Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  ‘Hi, Grace!’

  I jumped and spun round. Amelia had come round the side of the house and was waving as she jogged down the drive.

  ‘Sorry, were you ringing? I was in the pool house. I was going to have a sauna, it’s just fabulous for cleaning out the pores. Is this one of your days? I’m so dippy when it comes to remembering rotas and things. Didn’t Mummy give you a key?’

  She stopped a foot away from me; a happy bundle of good spirits, white teeth and tossed blonde curls. It was as if the toe-curling tantrum of the birthday night had never happened.

  ‘Do you want to get started right away or have you got time for a coffee?’

  Plainly Mummy hadn’t told her she’d sacked the home help.

  ‘Coffee would be great. Thanks.’

  ‘Terrific.’ She flashed that expensive dentistry and giggled, linking arms as she guided me down the side path. ‘Let’s have it on the terrace. Shan’t be a mo.’

  She abandoned me on the patio and tripped back through the French windows with a wriggle of that enviably small butt.

  The remains of the other night had already been cleared away by the caterers, but the garden still had a slightly bedraggled and trodden-down air.

  If Stephen turned up now I’d have to find some way of getting him alone, but at least I had the consolation of knowing he was unlikely to strangle me whilst Amelia was skipping around the place. Even she might manage to come out from under the self-obsession and hair long enough to notice hubby burying a body under the patio.

  Patio? I looked down at the neatly jointed stones beneath my feet. They appeared new. In fact, you could see where a fresh section had been re-let into the stone balustrade.

  I used the phone in the study to call Swayling’s. Thankfully Marina Payne answered. Cutting through the niceties, I asked her straight out when her husband had worked on the Bridgemans’ patio.

  ‘Just after the last Bank holiday. Why?’

  ‘I’ll explain when I see you. Do you know what was wrong with it?’

  ‘The surface was relaid badly. Larry put a new lot down. He had a wonderful time. It’s not often he gets to play mud pies himself these days.’

  ‘Thanks. Love to Figgy and Mickey. Bye.’

  Amelia hadn’t reappeared yet. I settled myself into a chair and crossed my ankles on the coping. Those nice new tiles under my seat had gone down a few days after Julie-Frances/ Kristen had last been seen being given a lift from her flat to this house.

  Oddly enough, Marina’s assurances that her ‘bit of rough’ didn’t play dirty any more must have made a greater impression than I’d realised. I didn’t for a second suspect Larry of helping with the burial. But what if the body was already several feet down? There was no reason for him to dig; he’d have packed the soil down, wouldn’t he, to make a firm base?

  Amelia wiggled back holding a tray containing two long glass tumblers containing dark-red liquid. ‘Sorry this is taking so long. I brought this new coffee brewing thingy back from the States and it doesn’t seem to work. I thought we’d finish up the wine whilst we waited for the silly thing to heat up. You don’t mind the wrong glasses, do you? It’s the really good stuff ... at least Stephen says it is ... To tell you the truth, I can’t tell the difference myself. But I don’t like to confess ... he’s so proud of his collection. Well, cheers ...’ She touched her glass to the rim of mine and sipped, using the top of her forefinger to wipe away the wetness from under her bottom lip. We were back with the frosted look today, together with the jeans and silk top. But the silver Navaho jewellery had been replaced by gold bangles and huge hooped earrings.

  ‘Great party,’ I said. ‘Pity you missed most of it.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She drew up her legs, crossing bare feet on the chair. ‘Mummy’s furious with me, of course. Never mind that I didn’t want the party in the first place. Do you think you ever reach an age where parents think you’re old enough to make your own decisions?’

  ‘I doubt it. Especially if you’re not admitting to reaching it.’

  I took a swig of the wine. It tasted off to me. But perhaps that was what expensive plonk was supposed to taste like. If you’ve been hanging around for a hundred years or so, I guess you’re entitled to be a bit ripe.

  ‘I hate getting old,’ Amelia said abruptly. ‘I thought I wouldn’t. At least, I mean ... I thought it wouldn’t show.’ She examined a lightly tanned arm, twisting it to let the sun play over the skin. ‘Everything seemed to be OK for a long time. Then it all started going wrong: horrid brown age spots and lines and things. It’s not fair the way it happens just at the time when you can’t have babies any more. If you’re not pretty and you can’t give him children, why shouldn’t a man go looking elsewhere?’

  ‘Same reason you’re supposed to stick to the forsaking-all- others lark when he gets a beer belly and looses all his hair, I guess.’

  I was interested to see that Bone’s contemptuous analysis of her mother’s maternal instincts wasn’t based on pure bitchiness. There had plainly been some truth behind her assertion that Amelia had had children to keep Stephen firmly chained to the marital home. It was a risky strategy, I’d have thought; but no doubt after thirty-odd years, Amelia knew her own man best.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, though, does it?’ she pouted. ‘We girls are brought up to stand by our man. But men ... well, nature wants them to put it about, doesn’t it? Scatter a bit of seed around ... keep the human race going. That’s how Charlotte got her man.’

  ‘Char ... oh, the California girl.’

  ‘Stepmother of those three ghastly lumps of overweight flesh. She went out to LA as a mother’s help ... and helped herself to the husband. I blame his first wife. The silly cow should have taken one look at Char and put her straight back on the plane. I’d never have let a package of raging sex hormones into my spare bedroom. No way. Have you met Stephen’s secretary - Ms Suzie Ayres?’

  ‘At the office.’

  ‘I chose her. She’s just so perfect. In love with Stephen but without a ghost of a chance of ever attracting him. She keeps all the other hot little bitches well away.’ She took a large gulp of wine, sending nearly half the contents of the glass down in one smooth movement. ‘I don’t blame the girls ... I wouldn’t want to be married to a man who was totally unfanciable. But that doesn’t mean I’d let him go ... ever.’

  ‘Fine. Is he working in the study today? Only I noticed the car as I came in and I wouldn’t want to disturb him ...’

  ‘He’s not here. He’s taken Patrick up to see some dinosaur exhibition in London. They went on the train. It’s a big treat for Patrick; trains, I mean. We never use them normally, they just seem full of the strangest people.’ Draining her glass, she toasted me with the empty tumbler. ‘Cheers.’

  I sent down another few inches of my own drink. Once this posh plonk got past the taste buds, it wasn’t too bad at all. I was beginning to experience a not unpleasant sensation that the top of my head was floating a few centimetres above the rest of my brain.

  ‘They’re staying with Patrick’s godparents for a couple of days. So I’m afraid the skirt was a waste of time, sweetie.’

  ‘Skirt?’ I looked down at the grey material and back at Amelia, surprising a slight smirk beneath the half-closed lids. Then the delayed message negotiated the alcohol-bathed nerve paths to my brain. She thought I’d come up here to flash my thighs at her hubby.

  ‘Listen, Mrs Bridgeman ... I’m not after your husband, honest ... I’ve got enough problems with ...’ With someone else’s husband, if I was being strictly accurate here. ‘With my own love life,’ I finished lamely.

  ‘Oh, it’s OK. I realise you two may have had a quick tumble, but I’m just letting you know it’s hands-off time now.’

  ‘A tumble ... Look, I don’t know who told you that ...’

  ‘I saw you. On party night. Coming out of the wine cellar. The least you could have done was button up the blouse properly.’

  Fragment
s of memory came back: the damp towels in her bathroom; the tangled sweatsuit I’d had to retrieve from the carpet; the bottle of champagne.

  ‘You came downstairs ...’

  ‘I wondered why Stephen was taking so long with my jewellery. I just slipped down to find out. And there you were, and nicely rumpled after a bunk-up with my husband.’

  And, I remembered, I’d told her I was involved with a married man with kids, who was having to play happy families with his wife over the half-term.

  Amelia laughed and stretched, arching her back and extending her arms to full length above her head. ‘I think he saw he’d got the best deal at home by the time you made your next entrance, don’t you?’

  Of course he would have ... If there had been a contest, Amelia would have won it by a mile ... especially after she’d kept me in that steam-filled bathroom, dropped an oil slick of moisturiser all over me and clamped me firmly to her two- thousand-quid dress and six-thousand-dollar face-lift as she swept out on that terrace. And to think I thought she was being chummy!

  ‘Look, Mrs Bridgeman, Amelia, I wasn’t doing anything with your husband except being debriefed ... Oh hell ... I mean ...’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter now ... forget it ... I’ll go and see how the coffee’s doing. Ciao for a sec.’

  I wanted to charge after her and put her straight, but it didn’t seem worth the effort somehow. Pushing my chair back, I tried to recross my ankles on the balustrade again. This time they wouldn’t meet.

  ‘Oh, to hell with it ...’ I dragged the invoice I’d intended to give to Stephen from my pocket. Maybe I’d just leave it with Amelia. She’d probably steam it open as soon as I’d gone ... but that wasn’t my problem, was it? I was sick of the lot of them. Come to think of it, I couldn’t be bothered with anything much at present. Crossing my arms on the table, I pillowed my head on them.

  A bird sang noisily in my ear. The twittering trills were getting on my nerves. Wearily I picked up a tiny pebble from the patio, looked round for the blasted feathered pest and flicked the stone.

  It went in completely the wrong direction and pinged against the French windows.

  ‘Darn ...’I flexed my shoulders and shook my head, trying to clear it. The wine had gone straight to my empty stomach, decided it didn’t like the view and made for my head instead. I needed something to concentrate on.

  Taking the folded list of flight details from my other pocket, I made myself read each word slowly and carefully.

  I got to the end of the first line. Part of my mind told me there was something wrong. The other part refused to have anything to do with the idea. It just wanted to go to sleep and it wished its other side would kindly belt up, switch off and give it a break.

  ‘It doesn’t work ... isn’t that a bummer? I’ll have to send it back to LA, I guess ...’ Amelia dumped a contraption of chrome and smoked glass on the table with a thump. The reverberations went straight through the metal table and rattled my teeth.

  I got a grip on them by clamping my jaw tight. Taking a few deep breaths, I forced my tongue to form the words: ‘Amelia ... the night before you flew to California ... the thirtieth ... you stayed over at the Heathrow Sheridan, right?’

  ‘Sure. I always do if I’ve got an early flight.’ She peered at the coffee machine’s plug, waggling it in front of her nose.

  ‘But according to this printout, your flight left at 23.04 that day.’

  ‘Oh, that was the second one, sweetie. I had to cancel the first. Would you believe, I got all the way to the airport and discovered I’d forgotten my passport. I told you I was a real bubblehead.’

  ‘What did you do? About the passport?’

  ‘Do? Well, I came home to get it, of course.’

  ‘On the Friday.’

  ‘Well, natch, as Bone would say.’

  ‘Was anyone here?’

  ‘That girl was. The dark-haired one ... I think she used to work at Wexton’s. She was in the bath ... my bath, I mean. She’d even used my oils and bubbles.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Do?’ She flicked back the frothy curls and widened those big blue eyes in surprise. ‘Well, I killed her, of course.’

  CHAPTER 38

  It was a joke, right? You don’t just come straight out and announce you’re a murderer. Not unless you’re a total psycho. And Amelia might be an airhead but I didn’t think she was clinically insane.

  Just to check, I asked if she was crazy. At least that was what I meant to say. It came out as: ‘Yoooo ... craze ... craz ... mad?’

  My jaw seemed to be unaccountably slack. The tongue wouldn’t go where I wanted it to; it was flapping around behind my teeth like an unanchored guy-rope. I let it lie down. It seemed like a good idea; so I decided to join it.

  Amelia was still chattering. She was more irritating than that damn blackbird.

  ‘It was finding her in our bathroom that was just so unbelievable. I designed those rooms. All the carpets and fittings, everything. It was our private place; mine and Stephen’s. How could he do that to me?’

  ‘Ummmm ...’ My head felt much better now I was holding on to it.

  ‘Do you know what got me mad? Her feet. Can you believe that? She was slumped right down in the bubbles with a foot up on the edge. Most people have ugly feet, have you noticed? It’s one of the first things I look at on the beach.’

  ‘Mmmmmm ...’I decided I’d be much comfier if I just pillowed down on my arms.

  Amelia was still rambling. ‘You can’t fix feet. You can have most bits tucked or smoothed or nipped, but you’re stuck with feet. Feet get old with you. They get bunions and corns and arthritic knobs. And she was young, with silky flesh, with no lumps or brown spots or skin tags. I just grabbed one of the jars of bath oil and hit her. She didn’t see me. She didn’t even know I was there. Her eyes were closed and I suppose the headphones stopped her hearing. Then I got hold of her feet and I pulled them. She went right down under the water. She didn’t kick or struggle or anything ... just whoooosh ...’

  Her hand swooped over the table top like a submarine diving. It passed my nose and rose again out of sight. I tried to turn my head and follow its trajectory but couldn’t make it. My eyelids were tired so I closed them again.

  ‘It’s much easier to kill someone than I’d imagined. I supposed I’d always thought it would be terrifically physical, you know? I didn’t even realise she was dead for well... ages, it felt like.’

  A hangover had never had this effect on me before. With difficulty I made my mouth form the words: ‘Dope, what is it?’

  ‘Dope? Oh, you mean those fabulous capsules. I got them in California too. Those American doctors are fantastic. You can get pretty much whatever you want. They had these incredible sleeping tablets, I just had to bring some back. Sleep is so important, you know. Stops black circles under the eyes.’

  Sleeping tablets were a relief. I’d been half afraid she’d slipped something more lethal into the wine.

  ‘The bottle said two, but I emptied six into your glass.’

  So I’d had a triple dose mixed with alcohol, and all on an empty stomach. A lot of it was probably in my blood stream already, but I forced two fingers down my throat and heaved up a mouthful on the terrace.

  I’d hoped the vomiting action might wake me up a fraction, but it didn’t seem to have much effect as I levered myself to my feet. I was braced, ready for Amelia’s attempt to wrestle me back to my seat. But she didn’t even try.

  I caught fractional glimpses of her shadow on the lawn as I wove my way down the stone steps and across the grass. I think I had a vague idea it was better to stay in the fresh air rather than go back through the French windows. I intended to go round the side of the house, back down the front drive and out on to the main road where with any luck a passing motorist would pick me up.

  Only the house wasn’t where I’d left it. If only the damn lawn would keep still it would have helped. But it kept rocking like an unstabilised ship
in a force-ten gale. One minute the barn side of the garden was way up above my head and the next it had plunged down and the opposite row of rhododendron bushes was waving around in the sky.

  Finally I took the sensible option and lay down again. The grass and damp earth felt deliciously cool against my cheek.

  I figured I must have gone to heaven. Which was odd considering my track record. Perhaps they’d lowered the entrance requirements. But how else could I have ended up in a room with wall-to-wall booze?

  From my current position - flat on the floor -I let my eyes wander upwards over those ranks of bottle bottoms peeking from the racks. Did I have to pick one or was this my own private little store for eternity?

  I sat up. At least I tried to, but there was something wrong with my legs. Levering myself on to my elbows, I discovered the problem. Several yards of heavy, rusting chain had been wrapped round my legs from knee to ankle and secured with a massive padlock at the back of my heels.

  I tried twisting and using the hasp of the lock against the links to see if I could lever them apart. It was no use. The rust was only surface deep; underneath, the chain was solid, the metal strong enough to restrain an ox. Maybe that was what it had originally been intended for; I’d seen similar ones in local farm museums.

  On bottom and elbows I wriggled the length of the room. She’d dumped me in her husband’s wine cellar. From my memory of the house layout, that meant I was under the kitchen.

  With a bit of pushing and wriggling up the far wall, I got to the door handle. It was a lever style - recessed into the heavy metal - and it refused to budge despite leaning my entire weight on it.

  My best hope seemed to be the small cupboard where Stephen kept his wine buff’s paraphernalia.

  There were several sets of tools in the cupboard; stored in leather boxes lined with green or red velvet, each implement sitting in a hole tailored to fit its unique shape. Some of the cases even had Stephen’s initials embossed in gold leaf. It looked like this was the present for the man who had everything. Including - unfortunately - a homicidal wife.