Murder Makes A Claim (Julia Blake Cozy Mystery Book 8)

by Gillian Larkin

  “Hiya!” Joe called out from the sofa. He reached for a remote control and turned the television off. “I thought I might see you two this morning. What are you doing with that cleaning spray, Julia?”

  “Nothing.” Julia shoved the bottle back into her bag. “What are you doing at home? Are you sick?”

  “No.” Joe stood up. “The police told everyone to stay away this morning. They’ve got some forensic, or crime scene, people in. They’ll let us know when we can go back.” He shook his head. “There’s no one there to answer the phones. We’re going to lose a lot of business. Karl won’t be pleased.” He frowned. “I keep forgetting that he’s dead.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Julia said. “Were you good friends?”

  “I thought we were. Let me make you a cup of tea or coffee. I’m trying to make sense of the whole thing. The police said that you found the body. Julia, would you mind talking about it with me. I can’t quite take it in. I need to talk about it. Is that alright?”

  All thoughts of not getting involved in the case flew out of the window as Julia looked at Joe’s worried face. “Okay. A cup of tea would be lovely. We’ll make a start on the cleaning.”

  Joe waved a hand. “Leave the cleaning, it doesn’t need much doing anyway. Cain, what would you like?”

  “A coffee, thank you. With milk and two sugars.”

  Joe nodded. “I think I’ve got some biscuits somewhere too. Won’t be a minute.”

  When he’d left the room Julia said to Cain, “I can’t come here and not clean. I’ll do some cleaning and you can listen to Joe.”

  Cain shook his head. “I’ll do the cleaning. You can listen to Joe, you’re better at asking questions.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Listen out for clues. Find out who wanted to do away with Karl.” He headed towards the nearest window and took out his duster and spray.

  Julia walked towards the sofa. She took out her own duster and gave Joe’s glass table a quick going-over. She plumped up the cushions before taking a seat. This didn’t feel right, sitting and drinking tea when she should be cleaning.

  Joe returned a few minutes later. He took a cup over to Cain who had now moved on to another window. “Here you go. I did find some biscuits, have as many as you like.” He handed a packet over and then walked towards Julia. He placed two cups down on the coasters that Julia had just dusted. “Well, Julia, where should we begin?”

  Julia’s attention was caught by Cain at the far side of the room. He was tapping the side of his nose in an overly theatrical gesture. Julia turned her attention back to Joe. “Why don’t you tell me what time you left the building last night?”

  Joe rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “Ah. This is going to be difficult. The police seem to think that I was the last person to see Karl alive. You know that I didn’t get that job that I interviewed for, I told you that yesterday.”

  Julia’s thoughts flew to the sticky notes that she’d seen in Karl’s office yesterday. “Did you find out why you didn’t get the job?”

  Joe’s forehead wrinkled. “No. Karl was really offhand with me in the interview, he was asking me questions about my expense claims, and if I got on well with my team. I had this feeling that someone had told him something about me, something that was affecting my interview. I stayed late last night because I wanted to ask him exactly why I didn’t get the job. I went into his office at about a quarter past eight. He was on the phone arguing with someone. He waved me away before I could speak. He was in such a foul mood that I thought better of confronting him about my interview.” He looked down at his knees. “I thought I would speak to him about it today.”

  “Did you leave the office then?” Julia asked.

  Joe looked up. “Yes, I left straight away. I didn’t see anyone else on floor eight. But you know what it’s like with all those partitions, anyone could have been hiding behind one of them.”

  Julia nodded. “I was with Fred and Cain in reception when Lorraine left just after eight.”

  “Eight?” Joe interrupted. “That’s strange. She said goodbye to me at ten to eight. She was going to meet some friends nearby at eight o’clock and I remembered thinking that she was going to be on time for a change. I saw her getting into the lift.”

  It was Julia’s turn to frown. “It doesn’t take ten minutes to get to the reception area. I wonder where she went.”

  “Why don’t you ask me yourself?” The temperature in the room plummeted as a furious-looking Lorraine stormed towards them.

  Chapter 12

  A large bag swung from the crook in Lorraine’s arm. Her foot tapped impatiently on the wooden floor as she sent daggers of hate towards Julia. Out of the corner of her eye, Julia saw Cain scuttled towards the kitchen. Coward.

  “Well?” Lorraine barked out. “What’s going on here?” Without turning her eyes away from Julia she said, “Joe, what’s this woman doing here?”

  Joe stood up and moved towards Lorraine, his hands held up in front of him. “Calm down, love. Remember what the doctor said about stress. Julia always comes here on Wednesdays. Cain’s here too. Somewhere.”

  “What’s she doing sitting on the sofa? That doesn’t look like cleaning work to me.” Her look moved towards the glass table. “Is she having a drink? This isn’t a café.” She pointed at Julia. “I’ve heard about cleaners like you. You go to people’s homes, drink their tea and eat all their biscuits! You barely flick a feather duster over anything! Joe, I think you should sack her. I knew she was no good the minute I saw her.”

  Joe put his arm around Lorraine. “Calm down, Lorraine. I asked Julia to sit down. I was the one who insisted that she have a cup of tea. I would never sack Julia, she does an amazing job.”

  Lorraine sniffed. “Doesn’t look like that to me. Why did you need to talk to her? You knew I was on my way over. You can talk to me about anything.” She finally tore her attention away from Julia and towards Joe. “You know you can talk to me about anything, don’t you? We shouldn’t keep secrets from each other.”

  Joe’s hand dropped from her shoulders. “I was talking to Julia about what happened last night.”

  “Where?” Lorraine asked.

  “At the office,” Joe said. “When Karl died.”

  “Oh, him. What have you been saying to her?”

  Julia stood up. She had been polite inside the offices of Inkwell’s Insurance for Ellen’s sake. But this was her own cleaning business, she didn’t have to put up with this sort of behaviour. In a cold tone Julia said, “What we spoke about is none of your business. If you can’t speak to me in a civil manner then please don’t talk to me at all. Joe, I’ll get on with the rest of the cleaning.” She made to walk away.

  Joe took a step forward. “Julia, wait. I’m sure Lorraine didn’t mean to talk to you in that way. She’s very emotional at the moment.”

  Lorraine said, “Don’t make excuses for me, Joe. I’ll speak to the hired help however I please.”

  Julia felt anger rising up in her. Trying to keep her voice calm, she answered with, “I am not your hired help. I will not be spoken to in that manner.”

  Lorraine immediately burst into tears. Joe was back at her side in a second. “Hey there,” he said as he put his arms around her. “I knew all this stress was getting to you. Come and sit down.” He led her towards the sofa and helped her to sit down. A tear rolled down Lorraine’s perfectly made-up cheek.

  Julia felt guilt stab at her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Lorraine reached into her bag and pulled out a pack of tissues. She took one out and dabbed delicately at her eyes. “It’s not you. I don’t really care what you think about me. Joe’s right, I’m very emotional.” She smiled over at Joe and laid a hand on her flat stomach. “Well, I would be, wouldn’t I? In my condition.”

  Julia felt the urgent need to sit down.

  Lorraine smiled over at Julia, it wasn’t a friendly smile. “Has Joe told you? We’re going to have a baby.”

&n
bsp; Julia looked at Lorraine’s flat stomach and then over at Joe. Was it her imagination or was Joe’s left eye twitching slightly?

  Joe gave a short laugh and said, “Yes! It was a real surprise for us! We haven’t been dating long.”

  Lorraine moved even closer to Joe. She’d be sitting on his lap soon. “It’s a lovely surprise though, isn’t it? I think it was a blessing in disguise that you didn’t get that job in Hong Kong.” She looked around the apartment. “I’ll probably move in for a while so that you can look after me. There will have to be some changes. Those hideous posters will have to go.” Her look landed on Julia, her mouth curled up in a smirk. “There will be other changes too.”

  Julia shivered slightly. Something was going on here. Joe didn’t look at all happy about the baby. There was a calculating glint in Lorraine’s eyes that Julia didn’t like the look of. She decided to change the subject. “Getting back to last night, I saw you leave the building just after eight. Joe saw you heading to the lift at ten minutes to eight. Why did you take so long to get to the ground floor? Did you go somewhere else in between?”

  Lorraine gasped and a hand flew to her chest. “I beg your pardon! What the hell has that got to do with you? Joe! Can you believe what she just said?”

  Julia couldn’t read Joe’s expression. He turned to Lorraine and said, “I’d like to know too. What did you tell the police?”

  Lorraine’s eyes narrowed. “If you must know I went down to the ladies’ room on floor four to reapply my make-up. The ladies room there is much nicer than ours.”

  Julia made a mental note to check the ladies’ room on floor four that evening. She was about to ask another question when there was a knock on the door. Julia recognised the knock and immediately stood up. Cain must have recognised the knock too because he came running into the room declaring that he’d finished cleaning the kitchen and bathroom.

  Julia hurriedly said, “Time for us to go! We’ll catch up later. I’ll get the door on the way out.” She jogged over to the door and opened it, a smile ready on her face. “Good morning, DI Clarke. We can’t stay to chat! We’ve got work to do. Come on, Cain.”

  Cain grinned at the inspector as he followed Julia out of Joe’s apartment and towards the flight of stairs that led to their next client’s apartment.

  When they were halfway up the next set of stairs Julia whispered, “That was close! Quick! He might be after us.”

  Cain chuckled. “Did you hear what he said when you ran past him? He said something about the curse striking again. He’s so funny.”

  “He’s hilarious,” Julia added dryly.

  Chapter 13

  Julia needed plenty of tea and coffee to keep her going through the day. Cain had youth on his side. Julia vaguely remembered that feeling of having unlimited energy.

  As they drove away from their last job, Cain said, “Should we have cleaned Joe’s apartment today? I could have been destroying vital evidence.”

  “What kind of evidence? And why do you think there would be evidence at Joe’s place?”

  “He’s a suspect,” Cain pointed out. “You heard what he said, he was the last one to see Karl alive.”

  “Apart from the killer. The killer is always the last one to see the victim alive.” Julia shot a quick glance at Cain. “What are you thinking?”

  “Joe could be the killer. We’ve dealt with enough murder cases now to know that people lie. He admitted that he went to Karl’s office to confront him about the interview. They could have got into an argument and Joe could have stabbed Karl with something.”

  Julia sighed. “You’re right.” She turned right and joined the main road into Leeds. “But don’t forget that Lorraine was supposedly in the ladies for about ten or fifteen minutes. Or didn’t you hear her telling me and Joe that?”

  “I heard what she said, she’s got a loud voice. She’s a suspect too but I don’t know why she would want to kill Karl. We’ll have to delve deeper into that.”

  Julia slowed down as she approached a queue of traffic. “I don’t want to do any delving. We’re going to leave this investigation to the police.”

  Cain went on, “And don’t forget about Ivor. We saw him leaving at ten past eight, then after that, we went to the basement and Fred went on his rounds. Ivor could have come back into the building, sneaked into the lift and then made his way over to Karl’s office.”

  Julia came to a stop at the end of the queue. She looked over at Cain. “And why would Ivor kill Karl?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Maybe Ivor wants Karl’s job. Maybe they had an argument about Joe’s interview. You heard what Ivor said about Joe getting the job, he thought Joe was definitely going to get it.”

  Julia turned back to the windscreen. The queue began to inch forward. “Cain, it doesn’t have anything to do with us. We’ll be in Leeds soon. Hopefully. We’ll get a quick bite to eat before heading to the office. I do hope Fred is okay. He had quite a shock last night.”

  “He probably won’t be working,” Cain said. “Can we go for a pizza?”

  All thoughts of eating healthily fled Julia’s mind. She was too tired to eat a salad anyway, all that crunching and chewing was too much effort. She reasoned that a pizza took less effort to eat. “Yes, we’ll do that.”

  An hour later they headed towards the office. Julia pulled at the waistband of her jeans, she was already regretting her choice of a stuffed-crust pizza. It had been delicious though.

  Cain whizzed through the revolving door, Julia trudged behind him. She walked straight into Cain at the other side of the door. “Move out of the way, Cain,” she grumbled.

  Cain was staring straight ahead. He hissed from the side of his mouth, “Julia! It’s Fred. He is working tonight. Look at his face, he actually looks older.”

  Julia looked towards the reception area. Fred was sitting down and staring at something in front of him. Cain was right, the elderly man looked even older. Julia shook her head in disgust. “He shouldn’t be working tonight. The company should have got someone else. It’s not right!”

  Cain and Julia made their way over to the reception desk. Fred raised tired-looking eyes to them and attempted a smile. “Hello you two. How are you today? I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I couldn’t get that image of poor Mr Rayburn out of my head.” He shifted in his seat and grimaced. “I think I hurt my back when I collapsed last night.”

  Julia’s face creased in concern. “Didn’t the ambulance staff check you over? You shouldn’t be working tonight.”

  “I can look after myself. I’ve had problems with my back before, the pain will go soon.” Fred looked left and right before continuing. “I did phone earlier from home and ask if I could have the night off but they wouldn’t let me. I spoke to that Lorraine Carver and she said that they didn’t have time to get someone in to cover me. She added that I wouldn’t get paid if I didn’t come in.”

  “Who put her in charge?” Julia exploded.

  Fred shrugged. “Everything’s up in the air at the moment. I think Ivor Walsall is second in command. I saw him in Mr Rayburn’s office about half an hour ago.” Fred’s attention was drawn to someone behind them. He tried to stand up.

  A woman’s voice called out, “It’s okay, Fred. I’m only popping up to his office to collect some personal belongings.”

  Julia and Cain turned around to look at the woman. It was the same woman who Julia had seen with Ivor, the one who’d spoken to him on the phone in the lift yesterday.

  Fred put his hands on the desk and pushed himself into a standing position. “Hello, Mrs Rayburn, I’m so sorry about your husband. If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”

  Mrs Rayburn waved a gloved hand at Fred. Her voice caught as she said, “Thank you.” She gave Julia and Cain a watery smile and then headed towards the lift.

  Julia shared a surprised look with Cain. She turned to Fred and quietly said, “I didn’t know that was Mrs Rayburn. I saw her the other day with Ivor Walsall. I thought
she was his girlfriend.”

  Fred gave a weak chuckle. “No, they’re just good friends. Shall I get your cleaning trolley out for you?”

  Cain said, “I’ll get it!” and he dashed towards the room behind Fred before he could argue.

  Fred eased himself back into his seat. Julia said, “Have you got any painkillers? I’ve got plenty in my bag.”

  “I’ve already taken something. I’ll be fine. Like I said, I’ve had back problems before, ever since my big accident.”

  “What accident?” Julia asked.

  Fred’s eyes flickered for a moment and his face twisted in pain. He took a moment to focus on Julia. “It doesn’t matter. Ah, young Cain is back. You two get yourselves off. I might see you later.”

  Julia didn’t want to leave him but they did have cleaning work to do. She reluctantly followed Cain to the lift.

  As soon as the lift doors closed on them, Julia said, “I don’t like this! How dare Lorraine make Fred work! It’s obvious he’s in pain. He didn’t even have the strength to talk to me and you know how chatty he usually is.”

  Cain folded his arms and gave her a knowing look. “Lorraine might want him close to hand. What if she killed Karl and Fred saw something? Something that would incriminate her.” He waggled his eyebrows for extra effect.

  Julia thought about that. “Or it could be Ivor. If he’s second in command he could have told Lorraine to make sure Fred came in today. Maybe Fred saw something that will incriminate Ivor.” She shared a look with Cain to see if he was thinking the same thing. “We now have a motive for Ivor. It’s possible that he’s having an affair with Karl’s wife, he could have killed Karl to get him out of the way.”

  “It’s all getting interesting now, isn’t it? Are you sure you don’t want to get involved? We could make discreet investigations.”

  “I’m not sure.” Julia’s hands flew up and covered her face. She let out a groan as a terrible thought struck her. She lowered her hands. “If Fred did see something, that means his life could be in danger.”