I began again, with meticulous care. Every jar, every bottle, every carton, every bin, saucepan, dish in the kitchen was closely inspected. Same in her lounge. Even the books were unthumbed. The only sign of normal habitation was the collection of drinks on the tray.
Her bedroom was cool. All her clothes were tidy and stored away. Bed smooth, unruffled. Make-up jars and bottles stood in polite groups on her polished, glass-topped dressing table. I was feeling ill again. One flaw, please, that was all I wanted. A screwed-up Mars wrapper under the bed; an apple core down the loo.
Her shoes were regimented in pairs on special shoe space-saver racks. She had a lot of shoes. Boots stood with long wooden trees inside to keep their shape. One handle emerged two inches taller than its twin. I took the tree out and put my hand deep down inside the boot. Something was stuffed in the foot area, down to the toe. It felt silky yet tangled. Creepy. I drew it out with threads clinging to my fingers.
Bingo.
In a second I had my scissors out, cut off a few inches and put them in a plastic specimen bag. Then I stuffed the rest back in the boot, pushed the shoetree down in place, to the same height as I had found it. Before I left, I took a photograph of her boots, then a long shot with enough of her bedroom to identify the location. A nasty mind might say I had planted the evidence.
I gave up, left No 5, waved my clipboard cheerily at the caretaker. He was relieved to see me go, obviously not laden with loot. He had been having second thoughts, wondering if he would get into trouble.
The specimen bag was tucked in my pocket. Not exactly a wasted journey.
“Lovely flat,” I said.
“You should see the others.”
Water lilies next but I couldn’t face the uphill cycle ride. It was splash-out day. I phoned a taxi company and a woman driver called Linda called for me in a serviceable saloon. She was pleasant company, a bit like a friendly hairdresser only she didn’t ask me where I was going for my holidays. The ride cost £6, the price of selling something from my shop, plus a £I tip.
“Beats cycling any day,” I said as she dropped me outside the Latching Water Nursery, “I can still breathe.”
“Don’t buy too many plants,” she said, giving me her card before driving off.
The autumn-tinged slopes were so peaceful, a cool wind barely disturbing the branches, only whispering and rustling like little animals in the undergrowth. I drank in the solitude, the views as dense as a forest from Camelot. And I was just about to bust this idyllic scene. And why? Because Mr Lucan had involved me, innocently perhaps, in a fraud and I didn’t like it much. But I did like his car and I wanted it. Terence Lucan was walking towards me, green boots coated in mud. He looked preoccupied, hardly glanced at me, eyes protected. There were no customers about.
“Mr Lucan,” I said. “I’ve brought a cheque with me. A cheque for three hundred pounds. The first instalment on the Morris Minor.”
“I said I would prefer cash.”
So he had. Like I’d go all the way back to Latching now to fetch cash.
“Perhaps you could take this cheque and I’ll make sure the rest is in cash. It’s quite a way to come to Preston Hill and I’ve already spent on a taxi.”
“Well, I suppose it’s okay this once,” he said, recognizing real money. “I’ll get the log book, MOT, insurance, et cetera. They’re in the office.”
“And a receipt please.”
“You got it.”
“All right to drive the car home? I take it the insurance will cover me?”
“Third party. There’s probably enough petrol to get you to Latching, but then you’ll need to fill up.”
I could see his mind calculating the cost of the petrol and weighing up whether he could charge me.
His office was the usual chaos but his filing system worked and he knew where to find the papers. The keys were hanging on a hook on the wall with a brown label attached. I made sure I had everything, including the receipt, before I dropped my explosive device.
“By the way, Mr Lucan. You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve found all your water lilies. At least, I know where they are. I’ll be sending you a report and we can deduct my fee from the amount I still owe you for the car. I’m sure you will be relieved that it’s all over and there won’t be any nasty court case to attend, that is if you drop your insurance claim for the theft of your plants.”
Mr Lucan had an outdoor face. Years of Sussex sunshine and coastal wind had weathered it to a fine shade of brown. But at this moment, the color drained away and he was left with skin a strange dirty gray.
“You’ve found them?” he croaked. “My goodness… you are efficient.”
“A little too efficient for you, I’m afraid, Mr Lucan. I guess you hoped that little ol’ me would flounder in one of your ponds and come up with zilch. And zilch it very nearly was until I went on walkabout among your lovely shrubs and saplings.”
“Er… I’m not sure what you mean…”
“Knowing the state of your finances, I doubt if your insurance policy is comprehensive. It probably covers theft, but not deadly diseases like crown rot. As the experts at Kew Gardens kindly told me: crown rot is when the water-lily rootstocks become soft, gelatinous and with a strong smell. There’s no known cure and the only thing to do is destroy them, disinfect the ponds and start all over again.”
“My water lilies haven’t got crown rot,” he said indignantly. “Those plants you saw were perfect.”
“I only saw some blooms, not the roots. Perhaps they were the best of a rotting lot, which a helpful mate hawked around the pubs to add credence to your story. The last of your beautiful collection. I can understand you being upset, Mr Lucan. It must have broken your heart to see all your hard work rotting away. And the putrid smell is just awful, I do agree.”
“You can’t prove this,” he blustered.
“I think I can,” I said. “I sent Kew Gardens a piece of moldy root found on your property. I have camera proof. They identified water-lily crown rot. And you should remember that it is an offence to waste police time. Latching police have spent a considerable number of man hours trying to trace a van with certain tyre tracks. Probably your own Land Rover backed over the mud. They might not take too kindly to being told it was all a scam, a swindle, a trick to defraud the insurance company.”
Poor man. He looked broken, sucking in air between his teeth.
“Are you going to tell them?” he asked as I turned to leave.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “What good would it do? It wouldn’t bring back your plants. You are not likely to do it again. No one got hurt. And you have got to restock your ponds somehow. Perhaps a nice horse will come in first. Your luck deserves to change.”
Two expressions crossed his face at the same time. It was confusing. I didn’t know if he was grateful or about to hit me over the head with a shovel.
I put the key in the door lock of the nearly mine red and black ladybird. I wasn’t going to let him spoil this moment. The door opened. It was a mess inside, just like his office. But I wasn’t dismayed by the rubbish. Ten minutes with a spray can and she would smell as sweet as a field of lavender.
I slipped into the driving seat. It was made for me. We fitted like suede gloves. The key turned in the ignition and the engine started, first time. It was an omen. She knew me. She liked me. It was love at first sight, all over again. The gear slid into reverse and I took her slowly out of her lonely incarceration on the top of the hill. The open road beckoned. She was free again, at last.
Mr Lucan was waving his arms at me. I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to stop me leaving or politely showing me out of the drive and out on to the road. I wound down the window. Old-fashioned wind-downs. I love ’em.
“I guess you don’t remember saying that you would give me this car if I solved your case, but I won’t hold you to it,” I said sweetly.
“How do you know? Tell me? Howdaya know?” he was barking, clearly incensed, knuckles whit
e as he gripped the top of the window. Teetering on the edge of insanity. Time to get out quick before he did us both an injury.
“Go dig up a big hole that’s barely settled at the bottom end of the southern slope,” I said. “That’s how I know. Make sure you put plenty of the right chemicals in it. You don’t want the rot to spread.”
Eighteen
Ladybird and I drove back to Latching in complete harmony. It was the beginning of a long affair. We were compatible in every way. I wouldn’t be able to use her for surveillance but it did not matter. She was mine for every other journey. No more drenched cycle rides. I would arrive in style. We might even share leisure when I go walking on the South Downs, Chantonbury Hill, Devil’s Dyke. I know all the chalky parking areas. Wonderful views for her.
So that was the end of the water lilies and the WI. Was anyone else actually paying me for my services? The pure white Ms Shaw with suspicious boot would have canceled her standing order. There was nothing else I could do there – or was there?
But I was still standing in the stocks for the FFH fire. And the death of Councilor Adrian Fenwick. Ripe tomatoes in the face were not pleasant. The juice would drip down my shirt. What could I do to prove my innocence? Wake myself up and climb out of the quicksand?
I’d need a resident’s parking permit. Another £20. Worth every penny. I filled in the required form. The clerk gave me a map showing where I could park, but not on double yellow lines. Was I still solvent? Could I eat this week?
Two down and one to go. Not bad. But the one left was so complicated I did not know where to begin. Cast: the late Adrian Fenwick, Mrs Fenwick, Pippa Shaw, ex-daughter-in-law, girlfriend and once Mrs Fenwick Jnr, Leroy Anderson, secretary and receptionist, her wacky sister Waz Fairbrother maybe, she of the Indian skirts and modeling glue, and the so far invisible bank manager, Leslie Fairbrother. I don’t know why I linked the unseen bank manager with the fire at FFH but instinctively I did. The councilor had wanted money; Leslie Fairbrother had money, not his but at his disposal. That made a kind of sense.
And who was putting excessive sums of cash in my bank account? Someone with money to throw away for sure. All that uninvited money going to waste, idling in some Jane Doe account, and I wouldn’t touch a penny of it. I knew what it was meant to look like, that I was paid to torch the FFH.
Who would want to burn down the showroom? Mrs Fenwick was only into lighting ovens; Pippa said she loved the man; Leroy liked her job and status perks. A rival estate agents? Hardly a good business move especially if they were charged. The Fairbrothers? No motive at all.
That left the deranged, the demented and the deluded. Only my ex-boyfriend Derek fitted those categories and he wasn’t even in the picture.
It was as if thinking about him materialized him to my front door. I opened it confidently, hoping an unexpected visitor would brighten the evening. But it was said Derek, cleanshaven, well-groomed in a navy blazer, gray flannels, shifty-eyed, holding a bunch of garage forecourt flowers, on the make.
“Oh, hello,” I said, offhand. “I’m just on my way out.”
I can be so ruthless.
“That’s a pity,” he said, “I was hoping we could have a little chat.”
Derek’s little chats were never innocent exchanges of current topic variety. I always ended up fencing, trying to get his hands out of my clothes, or a tricky maneuver on my moral chair when I’m as concerned for the safety of my bone china as I am for my body. The flowers looked forlorn, unwanted, packed by some tired immigrant woman, who accepted low pay because she didn’t know any better.
“Are they for me? Thank you. You can come in while I put them in water,” I said, shooting myself in the foot.
It would have been churlish not to make some coffee, but I didn’t use my best, my Colombian beans. It had been a long time since I had entertained Derek in my sitting room but he made himself at home as if he belonged.
“Where do you keep your biscuits?” he asked, poking into my cupboards. “Have you got any shortbread?”
As I cut the stems and arranged the rusty chrysanthemums and baby’s breath in a vase, I planned a strategy. He might as well earn his coffee. “Do you know anything about the fire at Fenwicks?” I asked. “It’s a funny business.”
“You’re right there, babe. I heard the councilor was drugged or drunk. I know he was up to no good on the council, accepting handouts, that kind of thing. But that doesn’t add up to murdering the man. It means getting in on the game, dividing the spoils, sharing the goodies. Know what I mean?”
I didn’t. “Go on, that’s interesting.”
Having caught my attention, Derek expanded, took off his blazer, hung it neatly on the back of the door. He had found a packet of Scotch shortbread and was eating them out of the paper, spilling crumbs everywhere. Some men are such dirty eaters. Although DI James’s daily diet was fish and chips and tomato sauce on everything, he ate tidily and without haste. Derek was devouring the buttery shortbread as if he’d just been released from solitary.
Derek sensed that for the time being he was not being banished to the pavement, and warmed to the subject.
“It wasn’t just handouts. There was a rumored scam about planning permission for posh residential houses… y’know, pools and patios. He was tied up with some local builder. Fenwick got the planning permission through for any spare bit of land, the builder built the houses, FFH handled the sales. There’s a demand for substantial houses along the coast. You could sell some houses several times over. Nice little earner.”
I could have kissed Derek but I wasn’t going to. “So the fire might have been to destroy some incriminating evidence? Someone getting suspicious? But surely it was a bit drastic for a few files that could have been put through a shredder?”
“Perhaps it got out of hand. Fires do. Someone starts an itsy-bitsy fire to burn a few papers and suddenly – whoosh – the place is an inferno. I remember several camp fires that nearly incinerated the Downs.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to make a phone call.”
All the lines to DI James were busy. I left a message for him to call me. I got out a dustpan and brush and swept up the crumbs.
“I like it when you’re on your knees to me,” he said, crunching the last shortbread. “Makes me feel important.”
“Don’t bank on it. I can see the fluff in your turn-ups.”
“Any more coffee?”
“What do you know about the Fairbrothers?”
“Oh, he’s my bank manager,” said Derek, spreading more crumbs as he balled the packet. “Cool, detached sort of chap. Everything by the book. Hard man to get on with, not particularly helpful. Honey out of a stone would be easier. Obsessed with cleanliness, always washing his hands.”
A chill touched my spine. That kind of obsession was never cozy. Perhaps Waz Fairbrother was making a living statement with her chaos of litter. No wonder he had disappeared, or had he?
I got rid of Derek in the most direct way I could think of. I put on my anorak and boots, slotted a scarf round my neck.
“I have to go out,” I said. “Take the last of the biscuits with you. Oh, but you’ve finished them, haven’t you? That’s all right then, you won’t starve till you get home.”
He looked crestfallen, eyes slippery. “I thought we were going to spend some time together.”
“We have,” I said, rattling my keys. “Now I have to go out and get on with earning my living.”
“I’ll come with you,” he offered. “I’ve got a car.”
“I’ve got a car.”
It was a great exit line. I swept out, ushering the obnoxious creep before me. He was outside on the pavement before he could finish his next sentence.
He was still chuntering on about this was no way to treat an old friend. The words were lost on the wind. Let him go eat someone else’s biscuits.
*
Next morning, I backed the ladybird out of the yard behind the shop and drove towards the Fairbrot
hers’ house on the outskirts of Latching, collecting petrol on the way. The cost rocked me. Perhaps I could put mileage on my expenses. I left the car in a car park near the local shops, tucked out of sight between two ugly people-carriers, got a ticket from the machine, and legged it the rest of the way. If there was no one at home, I might have to break in.
The house had a gone-away look. Curtains were still drawn, milk on the doorstep, paper halfway through the letterbox. All giveaways. People will never learn. I knocked and set the chimes chiming. There was no answer. I tried again, stepped back, looking upwards, expecting to see an overslept face peering between the curtains.
It was still shrouded in silence. Leroy would have gone to work hours ago. Waz must be out shopping for more glue or paint or molding clay.
The back was equally desolate, except for a small black cat sitting gloomily by the door. He meowed that he’d missed out on breakfast, twisting himself round my ankles for sympathy.
“Okay, okay,” I whispered. “I’ll soon have you in.”
He watched with interest as I opened the door a different way. No key. A neat arrangement of pins that I had acquired from a tame housebreaker on my beat days, don’t ask me how.
We slid into the kitchen like conspirators. Cat went straight to the cupboard where his breakfast was kept. He trod daintily, avoiding the mess.
I stood in the middle of the debris on the floor, wondering where to step, wondering what was priceless art and what was disgorged junk. The smell of cooked glue hit me like a bone factory. Cat meowed pitifully, shrinking its stomach into starvation mode. I found a tin of catfood with a ring-pull top, tipped half the contents, turkey and chicken bits in brown jelly, on to the only clean saucer in the kitchen.
The cat had good manners. It purred a few thanks before it vacuumed the lot.
In a corner stood “Ruin”, the masterpiece that Waz seemed so proud of. Only it was a ruin now. Someone had taken a hammer to the edifice and it was smashed to smithereens, shattered fragments spread all over the rest of the mountain tip. I carefully moved some pieces, searching for whatever might have been concealed inside, but there were no clues.
Wave and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 2) Page 18
