A Staged Death (A Brock & Poole Mystery Book 2)

by A. G. Barnett

  She glanced at her newly appointed county lawyer, who sat next to her making notes but said nothing.

  “Jarvis came to me that night and said he was bored in Bexford. He asked if I knew of anywhere he could find a party, something to do. ‘Something exciting,’ he said.”

  “And your first thought was to call an escort agency?”

  “No!” she said suddenly. “Well, at least, not exactly.” She slumped back down in her seat. “I knew Ella from school; we both grew up in Bexford. We weren’t friends or anything, but I met her a few weeks ago in town and we got chatting. She told me what she did and… well, I couldn’t believe it.” She shook her head again sadly and fresh tears sprayed the table. She pulled another tissue from the box that had been placed in front of her and dabbed at her eyes.

  “But she seemed happy enough, and she definitely had money. It’s funny,” she said, looking past Poole’s shoulder and staring at a point on the wall. “We’d been in a play together at school and she’d been a good actress. Better than Gina Glover anyway.” Her eyes focused again as she continued. “Anyway, I remembered that I’d mentioned the Foul Murder launch to her and how excited she’d been. She said she’d always had a thing for Jarvis Alvarado. So, I called her.” Her voice was hollow, as though the life had been sucked out of it. “If I’d known it would get her killed…” She looked down and sobbed heavily.

  “Anderson,” Brock said, “go and get Miss Marx some water, will you?”

  Anderson glared at the inspector, but left the room anyway, returning a few moments later with water from the machine in the hall in a paper cup which he placed in front of Jane.

  “Thank you,” she said in a weak voice before sipping at the cup tentatively.

  “Please, Miss Marx, continue,” Brock said soothingly.

  She nodded again. “I called Ella’s agency—I didn’t have her number—and said I had a job for her at the hotel. I thought I had to say it was a job or I’d get her in trouble, but I just thought she’d like to meet him and could maybe take him out or something. I thought Ella would be a bit more his speed than me trying to show him around.”

  “And what happened when she arrived at the hotel?”

  “I don’t know. I let her in and showed her to Jarvis’ room and that was it. She was so excited,” she said sadly, taking another sip of water.

  “And what time was this?”

  “About eight, I think?”

  “And you didn’t see Ella again?”

  “No,” she answered, blowing her nose again.

  “And what about Eli Patrick?”

  The sudden change of direction made her look up. “Eli? What about him?”

  “You and he seem close,” Brock said.

  “Eli is a very lovely man,” she said, smiling through the tears.

  “And was he part of this little arrangement?”

  “No! He knew nothing about it!” she said defensively. “Eli didn’t really get on with Jarvis or Jonny; he wasn’t like them.”

  “And what were they like, Miss Marx?”

  “I don’t like to talk ill of the dead,” she said quietly, “but they were selfish and rude.”

  “And when did you realise that Ella had died?”

  “Not until Friday,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “I saw it on the news.”

  Brock sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  “OK, Miss Marx, that’s all for now. Can I ask that you don’t leave Bexford for the time being; we made need to speak to you in future.”

  They sat and watched as her lawyer escorted out of the room in silence. As the catch of the door clicked closed, Anderson advanced, leaning his hands on the desk.

  “Alvarado must have killed Ella Louise,” he said loudly.

  “Why?” Brock asked thoughtfully.

  “Because he bloody slept with her and it obviously went wrong somehow. He killed her and then dumped her body.”

  “Isabella Lennon says she was with Jarvis from ten o’clock until the morning,” Poole pointed out.

  “She’s lying,” Anderson said, laughing as he stood upright. “She’s covering up for him.”

  “Why would she cover up for a dead man?” Poole asked, getting annoyed now at Anderson trying to railroad the investigation toward a quick resolution.

  “Who knows!” Anderson said, waving his hands in exasperation. “These actor types are all barmy!”

  “And who killed Jonny Turnbull?”

  Anderson paused and frowned for a moment. “Isabella Lennon must have done it.”

  “Why would she?” Poole asked, exasperatedly.

  “Maybe Turnbull found out what Jarvis had done and Isabella wanted to keep it quiet.”

  “But why?!” Poole said, almost shouting now. “Why would Isabella want to cover up for Jarvis so badly?!”

  “She was mad about him!” Anderson shouted back. “You know what women can be like! She was probably obsessed with him or something!”

  “God, you’re a Neanderthal idiot,” Poole said, putting his head in his hands.

  “What did you call me?” Anderson puffed his barrel chest and advanced on the table.

  “Anderson.” Brock’s voice cut through the room despite him only speaking quietly. “Go and inform Inspector Sharp of the latest developments. I expect he’ll be back from his… meeting now.”

  Anderson glared at Poole as he answered with a snapped, “Yes, sir,” and headed for the room.

  “Come on, Poole,” Brock said wearily. “It’s been a long day. Let’s go for a pint.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The familiar smell of stale beer hit Poole’s nostrils as he and Brock entered The Mop and Bucket, its low ceilings and dim lighting making their eyes blink as they adjusted for the fading daylight outside which entirely failed to penetrate the grimy windows.

  “Two pints of Bexford Gold, please,” Poole said as they reached the bar.

  “Looks like we’re not the only ones with this idea today,” Brock said, nodding through the archway to their left where they could see a familiar, small group of people from Bexford Police Station. Sanita caught sight of Poole and waved. He waved back, his cheeks reddening as he turned back to the barman to pay.

  “Bloody hell, Poole,” Brock said, chuckling, “if you’re going to make it that obvious, you might as well ask her out for a drink.”

  “Sir?” Poole said as innocently as he could.

  The inspector’s open nature when it came to personal matters still tended to catch Poole off-guard and seemed to go against his generally prickly nature.

  “Oh, come on, Poole. I’m a detective, but you don’t need to be one to see what’s going on between you and Constable Sanders. Just don’t leave it too late, that’s my advice. Before you know it she’ll be married to someone like Anderson and have three kids.” Brock moved away from the bar and headed across to the table, leaving Poole in a state of shocked horror at the image of Anderson and Sanita in married bliss.

  He snapped out of it and followed Brock.

  Brock took a seat next to Davies and Poole tried not to flush again as Sanita pulled him a chair over from the next table.

  “Thanks.” He smiled at her. She smiled back at him and then turned to the table where Roland Hunt was talking.

  “And so I told this bloke that I’d heard Jonny Turnbull was going to have a Viking funeral on the River Bex and that they were just sorting the boat out now down at the park.”

  “And he believed you?!” Davies said in awe.

  “Of course he did; he worked for The Sun.” The entire table laughed and descended into a series of smaller conversations and discussions.

  “So,” Sanita said, turning to Poole. “You wanted to have a talk?”

  Poole’s stomach lurched. What on earth was he going to say? He hadn’t really needed to have a talk with her, it had just sounded like that when he’d been trying to fill the awkward silence that always seemed to be hovering when they were alone.

&
nbsp; The words of his conversation with Brock filtered through his mind and he found himself repeating them as though some hidden force were working his mouth.

  “I was just wondering if you wanted to go for a drink sometime?”

  The general hubbub from the table seemed to die down and he felt the hot prickle of eyes watching him. He swallowed, his gaze firmly locked on Sanita’s brown eyes.

  “I’d love to,” she said, smiling. She turned to the rest of the table, who as one gave a small cheer amongst shouts of ‘about time’, and ‘took them long enough’.

  Poole buried his head in his pint and grinned, his cheeks glowing.

  Poole stepped through the front door of his flat and stopped in his tracks, his mouth falling open.

  “Oh Guy, you’re here! Fantastic!” his mum said, jumping up from the sofa and hurrying over to him. She put her arm around him and guided him toward the six women who sat in his front room drinking white wine and eating chocolates from the various packets that were open on the table.

  “Everyone, this is Guy.”

  “Hi, Guy,” the women chorused.

  “Er, hello,” Guy managed, in shock at this invasion of his home.

  “Now, Guy, you must meet Angela here,” his mum said, guiding him around to a woman on the far side of the group who was the only person present who wasn’t his mother’s age.

  She had bleached blonde hair through which dark roots headed halfway down her head and sad, doleful eyes which looked up at him through clogged lumps of mascara.

  “Hi,” Poole said, causing her to giggle and turn away.

  “Angela is Debbie’s daughter,” his mother said, pointing to an identical, but older version of Angela to her right as though this was significant, like being the daughter of Queen Elizabeth the second.

  “That’s great, Mum, but I’ve had a long day. Can I have a quick word with you in the kitchen?”

  His mum smiled apologetically at the group and followed him into the kitchen which was a small offshoot from the main room.

  “What the hell are all these people doing here?” Poole asked, opening the fridge and looking for something that was vaguely edible.

  “I’ve joined a book club and it’s my turn to host. Honestly, Guy, I did tell you.”

  Guy vaguely remembered her mentioning a book club, but it had been lost in the almost constant torrent of words his mother spilt on a daily basis.

  He turned back to the fridge, holding a dubious-looking jar of pesto, his mum looking at him with concern.

  “Guy, you really need to let go of all of this stress. Have you been using the oils I gave you for the bath?”

  “Mum, the reason I can’t let go of my stress is because she bloody lives with me!” he said grimly as he bent down to root in the cupboard for some pasta.

  “Well, I can see that you are too stressed to know what you’re saying at the moment, so I’ll leave you alone. I think it’s a shame you haven’t got time to stay and be civil to young Angela though. She’s a lovely girl.”

  Guy pulled the remaining pasta from the cupboard, leaned on the countertop and took a deep breath.

  “Mum, I need my own space again. Bexford was supposed to be a fresh start for me and here I am living with my mum, having book club meetings with people I don’t know and scraping around for some dinner because no one’s done any shopping again.”

  He looked up at his mum and saw her lips were pursed. “You know I’ve been looking for somewhere, but if you’re that desperate to get rid of me, then I’ll see if I can stay with a friend.”

  She spun on her heel and headed back to her group. Guy considered going after her but decided he needed to eat and sleep more urgently than appeasing his mother.

  “So, now we’re going to have to buy a new dining table as well as a new lino?” Brock said angrily as he stared down at the gnawed table leg in front of him.

  He was crouched in the kitchen of his home as Laura cooked a Mediterranean vegetable dish on the far side. The smell of chorizo wafting across to him was making him hungry, and being confronted with the latest damage report from owning Indy, he was struggling to stay rational.

  “He’s a puppy, Sam. What do you expect?”

  “Well, I expect not have to replace everything in the bloody house,” Brock said, getting to his feet. “Where the hell is the little vandal anyway?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Sam. I’m trying to cook dinner. He was sleeping in the living room last time I saw him.”

  Brock trudged off to the living room to find Indy stood on the coffee table, eating a daffodil which had once been set into a vase that was now on its side, with water dripping onto the carpet.

  Brock sat the puppy on the floor, still chewing on the flower, and began wiping up the water while swearing under his breath.

  “It’s ready!” Laura called from the kitchen. He scooped Indy up and carried him through with him, a petal still hanging out of the dog’s mouth.

  “Oh, Sam, you shouldn’t let him eat things like that; it might upset his stomach,” she said as she laid the plates on the table.

  Brock grunted and placed the dog on the floor before taking his seat.

  After a few minutes of silent eating, Laura broke the silence. “So, what’s wrong with you?”

  Brock looked up from his plate in surprise, as though he had just remembered that she was there. “Nothing, sorry.”

  “It’s this case, isn’t it?” she said, reaching behind her and pulling a bottle of red wine from the wine rack. “It’s all over the news. The press is going crazy over it all.”

  Brock sighed and shook his head. “There’s just something wrong about it all and I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “Then you need to look at it from a new angle.”

  Her matter-of-fact tone made him look up. He smiled at her. “You know I think the force could have done with someone like you.”

  She smiled back at him playfully. “Ah, come on, Sam. I wouldn’t want to show you up now, would I?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “He’s destroying everything!” Brock moaned as Poole slowed the car as they came to a set of lights.

  “Isn’t that what puppies do though, sir? Chew things?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s why I’ve spent a load of money on all sort of toys. Soft toys, bouncy toys, squeaky toys. He doesn’t touch them. He just goes straight for my bloody furniture.”

  Poole laughed and Brock turned to him.

  “So where are you going to take Constable Sanders out, then?”

  Pool stopped laughing.

  “I’m not sure, sir.”

  “Well you better think fast; the whole station’s already talking about it. People want to know. You two are the new soap opera in town.”

  Poole felt his throat go dry at the thought of half the station talking about his potential romance with Sanita.

  They swung into the car park of the Sinton Hotel and parked in an end bay. The square of sky visible to them from the courtyard was clear blue, but the morning was chilly, and their breath plumed about them as Poole locked the car.

  “I want to go and look at the stage again,” Brock said, heading toward the door which led to the back corridors of the theatre. When they reached it, they found it locked and so turned and headed toward the hotel.

  The lobby was quiet at this hour. Just a man in a suit sat in one of the leather armchairs, reading a paper, and the receptionist who was bent over her computer.

  They walked straight through and out into the street, where the sun hit the golden sand-coloured stone that Bexford was almost entirely built from and gave the impression the place had been dipped in butter.

  The large doors at the front of the theatre were firmly shut with no lights on inside.

  “I’ll call the manager,” Poole said, pulling his phone from his pocket.

  “He’ll take a while to get here,” Brock said, squinting as he looked down the street. “Why don’t we sample the breakfast at
the hotel while we wait?”

  Poole’s stomach rumbled in appreciation. “You read my mind.”

  Breakfast at the Sinton Hotel turned out to be an extravagant feast of toast, marmalades and jams followed by sausages, bacon, eggs, black pudding, mushrooms and beans.

  Brock had devoured the lot between mumbling how he couldn’t believe it was a ‘proper’ breakfast and not ‘posh muck’ that they had been served.

  Poole watched as the food the inspector consumed directly correlated with his mood improving and wondered if he suffered from low blood sugar.

  They were drinking coffee and leaning back so their expanded stomachs could have room to digest when Terry Johnson entered the room and made his way toward them.

  “Morning,” he said, pulling gloves from his hands. “Can I ask why you want to get back into the theatre?”

  “We want to look over the crime scene again,” Brock said. “We thought there'd be someone there.”

  Terry laughed. “Oh, the theatre game’s an evening thing, Inspector. We don’t normally get in until around lunchtime, truth be told, though Jane sometimes comes in earlier to get things sorted. We’re setting up for a new performance at the moment I’m afraid, so the stage is a bit of a mess. We had the first delivery of props for the playgroup come in and it’s piled there for the moment.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Brock said, draining the last of his coffee and rising. “Lead the way.”

  The three men headed back through the lobby onto the street before walking the short distance to the theatre.

  “We’ll take it from here,” Brock said as they stepped inside. He headed off toward the doors on the far side, leaving Poole to give a hasty thank-you to the manager before joining him.

  As they headed down the steps toward the stage, Poole had the same feeling he had the last time they had been in the vast space alone.

  “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “What? A place where two people have been murdered in a week? You do surprise me,” Brock said sarcastically.