by Evie Evans
“No, well, thanks anyway.”
“Mrs White, we don’t have a record of a residency permit for you,” Addi said.
“A residency permit? What’s that?”
See, I’m not the only one that didn’t know.
Addi explained to Mrs White. “Do you have your passport handy?”
“Yes. Somewhere.”
She went off to look for it. I looked at my watch. We were wasting a lot of time here when Paul next door could be our killer.
“What?” Addi whispered. “You said we should do things properly.”
When Mrs White came back, Addi checked her passport and advised her to apply for a permit as quickly as possible. Finally we were ready to leave. I waited until we were back out on the street before talking to Addi.
“I can’t believe we found Paul at last and you wanted to check her passport.”
“You told me to!”
“Is this guy one of the Pauls you rang?”
“I can’t remember. I’m sure I’d have noticed one living next door to the woman that found the body.”
“What did you think of Mrs White?”
“Probably a bit lonely. Old people who talk a lot are usually a bit lonely.”
“No, I mean, do you think she could be involved?”
“Maybe. Maybe this Paul and Mrs White were both in it. I mean who meets for dinner at 5 o’clock?”
“Ah. That’s a speciality of older English people. I don’t think it’s her. I suppose she could be lying for him.”
Addi stared at the front door to number 23. “Ready?”
A crop of butterflies had suddenly appeared in my stomach but I nodded.
We walked up the path and Addi rang the bell.
“I bet he’s not in,” I said as we waited. “After all this, he won’t be in.”
We heard the sound of a door opening within the house and the butterflies launched up my chest. Addi and I glanced nervously at each other as footsteps sounded in the hall.
I was holding my breath as the door opened, wondering what kind of person would be behind it. The man who appeared had a lot of grey hair, not just on his head but also a beard covering most of his face. He confirmed he was Paul when we explained who we were, and let us in, seemingly affable enough.
As far as houses went, I’d seen a lot better recently. Piles of books, newspapers and boxes down the hallway reached past shoulder height. We edged past a towering pile near the door and tried to find somewhere in the crowded living room to sit, ignoring sudden feelings of claustrophobia.
“Ah yes, Tina Lloyd,” he said when Addi mentioned her name. “Terribly sad, lovely lady.”
“Could I just ask your full name please, sir?” Addi said, “for the record.” He nodded at the questionnaire I was filling in. I’d already put ‘hairy’ in the physical description box.
“Edward Paul Marshall.”
“You go by your middle name?”
“Yes, I was named after an uncle in the hope he’d leave me something when he died. He didn’t.”
“How well did you know Tina Lloyd?” I couldn’t help asking, even though Addi wouldn’t be happy. I didn’t have a strong feeling about this one. Maybe it was the beard, but I couldn’t tell right off this time if he was innocent or not.
“Hmm,” he hedged. The fact he didn’t answer straightaway said a lot, I thought. “Not well. I met her through Mrs White, next door.”
“How would you describe your relationship?” I pressed, ignoring the black look Addi was giving me.
“Friends, not even that really, acquaintances I suppose.”
“We found a birthday card to her signed ‘all my love Paul’. Are you saying that wasn’t from you?”
“Well−”
“Because I’m sure we could do a handwriting analysis on it.” That was a lie, I had no idea what sort of forensics they could do.
Paul gave a defeated kind of shrug. “Alright, I did know her a bit better than that. We saw each other a couple of times but that was all, it only started a few weeks before her death.”
“And you didn’t think to come forward with this information?” Addi asked.
“Why should I? What had it got to do with anything? We weren’t serious, we were just friends. She was friends with lots of blokes.”
“Did you tell Mrs White about these dates with Tina?” I asked.
“No, like I said it wasn’t serious. We went out to dinner once, then to a movie another time. That’s it.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “All my love?”
“So? That’s what you write on these cards, isn’t it?”
His answer reminded me of a certain love rat back home I’d had the misfortune to be involved with. Still, I’d shown him.
“Who did know of your relationship?” Addi asked.
“I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t know if Tina did. We weren’t exclusive, I know she was friends with other men.”
“And how did that make you feel?” Addi followed up.
“Fine, it was only a bit of fun. Like I said, we weren’t exclusive or anything.”
“What other men was she seeing?” Addi’s questions were coming thick and fast now, not giving me a chance to get my oar in.
“There was some bloke called Roger−”
Not him again.
“We know about him,” Addi said. “Who else?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you saw Tina?”
“Two days before she died. We went to the cinema.”
“And how did things end between you?” Addi snapped out, not giving Paul much time to think, or concoct.
“What do you mean? Things ended fine, I said I’d give her a ring to sort out about going out again at the end of the week.”
“You didn’t have an argument then?”
“No.”
“And what were you doing the afternoon of her death?”
“I went out and did some shopping at some point, the big supermarket in town, then I came home again. I went over to Mrs White’s about quarter to five.”
“Can anyone confirm your whereabouts that afternoon?”
“Supermarket shopping is hardly a social event.”
Addi looked at him.
“I went alone,” Paul Marshall explained. “No, there were no witnesses. I presume it would be on the CCTV at the supermarket though.”
“What time do you say you were at the supermarket until?”
“It’s so long ago. I guess I got back a little after 4 o’clock because there wasn’t much time before I had to leave for Dorothy’s.”
I made a note of this on the interview sheet whilst Addi continued, unrelentless. “How did Tina seem when you last saw her?”
“Fine, happy enough.”
“She wasn’t worried about anything, mention any problems to you?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Mr Marshall, it would have been a lot better if you had come forward at the start of the investigation so we could have eliminated you from our inquiries.”
Paul Marshall nodded. When Addi got into his stride he really sounded quite convincing.
“What will happen now?” Mr Marshall asked.
“We’ll check your alibi. I have to ask you to not leave the area without informing me first. Do you understand? If you think of anything further, please give me a ring.” Addi handed him one of his business cards as we got up to leave.
“Oooh,” I started, on our way back to the car. “Not much of an alibi and he was dating the victim. Things are looking up.”
“I don’t know,” Addi said, “I don’t feel like he did it.”
23 Your Mama Don’t Dance
Despite what Addi had said, I went home that night with a feeling we were a step nearer our killer. I knew I’d get to the bottom of this case eventually, given the chance.
“We’ve made a bit of progress today,” I told Aunt June as she tidied the kitchen. “It won’t be long n
ow.”
“It’s about time, this has been going on for months.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
“Don’t sit there,” she cried out as my arse was moments away from a chair in the kitchen. “Helena’s coming round tonight, I need to mop the floor in here.”
I looked down. “It looks alright to me, she won’t mind.”
“Cleaning just passes you by, doesn’t it?”
“I happen to think there are better things to do in life. I would give you a hand,” I lied, ”but I haven’t got long before I’m due out again.”
My aunt sniggered. “Oh yes, you’re having dinner at Addi’s, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I can’t wait. I’d better go have a shower.”
“Oh, Kostas has fixed that humming noise in the shower.”
“Great.”
“Now it’s in the pipe by the sink.”
“Perhaps he can work it round to where my radio used to be before he broke it. Then I could sing along to it.”
“He tries, dear.”
Yes, he was a bit trying at times. He wasn’t the only one.
“Aren’t you putting on a skirt?” my aunt asked a bit later when I emerged from my room in jeans and a jumper.
“No. I don’t want to dress up and look like I’m trying to impress her. She’ll think I am after her son. Addi said it’s not a dressing up thing.”
“You don’t understand, things are different here. It’s a different culture.”
“Please don’t start with that ‘women should wear skirts business’, this is the 21st century. We’ve been liberated from the corset for quite some time now.”
“I think it would look better.”
“Then we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
She looked me up and down. “Haven’t you got anything to give to the hostess?”
“My coat?”
“Jennifer! You can’t turn up empty handed. I don’t know if I’ve got anything in, there may be some cooking sherry somewhere.”
“Alright, I’ll get something on the way.” I grabbed my keys and headed to the door before my aunt could criticise something else. “Bye.”
“Good luck,” she called. I could tell she was laughing.
Being fifteen minutes late wasn’t the best of starts. “Sorry,” I told Addi when he opened the door. “I stopped off to buy some flowers and then I couldn’t find your street.”
“Don’t worry,” he told me, ushering me in.
It was a pleasant house, decorated in the Cypriot style with white walls, ceramic tiled floors and light furnishings. About as different from English decorating as you could get, with our love of plush carpets and heavy curtains, hell we’ve even been known to hang rugs on the walls. Mind you, the weather here is a teensy bit different.
“Just to warn you,” Addi whispered, “it would be better not to talk about politics, religion, the North, expats, English holiday makers, English football fans, the English in general.”
This was going to be a relaxing evening.
“Right.”
“And whatever you do, don’t mention the other night. In the monastery.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Addi’s mother came in from the kitchen wielding a ladle. I prepared to duck.
“Mamma, this is Jennifer. Jennifer, this is my mother.”
“Kalispera,” I told her, pleased to see the only similarity she had with Attila the Hun was the moustache. I’d imagined her as a dragon, dressed all in black. In fact she was a short, rotund woman and was wearing a pretty print dress with a large gold necklace.
“You think I can’t speak English?” she asked in a thick accent.
I could tell then this evening wasn’t going to go well. “No, of course, I’m sure you speak perfe−”.
“We eat now,” she told us, pointing at the clock and heading back to the kitchen.
Did I get the feeling I hadn’t made a good impression? Addi pointed me to a table laid at the end of the room. As I took my place, I found myself checking among the settings for toothpicks to be forced under my fingernails later and other potential instruments of torture.
We’d just settled ourselves when Mamma came back with some small bowls of soup. As she sat down next to Addi, I presented her with the bunch of pink flowers Aunt June had guilted me into buying from the petrol station.
She stared at them for a moment as if she’d never seen a bunch of flowers before.
“That’s nice, isn’t it, Mamma?” Addi said.
“Yes,” she told me almost smiling, before getting up, opening the nearby patio door, and putting them next to an almost identical plant growing in a pot in her garden.
“Lovely,” I said and turned my attention to the soup. “This looks delicious,” I ploughed on.
“Traditional Cypriot cheese soup, made with soured milk, and yoghurt,” Addi explained.
“Sounds…delicious,” I lied.
Later, in the garden, I tried to apologise.
“How many times can I say I’m sorry? It came out before I knew it.”
“I told you not to mention religion!” Addi hissed back at me.
“It was just a little joke about priests and schoolboys, that’s all.” Admittedly, not the sort of thing I’d normally say at a family dinner but the anxiety of being interrogated by Addi’s mother had put my brain into some kind of seizure.
“My mother didn’t find it funny.”
Loud banging sounds were audible from the kitchen. “Yeah, I think I got that message.”
We were sitting underneath some impressive vegetation tangled above us around a trellis.
“Your grapes are fantastic,” I said, changing the subject. It worked, Addi stood up and walked about proudly, pulling off the odd dead leaf. “Not much fruit though,” I added.
“No, well, the grape season’s finished now, isn’t it?” he said.
“Table or wine grapes?”
“Oh, table. Mamma doesn’t agree with drink.”
I couldn’t think of anyone who might benefit from it more. “She doesn’t know about your sideline selling cheap booze?”
“Sssh,” he hissed at me.
“Where d’you keep it anyway?”
“Sssh, Jennifer.” He put a finger to his lips.
“Alright, have your little secret. I guess you wouldn’t have become a wine merchant then, if your mother hadn’t insisted you be a police officer.”
“No, I don’t think that would’ve gone down very well.” He dropped his voice so I had to lean forward to hear the rest. “She didn’t insist I go into the police. She just, you know, wore me down.”
“I think I can imagine.”
Addi insisted on showing me the rest of the plants in his back garden.
“So, are we going to tackle Paul’s alibi tomorrow?” I asked, looking at a spindly plant I would have pulled up if it had been growing in Aunt June’s garden.
“I suppose so. I’m not convinced it was him.”
“You told me off for doing that.”
“What can I say? I have a feeling.”
“No wonder, you should try chewing your food more.”
Addi rolled his eyes at me.
“Supermarket tomorrow, CCTV footage,” I said.
“Yes.”
I glanced at the kitchen window. “Do you suppose it’s alright for me to go home?”
He looked a bit crestfallen. “You didn’t like the meal?”
I’d put my foot in it again. “No, the food was lovely, delicious.” It was the company that was a problem. “It was very nice to visit a typical Cypriot home, as well. I’d better get off though, we’ve got a potentially exciting day tomorrow.”
We went via the kitchen so I could thank my hostess. She looked as impenetrable as ever as I showed my gratitude.
The large lungful of air I took as I stepped out of their door, ordeal over, was very refreshing.
24 Good Girls Go Bad
I didn’t go
home straightaway, I needed to apply for my own overdue residency permit, especially now I knew the penalties of not having one, and somehow I didn’t want to do it at the office. That meant another visit to the internet café.
On the drive there I got caught up in some kind of crusiers’ convoy, lots of cars with young drivers being driven very slowly along the seafront. It was what passed for entertainment for youngsters around here, doing laps around town. After I joined the line, the car behind me started honking its horn.
“What do you want me to do?” I shouted back. The honking continued. I was just giving an age old, hand signal when I realised someone in the car behind was waving. It was Vara. So this is what she did on her nights off. I waved back before gratefully turning off and finding a parking space near the café. It was too much excitement for me.
The café was pretty empty. After I’d found the right government page online and submitted my application, I found myself logging into my email account again. I must be a sucker for punishment but I wanted to see if I’d had any Christmas messages. It was a masochistic exercise to discover if I really had any friends left or not.
Once again, there were a lot of promotional emails. How did these people get hold of my email address? I was sure I’d never bought anything from ‘Golden Insurance’ before and I was absolutely certain I’d never purchased from ‘Big Bad Girls Online’. Deleting them all didn’t leave much again. The rush to wish me Christmas cheer was distinctly underwhelming. It was a confirmation of just how lousy my friendships back home had been. Oh, and I still hadn’t returned my books to the library so they were cancelling my membership.
And then I saw it. The email from ‘Rupert’.
From Him.
Yes, it wasn’t bad enough I’d chosen someone who turned out to be a right git, he was also a git with a really pathetic name. What had I ever seen in him?
Suddenly, I felt the anger all over again, a sense of rage passing over me as fresh as if it was yesterday. I forced myself to take a deep breath before going any further.
The subject line of the email was empty. What was he writing to me about? Dare I read it or would it be better to delete it straightaway?
Of course I couldn’t delete it without reading it! The idea was preposterous (and if that’s the best you can come up with it would be better if you kept quiet). Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, I opened it.