“Merroww?” Katie asked.
“Is it time for dinner already?” Fenella exclaimed. She looked at the clock and then shook her head. “It isn’t really,” she told the kitten. “You’ve another half hour to wait.”
“Meerrreeeeeeewww,” Katie complained.
“I’ll meet you in the middle. I’ll get your dinner for you in fifteen minutes.”
Katie looked as if she wanted to argue further, but after a minute she nodded and disappeared into the spare bedroom.
Shelly laughed. “Smokey is probably complaining to my empty flat. But what are you doing for dinner? I feel as if I want to celebrate my unexpected windfall.”
“We should go somewhere extravagant and I should treat.”
“I won’t object just this once, as you’ve only just learned the extent of your fortune,” Shelly said. “But only just this once. After tonight we go back to paying our own way when we go out. I always insisted on that with Mona, you know.”
“But where would you like to go?” Fenella asked.
“Do you think we could get a table at the really fancy place on the promenade?”
Fenella thought for a moment. “Oh, you mean the little place with the amazing chef from across? Donald took me there once. The food was incredible.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard, but it’s really expensive, too.”
“I wouldn’t know. My menu didn’t have any prices on it.”
Shelly laughed. “I suppose if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. But you can afford it, right?”
“I can and we should go there before I start feeling guilty about my newly discovered wealth and stop wanting to be extravagant.”
“They’re probably booked solid, though,” Shelly sighed.
“Maybe we can bribe someone to get a table,” Fenella suggested. “I’ve never tried it, but how hard can it be?”
Shelly giggled. “I’m not sure I’d be able to bribe anyone without messing it up, but maybe they’ll have had an unexpected cancellation or something.”
“We can hope. Let’s try, anyway. With everything else that’s happened today, it may be our lucky day.”
“There is that. And there are plenty of other restaurants near there if they can’t accommodate us.”
Shelly went home to feed Smokey and change into something more appropriate for the elegant and expensive restaurant. Once Fenella had filled Katie’s bowls, she opened Mona’s wardrobe and began searching for the perfect outfit.
“Where are you?” she said loudly as she did so. “I need help finding something to wear.”
Katie stared at her and then jumped into the wardrobe and began to paw excitedly at one of the dresses.
“You like this one?” Fenella asked, pulling the dress out and holding it up. “I mean, it’s pretty, but I don’t know.”
“Meeoooooooowwwwwww,” Katie replied, sounding offended. She jumped out of the wardrobe and stalked out of the room with her tail in the air.
Fenella sighed and then tried on the dress in question. As soon as she’d fastened the zipper, she knew Katie had been right. It was a gorgeous dress and was perfect for dinner with Shelly. She found the matching shoes and handbag and then fixed her hair and makeup. When Shelly knocked a few minutes later, Fenella was ready to go.
The restaurant was only a short walk away. As Fenella and Shelly approached the door, Shelly gave Fenella a worried glance. “It’s very busy,” she murmured.
Fenella looked at the long line of people who were obviously waiting for tables. The doorman caught her eye. “Ms. Woods?” he said. “Table for two, or do you have others joining you?”
“Um, just two,” she replied, caught by surprise by his greeting.
The man opened the door behind him and escorted Shelly and Fenella into the restaurant. “Enjoy your meal,” he told them before he shut the door.
“Why do you get such special treatment?” Shelly asked.
Fenella shrugged. “Maybe he remembers me from when I came with Donald,” she said.
“Ms. Woods, right this way,” another man said. He led Shelly and Fenella to a table in a quiet corner and assured them that their waiter would be right with them. He’d only gone a few steps when the waiter himself appeared.
The VIP treatment continued through three courses and a bottle of wine as Shelly and Fenella enjoyed delicious food and each other’s company. As Fenella washed down the last of her chocolate soufflé with what was left of her wine, she sighed.
“That was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten,” she said. “It was worth every single penny, whatever it costs.”
Shelly grinned. “Mine was gorgeous, too. We’ll have to start coming here more often now that you’re rich and I’ve inherited a windfall.”
Fenella nodded. “We should treat ourselves more. We’ve both been careful with money our whole lives.”
“Was there anything else tonight?” the waiter asked as he cleared their table.
“Just the bill,” Fenella told him.
“Everything has gone on Mr. Donaldson’s account,” the man replied.
“Oh, but that isn’t right,” Fenella protested. “I don’t want Donald paying for our meal.”
“You’ll have to take that up with Mr. Donaldson,” the man told her. “I’m just following his orders.”
Fenella frowned at Shelly, who began to laugh. “It isn’t funny,” Fenella protested.
“No, it isn’t really, but this is exactly what used to happen whenever I went anywhere with Mona. Whenever she’d ask for the bill, someone else would have already paid it for her. I never could work out how she did it, but I never saw her actually spend any money.”
Fenella was tempted to call Donald and insist that he let them pay for their own meal, but things were awkward enough between them at the moment. She’d wait and talk about it when she next saw him in person, she decided.
“Let’s go to the pub,” Shelly suggested as they left the restaurant, walking slowly past the long line of people who were still waiting to get inside.
“We already had a bottle of wine,” Fenella reminded her.
“Yes, but we took our time over dinner. We were in there for nearly three hours.”
“We were?” Fenella looked at her watch and then shrugged. “I suppose we could pay a quick visit to the pub, then.”
“I’m just going to have a fizzy drink anyway. I just want to see all the cats and maybe look for a book,” Shelly told her.
“That sounds about right,” Fenella agreed.
The pair got sodas from the bar and then made their way up the spiral staircase to the upper level. The lower level of the pub had been nearly empty, and the upstairs wasn’t much busier. Fenella headed toward a quiet corner, but she had only taken a few steps when she heard her name.
“Fenella, what a lovely surprise,” a loud voice called across the room. “Come and join us.”
Fenella turned and looked at Neil Hicks. He and his friends were sitting at one of the small tables.
He waved. “Come on over and chat,” he said. “We were just discussing Lance and some of the lies he told.”
12
Fenella looked over at Shelly, who raised an eyebrow. “Neil and his friends,” she whispered.
“Maybe we should talk to them,” Shelly suggested. “Especially if they’re talking about lies and Lance.”
“Yeah, we probably should, but I really don’t want to,” Fenella sighed.
Shelly winked at her. “Maybe we can solve the murder and then you’ll have a good reason to ring Daniel.”
“I don’t want to call Daniel.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Fenella flushed and then wished that she’d ordered a glass of wine instead of a stupid soda. She took a sip, and then she and Shelly crossed the room to where Lance and the others were sitting. She was surprised to see Laura sitting next to Neil.
“Hello,” Neil said, smiling at Shelly. “I’m Neil Hicks.”
“Hi, I’m Shelly Quirk.”
“Ah, you’re the infamous Shelly,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting to meet you, especially after everything that Lance said about you.”
“And you were just saying he was a liar, weren’t you?” Shelly replied.
Neil laughed. “But meet the others, and then we’ll talk,” he said. “This is my dear friend, Laura Munroe.”
Laura nodded at Shelly. “Another of Mona’s dresses?” she asked Fenella.
“Yes,” Fenella admitted, blushing. “She had such wonderful things, I can’t help but want to wear them all.”
Laura nodded. “I would do the same in your shoes. Of course, they aren’t your shoes, are they? They were Mona’s as well, weren’t they?”
Fenella just nodded and then sipped her drink. After an awkward pause, Neil continued with the introductions. “Adrian Graves is the man with the unsuitable moustache.”
“I think it suits me perfectly,” the man replied easily. “It’s nice to meet you,” he told Shelly. “And it’s nice to see you again,” he nodded at Fenella.
“Next along is Jared,” Neil continued.
“Lance told us a lot about you,” Jared said, staring at Shelly.
She flushed. “I didn’t realized he’d even bothered to mention me to anyone,” she said.
“He seemed quite taken with you, although I believe that was as much from the letters he’d read about you as from actually meeting you,” Neil told her.
“I’m not convinced that my husband ever sent any letters to Lance,” Shelly said. “He certainly never mentioned the man to me.”
Neil nodded. “There were always inconsistencies when you talked to Lance, but he wasn’t a bad person, really.”
Fenella frowned. What sort of inconsistencies was the man talking about? Before she could ask, Neil spoke again.
“And the man next to me is Eric Palmer,” he told Shelly.
“Nice to meet you,” Eric said. “I probably know the least about you, because I rarely listened to Lance when he talked. If I’d known how lovely you were, I would have paid more attention.”
Shelly flushed and then looked over at Fenella, who rolled her eyes.
“But please, sit and join us,” Neil suggested. He got up and moved a few chairs around to add the two women to their circle. As soon as she and Shelly were seated, Fenella asked her first question.
“You said something about Lance telling lies. What did you mean?”
Neil shrugged. “The police have been back to me today. It seems Lance Thomas wasn’t who he appeared to be.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Fenella demanded.
“Meaning that Lance Thomas wasn’t his real name,” Neil replied, looking amused. “And that, as far as the police can tell, he’d never been to the island before he moved here.”
Shelly gasped. “Then everything he told me was a lie,” she exclaimed.
“I don’t know what he told you,” Neil said, “but I’d be willing to wager that he was lying most of the time.”
“Why did he come to visit me, then?” Shelly asked.
Neil shrugged. “I only know what I heard from Lance, and clearly that isn’t information that can be relied on, but I suspect he thought you were a wealthy widow.”
“And he was planning to try to separate her from some of her money?” Fenella guessed.
“I’m afraid so,” Neil sighed. “He wasn’t at all the sort of man I thought he was. I feel as if I should apologize for him, although of course I was just as taken in by his stories as everyone else was.”
“Men can never be trusted,” Laura said. “None of them.”
“That isn’t fair,” Neil objected.
Laura laughed. “You don’t think I trust you, do you, darling? I mean, you were flirting with Fenella right in front of me the other night. Goodness knows how you behave behind my back.”
Neil patted the woman’s hand. “I behave exactly the same way,” he told her.
Laura laughed again. “I’m sure you do. But you were talking about Lance. Don’t let me interrupt. Tell Shelly and Fenella all about the man. You knew him for a great many years, after all.”
Neil frowned. “It seems I didn’t actually know him at all,” he protested. “It seems he wasn’t honest with anyone about anything.”
“Who was he, really, then?” Fenella asked.
Neil shrugged. “His real name was Robert Hanson, if that means anything to you?”
Fenella looked over at Shelly and both women shook their heads.
“He’s been using the name Lance Thomas for years, apparently, but only some of the time. He had a number of other aliases, as well. He traveled a great deal, and as I understand it, he had different identities in different parts of the UK.”
“My goodness,” Shelly exclaimed.
“Does that mean that he did have some family or friends out there?” Fenella asked.
“I don’t believe the police have located any family members, but they might find a few friends, I suppose. They should certainly find other business associates,” Neil told her.
“Do the police have any idea why he was killed?” was Fenella’s next question.
Neil looked surprised. “It was just something random, a burglary gone wrong,” he said.
“I know that’s what you said originally, but in light of the sort of person Lance truly was, I wondered if the police had changed their minds about that.”
“Not as far as I know,” Neil told her. “Although now that you mention it, I suppose it’s just possible that someone who knew him came over here to kill him.”
“They’d have done the job and been on the next ferry back home,” Jared suggested. “The police will never track them down.”
“The police can check the flight and ferry records,” Fenella said. “They’ll have access to those.”
“Whoever it was probably came over using a fake identity of his own,” Jared said. “I mean, I hope they get caught, but I wouldn’t expect them to be.”
“How did he know about my husband, if he’d never been to the island?” Shelly asked.
“From what the police have told me, Lance was something of a professional conman,” Neil said. He shook his head. “He’d always seemed to be a legitimate businessman to me, but I gather he’d earned a lot of the money he’d invested in my various businesses through illegal or immoral means. I can’t tell you how upset I am to have learned that.”
He didn’t look upset, Fenella thought as Neil leaned back in his seat and took a drink from his glass. He seemed more smug than anything else. Perhaps he was feeling superior because Lance had been caught and he had not.
“But that doesn’t explain how he found me,” Shelly said.
“I believe he found the island first,” Eric said. “He mentioned moving here when I first met him, some time back. I believe it had been his plan for some time.”
“Why?” Fenella wondered.
“I believe he was genuinely looking to retire and appreciated the tax advantages of the island,” Eric told her.
“But why pretend to be someone he wasn’t?” Shelly asked.
“He was a conman. Once he’d decided to move to the island, I assume he started looking for someone to con,” Neil said.
“I still don’t know how he found me,” Shelly replied.
“If he was good at what he did, and I understand he was, he probably started getting the local paper as soon as he decided on the island as his future home. He probably spent his spare time reading the death notices and planning to scam new widows,” Neil said.
Fenella frowned. The man seemed to know a lot about how to run the sort of scam he was suggesting that Lance had been planning. She wondered how much money Laura Munroe had and whether Neil was hoping to get his hands on any of it.
“That sounds like the voice of experience,” Laura said, putting Fenella’s thoughts into words.
Neil laughed. “I read a lot of detective fiction,” he said. “T
he bad guys are always trying to trick rich widows into falling in love with them. I don’t know if that’s what Lance was planning, but it’s one possibility, anyway.”
“It sounds far too plausible to me,” Shelly sighed. “I mean, I’m sorry that he’s dead, but he really wasn’t a very nice man.”
“No, it seems as if he wasn’t nice at all,” Neil agreed, leaning over to pat Shelly’s knee.
“And you never suspected anything, in all the years you’d known him?” Fenella asked.
Neil shrugged and then looked around at the others. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. When your business is investing in other businesses, you work with a lot of different people all the time. When I first started out, I was happy to bring in just about anyone, as long as they had the money to help me reach my goal. I worked with Donald Donaldson in my early days, remember?”
“What does that mean?” Fenella challenged him.
Neil laughed. “Nothing at all. It’s just that Donald isn’t always, well, the easiest or fairest person to do business with. He has his own ideas about how things should be done and he doesn’t appreciate it when anyone disagrees. We both made a lot of money on the two deals we did together, but I don’t think either of us wanted to work together again after they were both completed.”
“Donald is only trustworthy when you can see exactly what he’s doing all of the time,” Laura added. “That’s why I worry about you, my dear. I’m sure when he’s with you he’s very attentive, but I suspect that behind your back he has at least one other woman, and maybe more.”
“As I’m seeing other people, I can hardly complain if Donald does the same,” Fenella said in a steady voice.
Laura stared at her for a moment and then laughed. “If you truly are seeing other people, well done. Donald won’t like it, but maybe it will be good for him.”
“So you started working with Lance when, exactly?” Fenella asked.
Neil frowned at her. “Now you sound like Inspector Hammersmith,” he complained. “It was years ago, and I could check through my files if you need an exact date, but the inspector was kind enough to let me off with an approximation.”
Fenella blushed. “I wasn’t trying to be rude,” she said quickly. “I’m just trying to work out what the man was doing on the island and why he was bothering Shelly.”
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