The Lady of the Lake

by Peter Guttridge

  ‘Sounds suspicious to me.’

  ‘The only odd thing is that he has no identification, so we’re not sure if he has anything to do with Richard Rabbitt’s death or has something to do with Farzi’s operation – you know, a man who ran away during the raid this morning. That would explain the lack of ID. Except he’s not a person of colour. Olive complexion. Maybe from somewhere round the Mediterranean but I’ve no idea really.

  ‘What does he look like?’ Grace said quickly.

  ‘You think you might know him?’

  ‘That depends on what he looks like.’

  ‘Dark scrubby beard, dark curly hair, receding. About five foot nine. Skinny.’ There was silence on the other end of the line. ‘You recognize that description?’

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’ Grace sounded subdued. ‘Does he have a tattoo on his neck of a bird?’

  Heap bent over the body and nodded.

  ‘Sounds like you know him,’ Gilchrist said. ‘If you could help us to identify him that would be great. You wouldn’t have to look at the body or anything. We can take photos.’

  ‘OK, come on over with the photos.’

  Grace was standing by the gate to her garden when Gilchrist and Heap arrived. She looked as subdued as she had sounded. She greeted them and held out her hand.

  ‘Should you be sitting for this?’ Gilchrist said.

  Grace gave a little shake of her head, her hand still held out. Gilchrist showed her a photo of the dead man’s face on her phone. Grace looked at it then offered the phone back to Gilchrist. Gilchrist scanned her face. ‘And?’

  ‘His name is Antonio. Antonio Urraca though he should have been called Cuco.’ She gestured behind her. ‘Look, let’s go and sit at the table, shall we? There’s food if you want it. I have stuff to tell you.’

  She led them to the long, battered oak table on the flagstone terrace outside the French windows.

  ‘I had a relationship with Antonio. He seemed to be the kind of person I could trust and rely on but it was all show. He’s the second man to pretty much destroy me.’

  ‘Does he live in the area?’ Heap said. ‘Did he?’

  ‘Well, he lived with me almost as soon as I met him. I was very vulnerable and very lonely. His ex-partner was my secretary in the days that I still needed one. She had a young daughter, Tiffany, and they would come with me to exotic places when I was working – I was taking small budget films abroad. When they had nowhere to live they stayed here, rent free, food provided, for what was supposed to be three months and turned out to be fourteen months.

  ‘Then Antonio turned up to see them. He and his ex weren’t an item or anything. He offered to help with the orchard – pruning and all that sort of thing. One thing led to another and he stayed. It was a massive mistake but I was stuck with it and I tried to make it work.’

  ‘What did he use to prune with?’ Heap said.

  ‘Oh – no English tool was good enough for him. He had two or three sickles he’d brought with him from Spain.’

  ‘Do you know where they are?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘He got it in his head to restore the watercress beds down in the other half of the wood. There’s a falling down lean-to in that half of the wood. I think he stored his tools there.’ She saw something in the look Heap and Gilchrist exchanged. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Well, don’t laugh, but he seems to have had a fatal encounter with an ostrich.’

  Grace did laugh. ‘Perfect,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘Where is he based?’ Gilchrist said as Heap texted Wade to check out the lean-to in the wood.

  ‘No idea but I’d heard he was in the neighbourhood recently.’

  ‘You were together a long time?’

  ‘Too long but no, not really. A few years. And I paid for him too, of course. He never worked while we were together, he just spent my money. All my money. I was such a fool. At least we never had children together – he couldn’t, thank God.’

  ‘Why was he here now?’

  ‘Tiffany’s wedding in Lewes. Reception somewhere snooty. I’m not sure if it has happened or not.’

  ‘You weren’t invited?’

  ‘When I kicked him out and stopped the money supply none of them were ever in touch again. Oh, except I got an email from Tiffany’s mother saying she’d never liked me.’

  ‘Where was your ex staying for the wedding?’

  ‘Staying with his friend Will in Hurstpierpoint, probably. Look, I’ve tried to be very discreet and private in recent years. I feel very uncomfortable about exposing myself like this so I hope you’ll be discreet.’

  Gilchrist nodded. ‘Of course. Did Antonio make any attempt to contact you recently? Did you see him?’

  ‘No and no.’

  ‘When was the last time you did see him?’ Heap asked.

  Grace thought for a moment. ‘It must be two years ago now.’

  ‘Did Antonio know Major – Mr – Rabbitt?’

  ‘Yes. But there’s no reason why he should have anything to do with Rabbitt’s murder.’

  ‘Did they get on?’

  ‘Nobody got on with Rabbitt. He was an utter shit.’

  ‘Where does this Will person live? And a contact for Tiffany’s mum would be useful.’

  ‘Will lives in Hurstpierpoint, the other side of Ditchling. Hang on. I’ll get the address for him and the bitch.’ She went into the house and handed Gilchrist an address scrawled on a piece of notepaper. ‘Anything more for now?’

  ‘It seems odd that Mark Harrison said he didn’t recognize him if you were together for a good while.’

  ‘As I said, I was very discreet. And Tiffany and her mother were still living here, so if anyone gave it any thought it would be a bit confusing.’

  ‘Are you OK, though?’

  Grace nodded. ‘I never fed you,’ she said absently.

  ‘Next time,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘What are you thinking, Bellamy?’ Gilchrist asked as they drove back down Grace’s drive.

  ‘I’m thinking we mustn’t let Nimue Grace’s charisma blind us to her status as a potential suspect.’

  ‘You think I’m doing that?’ Gilchrist huffed.

  Heap gave her a quick look. ‘No, ma’am – I think I’m doing that.’

  ‘You were right, though. She is a bit of an enchantress. One man found dead in her lake. A second man found dead who is her former lover. A young kid filming at her lake beaten to death – although I don’t think that’s connected to Nimue. And here we’ve been acting all pally with her.’

  ‘Hard not to, ma’am.’

  ‘True. But she is definitely a person of interest.’

  ‘What’s that Oscar Wilde quote about parents: “losing one parent is unfortunate, losing two is careless” – or, in our world, potentially criminal. Two victims linked to her. But do you think, ma’am, if we keep aware of that, the best way of investigating her is to take advantage of her apparent friendliness?’

  Gilchrist looked at him. ‘That’s a bit devious, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that for us, ma’am, because we do actually like her.’

  ‘True,’ Gilchrist said. ‘What was that Grace was saying about the names?’

  ‘His name translates as magpie but cuco means cuckoo – you know, taking over someone’s nest.’

  They were heading for the far end of Hurstpierpoint so it took a little time to get through the traffic on the narrow high street, especially as the supermarket had a big delivery van outside.

  They went over the mini-roundabout, past the church on their left, to find the address they had been given was one of a short terrace of whitewashed workmen’s cottages opposite a veterinary surgery. They parked on double yellow lines and knocked on the door. Nothing. They peered through the windows either side of the door. It was dark and quiet inside. Heap knocked on the next-door neighbour’s door, while Gilchrist crossed the road to ask about Will in the vet’s.

  By the tim
e Gilchrist had finished with the receptionist, none the wiser but touched by all the injured little creatures in reception, Heap had tried every door on the terrace.

  ‘Only one person in,’ he reported. ‘Knows Will well. Antonio she has met. Hasn’t seen either of them since Sunday last.’

  ‘The day Rabbitt was probably murdered.’

  ‘We’re thinking it was Farzi, aren’t we, for Rabbitt, ma’am? Business deal gone wrong?’

  ‘We are – and this death is just an unfortunate coincidence.’

  ‘Except it begs the question what was Antonio doing loitering in the woods. Keeping an eye on what we were finding in the lake?’

  Bilson phoned. ‘You have need of my services again, Sarah?’

  ‘You’re sounding chirpier.’

  ‘I must apologize for my moroseness the other day. A major shock to my system. It was a major misdiagnosis during a routine check-up at the hospital. I thought my days were numbered. By that I mean – since I know all our days are numbered – the diagnosis I received fell into the category of “don’t start a long novel”. Hence my unseemly oddness.’

  ‘Frank – I had no idea. That must have been horrible for you.’

  ‘Not the nicest thing but one rebounds. And here I am, eager as a ferret faced with a trouser leg to get on with it.’

  ‘We have an unusual death, but I don’t want you laughing.’

  ‘Why should I laugh? Even though I would think you would welcome that.’

  ‘The victim was killed by an ostrich.’

  Bilson laughed.

  ‘I’ve been told that if they are threatened, they respond violently,’ Gilchrist said. ‘This one either ran over the victim or kicked him to death. The victim seemed to have been disembowelled, actually.’

  ‘Well, the male ostrich is pretty formidable. Around nine feet tall and probably weighs 330 pounds. You will have heard of people being killed by stampeding cattle. Imagine, grotesque as the idea is, something that big and heavy and fast stampeding over you. You wouldn’t stand a chance. Or you said he might have been kicked to death?’

  ‘That’s why we need you to ascertain cause of death.’

  ‘Well, in Africa, ostriches have been known to kill a lion with a kick. Their legs bend forward at the knee not back. That gives a kick extra power. They kick and they slash. The male is quite capable of disembowelling. Each foot has just two toes and the main toe is like a hoof but with a long, sharp claw at the end. Funny how every animal seems to know that disembowelling is the most effective way to deal with an enemy.’

  ‘So we’re assuming it’s accidental death,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Unless someone hired the ostrich to do it.’

  ‘Very funny, Frank.’

  ‘I thought so. I’ll be at the lake in five minutes.’

  Gilchrist thought aloud: ‘Or unless someone killed him to make it look like an ostrich did it?’

  Bilson laughed. ‘Did you ever think there’d be a time in your career you’d be saying those words, Sarah?’

  She joined in his laughter. ‘I didn’t, but the longer I spend out in the country the more I realize it’s even weirder than Brighton.’

  Sylvia Wade phoned soon after to say two sickles had been found in the lean-to. ‘Also, ma’am, I ran that student, Joe Jackson, through the computer and checked him on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and—’

  ‘Steady, Sylvia, don’t go all Cambridge Analytica on us,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘It’s all out there, ma’am. I was trying to see if he’d posted any footage of his film that might help us. But he hasn’t. And it isn’t on his computer either. We’ve unlocked it now. One odd thing so far. The last website he was on was that of the Bank of England. Specifically a click through about exchanging old money. There’s also an automatic email from the Bank saying that if he brought old money in it would be processed by the Bank of England – if they were willing to take it. They recommended posting it as the queues at the counter in the Bank of England could be very long and he would probably be queuing for at least an hour.’

  ‘It never occurred to me the Bank of England would have counters,’ Gilchrist said. ‘It’s not like anyone but the government could have an account there, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. But that’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very. Look, check locally first to see if Joe Jackson went into any bank to try to change old money. Plus phone the Bank of England, see if he did send them a pile of old money.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Wade said.

  Gilchrist frowned and turned to Heap. ‘Do you think this is somehow linked to his death?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t think how. Except it’s usually a good idea to follow the money.’

  Before long Wade came back. ‘NatWest Pavilion branch on the street beside the Pav reports that he brought in £1,000 in old notes four days ago for conversion into new money.’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘But he didn’t post them to the Bank of England, ma’am. They were hand delivered. Ten packages containing not £1,000 but half a million pounds in old denominations.’

  ‘Half a million pounds?’ Gilchrist tilted her chair back. ‘Where is a student going to get that sort of money, new or old?’

  ‘Maybe he found something in that crappy tenement block he shared with the other students?’ Wade said.

  ‘Did he deliver it himself?’ Heap said.

  ‘The signature they have for who delivered it is illegible but the spelled out name below is Ronald Biggs. Is he one of his housemates?’

  Heap laughed. ‘Someone’s taking the mickey. He’s one of the Great Train Robbers from back in the Sixties.’

  ‘This is making less and less sense,’ Gilchrist said. ‘What has the bank done with this old money?’

  ‘Nothing yet, ma’am – it’s still being processed.’

  Gilchrist spent the next ten minutes trying to do some processing herself. She was interrupted by Bilson calling back.

  ‘The ostrich is innocent. Release it immediately.’

  ‘What? But we saw it career into the wood then we found it a few yards away from the dead man.’

  ‘Sarah, didn’t your training tell you not to confuse coincidence with correlation? How close did you get to the dead man?’

  ‘Not very – his guts were spilling out of him.’

  ‘Indeed they were and indeed he was disembowelled. But not today. In fact – and you really should have spotted this by the state of the guts – not yesterday either. I would hazard that he was killed on Sunday last and I would further hazard that he was killed earlier than Richard Rabbitt.’

  ‘With that sickle?’

  ‘Quite probably.’

  ‘Left-handed or right-handed?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Now ordinarily I would scoff at such a question, as you know, but in this instance, with this rather unwieldy weapon, that can be determined. Uninterestingly, the Spanish gentleman’s assailant was right-handed.’

  ‘Would the killer need to be particularly strong for either attack?’

  ‘Both attacks were from behind so the element of surprise would be a powerful advantage offsetting any physical shortcomings.’

  ‘As always, Frank, I’m obliged—’

  ‘Though now I think of it, perhaps they are not so unwieldy in the experienced hand. You’ll remember that Paulus Hector Mair, the Renaissance expert on fighting methods, has a whole chapter in his combat manual on fighting with sickles?’

  ‘Of course I remember,’ Gilchrist said. ‘What do you think I am – a dunce? Goodbye, Frank.’

  FOURTEEN

  Gilchrist and Heap called next on Nimue Grace. She didn’t open the door. Instead, she shouted through a half open window beside it. The curtains were closed.

  ‘You two can just fuck off!’

  Gilchrist did a double take. ‘What’s wrong, Ms Grace?’

  ‘What’s wrong? My phone is ringing off the hook and my orchard and garden a
re swarming with journalists trying to doorstep me and photographers trying to pap me. I’m surprised you didn’t run into them on your way up the drive. Half of them are from the Daily Pustule competing with each other for the story.’

  ‘What story?’ Heap said.

  ‘I trusted you,’ Grace said.

  ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Gilchrist said.

  The door suddenly opened but Grace wasn’t there. ‘Well, come on in for a minute for fuck’s sake,’ she said from behind it. ‘I’m not going to let them photograph me in my dressing gown as if I’m Cherie Blair bringing in the milk or something.’

  Gilchrist and Heap stepped over the threshold and Grace slammed the door shut behind them. She was, indeed, in a long dressing gown. Her face was drawn, her jaw clenched.

  ‘You,’ she pointed at Heap, ‘were supposed to be my Sir Galahad. My protector. And you’ve fucked me.’

  Heap looked truly anguished.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Grace, I’m completely in the dark.’

  ‘Don’t Ms Grace me. I at least expect men to call me by my first name when they’ve fucked me.’

  Heap turned scarlet.

  ‘Why are journalists calling you?’ Gilchrist said. ‘More to the point, why are you blaming us for that?’

  ‘Because every fucking one of them start their slimy questions with “police sources tell us”. That’s why. You’ve given them everything. The name of the guy who was the reason I left Hollywood. The acid attack. The next-door neighbour drug dealer who wanted to make me his mistress. I’m surprised they’re not asking about the Spanish guy who took all my money and ended up dead. But give it bloody time.’

  She covered her face with her hands. ‘I mean: fuck! They’re not going to give up until they get the full story. And that means harassing me here, doorstepping all my friends from the past twenty years and what little family I have and getting that fucking creep Bosanquet to sell his braggart story of his nights of passion with Naughty Nimue Grace. There will be drones overhead all the time, paparazzi hiding in the trees – so I’ll never be able to go in the garden or orchard or down to the lake and I’ll have to keep my curtains closed all the time.