I was getting homesick for the wide empty stretch of Latching beach. Brighton sea did not go out so far. And it was crowded. There was even a nudist beach somewhere. I’d not found it yet. It was almost impossible to look sideways while walking ahead.
Then I had a big problem. I’d forgotten in which car park I had left the ladybird. There were several multistorey car parks and a variety of entrances. They all looked the same. My time was running out. You cannot run on crowded pavements. It was a kind of run, hop, jog, walk, hunt about.
My car had to be somewhere. I ran up and down sordid stairs, walls covered in obscene graffiti. I’d be able to spot her spots but she was dwarfed by the monsters parked around her.
I searched for an hour. But it was fruitless. My car had vanished. My legs were hollow with all the walking and climbing.
She must have been stolen. She was unique. Some collector would pay a good price for her extraordinary appearance. No wonder I could not find her. And in Brighton of all places.
I sat down on a church wall, desolate, and tried to formulate a plan. Should I phone the Brighton police? Surely they would be able to find her? And I wanted her back. She was part of me, part of my life.
My new mobile went off. I used a unique style of call sign, a phone ringing. No pop songs or football anthems for me.
‘Hello,’ I said, half-choked.
‘Jordan?’
‘Yes, it’s me.’
‘I never know for sure. You are always losing your phones.’
‘They are always being stolen. You know, the police are too busy stalking motorists parked on yellow lines or checking speed cameras. The public ought to complain. Get the mobile robbers, I say.’
I knew who it was. He knew who it was. We were playing the same old game. Still, if it amused him … I relaxed slightly into the sound of his voice. His face came into my mind, every line, every touch of grey in his dark crew cut. James James.
‘Have you lost your car?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can’t find her. I parked her in a multistorey and she’s gone. She’s been stolen.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In Brighton. How do you know I’ve lost her?’
‘Because we’ve just found your car, halfway to Hastings. Abandoned on the side of the road. Run out of petrol.’
‘Meant to fill her up,’ I said.
‘Just as well you didn’t. There’s no damage, you’ll be pleased to hear, except one broken door lock. A couple of joyriders.’
‘Hastings.’ I said it as if Hastings was the other side of the Strait of Dover. ‘How do I get there?’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll fingerprint the car and then return it to you in Latching. You can pick it up.’
‘How do I get home?’
I heard his sigh. ‘Ever heard of the train, Jordan? They run on lines. You go to a station and buy a ticket.’
In time I remembered my manners. ‘Thank you for finding the ladybird. I was going mad, looking for her. You’ve no idea.’
‘OK. Relax, go home and write up your notes. I take it you were working on something?’
‘Sure. Always working. Thank you again.’
James rang off. I got off the church wall, stiff and disorientated, suddenly chilled even though it was hot. Where was the railway station? I found it in time after a long uphill walk, a great Gothic, echoing place. I bought a ticket, sat on a slow stopping train and rattled home to Latching, glad when I saw the flat silvery water of the river Adur flowing under the bridge at Shoreham.
A police car was waiting outside the station, no flashing lights. I peered in, force of habit. DI James was in the driver’s seat, huddled into a light jacket, reading a paper. There was a faint, enigmatic smile on his face.
‘You took your time,’ he said, leaning over and opening the passenger door. ‘You look shattered.’
‘Not exactly a fun day,’ I said, sliding in. ‘Melancholy research.’
‘Do you need cheering up?’
‘Desperately.’
‘Fancy a drink at The Gun?’
‘Shoot me,’ I said.
Thirteen
I would never forget that drink in The Gun. It’s an old pub out at Findon, a bit smoky, low ceilings with wood beams, old brass and as atmospheric as Nelson’s Victory. Close your eyes and it rocked.
We sat in a quiet corner. James bought the best red they had behind the counter. He had to duck his head at the bar. It was not my Chilean or an Australian Shiraz. But I forgave him. I’d have drunk any old plonk to be with him. It was Italian and rather good, a serious red with a taste of black cherry and bitter plum.
He was drinking juice because he was driving. Bless his matching black socks. I sensed he was longing for something 40 per cent stronger. A straight whiskey, a dram and a half. He had that taut, haunted look.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, biting back the words.
‘We’ve got two murders, remember? And we are no nearer to solving either of them. Hell, we don’t know anything. Any moment now they’ll send down the big guns from London, and boy, do we love them interfering.’
I wanted to say: I’ve got two murders, too.
James was staring at the panelled walls, not at me. I yearned to touch him, put my hand on his, show that I understood. But I’d never done that, touched him. Our courtship was so slow it was like a snail going backwards. If it was a courtship … How would I ever know?
‘Can I help you?’ I asked, uncertainly.
‘You do … help me,’ he said unexpectedly, turning round to face me. ‘You are funny, Jordan, crazy, an idiot. It does me good just to talk to you. It brings me down to earth, settles me in an odd way. While people like you exist, the world can’t be that bad.’
I did not know what to do, what to say. I did not take kindly to being called an idiot. Was this an upside-down compliment or not? I decided to accept whatever it was, weird or wonderful. It was better than nothing. James could call me an idiot. It was only a small word.
I gave him one of my best smiles, eyes sparkling, sidled an inch nearer. Who’d notice? He didn’t. ‘And it’s always fun to talk to you, buster, even when you are telling me off. And you do tell me off for no good reason. Sometimes you make me feel less than three feet tall.’
‘I thought you were three feet tall. I’m sorry.’
He leaned over my way and cupped round my hand. I was holding the wine glass at the time so I could not respond. But I could feel his skin and the warmth coming from his fingers. His nails were scrubbed clean. This was the nearest we had ever been. I could have died in the moment. He was my man. I had never heard such tenderness from him. I was confused, lost, bemused. If I said the wrong thing, it could all disappear sideways.
‘I accept your sorrowing,’ I said, like some Victorian maiden in an Edith Wharton novel. ‘Occasionally share your thoughts with me.’
He had barely told me anything about himself. I knew he was divorced, that it still hurt, that he had no real place he could call home. He had not made anywhere a home. And that was about all. It was not enough for any normal relationship.
‘You would not want to hear my thoughts, Jordan. Sometimes they are so strange, they’d frighten you out of your best boots. Not for public consumption.’
‘I’m not public. Try me.’ This was brave.
‘OK, Ms Lacey. Tell me this. What do you think of a man whose thoughts are so black that sometimes he can’t even see through his own darkness?’
What could I say? His voice was twisted with some internal agony and his eyes clouded over. The ocean blue pigment dulled like a day of storm and tempest when the sky was bruised and swirling. He was telling me something without telling me.
‘Well, Mr Detective Inspector,’ I said, playing for time. At such moments my brain is incredibly slow. ‘I think we all have black thoughts. It’s how we deal with them that makes each of us different. I go for walks on the beach, on the pier, watch the sea. I play jazz. Sometimes
a trumpet will cleanse my thoughts with the sheer magic of soaring notes.’
‘Ah … your trumpeter. The mysterious man dressed in black. I have no one like that. Though I do walk the pier, watch the sea.’
He’d noticed. I did not realize that. But James was perceptive. He would have seen the rapt look on my face when my trumpeter last played, that evening at the Bear and Bait. The last time I had seen the famous musician, whom I cherish to distraction but in a totally different way.
He was married, happily. I knew it. He knew it. There was nothing to be done except to enjoy the infrequent times that he played in Latching for the sheer joy of playing. No money involved. Only a goodnight kiss and murmured endearments. He always had the sweetest things to say. Just words, lyrics from songs.
‘My trumpeter,’ I said, forlorn.
‘You care about him?’
‘Oh yes. Very much. But he’s married so that’s the end of that. Full stop. Draw a double line. It’s only his music that’s allowed to fire me.’
‘But if you had met him earlier, before he married?’
‘I don’t know. How can I answer that?’ I said, making my feelings dormant. ‘We are a decade or more apart. You are asking me something that I can’t answer. I’m not the sort of person who would follow a band around the world like a groupie.’
‘But you might have followed him?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s impossible to say. It didn’t happen. We are a million miles apart. He’s famous, flies over to Los Angeles to do soundtracks for films, the James Bond films and others. I recognize his sound, that top F. Who am I? Just an adoring fan, that he sometimes sees in this sleepy seaside town. I’m like a herbal sleeping tablet. One to be taken when required.’
There was a silence. James did not know how to accept this. He had never heard me talk of my inner feelings before. There was nothing more to tell him. My trumpeter and I had shared nothing more than warm hugs and a goodnight kiss. James had never kissed me. He knew nothing about how it would feel to hold me close. How my body would cleave. It was his loss. A sudden coldness touched me.
‘Would you like another drink?’ he said, picking up my empty wine glass.
If I had another, I would be treading cloud nine. And when DI James left me, as he always did, it would be an empty cloud.
‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘It’s been lovely but I’d like to go home.’ I still had some sense left.
*
It took me some time to stabilize after that evening with James in The Gun. It was the closest we had ever got in our brief relationship. Such surprising togetherness. Still, summer was on its way and there were the hot and sultry evenings ahead. I was working winter out of my body. Soon I would meet up with him on the seafront, as he went after the muggers, the robbers, the rapists. What fun.
There were a lot of summer thugs about. Several women had been robbed and knocked about. The Sussex Record regularly had photos of elderly ladies with blackened eyes. If they caught the yobbos, they were often too young to be prosecuted.
I packed away my woolly clothes and got out the Tshirts and cut-off jeans. My feet, now healed, needed an airing, so I painted my toe nails Royal Red and slipped on some sandals.
My last two cases, although not concluded, had been reasonably successful. Perhaps I was improving, getting more experienced. I had found out why Brian Frazer dressed in women’s clothes: he wanted to be another Danny La Rue. But I did not know who murdered him and it was not my case. And it was pretty obvious that Phil Cannon could not have been Dwain’s father and that Nesta had taken him for a ride. It was up to him now to have a DNA test and prove it once and for all. I couldn’t force him.
James had two murders on his hands and I had an old double one. The trail had gone so cold it was practically moribund. That was not funny. Wrong word. Two small children had died.
The monthly payments to Gill Frazer puzzled me. I could not understand why Mrs Fontane was paying money to the woman who had been accused of murdering her children. There must be a good reason.
Shopping list: flowers, fresh cut, box of chocolates. I was going sick visiting.
I got a shock when I reached The Laurels Nursing Home in Lansfold Avenue. It was the same solid, double-fronted house that had once belonged to the nun, that I had broken into last year, searching for clues, where I found fragments of burnt war-time bank notes in a grate.
A developer had bought the house, added a new wing at the back of the garden, turned it into a nursing home. It looked smart and clean, meeting all current health and safety requirements. I wondered what had happened to the old air-raid shelter that had figured in the dispute. Demolished, probably, along with all the ghosts.
I rang the bell in the porch. The porch was filled with hanging baskets with trailing lobelia and geraniums. A bee was buzzing around, cruising the nectar. I had trouble keeping my head out of the way of both bee and baskets.
A woman came to the door wearing a trim nurse’s outfit. It was pale blue with navy touches. She was wearing minimum makeup and her short brown hair was flicked back behind her ears. She smiled cautiously. ‘Yes?’
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’d like to visit Mrs Gill Frazer. Would that be possible? Just for a few minutes. I’m an old friend.’
I waggled the bunch of mixed carnation sprays as evidence of our old friendship.
‘Well, I don’t know …’
‘I do realize how ill she has been and I won’t stay long. I’m sure it’ll cheer her up to have a visitor.’
I tried to look terribly cheerful and the perfect visitor.
‘Just a minute, please. I’ll ask the doctor. What’s your name, please.’
It took a second to sort out who I was at that moment. I checked my clothes. Clean jeans, clean plain white T-shirt, hair tied back with a bobble band. I was not being Lucy Locket. The T-shirt had ‘dream boat’ embroidered discreetly on the left hip. I covered the words with my arm.
‘Jordan Lacey,’ I said. It would mean nothing to her. She disappeared along a corridor and I peered into the hallway. I hardly recognized the place. It looked as if the house had been gutted and the downstairs was now redivided into waiting rooms and consulting rooms. The stairs were the same although the wood was newly polished and the carpet was a thick mushroom pile.
‘The doctor says you may see Mrs Frazer for five minutes,’ said the nurse on her return.
‘Thank you,’ I said, following her up the stairs. She opened a firedoor that led to the new wing. Gill Frazer was in room six on the first floor.
‘Mrs Frazer, you have a visitor. Miss Jordan Lacey.’
It was a pleasant room, light and airy, with pine furniture and floral curtains that matched the counterpane on the bed. Gill Frazer was sitting in an armchair, half asleep, a magazine unopened on her lap. It did not smell or look like a sick room. There were no personal belongings around apart from a camel coloured dressing gown hanging behind the door.
‘Hello, Gill,’ I said softly. ‘It’s me, Jordan. I’ve brought you some flowers. Look, spray carnations. And chocolates.’
Gill blinked. She seemed quite heavily sedated but I did not really know, nor could I ask. But she managed a smile.
‘Jordan? Oh yes, Jordan, I remember you. Come in and sit down. Sorry, no chair.’
‘I’ll perch on the end of the bed. I’m not staying long, only five minutes. It’s nice to see you looking better.’
The nurse left us which was a relief. I could not maintain friend-type conversation for long. It was going to be tricky. If she was still disturbed, then I must not do or say anything to alarm or agitate her. She took the flowers from me and stared down at the the peachy buds.
‘Brian never brought me flowers,’ she said. She sounded quite calm. ‘I’m glad to see you. I haven’t got anyone to talk to here and they won’t tell me anything.’
‘I suppose they don’t want to upset you.’
‘It’s more upsetting not to be told anything. Brian was my hus
band. I have a right to know what happened.’ There was a certain intentness in her eyes. She was fighting off the sedation.
‘I don’t think they know much yet. Your husband was electrocuted by some means, when he was holding the microphone. He’d been singing with the band. He sang … two songs. It could have been accidental but it’s more likely to have been deliberate, someone tampering with the tranformer.’
‘You mean he was murdered?’
‘They are not sure but it is possible. It’s a bit difficult for a transformer to get its wiring mixed up accidentally.’
‘You say he was singing? I didn’t know he liked singing. What were the songs called?’ Gill looked across at me with a glimmer of disbelief. Surely he sang around the house? Apparently not. I remember the office marked Private at the theatre. He probably practised in the theatre when everyone had gone home and he was left to lock up. The perfect place to rehearse and, dammit, I’d never checked the timing.
‘First he sang “Shiny Stockings” and then he sang “Embraceable You”, a really good classic,’ I said. It sounded tacky. I wished I could have said he had sung some famous piece from the Marriage of Figaro.
‘Was he any good?’ This was unexpected. And it was not easy to answer. ‘No, not really. But it was a good try and people clapped a lot.’
‘I guess he would have liked the clapping.’ I wondered if my five minutes were up. The nurse would be back any second now, whip in hand.
‘Mrs Fontane sends her best wishes,’ I said casually.
‘Really? I hardly know the woman.’
Did I go for the jugular? She might start screaming or have a heart attack. She had put the flowers on the windowsill and her hands were loosely clasped. No twitching.
‘Hardly know her? But she’s your neighbour. They sold you the piece of garden on which your house is built. Mrs Fontane lives next door at The Limes.’
‘Oh yes. That’s right. She lives in the big house.’
Hide and Die (Jordan Lacey Series Book 4) Page 13