I did indeed. I had been on WPC duty the night of the last General Election, guarding the count, in case some intrepid terrorist from East Sussex took off with a box of ballot papers. The wife had been much in evidence, making tea, exchanging small talk, already acting the part. It was a fairly safe seat.
Stolen pate, profiteroles, cheese straws… Still, my casebook was nearing empty and I needed the work. The water lilies would be half dead by now. I couldn’t turn down a gift horse, or a gift crumb.
“I told them not to touch anything,” said Mrs Drury triumphantly. “Clues etc. Here we are.” She parked like a Formula One driver doing a pit stop. “You can’t miss our marquee. Decorated with yards of gold ribbon. Got a cheap batch at Shoreham Green Market. Absolute bargain.”
The Latching WI prize-winning display was a mess. Bits of crushed food and pastry trodden everywhere. The table looked as if it had been trampled on by a herd of elephants on a boozy day out. I doubted if I would find anything of use in this shambles. I wandered about making notes, nodding and tut-tutting. The shocked ladies of the WI gathered round, full of suggestions, mostly gleaned from TV whodunnits.
“Find the motive and you’ll find the man.”
“I’m sure it’s a woman. It’s a typical, female revenge thing.”
“They must have been hungry,” said Mrs Drury who was now getting over the shock and indignation and beginning to enjoy the drama. “Do you think it could be a rival WI? The competition is quite intense. I wouldn’t put it past them. One or two of the other branches are quite envious of our cooking.”
“But you had already won the cup. What would be the point?”
“Anger, disappointment? Or perhaps the wedding cake! It’s valuable. People pay hundreds of pounds for a wedding cake these days. Funds are always low in WIs. They could sell it.”
“I’d like to speak to the member who made it. She may have taken a photo. Then we could circulate local wedding photographers. Get a match on the cake.” It was very unlikely but I had to give it a shot.
“There, I knew you’d be wonderful. I’ll phone her straightaway. It’s Mrs Hilary Fenwick. She’s the wife of Councilor Fenwick.”
I knew the councilor vaguely. He’d reached Latching Council via the Rotary Club route. He owned a string of estate agent shops along the coast and had been a moving figure in the formation of the local Crimestoppers. Pity they hadn’t been able to stop the theft of his wife’s culinary masterpiece.
“Hilary’s out shopping,” Mrs Drury beamed back minutes later. “But I did catch her on her mobile. She says she’ll meet you in the multi-storey car park on the front at four p.m. Blue BMW, third floor.”
A clandestine meeting. How weird. Maybe it was not good PR for a councilor’s wife to be seen talking to a PI. Keen on keeping the public image pure for the voters.
“I’ll get in touch with you,” I said, closing my notebook of meaningless notes. I collected a few fag ends in a plastic specimen bag to show I was taking the case seriously.
“Same daily fee?” Mrs Drury asked.
I nodded. “Worth every penny.”
*
The multi-storey car park had been built on the site of High-down House, an elegantly pillared Georgian house which was demolished in the late seventies when the council thought the power of the car more important than conserving an architectural gem that no one could afford to live in. I’d have turned it into flats or a residential home where the elderly could have snoozed out their last days in a garden within sight and sound of the murmuring sea.
So I had a built-in dislike of the concrete mausoleum. Even less when I had traipsed up several flights of dingy spiral stairs, walls defaced with repetitive graffiti. Blue BMW. Third floor. Did she have a reserved place?
Mrs Fenwick appeared out of the shadows. She had obviously been watching and waiting for me. A good sign. She would be polite, helpful and considerate. The kind of woman who made pretty wedding cakes.
“I haven’t got a photograph,” she said straightaway. “And I couldn’t care less whether they get the cake back or not. I never want to see the damned thing again.”
Ah. She was about thirty-two, younger than I expected. Mark II model maybe. She was pencil slim, short hair polished bronze, the kind of off-white trouser suit you could only wear once between dry cleaning. Her long manicured nails said she did little in the kitchen beyond status cake-making.
“Why not?”
“Oh no, you’re not getting anything out of me. I know how you lot work.”
“Then why agree to see me in the first place? This is a waste of time for both of us.”
I almost turned to go, but I was curious. There was something more to this.
Mrs Fenwick opened her cream leather handbag and took out a lace handkerchief. “I had to meet you somewhere. You see, I want to employ you,” she said, dabbing her eyes and nose, but careful not to disturb her make-up. “It’s all very embarrassing. I want you to follow my husband, Councilor Adrian Fenwick. Discreetly, of course. I want to know what he’s up to. Damn and blast him.”
A whole load of wants. And another errant husband. It must be the sea air. “You suspect he’s seeing another woman?”
“I don’t suspect,” she snapped. “I know there’s another woman. I want positive proof so I can divorce him quick and get my fair share of the business. He’s pretty well off and I helped to build up his niche in the property market.”
“Right,” I said, equally business-like. “Please give me some details. Any favorite haunts, as far as you know. I’ll need a photograph of your husband and you’ll have to sign a client contract. The forms are in my office. You can either drop round or I’ll post one to you.”
“No need for a contract. Time’s far more important. Better still, give me your bank account number and I’ll arrange for a standing order. Would a weekly standing order suit you? How much?”
Standing order? The words were music, Elgar, Dankworth, Kenton. No one had ever paid me by standing order before. Before the shock could wear off, I gave her the number of my bank account. I was so stunned I forgot to insist on a client contract.
“My rates are fifty pounds a day. So weekly that would be three hundred and fifty pounds, if you want me to work Sundays as well.” The ladybirds spots grew brighter and blacker, more in focus. I could almost feel my hands on the wheel. “But this investigation should only take a week,” I heard myself add. Where do I get this fool honesty from?
“I don’t care how long it takes,” she said, shutting her bag. “I want everything, photos, receipts, times, places. He’s very devious. He covers his tracks well.”
“Maybe two weeks then,” I agreed, swallowing. I wasn’t going to argue with her. I put “Buy decent camera” on my shopping list. Up to now, I’d been using one of these instant throwaway things. They weren’t made for poor lighting. “Do you know who the woman is?”
“That’s the first thing you’re being paid to find out,” said Mrs Fenwick turning on her spiky heels.
*
Suddenly, I had three cases. Water lilies, WI tent massacre, errant estate agent. Life was outrageous fun. I was doing what I enjoyed doing. I only needed DI James to complete the elation. Where was he? Pounding the streets on some dull break-in, chasing ram-raiders in the High Street? I was missing him. I was getting burn-out, withdrawal symptoms, hang-ups.
I called in at Latching police station late that evening. No messing about. If the mountain wouldn’t come. Same depressing concrete walls and dingy desk. “Where’s DI James?” I asked.
“Upstairs.”
“Tell him Jordan Lacey’s here. First Class Investigations. FCI. Tell him we’re both on the same case.”
The desk sergeant, the same new one who had forgotten me already, looked bewildered but impressed. “Okay. Please wait, Miss Lacey.”
DI James appeared, irritated, face in tramlines. He looked caffeine-junk-food deprived. When had he last eaten? Those brilliant ocean-blue eyes had murky
depths like he was diving and lost off the end of the pier. He rubbed at his lashes. “I hope this is not some stupid red herring.”
“Do I bring red herrings? Fish I like to eat so when are you going to take me out to a fish supper? But I suggest you go along to the West Sussex Horticultural Show and look at the water tent.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s full of water lilies. Floating in tanks.”
“Just when I wanted to put my head down and sleep.”
“Later. Your pillow can wait.”
I loved him when he was flaked out. My pillow was cold. It needed warming up. It drove me mad, imagining that dark cropped head, turned away, resting on my pillow, bare brown neck and broad shoulders, glistening with sweat. If ever.
“Have you checked the ownership of the water lilies at the show? Mr Lucan is not the only grower in Sussex.”
“No, but he is accepted as an international expert. His water lilies are exported all over the world. Nymphaea. Oil-rich sheikhs buy them for their palace gardens.”
“How do you know?”
I didn’t. I’d made it up but it sounded good. “Everybody knows. That is, everyone who reads gardening profiles.”
“And you do, I suppose. Another of your interests? Gardening, along with the crochet and lace-making.”
He knew I didn’t know one end of a trowel from another and the extent of my gardening was overwatering house plants. Still, I had his interest now.
“Mr Lucan and I are going along to identify the water lilies. He would recognize his own plants, I think, being said expert. They took ten different varieties. Mr Lucan told me that as long as the plants were put back in water quickly they should survive.”
“And you’ll let me know if they are his,” DI James said heavily.
“Of course,” I said, all smiles. “My middle name is Cooperation.”
“No doubt at a price. Computer access?”
“What? Me? Never.”
I sailed out of the police station, chalking one up. Although it was getting late, Mr Lucan was waiting outside in a rusty gray Land Rover held together with string and blu-tak. He looked anxious as if his water lilies might die in the water tent, deprived of his TLC.
“Well, what did they say?”
“DI James said to go ahead,” I said. “And report back. I’ve sorted it out. They have every confidence in me.”
*
The show was still open. A few stragglers toured the displays. The WI marquee had been cordoned off by show officials.
They were Mr Lucan’s water lilies. Not many, about a dozen plants in exotic bloom, their flowers like cups of waxen pink, but enough to bring a stiff paternal smile to Mr Lucan’s face.
“Yes, they’re mine. This is American Star, star-shaped, semidouble deep pink. And this canary-yellow, semi-double cup shape is Chromatella. Note the maroon and bronze leaves.”
The exhibitors of the water-lily display were confused and bewildered. They did not realize they had acquired stolen plants. The water tent had been a last-minute idea.
“We were talking about it in a pub and this man came up and said he could get us a few plants. They seemed a reasonable price so we bought them. We already had the tanks as we did fish last year.”
“Fish?”
“Goldfish. Aquariums. It was very popular.”
“Well, I’m sure it was all very innocent but these plants legally belong to Mr Lucan. They were stolen from him in an overnight raid. Supposing you quickly put up a sign saying the water lilies were kindly supplied by his nursery and then Mr Lucan will be happy just to take them home when the show is over.”
Mr Lucan, who was now on his knees examining his plants, nodded vaguely in agreement. I wanted to remind him about the Morris Minor car but he seemed in another world. Although I had not solved his case, he must be impressed by the speed of my detection.
“What pub?” I asked. “This man that you met in a pub.”
“The Bear and Bait.”
My heart jumped. The Bear and Bait was my favorite pub in Latching, not for the beer or its smoke-laden atmosphere. It was for the jazz. Occasionally, my musician played there, just for free. Because he wanted to. Because he was mad, sweet, a brilliant trumpeter, married.
It was quite dark now, tents glistening with a sudden shower. I didn’t fancy the long walk home. The streets weren’t safe at night.
“Could you give me a lift home?” I asked Terence Lucan. “I’ve no time to waste. The rest of your valuable plants could be wilting in some warehouse.”
“I can’t bear to think about them,” he moaned.
“Never mind,” I said brightly. “We’ve made a good start.”
“You just don’t understand,” he said, the engine of his old Land Rover waking up with a reluctant cough and splutter. “Those water lilies are special. They are my life. I can’t live without them.”
I hoisted myself up into the front of the Land Rover. It was pretty high up and, in his distress, Terence Lucan forgot to pull the doorstep down. It was an ungainly arrival, like getting on a horse without a block. No one saw me. A sprawling female detective, all legs and arms, is not a pretty sight.
“You’ll live,” I said. “Believe me, you’ll live.”
Four
The Bear and Bait is my kind of pub and I’m not known as a pub person. Faded gilt lettering on the overhead timber beams advertise beers long gone from breweries and Mrs Docherty’s most excellent meat pies have passed their sell-by date. The bar is horseshoe-shaped, all gleaming brass and polished wood. Brown framed photos on the walls are sepia reminders of old Latching.
There were misty pictures of fishing boats drawn up on the shore, the old pier, the original Bear and Bait, with horse-drawn beer delivery vans, its customers standing outside in self-conscious groups wearing cloth caps or Sunday bowlers.
I don’t go there for the draught beer or the clientele. I go for the jazz, always hoping that one evening my trumpeter will turn up, blowing his heart out on his own, playing “Melancholy Baby” just for me.
Tonight it was an Irish band, a toe-tapping, foot-stomping group with a scratchy violin, a thumping guitar and mad-wristed drummer.
I coasted up to the bar and ordered a glass of red Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile or an Australian Shiraz from a dried-up creek. My veins clamored for the flavonoids, the essential heart-saving stuff.
“Turning cold, Jordan,” said the bulky owner, Eddie Norris.
“Too soon,” I said. “No seasonal run-in. It hasn’t given my chilblains time to adjust. And I hate winter clothes. They always smell damp.”
“There’s still time for an Indian summer.” He poured me a generous glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. He wouldn’t make much profit out of me.
“Tell that to the weathermen.”
It was difficult to talk over the lively Irish music. There was a touch of Riverdance in the air. I saw a few stiff arms and heel knockings around the bar. Wishful thinking. Not a Michael Flatley in sight.
“Anyone been in here trying to sell water lilies?” I asked casually. I couldn’t think of a more subtle approach.
“Got a pond, have you?”
“No, but a friend of mine has.” The friend being the bereft Mr Lucan. I love the way I use the truth.
“Funny you asking about water lilies. That’s the third time I’ve heard them mentioned this week. You can go for years without hearing a word about something, then suddenly it’s all the news.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some fella was in here trying to buy tanks. Them lilies live in tanks, don’t they? He was desperate. He’d even look at a disused swimming pool, he said. We all thought he was off his rocker.”
I snatched at the word. “How desperate?”
“He was offering real money.”
“Do you know who he was?”
“Could be one of them stallholders from Shoreham Green Market, I think. Couldn’t be too sure. Selling mops one week, window clean
ers the next, water tanks the next.”
“Or water lilies?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“And when were the other two occasions?” I asked, sipping, the nectar, letting it slip into my veins and fire them.
“Don’t remember, Jordan, sorry. But water lilies were certainly mentioned.”
“Well, if you do remember, will you give me a ring?”
I wrote my phone number down on the back of a cardboard coaster for Stella Artois beer. Shopping list: professional business cards. A beer coaster gives the wrong impression.
“Sure.”
Eddie Norris tucked the coaster into his shirt pocket and turned away. As he did, I knew I was not alone.
“You’re that lady detective, aren’t you?” said a man, sliding up to my side out of the smoke-laden atmosphere, his beer slopping over in a shaking hand. My asthma was already at red alert. I nearly told him to put the beer down. “I’m in danger. I need help. Are you expensive? I don’t have a lot of money.”
He was weedy, gaunt, worry carving his face into grooves. His eyes flickered with fear. His clothes smelled of fear. I cringed without being seen to cringe. He made my flesh creep. Yet there was something genuine about his reed-thin voice that told me that he was really afraid.
“Let’s sit down before you spill that beer,” I said, sounding like a mother hen. “There’s a free table in the far corner.”
I squeezed my way passed the foot-tapping, Irish-happy drinkers and took the furthest chair. The man hesitated by the table.
“Do you mind changing places?” he asked. “I don’t want to sit with my back to the room.” He glanced behind him. “You never know.”
“Okay. Swap over.” Stab in the back syndrome here. His eyes darted round the crowded pub like a petrified ferret. “Tell me what’s the matter and I’ll tell you if I can help.”
He sipped his beer nervously, foam rimming his upper lip. He looked as if he was wondering how to put it into words.
“If you don’t tell me what’s bothering you, how can I help?” I prompted. He was spoiling a lovely glass of Chilean. Any minute now, I would discover I had an urgent appointment at the other end of Ferring.
Wave and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 2) Page 3
