Jordan Lacey Mystery 01 Pray and Die

by Stella Whitelaw

  The table by the window was covered with Ursula’s hate mail—the threats, the abuse, the sinister accusations. I shuffled through them with new eyes before piling them on the floor, out of sight. No, this surely wasn’t Cleo’s work. She couldn’t be that crude or vitriolic. I’d have to start looking elsewhere.

  I only had one chair. It was a narrow two-seater, high backed settee with hard arms covered in pussy-willow plush velvet. I always sat on it sideways, my feet draped over the other end. There were four cushions for comfort. I wasn’t mean with cushions.

  Even the pictures on the walls soothed me. Monet, Matisse (in his red mood), Vuillard - whom no one has ever heard of - and Manet. I love the Vuillards; he was a French painter, late nineteenth century, who painted homey pictures, a man reading a newspaper, a woman feeding a baby, a woman sewing. He was mad about walls and his paintings featured acres of wallpaper roses, bookshelves and laden mantelpieces.

  My two kitchens are fairly obsolete. Number One Kitchen is used only for early morning tea and late night chocolate. I wash my smalls in the sink, also face, hands, hair and other parts. I don’t have a wardrobe so the kitchen unit houses my few clothes and shoes. There’s a short hanging rail for shirts and jeans. Coats hang behind the door.

  Kitchen Number Two is used for making tea, coffee, chocolate, pouring juice, heating soup and burning toast.

  It was while I was slaving over a hot chicken curry a few weeks earlier, adding all the right ingredients - sun dried tomatoes, basil, coriander - that I decided I was never, never going to cook again. No more burnt saucepans. From now on, it was going to be the three S’s—sandwiches, salads and soups. I might occasionally add extra nourishment to a soup by way of diced vegetables, lentils, pearl barley, chopped parsley, egg, cheese, sherry, croutons. If you could eat it, you could soup it.

  As I made this momentous decision, my old friend Joshua had his feet up on my settee, drinking a cold beer, doing my crossword. I let him eat the curry, sample all the side dishes, finish up the raspberry pavlova and then I told him it was The Last Supper.

  Joshua was really upset and borrowed a fiver from me for a taxi to the station. His hooded eyes were full of despair.

  “You can’t mean it,” he said on the doorstep, distraught. “All those gorgeous dinners. I love them. And you such a good cook.”

  “The only thing in my frig from now on is going to be ice,” I said.

  There are quite a few men in my life. I collect them like homeless strays. Unkind people might say they were misfits. They drift in and out at inappropriate moments. I am fond of them in different ways, wish I could take what I like best in each, put these qualities together and there’d be my fantasy prince on a white charger coming to claim me. I’ve been celibate for six years which says a lot. My hormones do have a problem.

  Joshua is a gentle giant, sad-faced, hesitant, a widower. He has asked me to marry him many times, and in the same breath checked if I could cook. Since he’s seriously short of money, I think he’s really looking for a meal ticket and a warm back in bed.

  I like him because he makes me laugh. A man who can make you laugh is a treasure.

  Derek is an upright citizen of the realm, a fresh-faced bachelor, an accountant, but so mean. I once watched him counting the contents of a packet of frozen broad beans. He doesn’t tip or give me presents. He also has a short fuse. I can imagine him stamping his feet as a little boy. He always wants his own way. But there were many things I liked about him, too. His serious manner on subjects that interest him, old concrete pillboxes and wars, his clean nails, his cut profile, his rampant kisses. I make fun of his meanness, pull his leg. He gets worried if he thinks he’s going to have to pay out for anything. I don’t want him to worry.

  But Lewis, the musician is someone special and plays the trumpet like a man possessed. He is the Harry James of Latching, the Maynard Ferguson of Great Britain. My flesh goes weak with longing for that soaring brass.

  I’d had a crush on him in my schooldays. He was music. He lived for it. The pure high trumpet notes made my stomach clench. They were moments to die for.

  I was seventeen when I first met him. He spoke to me after a jazz concert. It was like the back door to heaven though I heard he’d married a backing singer. By then I had joined the force and his music became a rare treat to savour when I was exhausted and my soul needed repairs.

  Once I heard him play Tin Roof Blues and I nearly died. The slow rhythmic beat of the drums, the mellow string bass and the soaring liquid notes of the trumpet sent chills down my spine and prickles along the base of my neck. How that man could make a piece of metal sing.

  He seemed to live in a different world. His eyes were so dark, I could never determine their colour. The floppy hair, the stooped shoulders, his glance narrowed behind glasses. His mouth was strongly curved, a shape that could coax such sounds from an instrument, long musicians fingers.

  “Doesn’t it hurt, all that blowing?” I asked, pushing to the front of the crowd of fans. He was signing autographs but he looked right at me. It was so strange, that look.

  “It only hurts when I get it wrong,” he’d said. “It doesn’t hurt when I’m getting it right. Don’t go, young lady. Stay and have some coffee. I need to unwind.”

  And there’s also Eddie, the Jude Law of West Sussex. He’s six feet tall, darkly handsome, also wears glasses, long ago divorced, that kind of velvety liquorice voice. He’s a romancer, dancer, charmer, drinks vodka and smokes like Southampton Docks. I can be hanging onto his arm and he’s bending to light another cigarette, apparently oblivious that I’m coughing, choking and wheezing for breath.

  “There, there, Jordan,” he’ll say, making ineffectual hand fanning movements which only distribute the smoke more evenly around me. “Got your inhaler?”

  He’ll have to go. He’s going. They are all going. I’ve a business to run.

  So don’t come to me for advice about men. I’m a loser. Leave them alone if you can. If you can’t, pick a good ‘un. If there aren’t any around, then get a cat and a library ticket.

  Sometimes I sit in the middle of my circular rug and chant: “Magic carpet, magic carpet, grant my wish, fly me to Arabia,” but nothing happens. Perhaps I should ask Rick for my money back.

  I started reading the brown files from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. They didn’t make any sense. Local names were listed and some of them I recognized. It seemed to be about some classified organization. I couldn’t concentrate properly because it was a long time since I had eaten and I was tiring. A slice of carrot cake is no substitute for a meal.

  Then I saw Trenchers Hotel mentioned and that grabbed my attention. Some meeting was being held there. They were hiring a private room for their meeting and an agenda circulated. The agenda was graded Highly Confidential and was simply initials and numbers. Heavens, why was I wasting my time looking through this stuff? I should be following up Ursula’s friends and neighbours. But something was nagging at me and I couldn’t work out what it was. What had Trenchers to do with this? The place where I had seen the hanging nun? Even back then it had been drenched in mystery.

  It was dark now so I went for a walk to clear my head. I love the beach at night. I walked along the promenade, all alone except for the gulls, runaway dogs and the incoming tide. A Waitrose shopping trolley, solid with rust, was being washed ashore. It looked like something from an alien ship. Any moment now a simian finger would reach out and claw its way up the shingle.

  The gulls were still active. Don’t they ever go to sleep? They were swooping about, dropping shell fish onto the rocks to break the shells. There was a lot of squabbling and fighting, much like people.

  And there were shadows shacking up for the night in the shelters with mountains of sleeping bags and stacks of newspaper for warmth, empty beer bottles rolling about under their feet. Latching has its share of the homeless but a shelter on the beach is better than a shop doorway. I felt thankful for my two bed-sits. I was lucky to
be able to afford them, but not for long if I didn’t make a go of this investigating business. I needed another client.

  She arrived the next morning, thin and anxious, skirts flapping. Her tortoise had gone missing. She thought someone had stolen it.

  “Well, they are quite valuable these days, aren’t they? And Joey is over twenty years old.”

  “Why don’t you go to the police?”

  “They’d think I was a nut case.”

  I tried to look serious and concerned. “Can you give me a description?” I couldn’t help liking her. Anyone who really cared about a tortoise has to be nice. She didn’t quibble about my rates.

  “Cheap at the price if you find Joey,” she said.

  That’s the kind of client I like but I didn’t hold out much hope of finding Joey. He was probably on the beach trying to chat up some rock, searching for his lost youth.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  One thing for sure, I was going to have to speak to Ursula Carling pretty quick. That lady had not been straight with me. She had a lot of explaining to do. Yet I was convinced the hate mail was genuine.

  Her consent form was on file. I had cobbled together an official looking document on my ancient computer, added a professional style FIRST CLASS logo culled from a colour Sunday magazine, edged it with a heavy in-set black line so it implied legal and had the whole thing photocopied at the library on top quality parchment paper. It looked good so I took a dozen copies for future use. I had started a file marked Ursula Carling though there was little in it.

  The consent form was for clients to sign, agreeing to my terms of payment. I didn’t want any arguments later with clients saying: “Oh, I didn’t know you meant every day,” or “What’s this about expenses?” The form also contained full name, address, phone number and brief details of the investigation for the time ahead when I had so many clients on my books, I got confused. The age of client, I filled in myself. It was impertinent these days the way every form asked for your age. I always put “over 21” and let them hyperventilate. For Ursula, I put ‘preserved 50-ish.’

  I jotted down her address in my notebook, admired the window displays, put the BACK SOON sign on the door, locked up and went out.

  I would soon have to get myself some wheels. Turning up at an investigation on a bicycle, even a racing model, was not image-making. But Latching is so flat, it’s ideal for cycling. I put on my helmet, unchained my bike from the parking meter—I love that—and turned it in the direction of Ursula Carling’s home.

  Lansfold Avenue was quite a way out beyond the terraces of Georgian and Victorian houses, or the wide roads flanked with sprawling Edwardian villas, many of them now converted into nursing homes for the elderly or bed and breakfast hotels. It was a tree-lined road with detached houses built between the wars in solid and varying styles. Ursula’s house was a mock Tudor number with a neat garden, trimmed shrubs and a lilac tree. The house next door was older with a lot of mature beech trees which overshadowed Ursula’s front bay window.

  It rang a bell. My filing cabinet had come from that house, The Beeches. I knew its electricity bills intimately. I looked at its shuttered windows and imagined the cobwebs.

  I rang another bell. Ursula came to the door in a pink candlewick dressing gown holding a pastel tissue to her nose. Her hair was crumpled flat on one side as if she had just got out of bed.

  “Oh, dear,” I said. “You’ve got a dreadful cold. I won’t stay long. Just a few questions. Do you mind?”

  “No, come in. I want to hear how far you’ve got with your investigations. As long as you don’t mind a few germs.”

  Ursula wasn’t going to be pleased at what I had to say, but I went in just the same. The hall was decorated in pale colours with even paler prints fading to nothingness on the walls. I couldn’t imagine the masculine Arthur living in such a pristine environment. Perhaps she’d had it all redecorated since his death.

  “I’ve had a flu jab,” I said confidently. “My asthma makes me an ‘at risk’ person. They work very well. Haven’t had a cold the entire year.”

  She went into the kitchen—tiled white and pale grey—and put the kettle on. This was the kind of instant hospitality that I liked. Perhaps I had misjudged the woman.

  “So have you found this ghastly woman, this bitch who is making my life a misery?” She spoke so vehemently that it started her off coughing. I waited till her breathing calmed down.

  She was laying out a tray with a pretty lace cloth and small bone china cups and saucers decorated with tiny primroses. She added a matching milk jug and a sugar bowl and tea strainer on a dish. It was like something out of a Thirties film. I looked around for a maid in starched cap and apron.

  “How charming,” I said, knowing I could drink three of those midget cups at one go. “Lovely china.”

  I carried the tray through to the sitting room as she was coughing again. The sitting room was guess-what? White and pale mauve, an even whiter carpet. I was glad the soles of my shoes were clean. Cycling does reduce the dirt.

  “Lovely,” I said again, balancing the cup and saucer and trying not to drink quickly. “Tell me what you know about Cleo.” I wanted to dangle her on a line before reeling her in.

  “Tell you more? What do you need to know about that wretched woman? She’s a menace to society. Ought to be put away.”

  “Have you ever met her?”

  “Er … yes, I may have.”

  “Don’t you know for sure?”

  “I’m sorry. All this has really upset me and my memory is affected.”

  “What does she look like? Can you describe her?”

  “Look like? I don’t know. She’s small, dark … maybe she’s changed the colour of her hair. There’s no saying what she might have done to her appearance.”

  I put down my cup and saucer carefully. “I should have thought you would know what you own daughter looks like.”

  Ursula gasped on a sip of tea, spraying her dressing gown down the front. I took the cup from her before she spilt any more.

  “You know? How did you find out?” she asked hoarsely.

  “There’s no point in pretending to be surprised, Mrs. Carling. Cleo told me. Once I had found her, of course. It seems odd that you didn’t mention that she’s your daughter.”

  “You’ve … seen her?”

  “Yes. We met yesterday. I had a long talk with her. I don’t think she’s your unpleasant persecutor, the sender of hate mail.”

  “But she is, she is. Cleo and Arthur are having an affair. I know it.”

  “How do you know? What proof have you?”

  “They meet in secret. There are letters… dozens of them.”

  “Have you got the letters?” It was difficult to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  “No, I destroyed them.”

  “Then what makes you think they are having an affair? Isn’t it a little unusual between father and daughter? Surely you are not implying incest?”

  She didn’t like that word, you could see it. She fussed around as if trying to wipe it out of the air, make it disappear.

  “It’s not like that … that word,” she began. “It’s different. Arthur is my second husband. He’s not Cleo’s natural father. She was nine years old when I married Arthur.”

  “Thank you for telling me that,” I said sarcastically. “I could have wasted half a day down at the Records Office looking for Cleo’s birth certificate or your marriage license.” I emphasized the half a day wasted and watched the mathematical blink of her eyes. “Perhaps you’d like to save my time and your money by telling me when Arthur died.”

  She went white and started to cough so much, I had to get her a glass of water from the kitchen. I have a lot a sympathy for coughers, being one myself when the asthma is bad.

  “Cleo…?”

  “She told me. Of course, she did. How could you expect to keep something like that quiet? Mrs. Carling, I’m a detective. I’m paid to find out things. Why didn’t you tell
me the truth?”

  She blew her nose, clasping the sodden tissue in her hands. “It was last January, the second weekend. He died in Latching Hospital after a massive heart attack. It was all very sudden. I didn’t expect him to die. He only went in for tests after getting some chest pains; angina we thought. Then on the Monday morning, they phoned up and said he’d died in the night, been found dead in bed.”

  She squeezed a few tears out but I was not impressed. I think she was glad to have Arthur and his muddy boots off her white carpet. A man would have cluttered up her pale house with his grubby things, underpants on the floor and wet towels.

  “So if Arthur has been dead for nearly nine months, why do you think Cleo is sending you all this hate mail? There’s really no point, is there? After all, their affair, if it ever was one, is quite definitely over.”

  “Because she hates me, because she can’t forgive me for having kept Arthur. Because Arthur would never leave me. She wants to make me suffer, to hurt me. She’s cruel and vindictive. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to get even with me.”

  “Mrs. Carling, this doesn’t ring true as a motive. We have to think of something else, perhaps someone else. Let’s go back to square one.”

  I couldn’t move her from this conviction that it was Cleo. I thought she was wrong. There must be someone else in the picture. Some other person who hated her.

  I went to Latching Hospital in the afternoon. I had a friend in admissions. She had been mugged one evening, walking home from work, and I’d been on duty at the station. Apparently I must have been extra kind and understanding and she’s never forgotten.

  “Hi, Gale,” I said, breezing into her office, by-passing the patient counter. “How’s tricks?”

  “Great,” she said. Gale Rogers was a bright, bubbly young woman. I noticed there were beads decoratively braiding her fair hair. “I’ve had a wonderful holiday in Barbados with my new boy-friend. The weather was heavenly.”