Death in Disguise

by Sally Spencer

  ‘Yeah,’ Franco agreed, ‘we get plenty of shit of our own.’

  ‘But there’ve also been a couple of more serious attacks. I don’t say the guys who went for her wanted to actually kill her, but they sure-as-shit meant to hurt her a lot.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  Brad Jones shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘I intervened.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘I had to break the guy’s arm both times.’

  ‘Did you report it to the police?’ Franco asked.

  Brad looked him squarely in the eye.

  ‘Nope, I didn’t report it to the police – and neither did the guys with the broken arms. That kinda tells you something, doesn’t it?’

  It certainly does, Franco thought – but I’ve no idea what it tells me.

  ‘So you went everywhere that Melissa went, did you?’ he asked.

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I went with her to the condo, the ranch and the chalet. I went with her on book tours and talk show tours. Where I didn’t go with her was New Mills.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s a little town in Massachusetts. She visited it maybe three or four times a year.’

  ‘How long did she stay there?’

  ‘Except for the last time, it was just for a day or two.’

  ‘And what about the last time?’

  ‘Then she stayed for six days.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A few weeks ago. Maybe late January. I’ve got the details written down in my log.’

  ‘So let me see if I’ve got this clear – you never went with her to New Mills,’ Franco said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘She said no, and she was the boss.’

  ‘And you were happy about that?’

  ‘No, I was very unhappy, but she wouldn’t be moved. The best I could get her to agree to was that I would stay in a motel about ten miles from New Mills, so she’d know where I was if she needed me.’

  ‘You were never tempted to slip quietly into New Mills to make sure she was all right?’

  ‘Sure, I was tempted, but she must have figured that out for herself, because she said, “If I catch a whiff of you in New Mills, Brad, you’re out. There’ll be no second chances. Have you got that?” And her voice was real cold – it didn’t sound like her at all – so I knew she was serious. So what I did was, I taught her a few basic combat moves, so that if she had to, she could defend herself.’

  ‘Was she a quick learner?’

  ‘Very quick – and very good. She was one determined woman.’ Jones took a reflective sip of his beer. ‘Most of the time, she was very direct and clear, you know, but there’s one thing she said that still puzzles me.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘She said, “Don’t lose any sleep over me when I’m in New Mills, Brad. I’m quite safe there, because nobody knows who I am.” And I said, “You’re fooling yourself, Miss Evans. You’ve been on dozens of TV shows, and your picture is on the back of like a couple of million books. There isn’t anybody in America who doesn’t know who you are.” “The people who live in New Mills don’t know who I am,” she told me. “They think they know, but they’re wrong.” Then she laughed. “Although, in a way, they are right – and everybody else is wrong.” Do you know what that means?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ Franco said.

  Although he was beginning to think that maybe he had.

  According to A New History of Massachusetts (revised edition), which Franco had consulted at the library, New Mills had once been a small city, but had been in decline for years, and now, on even the most optimistic evaluation, it could not have been called anything but a large village. The community college was long gone, as was the Howard Johnson’s, but the police department had survived, and it was the police department that Franco rang.

  Since they’d said goodbye to the bodyguard, he had been grappling with the puzzle that Brad Jones had set him – had been trying to explain how was it possible that the people of New Mills didn’t recognise Melissa Evans – and he thought he had come up with an answer which, though it seemed highly unlikely, was the only one that worked.

  When the chief of police came on the line, Franco identified himself and the chief said, with something like awe, ‘I sure never thought that I’d ever get a call from a New York City detective. What can I do for you, detective?’

  Henning and Franco exchanged a glance which said that what he should have done – what they would have done in his place – was to ring the precinct in order to establish that they were, in fact, the genuine article.

  ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions about New Mills,’ Franco said. ‘It probably won’t make a lot of sense to you at first, but hopefully it will by the time I’ve finished. Are you OK with that?’

  ‘Is this what they call “collecting background material”?’ the police chief asked.

  ‘Sort of,’ Franco said.

  ‘Never done that kind of thing myself – there’s not much call for it in New Mills, where everybody knows everything anyway – but I’ve seen it on cop shows on the TV, so I guess it’s fine.’

  ‘Were there any funerals in the town in late January?’

  ‘Sure – two or three. There was Sarah Dunn … no, wait a minute, that was in December—’

  ‘Maybe I can narrow it down a little for you,’ Franco interrupted. ‘Was one of the people who was buried towards the end of January an old man with a daughter who lives in New York?’

  ‘OK, now I know where we are – you’re talking about John Entwistle.’

  ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘He was an Englishman, you know. Came over here sometime in the Twenties, and worked in the old Pine Valley Mill, down by the river. I was a kid back then, and I remember thinking at the time that it was great to have an Englishman in New Mills – it gave the town some kind of distinction. Course, I also thought that having an elephant would have been better.’

  ‘Yes, there really is no competition,’ Franco said, with a smile. ‘The elephant wins hands down, every time.’

  ‘John married Hester Cockburn, sometime in the late Thirties, I think, and their daughter Maggie was born around 1940,’ the chief continued. ‘Then the war broke out, and Hester went to work in one of the big munitions factories that had sprung up round Boston. She said it was just till she’d built up a decent stake for the family, but she never came back. Well, that was no surprise to anybody but John, because none of the Cockburns have ever been exactly what you might call reliable.’

  ‘Tell me about Maggie,’ Franco said.

  ‘John brought Maggie up all by himself, and I have to say he did a pretty good job of it. She was a good student – always winning prizes. She won the county essay competition one year. We were all so proud of her, but to be honest with you, I just can’t remember what that essay was all about.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Franco said. ‘Carry on with the story.’

  ‘Well, when she graduated from high school, she went to work in the mill with her father. We all thought that was a bit of a waste, but mill work was the only kind of work there was round here – and now even that’s gone.’

  ‘What did she do when the mill closed down?’

  ‘She took herself off to New York City to seek her fortune.’ The chief paused. ‘I haven’t thought of this before, but now Melissa Evans has been murdered, Maggie will be out of a job again. Poor girl – it just don’t seem fair, does it?’

  ‘Did she work for Melissa Evans?’ Franco asked.

  The chief chuckled. ‘Well, yes, in a manner of speaking, she did,’ he said. ‘She’s a Melissa Evans lookalike. She makes personal appearances at charity events and state fairs. And she’s damn good at it, too. You see the real Melissa on TV, and you couldn’t tell her and Maggie apart.’

  ‘I hate
to be the one to break this to you, chief,’ Franco said, ‘but she isn’t a Melissa Evans lookalike – she is Melissa Evans.’

  ‘This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it?’ the chief asked angrily. ‘It just has to be some kind of sick joke.’

  ‘I’m sorry, chief – I’m really sorry – but it isn’t,’ Franco said.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  There was silence from the other end of the line for at least half a minute, then, in a cracked voice, the chief said, ‘Everybody liked Maggie. She was the sweetest girl you could ever hope to meet. The whole town’s gonna be … it’s gonna be … I’m sorry, detective, but I have to hang up now.’

  ‘No problem,’ Franco said. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Melissa’s agent saw her death as a way of selling more of her books. Her ‘best friend’ would simply move on to a new best friend. Even her bodyguard would wipe her from his mind once she was buried. But in New Mills, Massachusetts, there were any number of people who would grieve for her – who, in remembering her life, would ensure that her light didn’t quite fade.

  When Franco put the phone back on its cradle, he was feeling strangely at peace.

  TWELVE

  March 16th 1978

  It was six o’clock in the morning, and Ruth Tyndale stood in the kitchen, making up a breakfast tray, and thinking about the fact that after over thirty years of marriage, she no longer shared a bed with her husband.

  She had moved out of the master bedroom some months earlier, when Arthur’s condition had begun to worsen. She hadn’t done it because she suddenly loved him less than she had, or because she now found him repulsive. In fact, on the long dark nights when she lay in her narrow single bed in what had once been their daughter’s room, she positively ached to return to the marital bed.

  But it just wasn’t practical, she told herself, because either Arthur had a bad night and she got no sleep, or she had a bad night (she’d been sleeping very badly since his diagnosis) and disturbed him.

  She had completed laying the breakfast tray, and now it contained a very mild herbal tea, a softly boiled egg, and some lightly buttered toast. She hoped that this would be one of his better days, when he’d be able to keep most of it down, and picking up the tray, she began to walk to the stairs.

  She so wished that he’d stay at home and get more rest, she thought as she climbed the stairs, but he was who he was – and she had married him for just that reason – so if carrying on working kept him sane, then she supposed she could learn to put up with it.

  At the top of the stairs, she manipulated the door handle with her right elbow, and gently pushed the door open with her hip.

  ‘Time to get up, sleepyhead,’ she called out in a cheery voice.

  She was acting as if it were a game – as if staying in bed was only wilfulness on her husband’s part.

  And he usually played along with it.

  ‘I know I’m being a lazy boy, Ruth, but if you’ll just give me another ten minutes, I’ll come downstairs all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’

  But it was nothing to do with laziness and it was nothing to do with sleepiness – it was to do with dying – and there were some mornings when he didn’t get up because he couldn’t get up.

  The light streaming in from the landing behind her provided Ruth with sufficient illumination to cross the room, so it wasn’t until she’d put the tray on the bedside table that she switched on the lamp and got her first good look at her husband’s face.

  But when she did get a look at him – when she saw that his chest was hardly rising and falling, and that though his eyes were open, there was no sign of life in them – she almost fainted.

  It was around seven o’clock that Philip started vomiting.

  ‘What should I do?’ Paniatowski asked Elena. ‘Do you think I should call the doctor?’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ the Spanish girl asked. ‘Felipe is just being sick. It is what little babies do – if the mierda is not coming out of one end of them, then it is vómito coming out of the other.’

  It’s easy for you to be so calm, Elena, Paniatowski thought. According to Louisa, you were brought up in a house absolutely jam-packed with children, so you’ve seen it all – but the whole thing is new to me.

  Her gut still told her to call the doctor, but her mind advised her that was a bad idea.

  Don’t forget the story of the boy who cried wolf, the mind said. If the doctor comes and there’s nothing wrong with Philip, he’s going to be pissed off with you, isn’t he? And the next time one of the twins is ill – and that might really be serious – he may decide that their mother’s just being hysterical, and there’s no real hurry to see them at all.

  She rocked Philip very gently on her knee.

  ‘That was why you pulled the puppy’s tail yesterday, wasn’t it?’ she cooed, reassuringly. ‘It wasn’t that you were being a bad boy – no, no, it wasn’t – it was just that you weren’t feeling very well.’

  At around half past seven, Thomas started to throw up, and Paniatowski, who had been working hard to keep a lid on the panic that was bubbling up inside her, realised she was heading for a major meltdown.

  It wasn’t only that Thomas was ill now, she told herself – it was that Philip was still being sick. And while it was true that Philip’s puking was not as violent as it had been – how could it be, when the poor little mite must have nothing left in his stomach? – he was still retching, and he had turned very pale.

  She phoned the doctor, and described the symptoms.

  ‘I’ll be round right away, Miss Paniatowski,’ he said.

  When she put down the phone, she was trembling. On the one hand, it was a great relief that he was coming round immediately; on the other, she would have been much happier if he’d felt able to say there was no urgency and he’d drop in later in the morning.

  The doctor arrived five minutes later. He took one look at the babies, and clapped his hands.

  ‘Right, clear the room,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t I stay, Dr McCloud?’ Paniatowski asked meekly.

  ‘You most certainly cannot,’ the doctor replied sternly, ‘the boys and I have work to do here, and the last thing we want is any mothers or nannies getting in the way.’

  Paniatowski slowly and reluctantly descended the stairs.

  Thank God Louisa slept over at her friend’s house last night, she thought – because if she was here, she’d be in a worse state than I am.

  She paced the lounge for two minutes, then picked up the phone and called Beresford.

  ‘The twins are sick,’ she moaned. ‘For all I know, they may be very sick. I’ve called the doctor, and he’s here now.’

  ‘Then he’ll make them better, won’t he?’ Beresford asked. ‘It’s what doctors are paid to do.’

  ‘But Philip looked so poorly, Colin. He—’

  ‘They’ll be all right,’ Beresford said, soothingly. ‘They’re big strong lads, and they’ll be fine.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘I know so.’

  The magic was working. If solid, reliable Colin Beresford – who had not lied to her in all the years she’d known him – said that everything was going to be all right, then everything was going to be all right.

  ‘Thank you, Colin,’ she said. ‘Listen, if the doctor says that what’s wrong with the twins isn’t serious—’

  ‘Not if he says it, when he says it,’ Beresford interrupted her. ‘Repeat after me: when the doctor says that what’s wrong with the twins isn’t serious …’

  ‘When the doctor says that what’s wrong with the twins isn’t serious …’ Paniatowski said dutifully.

  ‘You’ll have to fill in the rest of the sentence yourself, Monika, because I’ve no idea what you’ll do.’

  ‘I’ll leave Elena in charge, and come down to headquarters for a couple of hours.’

  ‘You’ve absolutely no need to do that,’ Beresford told h
er. ‘I’ve got everything under control here.’

  ‘You’re sure …?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Beresford said firmly. ‘Call me when they’re so much better that you look like a complete silly cow for ever having been so worried.’

  ‘I will,’ Paniatowski promised.

  The man waiting in the public reception area at police headquarters was in his early forties, and was wearing a smart charcoal grey suit, white shirt, neutral tie and beautifully polished black shoes. Kate Meadows – who was very good at making instant assessments – guessed that he’d probably attended a minor public school and a major provincial university, and was either a chartered surveyor or a solicitor – though, given that he was in the police station so early in the morning, it was much more likely to be the latter.

  She walked up to him, and held out her hand.

  ‘Good morning. I’m Detective Sergeant Meadows,’ she said.

  They shook hands.

  ‘I’m Paul Robinson,’ the man said, ‘and the reason that I’m here is because your chief constable has asked me to speak to DCI Paniatowski.’

  ‘The boss isn’t in,’ Meadows told him. ‘She’s been detained at home with a domestic crisis.’

  ‘I see,’ Robinson said. ‘Then I suppose I’d better ring her, so if you’d like to give me her number …’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ Meadows said.

  ‘I’m not sure you quite understand the situation, sergeant,’ Robinson replied. ‘Your chief constable, Keith Pickering, wants me to—’

  ‘Sorry!’ Meadows said firmly.

  She meant it, Robinson thought. He could easily bypass her, of course. All he had to do was ring Pickering, because the chief constable was bound to have Paniatowski’s home number. But that would probably get Meadows into trouble, he told himself, and he didn’t want to do that. Besides, there was something about the sergeant which said that even the Prince of Wales or the Archbishop of Canterbury would think twice before getting on her wrong side.

  ‘Well, if it’s not possible to speak to DCI Paniatowski,’ he said, ‘who should I speak to?’