“Yes, my love, and I’m sorry to tell you that the trial isn’t going well.”
“That’s not the point.” My voice was already breaking. “I love David.”
“And I love David too, you know I do,” she said with all the sympathy she could muster before completely changing her tone. “However, I think it’s in everyone’s best interests if you break up with him as soon as you can and get together with Danny.”
I stared at her, unable to believe she was serious, even after decades of being unable to believe she was serious. There were no words to sum up how I was feeling so I went with a low groan, like a cow passing a kidney stone.
“I’m sorry to say it so bluntly, Izzy, but I’m Team Danny all the way. It would be so fantastic if you got together.” She looked up at the sky dreamily. “My two wonderful children finally united in love.”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t need me to point out how weird that sounds.”
“You know what I mean. Danny’s like a son to me and you-”
Just then, something entirely unexpected occurred. I started to cry.
“Oh, Izzy, my poor creature.”
I don’t know if it was the news from the trial, the double-murder investigation I was making no progress with or Danny’s arrival, but everything had got too much for me.
“I know I don’t talk about these things, Mum. But I do feel them.” I paused to find the right words. “I wanted to be with Danny for so long but, when David came along, I thought that part of my life was over.” I fell quiet again and stared out across the horizon. “The truth is that everything is messed up and I’ve no idea what to do about it.”
She looked at me for a moment and took my hands in hers. To be honest, I’m surprised she could understand me through the tears. “Izzy, you are one of the strongest people I know. I’m sorry if I’ve made things worse by bringing Danny here but you will get through this the way you always do.”
Her sympathy made me cry even louder. I was grateful that The Cova Negra had soundproof windows because I really didn’t want Danny hearing me. “I’m not sure I will, Mum. If David ends up in prison, I haven’t a clue how I’ll handle it.”
Her pretty face crumpled into a frown. “You really do love him, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” I attempted to dry my eyes with the back of my hand, but, as I was still crying, it didn’t do much good. “Have you only just realised?”
She looked a bit guilty. “I’m sorry, darling, I really am.” I wasn’t used to hearing her speak like this. She was calm and serious. “I knew you liked David, but you only went on a few dates together. I never imagined you’d take it so much to heart.”
She put her arms around me and it felt so good to be held for a moment.
“I take everything to heart, Mother. I’m not the kind of person who can turn my feelings on and off so easily. No matter how I feel about Danny, I can’t just switch my affection over, especially if David is found guilty.”
She pulled away to look me in the eyes. “You know your problem is that you bottle everything up.” Her voice was firm, like she was telling off a wayward child. “It’s time you came to terms with whatever is going on inside you. And if primal screaming and chakra channelling don’t work for you, how about telling me how you feel once in a while?”
I didn’t have any answer to that so I pulled her back in for another hug.
After a minute of blissful silence, she looked at me once more. “Izzy Palmer, future head of The Clever Dick Detective agency-”
“I’m not calling it that.”
She continued, unperturbed. “Izzy Palmer, there’s a murder to solve and I’m going to help you. So why don’t we go back inside and you can fill me in on the case?”
I still wasn’t sure that I was ready but nodded and let her lead me back inside.
Chapter Eighteen
“So, let me get this straight.” Mum was holding court in the lounge of her suite. She’d taken a whiteboard marker and had scribbled up the titles of three important categories on the blank TV screen. Suspects, Clues and Hypotheses; everything we needed to get to the truth. “All the evidence points to Marco Romanelli and yet it couldn’t possibly be him. What about his wife, could she be in on it?”
“I don’t see how,” Ramesh replied. “She was with us in the dining room when Álvaro was shot. And also, Rosie, you say the evidence points towards Marco but we still don’t know why Maribel was murdered.”
“Then what if there are two killers?” Mum asked.
“Bit unlikely isn’t it? Two maniacs at the same beach resort?” Ramesh spoke as if Mum was talking nonsense, which, coming from the man who once started an online petition to erect a statue to Diana Ross in Trafalgar Square, was a bit rich.
“No, darling. Two killers working together. Maybe Marco dealt with Álvaro and his accomplice did away with Maribel?”
There was silence for a moment as we considered this possibility, before Ramesh once more broke it. “But why would they have bothered?”
“Don’t you see?” Mum was alive with ideas, bouncing from toe to toe in front of the screen. “By killing two people, they throw suspicion off their real motives. Perhaps Maribel was collateral damage and the whole plan was hatched to silence Álvaro.”
There was another pause, another whirl of thoughts spinning through our heads.
“I think you need to look deeper into the other suspects.” Danny was clearly enjoying the first moments of his holiday. He’d pulled out a bottle of champagne from their minibar and was quaffing it from a cocktail glass. “What about those Austrian girls? You don’t know the first thing about them. It looks like they’re tied up in this Next Phase business. Could they be Romanelli’s fixers or something?”
“Well the blonde was missing during the second killing,” Ramesh replied. “Perhaps they took it in turns to do the deed.”
I was leaving my squad to do a bit of the work and enjoying their process of deduction. Sometimes, the only way to solve a problem is not to focus on it. Hearing my assembled loved ones throwing their theories around, had sparked up some ideas of my own.
“From the way Álvaro spoke to me, I think he knew what Maribel was doing here last night. But with him out of the picture, how are we going to find out what that was?” I thought for a moment but the answers I came up with only stirred up more questions. “Danny’s right, we need to know more about the Dennisons, the old Spanish couple and the Austrian girls. Even if they weren’t involved in the murders, their presence here could still reveal something about the case.”
“Well, I know exactly what I’m going to do this evening,” my mother replied, pointing her red marker at us dramatically. “I… or rather, Bu-Bu La Mer is going to get a table with Marco Romanelli. Us celebrities have to stick together.” She flicked her eyebrows to the ceiling, also highly dramatically.
“And I’m going to sit near you looking steely and aggressive.” Danny tossed his suit jacket aside to show a bulging holster strapped under his arm.
Ramesh instantly lurched towards him. “Is that a real gun? Can I touch it?”
“Ra! How have you not learnt anything after what happened yesterday?”
He pulled back, looking disappointed, and Mum called us all to attention. “Okay everybody, you know what you have to do. I’m going to spend some time making myself look fabulous before dinner. Danny, guard the door. Izzy, keep investigating and, Ramesh, we need you to make up an extra bed on the sofa.”
Ramesh groaned, no doubt aware that he still had his afternoon shift to get through. Feeling more energised than I had all day, I stood up to leave. Who would have thought that all I needed was my mum?
“Izzy, can I have a word?” Danny caught up with me as I got to the suite’s own entrance parlour. “I wanted to ask you something.”
My heart started up a marimb
a beat and my palms got all clammy. I’d spent the last month avoiding any confrontation with Danny and here we were, halfway across the continent, alone together.
“Yes, Danny?” My eyes locked onto his and I remembered every lonely night of my teenage years that I’d spent dreaming of the boy next door.
“Do you really think it’s safe? I mean, there’s already been two murders. The killer could strike again.”
To be honest, I never really considered the possibility that I could be in danger. It was yet another thing to worry about. “I can handle myself,” I lied. “I’ll be fine,”
“Okay… But let me know if you need a bodyguard.” He smiled his generous smile and, this time, my whole body quaked.
I could really have used my brain giving me a silent, verbal slap right about then, but it was busy keeping shtum. I stood there, staring goofily at my lifelong crush until he headed back into the suite.
As I walked downstairs, I decided to reach out to another member of my dedicated support staff.
“Listen, Dean, I need your help.”
He didn’t sound very happy to hear from me. “Well that is a turn up for the books.” In fact, he was full-on cranky. “What is it this time?”
“You know you love doing stuff for me?” I replied in a no doubt adorable tone. “And you’re so much better at interneting than I am.”
“Go on, Izzy. Spit it out.”
“I need you to find any link you can between Marco Romanelli and Delilah Shaw.”
He was silent for a moment. “Who’s Delilah Shaw?”
“She’s a nobody. Just some aggressive journalist on a morning phone-in who’s always telling people how terrible they are.”
He puffed out a breath. “Oh, yeah. Rings a bell actually. And how would she know Romanelli? He’s surely too big a deal to hang out with someone like her.”
“That’s what I want you to find out for me. You know I’m on a case, right?”
Another awkward pause. “Yeah, I’ve been texting your mum. I heard that the bodies are piling up already?”
“How do you even know that?” My mother’s communication network has always been a thing of wonder to me. “I only told her about five minutes ago and I’ve been with her ever since.”
He ignored my question. “Listen, Iz, I’ve got to go. Your dad is taking me out for some drinks tonight. Says he’s going to be my wingman.”
“I really don’t know which part of that sentence I find more disturbing. Yes I do… your wingman?”
I came out at the top of the stairs in the foyer. The police had returned and drawn a crowd too for some reason. The Dennison double demons were trying to get a look at what was going on and I spotted their parents, the Spanish pensioners and Gianna there too.
With a final huff, Dean gave in. “I’ll get you the information when I have a minute. If the two of them have done anything together, the internet will reveal their secrets – it always does. Oh, and tell your mum that her website and Wikipedia entry are almost done.”
“Wait, what website?” I asked, but he’d already hung up.
As I got to reception, Lio was being escorted through the front door by two uniformed officers. Inspector Bielza shouted out orders to various underlings before leaving the building herself.
“What’s going on?” I asked Jaime, whose turn it was to stand by the door checking who was leaving and entering the hotel.
“I can’t share that information with members of the public.”
I realise now why I had been so attracted to him since we first met. He was the perfect Latin reproduction of Dr Danny Fields – right down to the puppy dog eyes and tight-fitting clothes. This revelation made me feel a bit better about myself. I’d essentially only been thinking about one other man whilst my boyfriend was standing trial for murder, not two.
I got the impression he was putting on a show for his colleagues, so lowered my voice and tried again in English this time. “Are they arresting Lio?”
“Her name isn’t Lio,” he replied in a whisper. “It’s Sabrina Muller. She’s not even Austrian, she’s German and she’s been lying to us this whole time.”
I knew she was German! Oops… sorry, sorry. I’ll be quiet, I promise.
“Have you found something that links her to the murder though?”
He glanced about at the crowd as if he was expecting trouble. “I told you, Izzy. I’m not allowed to share any other information with you.”
One of his colleagues had passed on his way to speak to Kabir and, once he was gone, Jaime added, “This Sabrina person has a criminal record. Violence going back years. Bielza put a request for information out and the German police sent us her record.” The short female officer I’d seen that morning came through the rotating door and gave Jaime a suspicious look when she saw him talking to me.
I didn’t want them thinking badly of him so, in intentionally poor Spanish replied, “Thank you, Officer Jaime. You are very kind and hard-working.”
He nodded and I walked back across the foyer, hoping to find Heike. She wasn’t in the dining room or on the terrace and I was about to head to the beach to look for her when she appeared on the path. By this stage of the holiday, her skin had turned a shade of brown that was somewhere between caramel and cinnamon.
“Heike, I was looking for you. They’ve arrested Lio.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” she replied without emotion, her eyes peering up at the hotel.
“Your friend could be in serious trouble.”
“She’s not my friend and, I’m sorry, but I’m on my way to the spa.” She walked off ahead of me into the hotel and I tried to understand the sudden shift in her personality.
“I have some questions to ask you.” I trailed after her across the dining room.
“Well, then I hope you like saunas.” Her whole attitude, and even her voice, had changed since I’d spoken to her that morning.
There wasn’t much else I could do so I accompanied her to the hotel’s leisure centre. When we got there, she removed the towel she’d been wearing and, dropping it to the floor with significant sass, went through the door into the sauna and began to steam the place up.
I ditched my sarong and T-shirt and braved the sauna. The place was hotter than a bonfire and it made me dizzy to step inside.
She was sitting on a wooden-slat bench and, just to make me feel more comfortable, she’d removed her bikini. “Most people like saunas in the wintertime, but I think there’s nothing better after a day on the beach. Do you mind if I add a little more steam?” All the sweetness I’d expected from her was gone. She was cold, rigid and precise.
“Please, go ahead,” I said because I’m a polite idiot.
“It gets rid of all the toxins from your body, you know? It’s the perfect thing after a swim in the sea.” She sounded like she was no longer working for Next Phase and had moved on to sauna promotion.
I wanted to ask her my first question but was busy trying not to faint. My head was all spacey, my body appeared to have fallen asleep and my throat felt like it was closing in on itself. “I just heard that your… your companion’s name is not really Lio.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” She was being less forthcoming than I would have liked. To be honest, I’d have preferred her to spit out everything I needed to hear in one easy chunk so that I could run back out of hell as soon as possible.
“How did the two of you know each other?”
“We didn’t.” She really wasn’t making this easy.
“Despite the number of times you like to mention Marco in any given sentence, I know you’re not Next Phase devotees. So what were you doing here together?”
The steam was so thick that I couldn’t see her face though she was sitting right in front of me.
“It sounds like you’ve already worked that out.” Her v
oice cut through the dripping wet air. “The Romanellis paid us to be their fans; you know, promote the organisation, look good in photos, that sort of thing.”
She was right, I’d come to this conclusion but it was still surprising to hear it confirmed. “Are you actresses?”
Her laugh came out frosty, despite our surroundings. “Not exactly, but let’s just say I’d done a lot of acting in all my previous jobs.”
I ignored the innuendo and continued with my questions. “How did you come to work for them?”
“I was on the streets in Hamburg when Lio found me. That’s the only name I ever knew her by, so don’t expect me to tell you much about her. She said she’d got a cushy job and that, if I spoke English, they needed another girl. She’d been sent out to find someone, I hadn’t seen her around before then.”
“What did they want you to do?”
She leaned forward and her beautiful brown eyes loomed out at me through the steam. “They told me that our primary duty was to spread the word about Next Phase wherever we went. Normally that meant going out on the night before a conference to drop it into conversation with gullible men. It was easy to get people fired up about those kinds of issues.”
I took my time, turning each word over before replying. “That’s what they told you, and what did the job turn out to be?”
She smiled like she appreciated my inference. “During the conferences, we had to keep any unwelcome guests from getting too close to the Romanellis. You’d be surprised how effective two pretty girls can be at persuading people to move along. Marco said we were better than any bodyguard.”
“So that was it? Nothing more sinister?”
She hesitated and a tiny bit of the vulnerability she’d shown around Lio re-emerged. “Of course there was, we had to sleep with politicians, journalists; whichever men he told us to. But I’d been expecting that from the beginning.”
Even through the steam, I could tell there was something she hadn’t said. “That wasn’t all, was it?”
A Corpse on the Beach Page 13