I thanked her and patted Rusty’s Yellow Labrador head. I walked away thoughtfully. Ursula Carling was not exactly an ideal neighbour to have. I was glad she didn’t live next door to me. But Mrs. Adel was not the person writing vile messages on the back of junk mail and posting them to Ursula. Of that I was sure. Rusty wore the fluorescent yellow harness of a guide dog.
The tide was on the turn when I reached the beach. I sat on a stump of timber that held up part of a wooden groyne and watched the waves sending up feathery spumes of water. The next wave slapped hard against the wood and tossed a mountain of water, splashing the shining brown shingle into submission.
Last night’s rough weather had piled up a mountain of seaweed on the beach and the mobile caterpillar-wheeled fork lift was already out, raking over the shingle and taking the strong-smelling glutinous stuff back out to sea.
My stomach growled then. When did I last eat properly? Did I have any breakfast? It had been a rush that morning. I couldn’t remember.
Maeve’s Cafe on the front did a good plaice and chips. You could taste the salt of the sea. She bought the fish straight from the fishermen on the beach. I think she fancied one of them, his face burnt brown, thigh-high rubber waders, yellow oilskins and all. Very fetching. Each morning they pulled up their boats and set out makeshift counters alongside their lockers. They had their regular customers and would be sold out by mid-day unless it was raining. If it was raining, they packed up and went home.
Maeve’s Cafe was not exactly a salubrious place - apart from her name. I think she’d changed it from the more urbane Mavis. The cafe was always steamy and overheated from the open chip fryers. The tables were covered in worn marigold patterned oilcloth and the china was heavy white earthenware. Like as not, you’d get a bent fork.
“Plaice and chips, Maeve. Cup of tea, weak.”
“Honey, no sugar,” she added, nodding.
“I’m over at the corner table.”
I had a lot of reading to catch up on. I opened my heavy law book on the table and started at page one. Defamation. I ought to know something about defamation. There was sure to be some client being libeled or slandered and I should have the know-how at my fingers. If I got any more clients. I had that failure feeling looming.
A man at the next table glanced at me so I turned sideways from him. Drat him. I wanted peace to work, not a pick-up. I tried to freeze him out.
“Jordan… not reading?”
I didn’t stir though I knew the voice. “No, I’m standing on my head.”
Funny, how you don’t recognise people out of context. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt and jeans; a dark grey anorak hung over the back of his chair. He was eating a mountain of greasy sausages, beans and chips, sloshed with tomato sauce. He registered my look of disgust.
“I ordered a double helping,” he explained.
“Don’t they feed you at the station?”
“Don’t you remember the cooking?”
It was DI James, the new Detective Inspector at Latching Station, last night’s James Bond, my bête noire. I closed the book. I had to apologize to him. It might as well be now.
“I owe you an apology,” I said slowly. “I was very rude to you last night when you got me out of Trenchers.”
“You were upset. PMT. Female hormones up the creek.”
I tried not to kick him. “There’s nothing wrong with my hormones,” I said. “I was very frightened and your sudden appearance alarmed me even more.”
“Understandable. I do have an alarming appearance.”
I had to laugh but turned it into a small apologetic cough. DI James was the opposite of alarming. He had a bold ruggedness that invited confidence and trust. But I liked his throw-away humour. It instantly scored points with me. I wondered if we could get onto a less competitive level.
“So, DI James, am I going to have to address you formally all the time? What’s your Christian name?”
He didn’t answer but peered out of the steamy window as if the outside world was more fascinating. Perhaps he’d forgotten his first name. “James,” he said.
“I know that. Your first name, birth name, Christian, whatever you get called at home. Don’t you have one?”
“It is James. My name is James James. No jokes please. And I don’t have a home. Nothing special.”
His gaze held mine and his face had a steely look as if daring me to laugh again. “My parents were probably drunk at the christening,” he added.
I hoped I looked as appalled as I felt. “They need shooting,” I said. “Fancy landing you with a double handle for the rest of your life.”
“As a youngster, people called me Jimmy. The lads at the station call me Jim. I loathe Jim.” He looked quite depressed as if a lifetime of explaining his name was a burden he’d like to get rid of.
“Parents can be idiots. My mother had been on a holiday to Palestine, fell in love with this river that flows down to the Dead Sea. I suppose it’s not too bad, being called after a river.”
“A bit wet,” he said, sloshing on some more tomato sauce.
Mavis arrived with my plaice and chips. The fish was golden and succulent. He offered me the sauce bottle but I shook my head.
“I have no intention of spoiling the taste of fresh fish with sugar and modified starch.” I had a sudden inspiration. “I won’t call you Jim or James off duty. How about Jay? Like the initial J. It sounds classy.”
A fleeting look of distaste turned his face cold. It was a face now without expression. A craggy plane of skin and muscle with features of stone that barely moved. Essential for a good policeman.
I tried to see his eyes without staring and without warning, my stomach contracted. It was a temporary confusion. His eyes were a brilliant blue and masked with secrets. They reminded me of bone-melting jazz. I gave him an undeserved smile because of this coincidence.
“Not Jay, please,” he said. “My ex-wife called me Jay. I would prefer not to be reminded.”
“Sorry. OK, James then, every time,” I conceded quickly. I didn’t want to compete with an ex-wife. I didn’t know he had an ex-wife. Even exes could hang up a new relationship. They had a funny way of intruding. “No problem.”
“I know about grief,” he went on. “The other day, you were at me, because I didn’t understand grief. But I do. I still have feelings.”
“Sorry,” I said again. “I didn’t know. No need to tell me.”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
I was making my meal last, savouring the taste of chip by crinkly chip. James was now onto a helping of apple pie with ice cream, the fat-filled pastry an inch thick. Where did all the calories go? He was race horse lean with good shoulders straining through his plaid shirt.
“Look, I know I’m not in the force any more, but what about my poor nun? What do you know about her? Surely it’s fair to tell me something. Do you know who she is or was?”
He gave me a condescending look. I could have thumped him. But the steely gaze held me.
“I guess it won’t hurt if I tell you what we know. Her name was Ellen Swantry and she’d been working with a group of nursing nuns who run a local hospice called St. Helios. She was in her sixties and tired of living alone in her big house. I suppose she thought turning to religion would salve her conscience. St. Helios was the answer.”
His words washed over me. Ellen Swantry. I had her filing cabinet. I had read her electricity bills. Dear heavens, I felt I almost knew her although our only meeting had been through a hole in the floorboards at Trenchers. I swallowed hard. My enjoyment of chips vanished. I pushed the plate away.
“Greek word for the sun. I know their charity shop well. How did she die?” I could have added that I shopped there for my stock but stopped myself. It was irrelevant.
“We are not quite sure. We don’t have the pathologist’s final report yet. We believe she was put on the meat hook after death. Placement of blood. You know that it drains after death. She’d been laying on her
side for a time, then hooked up. Mrs. Swantry had also been strangled with a length of nylon twine, the kind fishermen use. The beach is littered with bits of it. Though oddly, she’d been suffocated before that. Someone was making very sure she was dead.”
I was glad I’d finished my plaice and I was equally glad she didn’t die on the hook. James was looking twitchy as if he had to leave soon. “Poor lady. What else have you found out?”
“Was she one of your clients?” he came back quickly.
“No, it’s my natural curiosity. Wouldn’t you be curious if you’d found a dead nun in a derelict hotel?”
“She’d been dead for about twenty-four hours. No relatives have come forward as yet. No one is claiming her. Dead end really. Sorry, Jordan, not supposed to be a joke. The nuns have got some small plot of land next to a chapel and she’s going to be buried there.”
“I’m glad someone is going to give her some peace. I’m sure she deserved it.”
He got up to go, shrugging himself into his anorak. I did not know how to detain him. I’ve no skill with men. That’s for certain.
“I suppose you haven’t found a tortoise, have you? Weighs about two kilos, mottled brown and black shell, a bit chipped. Very friendly,” I added desperately.
He looked at me in disbelief. “There’s a chipped tortoise in the station yard, chomping its way through canteen salad. It was found by a panda on beat patrol in the middle of the A27, heading towards Southampton.”
“That’s Joey,” I said, glowing.
Later I found that James had paid my bill at the counter. He’d said he didn’t have a home and that worried me. Nowhere special, he said. That kindled a sort of sadness.
CHAPTER SIX
After returning Joey to his owner, I took part of the afternoon off, scouring the charity shops for more display goods. Trade had been brisk. Joey’s owner had insisted on paying me for two full days, though I explained that I had done nothing. The cheque was in my pocket, ink hardly dry, so it was spend, spend, spend.
“You could’ve gone to the police station yourself,” I said.
“But I didn’t and you did,” she said, her delight brimming over at having Joey back in the fold. She was tickling him under his leathery chin. He seemed to like it. “And that’s what I’m paying you for. Thank you, Miss Lacey. I shall recommend you to my friends.”
If only all my clients would be as grateful.
I called at Rick Weston’s office, ignoring the bargains on display in the forecourt and paid for the filing cabinet and another installment on the Victorian button back chair. He tried selling me an ugly wardrobe with knuckled knobs but I wasn’t into big furniture.
The tide was out now in early evening, one of my favourite times. The tide at Latching went out for miles. You could hardly see the sea from the shore, only a hazy knit of water and sky. Acres and acres of flat, wetly wrinkled sand stretched towards the horizon with small scatterings of rocks which caught the unwary swimmer underfoot. Swarms of black-winged gulls searched the newly turned rivulets of sand for stranded fish, minnows and baby crabs. People walked their dogs, looking like small Lowry people from a distance.
I’d been home and got my Wellington boots and an extra jersey. I’d ruined enough trainers wading through puddles and the small streams that poured off the shingle as the sea receded. I trudged, head against the wind, breathing in the clean cold air, taking it deep into my lungs, the twitchy airways at ease for once.
It was back to square one with the Carling case but where on earth was square two? Where should I go now? Scrutinize the letters, Cleo, the dead cat or Ursula herself? There had to be an alien item I’d overlooked. Someone along the line wasn’t being straight with me. Perhaps it was time I did a little surveillance. But who? Cleo? Ursula? Mrs. Yarpole? Mr. Yarpole? How about their nameless son with the noisy friends and obstructive motorbikes? My mind was spinning uselessly as I came off the beach.
The next morning I didn’t even open up the shop. I went into my office and got out of my jeans and sweat shirt, changing into a fawn skirt which had seen better days, baggy cardigan and a man’s rumpled raincoat. The clothes had been washed but not pressed. My trainers were scruffy enough and wouldn’t show much under the dragging skirt. I tucked every scrap of hair under a mud-coloured knitted tea-cosy and rubbed cold black coffee into my skin for a weather beaten look.
Included in the selection of display goods from the charity shops, I’d been collecting a box of personal props. I blame my drama teacher at school. As well as the courtesan, one year she made me play Hamlet just because I was the tallest girl in the class. It gave me an aversion to learning words but a penchant for dressing up.
In the force I’d been involved in a couple of great undercover jobs, once as a tarty street walker which was a failure as no one gave me even a second glance. The next patch was as a homeless beggar sitting on a pavement and I earned seven pounds thirty-seven pence in half a day. The charmers at the station made me spend it on drinks all round in the pub. I went mad and had two orange juices.
Mirror. I needed a long mirror to judge the effect. I put it on the shopping list for my next trawl. The Mexican restaurant was not open as usual but the windows gave an approximate reflection. I shuffled into the general store next door. Doris was stacking shelves with a special offer brand of baked beans.
“Got any stale bread?” I croaked. “Not eaten for days.”
Doris sighed with exasperation, inspecting her blood-tinged nails. “You people … always after something for nothing.”
I put on a crestfallen look and began to shuffle back out of the shop, shoulders hunched, sucking in my starving cheeks.
“Here you are,” said Doris quickly, putting a currant bun and an apple in a bag. “But I don’t want to see you again.”
I clutched the goodies to my chest, mumbled my thanks and got out of the shop fast. So far, so good. But I needed a bag lady’s bags. I snatched a couple of evil smelling, tied plastic refuse sacks from the back of the restaurant. Then I took the bus to the end of Lansfold Avenue. Too far for the elderly to walk.
“Ain’t you got a bus pass?” said the driver as I got on. I shook my head. “You ought to apply to the Council for one. You’re entitled, y’know.”
I nodded and sat as far away from the other passengers as possible. The bags were emitting a strong chili odour. Everyone was glad when I got off. I found a low garden wall where I could sit and bask my old bones in the late autumn sun. A straggly hydrangea bush half hid me from view but I could clearly see Ursula’s house. I tried not to look at The Beeches next door, where the nun had lived.
Definitely currant bun time. As I bit into the white dough, expecting a soft pulp of sweetness, disappointment hit me. It was stale. Oh well, it was a handout. The currants fed my craving for sweetness and I sucked on them till they shredded themselves in my mouth and their skin got stuck between my teeth.
I shifted uneasily. The bricks were hard under my bottom and turning as cold as a bite of winter. What was it I could get down-under? Piles? I scrunched up a few folds of surplus raincoat for padding. Come on, Ursula, do something before I die of boredom. I fished a stained menu out of a refuse sack just for something to read: red snapper in cilantro, fresh tortillas and burritos, plantains with ground beef, black beans and rice. The prices made me gasp. No wonder they were closed so often.
A creaking gate made me look up. Ursula was walking along the pavement, dressed entirely in black like an elongated spider. Long black coat nearly to her ankles. Black velvet hat. Small black bag clutched in gloved hands against her stomach. She had recovered from her cold. She was going the other way which was just as well as I didn’t have time to compose my face.
I shuffled after her, keeping a decent distance. Her nose would soon pick up chilis. She glanced at me once as she checked traffic before crossing a road. I scratched my nose in a thoroughly disgusting way. She walked quite fast despite the heeled court shoes and my shuffling gait collected a f
ew skips and jumps so that I could keep her in sight. Some kids jeered at me and I put out my tongue. I hadn’t done that for years. It was quite liberating.
She turned off at a small chapel, a plain brick built place, half-cemented over and covered in Sussex pebbles. The garden was well kept, lawn mowed, a few weeping trees dusting the air. Then I saw a small crowd at the far end of the garden. Several middle-aged women in grey skirts, cardigans and jackets, grey kerchiefs over their heads, people in wheelchairs wrapped in rugs, several leaning on sticks, a man of the cloth with a bible in hand. One of the nuns was tall and elegant. She seemed to lean into the wind.
It was a funeral and suddenly I knew who’s funeral and a cold shiver ran along my spine.
My poor nun … and Ursula was there, being stately and commiserate. My head was humming with thoughts. I’d heard this hum before but dismissed it. Flotsam was floating around like bits of planetary garbage, refusing to lock themselves and make sense.
Something was there, staring me in the face but what was there? I couldn’t grasp it. I swore at myself, calling myself the dimmest of the dim. First Class Investigations (FCI) was going to fail from the start if I didn’t resolve this case. I huddled under a canopy of whispering branches and watched the ceremony for the murdered nun put to rest in a plain coffin. Ashes to ashes, dust to more dust.
DI James was standing at the back of the mourners, looking detached. I thought it was nice of him to turn up. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, mournful tie. But I guess he was watching too, as I was.
“Ellen Frances Swantry, at peace at last, with her loving Father…” the cleric’s voice rang out across the sward. It was starting to rain that needle fine rain that drifts off the sea. Ursula put up a small, telescopic umbrella to shield her hair. I wondered if my coffee stains would run.
As the coffin disappeared from sight into the earth, people began talking and breaking up. They were coming my way. I fell onto my knees beside a flattened overgrown grave. The name on the gravestone was unreadable but the dates were 1769-1798. They died so long ago when Latching was nothing more than a sprawling fishing village with sea-bathing for the reasonably rich.
Jordan Lacey Mystery 01 Pray and Die Page 7
