by JL Merrow
Did that mean Phil’s ex had still cared about him, even though he’d screwed around? It made me uncomfortable to think about, but . . . Phil had still cared about him, hadn’t he? Enough to be screwed up when the bastard popped his clogs although they’d already separated.
Was it better or worse if the Mysterious Mark had still loved him too?
It was doing my head in.
“What do you reckon it means?” I asked when we were back on the Tube heading north, having returned the keys to an ungrateful Chelsea. Granted, it was a bit of a public place to be discussing the case, but the bloke next to me was nodding in time with whatever music was playing through his headphones and ignoring the rest of the world, while on the other side of Phil a gaggle of teenage girls was chatting excitedly in Italian. What with that and the clatter of the train, I was pretty sure nobody would be able to hear a word.
Phil stared at the map of the Northern line above the heads of the passengers opposite for a mo. “It ties in with the phone message. Maybe she was set on getting him back, but when he met her by the canal, he said it was never going to happen, and she lost it?”
I didn’t like it. “How do we know she actually met him there?”
“Why send the text if she wasn’t planning to show up?”
“Maybe she didn’t send it?” Okay, there might have been a certain amount of straw-clutching going on.
“Who did, then? They’d have needed access to her phone. Axel? Hazel?”
I didn’t like that idea much, either. “She’s pretty tight with the ex-husband,” I reminded him.
Phil looked doubtful. “So tight he’d want to frame her for murder?”
“Maybe. If he was really pissed off about her being with Jonny-boy.”
“Except she split up with Tarbox years ago and has worked with him ever since. And if Tarbox wanted her back, why wait so long? And if he just didn’t like seeing her with anyone else, why not kill Parrot anytime over the year and change he and Lilah were together, instead of waiting until he’d left her to do it?” He paused. “More likely they were in on it together.”
“But what about Oliver, then? Why would he let them into his house?” I had a light bulb moment. “Hang on. Hazel’s chummy with the flatmate, isn’t she? Maybe she’s got a key.”
Phil huffed a grim laugh. “So they were all in on it? Family-bonding activity, was it?”
“I don’t bloody know, do I? But yeah, I could see Tarbox as our killer. Don’t reckon he’d lose any sleep over Jonny-boy’s death or Oliver’s either for that matter. ‘That nance at the Smithy,’ remember?”
“Most killers aren’t that free with the negative opinions about their victims.”
“So it’s a whatsit, a double bluff, all right? Or he’s, I dunno, sociopathic or whatever they call it. Thinks they deserved to die and that any reasonable person would be on his side about it.” I sighed and closed my eyes. Then I opened them again because the motion of the train was making me queasy. Or maybe it was just the smell. “So have we got any idea what our next move is?”
“And by ‘we’ you mean me?”
“Well, yeah. This ain’t my area of expertise.”
“Pub.”
I grinned. “Serious? The great Phil Morrison, driven to drink by the insoluble mystery?”
“No, the great Phil Morrison fancies a pint with his mates. Darren reckoned him and Gary would be heading to the Four Candles for lunch today. We should be able to catch them.”
We were late for lunch, it being well after two, but luckily the Four Candles serves food all day so we were able to bung in a quick order for the Sunday roast before I keeled over with hunger. We pulled up a couple of spare chairs to Gary and Darren’s cosy table for two by the window (Julian had obviously had a prior engagement) while we waited.
Gary greeted us with a “Tommy darling! How lovely to see you. And Phil.”
Darren, who was tucking into rhubarb crumble and custard, paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “All right, lads? What’s all this, then?”
“We need to talk,” Phil said bluntly.
“Ooh, that sounds ominous.” Gary’s eyes were wide and greedy, but that could have been down to the chocolate cheesecake he was eating.
I was too hungry to go pussyfooting around it, so I gave it to them straight. “You know your mate Lilah? They’ve arrested her for Jonny-boy’s murder.”
Darren’s spoon dropped with a dramatic clatter, bounced off his plate, and fell to the floor. “They never! The effing bastards. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, Lilah wouldn’t. Why the bleedin’ ’ell would they think she’d done it?”
“Yeah, well, it turns out old Jonny-boy was having it away with a bloke he worked with. Who, by the way, also had an unscheduled meeting with his maker last night. Oh, and the London ex claims him and Jonny were also back on more than friendly terms even before he left Lilah. So the police reckon she’s got a motive.”
Darren picked up his fork to gesture angrily. “Bollocks. He could’ve slept with half of Hertfordshire and she wouldn’t have given a toss. Lilah ain’t the jealous sort.”
Gary pursed his lips. “So young Jonathan was not only married to the lovely Lilah, he was indulging in one illicit affair at work and had another for weekends? If nothing else, I have to say I admire his stamina.”
“Allegedly,” Phil reminded us all. “We’ve only got Reid’s word for it they were back together before Parrot left his wife.”
“And that’s another thing,” Darren butted in. “Why the bleeding hell did he leave her in the first place? Christ, she’s got money, she’s a proper looker, and she didn’t give a monkey’s about him shagging around. This ain’t just having your cake and eating it. This is all the bloody buns you can eat and a fruit tart for afters.”
“Maybe he came down with a case of emotional diabetes?” I shrugged.
Phil cleared his throat. “We’re forgetting: he was scared of something. Maybe he didn’t want to leave, but he was too scared to stay?”
“Yeah, but scared of what?” I asked.
“Your menacing visage?” Gary blew me a kiss.
“I’ll menace you in a minute.” I screwed up my eyes. “It doesn’t make sense. Unless . . . Do you reckon Axel told Jonny-boy he was going to spill the beans about him and Oliver to his mum? Blackmailed him, even?”
“For what?” Phil asked.
“I dunno. Money?”
Phil was already shaking his head. “No. So Parrot refuses to pay—what’s the worst that can happen? His marriage breaks up. So why break it up preemptively?”
I peeped over at Gary and Darren, who were glancing from one to the other of us like they were watching the Wimbledon final.
I glared at them. “So what do you think happened?”
“Buggered if I know.” Darren shrugged. “Tell you what, though, that’s Lilah all over. She wouldn’t give a toss where her bloke stuck his dick. And even if she did, she wouldn’t let on. Not to anyone, and definitely not to some prick trying it on with blackmail. Even if he was her son.”
So in his considered opinion as an old friend of hers, Lilah was either (a) telling the truth or (b) a good liar. Cheers, mate. That was well helpful, that was.
“He must have had a dark secret.” Gary had definitely perked up at the thought.
“Like what?”
“Ooh . . . perhaps he had his hands in his employer’s till?”
Darren cackled. “Or his other bits in something else of hers?”
“Have you ever met Tallulah Lovett?” I asked in amazement.
He shrugged. “Nope. Not in all the years I’ve known Lilah. She a stunner and all?”
“Not next to Lilah, she isn’t. And seriously, no. No way. She didn’t even like him.”
“Who says that’s a perquisite?” Darren demanded.
“I think you mean a prerequisite, sweetie pie,” Gary cooed. “A ‘perquisite’ is a perk.”
“Pumpkin, when I look at you, all I can think
of is the perks.” They swapped soppy smiles.
I rolled my eyes. “Oi, enough of the mushy stuff. Some of us haven’t had our lunch yet and we don’t want to lose our appetites.”
“What’s the lad like?” Darren asked suddenly. “I never met him, neither.”
“He’s . . .” I shrugged. “He’s a teenager. Good-looking, I s’pose,” I added, remembering that clear skin.
“Oi, no funny ideas about Lilah’s boy or you’ll be running scared and all.” Darren jabbed his fork in my direction.
I stared. “He’s fifteen!”
“And just you remember it. Bloody hell. Poor Lilah. It’s a bleedin’ travesty, that’s what it is. Still, if I know her, she’ll have a good lawyer. She ought to sue ’em for all they got.” Darren dug his fork viciously into his rhubarb crumble.
Luckily at that point Phil and me were called back to our own table for food.
“So did that actually help?” I asked, digging into my roast beef and Yorkshire pud. Sometimes all you want is a hearty, traditional dinner.
“Not sure.” Phil speared a carrot, considered its crimes for a mo and then dunked it in his gravy before eating it.
“Didn’t sound like Darren reckoned Lilah could’ve done it. Course, we never mentioned that phone call, did we? Text message. Whatever. You know what? It’s a shame we can’t ask her about it.”
Phil gave a grim laugh. “Don’t worry. They’ll be asking her plenty of questions about it down at the station.”
“Yeah, but I bet she’d rather be talking to us. Ah, sod it. It doesn’t make sense.”
By the time Gary and Darren re-joined us, we were onto dessert. Well, one of us was. The other one of us was clearly trying to make everyone else feel bad with his Just an Americano, thank you. I didn’t care. The rhubarb crumble was seriously tasty.
“Have you solved the case yet?” Gary asked optimistically, eying my pud like a shark checking out a shoal of baby seals. Or whatever the collective noun for baby seals was. I had a feeling it wasn’t a club. I bowed to the inevitable, shoved my dish a few inches closer to him, and handed over my fork.
“No.” Phil didn’t exactly bark it, but there was the definite suspicion of a growl.
Darren nodded sagely. “You’ll get there, mate. You’ll get there. So how’s the wedding preparations going, then? Got it all sorted yet?”
Bloody hell. I’d almost forgotten about the wedding in the last couple of days. Luckily I had my mouth full of crumble so I didn’t just blurt that out. “Uh, it’s going okay,” I said instead after I’d swallowed. “Still need to book the honeymoon, mind.”
Darren flashed Phil a sly look. “Yeah, you don’t want to forget about that. Best fourteen nights of my life, our honeymoon was. And that ain’t counting the days.”
“Oh, the pleasure was all mine, sweetie pie,” Gary trilled, then turned back to me. “Still, there’s plenty of time to worry about that.”
I stared at him. “Hang about, aren’t you the one who’s always been on at me to ‘Don’t leave it too late, everything gets booked up, you’ll end up with a reception at McDonald’s and a honeymoon in Torquay’?”
“Oh, pish.” Gary waved his fork airily. “There’s always lastminute.com.”
He laughed. Darren cackled.
I shook my head and grabbed a gulp of Phil’s coffee.
On the way back home, I suggested, seeing as we weren’t busy on the case right at that minute, that we call in at a travel agent’s—there had to be at least a couple of them open today in St. Albans—but Phil reckoned he had too much paperwork to do. Nice to know his priorities in life.
I didn’t sulk, honest. I was just feeling quiet on the way back.
It was a relief to get home and slump in front of the telly. I switched on the sport and stared at Formula One for a while.
“Where are they this week?” Phil asked, coming into the room with his laptop.
“Uh . . .” I peered at the screen. “Germany? Somewhere in Europe? Bugger it. I’ve got no clue.”
“Real hard-core motorsports fan, aren’t you?”
“Oi, it’s not my fault. All these tracks look the same. Except Monaco, obviously. Hey, you ever fancied going to Monaco? We could do the whole James Bond thing—get togged up, bet our shirts on red in a casino . . .”
Phil had opened up his laptop and was ignoring me.
Great. “Guess I might as well get on with my invoices,” I muttered.
I’d cheered up a bit by teatime, mainly because I’d found a mistake in my figures that meant I was a couple of hundred quid better off than I’d thought. And then Phil had announced he’d found a few local bands to choose from for the wedding—I avoided making any pointed comments about all the paperwork he’d supposedly been doing—and we spent the rest of the evening watching YouTube vids and arguing about musical integrity versus broad appeal. The one we decided to go for, and even managed to book with a swift phone call, had a dodgy name but they were willing to play just about anything you asked for, which is pretty handy when your guest list skews heavily towards the older demographic.
And no, I didn’t include me and Phil in that.
We were getting cosy on the sofa, and I for one was debating the merits of an early bedtime when the phone rang.
“Is that Mr. Paretski?”
The nervous, breathy female voice was familiar, somehow, but I couldn’t quite place it. I scrabbled around for my work diary. “Yeah, that’s me. Paretski Plumbing. What can I do you for?”
“It’s Hazel. Hazel Lovett.”
Oh. Not that I didn’t feel bad for the girl, but couldn’t she give us our Sunday night off? It wasn’t like there was anything we could do for her at this precise instant. “All right, love?”
“It’s— I don’t know what to do. Everything’s so . . . Oh God.” There was a loud snuffling sound, and when she spoke again, her voice was stretched to breaking point. “I don’t know if you’ve heard—”
“About your mum being arrested?” I finished for her, because God knows she sounded like she needed the help. “Yeah, I know. Me and Phil are working on—”
“No! It’s not— I mean, yes, but it’s . . . Oh God.” There was an actual sob this time, and then silence.
“Hazel?” I was getting worried now.
“It’s Axel. He tried to k-kill himself.”
Bloody hell. Christ, I felt like a bastard for wanting to give her the brush-off a minute ago. “Is he okay?”
“He’s gone to hospital. The ambulance just left.”
“Where are you? Are you on your own? Is Pete with you?”
“I’m at home. He had to go to work.”
On a Sunday night? That was unsociable hours and then some. Or did it count as Monday, if half his shift was after midnight?
And why the bleedin’ hell was I wasting time thinking about that right now? “What about your dad?”
“He’s not here. I . . . I really need to talk to you. Can you come over?”
“Course, love. We’ll be straight there.”
I hung up and turned to give Phil the good news.
There was a bit of déjà vu when we got over to Pluck’s End to find another uniformed copper answering the door. Actually, I thought it was the same one for a mo, until I remembered the morning one had had shorter hair.
She had an identical scowl on her face, mind. Maybe they teach that at Hendon too: advanced glowering, intimidation of pesky members of the public for the use of. “Can I help you, sir?” There wasn’t a hint in her tone that she desperately wanted to add into a nice, comfy cell but the eyes gave her away. What on earth had we done to her? Failed to correctly perform the secret knock?
“Tom Paretski and Phil Morrison.”
The copper-cum-gatekeeper nodded, which solved that little conundrum. She’d heard of us.
“Hazel asked us to come round,” I went on quickly, speaking loudly in the hopes the young lady in question would hear me, and sure enough, a pale face appeare
d over PC Pleasant’s shoulder.
“Thank God you’re here,” Hazel said shakily, and after that her police escort had no option but to let us in.
Hazel was wearing baggy leggings and a massively oversized hoodie with saggy pockets. Comfy clothes, for lounging around on a Sunday night. Inside them, she was a ball of tension and misery. “Come on through,” she said, hugging herself.
We followed her into Lilah’s living room, which looked like it’d been yarn-bombed. There were balls of wool everywhere, in all different colours—on the sofa, on both chairs, and on the floor. Arthur and Merlin would’ve thought they’d died nine times and gone to heaven. Laid out on the arms of the sofa and chairs were hand-knitted mittens in varying stages of completion.
“Hey, you make all these? For the Smithy, right?” I asked to distract Hazel.
“Oh. Yes. Sorry. I should’ve . . .” She gazed hopelessly around at the muddle, obviously feeling she should tidy but not knowing where to start.
“How about we go in the kitchen and have a cuppa?” I suggested.
Hazel’s lip trembled, but she held it together. “Okay.”
I felt the urge to put an arm around her as she led us to the kitchen, but wasn’t sure if she’d welcome it. It wasn’t entirely clear why she’d called us over, but it seemed more likely it was for professional reasons than because the sudden crisis gave her an irresistible urge to see yours truly.
Once we were in the kitchen she seemed lost, so I gave Phil a nod to see to the kettle and shepherded her over to the table, where I sat down beside her.
PC Pleasant hadn’t followed us in, and the door to the hallway was shut. I made a mental note not to forget she was probably earwigging, mind.
“How do you take your tea, love? Or would you rather have hot chocolate?” I suggested, thinking of Axel. Also of the time, which was after eleven. Hazel was going to have enough trouble sleeping tonight without added caffeine.