Dead in Devon

by Stephanie Austin

  A neat young man rose from his desk as I burst in. Behind him were boards displaying photographs of houses, and I realised, as I gaped around me foolishly, that I had blundered into an estate agents. As he took me in, his expectant smile faded. He wasn’t very old, in his first job probably. In his grey suit and tie he looked like a school prefect. I couldn’t force my words out. There was a choking lump in my throat and I couldn’t stop shaking. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Nick …’ I tried to point but my arm wouldn’t hold steady. ‘He’s dead.’

  The receptionist, a mature lady, got up and steered me efficiently towards a chair. ‘Who’s dead, my love?’ she asked patiently. ‘Mr Nickolai, d’you mean, around the corner? You’d better go and have a look, Darren,’ she told her young colleague firmly. ‘See what’s the matter.’

  Darren did not look enthusiastic, but he straightened his shoulders manfully and left the shop.

  ‘Police …’ I gabbled to the receptionist, ‘We must call the police …’

  ‘We will, dear,’ she told me soothingly, as if I were a small child, ‘just as soon as Darren’s been to check.’ She looked as if she might be the grandmother of small children, her natural motherliness painted over with make-up that didn’t suit her, her plump body squeezed into a uniform of starched white blouse with buttons straining over her bosom, and black pencil skirt.

  ‘He’s dead,’ I repeated, trying to get her to understand.

  ‘Yes, dear, you’ve had a bit of a shock.’ So had Darren. He came back into the shop, all colour drained from his face.

  ‘I think,’ he began huskily, lowering himself to sit on the edge of his desk and loosening his tie, ‘we’d better call the police. There’s been a murder.’

  They made me go back into the flat, hours later. By then I’d repeated what I’d found over and over. First to a uniformed policeman, who’d sealed off the entrance to the alleyway with blue and white tape, and posted a colleague at Nick’s front door; and then to Detective Inspector Ford, who’d listened sympathetically while I garbled it all out again between sips of hot, sweet tea.

  He listened patiently, nodding now and again, as if he were mentally sifting grains of what might be useful information from the chaff of my outpourings. ‘Would you describe yourself as a business partner of Mr Nickolai?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Not really.’ Despite myself, I smiled. ‘More of a dogsbody.’

  ‘But you’d got to know him quite well? You might know who his friends are … other than these foreign gentlemen whom you’ve described.’

  ‘Yes … I suppose …’

  ‘You see, what I’m getting at, Juno, is that there doesn’t appear to be any sign of forced entry, which would indicate that Mr Nickolai opened the door to his killer. It would be helpful if we knew who his regular visitors were so that we could eliminate them from our investigation.’

  ‘Yes … I see,’ I said lamely, although apart from Paul and dear old Mr Singh, I couldn’t think of anyone who visited regularly.

  ‘Later on, we’ll ask you to look at some photographs of known offenders, to see if you can identify these Russians.’

  I nodded miserably. If only Vlad hadn’t deleted that photograph.

  ‘You do realise,’ the female detective constable sitting next to him cut in suddenly, ‘that if you’d mentioned these Russians to our officers that day when you encountered them on the moor, they might have been arrested and this might never have happened?’ She stared at me with her strange-colour eyes and her little mouth twisted. ‘Mr Nickolai might still be alive.’

  I gasped as if she’d punched the air out of my lungs.

  ‘That will do, Constable!’ The inspector turned on her furiously. ‘Go and check on forensics, see how they’re getting on.’ Her little mouth shut like a trap, but as she got up from the table, the look she cast me was triumphant.

  ‘I want you to disregard what my colleague just said,’ the inspector said when she’d left the room.

  ‘Even if it’s true?’ I asked brokenly.

  ‘We don’t know that, at this stage. We don’t know anything.’ He leant forward. ‘But you could be very helpful to us, Juno. At the moment, it doesn’t seem that robbery was a motive, but you’ve been in the flat many times, you might be able to tell us if anything had been disturbed, or if anything was missing.’

  ‘You want me to go in there and look?’

  ‘The forensic team will still be working but Mr Nickolai’s body has been removed,’ he assured me. He stood up and held out a hand.

  ‘Now?’ Panic squeezed my insides.

  ‘Please.’ Polite, but clearly a command.

  He guided me across the road from the back door of the estate agents, his hand, supporting but firm, on my elbow. A little knot of people had gathered on the pavement, drawn like insects to the flashing of blue lights. Ordered back by the police, they’d retreated as far as the nearest corner. Amongst them, the tall, turbaned figure of Mr Singh stood, looking worried and confused. At the sight of me he raised a hand to catch my attention, but I could only throw him a helpless glance as the inspector walked me inexorably to the point where we ducked under the blue and white tape with DO NOT CROSS printed on it.

  At the door, a man in white overalls was brushing powder around the doorbell with a soft paintbrush. We stopped and were made to put white elasticated bags on over our shoes so that we wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene. I was warned not to touch anything. As we began to climb the stairs, I made to grip the handrail for support, but remembered just in time, and stopped myself.

  Inspector Ford paused. ‘All right?’ he asked, and I nodded, taking a deep breath.

  At the entrance of the living room he made me stop and asked me to wait whilst he held a whispered conversation with the detective constable and another of the white-suited forensic team. I could see into the room. Some of the rugs had been removed, leaving pale rectangles on the old carpet underneath. Most of the blood had gone with them, although splashes on the fireplace remained, each one ringed by a circle of white chalk.

  The inspector drew me into the room, stood me on one of the pale rectangles, and again, asked me not to touch anything. ‘I just want you to stand here and look. Take your time. Look all around you. If there’s anything at all that strikes you as—excuse me.’ He was beckoned into a further conversation with a white-suited one who had been photographing bloodstains, and went over to inspect the fireplace, whilst I stood looking around, wondering what I was searching for.

  Nick had been cleaning the brass escutcheon plate from a wooden tea caddy. It lay among the jumble of cleaning materials on the table. His spectacles were there too, not folded neatly, but set down as if he had just taken them off, which he had done probably, when he got up to answer the door to his killer. Tears stung the back of my eyes and I looked away.

  ‘His computer’s gone,’ I said aloud.

  ‘Ah, that’s been removed by forensics.’ Inspector Ford returned to me with a slight smile. ‘Perhaps you can help us here. On this mantelpiece there’s a clear mark in the dust, as if something has been standing there, something that’s not there now …’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I began feebly.

  ‘Something with a square base,’ he continued.

  I realised what he was getting at. ‘You mean, it could be the murder weapon?’

  He didn’t confirm it. ‘Can you remember what was there?’ he insisted, his eyes fixed intently on mine.

  I remembered the mess that something had made of Nick’s skull. Something heavy. I stared at the fireplace, trying to recall all the times I must have looked at whatever it was, the time when I had searched through the clutter on the mantelshelf, hunting for Nick’s pills. Something had stood there then. I couldn’t think. I felt numb, like a dumb animal. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. It may come to you later.’ The inspector gave me his card. I was to ring him if I thought of anything. I could go home. He
’d arrange for a uniformed officer to drive me.

  The news of Nick’s murder had got there ahead of me. It was already late in the afternoon. I realised I’d lost all track of time. I must have been with the police for hours. Kate and Adam were waiting, opening the door as soon as I got out of the police car, sweeping me into their living room, where I sat and sobbed wetly whilst they plied me with alcohol and wrapped me in a blanket of sympathy and concern. Kate wanted to feed me but, for once in my life, I wasn’t hungry. Morris and Ricky phoned, having been trying to get through to me at my flat without success, but I asked Adam to tell them I’d speak to them tomorrow.

  When I finally managed to convince Adam and Kate that I really did want to be on my own, I went upstairs and soaked myself in a long, hot bath, staring numbly at the glistening bubbles until the water grew cold. I was just hauling myself off to bed when the phone rang. I meant to ignore it, but ran to answer it when I heard Paul’s voice leaving a message.

  ‘Juno, are you all right?’ he asked when I picked up. ‘I’ve been worried sick about you.’ His voice sounded shaky.

  ‘Oh … you’ve heard?’

  ‘Yes. God, Juno! It’s terrible! Poor Nick … I’d … I’d have phoned earlier but I’ve only just got back home. I’ve been with Nottinghamshire police all evening. They sent officers round to tell me what had happened and took a statement. Not that I could tell them much.’

  ‘Did they ask you about the Russians?’

  ‘Yes. I told them all I knew, not that it amounts to much.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘They took my fingerprints.’

  ‘That’s just for elimination,’ I explained hastily. ‘They took mine too. I had to tell them of anyone I knew who’d recently been in the flat.’

  ‘They also asked me to account for my movements last night.’

  I caught my breath. ‘But … they can’t suspect you! You were in Nottingham …’

  ‘Well, I was on my way. Fortunately, I stopped for petrol at Gordano Services and I was able to show them the receipt with the time on it. And they can check the service station CCTV, if they want to. Actually, there was a crash on the motorway and I was held up, didn’t get home until the early hours.’

  ‘Jesus, Paul! I’m sorry!’

  ‘They wouldn’t have been doing their job properly if they hadn’t asked, I suppose. But it’s you I’m worried about … I’m sorry you had to go through that. It must have been horrible.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ I could hear my voice cracking. I wasn’t all right. I was struggling not to start sobbing down the phone. ‘Poor Nick,’ I managed at last. ‘D’you think—?’

  ‘I think you should try and get some sleep,’ Paul interrupted gently. ‘We can talk about this some more tomorrow. I’ll phone you.’

  I wanted to ask when he’d be coming down again. I suddenly wanted to see him very much. But I held back. He was ringing from Carrie’s family home. It wouldn’t have been fair. We said our goodbyes and rang off.

  To my surprise I slept. Waking early, I watched the sun slanting in through my curtains, falling on the little iron fireplace on the bedroom wall. The mantelshelf was barely wide enough for any ornament to stand on, but I’d found a slender china candlestick at a boot sale that just fitted on it and I watched the sun cast its shadow beside it on the wall. I got up and phoned the police station, left a message for Inspector Ford.

  ‘A candlestick,’ I told him, when he phoned back later. ‘It’s a candlestick that’s missing from Nick’s mantelpiece.’

  He asked me if I could describe it.

  ‘It’s silver,’ I told him. ‘William IV.’

  ‘Heavy?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ I thought of its solid square base, its corners, and winced as I remembered Nick’s crushed skull. ‘Heavy enough.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  According to everyone I knew, I needed time to get over the shock, so I took a few days off. But all I could think about was finding Nick’s murdered body, so I went back to work to take my mind off it. Unfortunately, his murder was all anyone wanted to talk about, especially Ricky and Morris. But after hours of hunting through rooms full of ballgowns for The Merry Widow, it was a relief to take a break and talk, to sit in their cheerful breakfast room with the long windows open to the fresh garden air, the sunlight streaming in from the outside. ‘The police still think it was premeditated, then?’ Morris asked, dispensing the refreshment.

  ‘I don’t know what they think.’ The police weren’t exactly confiding their thoughts to me. ‘But there was no sign of forced entry. Whoever his killer was, Nick let him in.’ I stared thoughtfully into my teacup. ‘And we know he was killed late at night. He was in his pyjamas and dressing gown, presumably, ready for bed so …’

  ‘It must have been someone he knew, wouldn’t you think?’ Ricky asked, squinting as he lit up a cigarette. ‘Someone he trusted?’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t let a complete stranger in late at night, would you?’ Morris added.

  I sighed. This was one of the questions that had been turning endlessly in my mind, throughout the small hours. ‘The other thing is, there was no sign of a struggle. There was no robbery − and no attempt to make it look like one. The only thing taken was the murder weapon. It doesn’t seem that Nick fought for his life …’ I felt tears welling up suddenly and stared down hard at the flowers embroidered on the tablecloth. Morris reached out a comforting hand and laid it on my arm. I pulled myself together and went on, ‘He was just … felled. Hit once, from behind …’

  ‘You think he trusted these Russians after all that had happened?’ Ricky asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Nick insisted they parted as friends. He refused to believe they intended to do me any harm that day on the moor.’

  We were all silent for a minute, sipping tea, then Morris spoke again. ‘What if, his killer simply crept up on him?’ he asked, peering at us over his specs. ‘What if he didn’t know anyone was in the flat at all?’

  Ricky’s eyes narrowed behind a thin spiral of cigarette smoke. ‘If his killer had got into the building earlier in the day, say if Nick had gone out, Nick could have locked the place up at night, not knowing his attacker was in there with him.’

  I shook my head. ‘Nick hardly ever went out, and he never the left the place, even for a few minutes, without double-locking the door. Do you know, the police found cash hidden all over his flat? Hundreds of little packages, rolled up in rubber bands, amounting to thousands, apparently … he was hoarding it under the carpets … no wonder he didn’t want me poking about with a vacuum cleaner!’ I took a sip of tea. ‘But it was so … efficient – the killing, I mean.’

  There had been no trail of bloody footprints, just a few drops of blood on the stairs, presumably left by the murder weapon as it was taken away. Inspector Ford seemed satisfied that this was the missing candlestick, that it could have inflicted the wound that killed Nick: death in a single blow. The killer hadn’t gone into the kitchen or Nick’s bedroom, or down into the shop. He’d come in, killed Nick, and gone, taking the candlestick with him. It was like an execution.

  In my mind, Vlad was the executioner. He was cold-blooded, too careful to leave telltale traces behind him. He would have worn his black gloves. But the police had little to go on. Searches in Nick’s flat, and through his bins outside, revealed no clue. Police enquiries amongst antiques dealers and pawnshops, appeals to the public on local media, had given them no useful information. Even Nick’s computer did not contain anything of value. He used it to track online auctions, for almost nothing else. He didn’t engage in social media and he didn’t communicate by email.

  I couldn’t give the police much information either. Inspector Ford had rung me to ask if Nick had owned a dog. Forensics had dog hairs on the rugs that they’d removed from the flat, coming from several different breeds.

  ‘That must be something to do with me,’ I’d admitted awkwardly. I’d explained about the Tribe and we’d agreed that I could have carried dog hairs in
on the hems of my trousers or the soles of my shoes. I wondered if I left a trail of dog hair everywhere I went, effectively making those places I was paid to clean, dirtier.

  Morris peered at me, wearing a worried frown. ‘You know, Juno, you’re looking very tired.’

  ‘I’m not sleeping so well,’ I admitted. When I did sleep, I dreamt about poor Nick, lying there on the rug. And I didn’t care what he might have done, I missed him.

  ‘Perhaps you should see a doctor.’

  I shook my head. ‘He’ll only want to give me sleeping pills.’

  ‘I know it’s difficult, but you must try and forget it, leave it all behind you.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ I assured him. ‘I just need to keep busy.’

  Ricky stubbed out his cigarette, exhaling as he got to his feet. ‘C’mon then, back to work. These bloody frocks won’t pack themselves.’

  Later that night I stood in Shadow Lane. It was close on midnight, no one around. The rain was light, but steady, the cobbles wetly sheened, glistening silver in the glow of a single street lamp. I stood in the shadow of a doorway opposite Nick’s shop, just watching. I didn’t know why I had gone there really, knew I was being stupid. But somehow I felt drawn there. The empty building looked sad, the windows dark, no Nick sitting up in his cosy little flat, listening to his radio. Poor old Nick. The police tape with DO NOT CROSS on it that sealed the entrance to the alleyway had worked loose in one corner, a pale ribbon lifting and flapping in the breeze. I wondered how much longer it would be there. How long before the police gave up on an investigation? I felt I ought to be doing something to help, but I didn’t know what.

  More than once I’d thought about breaking in. There was a window in the storeroom, high up in the wall. But the thought of smashing the glass, wriggling my body through the narrow frame, dropping down into darkness on the other side, crashing into God-knows-what furniture stacked underneath, raising a racket and risking injury, put me off. Or, to be honest, the inevitable interview with the police if I got caught was putting me off. The thought of explaining myself to Inspector Ford, or worse, his horrible detective constable, made me shudder.