Strictly Murder

by Lynda Wilcox

  “Thanks, Verity, I really appreciate it. Shall we say two thirty-ish in the VIP lounge at the top of the grandstand?”

  “The VIP lounge? Will I be able to get in? I don’t want to be thrown out for impersonating somebody important.”

  KD barked with laughter at the other end of the line.

  “Oh yes, you’ll be all right. As long as you’re dressed decently and not in jeans and a tee-shirt, they’ll let anybody in.”

  “Oh, I can impersonate an anybody,” I assured her. “I do it all the time. OK I’ll see you there.”

  I returned to studying my notes. Along with appointments with the dentist, the gym, her beautician and her mum, all of which I’d noted but now dismissed, there were six further entries. Assuming Holly Danvers’ suggestion that ‘JB’ stood for John Brackett was correct, that still left five others unaccounted for. Thrush, Mr Smith, Spaniel, Dawn and Xmas Wreath. I fetched a fresh sheet of paper from the desk, making a separate list of these names and the dates they appeared. Despite having told Inspector Farish that the diary had been written in code, it was clear that this was no cipher. Surely, I thought, scratching my head with the end of my pen, JayJay had made the same connection I had and Thrush referred to Candida Clark. I felt hampered by not knowing the dead woman, not knowing how her mind worked. Without that knowledge, figuring out who she’d meant was well nigh impossible. I reached for my coffee in frustration. I had originally wondered if the entries were the dates JayJay had made with her lovers, but that idea went out the window with the inclusion of her producer. Unless she was bisexual, of course.

  “Yes!”

  I bounded off the settee, galvanised by a sudden bolt of inspiration. Could Xmas Wreath be Holly Danvers? Now I might be getting somewhere. I picked up the sheet of paper that had leapt to the floor at the same time I did. There was only one date for this entry, January 7th. I grabbed the phone, checked my notebook and dialled.

  “Holly? Hello, it’s Verity Long.”

  “Oh, hello, Miss Long. I was just about to go out.”

  The secretary’s small voice, made tinny by the wires, came back at me.

  “I shan’t keep you, I just wanted to know when you started working for JayJay.”

  “Umm … it was in January, Sometime in early January. I can’t remember when exactly. Is it important?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just working through the diary you brought me.”

  “Haven’t you given it to the police?”

  “Oh, yes, they’ve got it,” I assured her. “But I made a few notes before I handed it over.”

  “I understand,” replied Holly knowingly, before she added, “to help with your enquiries,” which proved she didn’t.

  “Did you have a job interview beforehand?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Did you go to an interview with Jaynee, before you began to work for her?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I did.”

  “And can you remember when that was?”

  “Oh, only the week before. She wanted someone who could start immediately, so I saw her on the Wednesday, or the Thursday I think it was, and started the following Monday.”

  “Would Thursday the seventh sound about right?”

  A brief silence while she considered this.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  I thanked her and put the phone down, then wrote ‘Holly Danvers’ next to ‘Xmas Wreath’ on my pad. I was making progress. Of a sort. I’d accounted for two names on my list, or three if I pushed the list up to the six I’d had originally and included John Brackett. Pleased with myself, I ticked them off. Only three to go, Mr Smith, Spaniel and Dawn. Spaniel! Hell’s teeth! I was due to meet KD for her wretched dog show in under two hours and here I sat, bedraggled, covered in dust and grime, giving a damned good impression of a mongrel myself. I raced for the shower.

  As well as the dog show there were several races on the card that afternoon and spectators were pouring into the course. A swirling sea of people ebbed and flowed around the new grandstand, like survivors of a maritime disaster desperately trying to reach the safety of the ship sent to rescue them. Rising concrete tiers with blue painted railings looked for all the world like decks on an ocean-going cruise liner that should be plying the warm waters of the Caribbean, not stuck in dry dock at Crofterton Racecourse. The distorted metallic voice of a Tannoy informed us that judging would shortly take place in the Gun Dog class before going on to announce the runners and riders in the next race. How the hell was I going to find KD in this seething mob? Hemmed in on all sides, I turned quickly narrowly avoiding stepping on a Yorkshire Terrier masquerading as a mobile toupee. Sod this for a game of soldiers, I thought, as I engaged ‘elbow mode’. Using these extremities as deadly weapons I forced my way through the crush much as Boadicea’s chariot scythed through the Romans, eventually reaching the main doors at the base of the stand. I smiled briefly at the man on the door and stepped into a haven of coolness and calm.

  “You took your time getting here,” snapped KD irritably, when I finally stood, glass in hand, at her side in the VIP lounge on the top floor. The circular room with its floor to ceiling, plate glass, folding doors gave panoramic views over the course and the surrounding countryside.

  “Where on earth have you been? I’ve had to listen to that dreadful woman droning on for hours.”

  “Which dreadful woman?” I asked looking around.

  They all looked pretty awful to me, face-lifted matrons showing far too much flesh, their over applied make-up already beginning to run in the afternoon heat.

  “Lavinia Drew-Steignton. She’s a Kennel Club judge who breeds Borzois.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” I muttered as KD pointed out a woman in a pale pink dress and jacket leaning against the bar, talking to a dark haired man incongruously dressed amidst all the finery in a Barbour and brogues.

  “And her breath reeks of gin.”

  “The same could be said of everybody in here, KD,” I pointed out.

  She laughed. “Too true.”

  There was certainly enough booze being swilled to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. Suddenly I jumped at a loud bang directly behind me. I twirled round in time to see champagne frothing out of a bottle held in the pudgy hand of John Brackett. He was pouring the golden flow into the firmly gripped glass of Candida Clark. I turned back quickly, for some reason unwilling to let her see me.

  “Stop being so jumpy, Verity. What’s the matter, did you think it was a gunshot?”

  I grinned weakly.

  “Just nervous, I guess. One corpse a week is enough for anybody.”

  “Verity.” KD drew out the last syllable of my name in admonishment. “Enough. You’re here to have fun.”

  “OK,” I said. “So what’s your fancy in the next race?”

  “Starlight Dancer. The filly’s a dead cert. Oh!”

  She stared at me in horror while I gazed steadily back over the rim of my glass.

  “How unfortunate,” she muttered.

  “A poor choice of words, certainly” I agreed, thinking, as we both were, of Jaynee Johnson. “But apposite as usual, KD.”

  She glared at me.

  “Stop it.”

  “So, when do you do your bit?” I sipped at my massively overpriced glass of wine and hoped KD would pay out for the next one.

  “From four o’clock. The dog show is out the back, the other side of the grandstand.”

  We gravitated towards the far side of the bar area just as a surge of people swept past us in the opposite direction. The 3.15 race was under way. The volume of noise swelled as the race progressed. Finding it impossible to talk over the yells, the shouts of encouragement, the screams of excitement as the crowd urged on its favourites, KD and I waited until a final roar signalled the end of the race.

  “Starlight Dancer, by half a length.” The commentary was piped into the lounge but the place had been so noisy I hadn’t noticed it before. The crowd surged back, gathering urgently aro
und the bar, clamouring for attention, eager to celebrate or to drown sorrows and disappointment as the case may be.

  “Did you have any money on it?” I asked KD.

  “Me? I never bet.”

  She buried her nose in her glass, sleek, dark head lowered. So she had.

  “How much?”

  “Fifty quid.” She grinned

  Fifty pounds? I wished I could afford to risk that much.

  “Buns for tea, then?”

  “Hardly. The odds weren’t that good.”

  I nodded absently, gazing about me at the gaily underdressed women and the loudly overdressed men.

  “Another blonde? He does like to collect them, doesn’t he?”

  “Who?” I asked.

  KD nodded towards the door where the head of Silverton Studios, followed by Candy Clark, shouldered his way out.

  “John Brackett.”

  “That’s Candy Clark, the producer, he’s got with him. I wonder where they’re going?”

  “The Studios are joint sponsors of the dog show. They’ve also put the money up for the race so he’s probably off to award the prizes.”

  “Are they sleeping together, do you think?”

  Had he also been sleeping with Jaynee Johnson? Did that explain the entries in her diary? For all I knew, the whole book was a list of her conquests. No, I reminded myself, that wouldn’t work. Not with both Candida Clark and Holly Danvers in there.

  “What?” I hadn’t caught KD’s reply.

  “I said, ‘do bears crap in the wood?’ JB will sleep with anything in a skirt. Except his wife of course.”

  For one wild moment I pictured KD and JB together in the throes of passion. I shook my head quickly to dispel the frightful thought.

  “What’s the matter?” KD asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, nothing.” I gave her my sweetest, most innocent smile.

  “Come on,” said KD putting her glass back on the bar. “The dog show calls.”

  A large marquee had been erected for the show on the far side of the grandstand. So big you could have fitted the entire population of Wales — and half that of Belgium — comfortably inside, it now played host to every canine in Crofterton. Except the mongrels, of course. Nor did I expect to see Blackie, the Darrington labrador there, either. A young girl at the entrance handed KD a programme.

  “God! What a racket,” said KD, to the accompaniment of assorted yelps, growls, barks and whines. “Here, take this, will you? My bag’s too small.”

  I snatched the programme from her and stuffed it in my bag. There are times I think KD only takes me to functions to act as her pack-horse.

  We worked our way around the parade ring, where a selection of topiaried poodles and their similarly clipped owners attempted to catch the judge’s eye, to a roped off area at the back. Inside this, seated at trestle tables, were the clerks, recording the results and filling in certificates.

  “Kathleen Davenport,” my employer announced herself to an elderly chap busy aligning rosettes. “Is Tom around?”

  “He’s at the back of the podium,” the official told her, making it sound on a par with ‘the back of the bike sheds’.

  “Thank you.”

  KD sailed off in search of Tom, whoever he was, and I trailed in her wake.

  “KD! So kind of you to come.”

  A large man with mutton chop whiskers stuck out a hand.

  “Hello, Tom. May I introduce Verity, my assistant?”

  “How do you do? Tom Cheeveley Hall.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Was this just his name or did it also include his residence? I shook the proffered hand.

  With KD’s permission, I left her to it and wandered around. Unsurprisingly the place was full of dogs. Short ones, tall ones, fat ones, thin ones, sleek dogs, hairy dogs, long tailed, short eared, long eared, short tailed. Brown ones, black ones, white ones, red ones, golden ones and beige ones. And all of them with absurd names. An Afghan, rejoicing in the ridiculously silly title of ‘Plantagenet Cumbria the Third’ won the hound class and an adorable little Cairn Terrier, who was probably called ‘Bobby’ at home but for today’s purposes went under the alias of ‘Vogel Bridie of Brunswick’, took first prize in the terrier section.

  I like dogs - but you can have too much of a good thing.

  I watched KD graciously perform her duties and then returned to the back of the podium.

  “Home time,” announced KD as we left the marquee and made for the car park.

  “Verity!”

  An unmistakeable figure approached us.

  “Hello, Greg. And …”

  “And your mother. Hello Mrs Long.”

  I stifled a laugh. KD’s glare would have frozen a coal fire at twenty paces.

  Oblivious, Greg Ferrari raised her hand to his lips. “I can see now where your beautiful daughter gets her good looks from,” he smarmed.

  KD smiled - a rictus spreading from jaw to eyes. Really, I thought, it’s like watching a man with a match trying to melt a glacier. Fortunately he turned his attention back to me.

  “Still on for next week, Verity?”

  “Yes, of course.” I started to move away. “I’ll see you there.”

  “Next week?” asked KD through still clenched teeth once we were out of earshot.

  “Yes,” I kept my voice casual, “he’s taking me for dinner at Chez Jacques.”

  “Be careful, Verity,” she urged. “That man is trouble. I can smell it.”

  All I’d detected was Calvin Klein. I should have heeded her warning.

  “I’ve booked a table at Chez Jacques,” said Jerry Farish, sitting next to me in the taxi that sped us towards Crofterton.

  “Is that all right with you?”

  “Yes, fine thanks,” I replied, hoping I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt.

  Still unsure why he’d asked me out, I stole a glance across at him. Relaxed, he leant back in his seat, forearms along his thighs, hands loose on his knees, thick brown hair beginning to curl over the collar of his pale grey suit.

  “So is tonight business or pleasure?” I asked.

  He laughed, “Oh purely pleasure, I assure you,” he said, turning his face towards me with eyes and lips smiling. “Even policemen are allowed a night off, you know, and a private life.”

  Was it my imagination or had the taxi driver lifted his foot from the accelerator on mention of the word ‘policemen’?

  Despite the honesty in his voice I remained unconvinced. Life has taught me that I possess neither the looks nor the intellect to appeal to the type of intelligent, good-looking man that I, in return, am attracted to. Like Jerry Farish for instance.

  “Besides,” he went on, as if reading my thoughts and anxious to give the lie to them, “why shouldn’t I want to spend time with an attractive, clever woman?”

  I smiled politely, robbed of words for once.

  It’s possible, I thought. Possible, that is, that he wanted a break from work, from murder and death and the inevitable pressure that must come from being in charge of such a high profile case as the Jaynee Johnson slaying - as one headline had put it. Desperately as I wanted to know what progress they had made, what clues they’d uncovered, and the list of suspects - while fervently hoping I wasn’t on it - tonight was not the right time to demand my curiosity be satisfied. Give him a break, Verity, I thought, noticing for the first time that the light from the lowering sun illuminated lines of tiredness around his eyes. A tightness to his lips and jaw revealed him not to be as relaxed as I’d thought. I resolved to make the evening a pleasure for both of us.

  Jacques was his usual urbane, welcoming self when we reached the restaurant.

  “Mademoiselle Verity,” he greeted me, bowing over my hand occasioning a raised eyebrow from my companion.

  “I didn’t realise you knew this place,” he whispered as Jacques showed us to a table and helped us get seated.

  “Oh yes, Jacques is an old friend. I’ve known him and his brother Val, next do
or, for years.” I smiled across the glassware at him whilst taking the proffered menu from the mâitre d’s hand.

  “What’s next door?”

  “The ABC wine bar.”

  “Ah,” he nodded, “yes, of course. It’s always struck me as a funny name for a wine bar.”

  “It’s Val’s idea of a joke,” I told him. “We were going to call it Valentino’s and decorate it with photographs of silent movie stars from the 1920’s. I still think it was a great idea.”

  “And the joke?” he reminded me.

  “Oh, yes. Val says it stands for ‘Anything But Chardonnay’.

  He chuckled, a rich, throaty sound. “Very good.”

  For the next few minutes we were silent, scanning through the menu. I made my choice fairly quickly and put the menu down.

  “Have you decided, already? There’s so much to choose from, I’m struggling.”

  He wasn’t to know how familiar I was with the dishes in this restaurant and I saw no reason to enlighten him.

  “Yes, I’m going for the wild chanterelles followed by the duck.”

  “Duck?” He looked back down at the menu. “Ah yes, the Confit de Canard. Hmm.”

  Jacques reappeared at the table.

  “Are you ready to order, sir?” he murmured.

  “Yes, I think so,” said Farish, giving my choices and ordering smoked salmon followed by an individual beef wellington for himself.

  Jacques gathered up our menus and then stood there, the wine list in his hand, looking at me as though undecided which one of us to give it to. A rare lapse. I nodded in my companion’s direction - he was paying for the meal, or I hoped he was - and therefore had the right to choose. I’d soon put him right if he ordered a bottle of ‘Blue Nun’, though this was unlikely since it wasn’t on offer.

  Farish wasn’t a detective for nothing, his sharp eyes had obviously noticed the unspoken interplay between Jacques and myself.

  “What would you suggest?”

  “Hmm, the Beaune, I think, or, if you are feeling flush, the Brunello di Montalcino.”

  He studied the list again for a moment.

  “And which would you prefer?”

  “The Beaune,” I said, without hesitation.