by JL Merrow
I stared at him. “I what? Seriously?”
Sharp took a gulp of water, presumably to wash down unpleasant images, and put his cup down. Him being a bit on the heavy-handed side, the water sloshed and churned unhappily, much like my stomach right then. “You find hidden things. Or so I’m told. So how come you didn’t know where that necklace had been stashed?”
“Uh, excuse me for being a bit distracted at the time. By the, you know, dead body I’d just tripped over.”
“Ah, but it’s not your first dead body, now is it?”
Cheers, mate. Thanks a fucking bundle. I now had a ghostly identity parade of all the deceased I’d been unlucky enough to stumble over through the years flitting through my head, all the way back to that little girl in the London park.
Although to be honest, even she’d been better than the one in the Dyke’s cellar . . . I gagged, reached out blindly for my plastic cup of water, and managed to knock it over. “Shit.” My eyes were watering from the effort of keeping my stomach contents in residence.
PC Peripheral hurried to mop up the mess. DI Sharp didn’t turn a hair, but he did refill my cup for me, thank God.
I took a grateful sip, and the nausea receded. “Cheers,” I said automatically. My voice sounded a bit rough, so I cleared my throat.
DI Sharp was looking at me expectantly.
“So, uh. No. Not my first. Be bloody glad if it was my last.” I managed to give him a weak smile.
He didn’t return it, the stingy bastard.
I rushed on to fill the silence. “See, when I’m finding stuff, I have to concentrate, yeah? Focus.” I stopped, remembering that time in Phil’s flat. I wasn’t gonna mention it, but something in the DI’s eye told me he’d noticed the pause. “Unless it’s really personal, yeah? Then sometimes it shouts. But most of the time, I don’t hear it unless I listen, you know?”
I could tell by his blank gaze he really, really didn’t know.
“So that necklace . . . Well. And I wasn’t, you know, really thinking straight. I mean. Yeah.” Dead body. “So I didn’t hear it.”
There was a moment’s silence. I bit my lip to keep from babbling on.
“So they speak to you, do they? The things you find?” he said at last, his voice flat as ever, but I wasn’t fooled.
I stared at him. “Christ, no. I don’t hear voices or anything. I’m not mental.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, talk to Dave Southgate, yeah? He’ll tell you I’m not making this up or imagining it, whatever.” A bead of sweat trickled down my spine and into my crack, where it itched like fuck.
Maybe I should’ve insisted Cherry came along after all.
Sharp just nodded. As if, say, he’d already talked to Dave and was just pissing me about. Not that I’m cynical or anything. “What were you looking for, in the tent?”
I took a deep breath. “I dunno. Forgot to ask her, didn’t I? I mean, she was just s’posed to be hiding something.” I shrugged. “It’s . . . it’s not the thing that’s important, yeah? Just that it’s hidden, and why it was hidden. It makes the vibes different.”
“So you wouldn’t recognise this, then?” The DI signalled to PC Peripheral, who pulled an evidence bag out of a briefcase and passed it to him. Sharp held it out to me.
There was a yellow plastic duck inside. It had a number scrawled on the bottom in faded marker pen and a hook screwed into its smiley little head. Around its neck someone had tied a label with For Tom written on in biro.
I took it and swallowed. I could see it so clearly—Sis going over to ask Amelia to hide something. Adding my parting shot about avoiding the hook-a-duck stall with its paddling pool of water. Must have given her an idea about what to hide. She must have borrowed one—forcibly, if I knew Amelia—labelled it, hidden it. Maybe she’d even smiled as she did it. Thought it might raise a laugh when I dug it out and held it up to show the crowd.
I mean, Christ. God knows I hadn’t liked the lady. But she just seemed so human to me as I pictured her doing all that. So real. So alive.
“Mr. Paretski?” Sharp said. Sharply. I realised I’d been sitting there staring at the thing like it was my long-lost cousin, now tragically deceased.
“Uh. Sorry. No. Hadn’t seen it before. We didn’t have a lot of time to set it all up, yeah? But, I mean, I know where it came from. There was a stall. Brownies, right?”
“Girl Guides,” he corrected me, because apparently it was an important distinction.
He must have caught my look. “I’ve got daughters. You try suggesting to my eldest she’s still in the Brownies, she’ll have you with a tent peg.” There was the actual ghost of a smile hovering around his lips. Then he stood up. “Right, Mr. Paretski. That’ll be all for now. Thank you for your time.”
“That’s it?” I asked stupidly.
“Well, unless you’d like to have a look at the dripping tap in the gents’ . . .”
I fixed the tap. It seemed like the polite thing to do.
I gave Phil a bell when I finally got out of there, just to reassure him I hadn’t been read my rights and sent down for the foreseeable. “What are you up to?” I asked.
“Following some financial leads. You still in St. Leonards?”
“Yeah, just about to leave. Why?”
“How do you fancy giving the old Paretski charm a workout? If you haven’t got a job on,” he added. I was touched he remembered I actually had to make a living at this plumbing lark.
“Nah, had to cancel everything for the afternoon, didn’t I? Could’ve been in there hours. Who d’you want charmed, though? You don’t mean Frith, do you?” With Amelia dead and Vi hating us, I couldn’t think of anyone else involved in the case who was likely to be susceptible to my dubious charms.
Phil huffed. “Not likely. Elizabeth Fenchurch.”
Huh. I’d sort of forgotten about her. “Let me guess—you want me to ask her about him indoors?”
“Yes. Specifically, while he’s not indoors. See if you can find out anything about his relationship with his sister and the Majors family.”
“And where he might have been and who he was doing at the time of the murder?”
“You might want to be a bit more subtle about that.” Phil sounded amused.
“Oi, subtlety’s my middle name.”
“You? You can’t even spell ‘subtlety.’”
“Course I can. I just don’t want to right now, that’s all. So, just to be clear, you want me to go poking my nose in about this case we’re not actually employed on anymore?”
“That’s the one. And don’t forget to do a bit of psychic snooping while you’re there.”
“What, you reckon after he made the fake necklace, he might have forgotten to return the real one?”
“You never know, although my money’s on whoever had it having sold it already. Cash is a lot harder to identify than stolen property. Unfortunately.”
“Yeah? Would it be old Arlo’s finances you’re digging into?”
“Among others. Just see what turns up.”
Phil gave me the address, and directions—apparently Arlo’s gaff was so posh it wasn’t satnav-able. It wasn’t that far from Alex Majors’s house, as it happened, on the same side of St. Leonards but just a bit further out into the sticks.
I found it without too much difficulty, despite almost missing the turn-in when I got there, it being just a gap in a line of tall trees that completely shielded the house from the lane. I whistled when I saw the place.
The Arlos—sorry, the Fenchurches—had a house just as expensive looking as old Alex’s, if not more so, but that was where the similarity ended. Far from a listed building with more history than an entire box set of Vikings, this place looked like it’d been built yesterday from a kit that consisted entirely of plate glass and white-painted boxes. You could pretty much see right through it, which I suppose wasn’t a problem if you had extensive grounds and no neighbours within a stone’s throw.
Given all the
glass, that last bit was probably just as well.
It was set in a bit of a dip, and I realised even if you chopped down all the trees, you probably still wouldn’t see it from the road. Somebody was very keen on their privacy.
I didn’t like it. Then again, there was zero chance I’d ever end up having to live in a place like this, so why worry?
I rang the doorbell and shuffled uneasily on the doorstep as Mrs. Arlo slowly made her way through the house to answer it, each of us in full view of the other the entire time. It’d be a bit of a bugger if you wanted to pretend you were out when someone called.
Today, Elizabeth Fenchurch was dressed in pale colours that washed her out just as much as the sombre clothes she’d worn to the funeral had. Still no jewellery. Her straight hair didn’t exactly look bad, but it was definitely a bit flat as, to be brutally honest, was her figure.
“You’re the one who found her,” she said when she finally opened the door.
“Uh, yeah.” I tried to work out how she felt about that, but she just seemed, well, not so much grief-stricken as generally depressed, if you ask me. And possibly doped up on something, from the way all her movements seemed to be in slow motion.
Then again, maybe she’d just caught the sleepiness from her husband?
“What do you want?”
Huh. Not so sleepy as all that, then. And fair question. “I was wondering if I could maybe ask you a couple of questions?” Too late, I remembered I was supposed to be charming her, and flashed her a smile.
I won’t say she reared up like a startled horse, but it definitely seemed to make her nervous. I dialled it back sharpish. “Uh, sorry to bother you at this sad time,” I added.
The trite phrase seemed to work where the charm offensive hadn’t. Maybe I was losing my touch. “Come in,” she said indifferently.
She led me through to the least cosy living room I’d ever been in. Everything was square or monochrome or both. It was like I imagined a waiting room in one of those Swiss clinics Dave had been talking about the other day.
I tried not to let it oppress me too much as we sat on a blocky sofa. Side by side, as all the furniture was facing the plate glass window overlooking the lawn. Handy, for the sort of family that doesn’t want to look at one another any more than it has to. “I’m Tom, by the way. Tom Paretski. You’re Elizabeth, right?”
She nodded, barely. “What do you want to ask?”
“Um, nice place you’ve got here,” I lied. “Lived here long?”
“A year or two,” she said, like she didn’t care much either way.
“You and Arlo, you’ve been married for a lot longer than that, right?”
Liz shrugged. “Twenty years.” She didn’t sound like she cared a lot about that, either.
“Kids?”
“No.”
Christ, this was hard work. Time for a new tack. “I know this is a bit cheeky, but I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a cup of coffee?” I’d normally have asked for tea, but I reckoned she needed the caffeine.
She blinked and looked upset. “Didn’t I offer you a drink?”
“Not to worry, love,” I said quickly, but she’d already stood up and started walking off. Again there was this weird feeling she was just sleepwalking through life.
I followed her through the white living room past some white stairs to a white kitchen, the sort where anything that might have the bad taste to look like it had a practical purpose like a fridge or a cooker was ruthlessly hidden behind blank panels. No prizes for guessing what colour they were. It was all starting to make my eyes hurt.
And yeah, I took the opportunity to have a good listen to the vibes. There was something there, all right—in fact, there was more than one secret hidden in this house, but to be honest, all the trails seemed too faint to be anything important. There was a sense of shame to one of them, and another had mild annoyance with a whiff of guilt—put it this way, we weren’t talking skeletons in closets. Not even the murder weapon the skeleton got done in by. It was probably all just the general stuff you got in anyone’s house, like the secret stash of “medicinal” marijuana or the receipt for something you told him indoors only cost half as much as it actually had. That sort of stuff.
I tried not to look too disappointed. After all, if you really wanted to hide something, you wouldn’t choose a flippin’ glass house, would you?
Liz opened up a cupboard and took out a coffee machine (black, thank God). “White?” she asked, and I just managed to stop myself saying God, no.
“Yeah, ta. No sugar.”
She set the wheels in motion, got some milk out of a fridge you wouldn’t have known was there, and then we stared out of the window at the same view we’d seen from the living room. God, this was painful. “You like cooking?” I asked.
“Not really. Arlo tends to do all that.”
So she didn’t work, she didn’t cook—not to be funny, but just what did she do? I mean, yeah, maybe she’d had to give up work due to stress or depression or whatever, but I couldn’t see how sitting around on her own in this mausoleum all day doing sod all was supposed to make her feel any better.
“I like making salads,” she offered, surprising me.
I was on that like white on, well, this house. “Yeah? I know a good recipe for warm salad with goat’s cheese, bacon, and hazelnuts. Share it with you if you like.”
For a moment she looked interested—then the veil dropped again. “Arlo probably wouldn’t like it. It wouldn’t be worth making it just for one.”
Meaning her. Poor Liz. “Come on, love. Live a little. Like the ads say, you’re worth it.”
She almost smiled—and then looked away. The coffee was ready.
It was bloody good coffee, mind. I took a couple of very appreciative sips, and then noticed Liz was just sipping at a glass of water.
“Not a coffee drinker?”
“I’m not supposed to. It’s bad for my anxiety.”
“Yeah? You know what you want to do? Get a couple of mates together and have a spa day. I’ve got a friend who swears by ’em.” I didn’t have to mention his name was Gary.
Liz gave me a weird kind of half smile. “What did you want to ask me about?”
I guessed the socialising was over. “Did you and your husband make it to the Harvest Fayre? I’d have thought Amelia would’ve made sure you had an invite.” And probably a stall to run, if I knew the late Mrs. F-M.
“I wasn’t well that day. Arlo was going to go, but he was held up.”
“Yeah? Where was that, then?”
She looked like she didn’t want to answer. “Birmingham. He often takes trips up there. Trade,” she explained with a shrug.
I made a sympathetic face. “Probably just as well in the circs. They were pretty close, weren’t they? He told me she was more like a daughter to him—and I guess you too?”
The lawn got another good stare. “Amelia was grown up by the time I met Arlo. She was a lot older than she looked,” Liz added, finally showing a bit of spirit even if it was of the spiteful persuasion.
“Uh-huh. Still, the big brother thing never really goes away, does it?” I was making it up wholesale now. God knows my big brother never came over all protective towards me.
Shrug.
Oo-kay. Time to try another tack. “Shame she never really got on with her stepdaughter.”
Liz’s mouth gave an odd twist, and she stared out of the window once more. “No great loss,” she said so quietly I struggled to hear her.
Did she mean Amelia? Or friendly relations between her and Vi? “Have you had a lot to do with Violet Majors?”
“No.” She put her glass down with a heavy clunk on the worktop.
I got the distinct impression I’d be getting my marching orders sharpish, so I hurried to ask another question. “How did—” I never got to finish, as the phone rang.
Liz picked up one of those cordless landline handsets. It was white. I was amazed she could find the flippin’ thin
g around here. “Hello? Oh yes, fine. No. No, I haven’t. No. The man who found Amelia is here. Yes, in the house. He came to ask some questions.”
Shit.
“No, I— Oh. If you want.” She held out the phone. “He wants to talk to you. It’s Arlo,” she added, as if I hadn’t guessed that already.
I took the phone with a fair amount of foreboding. “Hello?”
“Tom. How kind of you to stop in to see my wife.” His tone could have meant anything. Up to and including he really did think it was kind of me, but I wasn’t betting on it. “I hope you haven’t been placing her under undue stress,” he carried on, in slow, deliberate tones. “She really isn’t equal to it. Can I be crystal clear with you? Ambiguous and imprecise messages purporting to come from the beyond will not be well received in my house.”
“Uh, really not my area, so no worries.”
“Nevertheless. Would you pass me back to my wife, please?”
Fine. I handed Liz the phone. She listened for a moment, then looked up at me. “Arlo thinks you should go now,” she said, her voice holding a faint hint of triumph, as if that settled the matter.
Which was odd in itself—did she think I wouldn’t leave if it was only her who’d asked?
Still, message received and understood.
So I went.
All in all, it was on the late side of early evening when I started on my way home from St. Leonards. The skies weren’t dark yet, but it was that stage of twilight when it’s harder to see than in full dark, ’cos your brain reckons your eyes just aren’t trying hard enough and your headlights have about as much effect as a kiddie’s nightlight.
I should’ve given Phil a bell before I set off back, I realised. We hadn’t made plans for the evening, and now I wasn’t sure if he’d be over at mine, wondering whether to make a start on dinner (I hope he wouldn’t get that desperate; I fancied something decent for tea) or back at his flat with his feet up and a microwaved ready meal on his lap. Or, you know, somewhere else entirely. I mean, it wasn’t like he didn’t have a life apart from me.
He might even have gone to visit his mum, although I personally wouldn’t have bet my shirt on it.