Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  I considered the factor of inherited genetic tendencies as I negotiated my way around that lock. The female line in this family seemed to have the possessive instincts of pit bulls. Once they got a hold on their men, they never let go. I considered the evidence for this phenomenon: there was Bone with her emphatic ‘I want’ when it came to Tom Skerries; California Charlotte who’d seen off the mother of those lardish lumps to grab her man; Joan Reiss who’d marched another girl’s fiance down the aisle; and finally Amelia, who’d gone through four pregnancies to produce children she didn’t want in order to keep Stephen committed to her. And who was now menopausal and saw any younger woman as a potential threat.

  It wasn’t a pleasant thought for a female under thirty who was currently trapped in Amelia’s basement with a lock she couldn’t — damn - well - pick

  Exasperated, I used the floor as a grinding stone to try to file down a foil cutter. The blade was too wide and I couldn’t get a turn on it once I’d inserted it into the keyhole.

  My head was throbbing and my mouth was so dry the tongue was sticking to the roof. I desperately needed a drink but I couldn’t risk the wine; it would just dehydrate me further. My fingers were cramping with the effort of pressing and holding those tiny instruments. As a break, I bumped and dragged along the narrow space between the racks just to check whether there was any non-alcoholic drink stored down here.

  There wasn’t. I began to know how Midas must have felt when everything he tried to swallow turned to gold.

  Occasionally the metal probe skidded and jabbed a finger. I discovered that sucking the wound helped to get the saliva flowing. Maybe Amelia had left my hands free in the hope I’d get totally pie-eyed and she could pass my death off as alcoholic poisoning.

  My watch said it was nearly six. I’d arrived about midday, so I guessed I’d been unconscious for approximately five and a half hours. My bladder was bursting. I desperately needed a pee.

  The crack of the opening door lock caught me by surprise. I didn’t have time to thrust my assorted lock-picks back into the cupboard.

  ‘Oh, you’ve ruined Stephen’s tools. He’ll be so upset, he’s just the most perfectionist pest when it comes to this cellar.’

  The jeans and slip top had gone; replaced by a knee-length T-shirt with a picture of Snoopy on the front. She had a tousled, fresh-woken look about her which was further enforced by a large yawn and arm stretch which allowed me to observe she wasn’t a natural blonde. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning?’ I readjusted my internal clock. It wasn’t Friday evening; it was nearly six on Saturday. I’d been out for almost eighteen hours. No wonder my bladder was in trouble.

  ‘Look,’ I said firmly, ‘if I don’t get to a loo in the next couple of seconds then Stephen’s going to have a lot of clearing-up to do in here. I presume he’s equally fussy about piddle all over his precious cellar?’

  ‘Oh no, don’t. It will smell. Wait... hang on just a moment

  I’d been hoping she’d unchain me. I’d been wriggling my feet as I worked to keep the circulation going and I figured my best shot would be to use one of the bottles as a cosh as soon as she’d unlocked the padlock, and then try to get to the door. If I could get it slammed and shut her in, I’d be able to make the cellar steps, even if it meant crawling up them.

  Instead she darted out and came back a moment later with a bucket.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding. How am I supposed to sit on that?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to manage. I’ll wait outside.’

  I was strongly tempted to leak all over the floor just to ruin her day. But pride made me wedge the pail in between one of the racks and the cupboard and then do the same to my bottom.

  When Amelia returned, she was carrying a hockey stick. ‘If you get right back against the wall, I’ll empty it.’ She raised the stick over one shoulder and advanced cautiously as I squirmed away. My home-made lock-picks were removed along with the bucket.

  The chain weighed a ton. It was like doing a work-out with weights - and I hadn’t done too many of those recently. The strain was already making me pant. Coupled with the after--effects of the alcohol and drugs, I started to have difficulty breathing.

  I spat with what little spittle I had left, ignoring Amelia’s pained moue. ‘I need something to drink. And eat.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Silly me, I wasn’t thinking. Hang on there.’

  I had a choice?

  She was gone fifteen minutes or so this time. Returning with the emptied bucket - which now exuded a smell of disinfectant - and a carrier bag.

  I’d slipped a wine bottle out of the racks and put it down by the cupboard, where it was in easy reach, whilst she was gone. If persuasion failed, I was aiming to sling it at her head and hope I scored a knock-out.

  The reappearance of that bucket didn’t fill me with hope. She was plainly planning to keep me here for ... how long?

  ‘I don’t know,’ Amelia admitted when I put the question. ‘I just don’t know. I can’t think. It all just went round and round my head last night and I didn’t get a wink of sleep.’

  ‘You should have taken a sleeping tablet.’

  She missed the sarcasm and agreed it might have been best. ‘But I didn’t think to save any. I slipped them all in your drink. Maybe Charlotte can send some over from the States. Do you think that would be allowed? Or would Customs get really dreary about that sort of thing?’

  I didn’t know and frankly I didn’t care. ‘Look, I’m gagging here. Did you bring anything to drink?’

  ‘Oh, sure. Silly me, I’m just chattering on here and you’ve not had your breakfast. Here.’

  She flipped the carrier by its handles along the floor. There were a couple of small bottles of mineral water inside, plus some cereal bars and an apple.

  Amelia stayed at the entrance with the door partially open behind her whilst I gulped down a whole bottle of liquid.

  ‘Thanks.’ Wiping off my mouth with the back of my hand, I leant back, tried to look relaxed and asked her what now.

  ‘I told you ... I don’t know. I didn’t have time to plan what to do with you. I mean, I knew I had to do something when I saw you looking at the car. There weren’t any marks or blood on it. I remembered to check for those. But you found something didn’t you? I saw you.’

  ‘It was you, not Stephen, who hit Figgy?’

  If she was still on the cellar steps when the two of us emerged looking like we’d had a quick tumble in the wine store, it stood to reason she must have overheard me telling Stephen about Figgy’s supposed knowledge of Kristen’s disappearance.

  ‘Why should Stephen want to run that boy over?’ Amelia thrust her hair off her face and gave a cute frown.

  ‘No reason at all now. I’d just assumed ... it was his car. And I saw him leave the party early. When you were having a sulk in your bedroom.’

  ‘Oh, that. Well, I had to find a reason to get out of that wretched party after what I heard you say to Stephen about the skater. I just climbed out of the bedroom window and down the creeper while Marina was being beastly to me through the door. Stephen went for a walk. He usually does when he’s really wound up.’

  I’d been unwrapping one of the bars. Now I looked up sharply. ‘You engineered that row with Patrick to get away.’ The image of the poor kid’s devastated face re-formed in my memory.

  ‘No I didn’t. I was going to pretend to have a migraine until I saw that terrible picture. It was a really bitchy thing to do, making it look like I was old enough to be a grandmother to those gross children. Bone can be the limit at times. It’s because her father spoils her. Well, he spoils all of them. I knew, the first time I saw him take Charlotte in his arms, that I’d found a way to keep him. That’s why I can’t go to prison. Do you see? He’d be here, with the children, and before you know it some other hot little bitch would have moved in.’

  ‘Mrs. Bridgeman, Amelia, your husband isn’t having an affair with me ... and he wasn’t having one w
ith Kristen, whose real name; incidentally, was Julie-Frances.’

  ‘He was going away with her. There were two air tickets in her bag.’

  ‘It was a business trip. And he’d already decided not to go. He was ripping off some designs Wexton’s had done for a customer. They were selling them abroad. She blackmailed him into taking her on as a partner.’

  ‘Honestly? Blackmailed?’ Amelia’s face lit up. ‘Well, that’s just wonderful news. I knew she wasn’t his type really.’

  ‘And neither am I. So how about untying me?’

  ‘You know I can’t do that.’

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘I don’t know ... I wish you’d stop going on at me about that. You’re giving me the most dreadful headache.’

  Tough. I suggested again she might like to let me go. ‘Figgy’s on the mend and it doesn’t sound to me like you meant to kill Kristen, or rather Julie-Frances.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t. At least I don’t think I did.’ She wrinkled her forehead and put her forefinger to her mouth. ‘It’s hard to remember exactly how you were feeling about something after the moment’s gone, isn’t it? I just know I was full of this explosive rage ... and I wanted to hit her, and smash her face in ... and push her under that water and ...’ The frosted talons opened and closed, squeezing thin air.

  ‘I get the picture. But you didn’t intend her to die?’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ She relaxed again. ‘No. I suppose not. I told you ... it was such a shock when I found out how easily people die. I pulled her head up out of the water by the hair. I hate the feel of wet hair ... it’s so slimy.’

  I eased my fingers towards the wine bottle.

  ‘I did think about giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation ... See,’ she widened her eyes pleadingly, ‘I’m not completely heartless. I was going to try and help her. But I couldn’t. She was all wet and slippery and I couldn’t get her out of the bath. She kept sliding back. In the end I let the bathwater out and then I could see her all over ... it wasn’t just her feet that were beautiful ... and I thought about Stephen ... and what he’d been doing to that body and ...’

  ‘... and you thought sod it, let her stay dead.’

  ‘Yes. I did.’ Her mouth hardened. ‘I wrapped some towels round her in the end and pulled her out. And then I couldn’t think what to do with her. It’s not like all those ridiculous films and television programmes. You can’t bury a body under the patio, can you? I mean, all that levering stones up and cementing them down. It would take forever.’

  ‘Course it would.’ I laughed weakly. Under the patio. Stupid idea. What idiot would come up with that one?

  ‘There just isn’t anywhere around here to hide a body, you know.’

  It wasn’t something I’d ever considered before, but I guess she was right. We had no moorland or wide-open grasslands. It was all farmers’ fields within sight of roads. Even the accessible coastland was built up with bungalows, beach promenades and shallow tidal flats that would sweep any embarrassing cadavers straight up amongst the pedalos at the first incoming tide. North Bay had a few cliffs and rocky drops, but they were overlooked by small parking bays at what the council fondly imagined were photographic viewpoints. It might have been feasible in the dark with a high tide running, but in broad daylight getting rid of your inconvenient corpse could rapidly turn into a spectator sport.

  ‘I did think about the garden, perhaps. But he said it would be a really cretinous thing to do,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Who did?’

  Amelia gave me that stupid-little-me look again. ‘Oh, sorry, didn’t I say? The man turned up to mend the patio. On that morning of all things. I honestly don’t know which of us was more amazed. There I am, dragging this stark-naked body over the dining-room floor, and I turn round and there he is. Standing on the patio watching me through the French windows.’ She gave another one of those girlish giggles. ‘I’ll never forget his face.’

  ‘I thought Larry Payne fixed the patio the following week.’

  ‘Oh, I expect he did. It was in a dreadful state. All wonky and water pooling everywhere. Stephen was really cross with me for using a cowboy. But he was very hunky ... and funny. He really thought he was God’s gift ... he even tried it on with me.’

  The light broke in a ten-thousand-watt burst of illumination. ‘Tom Skerries. You hired Bone’s boyfriend.’

  ‘Bone’s ... Heavens, don’t tell me she’s reached the bit-of- rough stage already. She said he’d done some work up at the school. She had one of his leaflets, so I gave him a ring. It looked all right at first ... the patio, I mean ... then it started sinking after the first deluge and Stephen stopped our cheque. He made me phone and tell Tom to come back and make good.’

  ‘And he went and turned up right in the middle of your mur ... accidental killing. You can’t get the help these days, can you?’

  ‘Actually ... he was very helpful. I don’t know what I’d have done without him. It was him that stopped me leaving her here. Otherwise I’d probably have done something really stupid like digging a hole amongst the bushes. As if the gardener wouldn’t have noticed a six-foot trench.’

  ‘You discussed that, did you?’

  ‘Of course. Over coffee.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Well, OK, so we both had a little brandy in it as well. But don’t give me a bad time about drinking and driving, OK? We’d both had a shock, we needed something.’

  I was having trouble getting my head round this scenario. What had they done with the body during this drinks party?

  ‘I left her behind the sofa. In case anyone else wandered round the back and looked in, you know?’

  ‘And this didn’t bother Tom at all?’

  ‘Oh no. We sat in the kitchen.’

  ‘Of course you did. Stupid of me.’

  This was beginning to sound surreal. Perhaps I hadn’t come round from the effects of the drugs yet?

  ‘I explained about her and Stephen, and Tom was incredibly sweet ... he said he quite understood and he’d give me a hand to clear up the mess if I liked. Well, that’s when we discussed where to put the body. Tom said it would be best to take her a long way away from Seatoun. He said that would confuse the police if she was found. And of course I said I couldn’t because I had to catch a flight to LA today. I had an appointment ...’

  ‘Your face-lift?’

  ‘Cosmetic restructuring.’

  ‘Whatever. I take it Tom offered to do the corpse run?’

  ‘Yes. He was such a sweetie. We put her in the back of his van with all her luggage and clothes.’

  ‘Was there a CD disc amongst them, by any chance?’

  ‘Several. She had one of those personal CD players on in the bath. Didn’t I tell you that? I just bundled up everything I didn’t recognise in the bedroom and bathroom. I mean, I was in an incredible rush, wasn’t I? I had to catch that flight because the surgeon I’d booked with ... well, he’s just the best ever according to Charlotte ... he’s done all the film stars ... and if you miss your slot ...’

  ‘Yeah, OK. I get the picture. You couldn’t have a little thing like a dead body come between you and a stretch-and- stitch job.’

  ‘There’s no need to sneer. You’ll get old one day.’

  Was that a promise? I could only hope so. I asked her what happened after she and Tom had loaded up his van.

  ‘We went to the post office.’

  ‘You mailed her somewhere?’

  ‘Of course not. As if we’d be that stupid. Tom’s tax disc had run out and I thought it would be just the most incredible bad luck if he got pulled over and the police looked in the back. So I insisted he went and bought a new one before we left. And of course he didn’t want to leave the van parked with a body in the back; he said it would be an effing rotten break if somebody stole it. And I wasn’t going to leave her here in case Stephen came back. I certainly didn’t want her messing up my car. In the
end, I left my car outside the supermarket car-park and sat in the van while he went into the post office. That’s where the skater was performing in the square ...’

  ‘Did you think he’d recognised you?’

  ‘No. Why should he? I didn’t know him.’

  ‘Fergal Payne. Marina’s son?’

  ‘Fergal!’ The wide-eyed frightened-fawn look returned. ‘It can’t be. He had dark glasses and long hair and ... oh heavens, she’ll be so mad with me if she finds out. But I had to ... don’t you see ... he was jumping near the back windows of the van, and I know we’d covered the body, but I thought…’

  ‘He never saw a thing. What Figgy knew was unconnected to anyone in this house.’

  ‘Oh dear. What a mess. Are you sure he’s going to be all right?’

  ‘Fine. Reconciled with parents. Engaged to lovely girl. Daddyhood on the horizon. Don’t worry about him. I doubt they’ll even press charges. So how about letting me out of here and we’ll think of some way to fix the other mess.’

  Amelia shook her head, flicking the blonde tumble over her face. She licked her lips, picking away strands of hair that had stuck to her mouth. ‘You know I can’t. I’ve told you about the killing. And hiding the body.’

  ‘But I can’t prove anything, can I?’

  ‘Can’t you?’ She thrust the mane off her face; hope sparkled in her eyes.

  I pressed home the idea. ‘Think about it. No body. No evidence of a crime. Even Tom Skerries seems to have evaporated into thin air.’

  ‘He’s gone abroad. At least that’s what he said he wanted the money for. To put into a bar his friend had started somewhere.’

  Well, that explained Skerries’ motivation.

  ‘How much did you give him?’

  ‘He asked for ten thousand pounds. Well, of course that was just ridiculous. I don’t have that sort of money.’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘It’s true. I have assets, of course. Unit trusts, investment funds, that sort of thing. But who keeps that sort of money in a current account?’