by JL Merrow
I blinked. “Someone really didn’t fancy doing their laundry?”
His face cracked into a beaming smile, which suddenly made him look a lot more human. “Quite possibly. But the usual interpretation is that they were there to protect the house from malign influences both natural and supernatural.”
Okay, I was interested despite myself. “How’s that work? I mean, dead cats, yeah, I can sort of see that one, ’cos of mice and witches and stuff. But somebody’s old kecks? Were they hoping the smell would chase evil spirits away?”
“Nobody’s quite sure. Shoes, now, it’s well known you can trap the devil in them.”
You could? How? Shove your feet straight in after? Wouldn’t he jab your toes with his pointy stick?
Phil coughed. “Think the waitress is on the way back—you ready?”
Lance flashed me a conspiratorial smile and bent his head to his menu.
I tried to give Phil a look, but he was staring out into the middle of the room and didn’t meet my eye.
We ordered—steak for Phil, risotto for me, and grilled fish for Lance, together with a bottle of pinot grigio. Not that I was planning on having more than the odd sip, and I didn’t reckon Phil was either.
Phil waited until we all had a glass until he brought up the subject we were here for. “Can you tell us a little about your relationship with Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors?”
And there was a loaded question if ever I heard one.
Lance smiled, a wistful edge to it this time. “We met at university. We both studied history of art.”
Really? Amelia, with her insatiable urge to modernise? The lecturers must have been terrible.
“We became firm friends, of course. And when we left, it seemed natural to go into business together.”
“You were more than friends, though, weren’t you?” Phil pressed. I gave him a sharp look. This was all news to me. “In fact, you were married, weren’t you?”
Whoa. Okay, that put a whole new complexion on things. I couldn’t help thinking of Dave’s professional judgement that it was usually the spouse what done it.
Lance stared into his glass, twisting it between his fingers, a strange smile on his lips. “Oh, I wouldn’t read too much into that. We were very young.”
“Must have been hard carrying on working together after the split.”
“Not at all. It was entirely amicable.”
“And when she got married again?”
“I was very happy for her. Amelia deserved happiness.”
Phil nodded, and there was a short break as the food arrived, which was probably just as well as (a) Lance was starting to look a bit narked about all the grilling and (b) it gave me a chance to get my thoughts in order.
It wasn’t easy. I just couldn’t imagine carrying on working with an ex as if nothing had happened. I mean, yeah, sure, keep your business and your personal life separate, but come on, people are human, aren’t they? Not quad-core bloody CPUs with integrated graphics and Pentel umptium processors (Phil had been on at me to get a new laptop again, in case you’re wondering). You’re not going to stop feeling . . . whatever you feel about your ex, just ’cos it’s 9 a.m. and time to start work, are you? Then again, I s’pose it’s just like couples with kids, right? You keep the split amicable for the sake of the children?
’Cept, in that case, you’d only see the ex every once in a while, wouldn’t you? Not all day every working day. I s’pose Lance and Amelia might’ve worked on different projects, but even so . . . And what the hell had Alex thought about it? Put it this way, if the Mysterious Cheating Mark had still been in the land of the living, I wouldn’t have been too chuffed about Phil spending forty hours a week with him. Not that I don’t trust Phil. Course I do. But feelings can be tricky little bastards.
“Does Alex know you and Amelia were a thing?” I blurted out. Then I shoved a load of risotto in my mouth in a classic case of shutting the stable door after Shergar’s already made the one-way trip to the knackers’ yard.
Lance paused, a restrained forkful of fish halfway to his mouth. There were two peas balanced on top. I was mesmerised, waiting for them to fall. “It was hardly a secret.”
“No?” Phil put in. “I had to dig pretty hard to find out, myself. She never changed her name or went by Mrs. Did she wear a ring?”
A shrug. Still the bloody peas didn’t fall. Had he glued them on with tartar sauce? “Occasionally. I didn’t keep track. And why should she change her name? A rather medieval attitude, don’t you think? Women are no longer property.” The food made it to his mouth, intact, and I could breathe again.
I had another forkful of risotto. It was pretty good, but the rice was just a tiny bit undercooked. It’s easy to do with risotto. Comes of being too worried it’ll end up gluey.
“Some people like to change their name as a sign of love and commitment,” Phil suggested.
“And some don’t.” Lance sounded a bit snippy. Defensive? “I don’t even know why we’re talking about something that was all over years ago.” He put down his fork and took a large swallow of wine, which seemed like a good idea to me, so I picked up my glass to follow suit.
Phil waited until Lance had set his glass down again. “‘Years’? That’s interesting. According to my information, your divorce wasn’t finalised until January this year. Only three weeks before she remarried, in fact.”
I just about managed not to choke on my mouthful of wine. This was turning into an episode of EastEnders. Well, not exactly, seeing as no one had called anyone else a slag yet, but hey, we were only on the first course here. Plenty of time yet.
Lance gave Phil a frosty stare and fingered his pendulum. “That was merely a formality.” He leaned over the table. Phil’s turn to get a face full of Frith. “Tell me, have you ever been married?”
Yeah, no. Bringing up Phil’s cheating bastard of an ex was well out of order. I put my fork down with a clatter. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”
Lance turned my way, an eyebrow raised. “Interesting. No, my point is merely that anyone who’s been married would know that a legal document has no effect at all on the feelings of those supposedly bound by it.” He smiled, the git. “Amelia and I simply had better things to do than to place a high priority on the formal dissolution of something we already knew was over.”
I glanced over at Phil. He looked away, his jaw tight. Christ knew what that was about.
“Obviously,” Lance went on, “once Amelia became involved with Alexander, I was only too happy to expedite matters for her.” He delicately lifted the skeleton from his fish and placed it to one side on his plate.
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to murder Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors?” Phil asked, a bit brutally, I thought.
Lance looked up from his plate, his eyes behind those daft sunglasses looking a bit moist, from what I could tell. “Of course not. Everybody loved Amelia.”
This time, I did choke on my wine. “Sorry,” I muttered when they both turned to glare at me. I pushed the glass over to the side of the table and decided to stick to water from now on.
“Disappointed suitor, then?” Phil suggested.
“I can’t imagine who that might have been,” Lance said dismissively. “Amelia had eyes only for Alexander. No, I don’t suppose they’ll ever find out who did such a terrible thing. It must have been someone who was mentally ill. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
That was interesting. It sounded like he didn’t know about the necklace, then. Or maybe he just wanted us to think that? Okay, this was officially doing my head in.
Phil must have been thinking along the same lines. About the necklace, I mean. Not about it doing his head in. “Did Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors ever mention a diamond necklace to you?”
Lance frowned and fingered that bloody pendulum again. “Not that I recall. If you want to talk about jewellery, it’s Arlo Fenchurch you need to see.”
Phil nodded, like that wasn’t news
to him. “How did Mrs. Fenchurch-Majors get on with her stepdaughter?”
I was expecting another bland Oh, she loved her, of course, so was surprised when Lance gave a wry little smile. “I’m afraid she found her rather juvenile. So sad, a young woman of her age still acting like a spoiled child. A wasted life, by all accounts.”
“I dunno,” I found myself saying. “She seems to enjoy herself.”
“But she contributes nothing to society. Amelia, now, she was a giver.” Lance gave a sad little sigh and put his knife and fork together on his plate. “Tell me, was it very terrible, when you found her?”
Jesus, what did he expect me to say?
Not the truth. God, never the truth, when I’m asked this question by someone who loved the victim.
Course, it was equally possible he’d hated her.
I cleared my throat. “She was, well, I don’t think she could have suffered much. I mean, it must have been quick.” Sod it. I was having more wine.
Again, there was that rueful smile. “I’m sorry. You must have been asked that question so many times before.”
“Uh . . .” Okay, yeah, it was sort of what I’d been thinking—but seriously, how many bodies did he reckon I’d found? “More times than I’d like, yeah.”
“And of course it was terrible. Death is terrible.” He took a deep breath, while I was still reeling from somebody actually getting it. Someone who wasn’t Phil, at any rate. “And you must feel responsible, of course, because without you, she would never have been in that tent.”
That . . . that hurt. Like a steak knife to the stomach. All the more so because I’d thought he was on my side. Which was stupid, and selfish, because at the end of the day, it had sod all to do with me, but . . . I’d been trying to ignore that queasy little feeling in my gut, all the worse because, frankly, I hadn’t been able to stand the woman. “I . . . Yeah, I . . .” Shit. What the hell was I supposed to say? “Sorry.”
Phil shoved his plate away, steak only two-thirds chomped. “If you’ve heard that much, then you know Tom had no idea where she was going. That was the whole bloody point.”
Lance ignored him. He leaned in again with a look of concern on his face, so either my apology had been accepted or he hadn’t actually blamed me in the first place.
Or he was just messing with my head, which I guessed was equally likely.
“I hope you haven’t had trouble convincing the police? There can be a regrettable level of scepticism from officialdom, I’ve found, when it comes to dealing with anything out of the ordinary.”
“No.” I cleared my throat. “No, they, um, know about me and, you know, finding things.”
“Really? And have you worked with them before?”
“Uh . . .” I glanced over at Phil, but he was no help whatever, the git. “Yeah, but I don’t think I’m s’posed to talk about it.”
“And if you did, you’d have to kill me?” Lance actually smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m used to having to keep secrets. And not just what you’d think—surprise parties and the like. You’d be amazed how many people feel their events should be treated as if they’re a matter of national security. But tell me, do they really believe?”
“Uh . . . Most of ’em, no. But I’ve got a mate on the force, and he knows I’m not faking it.”
“That’s marvellous. We need more people who are ready to be open-minded about these things.” Lance nodded to himself. “And have you experimented with crystals?”
“You mean like that thing you’ve got round your neck?” I gestured at his pendulum-slash-pendant thing. It was a simple conical design in some dark stone, almost lost against his black shirt. Cherry had got me one for my last birthday, which was how I knew what it was, but the one she’d got me had been rainbow-coloured. According to the leaflet that came with it, each coloured stone represented one of the chakras. Seeing as it hadn’t bothered to explain what the chakras actually were or why you’d give a toss about them being represented, I hadn’t been all that impressed. “You had any luck with that?”
“I’ve had some success, yes. But—”
“Wanna show us how it’s done?” I said quickly. I wanted to keep the conversation focussed on him, not me.
He gave a weird little smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t presume.”
The waitress came back at that point, which I was glad of because I was well confused by this conversation. “You have finished? You would like to see the dessert menu?”
That risotto had been pretty filling, actually. Either that, or I wasn’t that hungry today. I snuck a glance at my watch to see how much time I had to play with, and realised it’d run out a while back. “Shit. Sorry. No, not for me, ta.”
I looked at the other two. Nope, no takers there either. “Just a coffee,” Phil said, and Lance asked for a herbal tea. “Tom?”
“No, actually I’m gonna have to go. Customer over in Harpenden—she gets a bit snippy if I’m late. Sorry,” I lied through my teeth. Well, about being sorry. Not about the customer. You’d think she was the bloody Queen Mother, the way she treats tradesmen and other oiks, but at least she always paid prompt and was good for putting in a word for me with the neighbours. I’d got next door’s bathroom refit and a couple of other jobs as well on her say-so, so keeping her sweet was definitely on my to-do list.
Lance stood up when I did. “Such a shame you have to rush off. It’s been enlightening, meeting you.” He held out his hand. I took it, expecting another limp grip, but he surprised me with a firm squeeze. Then he didn’t let go. “Before you go, let me give you my card. Perhaps we could speak again sometime about our common interest.”
I hoped to God he meant divination, not Amelia Fenchurch-Majors.
Actually that was a lie. I didn’t want to talk dowsing with him either. Mostly because I reckoned he knew far more about it than I did.
Still holding my hand, he reached into a pocket and pulled out an expensive-looking card case. The card he handed me looked pricey too, with his name embossed on the front.
“Cheers, mate,” I said, just grateful he’d finally let go of me. I had a couple of my own cards in my back pocket, so I handed him one of those to be polite. It was slightly curved from where I’d been sitting on it and a bit dog-eared around the corners. It was probably time I ordered a new batch, to be honest, but I’d been waiting for the printers to have a sale.
Lance took it and placed it carefully in his wallet.
“See you later, Phil,” I said with a nod, and legged it.
Mrs. T. in Harpenden was in a good mood that afternoon. I got two cups of tea and a slice of homemade fruitcake. It was pretty good, and I ended up asking for the recipe from her. She went pink and handwrote it for me, then wrapped up the rest of the cake for me to take home. Mr. T. doddered in from the garden, looking hopeful, to be told sharply there were Rich Tea biscuits in the tin if he had to spoil his dinner.
He doddered out again a couple of minutes later, looking sad. I tried not to feel too guilty.
We’d already arranged that Phil would come over for tea that evening, which seeing as he’d had a steak for lunch, I didn’t feel bad about making just beans on toast.
Okay, I tried not to feel bad. Then I bunged some bacon under the grill when I heard him coming in the door. Well, I wouldn’t want all those lovely muscles to waste away for lack of protein, would I? Pure self-interest, that’s what it was. Honest.
“How’d it go after I left?” I asked, shoving some bread in the toaster as his size elevens clomped into the kitchen behind me. “Hey, did you ask Lance if he did murder-mystery parties? Gary went to one of those, and he said it was a right laugh, but I’m guessing poor old Lance wouldn’t find it quite so funny these days.” He wouldn’t be the only one.
Phil just grunted.
“So go on, how’d it go? Get anything more out of him?”
“No.”
It wasn’t so much what he said but the way he said it that made me turn round to look at him. “What’s cra
wled up your arse?”
He gave me a stony glare. “Next time we’re with a murder suspect, you want to lay off getting all defensive on my behalf if he brings up something personal? Because one, I can take care of myself, and two, if he hadn’t already known he’d hit a nerve, he certainly bloody well did after you jumped in on your high horse.”
“Well, ’scuse me for trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help,” he snapped, then sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit. Sorry. Just . . . I can deal with it, okay? You getting all uptight about stuff just makes it harder.”
“Oi, I wasn’t getting uptight.”
“Yeah, right. Just like you’re not now.”
I gave the beans a vicious stir and slopped sauce all over the stove top. Bloody marvellous. “Just so we’re clear, you wanna end up eating this or wearing it?”
“Jesus, I wish I’d stayed at home and ordered a bloody takeaway.”
That was . . . I mean, Christ, I’d been joking. Mostly. I put the spoon down and turned to stare at him. “What the actual fuck? No, seriously, what?”
“Do we have to do this now?”
“Do what?”
Phil huffed and carried on glaring. “Talk about that smarmy git, all right? Does he have to be the first fucking thing you mention when I walk in the door?”
I stared at him, frowning in disbelief. “What? Are you jealous? Christ, you are, aren’t you? I don’t believe it. Okay, he maybe held my hand a bit on the long side when he said goodbye, but seriously, you’d think I’d been fondling his bollocks under the table or something.”
“You didn’t have to sit there for another half an hour while he went on about how bloody fascinating your talents are, and how much he’d like to spend some more time with you. Exploring your common interest.” I swear he growled after he said that.
“No. You’re right. I wasn’t fucking there. So why the hell are you blaming me? I mean, Christ, I didn’t like him much either, so why is it somehow my fault he got up your nose?”