Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  ‘If you were, darlin’, you wouldn’t tell me before I take the locks off,’ she said with irrefutable logic. ‘Besides, life’s too short to be worrying about when you’re going to die. We all got to go some time. This way.’

  She led the way to the kitchen on the left of the hall corridor. It was small, but beautifully fitted out with oven, washing machine, dishwasher and fridge in the fanciest brand names I couldn’t afford.

  Rachel flicked open a wall cupboard and started taking down assorted crockery. ‘I’ll make us a little snack, then we can talk.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You want to make yourself comfortable in the lounge? Straight across the hall.’

  There was plenty of evidence that Rachel wasn’t short of a bob or two. The sideboard held a dozen china crinolined ladies that cost a hundred apiece, I reckoned. The concealed lighting in the glass-fronted cabinet was glittering in the facets of two dozen collectable crystal pieces. A bow-fronted Regency-style cabinet held a state-of-the-art television and video. The matching chest of drawers proved to be another fake. The drawer fronts swung out together as one piece to reveal a hi-tech music system. And every surface was crammed with heavy silver frames, mostly of the son, I guessed; plus a woman who looked enough like Rachel to be her daughter, their respective partners and a tribe of grandchildren.

  Even with the best camera angles and lighting, I reckoned Rachel’s kids were in their fifties, so I mentally added another ten years or so on to my estimate of her age.

  Finishing my snooping, I sank back into a chair. Balthazar strolled in and fixed his blue eyes on me. I stared back. He arched his back and sprang into my lap, kneaded my legs and dug his claws straight through the soft fabric of my trousers.

  With a suppressed scream I leapt up and slung him off. He landed neatly, sauntered back with his nose stuck in the air - and leapt straight into the warm, squashed cushion I’d just vacated.

  Rachel nudged open the door with her elbow. ‘Well, here we are then. Are you two making friends?’

  ‘Bosom buddies,’ I assured her, staring into the unwinking blue slits and vowing to come back as a Rottweiler in my next reincarnation.

  ‘Good.’ She put two plates - one piled with filled rolls, the other holding a large sliced chocolate cake - on the inlaid coffee table. ‘I’ll just fetch the rest.’

  Rest?

  She trotted back with a large bowl of baby cherry tomatoes; another of crisps and a platter of pickled cucumbers. The final trip added a cafetiere of fresh coffee, cream jug, demerara sugar and a box of after-dinner mints.

  ‘Now you just tuck in darlin’, don’t be shy. I’ll just put the news on.’ She flicked the remote at the television.

  We chomped in companionable silence for a while, until the news programme moved on to the next stage in the saga of Abercrombie Electronics Inc.

  ‘Ugh ... boring darlin’. You want this?’

  I shook my head. The story had been running since Christmas. Abercrombie’s had tried to defraud the Government, got caught, and now the investigation was running through their subsidiaries like death watch beetle. There wasn’t a week when some new director wasn’t facing prosecution, a Select Committee, or confiscation of his Executive Washroom electronic swipe card.

  It was all being done in the name of outraged public. The public were frankly bored silly by the whole performance. We zapped the sound.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here, Mrs Simonawitz.’

  ‘Rachel, please, darlin’’ She waved a plump hand, setting several gold bracelets jangling. ‘All paid for by my son. He’s a diamond, my Saul.’ She swallowed a morsel and chuckled. ‘A real diamond: a dozen faces and you can see clear through all of them.’

  She poured us both coffee. ‘Every time I mention how they’ve got a spare bedroom, he buys me something nice, to make the flat more comfortable.’ She gave another rich chuckle. ‘Thing is, I wouldn’t live with my daughter-in-law if we were at the North Pole and there was only one igloo to be had. But they don’t know that.’

  I grinned and helped myself to a pickled cucumber. ‘Did he pay for the car too?’

  ‘Naturally. Mind, I had to be a bit cunning there. There’s no way they’re going to want me to have a car so I can drive over whenever I feel like it. So I dropped a few hints about a coach tour to New England that’s a real bargain at a thousand pounds. And then I ask if maybe they’re going to Florida this year, because this is also a place I always wanted to see.’

  She laughed and slapped my knee so hard I nearly sent the coffee over the carpet. ‘I had a cheque for a thousand pounds the very next day. Chocolate cake?’

  ‘Please.’ I let myself be helped to a wedge that must have weighed half a pound and asked her when exactly she’d bought the car.

  ‘End of April. The thirtieth,’ she said promptly, pushing brown crumbs into one corner of her mouth.

  ‘But you must have known Kristen was leaving before that? To get the money, I mean.’

  ‘She asked me if I wanted to buy the previous week. Saul’s cheque just cleared in time. She wanted cash. It was always cash with Kristen.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’

  ‘No, darlin’. I asked her, but she just ...’ She jangled the bracelets in a vague waving motion. ‘If she didn’t want to tell you something ... she could be ...’

  ‘Evasive?’

  ‘Slippery. So why do you want to find her?’

  I produced my business card. Rachel was thrilled enough to find she’d met a real-life private detective to offer seconds on the gateau.

  ‘My client is worried about Kristen. She just seems to have dropped out of sight.’ It was an unfortunate choice of words given Henry’s handicap. ‘He thought something might have happened to her. Something unpleasant. But you’re positive she left here of her own accord?’

  ‘Sure. She said she was going. And then she went. No mystery, darlin’.’

  Evidently not. But I pressed Rachel for more information. Kristen, it seemed, had moved in last October.

  ‘What was she like?’ I asked. ‘Shy? Friendly?’

  ‘Not shy,’ Rachel said, refilling our cups. ‘Friendly? Yes, sometimes. Few times I invited her down to eat, and she’s good company. We have a bottle of wine and chat; but only about the television programmes, or the films maybe. Or something in the papers. If I try to talk about her family, or where she come from, then suddenly I find we’re talking about the TV again and don’t know how we got back there.’ ‘Where did she work, do you know?’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘I asked her, several times. But it was one of the questions she, you know ...’

  ‘Slid out from under?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about friends? Boyfriends?’

  There was a fractional pause before she said: ‘No. Not that I saw.’

  ‘What about the other two flats? Might she have told them where she was going?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, darlin’. Ada ...’ she stabbed a finger at her chandelier light fitting, ‘over me, she’s been in hospital since Christmas. I visit her three times a week, poor darlin’. And the Colemans next door had their first baby last year.’ She patted the air with both hands like she was thumping an invisible keyboard. ‘You never saw such crowds. Her mother; his mother; her sisters; his cousins ... you got to put your name down a year in advance if you want to baby-sit there.’ She sounded regretful. But I took her point. If Kristen was that reticent about her life with the effusively hospitable Rachel, it was unlikely she’d battled her way through hordes of Coleman relatives to confide in the new mum.

  ‘I assume Kristen was renting the flat over the Colemans?’

  ‘Number four,’ Rachel agreed, popping in a mint.

  ‘Is there anyone in it now?’ Maybe they’d got a forwarding address for the mail.

  ‘No. The place is empty. Kristen said someone was coming, but I suppose they changed their minds.’

  ‘Are these places p
rivate? Or council?’

  ‘Oh, private, darlin’. We all bought them. There’s only me and Ada left from the originals now.’

  ‘So who owns number four?’

  ‘Guy Stevens. A nice boy. Inherited it from his grandfather. But he don’t live there. He works on those cruise liners. Sends me lovely postcards from all over the world.’

  ‘So the flat’s rented out ... how?’

  ‘Well, the agency does it, darlin’. This young man comes round sometimes, counts the sheets and knives and forks.’

  ‘Inventory.’

  ‘Gesundheit.’

  Rachel chuckled. It was evidently an old joke.

  ‘Which agency?’

  ‘Weekes.’

  I knew it. It was a small independent estate agent quite near my flat. Perhaps they could help. ‘What’s Kristen’s surname?’

  ‘Keats. Like the poet.’

  A double K; it more or less confirmed I’d got the right woman.

  ‘Tell me, Rachel, did Kristen ever mention someone called Bertram?’

  ‘No. Why? Who is he?’

  I hadn’t the faintest idea. But since it was the only name Henry had been able to come up with, it seemed worth checking out. Reluctantly I drained my fourth cup of coffee and said I’d better be going. ‘Thanks for lunch.’

  ‘This? It’s nothing. All I do is heat the coffee. You come back for dinner and I show you what a good cook I am. You promise?’

  ‘It’s a deal. I’ll give you a ring.’

  She beamed and scribbled her number on a scrap of paper before showing me to the hall.

  Something occurred to me as I looked up the short flight of stairs to the top floor. ‘If Kristen had sold you her car, how did she move her stuff?’

  ‘There wasn’t that much. Just a couple of suitcases. A car picked her up.’

  ‘A mini cab?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘I thought so at the time. It was a big car like they have. Four doors.’

  ‘But now you don’t think so?’

  Rachel scooped up Balthazar, who was twisting around our legs in a pathetic display of imminent starvation. ‘I don’t know, darlin’. See, I think he came back to look for her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A few days after she left. In the morning. I don’t bother to get up early no more. What’s the point? There’s always more than enough day left when I do. So anyway, Balthazar and I are lying in bed, listening to the radio, when I hear this noise upstairs. Like someone’s knocking at the flat.’

  ‘How’d they get through the front door?’ I asked, recalling the security system on the block entrance.

  Rachel patted the air again. ‘The Coleman boy. He goes out to work early. He never closes the front door behind him properly. My Saul told him off about it more than once.’

  ‘So did you see the dawn knocker?’

  ‘No. Not really, darlin’. I got up to tell them there was nobody in up there. But he’d gone.’

  ‘Then how do you know it was the same bloke? It could have been anyone.’

  Rachel shrugged. ‘When I look out the front, there’s this big car going down the road again.’

  ‘Did you get a look at the driver?’

  ‘No. First time, when he picks Kristen up, it’s rainy and dark and he doesn’t get out of the car. She puts the cases in the boot and gets in beside him. And the second time, I just saw the car driving away.’

  ‘Are you certain the driver was a man?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, no. I guess I’m just old- fashioned. If it’s a big car, I assume it belongs to a man. A dick substitute, isn’t that what they call it?’

  Maybe they did. But I was a bit surprised Rachel did. She chuckled and tapped my arm. ‘I got that one from Kristen. She could be fun, you know. Once she brought down this dvd - men dancing. At least that’s what the label said. They never danced like that in my day - more’s the pity.’ The car had been a dark colour, but she had no idea what make.

  Maybe the estate agent would be more help.

  CHAPTER 7

  Perhaps I’d win the lottery or wake up and find my fairy godmother had granted me a perfect 36C bust. Either was more likely than this estate agent being helpful.

  I wondered if I could do him under the Trades Description Act. After all, their advertising assured me: ‘Seven days to a sale equals a Weeke. Try us. We are here to help.’

  The estate agency was sandwiched between a launderette and a general grocery store opposite the Dog and Duck public house. Lingering on the pavement, I’d read the neon-coloured cardboard stickers advertising bargains in baked beans and soap powder in the grocer’s for a few moments whilst I tried to see between the display boards in next door’s window.

  There seemed to be two figures moving around in there. Edging a little closer whilst scanning the ‘des res’ and ‘to let’ notices, I made out a man sitting at the front desk, apparently speaking to someone who was out of my sight at the rear of the office.

  She’d appeared after a few seconds, shrugging a coat on, and dropping a bunch of keys into the bloke’s front desk drawer. Clipping out of the door and across to a yellow convertible parked at the kerb, she shouted back: ‘One hour max, Jason. They’re time-wasters, I’d bet my bonus on it.’ I’d let her drive away and then gone in myself. Jason sprang up, pushing a floppy blond fringe from his eyes and flashing a perfect set of white teeth. He looked about twelve.

  ‘Hi. Jason Weekes. Really great to meet you. We’re glad you’ve chosen Weekes. Whatever it is - selling, buying, renting - we can do it for you. And we can do it a hundred per cent better than the rest. In the next five years we’ll be the biggest estate agent in the south. Ten years the whole country.’

  I’d asked him how many branches he had at the moment. ‘Well, just this one, actually. But I only took over at Christmas. My dad ran things just like his father did. You’ve got to move with the times. Duck, dive, weave, turn problems to your advantage. So what’s it to be? Penthouse? Country cottage?’

  I’d been tempted to say ‘penthouse’ just to test my theory that he hadn’t got any on his books. Instead I’d made a fatal mistake. I’d told him the truth.

  Working on the ‘all professionals together’ routine, I’d flashed my business card and explained I needed information on a former tenant of number 4 Beamish Court.

  The effusive charm vanished. He still looked twelve. But the sort of twelve that promises he and a few mates will be sorting you out in an alley after school unless you hand over your dinner money.

  ‘Our files are totally confidential. Now, if that’s all you want, darling ...’

  I wanted him to promise he’d never call me ‘darling’ again. But I kept my own smile in place, and added a dash of pleading. ‘My client is very worried. He’s afraid something may have happened to Miss Keats. Couldn’t you at least check if she left a forwarding address?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No she didn’t leave one? Or no you can’t check?’

  ‘Both. So if you’re not interested in moving ...’

  ‘Well, I had been thinking about it actually ... My flat’s a bit cramped ...’

  The twelve-year-old choirboy reappeared. ‘Ah right, now you’re cooking. Buy or rent?’

  ‘Well ... renting, I guess ... One or two bedrooms ... lounge ... fitted kitchen ...’

  Jason was nodding and tapping in details on his computer screen as I spoke. ‘If I could take an address? And phone number?’

  I gave him the office’s.

  ‘Great, great ...’ He filled in the final box and sent me whirling on to the hard disk. The cursor responded by spitting back lines of numbers.

  Leaning across, he flicked up sheets from assorted files in the nearest cabinet. ‘Here you are ... can I call you Grace?’

  ‘Why not? After all we’re already on terms of endearment ... darling.’

  At least he blushed whilst handing over the details of about a dozen flats. ‘They’re all local. But if you w
ere thinking of moving out a bit ...’

  ‘No. This will do fine for now.’

  ‘Great. Take a look through. Let me know which ones you want to view and I’ll fix you up pronto.’

  I fanned the sheets and scanned them quickly. Beamish Court wasn’t there, which suggested Rachel had been right about it already being re-let.

  ‘What about that one?’ I pointed to a board of photographed properties beyond the woman’s desk at the back of the shop.

  Jason moved across to take a look. ‘Which?’

  ‘Next board ...’ I directed. ‘Up the top. Is that flats?’

  ‘No. Sorry. Detached house. Five bedrooms. Three-quarters of an acre. Lovely property.’

  ‘Bit out of my price range. I’ll get back to you.’

  He held the door open to let me out. It had a Yale lock. The back door probably didn’t, since there was only one Yale key on the ring I’d just taken from his top desk drawer whilst he was negotiating the pictures in the display board at the rear of the shop.

  I can pick basic-type locks, but it’s a hellishly fiddly business that takes ten times longer than you’d allowed. And as for sliding a credit card into the gap like they do on the TV, forget it. What you’ll end up with is a busted plastic oblong. And if you’re really lucky, one end will have broken off and jammed in the lock so that the police have something nice and clear to go on when they start trying to trace you.

  There was a shoe repair and instant key-cutting booth up in North Bay. I used the back roads since from the odd glimpses I caught of the front, the main promenade route was now well and truly gridlocked with day-trippers’ cars.

  By my reckoning I had forty minutes until Jason’s assistant got back, and even then I had to pray that none of the filing cabinets were locked and he didn’t need to use the keys.

  Apparently he didn’t, since he looked pleased to see me when I abandoned the car once again and shot back into the estate agency.

  ‘Hi! So decided already? Which viewings can I fix up for you?’

  ‘Actually, no. There was one thing I forgot to ask. Are there any restrictions on pets?’