‘No. I saw him at the funeral. He didn’t talk to me. I thought he seemed a bit stuck up.’
‘Maybe Lance and Nigel are having an affair,’ says Natalka.
‘Impossible,’ says Edwin. ‘No gay man would fancy Nigel.’
‘We should tell DS Kaur,’ says Benedict. ‘I mean, it’s pretty suspicious, isn’t it?’
‘Let’s send her a selfie,’ says Natalka. She gets them all together and orders Benedict, who has long arms, to press the button. The resulting picture is slightly blurred and Julie has her eyes shut but it’s quite good of Natalka. She texts it to Harbinder.
* * *
THEY HAVE LUNCH in the hotel and share a bottle of red wine, which makes Natalka feel quite sleepy. She goes back to the Travelodge for a nap while Edwin meets his BBC friend and Benedict and Julie attend a panel on ‘Detective Duos: from Holmes and Watson to Bryant and May.’
The bed is very comfortable and the black blinds make the room satisfyingly dark but somehow she can’t sleep. She keeps thinking about Dmytro, his sweet, funny face with its snub nose and guileless blue eyes, the way that he used to give names to every living creature, even spiders, the way that he would blink when he was telling you a funny story. She hasn’t seen him for six years. Eventually she gives up, gets up and has another shower. Then she puts on her best jeans and a new, ruffled top. She doesn’t know who she’s trying to impress but she always feels better when she thinks she’s looking good. She puts on make-up too.
It’s six o’clock and almost dark by the time that she leaves the Travelodge. The day had been fine but now it’s raining, a thin persistent drizzle that is definitely making her hair frizzy. The lights of the Majestic seem cosy and welcoming, rows of golden windows like an advent calendar. As soon as Natalka pushes through the swing doors, she can hear voices from the bar area. Someone says loudly, ‘You’re an absolute shit, Rupert.’ Someone else laughs and there’s the unmistakable sound of a champagne cork popping. Natalka makes her way through the throng and orders a glass of red. She finds a deserted table but soon she’s joined by three friendly women who call themselves book bloggers. It’s a new term to Natalka but she doesn’t like to ask what it means. She chats to the bloggers until Benedict and Edwin appear at five to seven.
‘Any sign of Lance?’ Benedict asks.
‘Not yet,’ says Natalka. She’s suddenly feeling very nervous. She looks round the room. The occupants are almost all middle-aged and mostly women. There’s no one who looks like a Ukrainian gangster.
‘Are you all right?’ says Edwin. ‘You’ve gone very pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ says Natalka. ‘How was your BBC contact?’
‘Not that helpful really,’ says Edwin. ‘Freddie didn’t seem to know that much about Dex Challoner. I told him all about Peggy being Dex’s murder consultant. He was fascinated.’
At seven-thirty there’s still no sign of Lance. The bar is very full now and the noise level is rising. The bloggers are raving over the latest Ian Rankin book. Natalka goes to the reception desk to ask for Lance’s room number.
‘I’m not supposed to give it,’ says the receptionist, a spotty youth with an accent that Natalka assumes is Scottish.
‘I arranged to meet him,’ says Natalka, with her most sultry smile. ‘We’re good friends.’
The man blinks and hands over a Post-it. ‘Room 315.’
The lift, the old-fashioned sort with criss-crossed metal doors, is extremely slow but eventually it creaks its way to the third floor. The hotel is far bigger than it looks from the outside, a maze of corridors and meaningless little flights of stairs that go up and down for no discernible reason. Stags’ heads watch gloomily from panelled walls. Room 315 is in a tiny alcove of its own, near a store cupboard.
‘It’s not a good room,’ says Natalka. ‘I’ve been a chambermaid and I know.’
She goes to knock on the door but sees with surprise that it’s open. She stops on the threshold, suddenly afraid to go further. It’s Benedict who edges past her. ‘Lance?’ Then Natalka hears him say, ‘Holy Mary Mother of God.’
It has to be something serious to make Benedict take Our Lady’s name in vain. Natalka and Edwin look at each other and follow Benedict into the room.
Lance is sitting in a chair by the window. Natalka thinks of Peggy sitting sightless beside her binoculars and her view of the sea.
25
Benedict
Looks like a Crime
BENEDICT KNOWS IMMEDIATELY that he’s dead. He touches Lance’s hand. It feels clammy and sweaty as Benedict checks for a pulse.
‘Holy Mary Mother of God.’
He doesn’t even know that he’s said the words aloud but then Edwin appears at his side saying something that sounds like ‘murdered’.
‘Is he dead?’ asks Natalka, her voice shaking. Somehow, that makes Benedict pull himself together.
‘I think so, yes.’ Lance’s head is back against the chair but his eyes are open, pupils dilated. ‘Call an ambulance,’ he says, but he can already hear Edwin on the phone, giving directions in an admirably clear voice.
‘Is there a pulse?’ asks Edwin, who is speaking to the operator.
Benedict lowers his head to Lance’s chest to listen for a heartbeat but he already knows. Lance’s body has a horrible leaden quality to it.
‘He’s dead,’ says Natalka, sounding like she’s crying. ‘Someone killed him.’
‘We don’t know that.’ Benedict tries to take in everything about the room. The door had been open but Lance was just sitting in his chair. If he’d seen his death approaching, it had been in a form that hadn’t, at first, alarmed him. Could he have died from natural causes? It’s possible but Lance had seemed fine earlier that day, talking about Heights and Floss, saying that he was excited about a new book project.
‘The ambulance is on its way,’ says Edwin. ‘We should tell the concierge. I’ll go.’ He leaves the room.
‘Concierge,’ says Natalka. ‘It’s a very Edwin word.’
‘It is,’ agrees Benedict. Natalka is half-laughing, half-crying. Benedict puts his arm round her, smelling that familiar lemony scent.
Edwin reappears, accompanied by two security guards and the spotty youth from reception.
‘Jesus Christ,’ says the first security guard, entering the room. ‘Have you touched the body?’
Lance, thinks Benedict, has become ‘the body’.
‘Just to check if he was breathing,’ he says.
‘He’s dead, all right,’ says the guard. ‘Do you know this guy?’
‘Just vaguely,’ says Benedict. ‘He’s one of the crime authors.’
‘Well, this looks like a crime,’ says the second guard.
No one has anything to say to that and they wait, in a rather uncomfortable silence, until blue lights are reflected in the window and the ambulance arrives.
* * *
THE PARAMEDICS CONFIRM that Lance is dead. They then have to wait for a private ambulance to take him away. ‘We cannae take a dead body,’ one of the paramedics explains. While they are waiting, the police arrive, having been called by the security guards. There are four of them. First two men in uniform, then a tall man who introduces himself as DI Harris, and a woman called DS Macready. They are very efficient. They herd everyone into a nearby room. Someone even brings in tea and biscuits, on an actual trolley.
It’s strange, being in what is a standard hotel bedroom. Benedict, Natalka and Edwin sit in a line on the double bed. DS Macready takes a seat at the desk. DI Harris stands in front of them, his head almost brushing the light fitting, a chandelier apparently made of velvet antlers.
‘Who found him?’ says DI Harris. He has red hair, cut very short, and a manner that’s brusque but not impolite.
‘Me,’ says Benedict.
‘And you are?’
‘Benedict Cole.’
‘Are you a friend of the deceased?’
The deceased. Lance has moved on from being ‘the body’ to
‘the deceased’.
‘Not really,’ says Benedict. ‘I only met him yesterday. He’s one of the writers at the crime-writing festival. His name is Lance Foster.’ He has already given Lance’s name to the paramedics.
‘How come you were in his room?’ says Harris. It’s said in a flat voice, without a hint of suggestion.
‘We’d arranged to meet him for a drink,’ says Natalka. ‘When he didn’t arrive, we went to find him. I’m Natalka Kolisnyk and this is Edwin Fitzgerald.’
Harris looks at the three of them and Benedict tries to read his expression. He knows that they must seem an ill-assorted group: a glamorous woman, an awkward bespectacled man and an elderly gentleman in a cravat.
‘Are you on holiday?’ asks Harris.
‘We’re here for the festival,’ says Natalka. She pauses. ‘And to investigate a murder.’
‘What?’ For the first time, Harris’s voice rises. DS Macready looks up from her notes. She’s rather attractive, with pale skin and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.
‘Say that again,’ says DI Harris.
Benedict thinks that he ought to speak before Natalka mentions the Ukrainian mafia.
‘We were friends of Dex Challoner,’ he says, ‘the writer who was killed in Shoreham. We know that Dex had received a threatening letter and we found out that another writer, Julie Monroe, had also received an anonymous note, so we decided to come to Aberdeen to talk to her.’ He tries to make it sound as if this is perfectly rational behaviour but he thinks that he can sense an invisible ‘Nutter’ sign hovering over his head.
‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’ says DS Macready.
‘The police know about it,’ says Benedict, ‘but DS Kaur said—’
To his surprise, DI Harris takes a step forward, ‘Who?’
‘DS Kaur of the West Sussex police.’
‘DS Harbinder Kaur?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well, well,’ says DI Harris. ‘What a small world.’
DS Macready looks completely baffled. She turns to Benedict. ‘Tell us about these threatening notes.’
‘They were postcards,’ says Benedict. ‘No address or stamp so we think they were sent in an envelope. They all had the same message printed on them. “We are coming for you.” We knew that Dex, Julie and Lance all had links to a woman called Peggy Smith, who had also died recently.’
‘Peggy was a murder consultant,’ says Natalka. ‘We think she was murdered too.’
‘A what ?’ says DI Harris.
‘A murder consultant,’ repeats Natalka patiently. ‘Peggy helped crime writers come up with new ways to kill their characters. We found one of the postcards in one of Peggy’s books. High Rise Murder by Dex Challoner. Then, when we were sorting out Peggy’s belongings, a gunman burst in and stole one of her books.’
‘A gunman,’ repeats Harris, sounding rather stunned. Benedict thinks that the ‘Nutter’ sign must be flashing neon red by now.
‘So,’ Natalka continues, ‘when Dex was murdered, we thought the deaths must be connected. Then, when we found out that J. D. Monroe had also received a postcard . . .’
‘J. D. Monroe?’
‘Julie Monroe. She’s another one of the writers.’
Macready makes a note. Harris turns to Edwin. ‘Where do you fit in, Mr Fitzgerald?’
Benedict thinks that Edwin is rather magnificent. He uses what Peggy used to call his ‘radio voice’ and it seems to soothe even DI Harris’s savage breast.
‘I was a friend of Peggy’s,’ he says. ‘I’m retired and I like reading. I fancied a trip to Scotland. I used to visit Edinburgh quite a lot in my younger days. Such a beautiful city.’
‘And how’s the trip working out for you?’ says Harris.
‘Slightly more eventful than I might have wished,’ admits Edwin.
‘Do any of you know anything about Lance Foster?’ asks Harris. Benedict thinks he looks hardest at Natalka, maybe suspecting that the drink in the bar was a lovers’ tryst. Though why she would have brought Benedict and Edwin along, he doesn’t know.
‘He was divorced,’ says Edwin. ‘He mentioned an ex-wife.’ He turns to Benedict and Natalka. ‘That was in the pub yesterday after you left.’
‘He had the same publisher as Dex Challoner,’ says Benedict. ‘Seventh Seal, I think it was.’
‘Thank you,’ says Harris. ‘You can all go now. Don’t leave town though.’
* * *
WHEN THEY GET downstairs, there’s still a party roar coming from the bar. The police have sealed off the area around Lance’s room but, as Natalka had pointed out, it’s an out-of-the-way corridor and many of the hotel guests aren’t aware of the drama going on upstairs, despite the police cars outside. Benedict is surprised to see that it’s only eleven o’clock. It feels as if days have passed since they sat waiting for Lance, listening to the bloggers talk about Ian Rankin.
Outside, the night is cool and blessedly quiet. They walk in silence for a while and then Edwin says, ‘Do you think Lance could have died of natural causes?’
‘It’s possible,’ says Benedict. ‘He could have had a heart attack or an allergic reaction. Anything, really.’
‘I think he was murdered,’ says Natalka. ‘When I saw him, in the chair by the window, it made me think of Peggy.’
This reminds Benedict that Natalka had been the one to discover Peggy’s body. No wonder she’s so shaken. ‘Peggy could also have died of natural causes,’ he says.
‘You don’t believe that, Benny,’ says Natalka. ‘We are looking at a serial killer. And we don’t know who will be next.’
Unconsciously they increase their speed until they see the Travelodge sign, the illuminated blue sleeping profile. It suddenly looks sinister to Benedict. Is the figure asleep or dead? Maybe he is blue because he’s stopped breathing? The red background is rather terrifying too, come to think of it.
There’s nobody at the reception desk and they climb the stairs in silence, eschewing the lift by mutual consent. On the landing, Natalka kisses both men on both cheeks.
‘Goodnight,’ she says.
‘Goodnight, darling,’ says Edwin.
Benedict says nothing.
He thinks that he will lie awake for ages but the bed comes up to greet him and he sleeps deeply with no dreams.
26
Harbinder
Good Old-Fashioned Detective Stories
HARBINDER HEARS HER phone buzz as she drives away from Highcliffe House. She doesn’t look at it until she’s back at her desk. The selfie doesn’t make her smile. Benedict, Edwin and Natalka are grinning like loons and brandishing wine glasses. There’s another woman with them, a blonde with her eyes shut. Benedict looms too close to the camera which makes his nose look alarmingly large. Edwin is a blur of grey hair and pink bow tie. Natalka looks annoyingly glamorous. She probably chose that picture because it flattered her.
She shows it to Neil. ‘What the hell do they think they’re playing at?’
‘Natalka looks like a model,’ says Neil. ‘Is there a message?’
‘No. Oh, hang on, there’s another text. “Guess who’s here? Nigel!” Nigel who? Does she mean Peggy’s son?’
‘Can’t be. We saw him only yesterday.’
But Harbinder remembers the pile of suitcases in the study. Maybe they weren’t just an interior decorating feature? It would be easy to get a plane to Aberdeen. She’s flown to Scotland herself and was amazed at how easy it was. Quicker than catching the train to London.
She scans through her emails. The forensics on the Dex Challoner case have come through but there’s frustratingly little. The murderer must have stood in the doorway and fired from there; no fibres, no fingerprints, no tell-tale droplets of DNA. There is a footprint, size eight, in the garden which suggests that the assailant approached by way of the French windows at the back of the house. There’s no CCTV either, although they haven’t managed to trace all the home-owners. Many of the houses on Millionaires�
� Row are only occupied for a few weeks a year.
The briefing is at five. Harbinder reports of their meetings with Dex’s wife, editor, publicist and agent.
‘Dex was a big money-earner for the publishers,’ she says. ‘There’s no incentive for them to kill him. Besides, he doesn’t seem to have been too much of a diva. They all seemed rather fond of him.’
‘The killing looks professional,’ says Donna. ‘I can’t see some booky type carrying that off.’
Harbinder thinks about Benedict, surely the epitome of a ‘booky type’. What are the three musketeers up to now?
‘We’ve discovered a tenuous Ukrainian link,’ she says. ‘Peggy Smith went on holiday to Russia some time in the noughties and may well have accidentally got involved with some Ukrainian activists. We’ve visited Joan Tate, the friend who was with her, but she has Alzheimer’s now and couldn’t tell us much.’
‘Apart from some out-of-date racing tips,’ says Neil.
‘She loved Neil,’ says Harbinder, ‘thought he was her long-lost grandson.’
‘It all starts with Peggy Smith,’ says Donna, chewing on her pen. ‘I mean, as far as we know her death was from natural causes. What was on the death certificate? Heart failure?’
‘Yes,’ says Harbinder, ‘and we know Peggy suffered from angina. But, according to her carer, she’d been in good health on the morning of her death. Then there was the gunman at Peggy’s flat and the threatening postcard Peggy received. The one that was hidden in the Dex Challoner book. Another writer, J. D. Monroe, received the same note.’
‘Really?’ says Donna. ‘Have you been to see her?’
‘She’s in Aberdeen at a crime-writing festival at the moment,’ says Harbinder. ‘Another writer at the event, Lance Foster, has also had the postcard. Oh, and guess who’s just turned up in town? Peggy’s son Nigel.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘The carer, Natalka, is there with some friends.’ Harbinder doesn’t look at Neil.
The Postscript Murders Page 19