by Colin Davy
Time to sort this out, he decided. Climbing from his car, he strode towards the one behind, but he recognised the driver before he reached it. The long blonde hair gave Gail no chance of staying under cover. She didn’t appear to want to either, leaning forward and staring serenely as if it were all an amusing coincidence.
Reaching the car, he tried to match her smile. “Your headlight is smashed,” he said.
She shook her head and wound down the nearside window. “What?”
“I said your headlight is smashed.”
She gave a half-smile that rapidly vanished. “I know.”
“Shouldn’t you get it fixed?”
“When I have the time.” She sounded very calm, and not in the slightest embarrassed.
“And you haven’t had the time?”
“No, I’m too busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Doing what I have to do.” When she opened the passenger door, he climbed in before doing a double-take. She wore a more transparent version of the diaphanous top she’d worn before, but this time, she’d neglected to put on the bra. Her small breasts were on open display and although the day was hot, he guessed it was deliberate ploy. Either to entice him or to distract him. How shallow did she think he was? Very shallow by the looks of it. Yet despite the transparency of both the material and the ploy, he found it distracting. He suspected she was playing a game of her own, but it certainly was unusual garb for a woman grieving for her lover.
Although she wore a skirt that hardly began to cover her thighs, the day was warm enough to justify it. “Were you following me?” he asked softly.
She gave another half-smile. “What makes you think that?”
“Because I saw you earlier on Queens Drive. This is no coincidence.”
“OK,” she said. “I was following you.”
Well, that subject was settled. “Why?” he asked.
“I was checking on you,” she said. “Making sure you were doing what you’re told.”
“Who by? You?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “By your master’s voice, or should I say, your mistresses voice.”
“Maria?”
She smiled and this time, it spread across her face “Got it in one.”
“Now you know,” he said. “What do we do next?”
When she leaned forward and took a long breath, he knew she’d dressed like this deliberately. “I’ll follow you back to your flat,” she said. “Don’t drive too fast. That way, you’ll shelter me from passing police vehicles.” She paused. “From the docks, it’s only spitting distance to my flat, and that’s where we’re going.”
“And where exactly is your flat?”
She shook her head at his question. “There’s a Vauxhall garage near the Duncan docks, do you know it?”
“I do.”
“I’ll leave my car in for repair and you can drive me to my flat, it’s not far away. There, we’ll have a nice, friendly conversation.”
“Why should I?”
“A variety of reasons,” she said. “You’re curious anyway, and having been ordered by ‘She who must be obeyed’ to check on her least favourite person, you can’t miss the chance to interrogate me. Am I right?”
He sighed, he was beginning to feel like a puppet and it felt annoying. To make things worse, she was right – he couldn’t miss the chance to question her. Whether Maria would approve of the meeting was another matter. Never mind, this time he’d make the decision. She’d fret if she found out, so he wouldn’t directly tell her, not unless Gail had really hot information. “OK,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Getting out the car, he headed for his own feeling her eyes boring into his back. This had better be worthwhile, he thought as he started the car. Although he drove slowly, she kept a dangerously short distance between the cars, and he began to drive even slower. Not a good idea if she wanted to avoid police attention, but they finally reached the garage safely.
There, he waited patiently while she gave orders to the mechanics. Forthright as usual, she loved to be in control, and this carried on when she returned. Slipping into his passenger seat, she pointed ahead. “First right, then slow down at the lights and turn left. I live in that road. I’ll show you where to park.”
When they finally pulled up outside a small block of flats, he made to go out, but she motioned him back. “Let’s get the ground rules clear first,” she said.
“And they are?”
“You’ve a choice,” she said. “You can ask any questions you like and I’ll answer them truthfully, or I give you my views on what happened to Deborah and why she was targeted. Then you can comment. Which do you prefer?”
“I’m being spoiled,” he said sarcastically, even if it was true. Not only was she being suspiciously cooperative, she sounded as if she wanted to be reasonable. Yet, he was suspicious, it was too good to be true. If she told the truth, it would be her truth, but that was more than he ever expected. “Tell me your version of events,” he said. “I’ll take it from there.”
“Fine,” she said, leading the way from the car.
In the foyer, a woman in her early twenties greeted Gail with a broad smile, fading quickly when Gary came into sight. “How are you feeling, darling?” she whispered to Gail.
“So-so,” Gail said, and turned towards him. “Meet my friend, Gary,” she said. When the woman’s smile reappeared, he muttered a greeting. Although the woman only nodded, Gary felt her eyes appraising him carefully before she left.
Sighing, Gail turned to him and whispered under her breath. “Naomi’s my next-door neighbour,” she said. “My nosey neighbour.”
He nodded to Naomi before following Gail to the lifts and waiting patiently. “I live on the fourth floor,” she said, punching the lift button.
At the fourth floor, they met another neighbour, an elderly black man with a compunction to chat. Although Gail tried being abrupt, he took it with good grace and continued to gossip about all and everything. Being cynical, Gary wondered if the man was copping an eyeful. He couldn’t blame him, she was a pretty woman and the transparent top an added bonus. But when Gail become involved in the local gossip, she seemed to forget he was there.
When the man finally left, she pulled Gary with her to the front door.
“A friendly bunch,” he said.
She gave a rueful smile. “We know each other well,” she said. “And we look out for each other.”
“Did Debbie visit often?”
She shook her head. “Later,” she said. “Let’s get inside.”
Her main room was spacious, but the view limited, confined to a large car-park and a collection of suburban houses. But it was Gail’s views he wanted, and she was readily forthcoming, impatiently hustling him to sit before she began. “Maria’s brainwashed you,” she said. “You need to ignore everything she’s told you.”
Her failure to offer tea or coffee was probably connected to this urgency, he thought.
“Deborah loved this place,” she said. “We used to-”
“How long did you know her?” he asked.
She frowned at his interruption. “I met her when I joined the group,” she said. “Her liaison with Caitlyn was a toe into the water for her true sexual self, but once we met, we were the real thing.” Her angry expression challenged him to argue.
“I’ve another question,” he said.
“I expect you do,” she said. “What is it?”
“How did you know where I was this morning?”
She smiled. “That’s for me to know and you to wonder about.”
He let it roll over him. “I noticed you sail past me on the M62 this morning, yet you appeared outside my car in Childwall an hour later. How did you manage that?
“Logic,” she said. “Who else could you be visiting?”
“So, you knew it was Raif I was going to see?”
“I guessed it was Raif.”
“How do you know him?”
H
er eyes flickered for a second. “From the congregation,” she said.
“How did you know I knew him?”
“What is this?” she asked. “A quiz programme?”
“You said I could ask questions.”
“When I’ve finished my summary, you can,” she said. “But never mind, I saw you speaking to Raif on Sunday. I noticed you already knew each other.”
“And you knew his address.”
She sighed. “All the members have their address on the roll.”
He nodded, but he remained uneasy. If anyone was the real Sherlock Holmes here, it wasn’t him. She’d spent a lot of time examining the background of the leading players, and she’d done it more effectively than he had. First Raif, and now this girl had shown how it should be done.
“If you like,” she said. “I’ll give you my view on who killed Deborah.”
That brought him out of his self-critical analysis. “Who did it?” he asked.
“Maria.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Maria?” he asked. “Are you serious?” He’d gone along with her hoping for serious information, not angry and nonsensical accusations again.
“I’m deadly serious,” she said. “I’ve no doubt whatsoever.” She looked serious - her arms tensing enough to make her slim muscles stand out.
“I think you’re letting your biases show again,” he said.
“Am I? Look at the evidence.”
“There isn’t any evidence,” he said.
Taking a long breath, she tried to calm herself. “There is if you look, Gary. Normally, no one believes a sister would kill her twin, and that’s what she depends on. Deborah told me about their poisonous arguments. Maria hated her having a private life, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.”
In the sunlight streaming from the window, he noticed her blonde hair needed re-touching, the dark roots showing. Even so, she was an attractive woman. She had fine, chiselled features and porcelain skin which gave her the look of a of a child’s doll, but today she was animated, her cheeks flushed pink and her eyes wild. “Sisters argue,” he said. “All siblings do.”
“Not like they did.”
This was going to be heavy going. “Spats between sisters happen,” he said. “They make up and all is forgotten. They loved each other.”
She shook her head. “A sad, perverted love, twisted by fate and circumstances. Replaced by a possessive and fanatical attachment from Maria. She saw me as a threat to that bond, the bond she’d spent so long preserving. Even worse, it was a girl like me replacing her in Deborah’s affections. A gay woman from her worst nightmares.”
It was little use arguing, he suspected. Whatever Debbie had told her had been magnified in this girl’s mind, and she’d made Maria into a monster. But he felt obliged to try and change her mind. “Aren’t you being over-dramatic,” he said. “They may have had arguments, but you’ve no evidence for your accusations.”
“Look at her response to Deborah’s death,” she said. “Lashing out in all directions, looking for another culprit, any culprit.”
“Where do you get that from?” he asked. “She suspects there may have been foul play, but even she knows it’s guesswork.” He may be a toning her suspicions down a little, but Gail was well over the top.
“Oh, yes?” she said. “Maria thinks you can solve this murder,” she said. “Am I right?”
Full marks for guesswork, he thought, but where was this going? “Assuming Debbie was murdered,” he said. “Which I doubt, Maria has faith in my detective abilities. I’m not sure why.”
“It’s because she believes in predestination, Gary. You’ve been chosen by one of her premonitions.”
“You don’t believe in them?”
She gave a contemptuous snort. “It doesn’t matter what I think, it’s what she thinks that matters. The others follow her whims.” Her voice sounded strained, and when she coughed, he heard a hoarse sound.
“That’s a no, then?”
She sighed. “I think Maria does has psychic powers, that’s why she believes she’ll get away with this. Make sure she doesn’t. But whatever the truth of her visions, you’re a useful piece of misdirection.”
“How?”
“Because you won’t look for the culprit near home.”
“I wasn’t going to look at all,” he said. “It seemed an open and shut case at first and I had no interest before … before she persuaded me to do so.”
“No,” she said forcibly. “That’s what you think, but it’s part of Maria’s master plan. She’s convinced you would investigate, either now or in the near future. Better for her to direct your research than be the subject of it. Her belief in predestination, remember.”
“Why would I suddenly develop a hankering for detective work?”
She shrugged, a mistake when wearing her transparent top. Especially as she already had his full attention anyway. Yet she was rushing her words, as if afraid he’d would walk out in mid-sentence. She was slim, model-thin, but she moved awkwardly, glancing down at her bust-line from time to time, and he wondered if her mild exhibitionism was out of character.
“Maria believes anything could provoke your search for clues,” she said. “An idle word, the slow progress of the police investigation, the post-mortem results. All might trigger your interest, but she’s sure something would. Remember, she has a guilty conscience added to a sense of inevitability. She’s a control freak who needs to control events, so she desperately wants to control a wild card like you.”
Yes, her words were definitely hurried, desperate to get the accusations off her chest. Hmm … not the best phrase in the circumstances. “Steady on, Gail” he said. “You’re seeing demons where none exist.”
Although she smiled, there was no humour to it. “It’s natural camouflage for her,” she said. “She thinks others think like her, and she fears she’s a suspect. How better to deflect blame if the post-mortem flags up suspicious circumstances.”
“That’s a little contrived,” he said. “There’s no evidence Debbie was murdered, let alone her sister did it.” When a cloud passed over her face, he saw he’d made a good point.
“Not yet,” she said. “The will’s yet to be read, then you’ll see evidence of motive.”
“In what way?”
“Think about things, Gary. Cui Bono, who gains from Deborah’s death? There’s lots of money involved. How much could go to me, rather than her? The will was on the verge of being changed in my favour.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because Deborah told me, and I expect she told Maria too.”
He still didn’t buy that. “Why would that worry Maria? Who worries about wills when you’re our age? It would normally be decades before anyone would read it, and in that time, who knows how many more friends would come and go.”
She flinched at his remark, but recovered quickly. “Nicely said, Gary, but you’ve never been really poor. Not refugee poor, not worrying where the next meal come from. Deborah’s been through it, and so has Maria. It changed them both”
“Oh?”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “How much has Maria told you about their past?” She was no longer flashing her boobs, no longer caring what he saw or didn’t see, she was on a personal crusade.
“Not a lot,” he said cautiously.
She nodded, as if this confirmed something. “Deborah was much more forthcoming,” she said. “They were carried from pillar to post, never settling, not until they were ten or eleven years of age. Then it all changed. Their mother married well and divorced better. They had money to burn. That changes people, Gary.”
“How?”
“Some, like Deborah, go on a splurge when they come into money, but Maria was different. She was the calculating one, always watchful, always careful. Seeing Deborah squander what she thought was their joint money burned her up inside. Especially when it was spent on people like me.”
She certa
inly had an inferiority complex. “You mean gay people?”
“Anyone but herself, but especially gay people, the undeserving. She’s a throw-back, Gary, a dangerous throw-back to an antediluvian era.”
“Aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill?” he said. “You told me the other day that you reckon she’s gay too.”
“She probably is,” she said. “That’s why she’s so conflicted and unstable. She was always overshadowed by her more attractive sister. Imagine what it’s like to live in the shadow of your younger sister. One flicker of her eyelashes and she attracts men … and money. Maria was traumatised by the loss of her fiancé, and she now relates money to sexual attractiveness. She never wears make-up because money is her make-up.”
Leaning back into his chair, he tried to think rationally. Gail was distraught at the loss of her friend, and he understood that, but fixating on Maria made no sense. “You’re convicting her on the basis of your personal animosity.” As he said it, he realised he was acquitting her for the opposite reason. He had his biases too, but accusing someone of killing their own sister needed a lot more evidence than this “No one knows what’s in Debbie’s will yet” he continued. “It might be completely different to what you assume. You could at least wait for it to be read.”
“Maria will have found out by now,” she said. “Ask her.”
A challenge and no mistake.
“Ask her,” she said again.
“I will,” he said. “But I ask again, where’s your evidence?”
She shook her head sadly. “You just won’t see, will you?”
“I will, but only when you present evidence rather than malevolent guesswork.”
Her face darkened. “My guesswork has been accurate so far, hasn’t it?”
He said nothing, reluctant to admit anything in case it turned into another rant.
“Debbie looks to have died from a drugs overdose,” she said.