Deadly Suspicions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 3)

by Jean Saunders

  ‘Hello again. I saw you yesterday, didn’t I?’ the girl said, recognizing her. ‘I don’t want to bother you, so I’ll leave you in peace —’

  ‘No, don’t go,’ Alex said. ‘I’m always willing to contribute to a worthy cause.’ Especially if it was a cause of her own that was going to produce results, she thought, pushing a note into the collecting tin, and seeing the girl’s eyes widen a little at this generosity.

  ‘That’s very kind,’ she murmured. ‘Peace and harmony —’

  ‘I wonder if you can help me,’ Alex said.

  ‘Do you want to join us?’ Zelena said at once.

  Alex didn’t hesitate. ‘I’m not sure yet, but in any case, I wouldn’t know how to go about it. I don’t know where your headquarters are, or who to ask for.’

  ‘You will find us at the Old Mission building on Mistral Street, and you ask for Lord. Just Lord.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ Alex said, memorizing it. ‘And tell me, do you have a member by the name of Lennie? Lennie Fry?’

  ‘I don’t know that name. I’m sorry.’

  She moved on, her mouth still smiling, her eyes still bland. There was no sign of recognition in them as Alex mentioned Lennie’s name. If she knew it, she was brilliant at hiding the fact. And if she didn’t, then either he wasn’t here at all, or like her, he had ditched his old identity for a new one.

  Either way, it might be a dead end, Alex thought, with a swift sense of disappointment. Except that she now knew where they hung out, and she knew the name of the boss man. Lord. How corny and how arrogant — could you get?

  Chapter 12

  Alex watched the girl move about the few customers having lunch, and then she lost sight of her until the group of buskers came back down the street again. From her window seat she saw Zelena speaking to the guy with the banjo, and they both looked up at the coffee shop window.

  Alex felt her heart beat faster. Of course, whatever she said to him might be no more than to comment that someone had been asking about the Followers, and seemed interested in joining them. Or it could have been something else.

  As the group broke up into smaller twos and threes, she realized that Zelena and the banjo player were coming this way, and a few minutes later they appeared in the upstairs dining-room. By then, Alex had her tape recorder switched on in the open tote bag on the floor by her side, and she looked up enquiringly as they approached her table.

  ‘You were asking about someone, I believe,’ the banjo player said, his voice almost as soft and bland as the girl’s.

  Did they programme their people to speak this way, Alex wondered? Did this softness go along with the ‘peace and harmony’ message that seemed to be the order of the day?

  ‘Yes. Someone called Lennie Fry,’ she said, her eyes never leaving his face. She almost said someone I used to know, but that would be fatal if this guy turned out to be the real McCoy.

  ‘We have no use for surnames here,’ he went on. ‘My friend is Zelena, and my name is Drew. If that was your query, I’m afraid we can’t help you.’

  As they turned to go, Alex spoke again. It was now or never. ‘What about Steven Leng?’

  As Drew’s body tensed, she sensed his antagonism as he turned back to her. His eyes had lost their blandness now. They were cold and full of anger, but his voice still held that flat quality. It was as if he was holding himself very much in check from the way a normal person would explode at being confronted with something from his past that he’d much rather keep hidden.

  ‘I believe you are here under false pretences. If you have no wish to join us, please do not try to make contact with us again.’

  ‘But you do know the name, don’t you? In case you’ve forgotten it already, let me repeat it. Steven Leng. He’d be about your age now.’

  ‘I can’t help you,’ Drew repeated. ‘Peace and harmony go with you.’

  As Alex watched him and Zelena go, she felt unaccountably chilled. There was such an air of finality about the way they spoke, and all that peace and harmony crap was only words. Brainwashing came to mind, and she wondered just how much of an influence this Lord person had. But she wasn’t feeling brave enough just yet to go and find out. She needed to think — and to play back the tape.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she heard Tracey’s voice say close by. ‘I saw you talking to them yellow twits. I hope you didn’t let them screw you for a tidy sum?’

  ‘Good Lord no. We were just passing the time of day.’

  ‘You want to watch them,’ Tracey advised. ‘They’re all sweetness and light, and the girl’s all right, I suppose, but I wouldn’t trust them further than I could throw them.’

  And there speaks an instinctive philosopher, thought Alex as she paid for her meal and again gave Tracey a bigger tip than was necessary. At this rate, she’d be seen as a big spender, she thought feebly, or a soft touch.

  She went back to the B&B to play back the tape, trying to read between the lines of everything the couple had said to her, and finding nothing. Everything they said was crystal clear. Drew professed not to know Lennie Fry and couldn’t help her; and if it hadn’t been for the tension in his body and the quickly suppressed anger in his eyes, she would have believed him.

  She realized she still had the headache that had plagued her that morning, and any thought of going to the Old Mission building on Mistral Street and demanding an audience with Lord was farthest from her mind. But she couldn’t stay indoors either. It was claustrophobically hot, presumably for the benefit of the elderly regulars, and she needed fresh air.

  It was definitely wrapping-up-warm weather though, as her dad used to say, and she put on an extra pair of socks inside her boots, and wrapped a scarf around her neck. At this time of year, whatever sun there was soon sank below the horizon, and it was definitely more wintry than anything else. As it had a perfect right to be in January, Alex reminded herself.

  The B&B wasn’t far from the river, and she took a brisk walk along the waterfront, past the Maritime Museum again, to where the various smells of fish and bustling shipping activity permeated the air. She hadn’t realized before that the River Exe, from where the city got its name, was so close to the sea, but that was because she was a north-country girl who had known nothing about London or the south-west before coming here.

  But she liked everything about this place, from the old buildings close to the confines of the Cathedral and the little cobbled streets nearby, to the tales of the old Underground passages that the regulars had told her about, some of which had collapsed during the Blitz in the second world war. You could take a tour in the passages that still survived, the regulars had assured her. No thanks, Alex thought with a shiver. She had never been too keen on going underground, except for the London railway system that is, and she wasn’t too sure about that either. Her dad always said there was time enough for that when you were six feet under.

  She looked at her watch, knowing she had done enough wandering about, and that her feet were cold despite the extra pair of socks. By now the thought of afternoon tea at Mrs Dunstable’s was becoming ever more attractive. Besides which, she had neglected to put all her latest findings on her laptop, and there wasn’t much point in bringing it if she didn’t use it. Tapes could be wiped and accidentally rewound, and she needed to write it all up as a backup. That was her next job.

  She reached the B&B, glad to be assaulted by the welcome warmth as she went inside, together with the smell of fresh baking that made her mouth water at once. As she went towards the small lift to change out of her outdoor clothes, the landlady called out to her from behind her grandly-named reception desk.

  ‘I think you’ve got an admirer, dear. This arrived for you a little while ago.’

  From the archness in her voice, Alex could almost read the possibilities running around the woman’s brain. Perhaps there was a broken love affair somewhere in the background ... and Miss Best was pining for him, waiting for him to make amends ... and the reunion would happen
right here, under Mrs Dunstable’s romantic novelish nose ...

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so!’ Alex began crisply. ‘I’m here on private business, and none of my friends know where to contact me —’

  Except Nick Frobisher, of course, she thought angrily.

  She didn’t really need to tell the woman anything, she thought, annoyed at her own reaction, and then her voice died away as Mrs Dunstable reached down behind the desk and handed her a florist’s sheaf containing a single white lily.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it, dear?’ she said with a small sigh. ‘I had some of them in my bridal bouquet. Of course, we went in for such things in my day. Nowadays young girls don’t bother with all that fuss, if they bother at all, do they? Don’t forget your gift, dear,’ she called out, as Alex made for the lift, intending to ignore the whole bloody thing.

  She quickly changed her mind, knowing it would look more than odd if she did so. And while the Mrs Dunstables of this world might think it a lovely flower, to Alex — and she suspected, to whoever had sent it — it was the flower of death. She grabbed the tissue-wrapped lily and mumbled a word of thanks before heading straight for her room, aware that the landlady was gazing after her, clearly thinking her touched by the unexpected gift.

  As she was. Touched, and alarmed, and unnerved. She was perfectly sure there would be no card or message with the flower, but there didn’t need to be. It was message enough. She was being warned off.

  It took a few minutes for her heart to stop hammering, and then her sleuthing brain came into gear and she told herself not to be such a wimp. What else did she expect? When you started meddling into dark activities, you expected to be warned off in one way or another. This was mild. Next time it might not be.

  It was a pity Lennie Fry and the rest of Steven’s friends hadn’t been old enough to be into criminal activities before Steven’s disappearance, instead of the usual teenage stuff. If they had, there would be fingerprint records, and she could have checked if Lennie Fry’s fingerprints were on the wrapping paper.

  It was such a long shot she dismissed the likelihood at once. But she was damn sure it had been the banjo-playing Drew, or Zelena, his sidekick, who had had the flower sent here. Which meant they were worried about something. Which meant she was on to something. Every cloud, etc. etc. she thought next. She should have asked Mrs Dunstable who delivered the gift, but she was just as sure it wouldn’t have been either of the pair she had met. The landlady would certainly have said so. They would have sent some lackey with the flower. But she should have asked, and if she hadn’t been so panicked, she would have done.

  When she went down to the dining-room where the regulars were already congregating, she asked the question casually.

  ‘That was the mysterious thing, dear,’ Mrs Dunstable said with a smile. ‘I’d left reception for a short while and since nobody rang the bell I wasn’t aware that anyone had been in. When I returned, the gift was on the desk, with a short note saying it was for the lady with the lovely red hair.’

  One of the old boys chuckled.

  ‘Oh ah, ’tis a secret admirer, me dear, and I can’t say I blame ’im. If I was twenty years younger —’

  ‘More like forty, you old fool,’ his counterpart commented, and Alex laughed, though it just confirmed what she thought.

  Her questions hadn’t been welcome. Someone had been watching her and found out where she was staying, and had delivered the flower as a warning. They weren’t called Followers for nothing then, she thought, trying to keep it all in perspective. But they weren’t chasing her away, either — now she knew she had got them ruffled. And if she was ever going to tackle this Lord, whoever he was, it might as well be now. She resolved to do it now, tonight. Or maybe tomorrow.

  After she was sated with tea and cakes, and an hour of jolly conversation with the regulars, she went back to her room, took a leisurely bath before dinner, and lingered in the dining-room with the old codgers again. She knew what she was doing, of course: putting off the evil moment ...

  But it Would Not Do, Audrey, as her old history teacher used to tell her severely every time her attention wandered from the boring lists of dates they used to have to memorize by rote. Not that meeting up with this Lord person could be even remotely compared with Henry the Eighth or the mad King George — as far as she knew. She finally switched on her mobile and gave her voice check to her answer machine for any messages, well aware that indecision was becoming her middle name. There was only one message.

  She didn’t recognize the voice, but the minute she heard the caller’s name and got the gist of the message, she sat up straight.

  ‘Miss Best, my name is Roger Fry. I saw your name in the local newspaper recently in connection with the Steven Leng case. It was in one of those letters the mother keeps sending in. And now she’s lost her husband as well, poor woman. If you’re still investigating, I may have some information for you, but I prefer not to discuss it through a machine. It may not be relevant to your case, but something rather odd has happened and I would very much like to talk to you, so perhaps you would call on me at your convenience. As I said, my name is Fry, and Leonard is my son. You’ll want my address, of course —’

  Alex was already scrabbling for pen and paper, unable to believe her luck. She had met with so much opposition from all sides, and this was the first real piece of luck to come her way. The Fry parent’s information may mean anything or nothing, but it was something that had to be followed up. He hadn’t left a telephone number, but if he hadn’t wanted to discuss things over the phone, he probably wouldn’t have wanted an anonymous phone call either. In any case, she needed to speak to him face to face.

  There was no way, now, that she was going to tackle the Followers at their headquarters that evening. It could wait — and there was nothing cowardly about that, either, she reminded the little dig of her conscience. It was always better to follow up a real lead rather than a vague one — especially one that was almost certainly going to be obstructive. Leonard — Lennie — Fry’s father would have something informative to tell her.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up, girl,’ she told herself, already mentally packing as she ran back downstairs, ignoring the lift, to tell Mrs Dunstable that she would be leaving first thing tomorrow morning.

  ‘Oh, what a shame — or is it something to do with that lovely flower you were sent, dear?’ the woman said, clearly scenting a secret liaison.

  ‘Sort of,’ Alex said, trying to keep her face straight. The woman should definitely be writing romances, she thought. ‘So if you would prepare my bill, I’ll pay it first thing as I shall want to get away right after breakfast.’

  ‘It shall be done,’ Mrs Dunstable said, reverting to efficiency-mode. ‘But we’ll be sorry to see you go,’ she added. ‘You’ve cheered up my regulars no end.’

  That said a lot for the mundane life they led, Alex thought, then pushed them out of her mind as her mobile rang. She turned away from Mrs Dunstable and answered it quickly, preferring not to see the expectant look on the other woman’s face. In her mind it would be the lovelorn swain, naturally.

  ‘Alex. How are tricks?’ said Nick’s voice.

  ‘Wonderful, darling,’ Alex said in a sexy voice, mischievously giving Mrs Dunstable all the material she could want for her next romantic disclosure. ‘And it’s so lovely to hear from you. I’ve been thinking about you all day.’

  In the small pause that followed, she had to stop herself from laughing out loud, knowing Nick would be digesting all this with a copper’s suspicion.

  ‘OK, so what’s going on? Who have you got with you?’

  ‘Why would I have anybody with me when the only person I want is you? I can’t wait to see you again, darling, and I’m coming home tomorrow.’

  She was playing a stupid game and she knew it, but she couldn’t resist the landlady’s pop-eyed look — and since Nick knew very well where she was, and he was safely miles away in London, there was no point in pretending she wa
s anywhere else.

  ‘That’s perfect timing then,’ she heard him say in the smooth, sly way he sometimes used to disarm his victims. ‘I have to be in Bristol on business, so I’ll be at your flat tomorrow evening. Keep the champagne on ice, and the bed warm and especially your beautiful body — darling.’

  ‘Oh, but Nick —’

  It was too late. He had gone, and she had only herself to blame. And from the bemused look on Mrs Dunstable’s face, she had probably been applying her own colourful dialogue to the phone call — turning herself on in the process.

  ‘Your young man?’ she couldn’t resist asking.

  ‘Yes,’ Alex said in a strangled voice, unable to think of any other way of deterring her, and disappearing to her room as soon as she could.

  Damn Nick, she thought savagely. She didn’t want him hanging around right now, when she thought she might finally be getting somewhere. It would only complicate things. Though she couldn’t deny that there was another part of her — a very erogenous, hormonal and essentially female part of her already insisting how very much she wanted to see him, and how much she missed having him around. There was a lot of truth in the old saying that you never knew how much you missed something, or someone, until they were no longer around.

  ‘Stuff that,’ she said out loud. ‘I don’t need a crutch.’

  She laughed out loud at the innuendo she hadn’t intended, and caught sight of herself in the bedroom mirror, her face flushed, her eyes bright and sparkling like emeralds, her whole attitude oozing adrenalin because of the message on her answer machine — and not only that. OK, it was also because she’d be seeing Nick again too. And by the time she did, she might have some new information at her disposal that she was damn sure she wasn’t going to share with the police, whether or not they came well-filled with the special brand of libido that made it difficult to say no. It was highly unlikely that she would, anyway.

  *

  She drove back to Bristol at a fair speed the following morning, and went straight to the address Lennie Fry’s father had given her before even going back to her flat. A quick tidy up on the nearest motorway services was enough to tell her she looked respectable enough for anybody.