Jordan Lacey Mystery 01 Pray and Die

by Stella Whitelaw

  If she had gone out… I raced up the stairs, my feet sinking into the sodden stair carpet. The landing was thick with steam, swirling round like a Scottish mist. I began to feel dizzy and caught hold of the wall to steady myself. It was making me cough too. I pushed my way through the steam, wafting it around to clear my view.

  Ursula was sprawled on the bathroom floor, almost naked, all arms and legs, half in and half out of a damp satin floral robe. The bath was full, water slopping over the rim, the overflow unable to cope.

  I turned off the taps, plunged my hand into very hot water, scalding myself up to the elbow in the process, pulled out the plug and turned back to Ursula. She was quite still but I found a pulse.

  “Ursula? Ursula, can you hear me?”

  The door to the front bedroom was open. Through the hot mist, I saw an orange glow. It was a wall-panelled gas fire and instead of a healthy blue based flame, they were a burnt orange colour. A sure sign that the flue was blocked and the house was filling with carbon monoxide. Snatching a towel to cover my mouth, I crawled in and switched off the fire.

  I staggered to the front windows but the damned things were double-glazed and I couldn’t see how to unfasten the locks. I was starting to feel really giddy and sick. I stumbled downstairs, hanging onto the banisters, gasping for breath, retching, and managed to wrench open the front door. Seconds later I flung open the porch door into the front garden to find the remains of the day.

  A blessed blast of cold air blew in and I gulped at the oxygen, drawing in a great lungful. I shambled upstairs and hauled Ursula along under the armpits, then bumped her inert body inelegantly down the stairs, the best that I could without hurting her. I dragged her into the enclosed porch. Her face was very pink and her lips bright red. She was unconscious but still breathing. I made sure her airway was free and rolled her over into the recovery position.

  I rang 999 for an ambulance, then crawled upstairs again for a blanket off her bed to cover her modesty and a towel to dry off some of the wetness. By the time the ambulance crew arrived, I was absolutely worn out, slumped against a stone dwarf. And was I glad to see them.

  “Gas fire blocked,” I croaked. “Carbon monoxide poisoning. It must have knocked her out just as she was getting into the bath. The water was overflowing everywhere.”

  “Well done, miss. You did very well. We’ll take over now,” said the paramedic, going down on his knees beside Ursula and opening his medical bag. “Twenty-four hours in hospital and she’ll be as right as rain.”

  “That’s good,” I said weakly.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Ursula Carling.”

  “You’d better come along too, miss. You don’t look too good. Your arm looks a bit red. Better let the doctors have a look at you. What’s your name?”

  I got to my feet. “All right. I’ll just go and lock the back door. Back in a sec.”

  I made my way to the kitchen, went out of the back door, and using the same oak bench, climbed over the fence into The Beeches, eased towards the front of the empty house and along the pavement to where I’d left my bike. The ambulance was parked outside, lights flashing. They were carrying Ursula out on a stretcher, wrapped and strapped, busy negotiating the gate. I got on my bike and slowly wobbled to the other end of Lansfold Avenue. No thank you, I didn’t want to see any doctor. My arm was hurting but I’d rather look after myself.

  I made straight for the coast. I still felt nauseous and dizzy but it was wearing off and ten minutes walking the beach would put me right. I had no idea how long the effects might last. Twenty-four hours in bed the ambulance man said. There wasn’t time for that sort of indulgence.

  The shingle crunched and slid about as I stumbled around in the dark. The multi-coloured lights strung along the promenade did not reach far enough to illuminate my path down to the sand, but I could make this journey blindfolded. Luminescence from the waves torched a pattern of light on the water. The pier looked like some long-legged prehistoric monster striding out into the Channel. I half expected it to roar.

  The tide was still going out, leaving wide stretches of flat, wet sand. I splashed through a tiny rivulet running down and water seeped into my trainers. I squelched on for a few yards, enduring the discomfort of wet feet, then I took them off and walked barefooted, dangling the trainers by their wet laces.

  My clothes were damp and clammy and I began shivering in the chilled wind. This was not sensible. The sand was cold and wet, my toes curling in protest, but they got used to it by the time I reached the sea. I rolled my jeans up to the knees and waded through the shallows, gulping in ice cubes of air from Siberia, ridding my lungs of the poisonous fumes. I splashed cold sea water on my arm and hand until the pain receded.

  By the time I wheeled my bike home, I was knackered. I needed a bath and my bed. A long, dreamless sleep would put me right if my brain would only settle.

  When I got in, I drank three glasses of water to calm my stomach, threw my damp clothes on the floor and filled the bath with tepid water. I was too cold to go straight into anything hot and I had to keep my arm out of the water. I smoothed aloe vera gel on the tender skin.

  Poor Ursula, what a mess for her to clear up. She was going to have a shock when she got home from hospital. I hoped she was insured.

  Someone had to call the gas board to report the blocked flue. Me, I suppose.

  Wrapped in my duvet, I made a quick call to the twenty-four hour gas service hot-line. I gave the girl Ursula’s address and explained about the fire.

  I could hardly think straight.

  “And who are you, miss?”

  “A neighbour,” I said. “Mrs. Carling has just been carted off to hospital, unconscious. Blocked-flue. Her house could blow up at any moment. Perhaps someone ought to pay a call.”

  I began dressing, slowly and painfully. Then I remembered that I had intended to go to bed. My brain was not working. I rolled into bed in my T-shirt and was asleep in moments.

  Not a dream around.

  Detective Inspector James stood on my doorstep, suit crumpled, tie askew. It was almost morning. He’d had another heavy night, face saturnine and withdrawn, but I was glad to see him. I couldn’t say the same for him. Didn’t the man ever sleep? He greeted me with a scowl.

  “Morning, Jordan. Y’know, you cause me more trouble and strife than half the villains in West Sussex,” he said. “Why don’t you stay at home and take up knitting?”

  “I can’t knit,” I said.

  “What were you doing in Ursula Carling’s house when someone attempted to kill her with carbon monoxide poisoning?”

  “What, me? In her house?” I blustered.

  “Dear girl, you left a note in her letterbox, warning her to be extra careful. Then the ambulance crew reported an unsung heroine who rode off into the night on her bicycle. Who else could it be? Jordan, this is becoming a habit. Have you got a fixation about getting your name in the papers?”

  “You didn’t tell them who I was, did you?” I panicked. “I don’t want whoever it is coming after me too.”

  “No, I didn’t tell them,” he said with resignation as if I was a difficult witness. He looked at my arm. “What’s the matter with your arm?”

  “Oh… the bath water was too hot.”

  “Do you always get in arm first? Most people use their feet. Have you got anything you want to tell me? Are you going to ask me in or is this going to be a doorstep interrogation?”

  “Come in, James,” I said, just as wearily. “I’ll make some coffee. It’s the one thing I can do well.”

  “I’ll believe it when I taste it,” he said ungraciously. “And what do you mean, I don’t want them after me, too? Do you think you’re in some sort of danger?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  He followed me upstairs. It seemed strange to have him so close behind me. I could feel him staring at my back as if I had forgotten to dress properly. I made a quick check.

  He looked drained. He sat dow
n heavily, stretched his head back and for a moment I thought he had fallen asleep. I could have stroked his short hair and he never would have noticed.

  I poured out orange juice, opened a packet of deluxe muesli, made toast and lashings of coffee. He had that up-all-night, no breakfast look. He couldn’t be civil when his stomach was hollering for food. The colour came back into his face and he gave me what passed for a smile.

  “The coffee is excellent,” he said later, downing a second cup. “Thank you, Jordan. Now I want to know everything. Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

  “Is this a statement?” I didn’t want to be had on a charge of breaking and entering, as well as several other dubious practices.

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Look, no pen, no tape. Don’t be so suspicious, lady. This is on the QT.”

  “How’s Ursula?”

  “Recovering. Driving the nurses up the wall with her orders. Desperate for her glasses but wouldn’t wear a temporary pair. Then she wanted the pillows changed, said they were full of dust mites.”

  “They probably are.”

  “Don’t change the subject. Start talking.”

  So I began at the beginning, trying to remember everything. It was a long story and it had grown in all directions in a few days. So much had happened. James listened intently, occasionally asking for a point to be clarified. His face changed, intensified.

  “I think you’ve trodden on a hornet’s nest,” he said, helping himself to more coffee without asking. He rasped butter across a slice of golden toast. “Although you may not have achieved much.”

  “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

  “I’ll remember not to hire you if I want anything investigated. I’m not saying that your hate mail case and my murder investigation are connected in any way, but it is interesting that so many strands cross.”

  “I’m glad you think so. At least you know now why I’m sure you need certain information and why I keep trying to see you. You had to know everything.”

  “And I thought you had a crush on one of my officers.”

  I felt myself colour. He was the only man I wanted.

  I ignored the insinuation. “I want to see that pathology report. And I want a DNA test on some envelope glue.” I started clearing the breakfast things, a big hint it was time to go. There was the shop to open and a customer might be outside, panting for the porcelain shepherdess.

  “I’ll see what I can do. But no promises.”

  “How did you know where I lived?” I asked as I showed him out.

  “I’m a real detective. Besides, I brought you home from Trenchers the other night, if you remember.”

  “And I’ll want to know what caused the blockage in the chimney to Ursula’s bedroom.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Eight fifty-five. End of interview. You make excellent coffee, Jordan.” I found his expression hard to read. “Thanks.”

  He strode down the street without a backward glance. And he’d finished up the last of my expensive home-made Seville marmalade.

  There was an elderly man peering into the shop window but not at the chipped shepherdess. It was the old books he was interested in. I let him come in and browse. He wandered round and picked up four slim hardbacks which I had tied into a bundle with string.

  “How much?”

  “Six pounds.”

  “Young lady, these books are worth at least six pounds each. Don’t you have any idea of the value? Look, this is a first edition of the poet, Raff Edoney.”

  “Heavens…” I put on an intelligent look but I’d never heard of the poet, despite all my reading. “What a find. Never had the time to look through the books properly.”

  “You’re the lady detective, aren’t you? The one who was in the papers and caught those thieves in the amusement arcade on the pier? You were very brave.”

  “Er…”

  “I have a proposition to make.”

  I looked at him, not at his age, surely? Then I realized that I’d mis-interpreted his remark. He was thin and seedy and his clothes, though once respectable and good, were so old and worn that I doubt if Oxfam would have taken them. The frayed cuffs of his shirt brushed against his wrists like a fringe of lace.

  “I would like to employ your services but I cannot pay anything except a modest sum. However, I can be of use to you. I am more than willing, and would enjoy, valuing your collection of books and putting realistic prices on them. Perhaps we could calculate time for time? My time for your time.”

  “You could have bought those four books for six pounds, then sold them elsewhere and kept the profit,” I said, amazed at his honesty.

  “So I could. It never occurred to me, nor is it my way. Well, what you do think of my suggestion?”

  “Done,” I said. “Come into my office. Would you like some tea or coffee?”

  “Tea, please. Milk, no sugar.”

  He told me that his name was George Frazer. He’d married late in life and they had one son, Ben. His wife had died from cancer and the two of them had lived, not always amicably, in a small basement flat in Latching, part of an old terraced house that had been divided.

  “A year ago, Ben walked out. He was sixteen,” said George Frazer. “I haven’t seen him since.”

  “A year…?” I knew the search would be useless. Track gone cold by now. I’d never find the boy.

  “No, I realize that you might never find him. I don’t even want you to tell him I’m looking for him. Nor do I want to make him come home. I just want to know he’s alive and where he is and what he’s doing.” Mr. Frazer stared into his tea, his face working with emotion.

  “But don’t you want him to come home?” I gently asked. “Seventeen is very young to be out in the world, coping alone.”

  “No, I don’t want to ask or demand anything of him. It’s his life. He’s better off without an old man around but it’s the not knowing that’s getting me. I want to know what’s been happening to him, that’s all. A couple of lines, a couple of pages, just some sort of report from you would put my mind at rest.”

  Dear God, I could make it all up and this trusting old man would believe me. How did these evil thoughts leap straight into my head? I must have bad genes.

  “I’ll do my very best to find Ben,” I said, pushing the cop-out firmly to the back of my mind. “I hope I’ll soon have some good news for you.”

  Mr. Frazer had brought some snap-shots of his son, a long, lean gangling sort of youth with a toothy smile. I chose the best for photocopying. I took notes about his friends, his hobbies, his ambitions, but Ben didn’t seem to have much of anything in his life. He had no friends, did nothing, had no plans for his life. He just walked out one morning, after breakfast, his usual grubby rucksack hanging from his shoulder. Nothing to cause any suspicion of his intentions.

  I hoped I wasn’t going to find a record of him being in the County morgue with a John Doe label tied on his big toe.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A missing person made a change from hate mail and awkward clients. By now Ursula would have recovered and be wearing an ‘I told you so’ look on her po-face and insisting that Cleo had stuffed tights down the flue despite the fact that Cleo was not physically or mentally, the roof-climbing type. Nor could she have got into the house. It seemed burglar-proof, like Fort Knox.

  I wanted to find young Ben Frazer. A man as honest as his father deserved to sleep at nights. Even now he was on his knees, sorting through my boxes of books and putting prices on them.

  I went down to the print shop to design a handbill. Geoff, the owner, was always helpful and had lots of ready-made printed headings which he let me use. He’d printed my FCI business cards, small, discreet, on best board. He looked through his folder of samples.

  “Have you seen this person?” he said. “That’ll do for the top heading over the photograph.” He jiggled about with scissors and paste. A real make-up man.

  “It’s essential people
don’t go rushing up to him and scare him off,” I said, not sure about the rest of the wording. “We only want to know where he is… and if he’s been seen.”

  “How about this one? All information in strictest confidence? Or - Information only required? Then your phone number.”

  “That’ll have to do. If we put don’t approach him, it makes it sound as if he’s a dangerous criminal and I don’t think he is.”

  Geoff ran off a hundred copies and kept the original in case I needed any more. The modern photocopier reproduced well, not too grainy or fuzzy. I paid him and kept the receipt. I might be able to claim legitimate expenses but since Mr. Fraser wasn’t paying my hourly fee, it was academic.

  I toured Latching on my bike, putting up handbills outside the library, town hall, department store, post office, railway station. I even put one on the wall outside the police station which was a bit cheeky. I was sure Ben had gone to London. Didn’t all youngsters go to London? The bright lights, the teaming streets of Soho; the excitement and energy drew them like Pied Piper. They thought a fortune was waiting to be swept off the grubby pavements. Perhaps I could combine both cases. I might trawl Whitehall, see what I could pick up about Oliver Swantry. Except he wasn’t my case.

  Cleo gave me another lead, bless her. She phoned later that day to thank me for visiting her in hospital and again for being with her in the ambulance. I told her about Ursula’s brush with death, unconsciously gauging the tone of her response. She was genuinely alarmed, upset even. If it wasn’t genuine, then she should be taking leading roles at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

  “It could have been an accident, couldn’t it? A bird’s nest or something fallen down the chimney?”

  “The gas board will investigate and I’ll let you know what they come up with. Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a very simple answer.”

  Something simple like a couple of bricks or a lump of fast drying cement.

  “What did you find out about her neighbours?”

  I could hardly say that one of them had been horribly murdered and slung on a meat hook in an empty hotel.