The van and tyre treads were the only lead. Perhaps they had used a stolen vehicle. I went into Latching police station, brisk and efficient.
“Have you had any reports of finding an abandoned van, stolen sometime earlier in the week, the same said van now found in a muddy condition with bits of leaves and weeds everywhere?” I asked at the desk. “Or abandoned diving gear?” I threw in. “You know, helmet, goggles and breathing mask?”
“Also wet and covered in weeds?” the duty sergeant added without a glimmer of a smile. He was new and closely shaven. A bit of tissue clung to a nick. He did not know me. So no jokes about nuns or humming the Jaws signature tune.
“Your name please, miss.”
“Jordan Lacey.” I handed him my old photocopied card. He looked dubious despite the fact that I am a registered PI. Today was one of my close-on-sixteen-looking days.
“Is this work experience?” he asked suspiciously.
“Look, buster, I was running this police station when you were still having sweaty nightmares over your GSE results.” It was an exaggeration but who was checking?
“You used to work here?” He looked mildly interested. “Why did you leave?”
“The hat didn’t suit me. By the way, I have a special arrangement with my mates. You help me, I help you. It works. You know how the uniform can be a hindrance. Sergeant.” I gave him instant promotion. He nodded as if he was sent out on CID work frequently. A uniform walked by that I used to know.
“Hiya, Jaws,” he said. For once I didn’t mind the nickname.
“Hiya, Joe, how are you? How’s the family?”
Joe stopped to talk. He always had. He went through the current state of spotty kids, wife, family. I listened patiently, nodding like a therapy doll. I wanted the new face to realize I was trustworthy and one of the team.
“I’m checking on stolen or abandoned vans,” I said in a gap. “Dry when stolen, wet when abandoned.”
“There was a Bedford stolen yesterday afternoon. I’ll get the details for you.”
“But—” the new body on the desk protested.
“Jaws is all right, she’s one of us,” said Joe. I could have kissed his stubbly cheek. He always had a rapid growth.
I took details of the van. It was the tyres I was interested in but there was no record of make or state. The owner ran a greengrocer’s shop on the main road out of Latching to Brighton. He sold a lot of cut price fruit and veg, not in A1 condition but still edible if you consumed them quickly. It didn’t take me long to cycle to the shop.
The greengrocer was indignant about the theft of his van. It cramped his style. “Nothing’s safe these days. I need that van. I’m hampered.”
“I know,” I said sympathetically. “No consideration these people.”
He remembered that the right-hand rear tyre was pretty worn. Practically down to the threads.
“On its last legs,” said Fred Hopkins. “It’s a wonder I wasn’t stopped by the pigs, begging your pardon, miss. I’ll get a new set on the insurance, if I’m covered.”
“You might get your van back.”
“If pigs could fly.” He had little confidence in the police finding his vehicle. “They’re not interested unless it’s got a bomb inside it.”
“They don’t have the resources,” I trotted out.
“I’ve got plenty of nice strawberries in. Last of the season. Five punnets for a pound, just for you, miss.”
“I can’t resist them,” I said, the remembered taste surging into my mouth. If only all kisses were like strawberries, fresh and sweet and juicy. Men thought that presenting their mouths was enough. Beards were like Brillo pads, smoker’s breath like old socks in an ash tray, beer drinkers like a brewery on a hot day. Metallic fillings tasted like metallic fillings. The waves of rotting debris from the mouth of a non-brusher could knock you back with nausea.
Men that cleaned their teeth, rinsed their mouths, drank water, sucked a peppermint, were heaven to kiss. Line up, please, no pushing. I didn’t know about DI James. He had never kissed me as yet. It was a dream on hold.
DI James was everything a woman could want in a man, except for sensitivity, romanticism, demonstrative affection. And to cap all that, I don’t think he even liked me at times. But occasionally, when he was off guard or in a moment of stress, he might say something that was almost nice. Once, he nearly touched me. But he didn’t follow through. The mask dropped and the magic fled. But it had been there, a fleeting ray of light and that gave me hope.
There was no hope with the jazz musician. Lots of peppermint kisses and huggy warmth, but then he went home to his long-bedded wife and I didn’t see him for months. I often heard him on the radio and that roaring trumpet’s liquid notes were singing a song for me. Because he had once told me so.
“I only play for you, Jordan,” he’d said when I first met him. “The top F is for you alone.”
“A pound’s worth, then,” I said, finding a coin in my jeans. I had taught myself to recognize coins from their size and shape. A useful trick in the dark.
The punnets bounced home in a carrier bag, swinging from my handlebars. I would eat them all. Each one would be a kiss. My dreams would be good. A lonely heaven.
It must have taken the thieves several hours to shovel up so many underwater plants in the dark. Then the gang had to heave them over the wall and load them into the van. And who would want to buy so many water lilies? They could hardly be toted round the Sunday morning car boot sales. No one in their right mind would pay more than fifty pence for a plant from a hatch-back.
And… crisis, crisis… they had to be kept in water all the time. It did not make sense.
I cycled back to my shop. It had once been an optician’s with two small bow windows, perfect for displaying designer specs and contact lenses; also perfect for my specialized junk. My stock came from Latching’s numerous charity shops. They were getting to know my swift swoops and sometimes put goods by for me. I had an eye for the unusual.
The cut-glass flutes were one such find. They had been at the bottom of a box of dingy glasses the hard-working ladies didn’t have time to wash or sort. The champagne flutes were wrapped in faded tissue and hidden under some hideous tumblers. I washed them, put my usual £6 price label on the stem of each glass. Having the same price for everything saved a lot of time. They were beautiful, not a chip in sight. An empty champagne bottle – saved from Cleo Carling’s house-warming party – dressed the window. A silk rose added the final touch. I almost bought them myself, just in case DI James looked at me with longing in his eyes. Fat chance.
The shop door opened. Daylight was blotted out. I knew that tall, bulky shape by heart, but not by touch. His build was so familiar.
“Is this a new venture, Jordan?” he asked. “Have you started Latching’s first lonely hearts club? Is there a form to fill in?”
“Do you want to join?” I asked. “I’ll make the form simple for you and give you a discount on the fee. I’ll even feed you strawberries and coffee.”
“I’ll take you up on the coffee,” said DI James, his presence crowding the shop. When he was around there was no room for anyone else. “But pass on the strawberries. You might have designs on me.”
“I’m purely interested in your brain. Brawn is obsolete. You are safe in my office but keep your mobile switched off in case I have a relapse.”
His drawn face did not move a muscle. I was talking nonsense. Not a glimmer appeared in his tired blue eyes. They were a color as dark as the deepest ocean. I could have drowned in their blueness.
“I understand we are overlapping on a case.”
“Yes, the ninety thousand pounds’ worth of water lilies case. Mr Lucan was not impressed by your officers. Aren’t they expensive? No wonder people grow nasturtiums.”
“One of my officers gave you information that he should not have.” DI James had his schoolmaster expression in place. I would have sat in his class anytime. The hem of his sleeve needed repairi
ng and I mentally reached for thread and needle.
“No, really?” I made my eyes round and innocent. “Totally by accident, I’m sure. Slip of the tongue. By the way, have you checked the tread marks in the mud? Mr Hopkins, the greengrocer, who had his van stolen on Friday, said his back right tyre was pretty worn.”
“Thank you, Jordan. I will bear that valuable information in mind. Now, where’s that first-class coffee?”
So, okay, he rated my coffee more than he rated me. I could live with that. It was a start.
He went through to my back office, straight to the corner sink in the scullery and began to wash up two bone-china mugs. A vision of cozy domesticity swam before my eyes. Him washing up; me drying up in my huggy-bear nightshirt. A surge of hormones tipped me over the scales of respectability.
“I can’t believe that this visit is based purely on water lilies,” I said, trying to sound sane and sensible when I was clearly neither.
“No, it isn’t,” he said, watching the faintest tremor as I poured fresh coffee. “You certainly know how to make good coffee. One of your few talents.”
I swallowed the opportunity to list my other talents. I would be so good, so very good in bed with him. But that was fantasy world land. Dream on, Terry Pratchett.
“We have at present a serious missing persons situation,” he began. “Tarrant Close, number twelve.”
“Lord Lucan?”
“Pack it in.”
“I love it when you talk pompous.”
“He’s a bank manager called Leslie Fairbrother, manager of the Sussex United Banking Corporation.”
“Hostage situation?” I could be very quick.
“I’m not at liberty to say,” he said, looking deeply into his mug of coffee as if it held a forecast of the future. Nor am I at liberty to kiss you, I thought, my wanton imagination wrapping warm arms around him. “But I thought you might keep an eye open for any sightings of him.” He handed me a photograph. Leslie Fairbrother was a forty-ish, overweight, moon-faced man wearing NHS gold-rimmed spectacles. A stereotype bank manager.
“So, what else can you tell me?”
“Not a lot, except that Mr Fairbrother left for work on Thursday morning and hasn’t been seen since. And we think he has the vault keys with him.”
“Naughty.”
“Or careless. Mr Fairbrother is a very respected member of his profession. We believe that he may have been taken ill or wandering about with amnesia.”
“And you’d like me to keep an eye open? Can I put that on my ID card? Visual aid to police investigations?”
“I don’t care what you put on your ID card. Your card is a joke anyway. You couldn’t investigate a crooked game of conkers.”
“Pure jealousy,” I said, not letting him know how much that hurt, I won’t put it about who solved the missing War Currency mystery.”
DI James looked astonished. A sort of amazement cornered his eyes. “You didn’t solve it. It solved itself.”
“I contributed,” I said staunchly. “You can’t argue with that.”
“I wouldn’t argue with you about anything,” he said, Finishing his coffee and putting down the mug. He was going. I couldn’t stand it. He was always leaving me. I went through that drained-out, gutted feeling a dozen times a week. I knew that as soon as he had gone, I would be dipping caloric-laden shortbread biscuits into pale cream sherry. If I had any.
“I’ll watch out for any gold-rimmed yobbos, stoned to the gills and sleeping it off in a beach shelter,” I called after him. “It’s a familiar sight. Perhaps he’s got a shopping trolley piled with sleeping bags and gold bullion.”
“I knew I could depend on you.”
He went out, not looking back. He never looked back. The past was nothing to him or perhaps he had too much past. Only the future was of interest and I was not part of it.
Funny how I had men queuing at the door and I didn’t want any of them. They varied in intensity, variously lusting after my cooking, my body, my ability to sew on buttons. One even had his eye on my ready cash. As if I had to pay for kisses. A fiver for a smacker, tenner for a grope. Yuck, pass me the mouthwash.
But this time, James paused in the doorway. His face was still a mask but he was trying to be human. Had he any idea how he looked, as a man?
“You walk on the beach, don’t you?”
“Frequently. I need the air, the solitude, company of the gulls.”
“Be careful. We’re getting reports of incendiary bombs being washed up. They’re dangerous. They can explode and cause nasty burns.”
It was almost the kindest thing he’d ever said to me. I stored it in my memory for dark days.
“I’ll make sure I don’t step on them.”
“Some of the fishermen have reported underwater explosions.”
“Interesting.”
I wondered whether to tell him about the Lancaster bomber which ditched into the sea during the Second World War. It was one of the legends of Latching. The pilot was a local hero. Somehow, he missed the seafront hotels, skimming rooftops, made it to the sea, caught the tide on its way out and crashed into the wet sand. They say the wreckage is somewhere out there on the seabed, washed beyond the pier end.
Older residents, those that have been around, say they can still hear the sound of the faltering engine phut-phutting in the sky.
I watched James step out of the shop, shift from sight, my temperature dropping by degrees. It was time to pull myself together and get on with the water-lily search. Mr Lucan wasn’t paying me for daydreams. Besides, I wanted that ladybird.
I phoned in an ad to the local Evening Argus, “STOCKING A POND? WATER LILIES FOR SALE.” It was a remote chance. And the ad was for free.
Three
“It was an awful sight. We could hardly believe our eyes. I immediately thought of you, Jordan. I said to everybody, I know exactly the person to help us. She’s a brilliant investigator.”
I bathed in a warm glow, pretty much like the sauna only with more clothes. It was Joey’s owner, Mrs Edith Drury, Joey being the wandering tortoise that DI James had so conveniently found on the A27 and fed at the station. I hadn’t meant to take all the credit but Mrs Drury had assumed the best.
“Come in,” I said, opening the door to my office behind the shop. Business was very slow, practically paralytic. I hadn’t sold anything for days, even though I had dressed and redressed the windows half a dozen times with class items of junk. Perhaps it was the weather. The chill of autumn numbing purse fingers. Christmas beckoning. “It’s not Joey again, surely? He of the rampant reptile hormones?”
“Joey’s fine. Slowing down for his winter hibernation, bless his leathery legs. But we’re not! We’re hopping mad. That’s why we want you to come right away. My car’s outside. I’ll tell you everything on the way.”
“Who’s we?”
“Latching Women’s Institute.”
I shut door and shop immediately. Put up GONE FOR LUNCH again and followed Mrs Drury out to her car. It was a large, ancient Ford, practically Vintage Run to Brighton era, dented in places. I hoped she knew how to drive. I checked her licence disc out of habit. It was up to date.
Mrs Drury threw the car into gear with enthusiasm. I searched for the safety belt and strapped myself in. She drove using one eye and one hand. She kept swiveling round to make sure I was listening, gesticulating with the free hand.
“The Latching WI, that’s the Women’s Institute. I’m the Federation Chairman. We’ve got a marquee at the West Sussex Agricultural Show and we’ve won first prize in the home catering for a wedding section. Absolutely brilliant. Our entry was first class and the wedding cake centerpiece a perfection of icing artistry…”
I let Mrs Drury ramble on, remembering how promptly she had paid me for the two days’ work when I had done nothing. I was not into wedding cakes or home catering. If DI James and I ever tied the happy knot – miracles could happen, you only had to find your angel – we’d celebrate with a pub l
unch for our mates. A cake with crossed truncheons on top? I wouldn’t care.
“Thank goodness they’d done the judging and we’d won,” Mrs Drury went on. “The cup was on display and we were as proud as punch. We took ten minutes off to look round the other displays and winners, especially the water tent, and when we got back we couldn’t believe our eyes. Everything was in chaos, smashed or gone! Flowers broken, plates smashed, napkins torn… it was a horrible sight.” Her voice was shaking with emotion.
I made sympathetic noises but I doubt if Mrs Drury heard.
“Vandals, thieves, desecrators. But worst of all, every crumb of our superb food has gone. Pate, profiteroles, quiches, even the wedding cake has been carted off. Three tiers, lattice work, filigree gold piping, sugar-paste roses, gold ribbon, the lot. They’d have needed a wheelbarrow.”
“Heavens, even the cake. Perhaps the thieves are getting married.” Why am I always flippant about weddings? It shows a deeply flawed character.
“It’s so disappointing especially when we could do with the publicity. Our numbers are falling. It’s a sign of the times. We expected lots of visitors to look at our entry and some of us have lost really nice plates. Mine was the last of a Crown Derby set. One of my mother’s plates. I’d made a watercress and feta cheese quiche with fennel garnish. Delicious. I must make you one.”
“Lovely,” I said, my mouth watering. Gourmet food did not play any part in my lifestyle. “What a mean crime, Mrs Drury. Despicable. After all that hard work. Was it a silver cup?”
Mrs Drury took her eyes off the road to nod vigorously. “Absolutely. First class cup. Very ornate. But they didn’t take the cup. You couldn’t sell it. Presented by our MP’s wife, Mrs What’s-her-name. You know the woman I mean.”
Wave and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 2) Page 2
