by JL Merrow
And there had been time, hadn’t there? In between my attacker running off and her opening the front door. Maybe whoever had tried to kill me hadn’t, as I’d thought, legged it down to a car parked on the main road and scarpered. Maybe they’d just nipped round the house and gone in through the back door.
But I’d just spent all that time with her. I’d have known if it’d been her slinging that cord around my neck.
Wouldn’t I?
Phil was talking. “Have they checked out where the rest of ’em were that evening? Mr. Majors, Fenchurch, Frith . . .?”
Dave stood up, looking grim. “I think I’m going to have to have a little chat with our DI Sharp. I’ll keep you posted. Tom, no going anywhere alone, right? Not even to take a piss. I’m sure you can find someone around here willing to hold your hand.”
Or other bits, I scribbled hastily and held up for Dave’s perusal.
Too hastily, apparently. Dave squinted, frowned, and gave up. “Whatever that said, I’m sure I don’t wanna know.”
Vi Majors turned up at the house next, bringing a huge basket of pink and orange flowers all bound up with satin ribbon and guilt. No lilies, I noted with approval. I wondered if she’d remembered I had cats, or if it’d just been the luck of the draw.
“Oh God, you look awful,” was her opening shot, proving she belonged to the Dave Southgate school of cheering up the ailing. “Are you all right? I’ve been so worried. I looked up strangulation on the internet after you’d gone, and there are all kinds of things you have to worry about.”
Yeah, like getting arrested if you’re the one who lured the victim over in the first place.
I didn’t say it.
Phil folded his arms. “Who else knew you’d called Tom over last night?”
Vi made an exasperated sound, with accompanying hand flap. “Not you as well. I’ve been through all this with the police. Nobody knew, but for God’s sake, I didn’t try to kill him. Someone must have been following him and took advantage of the opportunity. It’s the only explanation.”
“Why?”
She stared at him. “Why what?”
“Why would anyone want to kill Tom?”
At least Vi didn’t make any jokes about it. “I don’t know. Maybe they think he knows something? Or . . .” She flushed. “Maybe they think he really can read minds or talk to ghosts.”
Great. Maybe I should take an ad out in the paper or something: Tom Paretski: His Limits. I scribbled down Family dinner—plumbers moan and held it up for them to see.
Phil looked well confused.
Vi squinted. “Oh—that. You mean who was there when Daddy talked about that rip-off merchant? We all were, really. I mean, Uncle Arlo of course, and Lance, and Toby.” She had a little twist to her mouth that suggested she’d have enjoyed her meal a lot more without the bishop’s presence. “Oh, and Elizabeth Fenchurch, of course,” she added dismissively.
I got the feeling a lot of the family were a bit dismissive about poor old doesn’t-rate-an-Auntie Elizabeth. Including, I wouldn’t mind betting, her own husband.
Phil coughed. “Want to fill me in on this?”
“Oh, it was the day before the funeral.” The day she’d fired us, in fact. “We met up to talk about what Amelia would want people to say, that sort of thing. It was at the George Hotel—you know, that place not far from the cathedral? They do a very nice venison roast.”
“And the plumbers moan?”
“That was while we were having coffee, I think.” She flushed. “You see, well, somebody mentioned Tom. Wondering if he’d turn up to the funeral, and whether it would be in good taste.”
Great to know my social graces or lack of ’em were a topic of after-dinner conversation. Although, on the other hand, I do get a lot of my work via word-of-mouth, and they say any publicity is good publicity.
“What exactly was said?”
She went even pinker. “I really don’t remember.”
Which I’d have laid money on (a) being a lie and (b) meaning nothing flattering to yours truly.
“And then everyone started talking about plumbers in general, and that was when Daddy mentioned the plumber he’d had round recently, and how he’d charged a fortune just to replace a washer. But he wasn’t the only one. Everybody was chipping in with stories of dreadfully extortionate tradesmen.”
Phil leaned forward. “Going back to when they were talking about Tom, who first brought up the subject?”
“I don’t know.” She stared us out. “I don’t remember, all right? Look, I’ve told the police all this already.”
Interesting.
“What was the tone of the conversation?” Phil went on.
Vi made a face. “Do I really have to go through it all again?”
Yep, I thought. Definitely twenty-nine going on fifteen.
Phil did his granite-statue impersonation. “Did anyone there seem particularly hostile towards Tom?”
“Oh no. Actually, Lance was defending you.” She turned to me with an earnest look, apparently not noticing she’d just contradicted herself.
“Against what?” Phil had noticed, all right.
“Oh, Uncle Arlo’s a total sceptic. He didn’t mean anything by it,” she added hastily.
“By what?”
“All the things he said about people who pretended to be in contact with the dead to prey on their relatives. Which is silly, because you haven’t tried to prey on us at all, have you?”
I shook my head. It seemed to be called for.
She hesitated. “Can you speak to them? The dead? I mean, I’m not sure I want to hear what Amelia would have to say anyway, but, well, can you?”
I made a face I hope conveyed my meaning sufficiently.
Phil wasn’t taking chances. “No. He can’t.”
Was that a sigh of relief on Vi’s part?
“So anyone present could have got ideas from that conversation?”
“Yes, but . . . You’re not saying one of them tried to kill Tom? That’s ridiculous. You might as well accuse me.”
Phil’s stare stayed stony, and Vi paled a bit.
“Can you tell me how many of them might have had access to your home that day?”
“Just what are you suggesting?”
Come on, love. You’re not that dumb. Even I could work out what he was suggesting here: that someone had sneaked in, tampered with the plumbing, and then waited to see who she was gonna call.
And if DI Sharp hadn’t come up with the same idea, he really ought to think about changing his name.
“Could someone have got in without you or your father knowing? Was there someone in the house all day?”
“Not all day. I took Daddy out for some fresh air. Just a drive in the country.”
Huh. So no witnesses, I was betting.
“We were only gone an hour or so,” she added defensively.
Phil nodded, which I reckoned was just his way of making her feel like she’d given away more than she knew. “Did any of the other people at that lunch have a key?”
“I don’t know. Amelia could have given a key to anyone. It’s not like she’d have told me.” She paused. “Uncle Arlo was there, though. He came round to take Daddy out for a meal. To cheer him up. He was very low, poor Daddy.”
“And they didn’t invite you to go with them?”
“I didn’t want to go,” she snapped, then looked like she realised that’d sounded a bit off. “I knew they’d only end up talking business, anyway.”
“They’re going into business together?”
“Uncle Arlo wants to expand his business. Daddy’s going to invest some money in it. I don’t know exactly what it involves.”
Huh. Seemed like when old Alex had married Amelia, he’d got the whole flippin’ family as a bonus.
If by bonus you mean millstone.
“And the bishop? Lance Frith? Have they got keys?”
“Look, I don’t know, all right? Why don’t you ask them?”
Phil smirked
grimly, which I wouldn’t have reckoned was possible until he pulled it off. “I will.”
Vi left soon after, probably feeling a bit narked her gracious visit to the afflicted had turned into an interrogation.
“Interesting about Alex Majors investing in Fenchurch’s business,” Phil said with the air of someone who knew something I didn’t.
Trust me. It’s something I’m pretty familiar with. I made go on gestures at him.
“That big house of Fenchurch’s? Mortgaged for more than it’s worth. He made a few bad decisions in business lately, and if he doesn’t get a cash injection soon, he’s going under big-time. His whole bloody life is built on sand.”
Interesting, yeah—but what did it mean? I grabbed my notebook and scribbled, Arlo killed Amelia for money?
Phil shook his head. “All she had to leave was her jewellery. Even with the missing necklace, that wouldn’t cover half of it. And, more to the point, he knew about the will.”
I frowned. How did he know?
Apparently Phil could read frowns. “He witnessed it.”
I covered up the writing in my notebook and mimed signing the bottom of the page, giving Phil a questioning look.
“What, Arlo Fenchurch, sign something he hadn’t read?”
He had a point.
“Doesn’t matter in any case. He knew he wasn’t going to benefit. You can’t, if you’re a witness to a will. Legally speaking it makes any legacy to the witness null and void. So from his point of view, it’d make no sense to kill his sister. He’d want the connection to continue so he could get money out of her husband.”
I let my shoulders slump. Lance Frith? I wrote, and drew a picture of a diamond necklace underneath it.
All right, I drew a wonky circle with a diamond shape underneath, with little lines coming out like sun rays to show it was bling.
Phil raised an eyebrow, which managed somehow to translate in my head as There are newborn babies who can draw better than you can, Paretski. Seeing as my eyebrows don’t tend to be quite so eloquent, I just shoved a finger up at him.
He smirked, then turned more serious. “Maybe. Trouble is, where is it? If he was desperate enough to kill her for that bloody necklace, why hasn’t he been after you to find it for him?”
I had a light bulb moment and scribbled down, Lance + Vi in it together?
“Which explains why you were attacked because . . .?” He sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands, looking suddenly tired.
I had another light bulb moment, although we were definitely talking lower wattage this time. Alex did it? He has bling + doesn’t want me to find it.
“So he sabotaged his own plumbing so his daughter would call you in to the very house where he doesn’t want stuff found?”
Oh, bugger it. I thought about throwing my notebook across the room, then had a change of heart and scribbled my final offer.
Toby=serial killer. Bish of Satan.
Phil laughed a bit grimly. “Maybe. Christ knows, I haven’t got anything better.”
Cherry dropped in on her way home from work. She looked upset to see me, but not particularly gobsmacked, so I could only assume Phil had ratted me out to her already.
In revenge, after several Oh, Toms, I let him tell her the story of how it all went down. She had a pinched look on her face all through, but when he got to the end, she looked thoughtful. “Do you think you had a premonition it was about to happen, and that’s why you raised your hand at just the right moment?”
What? “Nah. Spiderweb,” I whispered. I could talk by then, but it made my throat hurt and came out sounding like a chain-smoking jazz singer after a three-week bender, so it wasn’t really worth the bother.
“Spiderweb? Or spidey-senses?” The way she said those last two words, which by the way I’d never heard her utter ever, I half expected dramatic music to ring out from nowhere with a dum-dum-dum.
“Web,” I whispered as firmly as I could, which obviously wasn’t very.
“She might have a point there,” Phil put in, looking interested. “Maybe your subconscious knows more than you do.”
“Exactly.” Cherry looked pleased. “You know, you ought to experiment.”
Great idea, Sis. I’ll just hire someone to try to kill me every other day or so and we’ll soon have it all worked out.
I didn’t say it, obviously. Not to spare her feelings. It just would’ve hurt my throat.
Phil smirked in my direction like he knew what I was thinking.
“How are you getting on with that pendulum?”
I shrugged and gestured to my throat. Heh. At least it was good for getting me out of awkward questions.
“Oh—sorry. I shouldn’t make you talk.” The reprieve lasted all of thirty seconds before she was off again. “Have you had a chance to decide about the house yet?”
Great. I should have stuck with the pendulum after all. Phil frowned. “What house?”
“Oh, didn’t Tom say? My house in Pluck’s End. I thought you and Tom might like to live there after Gregory and I get married. I’ll be moving to St. Leonards, of course.”
Phil gave me a sharp look, which was well unfair given I wasn’t exactly in a position to defend myself right now. “We’ve not had a chance to talk about it yet,” he said, still giving me the evil eye.
“Well, no hurry, but obviously I need to sort out alternative tenants from March if you’re not going to be using it.”
He nodded.
Sis didn’t stay much longer. Might’ve been the chilly atmosphere.
“Was gonna tell you,” I whispered when she’d gone.
Phil huffed. It sounded exasperated but fond. Well, I hoped I wasn’t imagining the last bit. “You think I’m worried about that now?”
Uh. Maybe?
Gary came round after dinner (soup, in case you couldn’t guess). For someone who was supposed to be resting up and recovering, I was doing a hell of a lot of entertaining today. Not that I minded seeing Gary, though, particularly as he’d brought a large tub of ice cream with him, bless him. It was bloody nirvana on my poor throat.
He gave me a critical once-over as he sat down with his own bowl to keep me company. “Not loving the new look, Tommy dearest. Red eyes really don’t go with your complexion.”
No? I’d thought they toned in nicely with the purple bruising. Ah well.
He turned his narrowed eyes on Phil next. “What have you been leading our poor little Tommy into now?”
I scribbled down Not his fault and held it up.
Gary made an exaggeratedly doubtful face. “Killing Amelia, I can understand. She did have her moments of letting the inner bitch shine through. But why would anyone want to murder you?” He dug in to his ice cream as if he thought the answer might be at the bottom of the bowl.
Phil huffed. “All this misinformation the papers have been spreading about his talent. Maybe someone’s worried he’s been talking to the victim about who did her in.”
Yeah. Maybe they wanted to send me over to join her so we could have a proper chinwag.
“Mm.” Gary licked his spoon. I was fairly sure he wasn’t making it look suggestive on purpose. “But does anyone really believe in all that? I mean, enough to kill somebody over?”
I shrugged and wrote Safe > Sorry.
“Is murder ever a safe activity? Obviously, I bow to your superior knowledge.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but he had a point. If Vi had opened the door just a little bit earlier, she might have seen the whole thing.
Unless of course she was the one who’d done it, in which case she’d seen it all anyway . . . Nah. I just couldn’t believe it. Not her.
Phil’s spoon clinked against the side of his bowl. “Lance Frith is one of the faithful. Not so much Arlo Fenchurch, unless he’s protesting too much. Not sure about Alex Majors.”
Toby? I held up, more or less as a joke.
Phil gave me a look. “Plenty of atheists would say he already believes in stuff that doesn’t
exist. How far a stretch is it from God to ghosts?”
Gary nodded. “I’ve often felt something of a tingling in my bell tower. And, of course, a guilty conscience can make a man believe all kinds of things.”
“You’d know,” I tried saying. After the ice cream, it actually wasn’t too bad.
“But are you certain, then, it was an inside job?” Gary went on.
I looked at Phil.
He hmphed. “The attack on Tom suggests so. Although it’s not totally impossible that Violet Majors is right, and he was followed to her house.”
I shook my head. “I was halfway home. Stopped for her phone call. Did a U-turn. I’d have noticed.” And yeah, it was way too early to give the vocal chords that much of a workout. I grabbed the tub of ice cream to fill my bowl up again before Phil and Gary scoffed the lot, the greedy gits.
Gary was giving me a pained look that confirmed my voice had sounded as bad as it’d felt. I glanced at Phil and wished I hadn’t—he had that tightness to his jaw that meant he wasn’t a happy bunny.
Shit. I grabbed my notebook. Find out who nicked your hobby horse? I wrote, and held it up in front of Gary’s nose.
Gary’s face lit up. “Ooh no, but it’s causing a terrible scandal. The side is taking sides. Have you reconsidered giving it a little fondle?”
I shook my head.
“Well, if you change your mind, we’ll be forever in your debt. The side is in turmoil. My poor sweetie pie says he hardly knows who to trust anymore.”
I supposed trust was actually probably fairly important when you were dancing around waving bloody great sticks all over the shop.
“Now,” Gary said brightly. “On to more cheerful things. A little birdie told me you two have finally set a date for the wedding.”
He beamed at me expectantly. I nodded. Cherry must’ve blabbed.
Phil cleared his throat. “Second Friday in July.”
“So much classier to marry on a weekday, I always feel. Although I must say,” Gary carried on with a pout, “I’m wounded not to have been the first person you told.”
I looked helplessly at Phil. “We haven’t told the parents yet,” he said, which was a better excuse than I could have come up with.
