Quick off the Mark

by Moody, Susan

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Fifteen of us were grouped round a table in the middle of the room. Charlotte had taken charge of the evening and organized us into making an effort to produce something of a festive occasion (‘Celebrating Milo’s life rather than mourning his death.’). A red tablecloth covered the table, with a vase of red roses standing on it, next to a framed headshot of Milo. There were stemmed glasses and bottles of wine. Char had arrived with some upmarket nibbles: tiny squares of home-made pizza, miniature smoked-salmon blinis. I’d brought a block of excellent Double Gloucester, another of Caerphilly, plus oatmeal cakes, knives and a board to cut the cheese on. Others had contributed generously. The result was that it looked as though we were having a slap-up party, instead joining together for a sorrowful occasion.

  But … ‘It’s what Milo would have wished,’ we kept on assuring each other as we refilled our glasses and toasted his photograph again and again. I was glad I had arranged for Sam to pick me up at the end of the evening.

  Nearly an hour passed with the noise in the room increasing. ‘Is Chris Kearns coming?’ Ricky asked Bill Marshall. ‘Or should we start our readings without him?’

  ‘He said he was. Said he might be a bit late, though.’

  ‘How late is a bit?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  We heard a door slam and echo in the halls below the room we were in. Footsteps came running up the stairs. Then silence. Char went across and opened the door, stuck out her head, said, ‘We’re in here!’

  ‘So sorry I’m late, guys. Signal failure outside Faversham.’ Kearns came into the room, shaking his shoulders like a dog who’d just emerged from the sea. Rain drops flew off his jacket.

  ‘Here, have this.’ Bill Marshall handed him a glass of red.

  ‘Thanks.’ Kearns looked round at us. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’ He hoicked a couple of blinis off a plate and stuffed them into his mouth. ‘Mmm, lovely,’ he said, when he could talk.

  There was more chat, until Bill Marshall clapped his hands. ‘Since Chris can’t stay for too long, we’d better get on with the next part of the proceedings. Tributes to our friend Milo would be good. Just a few words … anyone want to start?’

  A man I hadn’t noticed previously put up his hand. ‘I’d like to say something.’

  ‘Go ahead, Don.’

  ‘I joined this group more or less as therapy,’ Don said earnestly. ‘Not because I had any particular wish to tread the boards sort of thing, but to try to get over depression after my mother died. Milo was wonderful, so encouraging, so kind, everything a mentor should be. A real help.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Milo, I wish you the best of everything, wherever you may be.’

  Someone else chimed in. ‘I’m never going to be any kind of a thesp … I’m too awkward, too self-conscious … but Milo was such an inspirational leader that sometimes I just thought I might.’

  More tributes followed. Marshall looked at me, but I shook my head. I hadn’t been part of the group long enough to have anything meaningful to say.

  Chris Kearns raised his hand. ‘If I might …’ Everyone nodded vigorously.

  He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve known Milo for many years. He was just a broth of a boy – no more than fourteen or fifteen – when he came round to the stage door at the theatre where I was playing Tony Lumpkin in She Stoops To Conquer. Wanted to know if I could help him get work in the theatre, said he’d do anything, make the tea, clean the loos, didn’t mind how menial the jobs were. I asked him to show me what he could do, and he launched into something from the Scottish play. Frankly, he was terrible – but you could see that he had promise and, better than that, he was absolutely focussed and determined. Naturally, I advised trying to get into one of the drama schools, but he didn’t want to do that, said he wanted hands-on experience. The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd – that’s what he was after, authenticity, the real thing.

  ‘Well, I did what I could for him, gave him a few tips, but it wasn’t much. Time drifted by. After a while, we lost whatever touch we had. And then years later, he came round to another stage door at another theatre where I was playing, wanting to buy me a drink. Over a couple of pints he told me what he was doing, that he was still focussed on the dream, and that the advice I’d given him was invaluable. I couldn’t even remember what I told him all that time ago, but the point was that we became friends, saw quite a bit of each other, kept in touch. I liked him, people. I’d go so far as to say I loved him like a – like a son.’

  Everyone in the room was silently aware of the tragedy of his true son. ‘He hadn’t yet achieved what he wanted to, but I was sure that one day he would.’ There was a dramatic and well-timed pause. His voice broke. He raised a knuckle to his eye. ‘But now he never will.’

  Behind me, someone was snivelling quietly. ‘So,’ Kearns said, ‘let’s raise our glasses to a man who never gave up. A man with talent and courage. A man who would surely one day have realized his dream.’ He sniffed a bit, laid a hand on his heart, and added, ‘Milo Stanton, we salute you.’

  We all applauded this performance, delivered without notes, as though Kearns had memorized it in advance, just as he would have done a theatrical piece. Which I suppose in a way it was. Tears were standing in his eyes.

  ‘That was lovely, Chris.’ Charlotte Plimpton led a round of applause. ‘Now, most of us have brought something to read that was appropriate to the circumstances, and that we thought Milo might appreciate.’ She looked across the table at Chris Kearns and clasped her hands together. ‘Please don’t judge us too harshly.’

  ‘As if I would,’ he said, giving her a warm smile.

  Someone read Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep. Char chose Emily Dickinson’s Because I could not stop for Death. In sonorous tones, Bill Marshall read Fear no more the heat o’ the sun.

  There were more offerings: A Burial Vault poem, Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be, a prose piece, a charming description of a Northumberland country churchyard from a Victorian travel guide. I’d opted for something short and expressive, by Rainer Maria Rilke.

  Before us great Death stands

  Our fate held close within his quiet hands.

  When with proud joy we lift Life’s red wine

  To drink deep of the mystic shining cup

  And ecstasy through all our being leaps—

  Death bows his head and weeps.

  Concise and apposite, I thought smugly. And definitely not over the top. I lifted my mystic shining cup of Life’s red wine to my mouth, and noticed that it was empty. Shame … but I would refill it shortly.

  While we were mingling, before finally bringing the evening to a close and setting off back to our various homes, Chris Kearns came over to me. ‘Nice to see you again, Alex,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Just fine. You?’ I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the whiff of old cigarettes which accompanied him.

  His expressive clown’s mouth turned down. ‘About as well as could be expected,’ he said. ‘And that was never very high.’

  ‘I’ve been reading your book,’ I said. ‘You write extremely well.’

  ‘Why, thank you. That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘You’ve really taken some hard knocks.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  I plunged in with a question I had been dying to ask. ‘Someone told me that your daughter’s death occurred after a Christmas party right here at the college.’

  He tensed, tight as a hangman’s rope after the trap has opened. He looked round then lowered his voice. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘As an ex-copper, I never reveal my sources,’ I told him, smiling firmly to show I meant it.

  ‘I deliberately didn’t mention it in the book. I didn’t want to upset the college, or let them think I was implying that they were somehow to blame for Zoe’s death. Nor did I want t
o deal with a libel suit or something of the kind.’

  ‘Zoe?’

  ‘My daughter. I call her Eunice in the book.’ His mouth twisted with sad irony. ‘It means “joyous victory” or “she conquers”. Unfortunately, my poor Zoe didn’t.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Chris.’

  ‘Thank you. So you’re a copper?’

  ‘Ex.’

  He clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘God, my memory! It’s all coming back … and now you concentrate on art appreciation and anthologies and things like that, is that right?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I apologize for not remembering … I meet so many people. So you’ve put your sleuthing days behind you?’

  ‘More or less. I do still look into criminal matters from time to time. I mean, if someone particularly asks me to.’

  He laughed. ‘In a town the size of this one, that can’t happen a lot.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. We’ve had a spate of brutal murders in the area over the past few weeks. One of them being the brother of a friend of mine.’

  ‘But that’s horrible!’ He touched my sleeve. ‘I’m sorry … how awful.’

  ‘I know. My friend is devastated, as you can imagine.’ Remembering his lost daughter, I wished I hadn’t mentioned Tristan’s death. ‘She asked me if I’d monitor the progress the police are making because she feels they won’t keep her in the picture as regards their enquiries.’

  ‘Don’t they have liaison officers and so on to deal with that sort of thing?’

  ‘They do … but I can well imagine that my friend – and the victim’s mother – would spurn that kind of comfort.’ I could so easily visualize Dorcas, her face screwed up in dragon mode, spilling ‘Pshaws’ all over the place, and demanding to know why the police weren’t getting on with the job of catching murderers, instead of wasting their time providing spurious aid and reassurance to people who didn’t want or need it.

  ‘Well … I’m sorry on your friend’s behalf. I know what it feels like.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  We exchanged rueful expressions and went our separate ways.

  I know what it feels like … an innocuous enough phrase. Anyone might have used it. I wished it hadn’t so closely resembled the phrase that Ned Swift’s and Kevin Fuller’s families, and Dorcas herself, had heard whispered down the phone.

  The next day, I waited until I knew the morning briefing would have taken place at the cop-shop. Then I called Fliss Fairlight. ‘Any news on Tristan Huber’s death?’ I asked. ‘Or any of the others we’ve been discussing?’

  ‘Still pursuing enquiries. Garside is not best pleased at the lack of progress. And before you ask, the Landises were let go, but on police bail, suspicion of fraud and theft. And the locals are preparing a raid on Rollins Park even as we speak.’

  ‘Just as I suggested ages ago.’

  ‘That would be “ages” as in eleven days or so.’

  ‘So still no suspects for the murders?’

  ‘Whoever’s doing this seems to know exactly how to conceal all traces. We’ve got DNA from the fags in those disgusting buckets where your friend was killed, but with no one to test it on. Trouble is, so many lowlifes smoke, despite the Government warnings. Could be anyone.’

  ‘Most lowlifes are as thick as a McDonald’s triple whopper with half the IQ, whereas our perp clearly isn’t,’ I said. ‘Anyway, thanks, Fliss, for keeping me up to speed. I owe you.’

  Brooding over a mug of coffee, I pondered what kind of perpetrator could commit four murders and manage to exit the scenes of crime without leaving a single usable piece of evidence. An experienced one? A practised one? Had there been spates of similar crimes elsewhere which hadn’t yet been connected to our local ones? Equally, starting from a different tack, what motive could he have? Four – or possibly five, if Dibdin was somehow connected, though it didn’t seem likely – different deaths, with nothing more than a tenuous connection to the university to link them.

  I found the piece of paper on which Sam and I had written down what little we knew. There was nothing much to add. Nonetheless, I wrote down the name of Eunice/Zoe Kearns, Chris’s daughter. I got out my mobile and pressed in Char Plimpton’s number. ‘Quick here,’ I said, when she answered.

  ‘Hi! That was a good send-off we gave Milo, wasn’t it? I thought we—’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Char. You told me that Eunice, or perhaps I should say Zoe, Kearns was at the Christmas party up on the hill.’

  ‘Yeah …’ she said guardedly.

  ‘She’d taken an Ecstasy tab … had words with her boyfriend and run off into the night?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to my next question. ‘Any idea who he was?’

  ‘Of course. He was that poor kid who was killed not long ago. Name of Swift. Ned Swift.’

  ‘What was the quarrel about?’

  ‘From what I’ve heard on the college grapevine – student gossip and so on, because I wasn’t there, obviously – she was more or less out of her head on E. She tried to insist that the two of them leave. He said he couldn’t just walk out, because he was one of the organizers. So she flounced off … and we all know what happened next. Poor Chris …’

  We chatted some more, then I ended the call. The phone immediately buzzed. Fliss Fairlight again. ‘You were asking for news, Quick.’

  ‘Yup. What’ve you got?’

  ‘The case seems to be breaking at last. The Landises have come clean.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘They’ve revealed all. And believe me, there’s quite a lot of all to reveal.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Your friend Tristan seems to have been one hell of an entrepreneur. The capo dei capi, though not as lethal. He had his fingers in dozens of pies. He’d do anything, according to Yvonne and James, that would turn a profit. And most of his enterprises did. Not, oddly enough, that you’d ever know it. Reasonably modest quarters – a rather choice little house in a village near Canterbury – nicely appointed, as they say, but nothing splashy or over the top. Bank balance healthy but nothing more than that. No designer clothes in the wardrobes. No fancy cars in the garage. Good lifestyle, according to his friends and associates, but that was all. No wife or mistress, or children. So what was he spending his dosh on? If the Landises are to be believed – and I think they are, because they’re terrified of being handed a sentence – there was plenty of that coming in. Plenty. So where the fuck is it?’

  ‘Bank accounts under another name?’

  ‘Naturally that’s the first thing we thought of. But we couldn’t find any, despite the best efforts of our financial guys. And another thing, James and Yvonne said he liked to deal as far as possible in cash. But thousands and thousands of pounds worth of the stuff, which is what they say he was pulling in … where did it go?’

  ‘I take it you’ve examined his socks? Looked under his mattresses?’

  ‘Real and metaphorical. Apparently he didn’t trust banks further than he could throw one. So where would he keep it?’

  ‘That much cash, he must have spread it around a bit. It can’t all have been in once place.’

  ‘And if you think about it, whatever his prejudices, he must have kept at least some of it in banks or building societies, whatever he may have said.’

  ‘And there’d always be the danger of fire or flood. Or someone either breaking in to wherever it is and lifting the lot, or doing exactly what they …’ An idea hit me. ‘Hey, Fliss, could that be what whoever’s responsible was doing; trying to torture him into telling them where he kept his stash?’

  ‘It would explain a lot. But not all the other victims.’

  I remembered something else. ‘I told you that Tristan employed a sleazeball – in my view – financial manager. Name of Michael Compton.’

  ‘We already talked to him.’

  ‘Talk some more. I bet you could lean on him pretty hard.’
<
br />   ‘We’ll do that. But, Quick …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The money aspect doesn’t explain the other deaths we’re dealing with. If we go on assuming that there’s a link somewhere.’

  ‘If there is one, between us we’ll find it.’ I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. And in any case, it was really nothing to do with me. I was only on the scene as a participating observer, rather than the other way round, my obligation to Dimsie long since over.

  A couple of days went by while I looked at pictures and thought about money. Lots of it. But Tristan didn’t trust banks. What did he want it for? Where was it? Was he laundering the stuff? Spreading his assets, buying up property in various parts of the world? What did he want it all for? What did he do with it all? He must have opened accounts in different names and banked at least some of it. These days, you couldn’t just board a plane with suitcases stuffed with greasy fivers. Even so, he must have had plenty left to transfer hither and yon, if the Landis/Lockharts were to be believed. And like Fliss, I was inclined to think they were.

  Garside was getting somewhere, but without any real lead to the killer of Kevin Fuller, Ned Swift, Tristan or Milo. By now Fliss had filled me in on what the DCI and his team believed had happened. As king-pin of the organization, Tristan was dealing in all the usual crime-syndicate business, drugs, prostitution, trafficking. Plus the rip-off luxury goods, the horses, any other profitable enterprise he could get into.

  Marcus Colby had been hauled in. Likewise the Paramores. Turned out that Colby and the Landises handled the luxury items. Tristan himself dealt with the drugs, everything from cannabis to legal highs to crack cocaine, inventing ever more ingenious ways to import, manufacture and distribute them. The Paramores were responsible – as I had guessed – mainly for the poor women tricked into believing they were leaving their home countries for a better life in England, providing a halfway house on the estate. And the Lariat King himself, ol’ Hank Rogers, was responsible for the horses. Well, yee-haw!

  The odd thing was that Tristan seemed not to have faced opposition from other criminal mobs. Until now. The manner of his death had echoes of the punishments inflicted on their victims by the Kray brothers and other East End gangs.