“Again,” I looked out the window as the city came into view, the familiar sandstone buildings lining the way, “I like the sound of your mother.”
Sharp was waiting for us outside our office, tapping her feet on the linoleum floor. Officers gave her a wide berth as she waited, she’d not held her office for as long as she had by being nice to people. Sharp had been here as long as I had, her dark hair and shocking black eyes as familiar to me now as the wallpaper and mugs. While she was several years my senior, I never knew how old actually was. Short of finding her birth certificate, I doubted I’d ever actually know. Several times she’d threatened to sack me and repeatedly told me that my career was dangling on a very fine thread, but each time I pulled through.
I had annoying methods and poor record-keeping, she often reminded me, but I solved cases, so every year she bought me a chocolate orange for Christmas.
That being said, I felt sorry for people being subjected to the look on her face as we walked down the hallway, Mills even lingered behind me as I walked up to her with a smile.
“Good morning, Ma’am. You look lovely. Cross, but lovely.”
She rolled her eyes, standing aside and following us into the office. As I shrugged my coat off, she perched on the edge of Mills’s desk and eyed us.
“Don’t irritate me today, Thatcher. A very prominent businessman with frankly mortifying connections has just been killed. HQ had already called, and I do not want Scotland Yard poking their nose in thinking we can’t solve this.”
“Why would they get involved?” Mills asked.
“If the family asks them to.”
“They know?”
“Smith had the honour.”
Good old Smith. I collapsed in my chair, spinning around a few times before swinging my legs up on the desk.
Sharp glared at me “Well?”
“Samuel Hughes, hit several times over the head and dragged into a bonfire that was supposed to have been lit but wasn’t.”
She raised a well-groomed eyebrow. “And?”
“No sign of a phone or laptop, and according to his assistant, he left with a bag,” I continued. “Might find it closer to where he was killed, or more likely the killer has it.”
“Killer usually has it. So, suspects?”
“Something a bit weird about the assistant.” I fixed the angle of the photograph on my desk. “Shifty villagers but no primes. Yet,” I added.
“What about the landowner he was buying from?”
“Smith’s on getting a name,” Mills told her. She ignored him and returned her steely gaze to me.
“You heard of him? Hughes?”
“No, Ma’am. Should I have?”
“Article about him last week.” She unrolled the paper she was holding and slapped it down on my desk. “A series, following the buying up of rural land by city businessmen. Thought it’d be up your alley, Thatcher. Thought you’d at least,” she uncrossed her legs and walked over, pointing to the byline, “pay more attention to that redhead always digging in my crime scenes.”
An Interview with Samuel Hughes, the title read, by Jeannie Gray.
I swore, silently, and craned my head back.
Jeannie.
She knew him, met him. Probably could tell me more about him that Ms Renner and Paige combined. Probably had enough dirt on him to fill a golf course.
“Find out what she knows, Thatcher. Quickly.”
I nodded, rubbing at my face.
“Shall I come with you, sir?” Mills asked, but he was longingly gazing at the kettle.
“I’ll go,” I assured him. “You put together what we’ve got so far, make some sense of it. Map out his day for me.”
“Sure you won’t need back up?” Sharp called sweetly as I pulled my coat back on.
“No. But the fewer casualties, the better, right?” I took the paper with me, rolling back up and tucking it into my coffee.
She swatted my arm as I strode past, pulling my phone out. It rang a few times before going to voicemail. I stormed out into the windy city, heading for her office.
Five
Thatcher
It wasn’t very often I walked around the city on my own. Usually, Mills was with me, or Jeannie or Sally. Usually, I was running for a taxi or the bus, traipsing around trying to find a half-decent restaurant still open at three in the morning. It was nice. Quiet. Too cold for the usual hordes of tourists that trekked out in the summer, only a few huddled-up people meandered along the cobbled streets, ducking in and out of warm shops. I took a shortcut through the snickelways and cut across the city to where Jeannie worked. Most of the time. Jeannie was fond of wandering around to do her work, to the annoyance of her editor and odds are if she wasn’t here or at home my chances of tracking her down were slim.
Especially since she refused to answer my calls.
The newspaper office was tucked down a quiet street, the old building looking down over a small courtyard where a coffee hut sat with benches and old trees that pushed up the paving stones with their roots. It was a familiar building to me, the man at the front desk too, though his new moustache certainly wasn’t. He nodded in greeting as I pushed my way through the glass doors into the heated building. I was somewhat tempted to go and lean against a radiator, but I fixed my collar and strode towards him.
“Detective. What can I do for you?” He asked as he stood up from his desk.
“I need to speak with Jeannie. Is she here?”
He nodded and picked up the phone on his desk, hitting a few buttons and holding it to his ear.
“Jeannie?” he said into it, “someone here to see you. DCI Thatcher.” There was a pause.
“Not ‘he did not.’” He looked at me. “No, he doesn’t.” There was another, confusing pause, and then he said, “Alright,” and put the phone down, returning to his seat and looking up at me. “She’ll be down in a minute, and she told me to tell you that It’s your turn to get the tea in.”
Well, that was a lie. I got them last time. But it was never worth the energy of arguing with Jeannie. And to be honest, it was more fun just going along with her. I wandered back over to the glass front doors, watching the wind pick up fallen leaves and swirl them around the courtyard. I felt sorry for the man in his little hut, layered up in a big coat and scarf, trying to blow warmth into his cold fingers.
The lift dinged a moment later, and Jeannie stumbled out, looping a long scarf around her neck several times and fixing her coat.
“Twice in one day.” She smiled. “Lucky me.”
“I called you.”
“Did you?”
“Three times.”
“Oh, dear. I left my phone somewhere. I think It’s in the car.”
“Not worth fetching?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? What’s the bother?” She brushed past me, giving a vague wave to the man at the desk and flounced outside towards the hut, her hair buffeting around wildly in the wind. She tucked a ginger curl behind her ear and looked up at me, curiosity lighting in her brown eyes. “What’s this about then, Thatch? Giving me the story after all that?”
“Not quite.”
She pursed her lips and turned to the coffee man. “Two teas, just milk, please.” When she looked back at me, her face was more serene, her hands stuffed deep in her pockets. “Not quite?” she repeated.
I pulled her article out from my pocket and handed it to her. Her eyes flickered quickly across the page, and she tilted her head to me and raised an eyebrow, her lips spreading into a smile.
“Want me to sign it for you?”
“It’s him,” I murmured, paying for tea and taking them both, led her over to a quiet bench.
“The dead man?,” she asked loudly, “I know. Heard his name on the radio as I drove back.”
“You interviewed him,” I said, ushering her away from the man who didn’t seem all that shocked. All sorts of tidbits picked up working out here, I imagined.
“I did,” she confirmed. �
��Don’t you ever read my work?” she complained, taking her tea and sitting down crossed-legged on the bench.
“Sometimes. When It’s about me.”
She glared at me, “It’s never about you.”
“I’ve been mentioned a few times,” I remembered, “when you cover a crime.”
“I think I’ve mentioned you twice, Thatch. Have you only read two of my pieces?”
I looked away, scratching my chin.
“Prat,” she muttered, clutching her tea tightly.
“Don’t you have gloves?”
“In the car,” she murmured.
I fished mine from my pocket and handed them over. She put them on and studied me over the top of her Styrofoam cup.
“So?” She asked.
“So?”
“Samuel Hughes, London businessman with an interest in local real estate, was found dead this morning in a field,” she recited, mimicking the newsreader.
“This is all off record, Jeannie. I’m here for your help.”
“How so?” She asked curiously.
“You interviewed the man. You can tell me about him.”
“There are plenty of people who can tell you about him.”
I shook my head. “The maid barely saw him, the assistant’s probably biased, and no one else in the village would have paid him any mind other than to shake their head at his choice of shoe.”
Jeannie considered me and nodded once. “Can we at least walk around while we talk? I’ll get frostbite sitting here for too long.”
“Fine.”
She untangled her legs, and we walked away from the office buildings, down to the riverside. Thankfully, on a day like this, it was relatively free from crowds. A few rowers shot along the water, their voices drowned out by the wind.
“Talk to me, Jeannie.”
“Ask me a question, Thatch.”
“What did you make of him?”
“Make of him?”
“Yeah, you know. Womanly instinct.”
“Piss off.”
“Professional journalistic impression then.”
She breathed in deeply and kicked a stone. “He was smart, rich and handsome, and he was very well aware of all three of those things. Felt to me like the sort of guy who barely noticed anybody else, especially anybody else who didn’t wear Italian shoes. He didn’t tip the waitress, poor girl,” she muttered. “I gave her a fiver after he left.”
“Why did you interview him? Isn’t that someone else’s gig?”
“Alex’s usually.” One of her fellow reporters, handles the personal stories. Probably better suited for it than Jeannie. “But I’m doing a whole series,” she continued, “on how local rural areas are being taken over by city people and modern endeavours. Nationwide thing is it, not just us.”
“Impressive.”
“I am impressive, Thatch, I thought you knew that.”
“So what exactly was he doing?”
“You really didn’t read it? And to think I always express an interest in your work.”
“Only to benefit your own, Gray.”
“He bought some land,” she ignored me, “in quite a few places now. Couple of acres down in Somerset, Kent, Norfolk. Then came up here, looking for similar situations. Land that doesn’t pull in a profit anymore, the farmers can’t afford to keep it, that sort of thing.”
“What does he do with the land?”
“Usually sells it on to other people,” Jeannie explained. “Developers and whatnot. They build trendy apartments, shopping sites. Very rarely anything that the locals would want and never exactly eco friendly. Usually outbids smaller companies who would make the land a park or nature reserve and not very bothered by that. Proud, if anything. Liked a bit of boast. I think it was how he flirted.”
“He flirted with you?”
“Don’t worry, you know I prefer French shoes.” I frowned at her, confused, then remembered her jibe about Hughes and Italian shoes and shook my head.
“So what about this land?” I asked, determined to get something useful from her.
“Belonged to an old widow, Eudora Babbage. I spoke to her over the phone before I interviewed him. Used to be her husband’s but she can’t afford to keep it anymore. Three sons and eight grandchildren, she didn’t have much of a choice, dear thing.”
“Eudora Babbage. Lives in the village?”
Jeannie nodded. “I’ll send you her info.”
No doubt Smith would have it by now too, but Jeannie’s notes always had a little extra when it came to stuff like this. I was often surprised she was never swept off to London herself but when I mentioned it once she laughed in my face. She’d have to be dragged from this place, nails scraping the dirt all the way down into Lincolnshire.
“So he would come into these small towns and villages,” I said aloud as Jeannie buried her pink nose in her scarf. “Buy up land being desperately sold by people and sell it on to make himself a profit without caring much about the place itself?”
“Yup,” her voice was muffled.
“Nice sounding guy.”
“Those sorts of people are ten-a-penny these days. Gentrification, Thatch,” she pointed out.
“Not very well-liked then?”
“Not by the locals, I’d wager, but they’re used to this sort of thing nowadays. Surprised about what you said of his assistant,” she commented, a faint crease between her brows.
I peer over at her as she takes a loud sip. “Why’s that?”
“Her being biased? Not in his favour surely?”
“Quite to his favour,” I was a little surprised. “She said he was a good boss, very generous. Worked for him for twelve years.”
“Twelve years?” she cried, face scrunched up displeased. “I could hardly stand twelve minutes with him!”
“You’ve got a shorter fuse than most,” I nudged with her elbow. She glared up at me, then looked away.
“Twelve years,” she muttered.
“Why d'you say that, then?” I asked her.
She looked back over at me, stepping nearer to avoid a passing cyclist, her arm brushing against mine,
“Well, he barely noticed her. Barely acknowledged her. When he wanted something, He’d hold out his hand, she’d give it to him, and He’d not even give a little nod. Like he was just so used to her always being there, you know? Like she was a piece of furniture.” She was annoyed at that, her lips pursing together.
“Doubt she was happy about that,” I said carefully.
“Looked used to it,” she grumbled, slipping her arm through mine.
“So not very aware of anyone like that?”
“No. Especially people like the maid you mentioned.” She shook her head, “if he noticed the maid at all, it would be if she’s pretty. Was she pretty?”
I didn’t answer straight away, and she glanced suspiciously at me, her arm moving away.
“She was young enough to be his daughter,” I said eventually, grabbing her arm and holding it in place.
“I doubt He’d have minded,” she said disapprovingly. “No. Wouldn’t have noticed her, nor a waitress or a window cleaner.”
“Wouldn’t have expected much then? Underestimate them?”
“I’d say so.” She looked up at me, intrigued. “Why, do you think that matters?”
“I think whoever killed him got close enough to him to do it the way they did. If it was someone, inconsequential to him, he wouldn’t have thought much of it.”
“How’d they do it?” she asked quietly.
“Still not going to press,” I reminded her, nudging my shoulder against hers with a smirk.
“Not asking as the press,” she retorted. “I’m asking as Jeannie who knows you never talk about work to anyone, ever, and it might actually be helpful to share with someone who doesn’t mind when you go barreling off at two in the morning to look at a dead body.”
We walked together a bit longer in silence as I debated that with myself. She waited, confident
as ever.
“Hit over the head,” I told her quietly, “repeatedly.” Her face didn’t change, not a flinch. She was as used to this as I was.
“Left in the field…?” her voice trailed off suggestively.
“Left in a bonfire.”
“A bonfire?” Her hand flew to her mouth, only her wide eyes peering up at me. “But the bonfire wasn’t lit, was it?” She asked, dropping her hand.
“No. They changed their mind, moved it to another field.”
“Blimey. Good thing, I reckon.”
“Killer won’t be happy.”
“I don’t think killers ever are, Max,” she replied softly, “that’s why they’re killers.” I looked down at her, to the understanding, curious look on her face and smiled at her. She smirked back, and I looked away.
“He was important, then?” I asked her abruptly. “The boss, the big cheese?”
“King of the castle,” she raised her cup in a mock salute, “yes.”
“And killed on bonfire night. Interesting timing.”
“I don’t think he stirred up as much unrest as old Jimmy Stuart did, Thatch.”
I chuckled at that. “Enough of it to be killed.”
“People like him,” she leant into my side, “rich businessmen are usually killed over profit margins. And other technical jargon that matters a lot to them,” she added hastily.
“He outbid other people?”
“Regularly. One over here actually, local man Johnson. Builds some very ugly buildings, he does.” Her nose scrunched up. Never had I met someone with such serious opinions about buildings before.
“How close was it?” I asked.
“Very close. Bit nasty, I think,” she kicked a stone as she spoke, eyes on the ground, “by the end.”
“Nasty enough to have been killed over?” I asked, my gaze on her.
“If your ego was that badly wounded, maybe.”
“Any other business rivals?”
“He technically didn’t name any, so none were printed.” She smiled up at me saccharinely.
“But you found them?”
“I’m very good at my job,” she said with a wink.
“Do you remember them?” I asked, trying to stay on topic.
Unusual Remains Page 5