Strictly Murder

by Lynda Wilcox

  “Do you know who Dawn is?” I asked Holly. “Only, JayJay has written that name and 3.30pm against Tuesday 25th June.

  She shrugged and shook her head.

  “I didn’t know much about her personal life, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry,” I smiled, leafing quickly through the months from January to June. There was certainly nothing here to set any biographer’s pulses racing. No intimate secrets, no lurid love life retold in sweaty detail.

  “This is really just a list of dates, times and names, mostly just initials,” I said to Holly.

  I fetched my note pad and pen.

  “Right, let’s go through them and you can let me know if you recognise any of the names.”

  “OK.”

  It didn’t take too long. The last entry was for Saturday July 10th and after that nothing but blank pages that would never now be filled with the round, almost schoolgirlish handwriting.

  Most of the entries meant nothing to Holly who recognised only the initials ‘JB’ as belonging to John Brackett, the head of Silverton Studios who, going by the diary listings had had several meetings with his dead star in April and May. For the rest, it appeared that JayJay used code words. I sighed. There would be a lot of head scratching if I was to make anything out of this.

  “Will you take it to the police?” Holly asked, as I closed the diary at last and slid the clasp back into place.

  “Would you rather I did?”

  She nodded.

  “I’d be grateful if you would, please Verity.” She rose to go.

  “Very well. If you can think of anything else that would be useful …” I had been about to say ‘take it to the police’ but she interrupted me.

  “Oh, I’ll let you know, of course.”

  I gave a resigned smile as I opened the door and said goodnight.

  Chapter 5

  Wisteria Cottage, when I reached it, turned out to be a low stone building sheltering under a thatched roof. The newly whitewashed walls were barely visible behind the riot of roses and climbers scrambling over them. And, sure enough, an elderly wisteria drooped like some Mexican moustache above and around the door. Definitely jigsaw puzzle material, I thought as I lifted the heavy iron door knocker and let it fall.

  It took a while before the door was opened by a small, white haired woman wearing an old fashioned pinafore over her cotton dress.

  “Mrs Plover? I’m Verity Long.”

  “Oh, yes. Do come in. George is expecting you.”

  Deep blue eyes in a homely face assessed me briefly before she turned and led the way down a stone flagged passage towards the rear of the house.

  “Mind your head.”

  She reached up to point out a low roof beam before descending the two steps into a spacious and comfortable living room. I gazed about in frank curiosity as I followed her across to the French window.

  “George, your visitor has arrived.”

  She stepped back to let me through.

  “Go on out, dear. I’ll make some coffee.”

  “Oh this is beautiful,” I exclaimed as I stepped out onto the patio. Opposite me an elderly man was tying-in roses against a wooden trellis, whistling happily as he worked. In the border at his feet oriental poppies waved their pink and purple heads above coral-coloured London Pride and deep blue hardy geraniums. To my right a circular rose bed was filled with hybrid teas, their delicious scent wafting me back to my childhood, whilst on my left a matching bed held dahlias and chrysanthemums that would flower later in the summer. I could think of few places I’d rather be on a gloriously sunny, June morning. Out here it would be so easy to leave the world and its cares behind. No wonder the gardener seemed so contented.

  “Chief Superintendent Plover? Hello, I’m Verity Long.”

  “Ex-Chief Superintendent, Miss Long. I retired ten years ago and please call me George.”

  Kindly grey eyes twinkled in a round, lined face as he pulled off his gardening gloves and dropped them into a wicker basket before shaking my hand.

  “Only if you call me Verity,” I smiled back, before looking away to take in more of the garden.

  “You like it?”

  “It’s wonderful. This is like heaven with the gates thrown open.” I breathed in deeply, taking in the scents all around me. I waved a hand in the direction of the circular bed. “I’m glad to see you grow the old roses too. Ena Harkness, Josephine Bruce, Peace.”

  “Yes, they’re not much grown nowadays,” Plover remarked as we ambled towards the bed. “I’m impressed that you know them.”

  Well, impressing an ex-police Superintendent was no bad thing, I thought, as I buried my nose in a particularly fine specimen, inhaling memories as well as the fragrance.

  “My father grew them when I was a little girl. We had a bed similar to this in the front lawn.”

  I hastily brushed a speck of pollen from the end of my nose.

  “My wife wants me to grow more modern varieties,” Plover commented somewhat sadly. “I might try a few next year.”

  “I wish I had space and time to grow anything,” I remarked. “Even a window-box would be a luxury at the moment.”

  I thought of the four slabs that made up my patio, the only outside area I had. Intending that spring to plant up some tubs so that I had something other than a brick wall to look at from my kitchen window I had, as usual, never got round to it.

  “Coffee’s ready.”

  As if on cue, Mrs Plover’s shout from the French window ended the gardening talk and I followed the ex-Super back across the lawn and into the house.

  “So what did you want to talk to me about?” asked Plover when we were settled either side of the stone fireplace, a small tray with a pot of coffee and a plate of biscuits between us. “You mentioned something about being a writer.”

  I explained that I worked for Kathleen Davenport and we were interested in an old case of his.

  He nibbled on a chocolate digestive, waving his hand to show I should help myself. I reached for a garibaldi.

  “My wife reads her books. Personally, I’m more into biographies.” He made it sound like a secret vice, like sharing porn magazines behind the bike sheds. “I don’t know that I’d be too happy at you writing up one of my cases. Which one is it?”

  Briefly, I described how we worked and how the sex, ages and locations would all be changed in the writing.

  “You probably wouldn’t recognise it as the same case. If you were to read it, that is.”

  “Hmm, so you do all the researching and leg work, the hard work in other words, and she just does the writing?” He smiled.

  I warmed to this man.

  “Something like that,” I admitted.

  “You still haven’t told me which case.”

  I took a sip of coffee. Now came the hard part. How would this man react to the mention of a case that remained unsolved?

  “It was twenty years ago. The disappearance of a schoolgirl. Charlotte Neal.”

  He glanced at me sharply, finishing his coffee and putting the cup back down on the tray before he replied.

  “Not one of our successes. She was never found, you know?”

  I nodded.

  “So how much do you know about the case?”

  I filled him in with what I had learnt from the Crofterton Gazette, referring now and again to my notebook.

  “It seems incredible that a child could just disappear in broad daylight.” I said when I had finished my recital.

  “Not really. It happens more often than you think. Charlotte left her friend’s house between eight o’clock and half past eight at night and you forget the date.”

  “The date? How was that relevant?”

  “July 4th, 1990. It was during the World Cup and England were playing West Germany in the semi-finals. Every bloke in the country was glued to the damned television. The score was 1-1 and it went to penalties. We lost.”

  I wondered if he’d watched the match himself.

  “The on
ly chap we found who didn’t claim to have watched the entire match was the other girl’s father. What was his name?” He frowned in thought.

  “Hughes,” I supplied. “Roger Hughes.”

  “That was him.”

  “Did you suspect him?”

  “Of what? This wasn’t a murder case, Verity.” He pulled at his lip as he thought back. “We had no evidence that the girl had been harmed. She could have gone off for any number of reasons. She might have had a boyfriend, been unhappy at home or bullied at school. Not that we found evidence for any of that, either. She might have had an accident. We checked with all the hospitals, it’s the first thing we do, but we found no trace.”

  “So what did the friend,” I checked my notebook, “Kimberley, have to say?”

  “Nothing much. Nothing that helped us anyway. Charlotte had turned up at the house in the late afternoon and stayed for tea. Then the two of them had gone upstairs and listened to music. All very innocent, the sort of thing girls of that age do, at least if they are as well brought up as those two were. And yet …”

  He paused, a crease appearing between his brows as he sifted through the memories of twenty years ago.

  “And yet …” I prompted.

  “Well, Kimberley was first interviewed by my sergeant, Delia Rees, and Delia was convinced she was holding something back.”

  She was probably right, I thought. Most middle-aged men could have the wool pulled over their eyes by a sweet little girl. Trust another woman not to be so easily fooled. I wasn’t about to say that, though. Instead I asked,

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, nothing important, I’m sure of that and I interviewed her enough times myself trying to discover what it was she wasn’t saying. Girls of that age have their little secrets,” he laughed, ruefully, “and what they think is of consequence is often of little or no concern to their elders. But you’ll know that.”

  I nodded as if I were an authority on young teenage girls. On reflection maybe I was, after all I’d been there. Once. A long time ago. Twenty years ago I would have been almost a contemporary of Charlotte and Kimberley.

  “It could simply have been that they didn’t do the homework they were supposed to do,” Plover went on, “or they’d leant out of the window for an illicit cigarette, something of that nature. Anyway, Delia was an experienced officer and she was sure there was something Kimberley wasn’t telling us. Whatever it might have been, we never did get to the bottom of it.”

  I changed tack.

  “And Roger Hughes? Why wasn’t he watching the football?”

  “Oh, he’s your candidate for villain of the piece is he?”

  Plover smiled as he reached for the coffee pot and refilled both our cups. I returned the smile but said nothing, merely taking the milk jug from his proffered hand.

  “Well, Hughes had an alibi, of sorts. He had spent the earlier part of the evening at a meeting of the local business club in the centre of Crofterton. According to him, and his wife confirmed it, he didn’t arrive home until nearly nine, by which time Charlotte was long gone.”

  “His wife confirmed it?” I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice. Of course his wife would have confirmed it, she would have backed him to the hilt even if she’d known he was lying through his teeth. Still, Plover and his team weren’t fools. They’d have double-checked this.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking, but we did have corroboration. A neighbour putting milk bottles out during a break in the football saw him drive up.”

  “What time would that be?”

  “Nearly nine o’clock as Hughes said.”

  I hastily scribbled a note. I was still suspicious of Hughes and he would certainly serve KD’s needs when she came to write the story. It would depend on how much would change; how much of the truth, if any, would be retained in the final telling of the tale. KD wrote fiction, after all, and my job was simply to gather the facts that made that fiction possible.

  “What about DNA testing?” I looked up from my writing.

  “What about it? It was in its infancy then and we didn’t, thankfully, have a body against which to test it.”

  I gave a defeated sigh.

  “Oh, well. KD will just have to magic this one out of thin air.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t seem to have been much help to you, Miss Long.”

  His eyes smiled at me over the rim of his cup until a sudden frown appeared on his forehead. Absently, he replaced the cup on its saucer.

  “You know, there is something.”

  “Something else about Charlotte Neal?

  I leaned forward eagerly, pen poised.

  “Yes.” He snapped his fingers. “Got it!.”

  I waited.

  “It may not be much use to you, it was just a strange coincidence.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Yes, that’s probably why it’s stuck in my mind. There was another case involving a girl called Charlotte Neal at the same time.”

  “That is odd,” I agreed. “Were you in charge of both cases?”

  “No, no. This other case happened up north somewhere.” The crease returned, wrinkling his brow. “A hit and run accident in which the girl was killed. I don’t think that one was ever solved, either.”

  He gave me a rueful look.

  “Well, thank you, Mr Plover. It was good of you to give up your time to see me.”

  I picked up my bag and rose to go.

  “My pleasure, Verity. If I remember anything else about the case, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Please.”

  I took one of KD’s cards out of my bag and handed it over.

  I said goodbye and walked to the car thinking wistfully of Wisteria Cottage’s beautiful garden and longing for one of my own. Still, I now had plenty to pass on to KD on my return.

  Bishop Lea was a modern house built to resemble a Palladian villa on land once owned by the Bishop of Crofterton. Constructed to satisfy the pretensions of some flash in the pan 1970s rock musician, it had been sold to pay the taxman his overdue revenues when said musician had plummeted earthwards like a latter day Icarus, along with the pilot of his private plane. It was certainly big enough to host the sprawling booze and drug fueled parties rumoured to accompany the rock star lifestyle, possessed as it was of five bedrooms, living room, drawing room, dining room, cloakrooms and more bathrooms than you could shake a stick at. The kitchen alone would have housed a shouting match of celebrity chefs, complete with camera crews and sound men, and still have room for the two fat ladies. Our office - OK, KD’s office, my workplace - had been made from one of these cloakroom conversions when KD had bought the place eight years previously.

  There was no sign of my employer when I walked in, though the conservatory door stood wide and, for the second time that morning, I stepped out into a flower filled garden. Two belligerent blackbirds, sitting on branches in the chestnut tree, warred against each other to see whose song could be the loudest and a chirpy robin added his sweet voice to the medley.

  At my approach KD stood up from the bed where she had been dead-heading roses.

  “Ah! There you are.”

  KD advanced towards me from the rose bed brandishing a pair of secateurs like a deadly weapon.

  “Come over here and tell me how you’ve got on.” She led me to a picnic table and bench, its gay parasol ready to shield us from the glare of the sun. It was barely midday but already the heat was intense.

  “I’ve got some chilled wine and some sandwiches waiting.”

  “An alfresco lunch!” I exclaimed, delighted at the spread revealed as she removed the table cloth that had covered and protected it. “What a wonderful idea, KD. Thank you.”

  She really could be so thoughtful, I reflected, as I sat down. Her face, round as an apple, smiled back at me and I was conscious, not for the first time, of what a good job I had landed in working as her PA.

  “Well, it’s a lovely day. We should take advantage of it while we have
the opportunity,” she said, pouring the chilled wine into two glasses. “Now, what have you to report?”

  “Naturally, I’ve a great deal on the police view of the case but not a lot else,” I said before raising my glass. “Cheers!”

  KD munched away as I filled her in on my visit to Mr Plover, nodding her head from time to time in recognition of salient points. When I’d finished and helped myself to another smoked salmon sandwich she thought for a moment two.

  “What’s your gut feeling, Verity?”

  “Oh, the friend’s father,” I replied without hesitation. “And yours?”

  “I’m not so sure that this was murder. From our point of view, the disappearance itself is far more interesting.”

  As was KD’s use of the word ‘our’. It made the finished story sound more of a collaboration than I felt it warranted though it was nice to think she valued my contribution. I loved these sessions at the start of a new book where we thrashed things out between us, throwing ideas around like confetti. Though in the end, much as I might like to think I’d been helpful, it was KD who wrote it.

  She was twirling the stem of the glass round and round between her fingers. Fiddling with something, anything - a pencil, paper clip or a wine glass - is a sure sign of deep thought and concentration on KD’s part. I didn’t interrupt her.

  “You know,” she said finally,” I’ve a feeling that female sergeant’s comment about the friend is going to turn out to be worth its weight in gold.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “Well, I’m a great believer, as you know, in women’s intuition. I think that she picked up on something her male colleagues missed.”

  “To be fair, George Plover did acknowledge that,” I pointed out. “Besides even she,” I glanced down at my book, “Delia Rees, couldn’t discover what the girl was hiding.”

  KD waved this aside.

  “Yes, yes, I know, but what I mean is, if the female suspected something, it would be a female thing.”

  “Eh?”

  She had lost me completely.

  “Look, the friend was hiding something feminine, something girly. Like make-up, a boyfriend, that sort of thing. That’s what the sergeant was subconsciously getting.”