The Wolstenholmes had clearly spared no expense in luxury here. But even as the thought entered her mind, she found what she had come for.
Moira was lying face down at the bottom of the pool, fully clothed, and seemingly... apparently... CERTAINLY, for God’s sake... very dead.
Anyone would naturally assume so. But Alex knew you should never assume anything. Even as the horror of it swept through her she was already rushing to the side of the pool and jumping straight in, gasping at the chill of the water as it closed over her head, and desperately grabbing Moira’s inert body to haul it to the surface.
Alex rolled her over with difficulty, still floundering and treading water, as the dead, open eyes stared back at her. The mouth was open too, a great well of garish lipstick, and she shuddered as she dragged her gaze away from those eyes and that mouth. And then, acutely observant and with all her senses heightened now, she noted the bruise marks on her neck.
As if she was on auto-pilot Alex registered various bits of information in seconds. Remembering everything she had learned, both from experience and from the section on murder methods in the Self-Help Manual of Detection she guessed that Moira had been strangled and then thrown into the pool. But she couldn’t have been in the water too long, because she wasn’t bloated, and her skin wasn’t wrinkled from immersion.
She pushed aside her distaste, gripping Moira beneath the arms and pulling her body in life-saving mode to the side of the pool before heaving it onto the grass surround. Moira was a heavy woman, and it took all Alex’s strength to get her out.
And then she stood, dripping and shaking, catching her breath and feeling completely disorientated, before remembering what she had to do. Her mobile was in her car. She squelched her way back to it, and fumbled with the door lock, almost sobbing with tension, wondering if he was still here. The murderer. The strangler. The stalker. The one who knew she was involved with Moira and her mother.
She tried not to dwell on that thought, and punched out 999 on her mobile with fingers that felt as stiff as drumsticks. She babbled out a request for the police and ambulance, and gave her message as concisely as she could, considering her chattering lips. And when she had finished, she looked back at the house, so invitingly warm with the lights still full on, and shuddered from head to toe. It had been a warm summer’s day in what seemed a lifetime ago, but when the daylight had faded and you had been immersed in cold water dealing with a dead body, you felt anything but warm.
Her intense longing was to get away from there at once. Nobody knew who had called the police, and a mobile number wasn’t instantly traceable. But she knew she couldn’t just leave. She owed it to Moira to stay and give a report, however much she disguised her real reason for coming here.
Nor could she leave Moira alone like this, looking so bloody grotesque. It was so awful. Whatever scam had been involved, the end of a person’s life should be dignified, and neither of the Wolstenholme women had had that.
She tried to think sensibly. There was a car rug in the boot of her car. She could cover Moira with it, but Moira didn’t need it as much as she did. Instead, Alex cloaked herself inside the car rug to try to stop some of the shivering. And almost at once she heard the scream of the police and ambulance sirens and watched the lights coming towards her as the vehicles climbed the hill to the house.
‘Were you the one who called us, Miss?’ the scenes of crime officer said a short while later.
‘Yes,’ Alex mumbled. ‘She’s at the back of the house. I got her out of the pool — but I don’t think she drowned. Strangled, I think — there are bruises on her neck—’
She didn’t know why she was giving out this information, but she noted that it was being taken down by a subordinate.
You often got significant info while the suspect was in an anxious state, Nick had once told her. But she wasn’t a suspect. for God’s sake... nor a witness...
She led the way to the pool. The place seemed to be swarming with people now. There were uniformed police, and men in suits, and ambulance men with a stretcher to take Moira away once the police doctor had done a brief examination.
Alex felt hysteria rising at the incongruousness of it all. Leanora couldn’t have foretold any of this either…
‘Are you ready to tell us what happened?’ the officer asked her sharply as she stood there, shaking visibly. ‘Where do you come into all this, Miss—?’
‘Best,’ she replied automatically. ‘Alexandra Best—’
‘Isn’t that the name of the woman visitor who reported a stolen purse a short while ago?’ the constable with the notebook asked. ‘I seem to know the name—’
‘Well done, Constable. Make a note of that. You don’t live in Worthing then, Miss Best?’ the officer queried, turning back to her.
‘No, I—’
‘And were you acquainted with the deceased?’
It gradually dawned on Alex that she was being treated less like someone who had just reported a murder, than as a suspect after all. It didn’t scare her so much as astound her, and after the trauma of the evening, her temper snapped.
‘Yes, I knew Miss Wolstenholme, and I was coming here to see her this evening on a private matter. When I got no reply at the front door I came around the back.’
She heard one of the suits murmur something to the officer. ‘Is this Miss Wolstenholme a relation of the lady who was murdered in the town recently?’
‘Her daughter,’ Alex muttered.
‘And how did you come to know them?’
‘Look, Officer, I’ll answer any questions you want to ask, but I’d like to go back to the guest house and get some dry clothes. I am soaking wet, in case you haven’t noticed.’
‘We’ve noticed,’ he said grimly. ‘So how do you explain that, Miss Best?’
Alex felt her mouth drop open. ‘I’m soaking wet because I jumped in the pool and got Moira — Miss Wolstenholme — out of it. How else do you think it happened? I didn’t push her under, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘I’m not thinking anything at this moment,’ he said. ‘Until I get the pathologist’s report, I prefer to keep an open mind. But you said you thought she wasn’t drowned, and you noticed marks on her neck. Very astute of you, Miss, and perhaps not something most people might observe in a moment of panic. If they panicked, of course.’
‘Of course I panicked. But I’m not blind, and those bruises were bloody obvious, even to an idiot—’
‘You obviously need dry clothes,’ he said, not giving her an opportunity to say anything more. ‘A woman PC will escort you back to your lodgings and then bring you to the station for your statement.’
‘I have my car—’
‘You’ll hand over your keys and someone will follow you in it. We shall also need the clothes you’re wearing.’
Alex stared at him, engulfed in shock now. The nightmare was real. Somehow she had become the prime suspect for Moira’s murder. The only suspect, caught in the act — allegedly. It was all so farcical she wanted to laugh, and to her horror, she did just that.
‘You must be mad if you think I’m responsible for this,’ she stammered. ‘Why would I have been so stupid as to report it if I’d done it?’
‘Murderers often do,’ he said coldly. ‘They enjoy watching the police arrive and they get a kick out of seeing the procedure in operation.’
‘Well, I don’t,’ Alex snapped. ‘I’ve seen enough of that, believe me.
She bit her lip as his eyes narrowed.
‘Really? You can also explain that remark when you give your statement. Now, we’ll leave the forensic boys to do their job, and we’ll get on with ours. Into the police car if you please, Miss. And I’ll have your car keys.’
He held out his hand, and Alex handed them over silently. It was like a bad movie, she raged. The cops had got it all wrong, but would the sure but steady PI solve the crime and get the just rewards? So far they wouldn’t listen to her. Not that she had tried to tell them mu
ch, and if she went to them now, would they believe the garbled story of a con man stalker whom she assumed had been paid by Mister Big to persuade Trevor Unwin to murder Moira’s blackmailing mother?
The more the whole idea unravelled so untidily in her mind, the more she knew how unlikely it would sound to anyone who hadn’t been there. Who didn’t know the people involved.
Of course there was always Graham Johnson, she thought, finding in him a little ray of hope. However reluctantly, he would have to substantiate the fact that Trevor Unwin had paid two large amounts of money for his mother’s well-being and upkeep at the Happy Days Home. But if she brought Graham Johnson in as a person involved in her own enquiries, she would have to reveal everything. And it was still her case...
Her heart suddenly lurched as the police car took her down to the town towards Mrs Dooley’s guest house. How could it still be her case? She didn’t have a case anymore. The client was dead, and in any normal circumstances there could be no more case to solve. But this time was different.
The stalker was still out there, and he was still looking for something that Alex had. The notebook had probably been the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for a pair of unscrupulous blackmailers, Madame Leanora and her daughter — both of whom were now dead. The breath caught in her throat at the thought, and the woman PC beside her leaned forward.
‘Are you all right? Not going to throw up, are you?’
‘Well, apart from being virtually accused of a murder I didn’t commit, I’m perfectly fine. How do you think I feel?’
The driver glanced back at her through the driving mirror. ‘Have we met somewhere before?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Alex said resentfully.
And if this was a chat-up line it was the worst time in the world to try it on.
‘Yes we have, and I’m trying to think where it was.’ He snapped his fingers, making her flinch. ‘Now I remember. You were with a Special Branch officer at that spooky woman’s premises in the town.’
Alex groaned. She had a good memory for faces, but too much had been happening in the last couple of hours for her to register the guy. Besides, it was dark and she hadn’t seen him properly, but the voice was vaguely familiar. Now she realized it was the constable who had nabbed her and the major at Madame Leanora’s, and full of self-importance, he would surely report that fact now.
Including who she had been with on that day. Or supposedly with. Not that she thought the constable would have registered a name on the bogus ID card. But if they asked her... and then they discovered that they couldn’t trace a Special Branch guy with the name of Deveraux…
It was all getting away from her, Alex thought in a panic. It had seemed such an ordinary case at first. Trace a stalker, as far as possible. Produce reasonable statements of procedure, and get paid for your efforts whether they were successful or not. It beat walking the streets... but it was never meant to involve murder…
‘I suppose I’ll be allowed a phone call?’ she said huskily as they neared the guest house.
‘When we get back to the nick,’ the woman PC said.
Alex groaned. ‘All right, but look, can we play this down while we’re here? The landlady’s a stickler—’
‘You can say you’ve had an accident and need to change your clothes. I’ll be with you at all times, of course,’ she said crisply. ‘If you wish to do so, you can say you’re coming back to the station to give us all the details.’
‘Thanks,’ Alex muttered.
They hadn’t quite read her her rights yet, and she hadn’t actually been accused of anything, but where the hell did they recruit these hard-nosed people? Prisoner Cell Block H soared into her mind... Come back The Bill, all was forgiven…
***
As expected, Mrs Dooley’s face was a picture of disbelief, but the brief explanation apparently satisfied her, and the WPC’s presence was enough to stem the flood of questions. They would come later though, thought Alex — providing she was let out of custody and able to explain anything.
Once in her room, she began to strip quickly, resentful of the WPC standing close enough to watch everything.
‘I suppose a shower’s out of the question?’ she said sarcastically. ‘I stink of pool chemicals, and I wouldn’t want to contaminate your fragrant nick.’
‘Five minutes then,’ the woman said, bundling Alex’s clothes into a plastic bag. ‘We’re not inhuman, you know.’
‘No?’ She dived behind the shower curtain without waiting for an answer.
‘And you’ll do yourself no favours by antagonising us. What are you doing here, anyway? Off the record.’
Alex grimaced, already running hot water over her hair and body and making it the quickest shower of her life. And knowing damn well that off the record was just as likely to be reported as anything official. But what the hell? It was all going to come out now, anyway.
‘I’m a private investigator. I was following up an enquiry on Miss Wolstenholme’s instructions.’
‘Good God!’ The WPC poked her head through the shower curtain. ‘Are you having me on?’
‘I’m not having you at all,’ Alex snapped, grabbing a towel and wrapping herself in it angrily.
At the pointed words, she had the savage satisfaction of seeing the woman flush darkly and take a step back.
‘If you give me a minute to get dry and dressed, I’ll show you my card,’ Alex went on more tolerantly. The WPC couldn’t have been much older than herself, she thought, but she was as plain as a pikestaff.
She had always prided herself on being a quick-change artist at showering and dressing, and while she rough-dried her hair, she handed her card to the WPC without comment.
‘You’ll need to explain everything to my DI,’ the woman said at last.
‘I’d have done so earlier if I’d been given a chance.’
They both heard the car hooter from the road below, and the WPC went to the window and held up five fingers to the driver. Alex would have made it two.
‘So who do you want to phone?’ she said next, in an effort to be more amenable. ‘My name’s Tess, by the way.’
‘Well, Tess, that’s for me to know and you to find out, isn’t it?’ Alex said, in a pseudo-American drawl, and not giving a damn about how hammy it sounded.
***
‘You should have told us who you were and what you were doing there right away,’ the DI she hadn’t seen before snapped. ‘It would have saved an awful lot of trouble and paperwork. Not that your being a PI automatically makes you less of a murder suspect than anyone else. There are still questions to be answered, and you’ll be required to make a statement. You can have someone with you if you wish. A solicitor or friend—’
‘I don’t need anyone watching over me to make a statement. I’d like to call someone first though.’
‘Name and number,’ he said, clearly not prepared to let her off the hook too easily, and annoyed by her frosty manner.
‘Detective Inspector Frobisher—’
‘Nick Frobisher?’ His face was so comical that she dearly wanted to laugh out loud. But this was not the moment.
‘The very same,’ Alex said sweetly, her self-confidence returning quickly now. ‘He’s a close friend of mine, and will definitely vouch for me.’
***
It was around midnight when they finally let her go, and by the time she had tried to explain to Mrs Dooley that she had only had a small accident, she learned that the sketchy outline of Moira Wolstenholme’s death was already local gossip. And although Mrs Dooley didn’t as yet connect the two events, Alex began to realize that her street cred was being sorely stretched.
She could see that her accident, hinted at wild orgies and drug raves and it wasn’t the norm for Mrs Dooley’s clientele to have such things to report. But once she invented the tale that her young man might be coming down to stay for a few days, Mrs Dooley visibly relaxed about the outlandish behaviour of this paying guest.
A
nd then the sense of unreality about the nightmarish happenings of the past few hours really sank into Alex’s brain. She sat on her bed, feeling as if her bones were dissolving with the release of tension.
She couldn’t stop the tears streaking down her face, and she didn’t try. Her father always said that as well as healing physical and emotional hurts, tears were there to help wash away all the hurts in your soul, and she had never missed his wise words more than she did at that moment.
They had so rarely been good communicators, but whenever he came out with one of his dour remarks, it had stuck in her mind more than she realized. It had been easy to ignore it at the time, but she was older and wiser now. Older, anyway.
It was almost impossible to get to sleep that night. She couldn’t believe that she had virtually been suspected of murder, but in retrospect she could see how it had looked. But she would have a few words to say to Nick about the highhanded methods of certain police officers.
Thank God he had responded so readily to her call, and after she had blabbed out all that had been happening, and nearly lost it in the process, she had handed the phone over to the local DI and let Nick speak to him.
The reaction towards her had been very different then. Talk about an old boys’ network... but to hell with being pompous about that in the circumstances.
She shivered, curling up like a foetus in the bed, and finding comfort in the cocoon of the bedclothes. She wished Nick was here now. Here beside her, holding her and keeping her safe. She needed his strength and his love.
***
At the early morning knock on her door, she groaned, assuming it was Mrs Dooley taking pity on her again. Her door was locked, and she staggered out of bed, dragging the duvet around her for quickness, and opened the door a couple of inches. Nick pushed it wide and strode inside.
‘Well, do come in,’ Alex stuttered. ‘Have you been driving since dawn?’
But once the initial shock of seeing him was over, she forgot everything but sheer relief, ready to drop the duvet and hug him tight. He was her hero... Sir Galahad in cop’s clothing... and she could forgive him anything for coming to her side so quickly.
Illusions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 2) Page 14