“I’m curious about your name. It’s most unusual,” I coughed. “Is Waz short for something?”
“Yes, it’s short for I was christened Cordelia Henrietta. Could you live with that mouthful? You look very tired. Have you done anything about increasing your vibrational energy?”
“Er… do I need to?”
“You could try color therapy.”
“Sounds fun. I like colors.”
“I’ll give you a personalized energy candle to cleanse yourself of bad intentions.”
“How kind. I’ll let you know if it works.”
I cycled straight down to the seafront, personalized candle tucked into the saddle bag. It would be useful if the power failed but now I needed to rid my lungs of the fumes from her glue pots. The sea was angry about something, lashing the shingle with beat-up waves. It roared like a beast ready to claw its way up from the depths with slimy, weed-encrusted talons. I could really frighten myself sometimes.
But the ozone in the wind was exhilarating and liberating. It worked like an inhaler, freeing my jumpy airways of impurities, coating them with the fine spray of some faraway sun-drenched Pacific island inhabited by birds and primates.
Ocean. Ocean-eyes. That man again. And I hadn’t thought of DI James for at least twenty minutes. Was I getting over him? Was that a record? Perhaps a small hiccup.
“Detective Inspector James,” I shouted to the wind, full of joy. “I’m getting over you.”
I twirled on the shifting shingle, eyes closed, clothes flapping. It was cold, lip-bitingly bitterly cold. Soon I would have to unpack my winter warmers.
“So, what are you yelling about, Jordan Lacey,” he said, shingle crunching as he slid down the steep bank to my side. He was all coordinated weight and muscle. “Who are you getting over?”
Eight
I could have stood and devoured his looks for two and a half centuries, but I didn’t have time. That ex-wife of his must have hurt him a lot. His eyes were clouded with mistrust.
“Hi there, DI James,” I said pleasantly. “Come to swop information?”
“You can’t possibly have anything I want,” he said, which could have been taken as an insult but I preferred not to think that way.
“How about the keys to the safe deposit boxes at Leslie Fairbrother’s bank? And the keys to the vaults.”
“Where are they?”
“In a ruin,” I said, giving him one of my Goldie Hawn smiles. “That’s a clue.”
He was clearly intrigued. “So this is a game show, eh? I have to guess which castle… Arundel, Bamber, Bodiam…?”
“Cold.”
“Ruin… ah, mother’s ruin… pub? Which pub? Any warmer? Do I get to ask the audience?”
“No. Frost settling.”
“I haven’t time for this,” he snapped, breaking the banter. “I work for a living.”
“So what are you doing on the beach? Taking statements from the gulls? Have they seen any fishy-looking boats lately, running duty-free tobacco across from France?”
“I came to tell you that you can have your bike back. We’ve finished with it.”
“And eliminated it from your inquiries?”
“No. We’ve got all the evidence we need to prove that you were in the vicinity of Fenwick Future Homes early that morning and that you were carrying a can of inflammable liquid.”
“Oh nonsense, I was in bed, trying to get to sleep, damned cold and and…” I nearly said “And thinking of you”. But I grabbed the words back at the last moment. “And wondering if last year’s hot-water bottle would leak.”
“You were seen on your bike. We’ve a witness.”
“Someone was seen, you mean. It wasn’t me. There’s no proof it was me. Anyone could wrap up in a BHS anorak and cycle round Latching on my bike. Has everyone gone deaf today? No one seems to hear what I’m saying.”
“They identified your hair.”
“Heavens, am I the only person with reddish hair in Latching? Now there’s a front page story: Red hair extinct in Latching. Scientists blame sea pollution. Coastal water to be analysed.”
He was wearing a tie patterned with lines of red London buses. It was flapping outside his jacket. One bus, in the middle, was going in the opposite direction. I’d never seen him wearing a joke tie before. My glance nearly went to his feet. Perhaps he was wearing Mickey Mouse socks too.
“Can you say if the body in the fire has been identified?” I asked offhand, “I know someone was found in the safe. I half saw it… him.” I shuddered. “I mean, I think I saw something in the safe.”
His face hardened instantly. “What the hell were you doing in the showroom? Checking your handiwork?”
“Checking my what?” I choked on the words. “For heavens’ sake, get real, DI James. Since when have I become a firebug? Why should I want to set fire to Fenwick Future Homes? Remember motives? You’ve got to find one of those.”
“I have no idea how your mind works, Jordan,” he said, kicking pebbles and staring out to sea. “It’s a complete mystery to me. Logic is not one of its components.”
“You’ve no evidence, not a shred,” I said. “It’s all circumstantial. The bike, the can of petrol…”
“I didn’t say it was petrol. I said inflammable liquid.”
“Inflammable liquid is petrol. Why use two words when one will do.”
I was incensed. This was totally unfair. My bike had been stolen from where I left it chained to railings. Someone had been riding it around Latching without my permission. And that same someone had dumped a can of petrol with it. I tried to calm down.
“I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for all this,” I said, trying to sound innocent and reasonable. It’s not easy to try and sound innocent even when you are. “I suggest you pursue some other more reliable lines of inquiry. This one has obviously been cooked up.”
Not exactly the right word to apply to a charred body on the scene but it was too late to retract it.
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for the time being,” said DI James. “Only because if you’d set fire to FFH, you would have bungled it. This was an efficient job. They knew what they were doing. Even down to the candle burning in a waste bin. Oldest trick in the book.”
I swallowed the insult. What was one more? Better being insulted than being suspected.
“But if I find any more evidence…” He glowered at me. I love it when he glowers. His dark brows come together making a line across his face. Very visors down. Very King Arthur. Camelot, the Latching version.
“You won’t,” I said confidently. “Because there isn’t any. Have you an idea who it was? The body?”
“You haven’t explained yet what you were doing there, at the scene of the fire. Only police are authorized to attend when the fire is out.”
“Authorized to attend! Policespeak again. The sub officer thought I was still with the force. He invited me in. A perfectly understandable mistake.”
“And you didn’t think fit to tell them otherwise?”
“I didn’t see any harm in having a look round. You know how nosy I am.”
I was getting cold and an easterly wind was getting up, blowing all the way from the North Sea. Any moment now, I might have to hang on to DI James for support. My hair had come loose and was whipping across my face. It was time to go, much as I was almost enjoying his company.
DI James thought the same. He began climbing back up the bank of shingle. It was unstable and slippery. I couldn’t even get a proper grip. My feet were sliding all over the place and putting them sideways to gain more purchase wasn’t working. Pebbles shifted and scattered beneath our weight.
I felt an iron grip clamp round my elbow. DI James was heaving me up the bank as if I was a sandbag for sea defences.
“Hold on,” I gasped.
“You hold on,” he said grimly. “Or I’ll leave you down here to spend the night dodging the tide.”
I was hauled up the steep slope
. I should have been grateful but I wasn’t. It was more the manner of his assistance that I objected to. Not the grip, the closeness, the feel of his brute strength. Add blazing sunshine, the roar of the crowds, give him tattered rags on bulging muscles and, at a distance of a hundred yards, this detective inspector might have been mistaken for a gladiator. On second thoughts, the closest resemblance was the stubble.
“They sell… disposable razors,” I said, getting my breath back at the top. “You could keep a supply in your desk.”
“They still sell hairnets. You could keep one in your pocket,” he said, removing a long strand of hair from his mouth. One of mine.
“Men have been known to choke to death on my hair,” I glared.
“And I believe you,” he said, striding away across the promenade. He ignored two illegal motorized scooters who swerved to avoid him. They looked startled.
I had a feeling he was grinning. Had I produced another joke? My score was rising. It was enough for my pulse to leapfrog into near happiness.
*
Mrs Drury was waiting for me when I went to open up my shop. Her car was parked diagonally with one wheel on the pavement. Heaven help her if a warden came along.
“I’ve come to pay you,” she said, following me inside. “I like to keep everything straight.”
“Come on through, Mrs Drury. We ought to have a talk,” I said, going for the coffee pot. I needed caffeine fast. “Sit down and make yourself at home.”
She sat on my Victorian button-back chair and admired the Persian rug on the floor. My two prize possessions. My reminders of The Beeches, the sad house where the poor nun had once lived. Mrs Drury’s house was probably the opposite end of sad. Full of nostalgia and animals and people. A busy house generated by a busy person.
“Now, tell me how much I owe you,” she said, getting out her chequebook. “We’ve had lots of publicity in the papers, you know. Quite a lot of interest in the WI. A life-saving injection you might say. Three new ladies want to join already.”
I made the coffee and took it over to Mrs Drury. She admired the bone-china mug and sipped with pleasure.
“You make very good coffee.”
“One of my few talents.”
“I always say there’s no excuse for poor coffee. Unless you are poor, of course.” She laughed at her own joke.
“Mrs Drury,” I began, “I have to be completely honest with you. I can’t solve your case. I don’t know where to go with it. The trail’s gone cold.”
“And the food’s gone cold.” She laughed again.
“There weren’t any clues. Nothing I could really follow up. No one has handed in a wandering wedding cake at the police station.” This was how I had found Joey, her tortoise. Nothing at all to do with me. A patrol car officer with good eyesight had spotted Joey on the A27.
“But you’ve made a lot of inquiries, haven’t you? All those photographers. And the WI’s unsuccessful and unsuitable applicants. Takes time, your time, and I’ll pay for that.”
“I did go and see Waz Fairbrother. I don’t think she had anything to do with the vandalism although she was at the Agricultural Show, buying hay and straw for some model.”
“I told you she was weird.”
“She didn’t really want to join the WI. Her husband was making her apply.”
“Weirder still. We were quite right to turn her down. She wouldn’t have fitted in.”
“So I can’t really charge you for anything.”
“Nonsense. But it’s just like you to be so honest, so we’ll come to a compromise and I’ll pay you for three full days. That seems fair. One hundred and fifty pounds. There.” She signed her name with a flourish. How could I turn down such a generous gesture? It would improve my zero-based budgeting.
I gave her a receipt. I had proper receipts now. Typed then photocopied on bond-quality paper with the logo of FCI in the top corner.
“On my way in I saw the dearest little teapot in your window. It’s shaped like a cat, the tail curled up like a handle. How much is it?”
“Six pounds,” I said without thinking.
“I’ll have it. I collect teapots. You can never have too many.”
As I wrapped the pot, careful with the lid. I was in half a mind to give it to Mrs Drury as a present but something held me back. It wasn’t meanness. It was the smallest twinge of suspicion at the back of my mind.
We smiled at each other and parted friends. She invited me to pop in any time and I said I would. I watched her drive away, narrowly missing a sleek woman who was crossing the road and talking into a mobile. The woman was Mrs Hilary Fenwick, the wife who preferred to meet people in car parks. I wondered why Mrs Drury didn’t wave. Perhaps her eyesight was as erratic as her driving.
Mrs Fenwick didn’t acknowledge Mrs Drury either. She was walking fast along the pavement, her sharp-shouldered cream raincoat flapping open. She seemed in a big hurry. She was obviously not coming to see me.
The sale of the cat teapot had left an empty space and I trawled through my box of goodies to Find a replacement. There was an old manicure set, implements rusty with age but the satin lining of the case was still a glowing pink. No one used these things nowadays. A couple of emery boards was our lot. Whoever had time to buff their nails with a chamois-leather polisher?
I placed the manicure set in the window with an old bottle of Evening in Paris scent and some bright orange Tangee lipsticks, circa WWII. This was the nostalgia touch. That woman on the Lancaster bomber… she might have used one of these lipsticks. But a lipstick would have been precious in wartime and she would have taken it with her, not left it behind in Latching.
I wrote up my notes on the WI case and filed it under CLOSED. Very efficient.
My coffee was cold by now, but I finished it just the same, leafing through the Terence Lucan file. Another dead end. As dead as his water lilies would be by now. I would follow up his part-time staff, first thing in the morning. They would be early workers, salt of the earth, etc.
Someone pushed the free newspaper through the letterbox. I once put an ad in it which brought me my first client, Mrs Ursula Carling. Cases seemed to come by word of mouth now. Funny that, when I thought I was an invisible asset.
The newspaper was full of local stories, quite a big piece on the WI display being trashed with a photo of Mrs Drury beaming. They were always days behind with their stories as they depended on local people sending in the stuff.
They also depended on pages of small ads for their income. Further on in the newspaper was their own advertisement, giving prices for full-page, half-page and quarter-page ads. They were quite expensive.
The nasty suspicion grew in my mind, not exactly festering because I liked Mrs Drury. She’d paid me £150 but the publicity they had got for the Wl was worth far more than that. Add up the cost of several half-page ads… even the free newspaper had given them a half-page story. And it had been in both Brighton papers and a Sussex coast evening. I even saw it mentioned in a national Sunday, tabloid of course.
I would never know. Unless a slice of matured wedding cake was offered me with tea poured from a cat teapot.
The phone rang. It was Joshua, the amiable sponger, the ambling bearded giant who occasionally did some work and invented something bizarre. His inventions were brilliant but he never made any money from them.
“Hello, cook of my dreams,” he said. “What’s on the menu for supper tonight?”
“Air,” I said. “You can have it baked, boiled or grilled.”
“Aren’t you eating? You know, it isn’t good for you, all this dieting. Haven’t you read Barbara Jones’ Diary?”
“Bridget,” I corrected. “Yes, I have, but seriously, I haven’t had time to go shopping. Work. Busy. Overtime. You say it, I’m doing it.”
“Safeways stays open late.”
“How wonderful,” I said. “Why don’t you pop in and get some food, then I’ll cook it. See you in half an hour?”
I had a leisure
ly bath in lavender oil and put on a clean track suit, periwinkle blue with a logo of Bowers across the front. I knew Joshua would ring again. I had plenty of time. The phone rang as I was watching a news programme.
“Sorry, can’t get the car to start,” he mumbled. “I’ll come another time when you are more prepared, got something nicely simmering in the oven.”
Like his head, I nearly said. I knew he wouldn’t go shopping. Spend his own money on food? Not his style. The notes were glued to his wallet. I smiled to myself. Poor, lonely Joshua.
“What a pity,” I said. “I’ll just have to curl up in front of the telly with a smoked salmon sandwich, green salad and a bottle of Shiraz.”
I heard the double take. Would his clapped-out car miraculously start by remote control?
He swallowed hastily. I’d cornered him and he couldn’t get out of it. “Glad you aren’t going to starve, Jordan. Think of me with my tin of tomato soup.”
“I’m thinking,” I said, putting down the phone.
I had bought a copy of a daily newspaper, just checking on weddings, but had not had time to look at it. I folded it back to the front page and the headlines hit me with a hammer blow. My sandwich stopped mid-air.
CHARRED BODY OF COUNCILOR FOUND
ADRIAN FENWICK DIES
SHOCK DISCOVERY
Latching firemen’s gruesome discovery has today been solved.
The body found in the fire at Fenwick Future Homes has been identified as that of Councilor Adrian Fenwick, owner of the showroom.
Dental records prove beyond doubt that it was Cllr Fenwick who lost his life in the fire.
Fire Investigation Teams are still working with the police on the theory of arson. “We have lost a very fine member of the Council,” said the Mayor, Cllr Tom Bedford. “Our sympathy goes to Hilary, his wife, and their son.”
Mrs Fenwick, amember of Latching Women’s Institute, was unavailable for comment.
Miss Leroy Anderson, personal assistant to Cllr Fenwick, said that her employer often worked late at the office. She did not know how the fire started.
The cremation is to be private but details of the Memorial Service will be announced later.
Wave and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 2) Page 8
