Jordan Lacey Mystery 01 Pray and Die

by Stella Whitelaw

  The sea was far out, a distant greeny-blue mirror of the sun. It was calm today, a clear line on the horizon between green sea and the blue of the sky. Sometimes it’s churned up like Starbucks coffee, waves exploding on top with lashings of creamy froth. It’s the sand beneath that changes its colour. But today the sea was washing serenely in rhythmic waves, the pebbles moving and shuffling with barely a sigh.

  A great of expanse of wet sand beckoned my bare feet. I pulled off socks and trainers and stumbled over the grey and fawn pebbles until I reached the pools and eddies of water. The sun drenched my face and I stood, open-mouthed, to absorb its healing rays. How I loved the sea. This was where I wanted to die. On the beach. In the sea. I didn’t care how. It was my natural habitat. I’m a sea person.

  I walked the beach, singing Gershwin’s The Man I Love, though I didn’t know all the words. Crabs scurried away in horror. Small fish darted back to deeper water. A dog stopped to listen and howled tenor in unison.

  “Watch the traffic now,” I said to the dog as it raced back to a distant owner.

  When I reached the yacht club where rainbow-sailed surfers skimmed the waves, it was time to turn round and walk back to the pier which stalked the sea like some giant hump-backed centipede. I tried to make this a daily walk but sometimes there wasn’t time. Or I walked eastwards towards Shoreham passed the weathered boats drawn up on the shingle and chalked ‘fish for sale’ signs… crab, mullet, huss, and plaice at special prices.

  Somewhere near the pier I climbed to the upper level, mingling with the chip-eaters and burger-biters, roller-skaters and pushchairs pushers. I knew where I was going. I was going to look at Trenchers. It was another of my daily walks, a nostalgia fix. Trenchers had a history. I loved the place. No one even looked at it these days. One day the Council would tear it down and build another multi-storey eyesore.

  Trenchers was a huge, terraced, boarded up Edwardian hotel, slate roofed and imperial. It broke my heart to see it in its present state. It was right on the front, so elegant in design that nothing could destroy its looks. Once crowned heads had stayed there, heads of state, film stars of the Thirties. I could imagine them on the first-floor wrought-iron balconies drinking champagne, walking the promenade with parasols, playing croquet on the manicured lawns, their limousines parked in the spacious grounds behind the hotel.

  Now every window and doorway was planked with cream-painted boards and nailed up, and the garden a derelict dump for rubbish. The Council said it was going to be developed but they never said how or when. Didn’t they know the place was reeking of history, that ghosts walked the empty corridors and the soaring staircase? They could pull it down and put up retirement flats but the ghosts would still be there, walking their night long vigils, rustling, tip-toeing.

  I soaked up the ambience of the hotel, wishing I had a couple of million to buy the place, restore it, return the building to its former glory.

  One of the basement doors had been forced off its hinges, despite the sturdy bars. Weekend hooligans. I dreaded to think of what they had done inside. On the other hand, I had never seen inside the hotel, only looked with longing at faded photographs in Latching Town Museum. It had closed long before my time.

  No one was taking any notice of me as I climbed over the low wall and slid down the steps to the gaping door. In the cavernous gloom I saw stainless steel kitchen tables and a long range of cooking equipment. The floor was littered with bits of ceiling plaster and take-away cartons, beer cans and crisp bags.

  The interior was a gloomy mess. To the left were more corridors and passages to something that looked like a wine cellar. At the far end were narrow stairs leading up to the floor above. Everything had been destroyed, wrecked by vandals, fitments pulled off the walls, counters desecrated, a cold cabinet smashed. Wrinkled condoms… what a grim place in which to discover the joy of love-making. I hoped their passion had been so urgent, it transcended the surroundings.

  Empty houses can be alarming, especially large empty vaults like Trenchers. Sounds echoed, exaggerating the size; shadows loomed, taking on weird shapes, a man, a beast, nightmarish distortions. The air was stale, breathed-over a hundred times, smelling of dust and dirt and mould and vermin and decay. Yet all the lost living survived somewhere… the loving, the longing, the bitterness, the quarrels. Chefs still bustled over the steaming pots, the waiters scurried with trays, the dumb-waiter clanked its dishes upstairs to the grand silver-service dining-room.

  I was aware of the atmosphere. When on the force, I could instantly tell whether a house was happy or hiding something. Trenchers was harder to define. It didn’t yield its secrets easily. I looked up at the hole in the ceiling, hoping to glimpse the vestibule or the famous grand staircase, sweeping upwards.

  Instead I saw a grey-stockinged leg wearing a sensible laced-up shoe. It was slowly swinging around. I moved closer to the hole, taking care where I trod, till I was right underneath.

  It was a dead nun. She wore one of those modern habits—grey skirt, white blouse, and grey cardigan, her hair covered with a grey fabric kerchief. I saw her outline clearly because light washed down from the glass dome in the roof above the vestibule. She was hanging from a meat hook.

  I swallowed hard.

  She was on the edge of my vision. I was seeing, but not seeing. Her face was hidden by the flowing folds of the kerchief though I was not sure if I wanted to see her properly. If death had come violently, her staring eyes would reflect the horror and pain. Her skin would have changed colour; her flesh was already decaying. She had been dead a while, perhaps a few days. There was congealed blood. I did not know how long she had been there, nor did I want to know. No one can escape death but this wasn’t my job any more. None of my business. It’s what the police are paid for.

  Trenchers was completely still. Nothing moved. There was only my breathing.

  I’d seen quite enough. I re-tracked fast but carefully, my heart pounding. This was no time for a sprained ankle. A can skittered over the floor and the noise was like clashing symbols echoing everywhere. I clambered up the steps and over the wall and I didn’t care who saw me.

  My route to the police station was on auto-pilot. I was hardly aware of anyone or anything. The nun hung in my mind, and that’s not a joke. It was a wonder I didn’t get run over. I ignored the red pedestrian lights, didn’t wait for the little green men, darted across roads against the traffic.

  The forecourt of the police station was a reassuring collection of panda cars, motorbikes and bicycles. I rushed up to the desk. Sergeant Rawlings looked at me over his spectacles. They needed cleaning.

  “Another dead cat, Jordan?”

  “No, a dead nun.”

  “A what?”

  “A dead nun. Very dead.”

  “Now that’s different.”

  I planted my elbows on the counter top. “Why is it that no one ever takes me seriously? I tell you, she’s dead and she’s a nun. I found her.”

  “What did she die of? Over-dose of communion wine?”

  “Tacky, sergeant, tacky. No wonder the force gets a bad name. She’s slung up on a meat hook in Trenchers Hotel. Now it’s over to you and your band of valiant sleuths. And no, she’s not one of my clients.”

  I turned on my heel and marched out, still unnerved. I needed coffee and a hot shower. The sky was torn with pewter clouds now, rain heading from the east. If I didn’t hurry, I was going to get wet and I had to be in Chichester by five o’clock to meet Cleo Carling. Just time for a quick call at the shop. My priorities surfaced.

  There was still some coffee in the percolator and I heated it up. Hot mug in hand, I hurried round, tidying and putting things straight. My office had to be pin-tidy, even if my bed-sits were days passed their weekly onslaught. I was still shaking.

  It was starting to rain, pattering on the windows and streaking the glass. The door flung open and a young man almost fell into the shop, bringing a gust of rain with him.

  “I must have it!” he g
asped. “It’s wonderful. It’s marvelous. I’ve only twenty pounds. OK, it’s worth double but I’ve no more money.”

  I put down my mug. He was in his twenties, hair spiky blond, wild glazed eyes and jacket flapping. Yet he did not look really dangerous. He was waving a twenty pound note which was hardly life-threatening.

  “Can I help you, sir?” I said in my best shop voice.

  “That chamber pot. It’s divine. God Save the King. I must have it. It is for sale, isn’t it?” His eyes were suddenly flooded with despair.

  “Of course,” I said, taking it out of the window and scraping off the £6 price label which I had stuck on its bottom.

  “How much?” His lower lip was trembling.

  “Twenty pounds.”

  He nearly collapsed with relief. Clearly off his rocker.

  “I’ll take it. I’ll take it.”

  He staggered out of the shop, the precious chamber pot in a secondhand carrier bag. I didn’t know selling things was so easy. I dug through my cardboard box of trove from the charity shops and picked out a delicate blue milk jug. It said DELFT underneath which was somewhere in Holland. I stuck the same £6 price label on it and put it in the window. It looked lonely so I added some blue glass necklace beads in a careless swirl.

  He put his head round the door again. “If you ever find another one …?” he said hopefully.

  “I’ll keep it under the bed for you,” I promised.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cleo Carling occupied my mind on the short train journey to Chichester. I tried to put the nun firmly out of brain activity. What was this family up to? I should have learned by now that nothing is straight forward. It’s like the men in my life. They are complicated. I’d rather live with a cat.

  As the flat fields, dunes, swamps and housing estates flashed by, I thought about Ursula Carling. She was warped, bitter, revengeful, distraught, hysterical - a fifty-year-old woman standing on the edge of undeniable middle-age and not liking what she saw ahead. She wanted Arthur to be reassuring her that she was still pretty, still desirable, still capable of holding onto one man’s devotion.

  I remembered the photograph that Ursula had shown me. Arthur looked pleasant, dependable and fun to be with. He had the kind of face that would look good sleeping. He would be considerate and not snore or sleep with his mouth open. Amalgam fillings should be kept to oneself. Only your dentist should know.

  Chichester was a friendly sort of town, geared with plenty of pedestrian walkways for strollers and shoppers. Sections of the ancient town walls were wide enough to walk on, giving uninterrupted views of other people’s back gardens. I like back gardens. They give away so many secrets. Front gardens are on view, designed to be seen, but back gardens bear the true nature of the occupants.

  I wandered by the Market Cross, a splendid octagonal open-sided shelter built by some far-seeing bishop in 1501, all gargoyles and carved symbols intended to scare the serfs. The cathedral was open on one side to the city, a patchwork of medieval stone with bits and pieces of masonry built on over the centuries, its spire soaring above the Sussex plains. The site had once been fields; now it was in the centre of town.

  Cleo was easy to recognize. She was a neat young woman in her early thirties, dark hair bobbed, a smile ready on her face. She was wearing the kind of grey tailored business suit I could never wear, ten denier stockings, court shoes. I shifted uneasily in my jeans and sneakers. Perhaps I should have dressed up. A jacket at least. But she had spotted me and was coming across.

  “Hello, I’m Cleo Carling. And you are Jordan Lacey?”

  “How did you recognize me?”

  “You’ve got that intense look of concentration. It’s your job, always being alert, I suppose, looking out for things.”

  I grinned. “You’re being flattering about a job which can be terminally tedious and boring. Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

  “I hope you’re going to tell me what this is all about. My mother is employing you, you say? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She does do some strange things.”

  “Is there somewhere we can go and talk?”

  “Across the road there’s a converted church. The cafe stays open late and we could get a cup of tea.”

  “Good idea.” I knew the place. It was an innovative use of an unwanted red-brick Victorian church. Inside there were craft shops, stamp dealers, antique stalls, a cafe. Better than pulling down a solid building and putting up another tatty discount outlet.

  We settled ourselves at a table in the aisle, ordered a pot of tea and I asked for two slices of carrot cake. Ursula was paying.

  I told Cleo about her mother’s accusation, watching her face for any reaction. She was either a very good actress or her astonishment was genuine. At one point she seemed quite distressed and it was fortunate then that the tea arrived and she could busy herself pouring it out.

  “I don’t believe all this rubbish,” she said, stirring her tea vigorously. “I don’t get on with my mother, haven’t for years but that doesn’t mean I’d do this. It’s too weird for words. You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “I’ve seen the stuff that’s being sent to her and it’s pretty nasty. She is genuinely upset by it.”

  “OK, so she’s upset. I’m sorry. But I’m not sending it.”

  “The letters are signed Cleo.”

  Cleo nearly spilt her tea. “That means nothing! So, someone is using my name. She could be sending the letters to herself. I don’t like being accused of something I’m not doing.”

  “She told me you were having an affair with Arthur, her husband, but didn’t say you were her daughter. She implied that you were some unknown third person. Unless, of course, there’s another Cleo in existence and she doesn’t mean you at all.”

  “No, she means me. She’s unstable, vindictive,” said Cleo. “Not a happy woman. Arthur wasn’t my natural father. She married him when I was nine years old. He was fun, like a big older brother. She was always jealous of how well we got on. My father was Ursula’s first husband, Ted Burrows. I was only three when he died and she rarely mentioned him.”

  “I see … but no one would send themselves a dead cat.”

  “Perhaps she just picked it up in the street and brought it along to you for dramatic effect. I wouldn’t put it passed her.”

  I shook my head. I remembered Ursula’s hysteria and the blanched colour of her face. You can’t act the colour of your face. “She was nearly out of her mind. She wasn’t putting it on. Can you tell me why you don’t get along? Briefly?”

  Cleo sighed deeply. She was reliving a disturbing past.

  “She’s a very difficult person to live with. I left home to go to business college which was good for me. I had such fun. I came home and got a job but she was so awful, I walked out. That was about three years ago. It seemed sensible to have my own place in Chichester.”

  “And you keep in touch?”

  Cleo looked somewhat ashamed. “No. We don’t even meet. I occasionally phone, send her a birthday card or something but she doesn’t respond. My fault, I suppose. She’s not interested in what I do. My stepfather, Arthur that is, was quite different. He often came into Chichester for lunch. I didn’t want to cut myself off from him. He was like a rock to me.”

  “That’s understandable. He looks a nice person.”

  “Great. He was a wonderful father.”

  Cleo wasn’t helping me much. If it wasn’t Cleo then it must be someone else sending all the hate mail. I was going to have to search much further afield.

  “I wonder if you could give me a list of your parent’s friends. Or anyone you might think would have a reason to persecute Ursula,” I said, chasing round the last crumbs of carrot cake with a damp finger.

  “There’s lots. My mother has a way of alienating people. They’ve had to move twice because of neighbour trouble.”

  “That sounds more like it. Can you jot down a few names and addresses … if you can remember them.” />
  “Of course.” She took a leather-bound notebook from her handbag, being that kind of well-prepared person. Her pen was an initialed gilt biro. Not a jumbo pack from a Poundshop. She began writing in neat script, nothing like the angry capitals of the hate mail.

  “Thanks. I suppose I ought to speak to your father next. He might be able to shed some light.”

  She looked up quickly, her pen stabbing the page. Her eyes were suddenly clouded with grief. The lowering sun rays through the stained glass windows sent streaks of ruby and emerald light across her hair, changing her into a rainbowed junkie.

  “But you can’t,” she said in a low voice.

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s dead. He died in January. Didn’t Ursula tell you?”

  “Dead? Oh, Cleo, I’m so sorry. She never said.”

  The anguish was written all over Cleo’s face, unanchored pain.

  “I think Ursula Carling owes me an explanation,” I said, all the facts changing places in my head. Perhaps she was round the bend, in which case I was unlikely to get paid. “She’s been very economical with basic truths. What on earth is she playing at? Tell me what happened.”

  “He had a heart attack in hospital. It was all very sudden. I didn’t even know he was ill or I would never have gone away on a skiing holiday. When I got back from Austria, it was all over, funeral and everything. She hadn’t bothered to contact me.”

  “Well, that’s enough to make anyone deliver a dead cat.”

  Cleo was clearly upset. I thought I ought to let her go home to what was probably a neat, well-kept flat in a nice part of Chichester.

  “I didn’t do it,” she said, blowing her nose on a clean white hankie. “It wasn’t me. The cat or anything.” I believed her.

  My two bed-sits welcomed me. They always did. There was something about their comfortable size, the old-fashioned sashed windows, the funny sloping ceilings, and my collected treasures that say hello every time I walk in and ease out of my shoes. I switched on the kettle and took out a flowered bone china mug. It was one of my favourites. Now that I had my own shop, I wondered how much it was worth. I’d paid fifty pence for it at a car boot sale.