Friends and Frauds (An Isle of Man Ghostly Cozy Book 6)

by Diana Xarissa

  Constable Corlett nodded. “We appreciate your cooperation,” he said. “We’ll just wait here for the inspector.”

  Josh gave Fenella what looked like a sympathetic smile and then disappeared back into the lobby. The constable looked around. There was a small waiting area with a few chairs right inside the door.

  “We may as well sit down,” he told them. “I’m sure the inspector will be here soon.”

  They’d only just taken seats when the door swung open. Inspector Hammersmith walked in with a second uniformed constable. Fenella was sure she’d met the other constable, but she couldn’t remember his name or when they’d met. He sat down next to Shelly while Constable Corlett got up and crossed to the inspector. After a short conversation, the inspector spoke.

  “Mr. Cannell, I’ll begin with you, please,” he said.

  Peter stood up and followed the man down the short corridor into one of the offices. Constable Corlett was right behind Peter, and he shut the door behind the trio.

  Fenella sat back in her seat and sighed. “What a mess,” she said softly.

  “I’m sorry, but the inspector would prefer it if you didn’t talk while you wait,” the constable said.

  “I’m sorry,” Fenella told him. She shut her eyes and tried to think. A short while ago she’d felt completely sober, but now she could feel the effects of the wine she’d drunk with dinner. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but if she could have gone back, she would have stuck to soft drinks while they ate. She struggled to get her thoughts in order before it was her turn with the inspector.

  They’d knocked on Lance’s door at quarter past seven and no one had answered. It couldn’t have taken them more than ten minutes, or maybe fifteen, to check the pub next door and walk back. By the time they’d returned, the door had been left open. Were they gone long enough for Lance to get home, get himself killed, and for the killer to get away? It didn’t seem possible, but if that wasn’t how it happened, the killer must have been hiding in Lance’s apartment while she and the others were knocking on the door.

  When she felt as if her head was spinning from that train of thought, another idea popped up. Was it even Lance who was dead? Maybe Lance had killed someone else. For some reason, Fenella found that she quite liked that idea. The thought that maybe Neil Hicks was dead almost made her smile. She hadn’t wanted anything bad to happen to the man, she’d simply wanted him to leave her alone, but if someone had to be dead, well, she’d rather it was Neil than Lance, although she wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t liked either man, really and Lance was making Shelly miserable.

  Before she could spend too much time on that thought, another question occurred to her. Why had Lance wanted them to meet him at his apartment rather than the pub? What might he have been planning? More questions about Lance, his friends, and the dead body all crowded around Fenella’s brain. She was starting to get a headache by the time Constable Corlett escorted Peter out of the office.

  “Thank you for your time,” the constable said. “We’ll be in touch if we need any additional information.”

  Peter looked over at Shelly and Fenella, but the constable quickly escorted him back out to the building’s lobby. Shelly sighed and rubbed her temples.

  “Are you okay?” Fenella asked, earning herself a stern look from both constables.

  “Fine,” Shelly replied in a resigned tone.

  “The inspector is ready for you, Mrs. Quirk,” Constable Corlett said.

  As Shelly walked away, Fenella’s mobile buzzed. She pulled it out of her handbag and glanced at the screen.

  What now? the message from Daniel said.

  Feeling as if it wouldn’t be a good idea to reply just then, Fenella put the phone back into her bag. “Have we met before?” she asked the constable.

  “I don’t know that we’ve met, exactly, but I certainly know who you are,” was the disquieting reply.

  “Inspector Hammersmith seems like a very competent investigator,” Fenella said after several minutes of uncomfortable silence.

  “All of the inspectors in Douglas are excellent,” the man replied.

  “Of course they are,” Fenella said quickly. “It’s just that I’ve spoken to Inspector Hammersmith before.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” the man said softly.

  Fenella flushed. “Constable Corlett’s baby is getting big quickly,” she said, hoping that the man might be willing to fill the silence with useless chatter.

  “Is she?”

  “She’s a he. I mean, the constable and his wife have a son.”

  “I don’t really know Constable Corlett,” the man replied. “He usually works with Inspector Robinson. With Inspector Robinson away, however, Constable Corlett has been filling in all around the station.”

  “I didn’t realize that inspectors choose their constables like that.”

  The man shrugged. “They do sometimes.”

  Fenella nodded. She didn’t really care, but at the moment she was happy to talk about anything other than the dead man in apartment 312. “Do you usually work with Inspector Hammersmith, then?” she asked.

  “No, I’m a patrol officer, mostly. I was pulled in on this because I patrol the promenade. They just needed someone to babysit the witnesses and I was available.”

  “But now that I’m the only one left, surely you can get back out on patrol,” Fenella suggested.

  “I’ll stay here until I’m told otherwise.”

  “Well, then, tell me about yourself. Are you from the island?”

  The man frowned. “I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”

  Fenella sighed. “I was just being friendly. Never mind.”

  The man shrugged. “I’m meant to sit with you to make sure you don’t talk to anyone or use your phone. I’m not meant to be friendly.”

  Fenella was saved having to reply by the reappearance of Shelly and Constable Corlett. It was obvious that Shelly had been crying and Fenella nearly jumped up to pull her friend into a hug. The constable stayed between Fenella and Shelly, though, presumably to stop her from doing any such thing.

  “Thank you. I’m sure Inspector Hammersmith will be in touch soon,” the constable said to Shelly.

  She nodded and then let the man escort her back toward the lobby. In the doorway, Shelly glanced back at Fenella and gave her a weak smile.

  “The inspector is ready for you now,” Constable Corlett told Fenella. She stood up and took a few steps forward while the two constables talked behind her. As Constable Corlett took her arm, she noticed the other constable disappearing into the lobby.

  “Ah, Ms. Woods. Have a seat,” the inspector said, gesturing toward the small and uncomfortable-looking chair across the desk from him. The constable slid into a similar chair at the corner of the desk and picked up a pen. His notebook was already in place in front of him.

  “Before we begin, I should tell you that Inspector Daniel Robinson is also a part of this conversation. He’s on speaker on my mobile.”

  “Hello, Fenella,” Daniel said. His voice sounded both tired and annoyed to Fenella.

  “Hi,” she replied, feeling as if she might cry.

  8

  Let’s start at the very beginning,” the inspector said. “Tell me when you first met the man calling himself Lance Thomas.”

  “That wasn’t his real name?” Fenella gasped.

  Inspector Hammersmith shook his head. “How this works is that I ask you questions and you answer them. You don’t get to ask questions back.”

  Fenella flushed and then looked down at the desk. The mobile phone in the middle of it made the whole situation worse. “I met him when he knocked on Shelly’s door a few nights ago,” she said in a low voice.

  “Shelly being Mrs. Michelle Quirk?” the man asked.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And what did he say to Mrs. Quirk?” was the next question.

  Fenella did her best to repeat the conversation from Saturday e
vening.

  The inspector took notes as she talked. “The man upset Mrs. Quirk?” he asked when she was finished.

  “I don’t know if it was the man himself or simply talking and thinking about her former husband that upset Shelly the most,” Fenella replied. “The anniversary of his death is coming up and he’s been very much on her mind lately. Lance’s arrival just reminded Shelly of John, especially when Lance didn’t even know at first that John was dead.”

  “I would have expected her to be eager to get to know someone who had once been great friends with her husband,” the inspector suggested.

  “She wasn’t convinced that he was who he claimed to be,” Fenella tried to explain. “And she didn’t really want to be reminded of John any more than necessary. She’s trying to move on with her life.”

  “That would be where Gordon Davison comes in, then?” the inspector asked.

  Fenella took a long, deep breath before she replied. “You’d have to ask Shelly about that,” she said.

  “I have done, but now I’m asking you. What do you think about her relationship with Mr. Davison? It seems rather soon for her be taking up with another man, really, doesn’t it? Although maybe she and her former husband weren’t particularly happy.”

  This time Fenella counted to ten before she could trust herself to reply. “Everything I know about Shelly suggests that she and John were very happy together. That doesn’t mean that she has to spend the rest of her life in mourning for him, though. There’s no reason why she can’t spend time with friends and enjoy her life, no matter how much she misses John.”

  “And this Lance Thomas was an unwelcome reminder of how much she misses him?”

  “Yes, I think so. As I said, she wasn’t sure she believed that he was who he said he was, as well.”

  “When he left Mrs. Quirk’s flat, he took her number and said that he’d be in touch, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “I bumped into the man at a party that same evening,” Fenella replied.

  “What party?”

  “It was a fundraiser at Peel Castle.”

  “You were invited to the party?”

  “No, I, um, went with Donald Donaldson,” Fenella said, glancing at the mobile on the desk. Daniel didn’t say anything before Inspector Hammersmith continued.

  “Please repeat the conversation you had with Mr. Thomas at the party.”

  Fenella did her best to do just that, flushing and stammering over Neil’s behavior as she did so.

  “So even though you knew that the man upset your friend, you were happy to arrange for her to have lunch with him?”

  “No, not at all,” Fenella replied. “I arranged to have lunch with him myself and promised to invite Shelly to join us. It was still her choice whether she wanted to come or not.”

  “And did she go along to the lunch?”

  “No, actually, she didn’t.” Fenella swallowed a deep sigh. The inspector had already spoken to Shelly. He had to know the answer to that question already.

  “Was that the next time you saw Mr. Thomas, then?”

  “Yes,” Fenella nodded and then did her best to repeat the conversation she’d had over lunch with Lance.

  “You gave him your phone number. Does that mean you trusted him more?”

  “No, not at all. I was hoping that he would call me instead of bothering Shelly, that’s all. I took his number as well.”

  “Did you walk back to your building together after lunch?” the man asked.

  “Yes, although we ran into Lance’s friends along the way,” Fenella replied. “That got a little bit awkward.”

  “How?”

  As she told Inspector Hammersmith the story, she could only imagine what he was writing in his notes. Probably something about how deluded she was to think that every man she met was hitting on her. But whatever Mark Hammersmith thought, she knew how Lance’s friends had made her feel and it hadn’t been pleasant. When she was done, he didn’t comment.

  “What happened next?” he asked instead.

  “I talked Shelly into agreeing to meet the man for a drink on Monday and then I rang and left him a message to arrange it.”

  “Did he ring you back to confirm the arrangements?”

  “He did. He left a message on my answering machine, asking us to meet him at his apartment instead of at the pub.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did he want you to meet him at his flat?”

  “He said it would be more convenient, although I can’t see why.”

  “Neither can I. You didn’t challenge him about it?”

  “It didn’t seem worth making yet another phone call. We arranged to have Peter come with us and assumed that was good enough.”

  “Does that take us to tonight, then?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Run me through your entire day, then, please, starting with what you had for breakfast.”

  The morning seemed to have been a very long time ago as Fenella struggled to remember what she’d eaten for breakfast. When she mentioned her driving test, the inspector smiled.

  “Congratulations. It isn’t an easy test.”

  “Thank you.” She felt a little silly talking about the time that she and Shelly spent in the park, but she glossed over the zip line and the swings, preferring to emphasize lunch and ice cream as the least juvenile of their antics. The inspector didn’t interrupt as she told him about dinner and the bottle of wine. She was wishing she could have another drink by the time she got to talking about standing in front of the open door to apartment 312.

  “And then you rang 999, instead of going inside the flat?”

  “Yes, that seemed like the safest thing to do. When Shelly and I were looking for a missing friend a few months ago and his apartment door was open, we went inside. Daniel told us afterwards that we should have rung the police instead of doing so.”

  “Harvey Garus,” Daniel’s voice said.

  Inspector Hammersmith raised an eyebrow and then made a note before he continued. “I’d like you to describe Mr. Thomas to me,” he said.

  Fenella did her best to describe the man with his oddly smooth face. When she was done, the inspector nodded.

  “And can you describe all of his friends for me? Start with Neil Hicks.”

  Frowning, Fenella tried. If the inspector needed descriptions of all of them, maybe he wasn’t certain who was dead. Was it possible that more than one man was dead, even?

  “I’m going to ask you to avoid speaking to the press,” the inspector said when she was finished. “They already have the beginnings of the story, but I’d rather they not get anything further until we’ve had a chance to identify the body and notify the appropriate people.”

  “Someone was dead in the apartment, then?” Fenella asked.

  Inspector Hammersmith frowned. “Yes, Constable Corlett found the body of a man in the flat. That’s all of the information that we’re releasing at the moment. I’ll be in touch, probably tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have more questions for you once we’ve identified the body.”

  “You don’t think it’s Lance Thomas?”

  “As I said earlier, I’m not here to answer your questions,” the inspector replied.

  Fenella opened her mouth and then snapped it shut again. There was no point in arguing with the man. Instead, she got to her feet.

  “Thank you for your time,” Inspector Hammersmith said politely.

  Constable Corlett stood up and led Fenella out of the room. She very nearly said something to Daniel, but she couldn’t work out what to say. Even goodbye seemed wrong somehow. As the door to the office shut behind her, she heard Daniel’s voice.

  “That was interesting,” he said.

  The constable quickly escorted her away from the door and back toward the building’s lobby. “I’ll have someone walk you back to your flat,” he said. “That way the reporters
won’t harass you.”

  Fenella nodded and then stood and waited while the constable made a quick phone call. A moment later another uniformed constable arrived.

  “Please escort Ms. Woods to her flat on the sixth floor,” Constable Corlett told the man.

  “Yes, sir. The people that Inspector Hammersmith wanted to see are all here now,” he replied.

  “You can bring them in, and then I’ll take Ms. Woods upstairs, then,” Constable Corlett said.

  Fenella stepped backwards as Neil Hicks, Eric Palmer, Adrian Graves, and Jared Welch filed into the room with a police escort in front and behind them. Neil looked as if he wanted to say something to Fenella, but Constable Corlett spoke loudly as they entered.

  “No one is to speak to anyone while you’re waiting to see the inspector,” he said. “I’ll be right back,” he told one of the other constables.

  As he and Fenella walked out of the door, several flashes went off in Fenella’s face.

  “Ms. Woods, what’s going on? What are you caught up in now?” a voice shouted from the small crowd that had gathered in the building’s lobby.

  “You were told that you were not to harass our residents,” Josh Witters said sharply, crossing the room to stand between Fenella and the reporters. “You’ll all have to leave if you start bothering our residents.”

  Fenella and her escort walked as quickly as they could to the elevators. She was never happier to see a car waiting than she was at that moment. After the crowd in the lobby, the sixth floor felt wonderfully quiet. Constable Corlett walked Fenella to her door and waited while she unlocked it.

  “I won’t come inside, as I know you have a cat,” he said.

  “I’d forgotten that you’re allergic,” Fenella said. “I am sorry.”

  “I have to get back downstairs, anyway,” he replied. “I’m sure the inspector will be in touch soon.”

  “Yay,” Fenella said sarcastically as she pushed her door shut behind her.

  “What’s happened now?” Mona asked from where she was sitting on the couch by the window. “I’m sure I could hear Shelly crying earlier. What’s going on?”

  “We were supposed to be meeting Lance Thomas at his apartment, but when we went, he wasn’t home,” Fenella replied, feeling a tear trickling down her cheek. “The door was open, though, so we rang the police.”