by Simon Parke
‘And what will it do to the value of your property?!’ added Tamsin joyfully. ‘I can see the estate agent’s brochure now: “A seven-minute walk to the station – and handily placed for the knocking shop!”’
‘That’s not a big issue for me,’ said Peter, sitting himself on an old herring box.
‘What isn’t?’
‘The value of the property.’
The house had been left to him by a relative he’d neither met nor heard of, when his stint in the desert had come to an end. It was a godsend at the time, because he’d no other home on earth. But that, in a way, was the point: Stormhaven hadn’t been a choice. He’d arrived here from the Sahara as a refugee, with nowhere else to go. On a good day there was gratitude in his soul; but not all days were good. Certainly this day had nose-dived a little with the unannounced arrival of Tamsin. ‘Though strangely, it might be for you,’ he added.
‘How do you mean?’
‘The value of this property. It’s of no interest to me. But to those who come after me . . .’
Tamsin was his niece, after all – his one known relation in the world. So who else would inherit this two-bedroom home, with a study at the back, and just a salt-soaked seventy yards from Mr Whippy’s summer pitch and the variable moods of the English Channel?
‘Oh, yes.’ She was embarrassed, an infrequent emotion in Tamsin. She hadn’t thought of this when she teased him – the fact that she might inherit this home in which she sat – and she didn’t wish to dwell on it now. This house was the abbot’s house; she didn’t want it to be anything else, because – and she’d never really noticed this before – she didn’t want him to die. She really didn’t want him to die.
‘We’ve known about the brothel for a while,’ she said, gathering herself, hardening herself, becoming a detective inspector once again, perching on the comfy chair.
‘Is this the royal we – yourself and the Queen?’
‘The police.’
‘But, for whatever reason, you’ve let it be.’ He said this as an observation, quite without the sauce of accusation, but Tamsin tasted that sauce in everything.
‘We’ve let it be, yes – and I’m sorry if that offends you, but if there’s no coercion involved and no drugs, we do have other priorities.’
‘Until the madam is murdered, I suppose.’
Now Tamsin looked prim. ‘It does change things, yes.’
They sat in silence for a moment, a question begging to be asked.
‘And so why are you here?’ asked Peter. ‘Why are you soaking my carpet this morning to tell me about a murder in a brothel? It can’t just be a search for a good cup of coffee.’
Tamsin laughed. ‘If I wanted a good cup of coffee, I wouldn’t come here, Abbot, believe me.’
‘I’ll speak to my staff about your dissatisfaction.’
‘I blame your suppliers.’ There was a Poundshop mentality in Peter and it showed in his coffee. ‘You can’t polish a turd.’
‘How nice to see you.’
‘But the idea of something hot is not unattractive,’ she said, deciding to stir his hospitality muscles. ‘Just supposing you had some decent coffee in the building.’
‘I’m not sure I do . . . not your decent, anyway. But if we were to skip the coffee – which feels like prevarication – what would we be talking about? Or, to return to my previous question, why have you come?’
He knew why she’d come – but she’d have to say it. They’d worked together on a number of cases, supported by the Sussex police’s ‘trusted citizen’ scheme, which permitted civilians to be brought in on police investigations where their experience and knowledge were deemed helpful to the enquiry. Their partnership had not always been easy, and neither had the Lewes HQ looked kindly on the fact that they were represented by ‘a bloody monk’. It wasn’t their idea of modern policing. But they couldn’t argue with the results, and as the chief constable reminded them with some regularity, ‘Policing is like Premier League football – a results-based business.’
The fact that on their first investigation the abbot had discovered that Tamsin was his niece had not changed matters a great deal. Both wished to keep family at a distance; it was the murderers they wished to get close to. So yes, he knew why she’d come and wasn’t sad. The murder of a madam in Stormhaven sounded most intriguing. But she would have to ask him because neither liked to make it easy for the other. And then, as if to save her, her phone rang.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, reaching for the ringing in her bag.
Why do people allow themselves to be so ruled by a phone? wondered Peter. Why the compulsion to answer? They’d been talking, hadn’t they? But answer she did, and as Peter watched, he saw a strange transformation occur. Tamsin took the call, stayed seated and said little . . . but her dark and well-trimmed eyebrows furrowed and some sort of fear – or perhaps confusion – crept across her face. Something was changing before his eyes. Tamsin was normally curt over the phone, dismissive and brief, as if the caller was an idiot. ‘Idiot’ was her most common response to a phone call. But now she was lingering, containing her bafflement, seeking confirmation, not in charge of whatever was happening. Whatever she was being told surprised her. Something had altered.
‘Bad news?’ asked Peter, as she returned the phone to her bag in a measured way, as if still thinking.
‘That’s right, yes,’ she said quietly.
‘What sort of bad news?’ Peter was unused to her hesitancy.
‘Well, someone’s died, haven’t they?’
The abbot smiled at the sudden sanctity of the occasion. Tamsin was not famous for her emotional attunement to feelings around death.
‘It’s never been an issue before, Tamsin.’
‘How would you know?’
‘When you’re showing concern, I do know it’s acting,’ he said. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ He got up from the herring box to show willing. But she shook her head and looked at him; for a moment, she felt sympathy towards this man. After all, his world was about to be blown apart. No, really. No doubt he’d had difficult times in the desert; she sensed he was not a stranger to darkness. But he was walking into a lot more darkness now. When a sordid secret is exposed in a small town like Stormhaven, there’s nowhere to hide, especially with the Sussex Silt on the prowl . . . and multiply that tenfold if you wear a monk’s habit.
‘Do you want to sit down, Peter?’ How was she to handle this?
‘I’ve only just got up.’
‘You might want to sit down.’
‘You’re the one who seems uneasy, Tamsin. Almost compassionate . . . and it isn’t your style. It’s quite unnerving.’
Tamsin raised her eyebrows. ‘And you don’t know why that might be?’ she asked.
‘Why what might be?’
‘Why this conversation might be difficult for me – given what I’ve just told you?’
‘What have you just told me? You told me my coffee tastes of turd and that there’s a brothel in Stormhaven . . . oh, and you worried a little about the effect on house prices.’
‘I also told you about a madam.’
‘You told me she’d been murdered, which is significant for her nearest and dearest; but not hugely revealing.’
Tamsin paused at the cliff edge . . . and decided to jump.
‘We know, Peter.’
‘You know what?’ He was frustrated now.
She got up because she couldn’t think what else to do, feeling trapped in this small space. She went over to the window.
‘I need you to make this easier for me,’ she said. The rain smashed against the glass, and through the spray she watched the wind-stirred sea, rising, crashing, foaming across the shingle.
‘In your own time,’ said Peter.
‘No one’s judging you, Uncle.’
Uncle? This was getting worse. She never called him uncle.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Then let me spell it out.’ S
he’d given him enough time to cooperate. He hadn’t helped her, so kindness could be withdrawn. ‘The madam of the Stormhaven brothel, Model Service . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘She had you down as her next of kin. As her partner.’
Peter stood silent, bemused. ‘Next of kin? To the madam? Me?’
Tamsin nodded.
‘Well, who was she?’
‘I think we were hoping you could tell us . . . as next of kin.’
‘I mean her name.’
‘Rosemary Weller.’
Peter was stunned. ‘Rosemary? What’s Rosemary got to do with this?’
Rosemary had found Tara.
The relationship had started on her doorstep, with Tara very nearly slamming the door in this bold woman’s face.
‘How did you find me?’ had been her first question, after Rosemary had knocked loudly and made her brief introductions. Tara’s initial response had been defensive, and who could blame her? She did not appreciate the arrival of strangers on her doorstep, particularly one so clearly ‘professional’ as Rosemary. Was she a social worker, or worse, an Inland Revenue agent here to snoop, probe or condemn? Not everything in her life was above reproach.
‘I spoke with the police,’ said Rosemary cheerfully, which wasn’t a good start.
‘The police?’
‘Well, how else would someone like me find a practising madam?’
This all seemed eminently sensible to Rosemary – and the end of the conversation for Tara.
‘I’m sorry, but I . . .’ Tara couldn’t finish, she was aghast. She tried to stay out of police sight, as far away as possible. Why had this woman been speaking to the police? It didn’t matter; it was time she went. ‘I don’t know what brings you here, Mrs Weller, but—’
‘Er, Miss.’
‘I don’t much mind, Mrs or Miss, but I think you’d better—’
And she’d begun to close the door.
‘It’s nothing like that,’ said Rosemary, pushing the door gently back open. ‘I come as an admirer, Tara.’
‘An admirer?’
‘An admirer of the business you run here in Brighton.’
What did this woman know of her business? ‘And what particularly do you admire?’
‘You look after your girls, I’m told.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘The girls.’
‘You have been busy.’ There was something irrepressible about this woman.
‘Could I come in just for a moment?’ said Rosemary. ‘I’d like a brief word, one I think you may like. I mean, I hope I’m coming with good news. But perhaps it’s best shared in a slightly more private setting.’
Tara had opened the door, taking Rosemary through the hallway into the front room, where she sat her down on the white leather sofa.
‘Very nice,’ said Rosemary, looking around at a stylish room of wooden furniture and modern art. ‘Really very stylish. You decorate your home like an arts graduate. And that’s meant to be a compliment.’
Who is this woman? ‘So why are you here?’
‘I want to give you premises, Tara.’
‘Promises?’
‘No, premises. Well, promises as well, I suppose.’
‘Premises.’
‘Yes.’
‘Premises for what?’
‘For your current business. You don’t have any, do you?’
‘Well, no, I don’t.’
She ran a network of sex workers in Brighton, hosting a communal website for them and offering various forms of both financial and emotional support. But it was geographically scattered and slightly chaotic.
‘Right,’ said Rosemary, reassured that her research had not been incorrect. ‘So I want to give you a base, a home . . . better protection for the girls than working alone in their flats where they’re vulnerable. Men can be forceful; particularly groups of men. And it’s better for their self-worth, don’t you think, to work away from home? They then leave home to work and return there to live.’
Tara paused for a moment, to absorb the news so far; and all delivered at such a pace, as if everything was sorted. Rosemary, as she would learn, was brisk in her business.
‘Where?’ asked Tara.
‘The premises?’
‘Yes. Where are they?’
‘In Stormhaven.’
‘A brothel in Stormhaven?’ She couldn’t help laughing.
‘Well, we already have a church and a post office,’ said Rosemary.
They were now both laughing. It was Tara’s first glimpse of Rosemary’s humour, which surfaced only occasionally, but could be outrageous.
‘Are you going to buy?’
‘I already have.’
‘Oh.’
This was all moving very fast.
‘Yes, I have some premises in Stormhaven that are ready to move into. Well, they need a little decorating perhaps, a lick of paint, some furnishings, but that can be all arranged.’
‘Right.’
‘And you’d oversee that, knowing what’s necessary.’
‘Towels, mainly.’
‘Towels?’
‘You can’t have too many towels.’
‘Quite. But I’d need you to run it, to be there. Yes? Obviously you could continue with other work, as long as it wasn’t to the detriment of the new business, whatever you choose to call it. Something tasteful; we could perhaps agree together about a name.’
‘Stormhaven is hardly Sin City.’
‘And we won’t be making it so – not at all. This is a business, not a sin . . . a gift to the people of Stormhaven.’ Tara was warming to her. Should she offer tea? ‘And a gift to our employees. Like any employer, we simply give people work and protect them as they go about their business.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Rosemary Weller, as I said.’
‘No, I mean, why do you . . .’
‘My work is mainly in the charity sector. Mainly charity – though I’m also churchwarden at St Michael’s.’
‘Churchwarden?’
‘So I’m branching out a little.’
‘I wouldn’t be running a charity, you do know that?’ said Tara.
‘No. As I said, you’d be running a business, which must wipe its own nose financially, but one that respects its employees.’
‘Would you like some tea?’ This felt like the right time to offer.
‘We need to talk about money first,’ said Rosemary. Tara had been wondering about the finances. ‘Once we’ve sorted the money, then perhaps a cup of tea would be nice.’
And that’s how Tara had first met Rosemary.
They now had coffee
though neither looked pleased.
Tamsin had taken charge. She’d sat Peter down in his own front room, gone to the kitchen and returned with two steaming cups of an instant she’d never heard of.
‘I hope this is coffee,’ she said, waving the jar in the air. She wondered if they were gravy granules, with the aroma giving no clues either way.
‘Lidl’s finest,’ he said. ‘Well, Lidl’s only.’
Her kitchen fears had been confirmed; the provenance of the coffee was deeply suspect. She’d pretend to drink it, she was trying to be kind, and this required deliberate thought in Tamsin. Kindness was not a flower that grew naturally in the fields of her being. But in the end, beyond kind thoughts, this was a murder investigation. And the man she wanted to work on the case with her had disqualified himself before they’d even started – by being next of kin to the victim! And she was angry about that.
The abbot knew the deceased well, this was quite clear. Yet in a rather absurd manner, he was attempting to bluff his way out of the mess, shiftily denying all knowledge. And yes, that also made Tamsin angry.
‘So you obviously know Rosemary well.’
‘I don’t know her well.’
‘You’re down as her next of kin, Abbot. That’s a few steps on from having once sat next to her on the bus.’
‘It’s quite inexplicable.’
‘I doubt that somehow, Abbot. Everything has a reason, once obfuscation is peeled away.’
‘Have you been going to English classes?’
‘I’m quoting you.’
‘Really? Well, I suppose I’m flattered.’ And he was flattered. ‘And clearly it’s true. Nothing is inexplicable; everything has a reason. But I’m sitting in a big soup of madness here. I don’t know what to say.’
‘You can start by saying how you knew her.’
‘How I knew her?’ He wasn’t sure how he had known her. ‘I knew her once. A long time ago, a different life.’
And then Tamsin remembered. Oh my goodness! Was this his first love? Was her uncle’s past returning in a most uncomfortable way?
‘This wasn’t nurse Rosemary, who you fell in love with at that psychiatric unit in Highgate?’
Peter had regretted telling her. He’d let this slip on the last case they’d shared – the murders up at the school. He’d mentioned, in passing, his first, and failed, love affair . . . though to call it that, even to use that phrase, was to over-egg the pudding. It was neither love nor an affair. And he regretted telling Tamsin, immediately, because information is power.
But that was that; he could not call back the words. The deed was done, the information had wings, and Tamsin knew about Rosemary when he’d have preferred her ignorant.
‘Yes, I did once have strong feelings for her.’ That was not a phrase he’d used before, and he listened to himself saying it. These things had lived for ever inside him, but never outside, never spoken.
‘How strong?’
‘They weren’t returned, that’s all that matters, and the sap of obsession dried quickly enough in the desert sand.’
Let that be that . . . end of story.
‘Or appeared to,’ said his niece, inquisitorially.
‘It was more than appearance, Tamsin. I stopped writing, she didn’t write, we never met. The clues are there, even for the police. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t any more.’
‘Well, it clearly was for her. You’re her next of kin.’
Peter shrugged. The coffee was too weak, as it always was when others made it. Could he reasonably go to the kitchen and strengthen it a little? Probably not . . . not now. Tamsin was obsessed with his relationship with Rosemary. And the more he explained how little it really was, the more it seemed to exist. Deny something and it grows in size. She’d soon be saying he ‘doth protest too much’.
