by Lynda Wilcox
“How are you, my dear?”
KD plonked herself down in the chair vacated by Jerry Farish, spilling grapes and chocolates onto the bed.
“Do you know who you are, where you are and what happened? Oh, I’ve been so worried about you. You were unconscious for nearly twenty four hours.”
If the Inspector thinks I gabble, he really ought to hear KD in full flow, I thought as I removed the bag of grapes to the relative safety of the bedside table.
“Yes, yes and I think so, thank you,” I said, though I hadn’t realised I’d been out of things for so long.
KD popped a grape in to her mouth. Cerise pink lipstick, I noticed, presumably to match the jacket.
“I’m fine, KD, and I’m sorry that I’ve worried you. Thank you for coming. Now, please tell me what day it is.”
“It’s Sunday, dear, Sunday morning.” She looked at her watch. “Nearly twelve o’clock. You called me on Friday evening from the bypass, screaming and saying something about being forced off the road. I called the emergency services for an ambulance and the police, and then I had to wait. I would have been here earlier but every time I phoned the hospital the nurses put me off, said you weren’t able yet to have visitors.”
Sunday, already? So that explained why the nurses constantly kept checking that I wasn’t in a coma. I dragged my thoughts back to what KD had just said. Every time she’d phoned, eh? Bless her, she really had been concerned about me.
“I came, anyway, in the end. I couldn’t stand being at home and not knowing how you were.”
“How long have you been here?”
“More than an hour, I think. I saw your Inspector chappie just leaving as I came in and I’ve been pacing the corridors ever since. The nurse wouldn’t let me in. She said you weren’t to have too many visitors too close together.”
I decided not to try and make sense of this, my brain wasn’t up to it at the moment.
“Greg Ferrari killed the other Charlotte Neill,” I told her. “The one in Northworthy.”
“Please don’t talk about it now, Verity. I wish you’d left it to the police, like I told you.”
“But …”
“I wish you’d never found the wretched Neal case. I don’t want you in danger.”
“But …”
“I think I’m going to give up writing from old cases and go back to making it up. It will be much safer for all concerned.”
“KD …”
It was no good. In this mood she was as unstoppable as an express train and just as dangerous.
“I’m not going to have my friends risking their lives. Agnes Merryweather just isn’t worth it. From now on I shall … why, Verity dear, what’s the matter?”
To my extreme annoyance I was crying. Salty tears ran down my cheeks, into my mouth, into my hair and onto the pillow. KD whisked out a handkerchief and dabbed at my face.
“But I’ll be out of a job,” I sobbed like a child. Unable to stop, I blubbered on. “You won’t need a researcher any more and I enjoy being your researcher. I don’t want to be only a secretary.”
This was ridiculous. What had come over me all of a sudden? I made an effort to get a grip on myself.
“I’m sorry, KD.”
“It’s all right.” She squeezed my hand. “It’s all right, Verity. You’re upset and emotional. And who wouldn’t be after what you’ve gone through?” she added quickly, seeing the look on my face. “Just take a moment to calm down. I shan’t be a second.”
She left the room and I dabbed at my eyes. Goodness, what a fool I was making of myself. Upset and emotional, indeed! Well, maybe I was. I blamed whatever they’d put in the drip. Yes, that was it. It was the drug’s fault.
KD returned in a business-like manner and sat back down. Whatever was coming, I knew she’d brook no argument.
“The nurse has just told me that, all being well, they are going to discharge you tomorrow afternoon, which in my opinion is far too soon but is good news nonetheless. I have arranged with her that they are to order a taxi for you, at my expense, and that you are coming to stay at Bishop Lea with me. No, don’t say anything yet.”
I hadn’t been going to. Right now, I didn’t feel capable of anything, let alone organising myself. Or worse, fighting my employer. For the moment I was happy to leave everything to KD.
“You can’t drive home. Your car is a write-off, anyway.”
I groaned. Great! More expense.
“But we can see about getting you a new one later. You aren’t fit to look after yourself so you can come to me for a few days until you are. Do you understand?”
Well of course I understood. I’d been in a car crash, not had a brain transplant. I nodded meekly.
“Yes, KD, and thank you.”
“Pfft! And stop worrying about your job. We’ll discuss this when you’re home because I have no intention of losing you, Verity. Be very clear on that.”
I smiled tremulously at her.
“Right. Now I’m going to leave you to get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
She pecked briefly at my cheek before sailing out, a one-woman marvel, prepared to take on the world.
KD often claimed that Bishop Lea was haunted by the ghost of the departed rock star who had once owned it and if she got up in the night for any reason - she meant her bladder - she would hear the spectral sounds of his music drifting through the darkness. Personally, I thought it far more likely that she had forgotten to turn the radio off before going upstairs to bed. Certainly, no such unearthly sounds had kept me awake the night before.
The taxi had dropped me off at Bishop Lea the previous afternoon and KD had insisted I go straight to bed. I hadn’t demurred, I’d had very little rest the night before, finding it impossible to sleep in the hospital. The constant beep of monitors, ringing of alarms and interruptions by the nurse to take my blood pressure were hardly conducive to restful repose. Now I lay on the long, three seater sofa in KD’s lounge covered with a fleece blanket and propped up by pillows, looking through my notes on Jaynee Johnson in a desultory way. I still ached all over as a result of the accident and Jerry had been spot on with his cryptic reference to a small garden bird. Noticing blue bruises developing nicely across my … erm … chest and down my left side in the shower that morning, I’d begun to appreciate the Inspector’s warped sense of humour.
“You have a visitor,” KD announced, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers into the room.
“Oh, how lovely!” I said catching sight of them. “And lilies! My favourites. Who sent them?”
“I did,” said Jerry Farish, appearing from behind my employer and her armful of trumpets and greenery.
“That’s very kind, Inspector.”
“I also bought these.”
He placed a box of Belgian chocolates on the small table pushed up against the side of the sofa.
“Why, thank you.”
I fluttered my eyelashes at him before looking down, coyly. I love a man who buys me chocolates - especially of the Belgian variety.
“How are you, Verity,” he asked, pulling a pouffe closer to the sofa and sitting down on it.
“I’m OK, thanks, Jerry.”
Hoping I looked wan and palely loitering, as the poet had it, I whispered his name softly. KD took the hint and left us - muttering something about finding a vase and water.
“Have you arrested Greg Ferrari?” I asked when she had gone.
He looked at me gravely.
“No.”
“But, why ever not.?”
I pushed myself up on the pillows the better to berate him.
“Jerry, he killed that girl. I told you. And he tried to kill me. It was definitely him. You should have arrested him for that. You …”
“Verity.”
The voice was low, urgent. He placed a hand over mine.
“We can’t arrest him. He’s beyond our justice now.”
“What?” Had they let him escape? Had he flown to some far off
place with no extradition treaty? What was the man blethering about? I looked at him blankly.
“He’s dead, Verity. Greg Ferrari was murdered three days ago.”
“Oh, my God!”
I subsided, turning my face away from him and into the cushioned back of the settee.
“I’m sorry, Verity.” He squeezed my hand, continuing to leave his own gently on top of mine.
I turned back to face him, seeing the pain in his eyes. Why? Was he blaming himself for this?
“What happened? How was he killed? Stabbed?”
“No,” he shook his head. “He was found in his flat, a cable tie tight around his neck. The flat had been trashed, though whether he arrived home and found someone there, searching, or whether the place was turned over after his death we don’t yet know. And I owe you an apology. You were right about the girl in Northworthy.”
I nodded. Strangely I felt no satisfaction in the fact.
“We broke the news of Ferrari’s death to his mother - the woman in Cotdene - and when we asked her about the hit-and-run, she admitted that Greg had been driving the car the night that Charlotte Neill was knocked down and killed .”
Poor woman, I thought. Her son had brought her nothing but grief.
“We also think, agree rather, that he tried to kill you.”
My eyes flashed.
“He did.”
“Yes. His mother told us that he’d rushed off on Friday to see his cousin on the same estate. A cousin who owned a 7½ ton truck. But he can’t have killed JayJay.”
“What? Look, Jerry, I know it’s a different MO this time.” His lips quirked at my use of the term. I ignored it. What did he expect? I worked for a crime writer. “But he could still have stabbed Jaynee Johnson.”
“She was murdered on the Sunday evening,” he began in a patient voice, “the day before you found her.”
I grimaced at the memory. He squeezed my hand again, it was getting to be a habit.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …”
“It’s all right. Go on.”
“Well, Ferrari was in London that evening, in full view of several hundred people at an awards ceremony. He didn’t leave until after midnight - by which time JayJay was dead.”
“Oh.”
My brain ran furiously.
“How long have you known this?”
And why didn’t you tell me, I wanted to ask but kept my peace. He’d probably told me more than he should anyway.
He smiled.
“For a while. Like you, we made the connection between Ferrari and Mr Smith. Sergeant Harrison’s a bright girl. Then we began a deeper search into his movements and his background”
“Was he drugged too? And how did the killer give Miz - whatever you called it - to JayJay?”
“Midazolam. No, he wasn’t and Midazolam is soluble in water, so she probably drank it. It was a hot day, remember.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry about JayJay, Jerry.”
It was my turn to give the sympathetic squeeze.
“Oh?”
“Well, I’d forgotten she was your friend …”
“She wasn’t,” he interrupted firmly. “It’s my job to find her killer but I hardly knew the woman.”
He pulled at his lower lip, perhaps debating whether to continue. I remained silent looking at his face as if for the first time; the strong jaw, the brown hair curling over the wide forehead, his straight nose and dark, deep-set eyes.
“I met Jaynee Johnson only once at a civic function last November. We exchanged no more than a few words, though, luck being what it is, that was long enough to get us snapped by some photographer who sold the picture to the tabloids. I presume that’s where your friend Jim Hamilton saw it. And before you say anything …”
He held up a hand I closed my mouth with a grin.
“… she wasn’t my type. For all her modicum of intelligence, behind the make-up and hair dye she was a fairly ordinary woman underneath. Satisfied?”
“Satisfied.”
I smiled, retrieved my hand from under his and picked up my notebook again. I flipped through the pages until I found the one on which I’d written the list from JayJay’s diary.
“We’re still left with two names unaccounted for. Spaniel and Dawn.”
He nodded.
“Yes, the two that feature on dates closest to her death. Any ideas, Sherlock?” He grinned.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
“None at all,” I admitted, looking down at the book again. “We’ve identified, JB, Holly, Greg Ferrari and Candida …”
“Woh-oh, Candida.”
KD’s voice filled the room as she carried the flower filled vase to the mantelpiece.
“What?” She looked across at us. “I was only singing.”
“Yes, we know. ‘Candida’ by Tony Orlando. She’s named after it, apparently.”
“No,” said KD.
“Well, that’s what she told me,” I said.
“No, I meant, it wasn’t by Tony Orlando, at least, not the first time it was released. It was by Dawn. Though they did become Tony Orlando and Dawn later, I’ll grant you.”
Jerry and I looked at each other. Was this what we’d missed?
“Dawn? Really?”
“Oh yes. Believe me, when it first came out, in 1970 I think, well before your time, anyway, it was by Dawn. Google would confirm the year.”
“Why would JayJay have two different names for Candida Clark?” asked Jerry, voicing my own thought.
“I don’t know. The first was hardly complimentary, though.”
“What, thrush? I thought it was just a songbird.”
KD guffawed loudly at the Inspector’s innocence. I looked down unable to meet the gaze of either of them and unwilling to enlighten him. KD, bless her, had no such niceties.
“My dear Inspector Farish, Candida is the medical term for vaginal thrush, a rather nasty, irritating and persistent fungal infection. Believe me, JayJay was not referring to birds nor was she being complimentary.”
I felt my cheeks turning as red as my hair and sank lower down the sofa in the vain hope that it would swallow me during KD’s doctor-like explanation. Farish, however, remained unabashed.
“Nasty, irritating and persistent, eh? She really didn’t like her, did she? Perhaps Jaynee found cause to change her opinion of the producer if she later referred to Ms Clark as Dawn. Unless,” he turned to KD with a wicked gleam in his eye, “you know of any other embarrassing female conditions with that name?”
She gave him her best haughty stare.
“If I can think of any, Inspector, you’ll be the first to know.”
He left shortly afterwards, telling me to take care, stay out of trouble and behave.
“He doesn’t know you well, does he?” remarked KD after he had gone.
“Not yet,” I replied.
I was working on that, though I didn’t feel it necessary to tell her so. I leant back on the pillows, eyes closed, thinking about JayJay’s riddles. Jerry had said nothing about not working on the remaining conundrum. Five down, one to go. Spaniel.
I was still scratching my head over the identity of the last remaining name on my list the following morning when the door bell rang. A moment or so later, KD walked into the living room with a large rectangular box.
“What have you got there?” I asked from my semi-reclined position on the sofa.
“It’s for you. Something I ordered yesterday. Special delivery,” she replied setting the parcel down on the coffee table at the side of the fire place while she fetched a paper knife from the desk.
“For me?”
She pulled a large book from the box and I groaned inwardly. I’d been ‘recuperating’ at Bishop Lea for nearly three days. Over sixty hours of KD clucking round me like a mother hen was beginning to grate. She had been very kind but I’m not one of those women who ‘enjoy’ poor health. With the exception of Jerry’s very welcome visit, my boss had done
her best to keep the world at bay. I hadn’t seen a newspaper or any television since the previous Thursday and she had gone to quite inordinate lengths to keep the conversation off the topic of murdered celebrities. Yesterday, when I’d protested that I was bored and needed something to read, she had presented me with a new hard backed tome and said,
“You might like to read this.”
“What is it?” I’d asked, picking it up and looking dubiously at the lurid front cover of sand, pyramids and a curvaceous blonde wearing a pith helmet sitting atop a grinning camel.
“It’s a new biography of Dame Freda Park by that dreadful woman Polly Tinker. My publisher has given it to me in exchange for a quotable quote to go on the cover of the next edition.”
“Have you read it?”
“Oh yes. Freda Park was an amazing woman. A great adventurer and explorer and an inspiration to her sex. She led a truly exciting life. It’s just a shame that the writer of that particular effort,” she’d pointed to the unopened book in my lap. “couldn’t write with the same excitement and panache.”
“Is that going to be your ‘quotable quote’, then? I suggested mischievously.
KG glowered at me over the top of her glasses.
“Certainly not. Polly Tinker might be seated on the same table as me at the next publisher’s lunch and bore me rigid with the details of her forthcoming project.”
“Is Freda Park still alive?” I asked, idly flicking through the photos in the middle of the book.
“Heavens no! She disappeared about ten years ago on an expedition to the Hindu Kush. She was over ninety at the time.”
“It’s a wonder she lived that long if some of these chapter titles are anything to go by. Danger in Darfur, Terror in Timbuktu, Bekkar and Beyond.”
“You see! Bloody woman can’t write for toffee.”
I’d agreed with KD’s assessment by the end of the first chapter.
That had been yesterday, and another book was not what I needed right now. I needed - no, wanted - to go home.
“Here we are. Especially for you.”
KD carried the huge volume across from the table and placed it, carefully, in my lap. Her face was wreathed in smiles - it would be churlish not to appear delighted at the gift. I looked down.
