Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

‘Oi, bunny, these rotten eggs ain’t got anything in them.’

  ‘So what do you expect for nothing? Liqueur truffles?’

  I’d no idea what the eggs were made from, but it was the only chocolate I’d ever come across that didn’t melt when warm and could split fillings when you bit into it. One advantage of the costume was you hardly felt the partially eaten confectionery bouncing off. The worst thing was that the plan had been a failure in terms of generating business. I’d rung the office several times a day and there hadn’t been a single enquiry for me.

  ‘What’s the costume made from?’

  I checked the speaker out. He was thin to the point of gangling. Late thirties, with dark hair flopping in his eyes, and dressed in trousers, shirt and jacket that looked like they’d been professionally steam-pressed ten seconds ago. There were no obvious pointers to animal rights activist, but just in case I said, ‘Not real rabbit skins.’

  He ran his fingers down the arm. ‘Polyester fur fabric. It’s not the same as genuine fur. You can’t beat the real thing for sheer yumminess, can you?’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

  ‘Oh, take my word for it. Can I have an egg?’

  I was only supposed to give them out to kids. But I guess word had got round about the lardy bullets; anyone under twelve had started backing away when they saw the rabbit coming. ‘Go on then. Have two.’

  He helped himself and then took something small and furry from his pocket. ‘I’d like you to have this. It’s a change purse, with a little clip so you can attach it to your belt. See?’ He demonstrated. ‘I make them myself. For bazaars and craft fairs.’

  I told him it wasn’t necessary. He insisted, his whole hand stroking from shoulder to wrist. ‘Of course, sometimes fur fabric can be nearly as scrummy as the real thing. I have wallpaper in this fabric with a matching bedspread. It’s striped; black and white, a zebra pattern. It feels incredible against bare skin. Are you wearing that costume over bare skin?’

  I did a fast sideways step. ‘Piss off.’

  I had to keep making trips back to the Tourist Office to refill my basket. I didn’t dare let the level drop too far because I’d got the leaflets hidden at the bottom and I had a hunch Ms Terris wouldn’t approve of my private enterprise. I was rearranging my latest mound of pink, aquamarine and silver eggs outside the office, when someone started whacking my bunny butt. Pivoting on the ski-feet, I found Fur-Fetish, lamming into me with a rolled newspaper.

  ‘Your scut’s on fire.’

  ‘No it’s not. And if it was, it sure as hell wouldn’t be getting hot for you. Get lost you pervert!’ I swung the basket two-handed and caught him on the side of the head. The force sent a shower of eggs and leaflets soaring in all directions.

  ‘No! No! I wasn’t trying to … your tail was on fire.’

  I looked beyond him to where that bunch of teenagers were hanging around. One flicked the disposable lighter concealed in his hand. At the same time the distinct smell of scorching reached my nose. ‘Look guys, it’s the hot-cross-bunny!’

  It wasn’t worth even trying to go after them in this costume. Anyway a more pressing problem had arrived. Ms Terris was homing in on me. I tried to manoeuvre the feet over the leaflets.

  ‘Grace, what’s going on?’

  Fur-Fetish explained. ‘Her costume caught alight. Is that material fire-retardant? It should be you know.’

  Ms Terris admitted she didn’t know. They’d hired the costume. ‘But I shall certainly bring it to the attention of the hire company. Thank you for your concern, sir. Please accept this free pass entitling you to half price on many of our local attractions. Shall we head for the beach, Grace?’

  Good plan. Anything to get her away from the shoal of bright yellow leaflets swirling around our ankles. It didn’t occur to me to ask why she wanted to come down here until we were on the promenade and she was touching up my face paint. ‘There! We want you to look like a really happy happy bunny in the photos.’

  ‘What photos?’

  ‘Publicity pictures. You’ll be in our next brochure.’

  Immortalised forever as the idiot in the fur ears? Somebody beam me out of here, I prayed silently.

  ‘We’re negotiating to get Clemency Courtney to write a piece in it. Won’t that be just fabulous?’

  Plainly it was someone I was supposed to have heard of. I hadn’t.

  The weather wasn’t warm enough yet for sunbathing in swimsuits, but there was a fair sprinkling of T-shirts and bare legs out there on the sands. There were even a few swimmers dashing across the wet flats to reach the retreating tide. It was a perfect spring day, unless you were stuck inside a fur-fabric suit on a wide open promenade with no shade. I’d already sweated off pounds this week and, by the time the damn photographer turned up, the rabbit make-up was melting and sliding into the pink neck bow.

  It was payday. I wasn’t bottling out now. I posed and smiled and handed out eggs to sand-covered kids until Ms Terris decided they had enough shots. And then they left me there.

  The promenade fronted the beach. It was separated from the row of amusement arcades, gift shops, cafés and novelty rock kiosks, by one of the widest and busiest roads in Seatoun. I pressed the crossing button and set off at a fast shuffle. I’d only got halfway across when the lights changed back to green.

  The first cars shot past behind me. Then a motorbike whizzed between me and the kerb. An open-topped tourist bus pumped its horn, and kept on pumping.

  ‘Didn’t you do biology? When d’you last see a rabbit with wings?’ I bawled at the driver.

  Three more bikes wove around me. The bastards were trying to turn me into road-kill. I shuffled faster. The edge of the paws made the pavement. And came up against a big, fat, immoveable obstacle. ‘You’re causing an obstruction in the road.’

  ‘Well shift out of the way, Terry, and I’ll get off it.’

  PC Terry Rosco moved his immaculately polished shoes. But not too far. I ended up with the rabbit feet at the ten to two position and Terry standing in the ‘V’. A perfect position to stare into the smug just-running-to-fleshy chops. Apart from a brief period when he’d been homeless and trying to squat in my spare room, Rosco was a long time entry in my ‘natural enemies’ category.

  He looked me up and down. ‘Given up trying to be a detective have you? Never thought you could hack it.’

  ‘I’m working undercover,’ I lied.

  ‘Yeah, right. Great disguise, Smithie. What you doing? Infiltrating a gang of giant killer bunnies stalking the town?’

  My butt was still hanging over the kerb and, despite the enclosing costume, I swear I could feel the draught as vehicles whisked past millimetres from my powder-puff tail. I closed in to try and push past. And something hit me in the small of the back.

  Because of the feet the bottom half of me stayed in place, but the upper half shot forward. My forehead made hard and painful contact with something. When I straightened up again, blood was fountaining from Terry’s nose.

  *

  I was the first rabbit ever to be arrested in Seatoun for causing Grievous Bodily Harm. I knew from my own time in the police that there was no point in trying to explain to the custody sergeant it was all a big mistake.

  ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to process you here,’ he informed me. ‘Could be a case for the Burrow Commander.’

  ‘Don’t give up the day job.’

  With a wide grin he beckoned to the constable assisting in custody. ‘Put Ms Bunny in cell one.’

  ‘The lav in cell one is a bit dodgy, sarge.’

  ‘Okay, use cell five instead. Let’s not split hares.’

  I didn’t bother with my phone call. I knew they’d bail me soon. An hour and a half later to be exact. After every officer in the station had come to have a good laugh through the door hatch and I’d been offered refreshment: three raw carrots.

  The sergeant returned my egg basket and sash. I waited to be told I was being released on police
bail. Instead he said, ‘You’re being released without charge.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘A witness came into the station. Says you were thrust into Constable Rosco by a section of wood being carried lengthwise across a bike.’

  ‘And Rosco didn’t see that?’

  ‘Obviously not. Now don’t push your luck, Grace. Just hop off.’

  Ever since I’d been ‘invited’ to leave the police a few years back, a lot of my former colleagues tended to treat me like a nasty smell. I hopped.

  The station was at the northern end of Seatoun, on the hill as the land rose to North Bay. The drop to the sea in front of it was bounded by a thick grey concrete wall. Beyond it the ocean surged in lazy swells, golden lights glinting from its dove grey undulations. The bright splash of scarlet fabric was like blood in the sunlight.

  Holding a wing of hair from her face as the wind caught and tugged at it, she crossed the road to join me. ‘I thought perhaps they didn’t believe me. I’ve been waiting for over forty minutes.’

  ‘At least you waited this time. You’ve been kind of shy the past couple of days.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do this.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Hire a private investigator.’

  Chapter Two

  Her name was Della Black. She lived in Seatoun, she’d been a widow for twenty-one years and had a man-friend who kept going back to his wife. She had one son and three part-time jobs (from preference) rather than one full-time one.

  She told me anything and everything rather than get to the reason why she needed to hire an investigator. After I’d turned in the bunny costume and collected my cheque from Ms Terris, I’d intended to head back to the office so that I could take down details of the job. Della had reacted as if I’d suggested browsing the local sewage farm.

  ‘No chance! They might see me going in.’

  I assured her the premises were very discreet. They were housed in an ex-boarding house that Vetch had inherited from his grandmother. The only indication they were now the headquarters of Vetch (International) Investigations Inc. was a small brass plate that was virtually unreadable unless you were standing on the front step. But Della was having none of it. So we’d ended up at Pepi’s, my favourite greasy spoon café and stand-in office facility.

  Surprisingly, however, it was at her suggestion rather than mine. It was a chips-with-everything kind of menu, served amongst formica décor that was chic forty-odd years ago, and usually to the accompaniment of music that was even older, blasting out from the juke-box.

  ‘One of my jobs is refilling sanitary towel dispensers in ladies’ toilets,’ Della announced, taking a sip of her coffee.

  I tried to look fascinated.

  ‘I refill the one here.’

  ‘I think I’ve used it.’ Should I say something complimentary about her tampon stacking?

  ‘Last time, the owner could see I was upset about something. He asked if it was a problem a private investigator could fix. I’d never have thought of it myself.’

  ‘Shane suggested me?’ I peered through the fug-filled air to where he was flipping bacon on the back-burners. He caught my eye, gave a slight nod towards Della’s back, and gave me the thumbs up sign. ‘You didn’t see one of my leaflets?’

  ‘Leaflet?’ Della looked blank. ‘No. He said you were working undercover surveillance this week. Dressed as the Easter Bunny. I wasn’t sure whether it was all right to talk to you. I’ve not cocked it up for you have I? Getting arrested wasn’t part of the plan was it?’

  ‘No. Getting arrested never figures in my plans, Mrs Black.’

  ‘Call me Della. It’ll sound better if anyone overhears. Like we’re just friends meeting for coffee.’

  ‘Okay. You can call me Grace. Or Smithie if you’d prefer.’

  ‘Grace.’ Her anxious glance swept the café tables again. She’d been doing it ever since she came in, as if she was afraid she’d been followed in here.

  While she studied the other customers, I studied her. I’d pegged her age as mid-fifties. She’d ditched the red anorak to reveal a figure that had thickened at the waist but was generally in good shape. Her face was square with a large mouth and thick eyebrows and she wore her brown hair pulled back so it was easy to spot the re-growth of grey at the roots. She had the kind of looks that scrubbed up well, but were unmemorable if she didn’t make an effort — like now. Perhaps the boyfriend was on one of his forays back to the marital bed.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me how I can help you, Della?’ Reading the indecision, I added quickly, ‘There’s no obligation. If, after we’ve spoken, you decide not to go on with the job, that will be the end of it. What is it? Something odd happening at work?’ I prompted. ‘Obscene phone calls? Is someone threatening you?’

  ‘Not me. It’s Jonathon.’ She rolled her cup between the fingers of her hands, watching the coffee swirling. ‘It’s my son.’

  ‘And someone’s threatened him? Do you know who?’

  ‘No. I’m not sure he knows himself.’ She finally looked me in the face again. ‘The thing is, he’s been getting letters. Anonymous letters. He got one when I was there, at the house. It said, “You deserve to die for what you did”. They do get strange mail sometimes, and he tried to pretend it was just a sick joke. But it wasn’t …’ She raised her eyes and stared into mine. Now she’d decided to talk, her whole attitude became more decisive. ‘It scared him, Grace.’

  ‘You said “letters”. Have you seen more?’

  ‘There was another one, I’m sure of it. I recognised the envelope. It was the same as the first. He didn’t open it while I was there, but I could tell that he knew what it was.’

  ‘But he didn’t have that reaction to the first one you saw? He didn’t act as if he knew what was inside?’ I clarified, when she looked uncertain.

  ‘No. We were just chatting about things, you know? And he was opening his post at the same time. Junk mail mostly.’

  So the chances were that the one Della had seen was the first one he’d received. I asked about the envelopes. ‘Was there something special about them?’

  ‘They’re brown and about …’ She held her palms eight inches apart. ‘The address was typed in block capitals and triple spaced, with big indents at the start of each line.’

  ‘As if it was meant to stand out?’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought about it for a second then nodded again. ‘Yes, exactly like that. Whichever bastard sent them wanted Jon to know who it was from.’

  ‘What about the letter?’

  ‘It was plain white, A4 paper. The kind you get in photocopy machines. And the typing was in block capitals. Really big ones so it jumped from the page at you.’

  And doubtless produced on a computer. Oh for the good old days of typewriters with easily identifiable misaligned keys.

  ‘Do you know what it was referring to? What had he done that deserved death?’ Daft question to ask a mother.

  ‘Nothing,’ Della said instantly. ‘Jonathon is a kind, sensitive boy. He’d never hurt a soul.’

  I asked how old the ‘boy’ was.

  ‘Thirty-one. Do you have kids, Grace?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you’ll understand when you do. I bet you’re still your mum’s little girl.’

  My own family wasn’t a path I wanted to go down and I quickly steered her back to Jonathon’s murderous mail. ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘I saw the first letter about three weeks ago, and the other one a few days later. But it’s still happening, I’d bet my bra on it. He’s drinking too much and he jumps down my throat for the least little thing. I’m worried sick. I need help, Grace.’

  It sounded like I was hired. I opened my notebook. ‘You’d better give me more details. What does Jonathon do?’

  ‘He’s an actor. They both are.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘His wife acts too. Clemency Courtney.’ Like Ms Terris, sh
e said the name as if she expected me to recognise it. ‘Jonathon writes as well. That’s mainly what he does now. Scripts.’

  ‘I take it they live locally?’

  ‘They have a flat in North London near the TV studios. But they bought a house here a year ago, and they’re doing it up. They’re staying there at the moment.’

  I asked if she had spoken to her daughter-in-law about the letters.

  ‘No! And you mustn’t let her know I’m involved. She already thinks I stick my oar in too much. That’s why I wanted to meet here. If I’d gone to your office, it’s sod’s law one of them would spot me going in. Neither of them can know you’re investigating.’

  I pointed out this did leave us with a big problem. ‘If I can’t actually tell Jonathon what I’m doing, I need a reason to get inside your son’s life and start asking questions. Normally I’d try to put myself somewhere I can pal up with the target. Does he belong to a gym? Sports club? Poker school?’

  ‘Not here. In London. A gym. Look, I’ll think of something. Leave it to me. I’ll give you a ring, okay?’

  It wasn’t ideal. It gave her the rest of the weekend to have second thoughts. But I had to settle for it.

  *

  I was half expecting never to hear from her again when I rolled into the office on Monday morning, ready to face another bleak, jobless week, and found my working life had gone from famine to, if not exactly feast, then at least square-meal territory.

  Between them, the email and post churned out five requests from solicitors; two credit agencies wanting references checked out; an old customer whose boyfriend had gone missing (they always did after clearing out her bank account — she never learnt); another old client whose dog had gone walkabout, and a hand-delivered letter from Della Black giving me the key to inserting myself into her son’s life.

  ‘Have you ever heard of an actor called Jonathon Black?’ I asked the receptionist from Hell.

  ‘The one who’s married to Clemency Courtney?’

  ‘That’s him. Is he famous?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Being married to Clemency Courtney. You’ve got to have heard of her!’