Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  This room had floorboards. Half-assembled radiator covers were stacked in the centre of the room, with stepladders and dust sheets jumbled around them. White patches oozed over the plastered walls, indicating where crack-filler had been applied and wiring bound with duct tape emerged from holes like alien creatures. I levered the lid off a tin of Umbrian Gold and poured a shot into the paint tray. ‘Do you do all the decorating for them?’

  ‘Oh yes. Clemency picks all the colours and things because she’s got wonderful taste, and then I do the work. I have my own business. See.’ She extracted a small business card from her dungaree pocket: Bianca Mendez Decorating Services Ltd. ‘Clemency set it up. I do proper estimates and everything if you want any work done. Only I haven’t much time at the moment, because Clemency wants this house finished as soon as possible.’

  ‘Do you charge more for rush jobs?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t charge Clemency. I couldn’t do that. You don’t ask family for money.’

  Personally I knew a lot of people who thought that’s exactly what families were for. But before we could go any further into the subject there was an enormous crash from the hall.

  We arrived at the same time as Clemency walked through the front door. The three of us converged on Jonathon, who was squirming on the floor. He’d obviously fallen off the banister-less staircase. A distance that could have been seriously dangerous, unless you came down totally relaxed. And even above the drifting scents of Umbrian Gold I could detect enough to guess that Jonathon was as relaxed as a newt.

  They supported him on either side as he found his feet. ‘Forgot no banister.’ He focused on Bianca and ripped his arm free from her support. ‘Why can’t you finish one job before you start the next, you stupid bitch.’

  ‘That’s enough, Jon,’ Clemency snapped. ‘It’s not Bianca’s fault you’re pissed.’

  ‘No.’ He lurched away from her too, swaying slightly before he found his own balance. ‘Well she sure fucking contributes, sweetheart.’ He headed for the stairs and started up them on all fours.

  Bianca looked as though she was about to burst into tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Clemency. But the new handrail hasn’t come yet …’

  ‘It’s all right, B.’ Clemency put her own hand over her friend’s and squeezed it. ‘He doesn’t mean it. You know how he gets.’

  ‘Yes. But it wasn’t my fault.’ Bianca sniffed. ‘Opal called. She wants to talk to you. You weren’t at the set.’

  ‘They didn’t need me. I went for a walk.’

  ‘Your mobile was switched off.’

  ‘Was it?’ Clemency ran lightly up the staircase.

  Bianca looked as if she was about to say more about Clemency slipping the leash for a few hours, but in the end she turned back to me, repeating, ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘No argument here. I’ll just use the loo before I head out.’

  I walked upstairs quietly, ran taps until the pipes were siphoning up and then flushed the loo. Hoping the noise of running water would hide my approach, I slipped up the second flight. The door opposite the study was open. I glimpsed the foot of a queen-sized bed, a cream carpet and a wardrobe in dark wood in a design I vaguely recalled was known as Empire. There was also a full-sized free-standing mirror in a similarly styled frame, which meant I could see Clemency even though she was in the section of the room behind the door.

  ‘Is it just the booze or have you taken something as well?’ she asked. Jonathon was out of my sight but I guessed he’d made some kind of gesture that meant he’d sunk a chemical cocktail. ‘You bloody idiot. One of these days you’ll get it wrong and end up as a thirty-second sensation on the evening news. What the hell’s the matter with you?’

  Despite the skinful he plainly had on board, Jonathon’s voice wasn’t slurred. A result of his actor’s training maybe. ‘As if you need to ask.’

  ‘Yes, I do need to ask. There are so many possibilities with you, aren’t there? So many reasons why we should feel sorry for poor little Jon. What’s happened now?’ The hardness in her tone softened. ‘It’s not the letters is it? You haven’t had another one?’

  Well, at least she’d answered one question for me. Clemency knew about the anonymous letters.

  ‘No. It’s not the letters.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m frigging sure. There was no letter. You promised me, Clem. You promised you’d ask if I could sit in on the next story-lining session. I spoke to Opal. Have you any idea what a complete idiot I felt begging to sit in on a meeting my wife hadn’t bothered to mention had already taken place?’

  Clemency was looking down so I guessed Jonathon was sitting by the top of the bed. ‘I did ask Jon. But Opal felt your writing wasn’t the right style for Shoreline. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this.’

  ‘The right style? You mean it’s not a pile of clichéd crap?’

  ‘If you think that, why do you want to write for the show?’

  ‘You know why. Because I need the track record. Being Mr Clemency Courtney isn’t enough. I need a writing CV to get me through these morons’ doors so I can show them some real writing. But my wife, the star of the show, can’t be bothered to use her clout to help her husband. Well sod you, darling.’

  Clemency’s reflection disappeared from the mirror as she appeared to fling herself backwards. It wasn’t until it was replaced by Jonathon’s, his arm up-raised that I realised what had happened. He drew back to deliver another blow. My head frantically processed and rejected possible reasons why the gardener would suddenly burst into their bedroom.

  Clemency’s voice was high with panic. ‘Not the face.’

  Jonathon’s twisted in the beginning of a snarl. And then it collapsed. His arm dropped. ‘I’m sorry, Clemmy. I’m so sorry.’

  He dropped on to the edge of the bed and buried his head in his hands. Clemency sat beside him. The dip in the mattress rocked their bodies together. Jonathon looked up at her. I could see the slick of tears beneath his eyes. He said something that was too low for me to catch.

  ‘I know,’ Clemency replied. ‘I know my love.’ She caught his head between her palms and drew it gently into her chest, burying her lips in his dark hair.

  Backing away as quietly as I could, I turned to slip back down the stairs. And my stomach turned over. The study door was open a fraction and standing silently in the inch wide crack, staring at me, was Bianca.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘You were snooping!’

  Jan and I locked stares. I shifted my eyes first and she took this as an admission I’d been reading over her shoulder. ‘Knew you were.’

  ‘I’m not snooping. I’m carrying out legitimate research into a case.’ I’d glimpsed a picture of Clemency in the magazine open on Jan’s lap. When I’d taken a closer look, I’d discovered all the dozen or so pictures were of Clemency in various locations. Jonathon was in three; Bianca featured in eight, either clamped on to Clemency or lurking in the background; and that damn rabbit was in two, one on a leash being led down a city street and the other perched next to Clemency in the back of a taxi.

  ‘She actually takes the bunny around with her?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s like her trademark. Other celebs have toy dogs, Clemency has her rabbit. See.’ Jan flipped the page. There were more shots of Cappuccino. He seemed to have a busier social life than I did. ‘What’s her house like? She got a swimming pool?’

  ‘If she has, I haven’t found it yet. It’s just an old boarding house, but done up to look classy.’

  ‘I expect her London place is posher.’ Jan crossed her patent ankle boots on the desk. Today the outfit was biker chick meets vampire trash: fishnet tights, leather mini-skirt and jacket and make-up by the Undead Beauty Bar.

  I twitched the magazine from her fingers.

  ‘Oi, I paid for that!’

  ‘Research. I’ll bring it back.’

  I took it up to my office and speed-read the article. There wasn’t much bey
ond what I’d already gleaned from my own snooping and Jan’s briefing. Clemency had grown up in Seatoun. She loved coming home to visit all her friends and relatives, who apparently kept her ‘grounded’. It was brilliant that Shoreline had decided to shoot its location scenes in Seatoun because now she got to come home regularly. There wasn’t a single word about Jonathon. Her choice or the magazine’s?

  I took out the anonymous letter and spread it out over my desk. ‘YOU CANNOT ESCAPE PUNISHMENT. YOU MUST PAY.’

  For what? Why can’t these self-appointed judges at least be specific? I examined the envelope more closely. I was certain the wide layout of the lines was deliberate. There was no chance of mistaking it for a circular or a piece of junk mail. Jonathon was supposed to know what was inside. It was a way of cranking up the torture. The seal was one of those where you peel off the protective strip and press down the self-adhesive flap. The stamp proved to be self-adhesive too. There were always finger-prints of course. Assuming I could work out whose to look for.

  Tucking both paper and envelope into separate plastic bags, I carried them downstairs to the office of our esteemed leader: Vetch the Letch.

  The little gnome beamed from behind his over-large, executive-style, leather-topped desk. ‘Sweet thing. How lovely to see you’ve decided to return to investigative work. Hop over and lettuce talk.’

  I took the chair and ignored the joke. Extending the two bags, I waited for his comments.

  ‘Anonymous letter writer I assume. They’re usually someone who perceives the recipient as a person who has — unfairly of course — collected more from the bank account of life than the writer. More money, a promotion, a sexier partner. The writer transmutes their own failure into some kind of plot by the recipient: they’ve slept with the boss to get the money or the promotion, they’ve slandered the writer to blacken them in sexy partner’s eyes and so on. You’ll notice that the recipient has to pay for doing something. Are there others like that?’

  ‘This is the only one I’ve managed to get my hands on so far. According to my client the others contained threats of physical violence against her son. Who is seriously shaken up by them incidentally.’

  ‘Suggests there’s something to punish then doesn’t it? Delightful as it always is to have your company, was there something specific you wanted to ask?’

  ‘There’s no saliva, so a DNA trace is out. Any other ideas for tracing the writer?’

  Vetch twirled the plastic bag between his fingers, examining both sides of the paper. ‘If we were in a book, at this point some supercilious detective would have deduced the writer’s home town, blood group and shoe size merely by examining the text. As it is, I do know someone who is nearly as smugly know-all on technical matters. He might be able to tell you what make of computer and printer this was produced on.’

  ‘Cheers, Vetch.’

  ‘Consider it done, bun.’

  ‘What?’

  He looked up. ‘I said. Consider it done, hun.’

  ‘Right. Any idea where Jan is?’

  ‘Since I employ her as a receptionist, I tend to assume she’s sitting behind the reception desk.’

  ‘She wasn’t when I came down. I thought maybe you’d given her another Neighbourhood Survey job?’

  ‘Your tone came within a hair’s breadth of bitterness there, sweet thing. You can’t deny that Jan has proved surprisingly adept at sticking her nose into other people’s business. What do you want her for?’

  ‘To stick her nose into other people’s business of course.’

  She was back at her desk when I left Vetch’s office. Her absence was explained by the fresh mug of coffee. The old boarding house kitchen at the back of the premises was still intact and part of Jan’s duties included providing refreshments for potential clients. Only I guess nobody had ever told Jan.

  I asked, ‘Can you do some work for me?’

  ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘Research. Go through all the fan sites and magazines and find out what you can about Jonathon Black. Particularly anything connected to his life in Seatoun.’

  ‘Okay. You had a phone call.’ She swung back to her computer and started surfing.

  I picked up the wastepaper bin. Jan’s filing philosophy was simple: nobody ever accidentally threw away notes that were already in the waste bin. Sometimes it worried me when I started to think it made a weird kind of sense.

  There was a pink post-it note in the bottom: ‘We need to talk. Ring me. O’Hara.’

  Assuming he was still on the mobile number he’d given me that last time he’d dropped into Seatoun to break into my flat, I dialled.

  ‘Hi duchess. Thanks for ringing. Can we meet?’

  ‘Do we need to?’

  ‘We do.’

  For what? If he was just going to spew out a load of excuses to justify brother Declan’s sins, I wasn’t sure I wanted to listen.

  ‘It’s business, duchy. The Walkinshaws.’

  ‘Did you tell them who really killed Leslie Higgins?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Meet me for a drink and I’ll tell you.’

  *

  He picked the wine bar again. Which left me with a dilemma. Did I go for the black suit and heels again so that I could blend with the ‘in’ crowd. Or slob out in my second best outfit of flared jeans with flowery inserts and matching jumper — a charity shop bargain of which I was particularly proud.

  In the end I decided on the jeans. The bar was relatively quiet. It was too early for the beautiful people to come out to play. I picked a table at the back where I could see through the windows on the far side of the room and waited. Five minutes later I was joined by six foot of muscle and raw testosterone.

  Unfortunately it was all packaged inside the fifteen-stone of blubber that was Terry Rosco.

  ‘Dook at this.’ He pointed a stubby finger at his face. Terry could be considered good-looking (in a square-jawed, running to fleshy, type of way). At the moment his appearance was enhanced by a swollen nose, split nostril and pair of black eyes. ‘Dey won’t let me work on the street with this face.’

  ‘I can understand that, Terry. But why’s it taken so long for them to notice?’

  He began scowling but thought better of it. It was plainly in the range of expressions that hurt. ‘I had to sit in the office doing frigging paperwork all day. Dis is your fault, Smithie.’

  ‘Actually, it was the fault of some idiot with a plank strapped dangerously on the back of his bike. Why didn’t you stop him, instead of persecuting an innocent rabbit?’

  ‘I didn’t see him. I was too busy watching you making a prat of yourself.’

  ‘What are you doing in here? I wouldn’t have thought it was your style. They’re not big on fifteen-stone beer bellies as far as I can see.’

  ‘I can’t go to my regular places can I? Not looking like this.’

  ‘Why not? You’re an officer at the rough end of justice. Prepared to sacrifice his vaguely unattractive looks in the course of arresting the bad guys.’ A shifty expression had been creeping over Terry’s bruised features while I laid out the excuses I would have expected him to use. The truth finally hit me. ‘They all know you were KO’d by a big fluffy rabbit, don’t they? Serves you right for nicking me.’

  His interestingly purpled orbs fixed on something over my shoulder. ‘Isn’t that that bloke you were getting it on with?’

  I glanced around. He was half right. O’Hara and I had never actually managed to get it on. There were too many complications and unanswered questions which tended to get in the way of the lust.

  ‘Hi duchy. How you doing?’

  ‘I’m experiencing a bad case of déjà vu.’

  O’Hara could be considered good-looking. At the moment his appearance was enhanced by a swollen nose, split nostril and pair of black eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  Terry spotted a couple of girls in short skirts and perma-tans, perched on bar stools and eyeing up the
table. I was sure they were checking out O’Hara. Fortunately Terry lived under the illusion he was irresistible to anything with tits. Chest out and stomach in, he swaggered across to the bar. O’Hara took his seat.

  ‘Walkinshaw welcomed you with open fists then?’

  ‘Your tone suggests you think I deserved it, duchy.’

  ‘No. I think Declan deserved it. First the family loses a child, and then the father gets put away for a murder he didn’t commit. Your brother really was a total shit.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. But let’s not get into that again. You only know Dec by hearsay. I remember the flesh and blood guy who was there when I was growing up. We ain’t never going to agree on this one, duchy. Can we call a truce?’

  ‘I guess.’ I heard myself sounding truculent and made more of an effort. ‘Okay. Friends. You said this was business?’

  He opened his mouth to speak. And closed it again. The next table had been taken by a crowd of twenty-somethings with shrill voices and a conviction that the rest of the room were desperate to know what Tiffany and Archie got up to on the recent sales trip.

  O’Hara nodded towards the door. ‘Let’s walk.’

  I was out on the pavement before I realised he wasn’t behind me. He joined me a moment later, tucking something inside his leather jacket.

  The second-best outfit had been a smart choice. He chose a route that led us down to the beach under the North Bay cliffs. When the tide is in the whole area is underwater, apart from a couple of tiny bays tucked into the base of the cliffs. In winter, under a fierce wind and high tides, even they disappear under the grey rollers hurling themselves against the chalk walls. There are no marked footpaths, you have to know where to scramble down.

  At the moment the tide was out and we could walk over damp flats strewn with drying seaweed and drifts of tiny shells that scrunched underfoot. Lumps of grey rock, slippery with lichen, erupted from the sands at odd intervals and were difficult to see in the dying light. I caught my foot in one and nearly fell. O’Hara grabbed my arm. After that we walked on with arms entwined. It was a kind of tacit acknowledgement that Declan was no longer between us. For the moment.