisfied with what you’ve done, Alex, and tell her there’s an end to it.’

  ‘How can you say that? She still thinks her son’s alive. I don’t believe it for a minute, but she’s not going to change her mind about that just because her husband fell off the Clifton Suspension Bridge.’

  ‘If he fell.’

  ‘He wasn’t pushed, if that’s what you mean. There were witnesses. It was an accident.’

  ‘Or suicide. If that were proven, his pension money may well come under scrutiny, and Jane won’t get a penny out of his insurances. And neither will you, my sweet.’

  Alex pushed back her chair. ‘You’re not going to put me off with all that guff, Nick. I happen to know they’re satisfied it was an accident, and Jane’s laughing all the way to the building society.’

  He nodded. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  She glared at him. ‘You’ve got a damn nerve. You were just trying it on, weren’t you? You really don’t want me to continue with this, do you?’

  ‘I want you to come back to London,’ he said flatly. ‘I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too. But I’m not a wife or a hanger-on, and I have my own life to lead. I’m quite willing to share it with you on a part-time basis, mind —’

  She stopped, appalled at herself. God, she was sounding so pompous, and so blokey ... and she realized Nick was laughing at her.

  ‘Well, thank you Ma’am, I’ll just go and get my pinny,’ he said solemnly. ‘Anyway, are you aware that Jane’s already moved down to Somerset? She didn’t waste much time, and she got Bob planted pretty soon too.’

  ‘You mean he’s already been buried?’

  ‘Last week, as fast as it could be arranged. I came down to represent our mob. We felt it was the decent thing to see the old boy safely put underground and it was a pretty weird occasion, I can tell you.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about weird funerals. I attended Leanora Wolstenholme’s, remember? You’d have thought you were going to a fancy-dress affair.’

  She shuddered, remembering the kooks she had met there during her last big case, and angrier still with Nick for stirring her memory.

  ‘Anyway, I thought Jane would have told me. I thought she’d have wanted me there.’

  Why the hell was she feeling so resentful about it? Hadn’t she considered herself Jane’s prop in all this? Jane’s last hope? So much for loyalty.

  ‘She’s the important one now,’ Nick was saying. ‘She doesn’t have to be Bob’s whinging wife any longer. She’s a woman of property, at least in her eyes, and Christ, wasn’t she throwing her weight about and letting everybody know it. She was done up to the nines too, in an expensive black outfit. All for show, of course. It was pretty sickening, if you must know, so just be glad you weren’t there in the thick of it.’

  Alex stared at him, her resentment fading away as quickly as it had come. This was throwing a whole new light on Jane Leng’s character. It was as if she were metaphorically ditching her dull crimplene image and emerging as the glossy black widow — in more ways than one.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be in touch soon,’ she said, intending to call her just as soon as she could get Nick out of here. ‘So when do you have to get back to London?’

  Nick laughed. ‘OK, I can take a hint. Now you’ve had your wicked way with me — and bloody fantastic it was too — you’re chucking me out. But I trust I can come again soon?’

  His eyes challenged her boldly and she laughed back.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you will.’

  *

  Alex decided against calling Jane Leng, and instead drove down to Chilworthy near the Chew Valley where Jane was now ensconced.

  It didn’t take her long to get resettled, Alex thought resentfully, and despite what she knew about both the Lengs it appalled her that two people who had once presumably been in love and had a child, had been so full of venom towards one another.

  Jane smiled delightedly at her visitor.

  ‘How lovely to see you, Alex. Come in and take a look around.’

  Confidence oozed out of her. Indoors, she still wore her crimplene frock, and probably nothing would change that, but her hair was now waved and tinted in a hideous shade of mauve. She patted it continually, as if to draw attention to it, when Alex thought she would do far better to hide in beneath a scarf.

  ‘I thought we should get in touch,’ Alex said, feeling oddly out of place, when she should be in charge. ‘I didn’t expect you to have moved yet, either.’

  ‘There didn’t seem any point in delaying. The sale had already gone through, and since Bob was no longer around to fuss me and get on my nerves, I just did as I wanted. Tea, dear?’

  ‘I won’t, thank you,’ Alex said mechanically. ‘I just wanted to report on my findings so far. And I have to go back to Exeter later today.’

  She didn’t, but now that she was here she couldn’t wait to get out. There was something so damn unwholesome about Jane’s attitude. She was almost jubilant thought Alex, as if she had suddenly seen the promised land because Bob wasn’t here to fuss her or get on her nerves.

  ‘I know you’ll find my Steven soon,’ she was saying confidentially now.

  ‘Mrs Leng — Jane — please don’t be too hopeful. Nothing’s changed, and I’m still tracking down his old friends —’

  ‘Oh, I know. I’ve sent another letter to the paper praising your efforts, and now that I can afford to pay whatever you ask, I shall leave no stone unturned.’

  God, she should be in amateur dramatics. ‘You didn’t put all that in your letter, did you? About being able to afford to pay’

  ‘Of course. Why not? Here, I’ll show you.’

  Alex hadn’t seen the local paper for a few days, but she quickly scanned Jane’s latest piece, confirming what she had just said and leaving the way wide open for any unscrupulous thug to come down here and take what he could from a silly old woman.

  ‘Have you got locks on these doors, Jane? And a proper security system?’

  She laughed. ‘Bless you, no! Nobody ever locks their doors in these villag
es. We used to live here, and we know everybody. Why would I want to have locks and security systems?’

  Alex was reluctant to tell her, but in all honesty she could hardly do otherwise. It only resulted in more laughter.

  ‘Goodness, who’d want to rob a widow-woman like me! No, you don’t need to worry about me, dear. Besides, my sister lives nearby. I can always call her on the telephone if I’m feeling nervous. But to tell the truth, I’m enjoying being on my own so much, I don’t even want her around!’

  She beamed, pressing Alex’s arm. It was a job not to jerk it away from this unfeeling madwoman who’d just lost her husband, for God’s sake, and was so enjoying being on her own. Alex’s dad would have said there’s nowt so queer as folk, and this was one of the queerest.

  She gave Jane her printed report and was pushed into accepting a bonus cheque which she didn’t want and didn’t need, since she didn’t feel she had done much to deserve it. It was clear that Jane was euphoric with her new-found wealth and intended to make the most of it. And when the window cleaner arrived at the cottage and was given a much bigger tip than was reasonable, Alex knew that however uneasy she felt about it, there wasn’t anything she could do to stop her.

  She drove back to Bristol in a fury. She was furious with Jane’s callousness and stupidity; furious with Bob for topping himself; furious with herself for ever getting involved in the first place, when Nick had warned her off so vocally. But she still had a job to do and she was going to see it through as far as possible.

  She remembered her visit to Roger Fry, and knew she must go back to Exeter to interview Lord, and ascertain once and for all that Drew was in reality Lennie Fry. She could easily go there and back in a day, but she decided to take a couple of days away from here to try to make sense of it all. Maybe the time really had come to tell Jane Leng she had come to the end; that she had to accept that her son was dead, and there was nothing more she could do for her. If only she didn’t have this nagging little doubt in her mind that too many people were covering up what really happened all those years ago ...