Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  ‘Don’t see why. Big towns don’t have a monopoly on nastiness. How long do you think it will be before they come for me?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ He was plainly still entertaining the idea I was some kind of undercover super-plant.

  Raising a spike-like instrument, he stabbed two holes either side of a tin of treacle pudding and put it in another saucepan before switching the kettle on. ‘Sure you don’t want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  He fetched three mugs. I tried not to mind the thick coating of tannin inside. ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Two spoonfuls were heaped into one, three into the last. Milk from an open bottle went into two, but the well-sugared one received a large tot of whisky. ‘Dad,’ Harry said in answer to a question I hadn’t asked. Going to a small cupboard, he took out a medicine bottle. Whilst I watched, he pulled the capsules inside apart and tipped the white powder into the whisky mixture. All twenty of them went in. A cold sensation started to crawl down my spine bones.

  ‘I’ve done his favourite dinner. If they come for me before I can give it him, can you make sure he takes this lot. Just pour some tea on and stir it up. Give it him with his meal.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’

  ‘No.’ Calmly he threw the empty capsule bottle into the bin. ‘I told you. He’ll not last in a home. This way’s best. Don’t worry. I’ll say you didn’t know what I’d put in the mug. Just wait until he falls asleep and come away.’

  He was serious! He actually expected me to kill off his dad for him.

  ‘I’m not doing it, Harry. Just forget it. They’ll sort something out for Atch. You may not even go to prison.’

  ‘All right. I can’t make you.’

  I was relieved when he gave in so easily. He made my tea and disappeared into the hall. A minute later he reappeared with the shotgun broken over his arm.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Harry took two cartridges from his pocket and loaded the gun, snapping it shut with a decisive click.

  ‘It’s the only way now. I’d hoped he could just fall asleep.’ He started to leave. I shot up, taking care to keep myself behind him. Grabbing his arm, I gabbled: ‘Hang on. You’re not really going to ... you can’t ... he’s your dad, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’ He wouldn’t look at me again. I was hanging on to a handful of shirt back. ‘If he were a dog - old, sick, miserable away from home - would you put him in kennels?’

  ‘He’s not a bloody dog, is he? You can’t murder your own father.’

  ‘He won’t feel anything. I’ll put it in the head. Be quick.’

  ‘You’ll get life.’

  ‘I’ve two barrels.’

  ‘I can’t let you do this, Harry.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  I intended to have a good try. Unfortunately he was a lot stronger than I’d anticipated. All those years of manual work on the farm had built up unexpectedly tough muscles. He might have won - but the sound of the cars brought us both to a frozen stop. We both knew. There was more than one engine and they were travelling far too fast for the single track. And all this for a bloke who never had visitors.

  ‘Is there any evidence the illegals were ever here?’ I said quickly.

  ‘No. I cleaned up pretty well after them. There’s just the food ...’

  ‘So you bulk-buy. Very economical. You’ve a chance. Say you don’t know anything about it.’

  A brief hope flared in his eyes. ‘You think they’ll believe me?’

  ‘No. But they have to prove otherwise. Get rid of the gun,’ I said. ‘If you open the door holding a weapon ...’

  It was a very slim chance. They’d probably dig up something to charge him with. But he didn’t know that. His head jerked in agreement. I released my hands. The shotgun disappeared amongst the collection of old wellies, coats and assorted household junk in the under-stair cupboard.

  I recognised the leader of the Customs posse immediately. He’d covered the biceps with a suit jacket, removed the single earring and washed the grease slick out of his hair, but he was still instantly recognisable as the deliverer of the sulking succulents. His name was Wayne.

  He was backed up by three more Customs officers, four uniformed police and - discreetly keeping his head down in the back car - Jerry Jackson.

  Whilst Harry was going into his I-can’t-think-what-you’re- talking-about routine on the doorstep, I wandered over to lean down by the car window.

  ‘You’ll miss the kick-off, Jerry.’

  ‘It’s not until twelve - I should just make it.’

  ‘What a coincidence, running into you here.’

  ‘Give me your bag, Grace.’

  It wasn’t quite the approach I’d anticipated. But ever ready to oblige, I handed it over. Jerry tipped the contents into his lap and located what he was looking for - his pen. Silently he unscrewed it and held one section out to me. Nestling behind the foreshortened ink holder was a metal tube.

  ‘Tracker?’

  ‘And microphone. Electronics are amazing these days, aren’t they? I’m told they’ve got one a quarter that size.’

  ‘So much for putting your career on the line to help poor little Grace out.’ I tried to keep it light, but I heard the shake in my voice and was horrified to feel a lump forming in my throat. All that matey taking-a-risk-and-giving-away-ofticial-secrets- because-I-like-you-Grace palaver had been a great big act to spook me into tipping off whoever had phoned from St Biddy-atte-Cade. And I had been dumb enough to believe he really liked me.

  ‘I hope,’ I hissed at Jerry, ‘that you got enough to confirm I knew diddly-squat about Harry being involved until an hour ago.’

  ‘We did. And don’t look so upset. He’s a grown man. He made his own choices. And ... Keep very still, Grace, and don’t make any sudden movements.’

  I was bent towards his open window. Now I cautiously glanced past my right shoulder and oh-so-slowly started to straighten up. Not that Atch was taking any notice of me. His attention was fixed on the uniformed officers. They in turn were mesmerised by the barrels of the shotgun.

  ‘Take it easy, sir,’ Wayne said soothingly. ‘There’s not going to be any trouble. Just lower the gun and let’s talk.’

  ‘Do as he says, Dad. Break the gun.’

  Atch stared at his son, his eyes going from head to foot and back to Harry’s face. ‘Who are you? Get off my farm.’

  ‘It’s me, Dad. Harry.’

  ‘Harry? Harry who? I want Madge. What have you done with her?’ The barrels swung and a collective intake of breath and stomach muscles was taken by one and all. They came to rest pointing directly at me. ‘Madge?’ He took a tentative step forward. ‘Madge, come here. It’s all right, my lover. I’ll take care of you.’

  It seemed simplest to do as he asked. He wasn’t going to shoot me if he thought I was Madge, was he? But as I went to move, Jerry reached out and clamped my wrist. ‘Stay where you are, Grace.’

  ‘You leave her be. Let go of my girl.’

  The barrels dropped to car window height. His intention was presumably to fire into Jerry’s head. The chances were he’d have taken out a good portion of my hip and waist at the same time. Neither of us found out. Harry stepped between us.

  He died instantly.

  He must have known they could never have charged Atch with anything in his mental condition, so either he was trying to save me - or he’d realised pleading ignorance wasn’t going to work and he couldn’t face prison. I like to think it was the former.

  The shock of the blast and the blood sent Atch into a frozen state that made it easy for them to disarm him. The last I saw of him was his bewildered face staring through the back window of the police car that took him away.

  I ended up back at Seatoun police station making yet another witness statement and congratulating my delivery boy on his performance. ‘Very convincing. If a bit non-PC.’

&
nbsp; Wayne was a medium-sized cheese in Customs and Excise who had hopes of becoming a king-sized Cheddar if this operation came off successfully. Easing his shoulders in a way that made his jacket seams gape slightly, he said, ‘I was checking you out. Your place had already been trashed when I got there. Two seconds later the guy arrives with your plants. What could I do but claim to be G. Smith? I swear to God he talked just like that.’

  ‘Do you think your newly redundant smugglers wrecked my flat?’

  ‘Do you?’

  I had to admit that I didn’t know. ‘Will you tell me if any of them puts their hand up to it?’

  ‘In the fullness of time, no doubt.’ (Which roughly translated as I’d read it in the Sunday papers after the trial.)

  I pedalled back to the office to find Annie still stuck into the files.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, rising from a sea of paperwork spread over Vetch’s office carpets. ‘Is it that time already?’

  ‘It is well past that time. I have been bugged by Jackson; helped to bust the last link in a smuggling ring; and just avoided having my profile radically altered by a shotgun - and you didn’t even notice I’d gone!’

  ‘Of course I noticed you’d gone. I just hadn’t realised you were quite that far gone, frankly.’ She scooped an armful of files and dropped them into the cabinets. ‘Do you know, this place could have potential if it was properly organised.’

  ‘Vetch thinks it is. Can it be that our esteemed leader is not quite the hot-shot business bunny he thinks he is?’

  ‘He’s missing out on a lot of work. Personal protection; electronic fraud ... I must have a word with him. Talking of words, your client phoned again.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You have more than one? That’s not on the files.’

  Too late I recalled that my arrangement with Faye was strictly on a personal basis. I fell back on Ginny Bowman. ‘She asked me to see if I could dig up a will. Preferably one that leaves all Luke’s worldly goods to her.’

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘Not so far. I doubt there is one. But I’ll give it one last shot.’

  ‘Fixed fee or hourly rates.’

  ‘Aah.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a neither, shall I?

  ‘It’s my business.’ I was beginning to feel on the defensive. My best mate was turning into a power-crazed tycoon before my eyes. Within the year she’d probably be opening her own airline and flogging her own-brand cola drinks.

  ‘It is at present,’ Annie agreed, completing her clearance of the carpet. ‘But if this place is to get ahead, it’s something Vetch needs to address.’

  ‘What do you care? You’re planning to decamp to London anyway. I wonder,’ I murmured, ‘if you shouldn’t go back on a diet? I really prefer you when you’re fretting over the way your butt bulges in those sweat pants.’

  It worked. ‘Does it?’ Annie twisted to see her own rear.

  ‘A tad. Is that lift out to Wakens Keep still on?’

  I half expected to be dumped in favour of a brisk three hours in the gym after that crack, but luckily she went for the comfort-eating option instead. We munched happily on a pile of chocolate bars stored in her glove compartment on the way out to Barbra’s place.

  ‘I thought you were never gonna get here,’ Barbra said. It wasn’t a protest; she sounded scared.

  ‘Come through.’ She led the way to the back of the house. One

  foot was held stiffly in front of her, the newly painted toenails separated by wodges of cotton wool. The pagoda where we’d all been served seafood salmonella a la mode had gone, but there was a set of white garden furniture on the terrace. ‘Park your bottoms,’ Barbra invited. ‘Have a drink.’

  There was a glass jug half full of iced tea on the table. Barbra had collected two more glasses on her way through the kitchen. She filled them two thirds full, ice cubes cascading noisily as she poured. We both took a mouthful and coughed. It wasn’t just water she’d used to dilute the tea.

  ‘Cheers!’ Barbra sent half her own glass down on the first swallow and wiped her lips dry with the back of her hand. ‘So, how’s me job going? You found out who them people are yet?’

  ‘One of them’s dead, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Harry Rouse, the farmer I told you about. His dad shot him.’

  She dismissed Harry’s life with a casual, ‘Yeah, Lee often has that effect on me.’

  ‘Talking of Lee - any sign?’

  ‘I ain’t sure. You know I said there’s been funny business going on out here?’ She leant conspiratorially over the table. I was beginning to suspect this wasn’t her first jug of iced tea, and from Annie’s expression she’d come to the same conclusion. Still, it wasn’t our job to stop the clients getting sloshed. ‘Thing is, I’ve been getting calls ...’

  ‘Saying what?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Nothing. That’s part of the problem. Nobody there when I pick it up. First off, I thought the neighbours were playing silly buggers, but I did that’ - her finger jabbed a pattern on the white metal scrollwork of the table - ‘on one of them.’

  ‘Dialled one-four-seven-one?’ Annie suggested.

  ‘Yeah. It was some pub in Dover. I don’t know anybody in Dover.’

  I helped myself to another slug of tea and asked how long this had been going on.

  ‘Not sure. Started when I was ill, I reckon. I had the answerphone on. There’s half a dozen calls on there where they didn’t leave a message. Don’t know when they came in. I was too bloody ill to care.’

  ‘I remember,’ I said, lest she should forget I was a fellow sufferer. ‘Have you heard from Lee since last Sunday?’

  ‘Not unless he’s the one making the funny phone calls. And I don’t think he is. Not his style. Once he’s spent ten pence on the call, he’d want to get his money’s worth by giving me a mouthful.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should make a few enquiries? After all, three out of four of those who attended the luncheon from hell last Sunday ...’

  The alarm that filled Barbra’s eyes didn’t quite tie up with the couldn’t-care-less parenting skills she’d been displaying previously. ‘He could be lying sick somewhere? Trying to phone for help?’

  ‘From a pub in Dover?’ Annie asked.

  Barbra relaxed slightly. ‘No. I guess not. He’ll be OK. He probably poisoned the bugs.’

  She swirled her ice cubes and stared moodily into the whirlpool. It gave me the chance to study her. The illness had taken it out of her, deepening the lines around her nose and mouth and adding a yellowish tinge to her complexion. It was accentuated by her T-shirt and jeans which matched the tan shade of her nail polish.

  Turning her attention back to it, she removed the cotton wool, inserted it between the toes on the other foot and resumed painting. ‘So the bloke’s history. What about them two women? You got the business on them yet for me?’

  ‘Not completely,’ I temporised. After all, I didn’t have Peter’s home address. Not that I wanted it. Just thinking about that brush-off yesterday made me go hot and cold. Or that was what I told myself. The old subconscious kicked into life and suggested perhaps that wasn’t the only memory of Peter that was making me feel uncomfortably hot. In a way it was a comfort to find out that turning thirty hadn’t stopped the mind recognising a potential bastard whilst the old hormones screamed, ‘Yes ... yes ... yes - I’ll have some of that!’

  I became aware that Annie was giving me a funny look, and hastily asked Barbra if she still intended to go through with the will business.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? Anyhow, I paid me deposit, didn’t I? I’m entitled to me money’s worth. Does she know about it?’

  I felt Annie stiffen slightly at that ‘she’ and quickly said, ‘The job. Not the legatees. You asked me not to flash the snaps around, remember?’

  Barbra rested her foot on the spare chair. ‘Listen, if you two aren’t busy, d’you fancy making an evening of it? Bottle of wine; DVDs; girls�
� night in? You can sleep over.’

  I’d intended to ask Annie to drop me in St Biddy’s so I could ask a few more questions about the non-event that was Luke Steadman’s death. Annie pleaded paperwork.

  ‘I’ll pay yer. Going rate.’

  My first thought was loneliness. My second was that something else was going on here. Annie beat me to the question. ‘It’s not just phone calls, is it?’

  ‘Yes. No. Oh, I dunno. Maybe it’s just living on me own. I got out of the habit. Started imagining things. Daft cow.’ She tried to re-cap the polish and succeeded in tipping a sticky pool of the stuff over the table instead.

  Annie fetched some paper towels. ‘What are you imagining?’

  ‘I think someone’s been in the house.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I ain’t sure. I been in bed for days ’cept for crawling into the loo - well, you know how it makes you feel?’ she appealed to me. ‘Only ... well ... couple of times I woke up and I could have sworn there was someone in the room with me. But when I turned over there was no one there. Another time, I thought I heard the telly going down here.’

  ‘Did you come down and check?’ Annie asked.

  ‘No. Could have been Jack the Ripper holding a rave for all I cared. There’s something else. When I finally got myself downstairs, I had the feeling someone else had just been there.’

  Annie suggested one of the neighbours was being neighbourly. ‘If they knew you were ill?’

  ‘Not this lot. Anyhow, how’d they get in?’

  ‘Spare keys?’

  ‘No. I had the locks changed after Barney died. Case his grabbing brother had got his hands on a key,’ she explained for my benefit. ‘There’s only two sets of keys for my new locks and they’re all on the ring upstairs. So you gonna stay?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be better off going to a hotel for a while, Barbra?’ Annie enquired.

  ‘No. This is my house. Nobody’s driving me out. If you don’t want the job, just spit it out. I’ll phone one of them agencies in the paper. Twenty-four-hour security. I don’t care. I’m used to shifting for myself. Just thought you might want the business, that’s all. Didn’t look like Vetch’s place was going too well when I called in. Still, if you’re flush enough to turn down my cash.’ Her pout reminded me of Lee. It became obvious he hadn’t got all his in-your-face sulk genes from his dad.