Illusions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 2)

by Jean Saunders

  He chuckled as he spoke, as if he had said something terribly daring.

  ‘Hardly,’ Alex said. ‘I’d promised to get a series of London street scenes for a friend who used to live around that way. The man took so long crossing the street, that I think he must have been drunk. It seemed a good idea to keep him in the shots to give them some perspective,’ she invented wildly.

  She should have thought it through. Why would anybody believe such a stupid story? Unless they were completely artless, and had no inkling about the existence of a shadier world than that of market gardening and taking photos of gentle old ladies…?

  ‘It can often prove profitable,’ David agreed. ‘A good photographer always takes more shots than he needs, and I daresay you got a little curious about the chap. He needed to move quicker when that car came around the corner, though.’

  ‘Car?’ Alex said, as if she had never seen it before.

  But there it was, of course. Big, black and beautiful if you could call an instrument of death beautiful — engulfing the scene and Harold Dawes with it, seconds before the dazzling headlights had split the darkness and mowed him down.

  And she was starting to think in pure Raymond Chandlerese now... For a moment she wished desperately that she had kept her camera clicking, to catch the moment of death... and just as instantly, with a growing feeling of nausea in her stomach, she thanked God that she hadn’t. Especially when it would have shocked the gentle man with her now.

  Just looking at the negatives, she was reliving it all over again. Her thoughts went off at an unwelcome tanget. Wasn’t witnessing a murder — and not informing on it — tantamount to diverting the course of justice? A murderer had to be caught before he killed again. And who would he kill?

  ‘Are you all right, Alex? You don’t look so good.’

  She heard David’s anxious voice as if it was coming through a thick layer of fog. She struggled to ignore the horror of her thoughts, and nodded quickly at his troubled face in the dim red light of the dark room.

  ‘I’m not sure I should have had that curry,’ she said huskily. ‘And I think perhaps the smell of the chemicals in here has got down my chest. I’m OK, honestly, so how soon can you do me some enlargements?’

  She didn’t want to appear too anxious, but by now she was longing to get some prints in her hands and to get out of there and study them alone. She didn’t want David poring over them, and starting to wonder just why she was so keen to have so many pictures of a man in the middle of the road with a car threatening to run him over.

  Especially if the crime was going to be reported on TV or in the press later on, and he started to put two and two together. She doubted that he would think she had actually been connected in any way, but he might just wonder what the hell she had been doing there, and start remembering her feeble story.

  He might even contact the local police or newspaper, thinking it was his duty to do so, and anticipating his own moment of glory... He might never have welcomed it, but when the chips were down, nobody was averse to getting their share.

  ‘David, I need to get back to London soon, so if you could just do me those enlargements, I’d be very glad,’ Alex said. ‘One of each neg will be fine, then I can send the best ones to my friend.’

  ‘Will do,’ he said cheerfully, and she blessed his sweet innocence that saw nothing peculiar in such a bizarre tale.

  There were good people in the world, and he was definitely one of them.

  She didn’t even stop to look at the photos properly when he had finished his work, and thankfully, neither did he. She just pushed them into a large envelope and exclaimed that she had no idea it had got so late, and she would have to go. He didn’t try to stop her, just gave her an awkward kiss on her cheek as she got back into her car.

  ‘Any time you want any more work done, I’m your man.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll remember that, David!’

  She drove away and got back to Happy Days just as the residents were having their late afternoon tea and slice of cake. Graham Johnson was fussily in attendance, and she could hardly go straight to her room without appearing stand-offish. She felt obliged to join them, and to listen to the various female comments about that lovely David Bailey.

  Some of them were quite girlish and twittery, thought Alex. It endeared her to him even more, that he could bring such a ray of sunshine into their old lives. Just like that old Morecombe and Wise theme song... Bring me sunshine... in your smile...

  She knew what she was doing, of course. Thinking of anything, no matter how inane, or how futile, to stop her thinking about last night. But that was exactly what she would be forced to do, the minute she got out the enlargements and studied them properly.

  ‘Are you a professional young woman?’ she heard one of the elderly gents bark at her.

  ‘Oh. Yes. I’m a business consultant,’ she said, glibly repeating what she had said to David.

  ‘Thought so. You’ve got that air about you.’

  ‘Is that good?’ she asked him with a smile.

  ‘Mebbe. As long as you don’t get too tough. I can’t abide tough women. They should know their place, and not go about burning their brazeers or waving banners. One of ‘em even threw herself under the king’s horse. Damn stupid gel.’

  Graham Johnson floated near enough to hear him.

  ‘Now, now, you’re getting mixed up again, Stephen, and Miss Best doesn’t want to be bothered with your nonsense.’

  He turned to Alex and spoke in an aside.

  ‘Sometimes he can’t remember which decade he’s in, so don’t let him get you involved in a long conversation.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll remember that,’ she said, only just working out the meaning of a brazeer…

  But she couldn’t help feeling desperately sorry for the wizened old man all the same, and prayed that she would never get into the same state herself.

  ‘How long do you plan on staying with us?’ Johnson went on. ‘It’s no trouble, you understand, but we may be needing the room quite soon—’

  ‘Of course. I shall be leaving tomorrow morning, Mr Johnson,’ Alex said. ‘And naturally, you must bill me for the room. I wouldn’t have come here if that wasn’t understood.’

  And from his satisfied smile as he wandered away from her, she knew she’d understood him very well.

  ***

  Once in her room she opened the envelope with a mixture of dread and anticipation. Her blood was pumping, and she was conscious of the sound of her heartbeats as she flipped through the first pictures, and got to the ones she really wanted to see.

  The ones with the car in the background. The big black Jaguar car that she was certain belonged to Moira’s lover. The killer. Mister Big.

  She didn’t want to look at Harold Dawes’ figure in the fore-ground. Remembering how he had swayed and lurched, and the way he had half-turned as he sensed the oncoming car. Alex couldn’t avoid picturing it all over again, only now it was happening in a series of her own pics as if it was one of those slow motion TV action replays.

  In her head she could still hear Dawes’ screams in the instant that he realized what was happening. She could hear the dull impact as the relentless force of metal and steel struck the body. She could recall her own terrified reaction as she hurled her camera to the floor of the hire car and doubled over on the passenger seat so that she wouldn’t be seen as the Jaguar tore past her.

  Her hands were sweating now, and she cursed herself for her weakness. It was a bloody wonder the camera had survived too, but thank God it had... because here in her hands was everything she had wanted to see.

  She had finished filming seconds before the car’s headlights had lit up the street. But there were street lights at each end of the Mews, positioned in such a way that part of the car’s number plate was illuminated. Not all, but part of it... and if the gods were still smiling on her, it would be enough to identify the owner.

  Providing she had the balls to ask DCI Nick Frobish
er to find out who it belonged to. Because once she did that, she knew her part in it would be all over. She would have to come clean. And maybe it was time. It was far and away past the time for going it alone, she thought with a shiver.

  She had switched off her mobile the minute she left London. It seemed like centuries ago, but she hadn’t wanted anyone to contact her, wanting to bury her head in the sand like an ostrich, and have nothing to do with killers and crimes... but she could no longer pretend that this had nothing to do with her, and after the evening meal she went to her room and switched her mobile on again.

  She tried to think logically. As far as she knew, it hadn’t been MB who had stalked her, or sent her the stupid things through the post — or telephoned her and rifled her office and the flat. If her guess was correct, he was a person who kept out of the way and delegated, and it would have been Harold Dawes who had done all those things.

  Knowing how she had so often snubbed him in his major guise on the cruise ship, he would have taken a malicious pleasure in scaring her. Some guys got off on it... and MB may not even know who she was, or about her connection with the Wolstenholme women.

  Trying to keep her nerves under control, Alex knew it was a reasonable supposition. But she couldn’t be absolutely certain that Dawes hadn’t passed on all the information about her. And she had no wish to be next on his list.

  The sound of her mobile phone made her heart leap. She snatched it up and mouthed her name into it.

  ‘Where the hell have you been, Alex? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours,’ Nick bawled at her. ‘You won’t have heard the news, because we’re putting a press block on it for the present, but you’d better know what’s happened.’

  She closed her eyes, sitting heavily on the bed with the photos spilled out all around her. The incriminating photos that could trap a murderer.

  ‘Nick, I think I know—’ she choked.

  ‘It’s that bastard Dawes, the one who passed himself off as a major, remember? Late last night he was a DOA hit and run stiff, and you wouldn’t believe the stuff he had stashed at his bed-sit. There’s enough passports and changes of identity to fill a book, and I reckon he’s been behind a thriving little blackmail scam. You know the kind of thing. Masses of magazines and newspapers with half the headlines cut out, and an old typewriter and pots of paste, all ready for sending out threatening letters to his victims. And guess what else? From the evidence found, he’s definitely connected to the Worthing women, and it’s highly likely he was responsible for that second killing. Forensics are on to it now—’

  ‘Nick, will you stop!’ Alex screamed. ‘I can’t take any more of this!’

  There was a slight pause, and then he snapped at her:

  ‘What the hell’s got into you? Did you already know anything about this, Alex? If you do, you know bloody well it’s your duty to contact the incident room in Worthing—’

  ‘Christ, Nick! Can’t you forget about duty for one Goddamned minute? I don’t know what to do—’ she said, her voice suddenly faltering.

  ‘I’ll be right round,’ he said, and the line went dead.

  She stared at the phone stupidly for a moment. But he couldn’t be right round, because he didn’t know where she was.

  He had simply assumed she was in her flat. Instead of which, she was miles from London, in a place he didn’t know about, because she had never mentioned Happy Days Retirement Home. There was a hell of a lot she hadn’t told him about.

  Alex licked her dry lips. She should call him right back. She should get back on the road and head for home. But there was still a chance, however small — or maybe horrendously large that MB did know who she was and where she lived.

  She daren’t risk going back there yet. The flat that had always been her haven was now a dangerous place. She was staying put for tonight, but after that... she tried to think where she could go that was safe.

  She didn’t know where Gary lived, and anyway, there was no point in involving him, even though he had proved once before that he had a logical brain when it came to sorting her out. There was Mrs Dooley’s guest house in Worthing, but she dismissed the thought of going back there.

  Doreen and May, Moira’s weird friends, would almost certainly offer her a roof, but she had no idea where they lived, and the thought of being subjected to more of their omens and astrological charts, would be enough to drive her completely around the bend.

  An anonymous B & B was the obvious answer. Or there was Moira’s place. It would be standing empty now, and the police would surely have finished with it.

  According to Doreen and May — whom she could only think of in duplicate terms like a comedy act now — it would eventually be sold at auction and the proceeds distributed to the charities the late owners had named. Presumably none of it could happen until after the inquest and the Will was made public — and legal procedures could take months to be completed. But it would be madness to go to Moira’s house.

  She tried to think rationally. The Worthing police would only be concerned with who had strangled and drowned Moira Wolstenholme. The inquiry would be continuing, but it was local.

  Normally, an anonymous hit and run incident in London would have had nothing to do with them, and it should have been a total coincidence if the victim turned out to be connected with a Worthing murder investigation. But now Nick had connected the major with it all, and forensics were on to it.

  Her mobile rang again, and she flinched, almost too scared to answer it. If Nick continued probing, she wasn’t sure how long her nerves would last out before she blabbed everything. But wasn’t that what she intended doing, anyway? She was in a state of total confusion, not knowing what to do next, and she snapped into the phone.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of jobs near Chichester tomorrow, babe,’ she heard Gary Hollis’s sexy voice say. ‘How do you fancy a trip to the south coast and staying overnight for old times’ sake? I could pick you up in the morning—’

  ‘Gary, I’m not at the flat,’ she broke in, choked.

  She thought rapidly, All she knew of the town was that it had a railway station and that it was well away from London.

  ‘Getting away sounds good to me right now, though. How about if I meet you in Chichester at one o’clock by the station, and we’ll take it from there? I’m not so sure about the overnight, so don’t count on it.’

  But it was just what she needed. A place to go. A friend. Some definite direction in her life to give her time to think. And the uncomplicated company of Gary Hollis.

  She smiled thinly. Uncomplicated was the word. All Gary ever wanted was to get her into bed.

  But the thought of tomorrow made the night less terrifying, and she managed to get some sleep without imagining that MB was about to burst in on her with a submachine gun at any minute. And she had been watching too many late-night horror movies lately, she told herself severely.

  ***

  Alex planned to check out of Happy Days soon after breakfast the next morning, and head west. She would reach Chichester and the surrounding countryside long before one o’clock, and she couldn’t get away from Beckingham fast enough. But she still had one more thing to do before she left, and oddly enough, Gary had given her the idea.

  She called a rapid courier service in Worthing and made her request, and a middle-aged man sitting incongruously on his motorbike arrived at Happy Days a short while later. She met him at the gate, handed him a large brown envelope and paid the fee for express delivery.

  And then she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw him leave, knowing that within an hour or so, DCI Frobisher would have the incriminating photographs in his hand, with her request to check out the car number plate. He would know at once that it was Battery Mews, and the identity of the man in front of the car.

  It hardly mattered whether or not Nick quizzed the courier rider about where he had picked up the package, because she would be long gone from Beckingham and Happy Days before he could check up on her.<
br />
  Feeling as if she was still on a razor’s edge, she felt a touch better to know that she hadn’t entirely obstructed the course of justice, while keeping herself out of it as much as possible. But it was vital that the police tracked down the car owner of the hit and run attack — and more than vital for Nick to trace him. He would know the significance of it all, as well as the danger to herself. And he would surely understand why she had gone to ground.

  It wasn’t what she had gone into this game for, Alex thought miserably, but it was no longer a game, anyway. It was deadly serious — and she could be the one to end up dead.

  ***

  She reached Chichester after taking several wrong turnings, knowing that she wasn’t giving her full attention to the road. It wasn’t the best time to be driving, anyway, with her nerves in shreds. But once there, she parked her car and browsed around the town for a while, taking in the local shops and cafes, checking out the theatre to see what was on, wasting time drinking umpteen cups of coffee and deciding whether to go for a fresh-baked apple turnover or a jam doughnut or a chocolate éclair, and ending up with one of each, and to hell with it. She needed sustenance.

  Gary roared up on his Harley Davidson in the station car park shortly before one o’clock, and she felt almost wild with relief to see him. She hugged him more tightly than he had expected, and she didn’t miss the instant gleam in his eyes.

  ‘Don’t get excited,’ she muttered. ‘I’m not sure if I’m staying overnight yet.’

  She ignored the little voice inside her head that asked where the hell she was going to go if she didn’t stay here.

  ‘We’ll get around to that later, babe,’ he said easily, as if he couldn’t imagine for a minute that she was going to turn him down after agreeing this far.

  And neither could she. What was the point?

  ‘Have you done your deliveries?’ she asked next.

  ‘Yeah, rushed them through so we could have the afternoon to ourselves. I know a nice little pub on the way to the coast, if you’re peckish. They do bed and breakfast too—’