I dialled zero, zero, one, zero, hoping it would work. I got a recorded message. ‘Jack? It’s Jordan. I’m in the middle of the Channel in a canoe, trying to paddle with a trainer. Can you get some help? My French is pretty hazy.’
‘Don’t worry, Roy,’ I said, clicking off. ‘Jack is reliable. He’ll hire a helicopter or the QE II.’
*
It was not exactly the QE II, slightly smaller in size, no cabaret or guest lecturer. But we were just as pleased to see the Shoreham lifeboat zooming towards us, the sturdy bow cutting through a swathe of spray. The loudhailer boomed, ‘Hello, there? Jordan Lacey? We’re coming alongside. Get ready to board.’
Strong arms hauled us aboard and secured the canoe to the deck.
It was cocoa and buttered current buns all round, being wrapped in blankets. Lots of weatherbeaten men in yellow oilskins doing their job. The radio crackled into life and there were reports of a yacht in trouble. Two yachtsmen were picked up from a capsized dinghy. It was more cocoa and buns. Quite a party.
I identified myself for their log but said that the canoeist had lost his memory, due to the bang on his head. It seemed to be accepted. They let me curl up on a bunk, deep down in the lifeboat and I fell asleep instantly, worn out by everything. I didn’t care where they took me. Timbuktu would do.
An ambulance took all four of us to Shoreham hospital. It made a change. Latching hospital could not cope with the sudden number of injuries. But there was nothing wrong with me and they let me go quite soon. I did not see Roy Dinglewell leave A & E for an x-ray upstairs. Some charity fund gave me enough money for my train fare to Latching.
‘I’ll pay you back,’ I said. ‘I’ll send it by post.’
‘That’s fine,’ said the woman at the desk. ‘When you’ve got time. I hope you get home safely.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
She saw I was shivering in my half a damp T-shirt and came after me with a cardigan. ‘Borrow this,’ she said. ‘I always keep a spare one in the office.’
It was shapeless, handknitted, in some vague mouse colour but just then it could have been a priceless garment designed by Versace. It was as warm as the woman’s good nature.
‘Thank you,’ I said again.
The trains were still running but not at their scheduled times. Many tracks of line were flooded and a sort of shuttle service between Brighton and Littlehampton was in operation.
‘Half the roads are closed,’ said the sales clerk. ‘Better to wait for a train. You’d never get a taxi.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. Apparently I only knew two words now. My vocabulary had shrunk. The train, when it arrived, was a snorting two-carriage dragon but I was glad to see it. Field upon field was flooded. Seagulls were swimming inland, looking bewildered. Lots of gardens were water-logged. I suddenly remembered my shop and my stock. And I was not insured. No one insures junk.
First Class Junk was not under water. The two steps up to the front door had saved it from liquid penetration.
‘Excuse me but do you sell umbrellas?’
It was a customer, putting a distressed head round the door. The freak weather in Latching had obviously unnerved her.
‘Sorry, I don’t sell them,’ I said. ‘But I can lend you an umbrella. You can return it any time.’
She came in gingerly as if she expected the Mafia to strike. ‘I’m only here for a week, on holiday,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring it back on my last day.’
‘Sure.’ I went out the back to look through my collection of unwanted umbrellas. I picked out a blue one with daisies. She looked like a daisy person.
The woman was peering at some elderly glassware. ‘I like this old scent bottle,’ she said. ‘I collect them, you know. Scent bottles. It’s certainly not a Lalique or Roger et Gallet but it’s very pretty. Ahmn, you can still smell the perfume. Amazing how it lingers. How much is it?’
I wouldn’t know a Lalique if it was waved under my nose. ‘Six pounds.’
‘I’ll take it. A nice addition to my collection.’
For no reason at all, while I was wrapping the bottle, a small cracked green bottle with a stopper, I decided I should take another look at The Limes.
As the streets were still in the throes of receding flood, I walked. It was quite a way but the exercise was good for me. I had not walked for ages. It was time I had a good tramp over the Sussex Downs, beheld a few views.
Phil Cannon was on the other side of the road, strolling with his hands in his pockets. His moon face looked cheerful. It was a surprising sight.
‘Hi there,’ I said.
He did a double take as if he had forgotten me already. Put me on the back of a sell-by shelf. I was the disposable PI.
‘Er … hi there,’ he said.
I crossed over. He looked too cheerful. It was not natural.
‘Everything all right?’ I asked brightly.
‘Sure. Hunky-dory.’
‘That’s good.’
I hung about. He was not telling me everything. His face had shrouded over. Decidedly suspicious.
‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself,’ I said, coming straight to the point.
‘Oh? Do I?’ There was an inward battle going on. He was undecided whether to tell me or not but the sheer glory of it all got the better of him.
‘I’ve been on to the social services people,’ he said casually. ‘About the DNA. And they said I’m entitled to a refund or something. Like, it being proved now and being legal. So, it can’t be bad, eh?’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’m very pleased for you. So it was worth coming to me after all, wasn’t it?’
‘Why? It wasn’t you who did the test, was it?’
It was medal time for not clouting the man. But I restrained. So Phil Cannon was going to get a refund. It would be quite substantial. Fair enough, I supposed, but he could have been more grateful.
I stood outside The Limes, wondering whether to knock on the door or use the key taken from under the birdbath.
Mrs Fontane came to the door. ‘I’ve been wondering when you would come to see me,’ she said.
Twenty-One
It might be intuition or some sea fairy tapping in my head. Lydia Fontane could have gone to the jazz concert in Falmer Gardens.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’d like to ask you a few more questions, to confirm some points. It won’t take long. There’s one or two things I’m not quite sure about.’
‘Ah.’
‘I was wondering if you can tell me if you were anywhere near Falmer Gardens the day that Brian Frazer died so tragically? Did you see anything unusual? Anything that seemed strange or anyone acting oddly?’
‘Heavens no, I wouldn’t have gone within a mile of Falmer Gardens that afternoon. All that discordant rubbish. Not my style at all. I prefer classical music.’
‘We all have different tastes,’ I said, quite calmly for an ardent jazz fan.
‘Of course, but you don’t have to inflict it on other people,’
‘But if you weren’t there, it wasn’t being inflicted on you.’ I was quick.
She moved very slightly, stroking down a fold of her summery dress. It was a totally unnecessary movement. She was wondering if she had said something which could be picked up on.
‘Quite true. Is that all you came to ask me? I am very busy.’
‘Not exactly. I was in the office of the Sussex Record the other day, looking up old cuttings. Fascinating.’
‘Totally biased reporting. She should have hung for it.’
‘I didn’t say I was looking at the trial cuttings,’ I said.
‘But you were, weren’t you?’
This was one tricky lady and I was not sure why. She was hedging in a refined sort of way. Her eyes were not meeting mine. Her gaze was firmly elsewhere. Any minute now she would say she had to go to a committee meeting.
‘Do you think we could talk about this some other day? I have a meeting of Age Concern to go to. I’m on the comm
ittee and I really don’t have time for this.’
‘You asked me to investigate the deaths of your two small sons ten years ago and that is what I am doing,’ I said, wondering if Max was upstairs. ‘I have to find out as much as I can. If someone else is also interested in the case, then that could be suspicious.’
‘If you say so. But the murderer is obvious. I just want it proved.’
‘Is Max around?’ I asked casually.
She stopped in her tracks. She turned very slowly, her face pale, an eyelid twitching. ‘Max?’
‘Yes, Max. Gill’s son. I saw him here the other day. A very nice young man.’ I put a slight emphasis on the word ‘young’.
‘I don’t know … he may have come by for a drink or something. Now, where did I put my driving glasses?’ She opened and shut a drawer.
‘He seemed very much at home for someone who was just coming by for a drink.’
She was gathering up things at speed. Handbag, gloves, her glasses, keys, slim black document case. Gloves for a committee meeting? It was an impressive display of efficiency. She was some committee member.
‘I really must go.’ She was hustling me out now. She filled a tumbler with sparkling Highland water from a bottle in the refrigerator, drank it, and put the glass down.
‘One last question,’ I insisted. I don’t know why I said it. A remembered newspaper photograph flashed into my head without any warning, the way thoughts do. ‘Do you possess a pink cocktail dress, made of silk and chiffon, very classy, with roses on the bodice?’
But she was ready for me this time. ‘Do you really expect me to remember every dress I have ever worn? Good heavens, I’ve probably had a dozen pink dresses.’
‘This one had deep pink roses sewn across the front.’ I waved vaguely over the top of my chest. I tried to look as if it did not matter what the answer was, that it was immaterial. ‘Very glamorous. And what do you do with your dresses when you’ve grown tired of them? Do you pass them on perhaps … to friends or hard-up relatives?’
She was opening the front door for me, rigid as steel. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Lacey, tempus fugit, as they say.’
‘Not for Brian Frazer, it doesn’t,’ I said. ‘Time has stopped for him.’
I was breathing hard. Everything had gone pie-eyed. I had gone to see Lydia Fontane, meaning to ask her certain questions and ended up asking completely different ones. But it had not been wasted time. The fog was beginning to clear. As the song goes, I was beginning to see the light.
I went straight to Latching police station, marched up to the desk and asked to see DI James. Outside the sun was shining fit to burst into flame like a golden omen. Latching’s council gardeners were busy tending the municipal flowerbeds. They were a riot of organized colour and design.
‘He’s busy, miss.’
‘Tell him it’s Jordan Lacey and I’ve solved the Brian Frazer murder,’ I said, very sure of myself.
‘Please take a seat.’
I calmed down as I sat waiting, longing for a drink of water, reading all the new notices. Perhaps I had not solved the murder but I had a damned good theory. And it was one the clever DI James, the man who ignored me, would not have thought of in a thousand years.
‘Jordan …’ He came impatiently into the corridor, his feet like lead. He ran a hand through his short hair. ‘You want to see me? Make it brief. I’m up to my eyebrows.’
‘I think I know who murdered Brian Frazer,’ I said.
‘Can you prove it?’ He was not impressed.
‘No.’
‘Then don’t bother me. I’ve enough crackpots coming into the station.’
He turned away so that I only got sight of the back of his head. Even the way he was holding his neck showed it ached, like it might splinter at any moment. There was no possibility of me stroking his neck to ease away the stiffness. The man had distanced himself from me.
‘I’m not a crackpot,’ I said firmly. ‘Don’t class me with the station groupies, James. I can’t prove it but I can produce a lot of evidence. You could at least listen to me. What have you got to go on?’ This was pure guesswork. ‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing. Go on, admit it. You are up the creek with this case. Right?’
He came back to me, glaring. ‘If this is a wind-up, Jordan, I will throttle you. I do not have time for this.’
‘I demand the courtesy of an interview room and a cup of your disgusting cheap tea,’ I said, making myself every inch of five foot eight, even in trainers.
‘Make her some tea,’ James groaned to the desk sergeant, leading the way.
We went into an interview room, the usual dreary, colourless square-footage of space. Two plastic chairs. A table. A window. The same ancient, well-thumbed Hello magazines on a shelf. I would donate them some Country Life.
‘OK, Sherlock Holmes. Tell me,’ he said.
His eyes were always the quicksilver ocean blue that fascinated me, but they were guarded now. What had happened to our almost friendship? Then I knew. Somehow a rumour had spread about a certain holiday to Cyprus. I couldn’t remember what I had agreed. It was beyond recall.
‘Brian Frazer was murdered, not because of his singing, but because he looked like his wife, Gill Frazer.’
‘Clear as mud.’
‘Someone who has to wear quite strong spectacles for driving can’t focus long distance properly,’ I said. ‘So people, back view especially, can be mistaken, especially in pink silk.’
‘If you say so.’
‘And that’s what he’d got on. Brian was wearing one of his wife’s dresses.’
‘Jordan, are you still on medication?’ James was not joking.
‘The pink dress is one which Lydia Fontane had passed on to Gill Frazer at some time but Brian Frazer was wearing it. He often borrowed his wife’s clothes. Mrs Fontane thought Brian was Gill and so she fixed an electric shock. Maybe it was just to give Gill a fright. She was never sure who had killed her children, but Gill was always the prime suspect. I don’t know how she knew what she was doing with the transformer, but she’s an intelligent lady and Brian would have trusted her if she had approached him on the stage.’
‘How do you know it was Mrs Fontane’s dress?’
‘I saw a photo of her in the Sussex Record, taken years ago, wearing the same dress. It was in the newspaper. The Mayor’s Ball. Unmistakable. This was her dress and at some time she’d passed it on to Gill. So she thought Brian was Gill. I think I even heard her voice in the crowd, that unmistakable classy tone.’
‘This is only heresay. I need proof.’
‘It’s your case. I don’t have to prove anything.’
James was showing a degree of interest, a slight flicker. ‘You’re saying that Mrs Fontane murdered Brian Frazer in a moment of mistaken identity? But why would she want to murder Mrs Frazer?’
‘Gill Frazer had been blackmailing her for ten years and she was almost milked dry. The only asset Mrs Fontane had left was her house and she wasn’t giving that to the nanny who may have suffocated her two sons. She was avenging her children’s deaths at last. She thought it was justice in a twisted way.’
‘Blackmailing her? Are you sure?’
‘I’ve proof of it,’ I said triumphantly. I could not conceal the wicked glint in my eyes. A moment of triumph. ‘Bank statements galore. Two hundred and fifty pounds standing order every month for ten years, regular as clockwork. Three thousand pounds a year, thirty thousand pounds so far. Work that one out, buster. Quite a hefty sum. Where’s that tea?’
‘It’s coming.’
As we talked and I drank tea, we pondered the blackmail. Why was Gill blackmailing Mrs Fontane if Gill had suffocated the two children? It did not make sense. No, the blackmail was because of something else. She had some kind of hold over Lydia.
‘Gill is blackmailing Mrs Fontane because of something only she knows about.’
‘And how are you going to find out?’
‘Me?’
‘Anything to do with the
two boys is your case, isn’t it?’ James relaxed for the first time. He was passing the buck. A glimmer of a smile cracked the ocean frostiness. For a moment the old James was there. It was heartening. I remembered the odd moments, only moments and not long ago, when he had shown me some affection … a touch, a joke, saving me from something.
‘Mrs Fontane has hired me to do something I can’t do,’ I confessed. ‘She wants me to prove that Gill suffocated her two boys. It’s impossible. A hopeless task. There’s nothing tangible to go on.’
He nodded. ‘Try to reconstruct exactly what happened that night, minute by minute. Find flaws, inconsistencies, contradictions. Talk to everyone who was around then.’
‘That’s asking a lot. It was a long time ago. Mrs Fontane is tight-lipped. Gill Frazer is twice as tight. And Mr Fontane is dead. Who else was there?’
‘Max, the son?’
‘But he was only eleven years old. Hardly a reliable witness and probably fast asleep at the time.’
‘Mr Fontane died leaving a lot of financial problems. He and his partner had borrowed heavily to build a multi-screen cinema and it all fell through. That’s another route to take.’
‘I’ll try,’ I said. ‘Thanks. I’ll see what I can do. But I don’t hold out much hope.’
‘Thanks for the pink dress lead. There’s a lot of prints on the transformer. We’ll isolate them all. We only need to find one of hers, to put her there at the scene.’
‘Mrs Fontane wears gloves,’ I said.
‘You really believe she did it, don’t you?’
‘She’s got a motive. A strong motive. Even if she killed the wrong person.’ I suddenly made up my mind. ‘I can get you a set of her prints if you really want them. Do you?’
‘Not breaking and entering, surely, Jordan?’ He was mocking me. ‘I shall have to caution you about your devious ways.’
‘Not breaking and entering.’ I didn’t add that I had a key.
I checked whether her BMW had returned to the garage at The Limes. The garage was empty. In a moment I had let myself in. It was still there, the tumbler on the kitchen table. She had not had time to wash it up before rushing off to her committee meeting.
Hide and Die (Jordan Lacey Series Book 4) Page 21
