“Aren’t you suppose to say under-personed these days? You know, political correctness.”
“Go home and have a bath,” he said, closing his eyes as if he was tired of the sight of me. “I’ve just had one.”
His phone rang and he activated the voice. “Yes? What? I’ll ask her.” He looked towards me, his face blank. “When did you last see Holly Broughton?”
“Yesterday, about lunch time, at Faunstone Hall when my coffee was drugged. I was talking to her there then.”
“Yesterday about lunch time at Faunstone Hall,” he repeated down the phone.
“But I also spoke to her earlier this morning on my mobile,” I went on.
“Why didn’t you say that?”
“You asked me when did I last see her. Different verb, James. She phoned me this morning when I was sitting on the beach eating an apple.”
James was exasperated. “Did she sound all right?”
“Well, I don’t really know what all right is. She sounded different, stressed. She phoned to apologize for dumping me on Climping beach and leaving me there to die.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re too heavy for a woman to lift.”
“Then how did I get there?”
“I don’t know. Then what?”
“Then nothing. She rang off.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this?”
“You didn’t ask me. Look, you are obviously in a very bad mood and I don’t blame you for that. I think I’d better go before you leap out of that bed and bite my head off.”
“Don’t go.” He said something else, not to me but to his caller, then rang off. His eyes looked very tired. And he wasn’t even on duty, up all hours, no time off for a sleep. He’d had more sleep in that bed than he’d had in a lifetime.
“Have you had a look at the new wood garden being built on the far end of Latching beach?” he asked.
“You mean all those trunks of upright wood and rock and the occasional plant that grows without soil? I suppose it’ll be all right when it’s finished, but a beach is a beach and trees are a forest and never the twain should meet.”
“I’ve some bad news for you,” said James.
News from James is always bad news. When was there ever good news? If you won the lottery, that was good news. If you forgot to buy your usual ticket, that was bad news.
“Tell me.”
“It’s about Holly Broughton. They’ve found her impaled on one of the stakes in the wood garden on the beach. When she phoned you, it was probably only moments before she was killed. Perhaps she knew they were going to kill her.”
A talon of fear gripped my heart. Her killer had been with her when she’d phoned. I knew that now. The strangeness in her voice had been suffocating, primeval panic.
Ten
Holly Broughton. It was one of those things you could hardly believe. Such a lively, glamorous woman and so pleasant in many ways. Yet my traitor mind produced another thought. I had lost a case. A paying case. And a well-paid case. Shame on you, Jordan. But I could hardly bill her estate for work logged before her death. I’d lost out on this one.
I went home and drove along the marine promenade past the newly built wooden beach garden. It was swarming with police and cordons and flashing lights and vans. A tent had been erected on the beach, among the statuesque pieces of wood, the rocks and palm trees. Kids skateboarded on the opposite pavement, neck-craning. Dogs were being walked on the beach. A police helicopter hovered in the air. It was nearly normal.
Suspects. That was police routine. Husband? Extracting revenge. Maybe one of her contacts wanting more than a diamond necklace. Blackmail? Had Mrs Malee been blackmailing her for a sum she refused to pay? I could think of a half dozen suspects. But not one really sound motive.
But it wasn’t my case any more. I could bow out. I’d got the photographs for James. Photographs for Arthur Spiddock. Photograph of bus hoodie. Quite soon I’d be Latching’s photographer of the year.
It was accidental that I checked my current account. I asked the wall for a mini statement to be printed out, more out of curiosity than anything. I’d spent so little recently, my frugal habits difficult to shed. The balance of the reward money was untouchable as I’d invested in a pension to be drawn when I was sixty. If I lasted that long. Thirty years ahead. I couldn’t imagine being that old, but it would come. I was hoping the capital would have grown in pace with inflation. I’d probably still be living in two bedsits or down-sizing like the teddy-bear woman.
There was quite a tidy balance. An unaccountable cheque for £500 had been paid in. I couldn’t think where it had come from. It meant queuing in a slow queue while people with nothing else to do chatted to the cashiers. Trance time. When it was my turn, I had almost forgotten why I was there.
“A cheque for £500 has been paid into my account,” I said. “Can you tell me where it came from?”
The girl did all sorts of clever things with her keyboard and screen. She probably even knew my blood type. Then she scribbled something on a notepad and passed a piece of paper under the bullet-proof grill.
“There you are,” she said with a flourish, like completing a magic trick.
“Thank you.” I took the scrap of paper to a quiet corner in case the content was explosive. Holly Broughton. She had paid in £500 to my account, without even being asked. My bank account details were on the contract form that she had signed, down at the bottom, in small print, just in case.
The bank had a leisure area of tan-leather armchairs and a coffee table, but no coffee; so I sat in one for a minute of comfortable thinking. If Holly Broughton had paid me £500 for what I had done so far, it meant that I still owed her considerable time. It was the least I could do. Work off the balance.
How did she die? Hopefully not impaled on a stake. It would take a long time to die like that. Someone would have seen her and called an ambulance. Maybe she was already dead when the gruesome scene was set. A bit like my nun on a butcher’s hook. She had taken many months to forget. But some details were still fresh.
I pottered round to the station, the new brick one, all shiny and modern. I couldn’t get used to it. The body-heat-activated automatic doors, the glass screen at the desk, the barrage of computers. I’d never get a cup of tea here.
“Sergeant Rawlings, please,” I said.
“Have you got an appointment?” said the WPO, very small and pert. Wasn’t there a height measurement for women?
“I don’t need an appointment,” I said, using every centimeter of my five foot eight. “I’m Investigator Lacey.”
That sounded very grand. Vaguely American, FBI, White House, undercover work. The days of thick tea and fluff-coated biscuits were long gone. The old station was being pulled down to build a block of retirement flats.
Sergeant Rawlings came to the desk. I got a shock. He looked a lot older, skin hanging on a crippled structure. I was appalled. His hands were gripping the edge of the counter.
“What on earth has happened to you?” I said, unable to be less blunt. He’d been my friend for years, especially during the time when I was an WPO and had been suspended for defending the truth.
“Bloody arthritis,” he said. “Everywhere hurts. But I don’t want to go. What would I do at home? Watch telly all day, like a moron.”
It came in a flash. “You could work for me,” I said.
“Perfect,” he said, grinning. “Any time. Sign me on.”
It was done, just like that. I had staff.
“But first,” I said. “I need some information. About Holly Broughton. She’s my client – was my client, and still is. She paid me in advance, and there’s a signed contract. How did she die? Have you any information?”
“We don’t have much.”
“What do you know?”
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“How about a cup of tea instead, hoping the brew has improved. And a biscuit. I’m starving.”
“Come through. I
’ll activate the doors.”
“It used to be ‘I’ll open the door’.”
“Times change. It’s all coded. The code changes every month. I have to write it down on my hand.”
They even had new mugs. But the tea bags were the same dust-off-the-floor variety. I sat on a new chair, dunking a crisp Rich Tea. Five out of five.
“So what do you know about Holly Broughton, recently discovered in the wooden beach garden?”
“A milkman found her this morning. Quite put him off his round. She’d been dead for some time.”
“Was she fully clothed?”
“Yes. But no shoes. She’d lost those on the way. No signs of injury, apart from those inflicted by the stake and I won’t go into those. You wouldn’t want to hear about them, Jordan. No GBH, no gunshot wounds, no knife. Not drowned or asphyxiated.”
“Autopsy?” She was probably drugged beforehand, like me.
“Too soon for that. And I won’t have access to it, you know that. CID stuff. I could lose my job telling you all this.” He eased himself into a chair. He was stiff all right. His joints were creaking and the pain was etched on his face.
“I’ve just offered you another job.”
“With a pension?”
“Don’t be greedy. You’ll get a police pension.”
“I’ve got expensive tastes.”
He grinned at me. He lived in a thirties semi-detached at the back end of Latching. He had a bit of garden, an old car and a saucy grandson on whom he doted. His idea of an expensive meal would be a Thai takeaway and a pint of Guinness.
I finished my tea and took the mugs to wash them up. He nodded his thanks. “I can see you’ll be a good boss.”
“Don’t bank on it. I can be a tartar. But thanks for the tea. By the way, here’s a photo of the bus hoodie, taken in the bus. Look at the tattoo, quite unusual.”
“You’re a star, Jordan. I’ll give it to the officer in charge of the case. The young lad won’t give his name or address. Says its mistaken identity.”
There were things to do. But I had acquired the door code for the month. I’d read it upside down on the back of his hand. Might come in handy.
I ought to pay a fast visit to Faunstone Hall before the police tramped all over the place with their size elevens. Richard Broughton was unlikely to speak to me, if he was there, but Mrs Malee might. It was worth a try.
It would have to be the ladybird and the hope that Mrs Malee would not make a link. Perhaps she would think it a British idiosyncrasy to paint spots on a car.
Spring was knocking on nature’s door today and I threw my anorak into the back of the car. I could almost smell the promise of summer’s flowers. Shopping list: six bunches of unopened daffodils for £3, two for Doris, two for Mavis, two for me. Yesterday, they had been growing in Cornwall. I had an old lacquered blue vase, which would be perfect for them.
It was a solemn drive but I could still appreciate the countryside bursting to life. I ought to be immune to violent death by now but I wasn’t. In a couple of days, the whole scene had changed, young shoots and buds emerging, trees and hedges turning green, birds building nests and nipping off the heads of banks of crocuses. Yellow and mauve petals danced away on the sly breeze like exhausted butterflies.
The sun was warming my hands through the windscreen. No sun for Holly. No expensive tan shown off with white jeans. The electronic gates to Faunstone Hall were open, which was strange. I drove in and parked to the side nearest the stables and kitchen area at the back, well away from the front door.
The police were already there, patrol cars parked skew-whiff, any old how, as if they had jammed on their brakes after a breakneck chase. At least they had turned off the flashing lights. It was odd not to see DI James in charge. I wandered in, hoping to look as if I worked there. There was no one in the kitchen although the kettle had been recently boiled. A constable stopped me in the hallway.
“Sorry, miss. You’re not allowed in here,” he said.
“But I work here,” I said.
“Oh yes. What do you do?”
Pity I hadn’t dressed for the part. Florist? Masseur? Manicurist? Charwoman from the village? Flash of inspiration.
“I’m Mrs Broughton’s diary secretary. I arrange all her appointments and invitations. She’s a very busy lady. I keep track of everything for her.”
“No longer quite so busy, miss. I think you’ve been made redundant,” said the officer, unable to resist giving me bad news. I blinked innocently.
“I don’t understand.”
“Didn’t you see all the police cars outside?”
“Why, yes, I saw them but I thought it was something to do with the recent burglary. Loose ends to tie up or something.”
“A very loose end, miss.” Quite the station gossip, this one. I wondered if I ought to report him. But not yet.
“I don’t understand.” Limited vocabulary for a secretary. They are usually articulate and sharp.
“Haven’t you heard? Don’t you listen to your radio? Mrs Broughton has been found dead, impaled on a stake on the beach, one of those fancy tree things. Very nasty.”
I went into minor shock, neatly, without falling over and hurting myself. The constable guided me to a chair and fanned the air in a useless manner. I wondered how he had passed his first-aid course.
“Poor Mrs Broughton,” I sobbed. “How dreadful. How did it happen? I know she was depressed by the court case, but she had won it. There was no need to kill herself.”
“You’d hardly call being impaled on a stake committing suicide, now would you, miss? It looks like it was murder, and a very nasty one at that.”
“Murder? Oh my God, oh no, how awful. How was she murdered?” It was half acting, half genuine.
“I don’t exactly know, miss. Post-mortem report and all that. But I should imagine it was an overdose of some drug. Then someone got rid of the body by leaving it on the beach.” He was very forthcoming, which was unusual for uniformed.
“Surely if someone wanted to get rid of a body they would tip it into the sea to be washed over to the Isle of Wight or the coast of France, depending on the tides? Seems odd to leave it on the beach, waiting to be found.”
“You’re right there, miss. Very odd.”
“Is Mr Broughton at home?”
“I believe he was at his London flat when he was informed. He’s driving down now.”
I faked a bit of a recovery. “I’d better cancel all her appointments. It’s the least I can do for her. Can I go through to the study, er… my office?” Neat touch.
“I should think so. It’s not part of the area being finger-printed.”
The whole house would be finger-printed in a murder case. But it suited me to give him a tremulous smile and walk unsteadily to the study, which I remembered was at the far end of this hall. I was every inch a secretary in shock, taking the three steps down carefully. Sorry, Holly, but I am still working for you. Trust me.
I switched on the flat-screen computer and went into My Computer. A huge list of files came up. It would take me hours to go through this lot, even if I knew what I was looking for. But I had better make a start before the officer was relieved from duty and someone more keyed up spotted me.
It was all fairly ordinary. Builders, antique dealers, auctions, holiday reservations, beauty treatments, garages and car-hire firms. I went back to the auction files. Holly had bought a tapestry two months ago. She’d bid £8,000 for it. I know nothing about tapestries but apparently this was a nineteenth-century Beauvais tapestry so finely woven that it could be mistaken for an oil painting. The elaborate border was a copy of picture frames of that period. The catalogue description said the design was based on a rural painting by the eighteenth-century artist, Francois Boucher. Never heard of him.
So where was this valuable tapestry now? Perhaps she had sold it. I could do with a tapestry on my north wall. Sometimes my bedroom was like an ice box. The wind at its worst. Bed socks at the ready.
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The auction file was an eye-opener. A year back she had bought a genuine antique suit of armor from the English Civil War (1642-9). I went cold. She’d paid £9,500 for it as it was in fine condition and had the original buckles. It even had the armorer’s marks and a series of five small dents in the breastplate made by a pistol fired to test the strength of the armor.
I didn’t have to ask where this armor was now. I knew. It was in the boiler room of the pub, or had been a few days ago. I had fingered those dents. I was starting to feel sick, either from what I was discovering or from lack of food.
Then she’d sold the suit of armor for £11,000. Perhaps Richard didn’t like it at Faunstone Hall. Not a bad profit. She’d sold it to someone called Pointer.
I was about to go into a file marked “Court Case”, when two men came into the study. It was my friendly constable with someone in civilian clothes.
“And this is Mrs Broughton’s diary secretary,” the PC said. “You may want to ask her a few questions. She’s a bit upset.”
“I’m sure she must be upset,” said the big man following behind. “And I’m sure I’d like to ask her a few questions.” He glanced down at me, not quite glaring, but near. I recognized the six foot three.
“Hello,” I said, shrinking. He’d seen me. He knew me.
“Hello, Miss Lacey. Perhaps we ought to talk? You can go, constable.”
DS Duke Morton continued to tower over me. “Diary secretary now, eh? So tell me what you have found out, secretarial-wise.”
He was not quite so nasty as DI James would have been in the same circumstances. The attitude was obviously catching. I took a good look at him for the first time. He had a gentle giant look, but the eyes behind the glasses were non-committal. He had a cleft chin and a shadow already. Two shaves a day man.
“Hi, there,” I said, reminding him. “My trusty driver.”
“Not today,” he said. “CID in charge of this murder investigation.”
“So it is murder. Then I can help you and you can help me.”
“That’s pretty optimistic. Firstly, what are you doing here? Did you lie your way in?”
“Not exactly. I was working for Holly Broughton, and still am as she paid me in advance. I am happy to share what I have found out, if you are equally generous.”
Turn and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 7) Page 10
