Hide and Die (Jordan Lacey Series Book 4)

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘She went home today. Checked herself out.’

  ‘I expect the cost was a drain on her resources,’ I said. ‘I know nursing homes have to charge a lot. It’s the heavy upkeep.’ ‘

  We have such a high standard,’ she agreed.

  ‘Gill Frazer was lucky that she had private health insurance. Do you know which scheme she was in?’

  The nurse shook her head briskly.

  ‘Ah, that’s classified,’ she trilled to cover her anxiety. ‘We never disclose private arrangements.’

  ‘Of course not. Quite right too. But I knew anyway.’

  ‘I’ll get your things,’ she volunteered. She came back with a neatly folded pile of clothes. They do everything with style when you are paying several hundred pounds a week. She was also carrying a huge bunch of red roses. There was no card.

  ‘These came for you,’ she said.

  ‘Heavens,’ I said, drifting into the heady perfume of the velvety roses. A list went through my head. James, Ben, Miguel, my trumpeter … ‘I can’t think who could have sent them.’

  ‘He was driving a flashy blue car. No, no, he came earlier, sorry. Not with the roses.’

  Jack brought me roses? Not quite his style. ‘Ah, so not my benefactor.’

  I started to leave. ‘By the way, who would have prepared my supper the other night?’

  ‘The cook, Mrs Niki Shiko. Did you want to speak to her? I should think she has gone home by now. She’s on shift work.’

  ‘Yes, I would like to have a word. Perhaps I could have her address or a phone number.’

  ‘I’ll get you her phone number.’ She turned her back on me and keyed up some information on the screen.

  I sensed I was outstaying my welcome. She wanted to get rid of me before I asked any more awkward questions. I pocketed the post-it note with the number, thanked her again, and left. She was busy on the phone the moment I went out.

  I was tired by now. Having a tube put down your throat ruins the appetite. A little chicken soup might be appropriate. Maeve’s Cafe was closed. I drove along the coast road. The tide was out and the sea a distant line. Sea Lane Cafe was closed. Had a war been declared in my absence?

  I found a late night supermarket still open at the back of town. Four tins of branded chicken soup were expensive. So was everything else. I could not afford to shop there often. But I did treat myself to a chocolate marshmallow. It looked decadent even with a barcode.

  The light was beginning to fade as I drove home, chicken soup on the passenger seat, roses on the floor of the car. The sky was glowing with rays from the setting sun, a glorious peach sundae of ice-cream clouds and golden juice.

  He was waiting on the pavement outside my bedsits, leaning against the new parking meter. As always, he was wearing black. Black trousers, black silk polo neck, dark jacket slung over his arm. His trumpet case stood at his feet.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said softly, folding me into his arms. ‘Did you like the roses? Why were you in a nursing home? Had you got hurt?’

  He always arrived without any warning. It was something I accepted with the sweetness of seeing him again. The BB band had been on a world tour. He’d landed at Gatwick and taken the train down to Latching for the pleasure of seeing me and blowing a few notes at the Bear and Bait.

  ‘But I’m jet-lagged, Jordan. It was a long flight. I may fall asleep.’ He brushed his floppy hair from his eyes.

  ‘You can sleep here. I have room for you.’

  ‘I may take you up on that offer. Let’s blow a bar or two and then break away. I haven’t played for you for a long time.’

  ‘A hundred years,’ I said wonderingly.

  ‘Is it as long as that? Well, that’s how time flies. You look as if you need a drink. What’s been happening? I had a devil of a job finding you. Policemen all over the place.’

  ‘A bull mastiff bit me and then someone gave me hemlock in a salad,’ I said, cutting a long story short.

  ‘This Latching place seems too dangerous for an innocent young woman like you,’ he said, tucking my arm through his, swinging his case in his other hand. We walked to the Bear and Bait, catching up, talking twenty to the dozen like the long-time friends that we were. My energy surged back. I was his number one UK fan. He was still happily married and apparently his wife had gone with him to the States.

  ‘Where is she now?’ I asked, expecting some glamorously svelte creature to emerge from the shadows, all New York glitz.

  ‘She’s gone straight home. Got to water the plants or something.’

  The Bear and Bait was capacity full. Their usual jazz quartet greeted my trumpeter with the good-humoured banter of jazz musicians. The crowd round the bar parted to allow him to order. They wanted to hear him play.

  ‘The best red for the lady,’ I heard him say. ‘Chilean. Open a new bottle if you have to. And a bitter shandy for me. Draught. Nothing out of a can.’

  I found a corner seat, tucked away behind some massive rugby players. Their shoulders would block my view. I’d forgotten all about chicken soup and being hungry. But he hadn’t. He came back with a big glass of ruby wine and a plate of sizzling potato skins and a sour cream dip.

  ‘I guessed you hadn’t eaten.’ He winked wickedly. ‘I always know everything about you.’

  I hadn’t eaten and I hadn’t seen him for months, nor heard his magical trumpet. I knew my priorities. I was swimming in happiness and nothing else mattered.

  When he began to play, tentatively at first, following the sound of the other players, the chattering died away. Only a fool would talk through this class of jazz. He eased in with their melody, always the polite visiting guest, waiting till an opening came for his sheer genius to burst into improvisation.

  He moved seamlessly from the haunting ‘Samantha’ to the peerless ‘Harry James’ Carnival’, rocking to ‘Shiny Stockings’, then slowing into ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’. I had slipped down on to the floor due to massive rugby shoulders in front of me. It was necessary to watch this man’s face and his fingers as he poured his soul into the drifting tones he was feeling for, see the golden glint on his brass. The wine and the potato skins came with me. They were delicious too.

  Time vanished into matter. He wiped the mouthpiece and began another piece, the clear high sounds making my spine tingle. Cadences found notes I did not know existed. The name of this piece of music eluded me but it was sheer joy and sweetness and somehow captured the murmur of the sea.

  When the last notes died away, everyone started clapping. He cupped the microphone but he was looking at me.

  ‘That last number was new. I wrote it for a dear friend. I call it “Lacey”. Now, folks, if you don’t mind, I need to put my head down fast. Time lag is catching up with me.’

  ‘Lacey’.

  He could hardly keep his eyes open as he cleaned and carefully packed away his precious trumpet. There was nothing I could do to help. I stood around.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve got room for me?’ he wheezed. His breath had gone. Blown away. He would not make old bones. This gutted me.

  ‘Plenty of room,’ I said, like I had a mansion.

  We walked back to my place, my hand in his. He was fighting sleep and we did not talk. I took the roses from the car and unlocked the front door. I guided him upstairs, step at a time. His feet were leaden.

  ‘I’ll put some clean sheets on the bed,’ I said, propelling him towards my bedroom. ‘The bathroom is over there.’

  ‘Don’t bother, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘It’s too hot, too damned hot for sheets. I’ll just roll on top of the bed. I’ll be out … like a light.’

  And he was. He flaked out on top of the duvet, his breathing falling into sleep pattern instantly. I took his shoes off, unfastened a belt clip, smoothed his floppy hair out of his eyes, put his glasses safely beside the bed, and switched off the light. I would never have dared touch him in daylight nor dare I curl up beside him now. I watched him sleeping. It was hard to leave him. But I
had to. He was not mine.

  I tiptoed out clutching my clock and an extra pillow. I would sleep on the floor of my sitting room. There were plenty of cushions. My alarm was set for six a.m. so I could get up and move my car. I did not want a parking ticket.

  Nineteen

  Breakfast was two black coffees. It was strange having him wandering around my place, using my bathroom, looking through my tapes. I had Jazz FM playing on the radio. He listened for a while.

  ‘They play the same old stuff,’ he exploded. ‘Why don’t they move on? That’s wallpaper jazz.’

  ‘It’s smooth jazz,’ I said, defending my favourite radio station.

  I’d never seen him in the morning, pacing about. My bedsits were too small for him. He was an evening man, dusk and night time. He only came alive in the evening. I drove him to the station. My car amused him but he had to go home, he explained. Commitments.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he said, leaning across and kissing my cheek. ‘Don’t leave it so long next time.’

  Me leave it so long! When I never knew where he was in the world. Still, that was the star mentality.

  ‘Take care,’ I said, moved because he had written a piece of music for me. A tune called ‘Lacey’. Pretty cool. An underwater stillness froze my heart. I might never see the man again. He could die. Jet-setters die from DVT.

  ‘No more hemlock salads, baby,’ he smiled, touching my face. ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  Then he was gone, swallowed into the forlorn station, its bleakness like chloroform, back to London, to wife, back to celebrity concerts, Bond film tracks, Hollywood razzmatazz, a man with a magic trumpet. I would press one of the roses between the leaves of a book of poems. Someone might find the dry petals in years to come and wonder who loved who. I drove back to the shop and parked the ladybird in the backyard.

  I slid into a void.

  First Class Junk had a good morning. I sold a blue Delft china jug, a WWII gas mask, and a pile of old sheet music. The woman was ecstatic.

  ‘I used to sing all these songs when I was young,’ she said, almost breaking into a song and dance routine in the shop. ‘But I’ve forgotten the words. Now I’ll be able to learn them all over again. It’s wonderful. Thank you so much.’

  She handed over six pounds without a second thought. The power of music.

  I got out my portable typewriter and fed in a sheet of paper. This was crunch time, unzip brain. I typed:

  FRAZER — FONTANE

  1. Frazer was Fontane’s nanny.

  2. Frazer was in house when Fontane’s sons were murdered.

  3. Fontane has been paying Frazer £250 a month ever since.

  4. Frazers buy garden plot next to Fontane.

  5. Frazer’s husband is murdered.

  6. Frazer is unhinged by death.

  7. Someone feeds me hemlock in nursing home.

  8. What does this mean?

  I sat back, the fog clearing. Gill Frazer had obviously been blackmailing Lydia Fontane for years, hence the standing order. Blackmailing her about what? What did Gill know? Maybe they did not even buy the garden plot. Was it another sweetener from Lydia when she realized she could not increase the payments? They did not like the new house much. Gill had never turned it into a home. It was if they were passing tenants.

  Then I understood. Gill wanted the big house. She was waiting to move into Lydia’s lovely home. And the face at the window. I knew who that was now. That was Max, Gill’s son. He had already moved in. It was time to pay another visit to Lydia Fontane.

  The door to the shop opened and a customer came in. I took the paper out of the machine and put it in a drawer.

  DI James was peering at the collection of old WWI medal ribbons. They sold well to collectors.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, coolly. ‘Had many of your friends sleep over lately?’

  It was like a blow in the solar plexus. He was wearing his cold face. Eyes masked. The inquisition had arrived.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your overnight guest.’

  ‘That was my musician friend,’ I said. ‘The trumpeter. He was jet-lagged and he flaked out.’

  ‘On your bed, no doubt.’

  ‘Yes, so he did, fully clothed. But I slept on the floor in the other room. Anything else you want to know? Does he snore? I’ve no idea. I only know he arrived late from the States and played at the Bear and Bait, then almost passed out with tiredness. Did you expect me to leave him to sleep on the pavement? I suppose you would have found him a cell.’

  ‘There are plenty of hotels in Latching.’

  ‘He was beyond checking in at a hotel.’

  ‘Naturally. No need with a besotted fan at his beck and call.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I smarted from the insult. ‘He’s a friend. I’d do it for any of my friends. Even you.’

  He ignored the comment. ‘You should be more careful who you have sleeping at your place. It isn’t safe and you could get a bad name.’

  ‘My name is no business of yours,’ I said, starting to move things around in the shop. My hands needed something to do or they might do the unforgettable and throttle the man. ‘In fact, none of this is any business of yours.’

  ‘I’m glad it isn’t. Your life is chaotic and a minefield. I have enough trouble at the station.’ He took out his notebook. ‘I just want to check a few things.’

  ‘Is this a social call, official visit or have you come to buy something?’ I snapped.

  ‘I’ll buy something if that’ll make you happy,’ he said, looking round the shop with complete disinterest. ‘What have you got that is clean, authentic and unique? I guess it would be pretty rare in this shop.’

  He was being stroppy and I was fast losing my temper. It was unforgivable. OK, he was stressed as usual, tired, traumatised by some kind of deep secret from the past, a nasty divorce, etc. But that did not excuse him for his behaviour this morning. He’d arrived in a filthy mood and it was getting worse.

  ‘I think you had better go,’ I said, taking a deep breath and counting to seven. There wasn’t time for ten. ‘I may do something I would regret, like slapping your face or tipping my expensive coffee over your head.’

  ‘Typical juvenile behaviour,’ he said.

  ‘Would you take yourself and your despicable manners out of my shop? I don’t know, nor do I care, whose bed you got out of this morning but it was obviously on the wrong side.’

  ‘Still making cheap jibes,’ he said, slapping the notebook shut and thrusting it into his pocket. ‘Call me when you’ve grown up.’

  ‘I’d rather call Saddam Hussein,’ I shouted at his departing back.

  *

  I stood knee-deep in the wreckage of my life. Static crackled through my head; shards of his words cut my breath. I needed a couple of puffs of Ventolin but the inhaler was back at my bedsits. Somehow I made my legs move and I bent over a chair to ease the breathing. It was an automatic reaction. My brain was not working. It had gone into a negative station. It was not responding.

  My hand shook as I poured out some strong black coffee. It was too hot and burnt my mouth but I hardly felt the pain. I did not care anyway. I was beyond feeling any physical pain. Everything else hurt too much.

  We had quarrelled. James. My precious James. He would never speak to me again. It was over. Finished. Life had moved on. I did not know how I would manage without him.

  Someone came into the shop and bought something. I don’t know what it was, automatically wrapped item in tissue paper. And I gave them too much change.

  My typed list of that morning made no sense. The words were almost a foreign language. I blinked rapidly, making myself focus before going out. The sun was scorching hot, light dancing off glass, but I had to put on a sweater.

  I almost forgot to lock the shop and put up a sign. I put up CLOSED FOR DECORATION. It was as if I had closed down. People in the street pushed past me, heedless. The invisible woman.

  Footsteps hurried
after me on the pavement, like ghosts. They barely registered. I’d forgotten my sunglasses and the sun blinded me.

  ‘Jordan. Hey, Jordan, what’s the hurry? Slow down.’

  DS Ben Evans caught me up, his face beaming. He looked nice and normal. His clothes were normal, a lightweight suit, white shirt, loosened blue tie.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Are you all right? You look a bit pale.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ My mouth formed the words somehow. It felt all stiff and unnatural. The top lip would not move.

  ‘To be expected,’ he said, falling into stride beside me. ‘You’ve been through a lot.’

  ‘I have, haven’t I?’

  ‘Has the guv been giving you a rough time? He looked like thunder when I passed him.’

  ‘A minor explosion of some sort occurred,’ I said, trying to instil some lightness into my voice but it didn’t work.

  ‘Don’t take it to heart. Some of the big guns from London have come down and taken over the dead fisherman case. It’s tied into something bigger.’

  ‘Drug running?’

  ‘Don’t ask. And don’t let’s talk work. It’s too hot. Let’s talk holidays.’

  ‘Forced, shared, solitary, disaster or idyllic?’

  ‘Idyllic shared,’ said Ben, taking my hand. His skin was warm but not sweaty. ‘I’ve been cruising the Internet. There’s a bargain 10-day holiday in Cyprus on offer, quite reasonable as it’s a late bargain. Four-star hotel, right on the beach. Do you fancy it, Jordan?’

  ‘OK,’ I said recklessly.

  ‘Hey, that’s wonderful,’ he said, hardly believing what he had heard. He spun me round on the pavement, unable to contain his enthusiasm. No one got knocked over. ‘I didn’t really think you’d come with me. We’ll have a great time. Swim, sunbathe, dance, walk. Lots of places to visit. I promise you, sweetheart, you’ll come back a new woman.’

  ‘I want to be a new woman,’ I agreed.

  ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘What sort of sharing is shared?’ I asked, some sense returning.

  ‘A twin-bedded room, en suite, of course. Saves on the single supplement charge. Do you mind? I won’t peek. You can have all the privacy you want.’