Death in High Circles (The Falconer Files Book 10)

by Andrea Frazer

  Dear God! Was he going to have to go through that as well? After all he had learnt tonight? Well, he didn’t have to let her stay long. He could always plead an early start in the morning – a pre-breakfast meeting that he couldn’t get out of.

  They both sat in silence during the drive back to his house in Letsby Avenue, neither knowing what to do to break the impasse. Falconer was aware that, in not bringing her car, she was signalling that she would like to spend the night with him, and although that had been his fervent hope earlier, the idea disgusted him now, after what he had learnt.

  He was aware of it being the twenty-first century, but that could do nothing to undo his upbringing and his personal moral code. Honey had been soiled by what she had done – not so much the abortion, although he strongly disapproved, but by her lax morals.

  Did she always act like a loose woman when she went back to the Caribbean? How many affairs had she had on the island? Was this normal practice for her when back there, this slackening of a moral code, to which she admitted her parents strongly adhered?

  Once inside the house, he saw her settled on the sofa, before going into the kitchen to boil water for coffee. He’d make instant; he didn’t want to prolong this painful evening any longer than was absolutely necessary, and just wished himself in bed with a hot drink, reading, oblivious to the real world, with all its faults and failings.

  He had no sooner laid out cups and saucers on a tray when there was a piercing shriek from the living room, and he arrived in the doorway just in time to see Honey literally throw Monkey across the room. ‘What, in the name of God, do you think you’re doing?’ he shouted, above the still shrill yells.

  ‘It’s a filthy cat! Get it away from me! Get it out!’

  Falconer ran to Monkey and picked her up, snuggling her to him, as he checked her out for any injuries, and she nuzzled his face lovingly and began her exotic double purr. Two more furry bodies slunk down the stairs, and two more, from behind an armchair, strolled out to see what all the fuss was about, and Honey recommenced shrieking, and jumped on to the sofa to get away from them.

  ‘Get rid of them!’ she yelled, and found Falconer yelling back at her.

  ‘How dare you treat an animal like that! They are my family. They live here, and I love them. How dare you lay a finger on any one of them!’

  ‘Well, shut them up somewhere,’ she shouted. The two large glasses of red wine that she had consumed in the restaurant on an empty stomach must have begun to affect her, for she suddenly changed her mood and almost crooned at him.

  ‘Throw the nasty cats out and let’s go upstairs. You know that’s what you want to do. You’ve wanted to for ages, and I could do with a little bit of comfort myself.’ Then she screeched again, as Meep leapt up on the sofa and began to wind herself, as best she could on the uncertain surface, round her ankles.

  ‘Get off me! Get off me!’

  Falconer gently laid Monkey down and removed Meep from Honey’s feet, fearful that she would kick the unsuspecting animal. Never before in his life had he had such an urge to strike a woman, as he did now, and he realised he had also suffered from what he could only describe as a rush of parental feeling for his charges, as if they were his children, ‘I think you’d better leave, don’t you?’

  ‘How can you prefer these creatures to me?’ she spat out in anger. ‘You could easily get rid of them, and I could move in. We’d make a great team.’

  ‘Because these “creatures”, as you call them, only ever kill for food, and not because it may affect their career, or their social standing.’ There! He’s said the unthinkable!

  ‘You pathetic little man!’ she howled. ‘How dare you judge me? How dare you even think you could have me? I’ll see myself out and call a taxi from my mobile.’

  Stalemate.

  ‘Well, go on, then. Go!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t get down until you shut those cats in the kitchen, so I can get to the front door.’

  ‘You’ll have a long wait, then,’ Falconer replied, suddenly rebelling at everything the evening had dealt him, and he picked up a newspaper and settled himself into an armchair to read it.

  How could he ever have thought that she was beautiful? She looked anything but, with her face screwed up into a bad-tempered mask, a snarl marring what he had previously thought of as the perfection of her lips. She looked ugly and full of hatred, and he felt he had had a glimpse into her soul, and he had not liked what he had seen.

  It would be a long time before he would be able to bring himself to be anything other than coldly civil towards her, and it struck him that he had just witnessed another attack borne simply out of blind prejudice. He’d rather live the rest of his life alone with his pets, than get tangled up with someone like that.

  Finally the scales had fallen from his eyes: his goddess was a mere mortal, and one that despised felines and had little regard for human life. He could no more consider a future with her than he could with anyone with such character traits.

  He went to bed that night, a sadder but wiser man.

  Chapter Twelve

  Friday

  The next morning, he came down to find Monkey growling at something that seemed to be hidden behind a cushion on the sofas and, on investigation, it proved to be Honey’s silk scarf from her disastrous visit the previous evening. Placing it in a plastic carrier bag, he determined to give it to Bob Bryant behind the desk, for the thought of handing it back personally was unthinkable.

  ‘There you go. All gone, now,’ he reassured the little brown cat and, intelligent as she was, she limped, holding a forepaw in the air until he left for work. It made him smile for the first time that day, as he had seen her land fairly and squarely on all four paws, and had checked her over himself to reassure himself that there was no injury. She was going to milk this one for all it was worth, if her behaviour before, during, and after breakfast was anything to go by.

  Although he hadn’t slept well, Falconer did his best to act as if nothing abnormal had happened the night before, and he received two phone calls shortly after his arrival in the office that both required visits, and helped to keep him distracted.

  The first was from Wanda Warwick of Shepford St Bernard, enquiring if there had been any sightings of Bonnie Fletcher, who had been missing from her home for some time now. There had been appeals on local television and radio, and several sightings had been phoned in, but most were anonymous, and all those followed up, proved to be fruitless.

  Unless the young woman had decided to do a disappearing act, it must be assumed that some sort of accident, or worse, had befallen her for, as he said to Wanda, if she was alive and didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be. She could easily have changed her hair colour, her style of dress, and her make-up, and then no one would know her at a casual glance, probably not even her own parents.

  These last he agreed to visit again, just in case there had been something to alert them to her whereabouts, and this he did on his own, before he had even had a morning coffee. He needed something to take his mind off the terrible happenings yesterday evening, and this seemed like just the ticket.

  Carmichael was seated in his usual place when he returned, just in time to receive a call from Mabel Wickers in Fallow Fold, with a request that they come out to see her, as she had some information that might prove useful to them in their investigations.

  This second distraction, appearing so close to the first one, was to be welcomed, and he alerted Carmichael, even suggesting that they really ought to pop into the hospital and see how Roberts was doing, as they had been neglecting him of late. This would eat a little more of the day and stop him from brooding.

  Mabel had been watching for the car, and as she opened the door to them, he could hear her old-fashioned kettle whistling away on the gas hob. After presenting them with a laden tray, a plate of home-made sponge cake taking star position in the centre, she pinned Falconer with a g
imlet eye, and said, ‘I have a confession to make.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it was you that went out on a vandalism spree,’ he joked with her, and Carmichael choked on the mouthful of cake he had been masticating.

  ‘You tease. Of course it wasn’t, but I believe you received an unsigned letter recently, alluding to the perpetrator of the distressing goings-on in this village.’

  ‘Perfectly correct, madam. It indicated that the anonymous writer knew who had been up to no good, which is more than I do, at the moment. Do you happen to know who it was that sent the letter in question?’

  ‘Don’t rag me. You know damned well it was me, or I wouldn’t have called you. I’ve been away, spending some time with a friend, but I spent most of it regretting my precipitate action in putting that little fire-cracker in the post-box, so I thought I’d better get myself off home and make a clean breast of it.’

  ‘So it was you?’

  ‘Of course it was, but I wouldn’t have sent it if I hadn’t had good reason.’

  ‘We’re all ears, especially Carmichael. Ears like a bat, he’s got. That’s why he often wears a hat.’ He was babbling, and he knew it.

  Carmichael looked up at that point, just as he was helping himself to a third slice of cake.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Mabel laughed, and Carmichael frowned. Had he missed something?

  ‘I wrote it because I had a visit from Lionel Dixon, the chap from The Retreat who runs the Bridge Circle.’ She paused, before continuing, ‘I don’t know how much you know.’

  ‘Let’s pretend we know nothing, then you won’t miss anything by assuming we already know it,’ Falconer advised her.

  ‘Fair deal. Bridge Circle is on a Monday evening, and Lionel always hosts it, providing plates of tasty little mouthfuls and drinks, and everyone makes a contribution towards his costs. He’s only ever cancelled one meeting before, when he had influenza a couple of years back.

  ‘On that occasion, he was punctilious about phoning every member with his apologies, so that no one would turn out on a cold evening to find that the meeting had been cancelled, because he didn’t want to pass on what he had to anyone else.

  ‘This Monday just past seemed the same as any other Monday, but when we arrived, there was no answer to either the bell or the knocker. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Lionel wasn’t there, there were no lights on, and just a note on the mantelpiece to say he’d been called to his mother’s bedside, or some other rot. His mother’s been dead for fifteen years; that I do know.

  ‘He’d come to visit me, however, the day before, after church, to get a few things off his chest. He seemed to have a bee in his bonnet about the Maitlands, who are his next door neighbours, hinting at all sort of underhand doings on their part, or at least on his – Melvyn’s, that is.’

  ‘Like what?’ Falconer interrupted her flow, as it seemed the details were a necessary part of the tale.

  ‘He seemed to think that he was working on the black, and avoiding any tax and national insurance that he could – keeping under the radar, I suppose you’d call it. Anyway, he was very agitated about it, although I didn’t understand him to have a personal grievance against them. He sort of hinted, though, that a lot of the things that happened could be traced back to Melvyn Maitland.

  ‘Now, true or not, he seemed absolutely convinced of the man’s guilt. I pondered on that one for a while, and thought I’d get it off my chest by sending that stupid letter. So here I am, my hands up, wondering what you’re going to do about me.’

  ‘Absolutely nothing, madam. What we will do, is try to speak to both Mr Dixon and Mr Maitland, either to gather some evidence, or to identify whether there’s some personal grudge between them. By the way, this is delicious cake. Did you make it yourself? Isn’t it lovely, Carmichael?’

  He knew full well that Carmichael’s mouth was absolutely stuffed, and stifled a private chortle as his sergeant sprayed the carpet with crumbs trying to reply.

  ‘I made it first thing. Would you like the last piece, Sergeant?’ she asked politely, discreetly sweeping Carmichael’s unexpected gift of crumbs from the lap of her skirt with one of her broad hands.

  ‘He might as well. He’s eaten most of the rest of it,’ murmured Falconer, a curious numbness pervading his body and soul. He must be in a state of mild shock over Honey suddenly showing her true colours.

  On their way over to see if they could raise any answer at either The Retreat or Black Beams, Carmichael asked him if there was anything wrong, having noticed a difference in his behaviour, and being concerned about it.

  ‘Wrong, Sergeant? What could possibly be wrong? Apart from the fact that Dr Dubois is a spread-legged whore.’

  ‘You what, sir?’ Carmichael had stopped dead in his tracks, doubting either his hearing or his sanity. ‘What did you say?’ He was so taken aback to hear Falconer refer to anyone in such strong language that he hardly knew how to react. ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it, sir? I thought you thought she was the bee’s knees.’

  ‘Well, I was wrong, OK? And I don’t want to discuss it any more. Got it, Sergeant?’

  ‘Sorry I spoke.’ Carmichael felt quite offended to be so treated and definitely rebuffed.

  ‘Oh, just ignore me. I’m in a deep sulk, and I don’t feel up to discussing it at the moment. You can rest assured, though, that when I do need to talk, you’ll be the first person I turn to, because I know I can trust your discretion.’

  ‘Look, sir, if you ever need company, someone to talk to, or simply somewhere else to be, you’re always welcome at our house. If you’re hungry, we’ll gladly feed you. If you’re tired, we’ll always have a bed for you. And if you just want to sit up all night talking, I’ll keep you company, and so will Kerry. Between us, we could talk the proverbial hind legs off a donkey, and neither of us are gossips. Don’t be a stranger, OK, sir?’

  ‘Thank you very much, Carmichael. That means a lot to me,’ Falconer replied gravely, then lapsed, once more into silence. He had suddenly realised how lonely he had been feeling, and this was probably due to the aloofness he radiated, not because he didn’t want to be sociable, but because, although no one would believe it, he was, underneath all the things he had to be to do his job efficiently, a shy person, who found it very difficult to be ‘one of the crowd’. He found it impossible to show his feelings in the way others seemed to do, without having to think about it.

  Back in business mode once more, they worked their way round The Retreat first, finding the back door still unsecured. On entering, everything seemed to be in order, and Falconer sent Carmichael upstairs ahead of him, while he took a quick scout around the ground floor.

  It was no longer than two minutes later when he heard a scream which wouldn’t have disgraced a virgin about to be deflowered against her will, and he headed up the staircase, two steps at a time, to see what had produced this alarming reaction from his sergeant. Maybe he had found Mr Dixon, horribly dead, somewhere up there.

  What he discovered was Carmichael, standing in the bathroom, squealing with horror and disgust, and pointing at the bath. ‘It’s in there, sir, and it’s an absolute monster,’ he explained. Having no idea what to expect, Falconer took a look to reveal the presence of only a lone spider, albeit a very large and hairy specimen. ‘It’s only a spider, Carmichael. What’s all the fuss about?’

  ‘Get rid of it, sir. Get rid of it now! I can’t abide the things, and neither can Ma.’

  ‘How did she cope when you were little?’

  ‘She got Dad to deal with them.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Kerry actually picks them up,’ here he shuddered from head to toe, ‘and puts them outside. And if she’s not around, one of the boys does it. She’s brought them up not to be afraid of them, because they’re so much smaller than them. Get rid of it before I pass out.’

  Falconer was not very fond of the eight-legged horrors either, but boldly turned on a tap, flushed it down the plug-hole, then inserted the plug to
prevent its return by the same route. If any appeared in his own house, he used to have an unwritten agreement with Mycroft, that they were his, to do with what he wished. Now there were five spider-prevention units in the house, to cover his own disgust at the creatures, and his rather cowardly attitude towards their presence.

  ‘There you go, Carmichael,’ he stated. ‘All gone!’ then had to put his hands in his pockets, to hide the fact that they were trembling, if only very slightly. Never had he proved so heroic before about dealing with one of these particular horrors.

  What would they say at the station if they knew he had almost a strong a horror of arachnids as did his sergeant? He’d be a laughing stock, and, no doubt, the butt of several practical jokes involving fake or real eight-legged fiends, probably with Merv Green as the ring-leader.

  Present danger overcome, they began to search the first floor together – there might be more of them up here, as the house had been standing empty, and he’d rather come face-to-maw with them with Carmichael than without him.

  Everything looked fine until they got to the main bedroom, where the contents of drawers and cupboards were spilled everywhere in confusion, as if someone had been frantically searching for something they couldn’t find.

  Clothes covered the floor and the dressing table that must once have belonged to Lionel’s mother, shoes were scattered around, and even the mattress sat askew, as if someone had been looking underneath it for whatever they sought. The whole room looked like it had been hit by a whirlwind.

  Downstairs once more, Carmichael riffled through the post that had accumulated in the hall, but there was nothing of interest there, apart from the usual junk mail and bills. Downstairs, pot plants were wilting, and a bunch of flowers in a vase in the middle of the dining table drooped its stems in pathetic arcs, its blooms bow-headed towards the table top, sitting as it did now in brown water.

  Suddenly attracted by the 1930s clock garniture on the mantelpiece, Falconer wandered over to it, and found there was a letter tucked behind it. Maybe this was another one abut visiting his dead mother, he thought facetiously. But it wasn’t, and he read: I think Mel knows about us. Be very careful. M xxx