Strictly Murder

by Lynda Wilcox

  My heart gave a lurch at the name. This was it. I was sure of it.

  “She claimed it had been stolen earlier in the day - the hit and run happened at about nine thirty at night,” he slid a paper aside and read the one beneath, “and it wasn’t completely dark.”

  “Close to the longest day,” I said, writing furiously.

  “Of course. That would explain it.”

  “Did Mrs Smith know who had stolen the car?”

  He shook his head. “Apparently not. According to the statement taken by Sergeant Peat - he’s still here by the way if you want a word with him? - she’d been watching the television and heard nothing until she came out about eight o’clock to drive to work.”

  I sat back in my chair.

  “I see. Well, thank you Chief Inspector, you’ve been most helpful. If I might just have a word with Sergeant Peat?”

  He reached for the phone and made arrangements.

  The same policewoman reappeared a few minutes later - I wondered if this was her only job, showing people around the station - and placed another folder on Chief Inspector Rock’s desk.

  “Update on the Mwengo murder, sir.”

  “Thank you, Liz. Take that down to Al, will you?”

  He handed her the folder before standing up.

  I rose from my seat, leaning across the desk to shake Rock’s outstretched hand.

  “Thanks again, Chief Inspector.”

  “You’re most welcome, Miss Long. All part of our Duty to the Public.”

  His voice reflected the capital letters. Here was a man who probably read all the handouts on the Police Policy Directive and Amendments Thereto over breakfast. For a moment I wondered if Jerry Farish did the same.

  I smiled and followed Liz through the door.

  I liked Sergeant Al Peat on sight. Short and round with wispy, grey hair over a balding pate, he was a friendly jolly soul who, with the minimum of padding, would have made an excellent Santa Claus at some kid’s Christmas party.

  He picked up the folder Liz had put on his desk and invited me to take the chair next to his.

  “Takes me back, this does,” he leafed through the folder, then sat with the sheets in his hand, smiling expectantly at me.

  “Mrs Francesca Smith. What do you remember of her or her family?”

  He closed his eyes briefly, trying to picture the scene from twenty years ago.

  “She was a widow. Husband had been killed a year or so before in an industrial accident. They both worked at the big Reeson’s factory on the edge of town, she had a job on the night shift. He was English, she was Italian. Got very voluble and excited and waved her hands about a lot when we questioned her, as I recall.”

  He grinned at me, though whether at the memory of Mrs Smith or this depiction of Italians, I couldn’t guess. Still, definitely no lobster pots in the Bay of Naples for Mr Smith, then.

  “Any children?” I asked, eager to connect Greg Ferrari to this case.

  Sergeant Peat looked down at the yellowing pile of paper in his hand.

  “One. A son, Graham, aged about 15. He’d been out with his mates playing football on the rec. when the car had been stolen.”

  “Did either of them have a record?”

  “Nope. Clean as a whistle,” his faded blue eyes twinkled at me. “You might have expected the lad to have had one, I’ll admit. It’s a bit of a rough area is Cotdene, got a bad reputation in some parts, but he seemed a good enough kid, only average at school but mad keen on sport.”

  “What about dancing?”

  “Dancing?”

  A frown appeared on the lined forehead, taking his wrinkles even deeper.

  “I don’t think so. Bit unlikely for the residents of that area, I’d say.”

  “How far away from where the car was stolen did the accident happen?”

  “A couple of miles. Greentrees Avenue is on the edge of the estate, you’re not far there from open countryside and the main road through to Upton.”

  I made a note on my pad.

  “I don’t know this area,” I began.

  “Here lass, I’ll show you.”

  He got up and pattered on small feet to a large map of the town pinned to the far wall. He peered closely at it for a moment.

  “Here’s Greentrees Avenue in Cotdene,” his left index finger stabbed the map, “and here’s where the girl was knocked down.”

  He pointed to a place about two inches to the right with the other hand.

  “This is the Upton Road. The young lass had walked up from the shops and was crossing to get to her house on Cotdene Park Road. The car was found abandoned about here.”

  His hand moved further to the right.

  “I see.”

  I made a mental note of the approximate positions, I had my own map of Northworthy back at the hotel and would check it when I got back.

  “Thank you.”

  We resumed our seats at Sergeant Peat’s desk. He looked preoccupied.

  “You look puzzled, Sergeant.”

  “Hmm? I was just thinking about what you said a minute ago. Understand, Miss, that we didn’t concentrate too much on the victim. We don’t in a hit and run accident - we’re more interested in who drove the vehicle and caused the death. In a murder,” he said the word with a relish I found disconcerting, “we’d need to know more about them, the victim that is, their relations, friends and so on.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, what I’m trying to say is, there ain’t a lot here,” he indicated the sheets on his lap, “about the girl herself, but you mentioning dancing reminded me of what her mother told me when I interviewed her. Charlotte had been attending a local ballet school and had hopes of becoming a dancer when she was older. Funny that, with you asking like you did.”

  Funny? Hardly. A coincidence? Maybe. Or had Graham Smith, now calling himself Greg Ferrari, deliberately taken the same career path Charlotte Neill had chosen for herself in some strange attempt to expiate his sin? Well, it was possible. I might suggest it to KD. It was the sort of twist she liked

  “Thank you, Sergeant Peat.”

  I put my notebook away in my bag.

  “Oh you’re welcome, Miss. Makes a pleasant change to talk over old times with an attractive listener.”

  Assuring him I could find my own way out - poor young Liz might actually get some real work done once I’d left the building -I smiled and said goodbye.

  My visit to Northworthy had certainly proved worthwhile, both from the point of view of a possible new case for KD and my own investigation into the JayJay murder. Proving that Greg Ferrari had once been Graham Smith might be trickier, though my earlier research had proved that it was surprisingly easy to change your name with few, if any legal requirements. I could, if I so wanted, start calling myself Hermione Hellebore or Tallulah Swindon-Wilts and I could even open a bank account or set up a business in those names. However, I couldn’t apply for a passport or change the name on my birth certificate without it getting complicated and needing some legal advice - advice that Ferrari could well afford to pay for. The dancer had to be my chief suspect for JayJay’s murder - now I just had to work out how he’d done it. I hurried past the abomination of the Arts Centre eager to get back to the Georgian, pick up my car and go home.

  I packed my bag, paid my bill at reception - putting the receipt carefully away in my purse for KD to pay me back later - and drove out along the Upton Road towards Cotdene. It was barely six o’clock, still time to have a look at Greentrees Avenue and take a few photos. I had the map on the seat next to me, risking a look every time I pulled up at traffic lights - Northworthy doesn’t believe in roundabouts except on the Ring Road - to make sure I didn’t get lost. I could see what Sergeant Peat had meant about Cotdene being a rough area. It hadn’t improved much in twenty years, that was for sure. The council houses which, from their design, dated back half a century or more, looked for the most part uncared for, their front gardens unkempt, playing host to old settees, frid
ges and, in one case, a burnt out car. A lot of the houses were boarded up. A parade of derelict shops had undergone similar treatment and was home now to winos, drop outs and illiterate graffiti artists. It all looked very depressing but slowly, street by street, the condition of the estate began to pick up until, by the time I was within striking distance of my destination, there were real signs of regeneration. I drove round the corner into Greentrees Avenue, slowing down, taking a close look at the homes on either side. I pulled in towards the kerb intending to park up but then, with a gasp, shot out again, accelerating away in a squeal of tyres, face turned to the right. Instead of stopping and taking my hoped for pictures, I drove past the bright red Ferrari, and the tall, unmistakeable figure of its eponymous owner standing talking to an elderly woman on the pavement. I carried on, mind in a whirl, heart pounding against my ribs, possessed by a terror that caused sweat to trickle down my back until I’d calmed down sufficiently to discover myself driving in the wrong direction down the Upton bypass.

  I pulled into a service station and got out of the car, legs buckling like two wet noodles. Inside the shop, thinking it a shame they didn’t sell brandy, I asked for a coffee and directions to the motorway. My hand was visibly shaking when I handed over the money. Back outside, I looked carefully at the cars on the forecourt and the traffic speeding past but felt safe enough. It isn’t easy to hide a red Ferrari. Sitting in the car I drank the hot brown sludge from its polystyrene beaker hoping the caffeine would settle me. Knowing that I’d been right all along, my suspicions of the dancer proved, brought me no comfort nor any sense of satisfaction. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a detective - I grinned to myself as I heard KD say, ‘what would Agnes Merryweather do?’ - because, right now, I just wanted to get away, to put as much distance as I could between me and Northworthy. And never come back again. I was twenty miles down the road and already on the motorway before I felt able to relax and stop checking my rear view mirror every few seconds.

  Traffic on the motorway was light for a Friday evening. Making good time, I made a comfort stop at the first roadside place I came to after turning off the M1, rinsing my face in cold water and drying myself with the aid of a paper tissue and the hot air machine. I would call Jerry Farish as soon as I got home, I decided, but I could leave telling KD of my discoveries until tomorrow. Apprehending Jaynee Johnson’s killer was the first priority, not solving a twenty year old hit-and-run, even allowing for the fact that the same person had committed both crimes.

  Once back on the road I still kept a look-out for an Italian sports car but my earlier terror had receded as the distance from Cotdene had increased. A few cars passed me but the road behind was clear. Not far now from the turn off towards Crofterton. I relaxed and thought about Jerry Farish. I imagined he would move pretty quickly when I passed on my information. The long arm of the law would snake out to bring a killer to justice as his arms had snaked around my waist the other evening. I was so lost in my girlish, romantic fantasy I didn’t realise my danger until the first bang came. Lurching forward in my seat, about to pull in to see what was wrong, the car was shunted again. A large truck filled my rear view mirror. Panicking, I put my foot down overshooting the slip road. It was only two miles to the next one but my old car was struggling. Cursing myself for relaxing my guard, I checked the mirror again. The truck pulled out and started to overtake. Who was driving? Who was doing this? I couldn’t see clearly, hampered by trying to concentrate on the road and sneak quick glances up into the cab. Was it that bastard, Ferrari? How had he caught me up so fast? What a fool I was to have made those stops, I should have driven straight on until I was home. One hand gripping the wheel, I reached for my bag with the other, feeling inside for my phone. I screamed as the 7½ tonner, now nearly abreast, swung in towards me. I wrenched the wheel to my left just as I hit a button on my phone.

  “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” I yelled as the driver’s side wing mirror slid out of sight, crushed by the side of the truck. I was already on the hard shoulder and the truck came at me again, crumpling my door and the front wing.

  “It’s Verity Long, I’m on the Crofterton bypass. I’m being run off the road by a truck. It’s …”

  Too late I saw the parked car, hazard lights flashing, and stamped on my brakes. Nothing happened. Nothing was working, not the car, nor my brain, nor my legs and arms which now, in my hour of need, appeared to belong to someone else.

  “Help, please help,” I screamed hoping that someone, anyone could hear. Knowing my luck the call had probably gone straight to voice mail.

  Acting purely on automatic, relying on my reflexes, I swung the wheel hard over to the left to avoid the parked car, shot on to the verge, over the brow of the embankment and down towards the Armco.

  “Oh, God, now nobody will know about Greg Ferrari,” was my last conscious thought before the crash happened and blackness descended.

  Chapter 13

  The darkness made it hard to see. Taking stock, I decided that either something had touched my hair or, and I wasn’t totally happy about this option, there was a large spider on top of my head. For a moment I felt its hairy feet before realising it was someone moving my own hair off my forehead. Whoever did so stroked gently and tenderly. Someone, perhaps the same someone, it was hard to tell without opening my eyes and I didn’t want to do that, whispered my name. I knew I was lying down and felt pain in my side and in my knee. Something smooth lay under my right hand, fabric possibly. The stroking continued and I let it, the constant rhythmic movement soothing and restful. I sensed someone bending over me, a lingering kiss on my forehead then my lips. I murmured briefly, I think, before the world went away.

  A soft hand picked up mine.

  “Mmmm. Kiss me. Kiss me again.”

  “Not a good idea, really,” said a cool voice. “The Medical Ethics Board does tend to take a dim view of that sort of doctor/patient relationship.”

  My eyes slammed open. To my horror, a total stranger in a white coat stood taking my pulse. On the opposite side of the bed a young nurse attempted to stifle a laugh. Mortified, I did the only thing possible. I closed my eyes, pretended I wasn’t there and let the darkness sweep over me again.

  This time the kiss on my lips lingered. I opened one eye and just as quickly closed it again.

  “I know you’re awake, Verity. Stop pretending, my girl, and talk to me.”

  Damn! I’d been rumbled. I opened the same eye again and this time kept it open. Inspector Farish occupied a chair by the side of my bed, a hospital bed by the look of the sheets and metal frame and seeing him brought everything back. I opened the other eye and tried to sit up. Pain shot through me and I let out a groan.

  “He killed her, Jerry, he killed that child all those years ago and she found out so he killed her and then he . . ” it all came out in one long stream.

  “Hush, hush,” his strong gentle hands touched my shoulders forcing me back. “I know I asked you to talk but you’re gabbling. Relax Verity, take your time.”

  I groaned again, my eyes closing as he eased me back, the pressure of his hands forcing me to obey.

  Gabbling, I thought as my head touched the pillow, I’m not gabbling. How dare he say I’m gabbling, I’m not, this is important; he tried to kill me, the man, he forced me off the road, he … he … who was he, it was important, he’d killed her, killed the other one, the man, he’d killed me …

  A cool hand took hold of my left wrist. I glanced sideways, a nurse taking my pulse. She smiled at me.

  “So you’re awake, are you? Just take it easy. I’ll get you something to drink in a moment. Are you in pain?”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “I’ll get you something for that as well. Do you know your name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is?”

  “Verity. Verity Long.”

  “And do you know where you are, Verity?”

  I looked around at the bare, white walls, the bed with the curtains around it and
the metal stand at one side with the drip tube that curved down into my arm.

  “Er … that would be a hospital, would it?”

  I felt the warning pressure of Jerry’s hand on mine but the nurse carried on, oblivious to my sarcastic tone.

  “Good. You’re in Crofterton General Hospital.” She looked across at Jerry. “Ten minutes, don’t overtax her,” she said sternly. “She’s lucky to be here, it was one hell of an accident.”

  She walked away, blue uniform rustling. I turned my head to face Inspector Farish. The nurse’s intervention had given me the time to put my shattered, incoherent thoughts into some sort of order.

  “Greg Ferrari ran me off the road, didn’t he?”

  “Somebody did, certainly.”

  “Yes, well, Greg Ferrari,” I began, raising a hand to stop him when he tried to silence me, “killed a child, a child in a hit and run accident twenty years ago. Somehow, Jaynee Johnson found this out so he killed her too to stop her talking. Then he tried to kill me for the same reason. I’ve got names, dates …”

  He stood up and leant over me, one hand on the metal frame of the bed head the other over mine. Was he going away again?

  “It’s important, Jerry. Ferrari has to be stopped. You have to mpmf, mnf mmf.”

  I couldn’t say any more for his lips covered mine in a warm soft kiss. I let them.

  “What was that for? I asked, when his lips left mine and he walked to the door.

  He stopped in the doorway and turned round, half in and half out of the room.

  “It was the best way I could think of to stop you talking.” He smiled. “Besides, I enjoyed it.”

  His eyes held the promise of better things to come.

  “Get well, Verity, I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Your boss will be along shortly and the doctor says you’ll be fine - although, in a day or so’s time you will have a small garden bird for a while.”

  And with this cryptic comment he was gone.

  By the time KD breezed in a short time later, wearing a big smile and a startling cerise pink jacket, so garish it hurt my eyes and threatened an instant relapse, I was feeling much better. I had occupied the time between the Inspector’s departure and her arrival trying to make sense of everything I’d learned in Northworthy but mostly I’d been polishing the memory of that last kiss.