Wave and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 2)

by Stella Whitelaw

  It was not safe. I was nearly blown over. I could end up fish food. They were about to close the pier.

  It was still windy but not so ferocious when I later decided to walk back to Latching after a pit stop at the Sea Lane cafe. They make brilliant hot chocolate, frothy with half a Cadbury’s flake plunged into the froth. The taste was nectar in my mouth. I went down the shingle and cut across the sand and rocks to as far out as possible.

  The beach was in a strange state. The tide had left a lot of water behind, whipped into long lagoons which flurried molten gold from the sun’s rays. Streamers of water ribboned across the sand as the wind blasted the water’s edge. It was all fluid motion, moving, shifting, uncertain, veering in one direction then skidding off in another.

  My boots slipped and splashed through pools of sinking sun reflection; it was a struggle.

  Even the seagulls had deserted the beach. The tiny sticklegged pied wagtails didn’t stand a chance. The thick churning sea was too inhospitable even for the birds. I spotted an injured bird trapped in the sand, wings fluttering madly, but it was only a strand of seaweed in distress.

  No one else was on the beach. The light was fading and the street lamps came on, then twinkling strings of colored lights, an early Christmas. For a while, I owned the entire stretch of sand and rocks and streaming pools and deepening channels. The sea was so far out that its roar was swallowed by the sound of the wind.

  I was getting very cold. I turned to face the wind for respite but could barely catch my breath. I’d get pneumonia at this rate, hypothermia at least. But no way would the weather defeat me. I made myself walk the rest of the beach.

  The front of me was euphoric over the vastness and emptiness and rippling saffron pools that skidded across the surface of the sand while my back was being buffeted into chilly misery.

  I tried pretending that my back didn’t belong to me, that it was a slice of ice that I was carrying around. But my body wasn’t fooled. It was my own fault. I wasn’t dressed for this walk.

  I quickened my feet, ate up the space, knees beginning to stiffen, turned at last into a side street where a tunnel of wind practically blew me over. Then I was round a corner and facing the pedestrian precinct. It was sheltered, still windy but nothing like the open beach. In a few minutes, I was home, inside walls, leaning against the door, absorbing the warmth. My frozen fingers unfastened zips, buttons, shed clothes, boots. I ran a bath, tepid at first, then warmer, added vanilla body oil, stepped in and sank into the healing water.

  My muscles came back to life. Hypothermia receded.

  It was on to trawling wedding cakes again since I was now being paid by the anxious Mrs Fenwick. I toured the photographers, pouring over pictures of endless weekend brides and veils and cute bridesmaids, looking for a stately creation that resembled Mrs Fenwick’s masterpiece.

  “You’re not having much luck with this cake, are you, Miss Lacey?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not even sure it has been stolen now,” I said. I had to go and call on Mrs Drury. Perhaps I ought to warn her in a roundabout way that Mrs Fenwick was determined to get her cake back.

  As I expected, Mrs Drury lived in a large old house, back of town, a rambling Portland stone villa with creeper and wisteria and Victorian stained-glass in the front door panel and stairway window. I knew the inside would be a step back in time. She would not have changed a thing.

  But she was not in. I rapped the large lion’s-head brass knocker, pulled the bell rope, hung on in hope. The garden was a tangle of weeds and overgrown bushes, rhododendrons, azaleas and fading hydrangeas, their heavy heads weighted with raindrops. Any moment, I would trip over Joey. Cracking and splintered stones wove a path through the back garden suburban jungle to a summer house in a glade of trees.

  I stood in front of it, saddened by the neglect. It was a beautiful small building, like a Grecian temple, tiny but every detail made by a craftsman’s hand. I wondered who had built it. Some distant past owner. The building was an edifice to love and taste. Perhaps lovers had met there, hiding from the world.

  It was starting to rain. This was not exactly breaking in. I was only taking shelter.

  Inside were moldering deckchairs, a cobwebbed croquet set, stringless tennis rackets, a few cardboard boxes secured with parcel tape, flowerpots and mud-caked garden tools. The rain splattered on the roof, ran down the walls, curtaining me from the outside world. A sudden onslaught of feelings swamped me. I wished I had never met him, that man. DI James, who barely looked at me. I had never felt this overwhelming desolation before. The temple walls closed round me as if it understood; as if it had been there before. Someone else had stood there, living those same feelings.

  I froze to the wooden floor. I was not alone. Something was there behind me, enveloping me with arms, yet not touching me. Don’t ask me what it was but I was not alone.

  The feeling vanished and it was only the pattering of rain that I heard. I found a mint in my pocket and put it in my mouth, fluff and all. The taste revived my senses. What was the matter with me? The traumas of the last few days were taking their toll.

  Perhaps Mrs Drury would be home by now. I went back to the house, through the rain, hoping she would not ask me where I had been, but still no one was in. I looked through the windows, desperate not to see a body on the floor. But all I saw was big old-fashioned furniture, heavy and ornamental, and loads of books and ornaments. No wedding cake.

  My morals were improving. I hadn’t broken in. No using my set of pins to open the door. No breaking of a back window. There was hope for me yet. I turned towards the road.

  “Are you coming to see me?” Mrs Drury came to an erratic halt by the kerb and wound down a window. “Hop in, girl. It’s chucking it down.”

  I got in, fastened the seat belt even if it was only a few yards. I wondered if she could manage her garage in one go. She parked diagonally. Still, it was her drive. She could park upside-down if she wanted to.

  “Come in. Do you mind carrying a few bags? Done my monthly shopping. Hate the supermarkets. So impersonal these days. And the queues. Okay, the girls wear name badges and say hello, but they are trained to talk like dogs.”

  I obediently ladened myself with carrier bags, brim-filled. I was not quite sure what I was doing. Did I really want to talk to Mrs Drury about the cake?

  “I hear Mrs Fenwick wants you to find her wedding cake,” said Mrs Drury, making it easy for me. “You do that, Jordan. Make yourself a bit more money. After all, I cut short the WI investigation. Not fair really, but I could see that there was nothing to go on.”

  “That’s very nice of you to understand,” I said, struggling inside with her bags. What did she eat? Had she bought an ox? They weighed a ton.

  “I’ve got something to show you,” she said, huffing and puffing. “It’s going to rain all month, you know, so I’ve bought in some extra stuff, just in case. We got flooded here once before in 1957. They rowed boats in the road outside.”

  “It’s raining now,” I said.

  “I mean real rain,” she said. “Inches in hours. Not this drizzly stuff.”

  I helped her unload her shopping in her kitchen. She had bought enough for a siege. I knew where to come if I ran out of food. I put on the kettle, guessing she’d need a reviving cup of tea after fighting the shops.

  “Now, Jordan, I want you to look at this,” she said, carrying through a tray load of tea and stollen cake. “I know it isn’t Christmas yet, but I like stollen cake, don’t you? Sit down. I’ll pour.”

  She sounded like my mother so I let her pour. She swept me along on a tide of human kindness.

  “What do you want me to look at?” I said, taking the tea and sugar-dusted cake, layers of marzipan and thick with sultanas.

  “I found this the other day. It’s about the Lancaster bomber that is being dragged up from the sea beyond the pier. Shocking, I think. The dead should be left in peace. But just before it crashed that day, there was an appalling theft at Patc
ham House. It was in all the papers. Masses of stuff taken, classy art pieces, some priceless.”

  “Patcham House?”

  “Yes, you know, our stately home, not far from Latching. Haven’t you been there?”

  I shook my head and Mrs Drury tut-tutted at my lack of heritage culture. I had heard of the house, of course, but never had time to visit a stately home.

  “So what’s the connection?” The stollen cake was delicious, heavy and fat-laden but sweet and satisfying.

  “It’s a newspaper cutting. I can’t think why I kept it. It was in a book, being used as a bookmark. It’s about some woman who disappeared at the same time as the break-in. She was a kind of curator, or someone doing a list of the valuables in the house.”

  “You mean cataloguing?”

  “Yes, that’s it, valuing the paintings and silver stuff. Well, apparently, she disappeared. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

  “Yes,” I said weakly. “But what’s it to do with me?”

  “Well, you’re investigating the death of Councilor Fenwick, aren’t you? And he had vetoed the raising of the wreck, hadn’t he? It follows all that, doesn’t it? He knew the woman’s body would be found on board the aircraft and that’s why he was trying to stop it being raised.”

  “How do you know a woman’s body was found in the wreck?”

  “That sweet Peach woman told me. The police diver. I met her at an organ concert, you know, the Wurlitzer. I’d buy an organ if I had room. We are both organ freaks. Elgar in particular. The music sends us.”

  Also loosened tongues, it seemed. “It’s a bit far-fetched,” I said.

  “I know. That’s what’s so fascinating.”

  “And what do you think is the connection between the dead woman and Councilor Fenwick?” I asked. “He would have been a toddler during the war. It would hardly be of any interest to a baby.”

  “Well, it might be of interest to someone else. That’s what you’ve got to find out, isn’t it?” said Mrs Drury, beaming, helping herself to another slice of the solid stollen cake. “That’s your job.”

  Not exactly, I thought. I am not being paid to find out anything about Councilor Fenwick’s death, nor discover the identity of the mysterious woman found in the bomber wreck. Over to DI James. It was his job.

  “By the way,” I asked. “Was the WI display insured?”

  “Heavens, no! Who would insure a few cakes?”

  “More tea?” I got up and took the teapot back to the kitchen for a refill. At the same time, I took a quick look around in case she had stuffed the wedding cake into a cupboard. By the time the kettle boiled I knew what she ate, drank and washed her smalls with. It was not a nice job.

  *

  I was walking the front again, full of stollen cake, getting wet, wishing I’d never got involved with the fire at FFH. What was I supposed to do now? I ran through a mental checklist. Time to go back to my shop, dry my hair. At least there I could write my notes and sort out the muddle in my brain.

  During the afternoon I sold a tattered book to a woman who wanted to read anything Dorothy Parker had ever written. I only charged her a pound. Later I sold a gilded picture frame to a mean-faced man who wanted the frame for fifty pence. I didn’t bargain. I charged him a pound too, but kept the faded picture from inside. I quite liked it, a rural scene, cows and bridges and a haystack. It looked familiar.

  I wrote down everything I could think of about the Lucan water lilies, the WI display and the fire at FFH. It all added up to zilch. I was getting nowhere, only myself into trouble. It was time I washed my hands of the lot.

  But now Mrs Fenwick was hiring me to find her wedding cake which I was pretty sure was stashed away in Mrs Drury’s attic. I shrank from a midnight raid in a balaclava. DI James would be sure to catch me with one leg half out of a window. Or half in.

  The stollen cake had left me with a heavy, bloated feeling. I did not usually suffer from indigestion so couldn’t think what was the matter with me. I went to my friendly grocer’s shop and asked Doris.

  “We only sell Rennie’s,” she said. “For indigestion.”

  “But is that what I’ve got?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” she said, “I’m not a doctor. Go ask one but Rennie’s won’t hurt you.”

  “I can’t afford to buy medication that I don’t need,” I said, humiliated.

  “Got any bicarbonate of soda? Take a spoonful of that. It tastes like powdered hell on earth, but it works.”

  Eventually, I gave up the struggle and curled up on the button-backed chair, clutching a hot-water bottle to my stomach. The heat helped. Perhaps it was time to get out my one and only vest, a pink machine-knitted Damart production, and stop being heroic. Who would see it? Not a soul. I’d put off stripping for men until the summer.

  I slept uneasily, chasing weird dreams in the ripples of my mind. But the vest would put body and soul together. A big mug of tea completed the cure, now that I knew the cause. Purely nature. On time, as usual, but I had forgotten. I didn’t need a doctor or Rennie’s.

  Last year’s wear had stretched the vest almost to my knees. I’d have to fold it up for a better fit. Latching could produce its bitterest winter but I was ready for it.

  The phone rang. It was DI James again. His voice held no warmth. “I’ve a few questions to ask you.”

  “I’m fresh out of answers,” I said.

  “I’m not surprised,” he said. “One of the calls Councilor Fenwick made just before he died was to you. Can you explain that?”

  “No. I’ve no idea why he should phone me. I don’t know him and I never got the call. It’s a mystery to me.”

  “Did he leave a message on your answerphone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know?”

  “I forgot to check it when I got in. I’m always forgetting. It’s so new. Haven’t checked it for days. I promise, James, first thing now, I’ll check.”

  “You realize that this looks bad, don’t you? That he phoned you on the night that he died.”

  “Nonsense. It looks good. He might have wanted to employ me.”

  I heard a heavy intake of breath. “He might have threatened you. He might have said something which made you go and see him. The call was made at twelve forty-five a.m. Your number was logged at that time. Midnight’s hardly the time to ring about some work.”

  “FCI provides a twenty-four-hour service,” I smoothed.

  “Even when you are walking the beach, half-a-mile offshore?”

  “Thinking time. Going through checklists. Are you having me followed?”

  “You were spotted by a patrolling panda. They thought you were contemplating suicide.”

  “Too damned cold,” I said. “I only drown in warm water.”

  “I hear you’re thinking of buying a car.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a detective, remember? Have you driven it yet?”

  “No.”

  “Checked its MOT?”

  “Er… not yet.”

  “Can you even drive?”

  “Tut-tut, Inspector. Haven’t you checked my duty record? I was taught by the best.”

  When DI James rang off, I switched to replay on my answerphone. There was quite a string of calls, mostly operators trying to sell me something. I listened carefully and made a few notes. The call from Councilor Fenwick was uncanny, a voice from the dead.

  “Miss Lacey. Miss Jordan Lacey?” The voice sounded slurred. “This is Adrian Fenwick of Fenwick Future Homes, the estate agents. I need your help badly. I really need to know something… I’m sorry. This isn’t making sense. I’m not feeling too well. But I think I’m in danger.” His voice broke off as if he was listening. “Could you come round… I’m at the office…”

  I made a copy of the tape and then wiped the original. This was something DI James ought to hear and no one else. If he would listen. If he would believe me.

  Fourteen

  The do
or to the shop opened. Two men came in, both well dressed in dark suits, heavy overcoats, not my usual class of customer at all. I tried to think what I had in my windows that might interest them. At the same time I put the tape in an envelope, addressed it to DI James and sealed it.

  “Can I help you?” I asked in my best shop voice.

  “We are just browsing,” said the shorter of the two men. “The books… maybe you have some first editions?”

  Ah, dealers. Well, no luck, buster. My book stock was regularly checked by Mr Frazer, esteemed part-time unpaid book expert. He goes through the boxes of books and anything of value, he sells on for me.

  “By all means,” I said, waving around the shelves of hardbacks and paperbacks bought by the yard from car boot sales and junk shops. “Please browse.”

  They browsed and I hovered. It was difficult to look busy when there was nothing to do. I pretended to dust. I caught a few specks. Then I felt my arms being gripped above the elbow, first one, then the other. It was a hard grip, nothing friendly. My arms were jerked behind my back. The two men were standing close to me, wafting eau de garlic.

  “Don’t make any noise,” said the shorter browser. “Move through to your back office. We need to have some little talk.”

  “I could not believe what I was hearing.

  “Can’t we talk out here? I’ll make some coffee.”

  “Move,” said the taller one, speaking for the first time. Even with one word, he had an accent. His skin was smoothly olive, eyes very dark. I half recognized the tailoring. It was very… very Armani. I decided not to argue. The three of us went into my office. I was glad I hadn’t tidied up.

  “My partner will be here soon,” I said, immediately recruiting DI James, Joshua, Derek, anyone on legs.

  “You don’t have a partner.”

  They pushed me down on to my Victorian button-back. For once, the chair gave me no pleasure. The creases in their trousers blurred my eyes with their sharpness.

  “Where is Al Lubliganio?”

  Ah… “Who?”

  “Don’t play games. Al Lubliganio. We know he spoke to you. Is he employing you?”