“Your hair looks good. Did it take long?”
I let her tell me the lengthy administrations of the beach hairdresser. My hair is thick, tawny-red stuff, frizzy when it rains. I pull it back in a scrunchie band or plait it thickly into a rope. It could never look as elegant as Gale’s. Eventually we got round to the purpose of my visit.
“Arthur Carling? With a C? OK, I’ll look up his admission date. It won’t have been wiped off the records yet. We keep everything for ages these days. The memory byte on these machines is amazing. All on a chip, too.”
I agreed that it was amazing. A new computer was on my shopping list. Gale tapped on the key board and in moments, Arthur Carling’s record came up on screen. She didn’t mind that I leaned over and read the details for myself. He’d been admitted on the Wednesday, been seen by two different doctors, had a chest x-ray and electrocardiograph. There was a list of medication prescribed. A third doctor (on the weekend shift) pronounced death from heart failure on the Sunday at 3.30 a.m. and the body had been removed by a firm of Latching undertakers on the Monday. Ursula had moved fast.
“There was no need for a post mortem because he’d been receiving medical treatment at the hospital. That’s the law.”
“Thanks, Gale. You’ve been a great help. I wanted to make sure his death was completely natural.”
I don’t know why I said that but I suppose some suspicion had been lurking at the back of my mind. I’d been told so many half-truths; I needed to know that Arthur had died normally.
There was only time for some quick food shopping before racing back to my shop. I’d just remembered that BT were coming to install a telephone and answering service, two essential components if I was going to function efficiently. My new mobile was not exactly running smoothly. I had to buy some time.
The telephone engineer was propping up his equipment on the pavement outside. He tapped the BACK SOON sign.
“Been here half an hour,” he grumbled.
“Sorry, I got held up.”
The frost thawed with cups of tea and the packet of chocolate Hobnobs I’d just bought. I watched them disappear like Smarties. Oh well, I’d only get fat.
I updated Ursula Carling’s file. I knew from experience that one should make notes as soon as possible after an interview. The human memory is never reliable. A seemingly unimportant detail could be forgotten or only half-remembered.
It was glooming over with herring-bone clouds when I shut shop for the night. No more customers but the new telephone looked good. I hadn’t sold anything. Tomorrow I would change the window display.
My sitting-room welcomed me with open arms as if it had been waiting for me all day. The room was clean and cream and uncluttered by furniture. There was my corner desk with a chair, the afore-mentioned moral settee in another corner, a secondhand television set and the rest of the room was open space. I could breathe in it. I ate at one end of the desk, laying it in a civilised way with a woven mat, cutlery, napkin and flowers in a vase. I could be as fastidious as Ursula in my own way.
I viewed with pleasure the prints by my favourite painters, splashing colour on the walls like a child let loose with a paint box. My books were a problem. They had to be piled on the floor as there were no shelves or bookcase. Cuttings and magazines, leaflets and brochures were filed on the floor. It was handy to be able to look up almost anything without having to trundle off to the public library or WH Smiths. WH Smiths is a really useful shop. I use all its facilities.
I switched on the kettle and shed my clothes on the way to the bathroom.
A drink in the bath is one of my regular vices, be it coffee, tea, wine or a gin and tonic with ice and lemon. On a really bad day, it could be a large brandy. This evening it was black coffee sweetened with honey.
I ran the bath water hot, threw in a handful of herbal bath salts and allowed myself to sink and soak. Funny how I didn’t think of Ursula or Cleo or Arthur and their triangular problems, or the ardent young man who spent his last twenty pounds on a regally inscribed chamber pot.
It was that hooked-up nun who worried me. What had she done to deserve such a gruesome end? What had that poor woman discovered that merited a fast removal to a more heavenly place? Was Trenchers the headquarters for some dope gang or customs rip-off? Was the spacious ballroom stacked with contraband brandy and cheap cigarettes? Had she been left as a tacky warning to some other gang who were trying to rustle in on the Latching territory? It worried me.
The warm water and the honey were inducing drowsiness. I drifted onto some dream raft, only half awake, my thoughts pool-hopping like an errant dragonfly.
My two doorbells rang. At least you can hear them. I wrapped myself in a jumbo bath towel and trailed downstairs to see who was at the door. I opened it half-an-inch and saw the expectant face of Derek. He had a paper bag in his hand. Surely not a present? He had never brought me anything, except sample sachets that come free with magazines. Once he brought me a single chamomile tea bag. Wow, was that a red-letter day.
“This was in your post-box,” he said hopefully, obviously waiting to be asked in. I suppose I was drawn to him because he was so insecure. I knew how he felt. There had been a time when I’d rather sit in a corner and read a book at a party. Fortunately my years in the force had cured me of that crippling shyness, but there were still moments when I could find nothing to say.
Like when I met DI James. That man. Or crossed his path. Nothing to say.
“Isn’t this a bit late for a social call?” I said, tucking the towel more firmly across my bosom. His lusty eyes were focused on my wet shoulders. He had an insatiable sexual appetite, he’d said many times, probably because he didn’t get many opportunities and his hormones were rampant with desire.
“Thought there might be a cup of coffee going,” he said casually. “Haven’t seen you for ages.”
I sighed. That was the end of my quiet evening. “OK, come in. But it’ll have to be brief. I’m on my way to bed.”
I took the paper bag from him and lead the way back upstairs. Now I would have to get dressed again. With any of my other men, I could have stayed in a robe and been unmolested. But Derek would see it as an unconditional invitation. He was running his fingers up and down my bare back as we climbed the stairs. I daren’t flinch an inch in case the towel slipped.
He was a dapper looking young man. I’m not sure who ironed his shirts, but someone did. He always wore a tie. His shoes were polished to military precision.
As I made another cup of coffee, I opened the bag. Inside was a slice of carrot cake. The bag was over-printed Church Cafe. I digested this information and it gave me a cold shiver. Cleo and I had obviously been watched. But by whom? Not Ursula: she hadn’t known I’d tracked Cleo to Chichester and met her in the cafe.
A new, unknown person had entered the scenario and I didn’t like it. Someone had been watching us. I’m the one who’s supposed to do the surveillance.
“I’d better put some clothes on,” I said, hurrying into the other room to recover. I didn’t like the implications. Cleo wouldn’t have sent the cake. There’d be no point. Perhaps I had got too near the truth. I went over the conversation in my mind. What had I said or she said that had precipitated such weird behaviour?
“Must you?” I heard Derek say as I left. Such wit.
It needed a couple of sweaters, jeans and big socks before I felt safe from his hands. I came back, ready to be pleasant to Derek. He’d switched on the television and was sitting sideways on my settee with his feet propped on the arm. It was the floor again for me.
“Got any cake?” he asked.
He knew perfectly well that I had, but still I put the slice of carrot cake on a plate for him. As I chased a dampened finger round the crumbs in the bag, I was reminded that I had not eaten and the telephone engineer had devoured my biscuits.
Now I have a good sense of smell. My finger stopped in mid air. It was pungent.
Suddenly I flung myself at Derek. I suppose
he hoped it was unbridled passion.
“Don’t eat it,” I said, knocking the plate off his lap. He looked at me, astonished. “That cake. I think it’s poisoned.”
I didn’t just think. I knew. That smell was bleach or sodium chlorate.
“Are you sure? Have you got an aspirin?” Derek asked weakly.
FIVE
It was a different sergeant on the desk the next morning but he’d obviously heard of my previous visits. The tired old grape vine. I anticipated the wind up.
“Hello Miss Lacey, what is it this morning? A dead cat? Or is it another dead nun?”
“This is a slice of poisoned carrot cake,” I said, offering the item in its paper bag.
“How do you know it’s carrot cake?” He was a great comedian. Ought to be on the Graham Norton show.
“Because I had some the day before. Could you please arrange to have it tested in the lab?”
“You say you ate a piece of the poisoned cake the day before?”
He was thick as well. It almost hurt.
I took a deep breath. “If I had, I don’t think I would be standing here in Latching Police Station. I would probably be in an IC unit or iced in a local mortuary. The slice I ate yesterday at the Church Cafe, Chichester, was fine. Delicious, actually. Then some person bought another slice, tampered with it and delivered it to my home, obviously hoping I would eat that too. I think the poison is sodium chlorate, or bleach, as it’s better known. I’d like that confirmed and to know if the dose was lethal.”
“We’d better take a statement from you,” he said, holding the paper bag gingerly. “Would you like to come through, miss.”
Thank goodness he was taking me seriously at last. I gave him a brief smile and followed him inside, ignoring the concealed sniggers. The tests would take twenty-four hours plus. I gave them my new mobile telephone number which I had managed to memorize overnight with various visual aid tricks. It made me feel established.
Later I let myself into my shop. It still smelt musty despite all my cleaning so I opened both front and back doors for a through draught. It brought in a whiff of brine and gutted fish straight from the beach. I longed for a look at the sea.
I rummaged round in the charity shop box and found a man’s straw panama hat, banded with leopard skin. I really wanted to wear it myself as hats were a good disguise for my hair, but this hat would have stood out in a crowd. Disguises were for merging. I put it in the side window. In the front window, I laid out a drawn thread work tray cloth, creamy with age, trying not to think of the Edwardian wife who worked it long ago, and stood an egg-shell thin bone china cup and saucer on it. The prices were sheer guesswork.
A stud bought the hat in twenty minutes flat. He did not quibble at the £10 ticket but peeled the note off a wad, already strutting a disco in the hat. I replaced it with a framed collection of dried flowers like old tea leaves and some dusty books. They could both gather another layer. I was getting bored with window dressing.
Ursula’s hate mail was in a large brown manila envelope and I tipped it all out on the floor, trying to look at it with an indifferent eye. The content of threats and vile accusations were not my present concern. There must be a common denominator, something that linked them, apart from the one fact that they were sent to Ursula.
They were written with a black marker pen. The sender did not have time for cutting words out of newspapers and sticking lines together. Perhaps, and this was a thought, money was tight. Newspapers were expensive despite the price war. I read most of mine in the public library which stayed open till 7 p.m or WH Smiths which didn’t.
There were some ill-formed letters with pot-hooks and hangers but the capital S had a distinctive swirl and the crossbar of the T was never completely straight. The scrivener had not consciously tried to alter their style, confident of being undetected. Nothing else struck me.
I turned the lot over and a thunderbolt thundered in. The taunts were all on the backsides of junk mail. Adverts for double-glazing, insurance, mobile phones, cut-price holidays. But three were identical. That was a pointer. They were handouts for the Amusement Arcade at the end of Latching Pier. I often went in when I walked the pier especially if it was raining and the narrow decking was slippery. It was always warm, noisy and it was fun to watch people losing their money.
I put them in my pocket, locked up the shop after hanging GONE TO LUNCH on the door even though it was only eleven o’clock. The promenade was busy with holiday-makers enjoying the weak autumnal sunshine. Their collective age was depressing… frizzled grey hair, walking sticks, bent backs. Electric scooters glided noiselessly, their occupants as intent on steering as if it was Brands Hatch. Schools had gone back so retired people were taking advantage of special rates. Fortunately Latching’s reasonable house prices also attracts a younger element and the mums were out pushing buggies or steering new and gaudy plastic three-wheeled pedal bikes.
The pier is free. I’d be broke if it wasn’t. I like all its moods. Crowded, deserted, lashed with waves, buffeted by the wind, stranded over wet sand when the tide’s receded half way to France. Last winter it was closed on several occasions when gusts of fifty miles an hour made the whole structure dangerous to walk on. I’d have risked it simply for the exhilaration of battling the elements.
The noise from the amusement arcade assaulted my ears long before I reached it. I wandered in, relaxing into the warm fug, a grin on my face. The same thin grey woman in a navy raincoat was feeding two-pence pieces into the Roll-a-Penny machine, waiting for the cascade of coins that was mounting up on the edge of the shifting shelf. She was always there, totally addicted.
Half a dozen race track screens exploded with crashes and penalties and acceleration; monsters fought each other on battlements; knights in armour plunged swords into adversaries; bombs exploded; aircraft blew up in mid-air. Every machine was an orgy of destruction.
The manager hung out in a sort of secure booth. A lot of money was generated in a day. I thought the glass panels were probably bullet proof and he had certainly locked himself in. Taking no chances these days.
He was a heavily built young man, mad hair, barrel-chested with distressed stubble and tight blue jeans. He looked at me without interest. I suppose people were always peering at him. I knocked on the door and showed him the handouts.
“Wotcha want?” he said, opening the door an inch.
“Can I speak to you? About these handouts.”
“S’legal. Nothing wrong with them.”
“I never said that. Can I come in?”
I held up my hands to show I wasn’t carrying a gun. It was a ridiculous pantomime but the man was obviously nervy. He decided that such an idiot couldn’t possibly be a threat.
“Two minutes,” he said, like someone in a film.
I stood in the small space with him, surrounded by a bank of money, breathing his Brut deodorant. No wonder he was nervous. There was a fortune stacked in coin bags and plastic wallets. At least one business in Latching was making a profit in today’s hard times.
“Can you tell me when these leaflets were distributed?” I asked.
“Are you from the Council?” The man was still suspicious.
“No. Nothing’s the matter, I assure you. I just want to know when and where these went out and who did it.”
He appeared to relax a degree but he was really watching the punters. “We did it in the summer. A promotion.” He seemed pleased with the word. “People don’t know we’re here at the end of the pier so we got these printed and handed them out along the front.”
“Looks as if it paid off.” I nodded towards the crowded arcade.
“Nairh. This is quiet.”
“Who handed them out?”
“Casuals. Blokes who wanted a day’s work.”
“Have you got a record of their names?”
“Nairh. Are you sure you ain’t from the Council?”
I shook my head. “Thank you very much, Mr…?”
“Jack. Just call me Jack.”
“Thank you, Jack. Do you ever play these games yourself?”
“Nairh, you can’t win. Mug’s game. Sometimes I race a few cars.” He smirked sideways. “I’m a brilliant driver. Hundred and fifty’s nothing. One handed.”
I made to leave. Suddenly he seemed sorry for being so abrupt and ducked down under a shelf. “‘Ere, want a teddy? On the ‘ouse.”
He was offering me a small burnt sugar-brown teddy with a forlorn button face. It was one of the tumbled teddy mountain in a crane machine. I could not resist it.
“Thank you,” I said, tucking the teddy inside my anorak. Poor teddy, he deserved a better home than this mad house. He could sit on my windowsill and watch the world go by. Write his memoirs.
I spent the afternoon at the Social Security Department pouring through the names of the unemployed registered in the area. They owed me a favour. A year back I’d put them on the track of a family living off a web of benefit frauds and they got the credit.
OK, Cleo might have been handed a leaflet and kept it, but not three. It didn’t seem likely nor would she have kept them. Besides, I got the feeling that she did not come to Latching by choice in case she bumped into Ursula. Chichester was her town now.
It had to be someone else. I had established that much. Who else hated Ursula? Cleo said something about their having to move twice because of neighbour trouble. Perhaps I should follow that up. It might have been serious trouble but I could hardly go back to the police station and enquire about possible charges relating to Ursula. They would be sick of the sight of me and could refuse to give me the information. I was not on the force now.
The staff were very helpful at the local newspaper. They even had a cuttings library of sorts but there was nothing filed under Carling. I thumbed through a pile of back numbers until my arms seized up. There was one mention of Arthur Carling and I thought I had struck gold. But it was nothing really. He’d won a minor chess tournament in the sticks. I made a few notes.
Jordan Lacey Mystery 01 Pray and Die Page 5