Quick off the Mark

by Moody, Susan

  I clomped up the stairs where Dim was dealing with paperwork. I set out my table, as they say. And pretty plain pickings it was.

  ‘I’m finished,’ I said. ‘I’ve spent far too much time investigating poor Tristan’s death. I’m not doing anything more than work in parallel with the police, finding out very little more than they have so far, and with absolutely no idea of who might be the guilty party.’

  She tried to interrupt, but I held up my hand. ‘I’ve printed out everything I know and here it is …’ I laid several pages down in front of her. ‘Now I’m out of it.’

  ‘B-but Alex …’ Quivering chin, filling eyes, trembling lip.

  I felt a pang for both her and Dorcas, but really, what more could I do? I seem to have spent the past weeks driving aimlessly around south-east Kent to almost no avail. Certainly very little that was of any use. It was time to move on. The truth was, I needed to shut down. I’d had my fill of murder and cruelty and sadistic killers.

  I had about five days of peace. Went up to London with Sam Willoughby to see a play. And again to see an exhibition at the National Gallery. Went to dinner at Charlotte Plimpton’s house along with some others from the am-dram group. Spent a day browsing through my extensive collection of art books, looking for inspiration, jotting down ideas. Then Fliss Fairlight rang.

  ‘Thought you might be interested, Quick.’

  ‘I probably would be if I knew why I should be.’

  ‘We’ve finally had reports back from forensics,’ she said. ‘They drew our attention to something a bit quirky. With two of the victims – Huber and Stanton – they found faint traces of salt water on the bodies.’

  ‘So the perp lives by the sea? Or even on it? Aboard some boat in one of the harbours round here?’

  ‘Not seawater, Quick. Tears. Looks like the killer might have been crying while he offed his victims.’

  I thought about that. ‘Wouldn’t it be much more likely that the vics were doing the crying?’

  ‘DNA says otherwise. As I’m sure you know, tears only contain traces of DNA if they’ve rolled down the face and picked up some epithelial cells that contain DNA. Anyway, the concentration of salt in seawater is much higher than in tears.’

  ‘Quirky, all right.’ I sighed. Against my will, I’d been plunged back into the hideous underworld of sudden and violent death. I didn’t want to be there. ‘What does Garside make of it?’

  ‘Not much. At the briefing this morning we were told to give the matter our close attention, while we went about our other jobs, and report our thoughts back by the end of the day.’

  ‘I’ll have a think too,’ I said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  There are many theories as to the purpose of dreams. We know that they help to explain and store away recent events for future reference. Most dreams deal with everyday experiences which, in my opinion, suggests that they’re messages from the subconscious, attempting to analyze our recent activities. In other words, they’re trying to convey something to us.

  I just wished I could work out what my current dreams were telling me. Because I’d begun to spend my sleeping hours wreathed in paper chains, bombarded by balloons, festooned in rainbow-coloured garlands. Or dressed in outfits ranging from pirate chiefs to mermaids, from tea-seeking tigers to hungry caterpillars, throwbacks to my childhood.

  My parents were never going to achieve five stars in the Good Parent Guide, but they came into their inventive own where parties were concerned, particularly fancy dress ones, which they threw at the least excuse, both for their friends and ours. But that was a long time ago. So why was the remembrance of parties past invading my sleep? Was it something to do with my latest anthology of paintings, Eat, Drink & Be Merry? Or was it because I recently had been given a snippet of information and was failing to recognize its importance?

  Needing some fresh air, I set off along the seafront. Way off, on top of one of the headlands, I could see the university, its buildings converted by pale sunshine into a mystical otherworldly prospect. Out at sea, tankers were moored. A cross-Channel ferry moved in stately fashion across the water to France. The wind was brisk. Leaves were already beginning to drift down from the trees.

  As I walked, I recalled the supper-party I had recently attended at Char Plimpton’s house. The guests were all members of the theatre group, in sombre mood. Milo’s violent death had saddened and shocked us, but we all felt that the right and proper thing to do would be to arrange a memorial of some kind for him, even though the body was unlikely to be released for a while.

  ‘One way or another we should show our appreciation for the poor chap,’ Ricky Hadfield had said.

  Char shuddered. ‘I absolutely hate to think what his last moments must have been like.’

  ‘We could all bring along something to read, a poem or piece of prose, something pertinent,’ suggested Bill Marshall.

  ‘Excellent idea.’

  ‘And a bottle,’ someone said. ‘Raise a glass to the bloke.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Bill agreed. ‘He and I had had our ups and downs – as most of you know – but nobody could possibly wish him dead.’

  While he spoke, we had all done our level best not to look at Helen Marshall. Dressed in some kind of grey wool outfit and sensible (i.e. frump’s) shoes, she didn’t seem like the sort of woman that two guys would come to blows over.

  ‘How about inviting Chris Kearns to say a few words?’ someone else said. ‘He was a friend of Milo’s. He wouldn’t have to stay long or anything. But it would show solidarity, wouldn’t it?’

  We all agreed that it would. What with, wasn’t clear.

  ‘What about his wife?’ I’d asked. ‘Stanton’s, I mean. Tamasin.’

  ‘Good question.’ They’d looked at one another and nodded.

  ‘I envisage this as a purely private occasion,’ said Char, who had assumed a leadership role. ‘Just us am-drams. Otherwise Tamasin might feel we’re trespassing on her private territory.’

  ‘Belittling her grief sort of thing.’

  ‘Who’s going to contact Kearns?’ asked Ricky.

  ‘I’ll do it, if you like.’ Bill Marshall had looked from one to another of us. ‘I appeared in a play with him once, years ago, one of those one-line, the-carriage-awaits-my-Lord parts, up in Darlington. Me, obviously, not him, although it was still a while before he’d made it big.’

  ‘Has anyone read his book?’ Helen Marshall asked. ‘I enjoyed it, though, dear me, what a terrible life he’s had.’

  ‘I have.’ I said. ‘I thought it was pretty good. Very well written.’

  ‘Hard to believe one man could have suffered so many tragedies,’ Helen had said. ‘Wife, son, daughter … what next?’

  ‘I remember Milo telling me something about the daughter,’ said Char. ‘A drug overdose, as far as I remember.’

  ‘Terrible,’ repeated Helen.

  In the High Street, I waved at Edward Vine as he shifted bottles and labels around in his shop window. Exchanged a few words about lemon cookies with Major Horrocks, who was just coming out of the Fox and Hounds, and received with thanks the paper bag of almond ones (‘made ’em myself,’) he pressed on me. I walked into the bookshop, where I found Sam Willoughby pouring himself a coffee from the pot which was perpetually on the go.

  ‘Make that two,’ I said. ‘And cream in mine, if you please.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  I sat down at one of his little café tables. ‘If you have tears, prepare to shed them now,’ I said, when he joined me. I handed him an almond cookie. ‘At least – don’t. But tell me in what circumstances you might shed them.’

  ‘If someone I loved – you, for instance – died. I’d definitely shed them then.’

  I ignored the subtext. ‘What about if you were in the middle of murdering someone?’

  ‘Tears and murder don’t seem to go together. Not if it’s the murderer shedding them.’

  I explained about the tear-traces that had been found on the b
odies of Milo Stanton and Tristan Huber. ‘I’ve been trying to imagine why someone with a sharp knife, wired up enough to be slicing pieces of flesh from a body, let alone smashing his broken knees with a sledgehammer, would be weeping as he did so. What possible reason could there be?’ It had seemed an important piece of information when DCI Fairlight passed it on. It still did. It still told me nothing.

  ‘Very strange,’ commented Sam. ‘Perhaps he felt guilty about it. Or sorry for what he was doing.’

  ‘Could the killer have been forced to do the deed by a third party?’ I suggested.

  Sam looked at me sideways. ‘In that case, might it have been a woman?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because – and present company excepted, of course – a) women are more easily coerced than men, and b) having been coerced, they’re more likely to weep. Especially if they’re being compelled into some bizarre or barbaric misdeed.’

  ‘That’s an interesting thought.’ Had Alan Garside considered that one?

  ‘On the other hand, why would a killer want to get someone else to do his dirty work?’

  ‘I can think of various reasons. As a punishment, for a start. Or something as simple as voyeurism.’

  ‘Or perhaps they were making a snuff movie.’

  ‘That’s a bit improbable.’

  ‘No more so than any other suggestion. How about he somehow induces the actual killer to do his dirty work for him because he doesn’t want to leave evidence which would point to him/her? Because obviously he/she would know that the police would eventually be investigating it.’

  ‘Or can’t use his own hands for some reason?’ I tried to remember if I knew anyone even remotely connected to the case who had lost the use of a hand.

  ‘Or for some kind of bizarre revenge on the knife-wielder rather than on the victim himself?’

  ‘Exactly. But it all seems pretty far-fetched to me,’ I said. ‘And if you think about it, the third person would surely then have to kill the actual perpetrator if he didn’t want to blow his own cover.’

  ‘Could the third person also be a woman? For instance, say Tristan had remarried after the departure of Christie, and the new wife discovered he’d been having an affair with someone, so she forced the lover to kill him. Sounds like a convenient way to kill two birds, don’t you think?’

  ‘Why not?’ I shrugged. ‘Anything’s possible.’

  But I think we both knew this scenario was too fantastical to be true. Like most of the others we’d come up with.

  My phone buzzed. I took it out of my bag, click it open and listened. It was Fliss Fairlight. ‘Quick, get this … There’s been another murder!’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I groaned. ‘Who this time?’

  ‘Some old geezer, lives on the Dovebridge Road, in that little group of cottages on the left as you drive into Fonthill. Used to run a one-man taxi service.’

  ‘Dibdin,’ I said.

  ‘How the hell did you know that?’

  ‘I have my sources.’

  ‘Poor old boy was apparently shot in his own car. Someone had clearly waited for him to come out of his house and get in his car to go to work, before opening the door and shooting him. Or so forensics says, and we have no reason not to trust their judgement.’

  ‘Golly. Didn’t anyone hear him? He must have shouted for help.’

  ‘His neighbours are all blind or deaf or both. So nobody came to help him. Poor old boy.’

  ‘From what I heard, he was a pretty nasty old boy as well. So a wide field of suspects, I suppose.’

  ‘As so often, Quick, you suppose right.’ I didn’t contradict her, despite the whole Triad fiasco. ‘Yup,’ she continued. ‘We’ve a whole long list of people he’d pissed off.’

  ‘Any of them connected to the murders round here?’

  ‘Can’t see the slightest connection. At least, at the moment.’

  ‘Did anything come out of that think-fest Garside organized?’

  ‘Zilch. A few wildly improbable ideas but nothing remotely useful.’

  ‘So after all this time, you’re no further forward?’

  ‘More or less. But you didn’t hear it from me. By the way, Garside’s holding a press conference later today.’

  ‘At this stage in the proceedings, any particular reason?’ I asked.

  ‘The Press’ve been all over him, demanding to know what’s going on, we can’t sleep safe in our beds until this lunatic has been brought to book murders are more important than speeding tickets, yada yada yada. Maybe you should drop by, sneak in at the back.’

  ‘And maybe not,’ I said. ‘Unless I’m in deep disguise. If he sees me, there’d be hell to pay. For both of us.’

  ‘Hmmm … I’ll keep you posted.’

  The rest of the day drifted by. Desultorily, I put together more work-notes. Truth to tell, much as I loved working on my art compilations, I was beginning to feel there wasn’t enough action in my life. I wanted to be back in the thick of crime investigating, alongside my still-friendly colleagues. The Love Rat had left town, along with his ever-increasing family (‘I’m not ready to be a father.’ Huh!), and there was no reason why I shouldn’t return to the force – if they’d have me.

  Later, having bought two terrific cheeses from Fromage, our local cheese vendor, plus a walnut and olive loaf, I discovered – as I’d anticipated – that they went wonderfully together with a glass or two of the Merlot I got from the new wine shop Edward Vine had mentioned.

  Expecting nothing, I turned on the TV. And nothing was exactly what I got. I flipped through a dozen channels or so, and then hit one which gave me a repeat of an episode from last season’s Chris Kearns hit. I watched for six minutes, while he gurned away, scampered about, side-splittingly extricated himself from the most improbable scrapes. Trouble was, my sides remained resolutely unsplit.

  Life’s too short … I switched off. His book lay on the table in front of me. On a piece of bread I spread a thick layer of absolutely á point Chaourse, melting out of its crust and on to the plate, swallowed a swig of my wine. Oh, bliss! Little things really do mean a lot. The ghastly programme had reminded me that I still had a good quarter of Kearns’s book to finish. I picked it up and turned to where I had left off. The chapter was entitled ‘Eunice’, and was about his dead druggie daughter. Most of the coppers I know are like me: not hugely sympathetic to the users, and even less so to the dealers, who to a large extent manage to keep themselves hidden in the shadows. So I wasn’t expecting to feel warm and fuzzy about the girl.

  According to her father, she’d never taken drugs before (but he would say that, wouldn’t he?) and that night, it was only because one bastard at a party she attended had given her a tab of Ecstasy. For those reading his tale who didn’t know, he obligingly detailed some of the symptoms related to taking MDMA.

  -A euphoric state of being.

  -A distorted perception of time.

  -Increased levels of sexual arousal.

  -A heightening of mental awareness.

  Classic stuff. I’d seen many of them displayed in my days on the force. I’d also seen the bodies of some of those who succumbed to the negative effects of the drug.

  As far as the police could work out from witness statements given by some of those who had attended the party, Eunice had swallowed the pill her boyfriend had given it to her, and almost immediately began displaying the euphoria connected with introducing MDMA into the system. Again, Kearns quoted some of them.

  ‘Floating round the room as though she was sitting on a cloud,’ said one person.

  ‘Told me she was a balloon …’

  ‘Started kissing me, pushed her hand down my trousers.’

  ‘Kept saying embarrassing stuff like “stick it in me, baby.”’

  ‘Swaying about, knocking into things.’

  ‘Pulled down her top so we could all see her boobies.’

  ‘Embarrassing.’

  ‘Humiliating.’

  ‘Honest
ly didn’t know where to put myself.’

  My daughter was my entire life, Kearns had written. The fairy on my Christmas tree, the candle on my cake, the apple of my eye. She gave meaning to everything I had achieved. She enhanced me.

  He went on to say that he couldn’t blame anyone but Eunice herself. Apparently she’d had an argument with the boyfriend, had stumbled out into the cold air in high-heeled sandals and skimpy clothes, had thrown up all over herself and been found in an alley near to the small hotel where she was planning to stay the night. She’d been raped and half-strangled.

  I put the book down. It made painful reading. And right on cue, the phone rang.

  Char Plimpton said, ‘I’ve just been reading Chris Kearns’s book.’

  ‘So have I.’

  ‘Have you got to the chapter about his daughter?’

  ‘That’s exactly where I was up to. Not an easy read.’

  ‘I’ll say. But had you cottoned on to the fact that the college she went to the party at, the Christmas do, was here? Up on the hill?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He doesn’t say so.’

  ‘But it’s true. One of the students who was there at the time told me.’

  I thought rapidly. ‘Come to think of it, he doesn’t really mention names or places, does he?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s afraid of a libel action.’

  ‘I wonder why nobody ever talks about it. It doesn’t reflect too well on the college authorities, does it?’

  ‘Nor the student body.’

  ‘Do you think poor Milo was involved?’

  ‘I should think he’d more or less have to be since he was one of the chief organizers of the party where it happened. Him and that Kevin Fuller guy. Fuller and Milo were pretty close, from what I’ve been told.’

  ‘Are we any further on this memorial meeting for Milo?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. And the good news is that Chris Kearns has agreed to come. So since he’ll be down in this part of the world on Tuesday next, we’ll have it then. Chris can only stay for an hour or so, so Bill Marshall will organize things round that.’