Ten Year Stretch

by Martin Edwards

  After the police had taken their statements, she’d invited him back to her house, and they’d agreed to have a drink and a chat before Jefferson went on his way. Once she’d changed into a summer frock, they’d decided they might as well have a meal together. There was, after all, a lot to talk about.

  The paramedics had arrived in quick time, and done their utmost, but Padgett died just as they were setting off for the hospital. The assassin was already dead. Heather had insisted on taking charge of the explanation of how she and Jefferson had come to arrive at Padgett’s house at just the moment of the fatal confrontation between him and his mysterious assailant. It had been, she told a sympathetic middle-aged constable who obviously fancied her, like watching something out of a Hollywood blockbuster. She’d said that she wanted to talk to Padgett about her fears that he was cooking up some cosy scam with the fracking company. It was the truth, if far from the whole truth, and it seemed to satisfy the constable. Jefferson she described as a friend who happened to have called on her today, and who had agreed to accompany her in case Padgett became aggressive. Before the police arrived, they’d agreed it was best to keep the story simple. The truth, but definitely not the whole truth.

  The next question was where they stood with Binks. Thankfully, it seemed he wasn’t going to cause any trouble. Jefferson had called him, and given him a highly edited account of what had happened to the man who had attacked him in The Case is Altered.

  ‘All a bit messy, but at least he won’t be troubling you again.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that.’ The estate agent couldn’t disguise his relief.

  ‘What an absolute nightmare. Yes, a nightmare, that’s what it’s been. Still...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Something like that, well, it shakes you up. When I got back from A&E, Moira was shocked to see me in such a state. One way or another, we got talking. I put my cards on the table, and so did she. Yes, there was someone, but she’s given him the heave-ho. She and I are going to give our marriage another try.’

  ‘Right,’ Jefferson said. ‘All’s well that ends well, I suppose.’

  ‘Funny old world, eh?’

  ‘You said it.’

  So that only left Heather Chase, and of course the fifteen thousand pounds. The package of cash was locked in his glove compartment. He only hoped that car thieves weren’t operating in the vicinity. It looked too affluent to be a risky area, but you never knew in life, you never knew.

  ‘The money?’ he asked, playing for time. ‘Well, I meant to give it back to Padgett. I suppose his estate will have some claim on it.’

  ‘His estate?’ Heather Chase was scornful. ‘He was twice divorced, and didn’t have kids. He’s probably left his worldly goods to some right-wing pressure group. If I were you, I’d hold on to the cash. Every last penny of it.’

  ‘I didn’t earn it,’ Jefferson said.

  ‘Nonsense. You probably saved my life, and you’ve certainly saved that estate agent’s marriage. You said before that you didn’t know what to do with yourself. Spend it on fun stuff. Or on setting up a little business or something. Anything but giving it to Padgett’s heirs.’

  He frowned. ‘I’m not much of a businessman.’

  She grinned. ‘I helped my husband with bookkeeping when we were first married. I’m no capitalist, but I know my way around a balance sheet. I’ll give you a hand, if you swear that Padgett’s estate won’t get a penny of the cash.’

  ‘I dunno. I’m not even sure what sort of business I’d be any good at.’

  ‘You told me you were a private investigator.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Poetic licence.’

  ‘Why not give it a go?’ Her eyes were shining; perhaps it was the wine. ‘Be your own boss. Make the most of your professional experience.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Jefferson Hope…I’m sure I’ve heard the name before. In a book?’

  He sighed. ‘Blame my old man. Hope is a character in a Sherlock Holmes story.’

  ‘There you are, then. What could be more fitting? I can see it in neon lights now. Jefferson Hope, private eye.’

  ‘Only one snag,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t named after a detective, but a murderer.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously.’ He swallowed the last of his pie, and belched. ‘Is it any wonder I’m a tormented soul?’

  As she threw her head back and laughed, he considered her.

  What am I getting myself into?

  Crime Scene

  Kate Ellis

  ‘Comment vous appellez-vous, Madame?’ Barney Tollemache’s French was rusty but he always believed in trying.

  His expensive fountain pen hovered over the title page. He’d bought the pen when he’d received his first contract and he regarded it as a talisman. Everybody needs luck. Especially in his line of work.

  ‘You already know my name.’

  His eyes had been focused on the book so he hadn’t been paying much attention to the woman standing in front of him, the last in the queue to have her copy of his hardback signed.

  He looked up at her. After a day spent murdering the French language, her English voice aroused his interest. She was in her early thirties, around his own age, with blond hair and a short black skirt which left little to the imagination. Her long scarlet fingernails reminded him of the talons of an elegant bird of prey whose nest was lined with old copies of Vogue. He experienced a faint bat squeak of recognition but the more he studied her, the more convinced he was that he’d never seen her before. He would have remembered.

  ‘Sorry. You’ll have to remind me. My memory’s...’ he said with an apologetic grin. He went through a rapid mental list of all the females he’d encountered over the two years since his novel was published, but there’d been so many festivals, so many libraries, so many book-signings, that it wasn’t humanly possible to recall everyone. Especially for someone like Barney, who’d always been terrible with faces.

  ‘You really don’t remember me?’

  ‘You’ll have to give me a clue.’

  He suddenly had the awful thought that he might have slept with this woman, that she might have been one of his literary festival one-night stands. To forget about such intimacy seemed bad manners at best, sordid at worst. But these things happened—especially after the amount of drink he usually put away at such events. And he needed a drink now, so he glanced at his watch, wondering how soon he could get away.

  She was smiling now, teasing, enjoying his discomfort. ‘I’ll give you a clue. It was a very long time ago.’

  ‘Before I was published?’

  ‘Long before.’

  ‘At Oxford?’ he said hopefully. His university days had been equally alcohol-soaked and his memories were consequently hazy.

  ‘Before that.’

  ‘School? Bilson Hall?’

  Her smile widened. He’d got it right. If only he could remember her name.

  ‘Of course. I remember now,’ he lied. ‘Sorry it took so long to muster my brain cells into action.’ He beamed his most appealing smile at her, the smile that guaranteed forgiveness of any sin—and he’d committed quite a few in his time.

  ‘That’s okay. Aren’t you going to sign my book?’

  He looked at the book and realised it was an English edition, whereas most copies he’d signed that day had been French translations. ‘Remind me how you spell your name again?’ He looked at her expectantly, pleased with himself for thinking up this ploy.

  ‘S U Z Y. Suzy with a Z.’ She leaned forward and he felt an unexpected thrill of desire pass through his body.

  ‘Of course. How could I forget?’ he said. But he had forgotten and he was still no wiser.

  He began to write. ‘For Suzy. Once seen, never forgotten.’

&
nbsp; ‘Would you like love or best wishes?’

  ‘Just your signature will do.’

  He signed it with a flourish and when he handed it back to her their fingers touched. Then he looked round and realised the other authors on his panel had departed and they were now alone apart from a thin girl who was refilling bottles of water in the far corner.

  ‘What brings you to Paris?’ he asked.

  ‘Same as you. Work. Enjoying the festival?’

  Barney shrugged. ‘It keeps my French publisher happy.’

  ‘Fancy a drink?’ said Suzy, her voice full of promise.

  ‘Why not?’ With the prospect of a large red wine dangled before him, he hurried to pack up his things, hoping the bar wouldn’t be too crowded.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of here,’ she said as though she’d read his mind. ‘My apartment’s not far away and I bought a case of rather nice Beaujolais when I was down that way last year.’

  ‘Your place it is, then.’ He suddenly felt reckless, like a boy released from school at the end of term. He was stuck there in a strange city without any of the usual drinking buddies he met at British festivals and here was an attractive woman about to ply him with decent wine. Things were looking up.

  The convention hotel was on the banks of the Seine overlooking the Île de la Cité. Barney could see the towers of Notre Dame from his third-floor window but the demands of his French publisher and the punishing schedule of panels and book-signings meant he hadn’t been able to get out and explore the city as much as he would have liked. But now he was eager to seize his chance.

  Suzy assured him her apartment was nearby, although they seemed to walk for ages through the narrow, picturesque streets of the Marais, so different from Haussmann’s imposing boulevards. After a while they found themselves in a large square surrounded by fine arcaded buildings with a fountain in the centre of a formal garden where children played on the manicured grass watched by their elegant mothers. When he asked Suzy where they were she told him it was the Place des Vosges. The name was familiar and he knew he must have been there before as a student when he’d spent a weekend sampling the cheapest alcohol the city had to offer—not that he remembered much about it. He stopped to take in the scene, until Suzy took his arm and led him off down a side street into a maze of ancient buildings. Eventually she stopped by an old wooden front door with an iron grille set into the top and a row of neat bell pushes at the side.

  ‘This is me.’

  She pushed the door and it opened smoothly to reveal a stone-flagged hallway. A stone stairway with intricate wrought-iron banisters snaked to the upper floors of the building. The walls were whitewashed and the flaking paint looked as though it was meant to be that way. French shabby chic. But Barney’s mind was on the wine—and any other treats that might be on offer. He followed her up the stairs to the top floor.

  ‘A Parisian garret,’ he said as he stepped into the small apartment in the eaves. The walls sloped but the white walls and the light flooding in from the tall windows gave it a feeling of space. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Yes. I’m working in Paris for a couple of years.’

  She made for the kitchen and he followed. He needed that wine; he could almost taste it. He stood in the doorway of the tiny room, little more than a cupboard, and watched her extract the cork from the bottle. There was a sensuous quality about the movement but he was focused on the red liquid cascading into the glass rather than the prospect of any sexual delights to come. When she passed him his drink, he caught the ghost of her perfume—something heady he didn’t recognise.

  ‘Cheers,’ he raised the glass.

  ‘Santé,’ she replied, her eyes fixed expectantly on his face.

  He drained the glass like a thirsty man in a desert and she smiled when he held his glass out for a refill.

  ‘Let’s sit down.’ She made her way to the sofa, and when she sat, she patted the space beside her. Before accepting the invitation he picked up the bottle and placed it on the tiled coffee table with exaggerated care. The wine was starting to affect him, which was unusual because he’d always been able to hold his liquor; he’d had years of practice. But now the room was swimming in and out of focus. He put down his glass. Perhaps the life of a crime writer was catching up with him at last.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, concentrating on getting the slurred words out. ‘I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch.’

  ‘Drinking on an empty stomach doesn’t agree with me either,’ she said sympathetically. He was aware of her fingers stroking his hair. ‘Why don’t you lie down for a bit? I’ll rustle up something to eat.’

  Barney murmured his thanks and closed his eyes. The world was still spinning and when he sat back, he felt himself drifting into sleep. The convention had exhausted him so, a doze would do him good, he thought.

  He felt bad, as though a thousand builders with lump hammers were hard at work in his head. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again because the light streaming in from the window hurt him. A minute later he tried again, looking at the room through half-open eyelids until he summoned the courage to lever himself upright. This had never happened before and he was seized by panic. What if there was something seriously wrong with him?

  Once he was in a sitting position he looked round, confused at first. Then he remembered. He’d been having a drink with a woman called Suzy when he’d fallen asleep. He looked at his watch. Seven-thirty. He must have been out for a couple of hours. He remembered the bottle of wine and glass on the coffee table but they weren’t there now, so she must have tidied up and left him to sleep it off. The heavy silence told him she was no longer in the apartment. Perhaps she’d gone out to buy something for dinner—or more wine, he thought hopefully as he tried to stand up. He felt shaky and collapsed onto the sofa again, but on the third attempt he managed to struggle to his feet.

  He needed a pee so he staggered towards a closed door he hoped led to the bathroom, undoing his zip on the way. He opened the door and the bright white tiles told him he was in the right place. The bathroom was spacious and he headed straight for the toilet, closing his eyes as he relieved himself. He immediately felt better—until he turned his head and caught a glimpse of red against the clinical white.

  She was sprawled in the bath, eyes closed as if in sleep. The blood on her blouse stood out, red against the whiteness of the crisp cotton. It formed a heart-shaped patch on her chest and he knew she was dead. He tore his eyes away from her and saw a knife on the bathroom floor; a sharp kitchen knife with a white handle covered in blood. Then he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and saw blood on his own shirt, splashed on the front and creeping up the cuffs.

  He stood staring at the body, paralysed with fear. He should call the police. It was the only thing to do. The private eye in his book wouldn’t have bothered; he would have solved the crime with no official help. But this was real life, not fiction. Although…there was something horribly familiar about the scenario.

  It took him a few moments to recognise the similarity to the opening scene from his novel; the blood-soaked girl in the bath; the detective passing out and not knowing how she got there.

  When he stumbled into the main room to fetch his phone from his jacket pocket, he found his battery was dead.

  He had second thoughts about the police and got out of there fast after wiping the place clean of fingerprints with a tea towel, hoping nobody had seen him. If he alerted the authorities, he’d be subjected to hour upon hour of awkward questions, and he knew nothing, apart from the fact that he hadn’t killed her. Had he? He’d lost a couple of hours and that blank in his memory made him uneasy. As did the resemblance to the murder in his book.

  He hurried back to the hotel, his jacket concealing the blood on his shirt. It was the gala dinner that night and he needed a shower before he ventured down. His head felt better, but he wondered whether it would be
wise to drink. Maybe he should stick to orange juice that evening—although the prospect of such abstinence horrified him.

  He didn’t know how he got through the evening—picking at his food, chatting with his French publisher and translator and greeting his fellow writers with his usual bonhomie while all the time trying to banish the vision of the dead woman in the bath from his mind. Had he really been so drunk that he couldn’t remember what happened? He hadn’t had that much, so surely it wasn’t possible. But he had seen what he had seen.

  He excused himself early and returned to his room. He’d put the shirt into a plastic bag and he knew it would be wise to get rid of it, so the next morning he rose early and caught the Metro to the Gare du Nord, where he dumped the bag into a bin. He’d wiped it clean of fingerprints before going out—he was a crime writer so he knew about these things—and he’d been careful to place it into another bag and pull it out protected by a handkerchief at the crucial time. After it was done he returned to the hotel in a daze. He made his living by writing about murder but he’d never before encountered its reality.

  At breakfast he found that morning’s newspaper on a neighbouring seat and he trawled through it, using his schoolboy French to translate the headlines. But nowhere did it mention that a woman’s body had been found in a Marais apartment.

  She hadn’t been found yet. And he was returning to Manchester in three days’ time.

  The temptation to go back to the apartment was great, especially when he remembered that she’d been in possession of a book signed by him. He knew enough about police investigations to know that, if it was known that they’d had any contact, he’d have to be traced, interviewed, and eliminated from inquiries. The brand-new book, signed at the convention, would be a clue.

  He told himself there was no way they could link him to Suzy’s death just because he’d signed a book for her. But what if he’d been seen leaving the hotel with her? What if they’d been caught on CCTV? Although he’d once heard that the French weren’t as obsessed with surveillance cameras as the British, who were said to be the most watched people in Europe. If he kept calm he’d be home soon and all would be well.