by Ann Granger
‘I’m not likely,’ I said, my voice breaking and sounding, to my own ears, as sharp as chalk scraping on a blackboard, ‘to make a mistake over something like that.’
‘Let me see!’ She pushed me aside and opening the door, strode through it. ‘Crikey . . .’ I heard her gasp. Then, ‘Bloody hell!’
I didn’t want to return to the inner office but I edged inside it to stand behind Susie and look over her shoulder.
She had more presence of mind than I did. She turned her head towards me. ‘Have you rung an ambulance?’
‘No. Well, look, it’s too late for that.’
‘I’m not a bloody doctor and neither are you!’ She was refusing to accept the evidence of her eyes. She walked over to the slumped form, crouched down and stretched out her hand to his shoulder. ‘Oy, mate? Can you hear me?’
‘No, he can’t,’ I said. ‘He’s a goner, Susie. Face it.’
She gave a little squeak, snatched her hand away from him and jumped to her feet, scuttling back to stand beside me.
‘Who is he?’ she whispered.
I told her. ‘It’s the guy I told you about, all in white, who was tailing Edna. It turned out he was a private detective by the name of Duane Gardner. You ever heard of him, Susie?’
‘Gardner? No, but the detection business is getting crowded these days. He didn’t work from an office round here, that’s all I can say.’
‘He has - had - his office in Teddington.’
The fringes of the metropolitan area counted as the darkest unknown territory in Susie’s book.
‘Teddington? Right out there? Upmarket area that, isn’t it? Blimey, I wouldn’t know him, would I? What was he doing here and how did he get in?’ Her forehead crinkled in a frown. ‘What did he want?’
I shook my head. ‘He must have been looking for me.’
Susie moved towards the desk and the phone.
‘Perhaps you ought not to touch that,’ I said as she stretched out her hand.
She froze, let her hand drop and turned to me. ‘This isn’t a crime scene, Fran. Look, there’s no blood. He’s just dropped in his tracks. Best way to go, really. You don’t have time to know what’s happening.’
‘I don’t care,’ I snapped, ‘use your mobile!’
‘All right, then.’ She retrieved the document case that she’d left by the door, dug out a mobile phone and rang the police on that.
‘We wait,’ she said, as she put the phone away. ‘But I’m not waiting in here - with him. We can sit out there in the reception.’
I looked round the office. ‘Before we do, and before the cops get here, does everything look all right to you?’
She glanced round. ‘Yeah, sure, all of it. Fran, what’s up with you?’
‘Shock, I guess,’ I said. ‘Like you say, he probably had a heart attack or something sudden like that.’
We went back to the reception and sat down side by side on the kitchen chairs. Susie, moments before such a trim sprightly figure, looked pale and cold. She shivered. Her shoulders slumped. Even her blond curls seemed to have lost their springiness.
‘I could do with a cup of tea,’ she muttered. ‘But the kettle is in there.’ She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘Anyway, I suppose you don’t want me to touch that, either.’ She rallied a little and sat up straighter to look me full in the face. ‘It’s not foul play, Fran. It’s life playing one of its sick jokes.’
Usually I’d agree with her about life’s often misplaced sense of humour, but general unease prompted me to ask, ‘What time did you go out, Susie?’
‘Out of the office or out to work? I haven’t been in the office this morning till now. I had a call to make first, business, or I thought it was.’ Susie’s voice took on a grim tone. ‘I’ve been all the way out to Richmond and for nothing. Some woman made the appointment over the phone and sounded kosher. She’d met a new bloke and he was really keen but she thought some of the stories he was spinning sounded a bit unconvincing, so wanted me to check him out. Straightforward stuff but plenty of legwork and surveillance and day-to-day expenses so out I went to meet her in some upmarket pub calling itself a wine bar, only she never showed.’
‘Did you try and get in contact with her?’
‘Of course I did! I rang the number she gave me and some other woman, not the same one for sure, it was a different voice - she said she didn’t know anyone of that name. I know when I’ve been given the run-around and believe me I am not pleased!’
‘I do believe it,’ I told her morosely, ‘and I also believe it sounds as though we’ve been set up, both of us.’
She looked startled and then thoughtful. ‘Someone got me out of the office so that they could fix to meet whatsit, Gardner, here? And then croak him? Leave him here for one of us to fall over when we got back? Why? I mean, why here?’
‘Because it drops me right in it, doesn’t it?’ I muttered. ‘You’ll have to get your story about your trip to Richmond absolutely straight, remember all you can about this woman who contacted you. The police will ask.’
She sniffed, but having a story to get clear had concentrated her mind and temporarily wiped out the image of Duane. She took on a more businesslike air. ‘Oh, right. Well, normally, I’d look in the office first, before I went to meet anyone, to check if there were any messages or post. But Richmond is a long way out and I thought it better to go there direct from home.’
‘Was Les coming in today?’
She shook her head. ‘I told him not to bother for a week or so. I’d phone him if I needed him. Like I said, we’ve had no work to speak of. That’s why I grabbed the offer to go out to Richmond. I didn’t ask enough questions. I just thought she sounded as if she had the money to pay for an in-depth search.’
‘So, did you lock the outer door when you left last night?’
‘Of course I did!’ Susie was getting her normal confidence back. ‘Even if I hadn’t Michael would’ve locked up the street door downstairs when he left. He’s got a lot of expensive equipment up there. He wouldn’t want to come in the morning and find it ripped out, or some crackhead dosing up or old wino sleeping it off in there. If you’re in any kind of business around here security is like breathing: you do it automatically and you don’t forget. Look, we don’t know why that poor stiff in there came here, unless it was to find you.’
Susie gave me a stern look as if I’d set it all up on purpose. ‘Perhaps this Richmond business has nothing to do with it. There could be someone else out there giving me the run-around for the fun of it. It could be someone I’ve investigated, someone who was into things he didn’t want my client knowing and I found out and told the client all about. He or she could be getting his or her own back. People get vengeful when they’re found out. It’s not unknown for them to blame the private investigator. It’s like shooting the messenger. I mean, we’re only the hired help, right? But people can get nasty. I know that finding him like that was really horrible for you but well, like I say, whoever got me out to Richmond could have had some other reason. I got enemies, too, you know.’
‘The door was open when I got here,’ I interrupted her.
She pushed out her lower lip in thought. ‘Les does have a key. There’s only the two of us. One of us can’t always be here to let the other one in. So I gave him a key, only to the door, mind, and the loo. He doesn’t have the key that unlocks the filing cabinet. He doesn’t need that. Anyway . . .’
Anyway, Les wasn’t the sort of person whom you allowed access to sensitive files. She didn’t need to say it.
‘I hope,’ I said, ‘that Les has an alibi, too.’
‘I told you, Fran, Les has got no reason to come in today.’
A heavier thump of feet on the stairs heralded two very young coppers who appeared one behind the other and squeezed into the small area, making it very crowded.
‘Where is he?’ asked one of them.
‘In there,’ said Susie.
They went into the office and I he
ard one of them say, ‘He’s a stiff, all right. Better call the doc to certify death.’
One of them came back to us and asked, ‘A Mrs Duke phoned in. Which one of you is that?’
Susie raised her hand wordlessly in admission.
He took out a notebook. ‘Do you know his name?’
‘Duane Gardner,’ I said. ‘I’ve got his address if you want it.’ I took out the crumpled business card and handed it over.
The copper looked at it and then at me. ‘Private detective?’
I shrugged. He raised his eyebrows and wrote Gardner’s address and telephone number in his book, before handing the card back to me.
‘You know his next of kin? Was he married?’
‘He has a girlfriend. He runs - ran - his business with her but I’ve never met her. I only know her name is Lottie.’
The constable heaved a sigh. ‘This is a detective agency, too,’ he said with a touch of disapproval in his voice. ‘It says so, on the door there.’ He jabbed his pen at the outer door.
‘That’s right.’ Susie bridled. ‘Although, as a matter of fact, on the door what it actually says is “confidential enquiry agents”. I run it. I’m Susie - Susanna - Duke.’
‘That right?’ The copper nearly grinned at her then remembered in the nick of time that this was a serious occasion. ‘So, the deceased gentleman was here on business, was he?’ ‘No. I didn’t know he was here. I was out visiting a client. I don’t even know how he got in here.’
The constable was beginning to look suspicious. ‘So, who found him? You?’
‘I did,’ I spoke up. ‘My name is Francesca Varady.’
He wrote that down. ‘Do you work here too?’
‘Occasionally,’ I said. ‘Freelance.’
‘Were you here when he collapsed?’
‘No. I called in to see Susie, only she wasn’t here, as it turned out. The door was open and I looked into the office and saw Duane on the floor. Then Susie came back.’
‘From Richmond,’ said Susie. ‘I went to meet a client. She didn’t show. I was stood up. I chatted to a barman while I waited. He’ll probably remember me.’
Barmen did remember Susie.
‘Natural causes by the look of it. How was his health?’ asked the copper.
‘No idea,’ said Susie. ‘I didn’t know him, never met him.’
He looked enquiringly at me. I said, ‘I only knew him slightly. I met him a couple of times. I don’t know any personal details about him.’
‘What was he doing here, then?’
‘We don’t know!’ Susie and I chimed together. Then we looked at one another.
The copper was studying us both. ‘Oh, right,’ he said and wrote something down.
More feet on the stairway and Susie’s neighbour appeared, wearing a sweaty T-shirt and jeans under a grubby apron. He had a luxuriant moustache and flashing dark eyes.
‘What is wrong? Why you cops here?’
‘Who are you?’ asked the constable.
‘I run food bar, downstairs.You park your police car outside. That’s bad for business. Customers think you are visiting me. I like if you move car.’
‘Did you see anyone enter these premises earlier, sir?’
The food bar proprietor waved a hand, the back of which was plentifully covered with black hairs. ‘This is separate entrance. Anyway, it’s lunchtime. We’re busy. What you think?’
‘All right, sir.’
The other copper came out of the office, closing the door quickly behind him before the visitor could see past him and glimpse the grotesque figure inside. ‘Doc’s on his way.’
‘What is wrong? Someone ill? Mr Les ill?’ The cook brightened with interest. Then he scowled and wagged a hairy finger at us. ‘He not eat anything from my shop give him belly trouble. No one ever get belly trouble from my shop! I had council inspector come just last week and he said he wish all fast food bars like mine.’
‘It’s all right, sir, nothing for you to worry about. Perhaps you ought to get back to your customers.’
‘I told you, they don’t like police car. It keep them away. You going to move it?’
‘All in good time, sir.’
‘Can’t make bloody living, what?’ sulked the cook. ‘I am honest man. I call cops when someone break into my house six months ago, steal beautiful big new, top-of-range telly. They don’t turn up for four whole hours and stay five minutes! Tell me contact my house insurance. Now I got cops all over place and bloody car outside.’ He got in a last shot. ‘Like London bus, what they say? First you wait and none come, then all come at once.’ He stormed out and stamped away down the staircase.
‘Can’t please them all,’ said the copper with the notebook, snapping it shut.
The next one up the stairs was the police surgeon, an elderly man exhibiting no interest whatever in the surroundings or the grim casualty awaiting him. They led him to the inner office and Duane, stiffening there on the floor while we all argued outside. There was a silence during which Susie and I looked at one another uneasily, imagining the examination of the body. Then some discussion broke out.
They all came back and the police surgeon left. The second copper looked from one to the other of us.
‘Either of you two girls remove anything from the scene?’
‘No,’ I snapped, ‘and it would be polite to call us “ladies”.’
‘All right, then,’ he retorted sarcastically, ‘either of you two ladies happen to pick up anything from the floor, say?’
We both told him we hadn’t.
‘And you say neither of you two was here when he collapsed?’
‘I told you,’ I said, ‘I found him like that. Mrs Duke arrived later.’
‘The Turks downstairs saw me go past their place on my way in,’ said Susie suddenly, not liking the way this was going.
But it drew his attention. He chewed his lip and asked, ‘Mind if I have a look in your briefcase, madam?’
‘Yes,’ said Susie. ‘I do and you won’t, not unless you give me a bloody good reason.’
‘I’ve got a reason,’ he countered, ‘if I suspect that despite what you say, you may have removed something from the scene.’
He’d picked the wrong opponent. Eyes blazing, she stepped up to him. The top of her blond curls only reached halfway up his chest but he took a pace back.
‘This is my office. I don’t know what that guy is doing here or why he chose this place to drop dead. That’s it. I never saw him before in my life. That’s the extent of my involvement. Got it? If you want anything more out of me, then you arrest me, OK? Only you’d better be able to back it up or you’re in big trouble. Or, if you prefer, I’ll call my solicitor now and if you want to ask me anything more, you do it in his presence. Oh, and if you want to search anything, you get a warrant.’
The guardians of the law exchanged glances again. The one who had been talking to Susie turned to me.
‘You found him, you say. Have you got a bag, backpack, anything like that?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘What do you carry your stuff in, then?’
‘My pockets,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t got any stuff: no mobile, no credit cards, no make-up, no car keys. I carry loose cash, house keys and a couple of paper hankies. That’s it.’
‘Blimey,’ he said, ‘I wish my wife was like you.’
But that was the end of the quiz session. The first officer took over again.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll get him removed.’
‘Will there be a postmortem?’ I asked.
‘That’s up to the coroner. It’s his body.’ His gaze flickered curiously over me. ‘We’d like to know how the deceased entered the premises.’
‘So would I!’ muttered Susie.
He walked back to the main door and rattled the handle before stooping and peering at the lock. ‘You want to get this changed. Kid could open this one with a credit card.’
A streetwise kid: somehow that seemed to des
cribe Duane nicely. Not that he was young, but he dressed it and there had been something of an Artful Dodger about him. A pity he hadn’t been able to dodge whatever had happened to him here.
They removed Duane’s body efficiently and took him away in a little white van with no windows. The Turks had all come out of their kebab house and stood watching solemnly as it threaded its way into the traffic and was lost to view. The owner enquired again if it was Mr Les who had died and appeared happy it wasn’t. Les must be a good customer. Then, with a collective shaking of heads, they returned to work.