Death Of A Nobody

by Derek Farrell

  “Well, Lady Caroline did such a great job of praising you,” Olivia said, smiling at Caz, who smiled back hiccupped gently, and sipped her champagne through her straw.

  “Yes,” I said, “But it did seem odd that you’d choose that exact moment – right in the middle of a funeral – to grab me and discuss this topic. You hadn’t received any letters recently, and – for all you knew – the writer had stopped.”

  I clicked back to the picture of the four men. “There was a fourth man there that day. Desmond Everett. A genial, somewhat simple soul. A school friend of Olivia’s late brother, who everyone present seemed to like – or, at least, tolerate. And yet, despite no animosity being openly directed at him, Desmond Everett,” I clicked, the screen changed to a blow-up of a pic of Dopey Des torn from the society pages of one of the papers, “Was stabbed to death three days ago.

  “Odd that the three men who should have been murder victims on the day are still alive; that the killer – who seems to have made a mistake when they killed Dave Walker – didn’t try again; that none of you three,” I gestured at the men, “Has had an attempt on your life, and yet Desmond Everett is dead.”

  “Maybe his killing was unconnected,” Filip, the perm tanned massage therapist member of the Himbo club spoke up, then blushed deeply when all eyes turned on him. “I mean, what’s the connection?”

  “Good point,” I said. “Why would anyone want to kill Dopey Des. He wasn’t entirely mature, and not entirely smart either. So what possible threat could he present to anyone?”

  “Maybe he killed himself,” Troy – seemingly ignorant of the fact that, having stabbed himself, Des would have had to move the rug, drag the coffee table across the room, wrap himself up in a duvet, and climb into the wardrobe. The groan that went round the room showed that nobody else had overlooked these facts, and the thespian went back to inspecting his eyebrows in a small compact.

  “I heard it was a burglary gone wrong,” Kent said.

  “Could be,” I answered, shrugging, “Except that nothing of value appeared to have been stolen from his flat. The TVs, the DVD players, a very expensive Bose sound system were all still in situ. And, we believe, he’d had tea with his killer before he was attacked.

  “What sort of burglar has tea with their victim before killing them? And, having killed them, what sort of burglar then walks off without searching the house and stealing everything of value?”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Naimee Campbell – looking like a larger, female, more orange version of Filip, said.

  “It couldn’t have been a burglary,” Monica said.

  “It wasn’t,” I said, “and in their haste to hide the body and get away from the scene, the killer forgot to search the place. And that was where they made their biggest mistake.

  “That, and the fact that – rather than leaving the body as it was – they overdressed the set. By planting evidence designed to direct suspicion at Miss Vane here.”

  There was a collective gasp around the room, and a murmur of interest as even those who’d decided this was going on too long suddenly perked up.

  “My locket,” Monica said.

  “A locket that had a broken clasp; one that had slipped off you previously, and that the killer, when next the locket fell from you, decided would be the perfect diversionary device.

  “Except that, rather than diverting suspicion from them, it directed suspicion. Initially at you, but ultimately at the fact that the killer had to be someone who had not only a connection between you and Desmond Everett, but the opportunity to be in close proximity to you, when the locket came undone.”

  I could see Naimee and the Himbos noticeably relax. They figured they were off the hook.

  They couldn’t have known what was coming next.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Caz has, previously voiced the opinion that I am an attention whore, and as if to affirm her assertion, I drew everyone’s attention back to me. “We’ve diverted from the question we were considering,” I said. “Namely: Why would anyone want to kill Desmond Everett?” I clicked the lectern, and the picture behind me changed to one that Nick had provided: an old battered suitcase, sitting in the middle of a luxurious Persian carpet.

  “I noticed this when I discovered Desmond Everett. He was a pretty untidy person: the sink was full of dishes, the spare bedroom was jammed with junk he had no current use for, and yet his bedroom was pretty tidy. It had only what he felt he needed to have beside him.”

  Click and the picture changed to one of the framed photo on his bed side. It was Des, Olivia Wright, and a bunch of bright young things, all younger and happier, and dressed as though for a ball.

  “It had the picture of the woman he loved.”

  Olivia cried out “He was my friend. We were never lovers!”

  “He loved you from afar, Olivia. A classic schoolboy crush. Always trying to summon up the courage to say how he felt, to ask you if you felt the same way. Always afraid that asking you if you felt that way would result in you saying No, and in him losing the little of you that he had.”

  I glanced at Nick as I said this, satisfied, to be honest, that he seemed to be blushing as deeply as I was.

  “And then you met Kent, and, after a whirlwind romance, you got engaged.”

  “But Des was happy for me,” Olivia said, as Kent put his arm around her. “He was happy for both of us.”

  “This,” Kent finally said, anger visible on his face, “is going too far. Do you actually have any idea who killed Des, or are you just enjoying games with Powerpoint?”

  I pressed the clicker. The same suitcase, only this time it was open, and displaying the piles of magazines, the torn out letters clearly visible, the scissors and glue still in a little plastic bag on top of them.

  “Des was your anonymous letter sender,” I said simply. “It was Des who couldn’t stand to see Olivia marrying you, Kent. Not because of your past as – how did he describe it? – a wife-killer, but because he couldn’t bear to see anyone marrying Olivia.”

  “But Jane Barton was responsible for the poison pen letters,” James Kane said, “She admitted to that in her suicide note.”

  “I know,” I said, in mock surprise. “And imagine how confusing that must have been to dear old Dopey Des, who knew she couldn’t have been the poison penner. I mean: If she wasn’t consumed by guilt at my unmasking of her activities – and she couldn’t have been, if he’d been the guilty party – why on earth would she have killed herself?”

  “Desmond Everett tried to call me on the night he was killed. He was drunk and upset and confused, and I had a crisis on my hands and didn’t pay attention to him. That is something which I will be guilty about till the day I die. Because if I’d listened to him – if I’d heard what he was saying – this whole chain of tragedies would have made sense, and I would have – might have – been able to save his life.

  “Because, you see, Desmond Everett was calling me to confess. To admit that he had been writing the letters all along. And if he was the writer, then Jane’s suicide – so easily written off as the actions of a possessive, controlling woman who had acted out of a combination of shame at having been exposed, and of anger at losing her grip on the young, wealthy woman who she’d attached herself to – made less sense. It would attract attention to the act, and to the woman herself.

  “But I didn’t listen, so Desmond, needing to confess, needing someone to talk to, rang the next number on his phone, and spoke – without even knowing it – to the person who had murdered Jane Barton. And sealed his fate.”

  “So why would anyone murder Jane?” Olivia asked.

  “Because – as I overheard her say some days previously – Jane knew something. Something that she was threatening to disclose. Something that would destroy everything for the person who decided to silence her. My mistaken exposure of her as the poison pen letter writer just gave the murderer another diversionary tactic to make the murder look like a suicide.”

>   “You sure you’re not the killer?” James Kane sniggered, and received a venomous glare from both Caz and Monica Vale.

  “I’ve been set up for murdering Des,” Monica said. “I don’t think this is a time for jokes, James.”

  “Sorry,” Kane, suitably admonished, looked sheepishly at Monica, and both looked back at me.

  “Olivia,” I said, “Where did you first meet Jane?”

  “At a clinic,” Olivia answered, “In Switzerland. After my parents,” she swallowed, “after they died, I was unwell. I spent a lot of time in and out of various clinics for the next few years.”

  “I appreciate this may be painful,” I said, “But could you tell us your injuries?”

  Olivia blushed.

  “What the hell does any of this have to do with a bunch of random murders in London years later?” Kent demanded, wrapping a protective arm around her.

  “Everything,” I said, my voice gravelly. I cleared my throat. “Olivia – can you?”

  She took a deep breath. “I was suffering from what was called Survivors guilt. Severe depression. An inability to accept that it hadn’t been my fault that I had survived while they had died.”

  She looked at me, tears in her eyes. “Go on,” I prompted.

  “I also had a fractured pelvis, a broken arm, a broken nose, and severe lacerations on my face, and some minor burns on my left shoulder and back.”

  “So the clinic where you met dealt in psychological as well as physical trauma,” I clarified, and she nodded, “And Jane Barton – the woman who became your nurse therapist on your release, who became your friend and confidante – when you met, she was not, as some have assumed, a nurse working in this clinic, was she?”

  “God, no,” Olivia smiled, “Why would I end up best friends with some agency nurse? Jane was a patient.”

  “You had plastic surgery there, didn’t you?” I asked. “I mean, a broken nose, severe lacerations, some burns; it would have had to be surgery.”

  Olivia nodded. “Yes, it wasn’t for vanity, I just had to have my face, basically, repaired.”

  “And what about Jane? Why was she in the clinic? Was her presence, do you think, for vanity?”

  “Jane was there for a facelift. She’d always been overly conscious of her looks.”

  “She said,” I interrupted. “I mean, you had never met her before this clinic, right? So your knowledge of her past, or of her reasons for wanting cosmetic surgery in a Swiss clinic could only ever be based on what Jane told you, right?”

  Olivia nodded. “That’s true, but…”

  “And the surgery – Jane’s surgery – was it a success?”

  “I guess,” Olivia said, confusion evident in her voice.

  “Yet Jane – who I and others have referred to as Plain Jane - was a hunched, hairy, somewhat oddly shaped woman who seemed, almost, to have passed plain and approached outright ugly.”

  “How dare you!” Olivia’s eyes blazed. “My friend had a beautiful heart. She was a beautiful soul.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “But the surgeons in this – one assumes – hugely expensive Swiss Cosmetic Surgery clinic still left her with a permanent five o clock shadow, a monobrow, something approaching a hunchback, and a shuffle that made her move like Richard The Third.

  “Which is odd, isn’t it? Especially since I heard her quoting Shakespeare at you once. Something about the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. That, I think, was Othello. And when I overheard her threatening someone on the phone, she used the phrase I won’t play the Scottish Wife which seemed – even then – unusual phrasing.

  “Until I realised that the Scottish Wife referred to Lady Macbeth, and that the only people who ever referred to Macbeth as The Scottish Play, and to Lady M as The Scottish Wife, were actors. So, had Jane ever been an actor?”

  Olivia Wright shook her head, “She was a trained aroma therapist, Reiki master, masseuse, and homeopath.”

  “Yet she could afford an expensive Swiss clinic.”

  “She said she’d come into some money,” Olivia whispered, her confusion over the facts becoming evident.

  “And spent it on plastic surgery that left her with a monobrow, a five o clock shadow, and a hunch,” I said, clicking again, and changing the picture back to the bunch of drama students gathered, proudly, around the cauldron.

  I clicked again, and the picture slowly zoomed in on the faces of Dave Walker and the tall beautiful brunette standing next to him, and, as the crowd watched, Ray’s magic sketched a unibrow onto the brunette, shaded and broadened her jaw, darkened her hair, and drew the fringe down over her forehead and eyes.

  Another gasp went around the room, though, as half the assembled had obviously never met Jane Barton, I couldn’t tell whether the gasp was at the sudden revelation that the tall gorgeous brunette of Dave’s drama student days had, for some reason, changed herself into the hunched hairy friend of Olivia Wright of recent years, or whether they were just shocked at the use of such basic photoshopping skills in the presence of the crème de la crème of the art world.

  Whichever, those people who had known Jane Barton understood the point of the reveal.

  “Jane knew this waiter?” Monica said, puzzlement plain in her voice.

  I nodded. “Jane Barton knew this waiter. Whose name was David Walker, but who – in an earlier life – had been Daniel Walken. You know: Like Christopher Walken? Dave’s friend Lionel,” I gestured at Hook, who, with a wave of his hand acknowledged the attention of the crowd, and then turned his attention – and theirs – back to me “said something interesting to me. He said that everyone was doing it at Drama School – changing their name. You’d bump into a Frank in the street, and he’d have become Francesco, or a Sally who’d become a Sophie.”

  “Your wife was an actress, wasn’t she, Kent?” I asked.

  “What’s that got to do with anything,” the American looked up from his phone, paused in his texting, and growled.

  “Well, she was Sophie Bourne when you met her. But I noticed that her parents were John and Elsie Barton, so I guess she’d changed her name as well.”

  “I guess,” he sneered, “But I never asked.”

  “Really?” I said, my disbelief open. “But, when she vanished, didn’t you look into every aspect of her life, trying to find out what had happened?”

  “You know I did,” he said, edging away from Olivia towards the dais.

  “And you knew your wife well?”

  “Listen, dude, unless you want a law suit slapped on your scrawny ass, this shit ends now,” he snarled at me, from the edge of the dais.

  “And yet,” I said, “Just now, you failed to recognise her.”

  I clicked the button, and the picture changed to a close up of the tall brunette, clicked again, and a still from a Drastic Band commercial, showing the same statuesque brunette – a little older, and wearing a bright pink leotard, but unmistakably the same woman, appeared alongside it.

  “I,” he paused, “I wasn’t looking at this bullshit,” he answered, “I’ve got a business to run.”

  “No,” I agreed, “You were texting. You were texting, which means you couldn’t possibly have seen the picture. Just as, on the day that Dave Walker was killed, you were sitting in a room with Olivia and I discussing a series of poison pen letters – letters which you had previously attempted to wave away.

  “You couldn’t have killed Dave, because, as he was being killed, you were engaging me to investigate their source. Only, you made several attempts, starting almost the next day, to persuade me to drop the investigation. It was almost as though you didn’t want me to investigate; as though the discussion on the day in question had been little more than a diversion, an attempt, perhaps, to set up an alibi for yourself.”

  “Why the hell would I need an alibi?” He demanded.

  “Well you wouldn’t,” I admitted, “But your wife might.”

  “This is ridiculous!” Olivia laughed. “Surely Kent wo
uld have recognised his wife if she’d been sitting under his nose all this time.”

  I smiled sadly, noticing how Nick had appeared at Kent Benson’s side and prevented him from moving by placing a firm grip on his elbow. “It worked like this,” I finally said, and the room seemed to lean forward.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  “Kent and Sophie Benson make a fortune from a bit of fitness kit that takes the world by storm. They live the high life until the lawsuits arrive, and fairly quickly, the money begins to run out.

  “Then one of them realises that there’s an insurance policy on each of them. If either of them was to die, the survivor would receive a huge pay out. So the plan for one of them to fake their death is formed.

  “They need a reason for the courts to formally declare the missing partner as dead. At that point, the insurance will pay out, the missing partner just has to stay missing a few years, and then the two can meet somewhere and skip off into the sunset with most of the pay-out intact.

  “I’m guessing it was Sophie who put herself forward to ‘die.’ She was an actress, could more easily vanish, and the police and public would be more likely to believe that Kent had murdered her and – in their haste to build a case – declare her dead so he could be charged with murder.

  “Meanwhile, Sophie needs to not only vanish, but alter her appearance. There was, Lionel Hook told us, an epidemic of Method acting amongst their class at drama school, and I’m guessing that Sophie Bourne was not the sort of actress who just puts on a wig and a funny accent. She went to the opposite end of the spectrum, making herself so plain and so hunched that she barely resembled the missing woman.

  “I remember thinking, when I found her body, that she looked taller than I remembered. I realised, of course, that that was because she’d spent a lot of time hunched and swathed in shapeless clothes, all to make her look shorter and fatter than she actually was.