Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death

by M B Vincent

  Jess wandered out to the front of the house. She hated wandering; she was a strider by nature. She was not needed in this house. Bogna had everything under control, and her father was invisible. He haunted his own home.

  The wisteria was still. Harebell House was a painting of itself. An image of Englishness. Of dysfunction, which is how Jess had come to think of her heritage.

  A fierce longing overtook her – a cigarette would make it all so much better. A sense memory claimed her. She felt the cigarette between her fingers. On her lips. She felt the hit of the smoke.

  Jess staggered, back in the present. Smoking was a sly lover, always ready to beguile. Her heart sank. She knew without looking in her suitcase that her nicotine patches were in a drawer back in Cambridge.

  Her Doc Martens carried her out of Harebell House. The well-worn path to ‘town’, or what passed for it. As a teenager, she had stomped this journey daily. Nothing much had changed. Castle Kidbury was set in aspic.

  Kidbury Road.

  The bridge.

  The long-stay car park.

  The medical centre.

  The vet’s.

  And then the long turn into the main thoroughfare.

  A time machine had malfunctioned and deposited Jess right back where she started. She caught sight of herself in a tea shop window; she had certainly changed, even if the town hadn’t.

  Cobbles, so beloved by tourists, were hazardously slick after the morning’s rain. Jess braced herself for the parade of ‘old faces’ that would come thick and fast. Cambridge was Gotham City compared to this backwater; she’d rather liked the anonymity.

  Approaching the square, Jess ticked off the familiar shopfronts. Phoenix Antiques. Dalby’s Butchers. Lynne’s Minimart. Then onto Fore Street and there, untouched, was Dickinson’s Books. Lady Jayne still purveyed horrific mother-of-the-bride outfits. The Buttonhole was new; a florist’s.

  Coming out of the newsagents, a boy – no, a man – almost ran into her. The lack of an apology was obviously due more to shyness than bad manners. He raced off, head down, but not before Jess had clocked his freckled face. She strained for his name. Neil. She recalled a to-do when his grandmother died. The Judge had been part of a council effort to move his granddad to a home and Neil to adult safekeeping, even though Neil had been old enough to live alone. Neil had refused. Good for you! Jess was in the mood to applaud people who stood up to her dad.

  She turned back, almost colliding again, but this time with a comfortably engineered woman in her sixties.

  ‘Jess, love, hello.’

  Think. The name appeared. ‘Sheila,’ said Jess. ‘Hi.’ Sheila had done Harriet’s nails in hospital. Towards the end.

  And . . . there it was. The head tilt. The puppy eyes. The sympathy which landed on Jess’s skin like acid.

  ‘I do think of your mum often.’

  Sheila was a kind woman, full to the brim with feeling. But Jess couldn’t bear her just now.

  ‘Yes, that’s, um, nice, but, you know . . .’ Jess backed away.

  ‘I do know.’ Sheila watched Jess as she turned. ‘I do, love.’

  The Bread Basket was gone. This was a shock. Jess had subsisted on their egg and cress baguettes during her GCSEs. In its space was The Spinning Jenny. It was cafe-like, which was all Jess required of cafes.

  The war memorial on the square. The old pump which featured in many day-tripper photographs. Coming around the side of it was a woman too groomed for Castle Kidbury on a Tuesday. ‘Goodness me, it’s Jess.’

  She had a Julie Andrews quality. A purity. A clean beauty.

  ‘Helena,’ said Jess. She realised it was her turn to do the head tilt. The puppy eyes. She snapped out of it. Such displays of sympathy were more for the giver than the receiver. ‘You look well.’

  The compliment was ignored. Helena’s smile was genuine, but she was in a hurry, she said. How lovely to see her, she said. She walked on in ‘for-best’ court shoes.

  It was a relief that Helena was too busy to stop. It would have meant a detour to a part of the past that Jess, for all her interest in ancient history, preferred to avoid.

  The chemist’s was gone. It was now a gift shop, in a town that already met all Jess’s needs for novelty doorstops and scented candles. She remembered the old-fashioned Wilson’s Pharmacy and turned once again.

  Wilson’s was down a narrow slit of road. Talc in the window. A toiletries bag. A toothbrush.

  A bell above the door announced her entry.

  ‘Good afternoon.’

  He was tall and a little heavy. Hair glossy black and as old-fashioned as the shop. Eyes dark and warm, with eyeliner provided by Mother Nature. Middle Eastern, thought Jess. ‘Good afternoon.’ She relished the formality. Chemists should be formal; they deal with the sticky bits. The rude bits. The oozing bits. She approved of his white coat, his tie.

  Jess browsed the toothpaste and the make-up and the American Tan tights. She felt him watch her, benignly.

  ‘Is there anything specific you need?’ His accent was quaint. Educated.

  ‘Actually, yes. Do you stock nicotine patches?’

  ‘Giving up, yes?’ The chemist shook his head. ‘You have my deepest sympathy.’

  ‘You’ve done it?’

  ‘I’ve never dared.’ He had turned away, was leaning down to a broad white-lipped drawer. ‘I’m completely hooked and I accept it. But these,’ he tapped the box in his hand, ‘are good, I hear. Back home, everybody smokes.’

  ‘I stopped ten years ago.’

  ‘And you’re still wearing these? You shouldn’t.’

  Loath to admit she was now addicted to the remedy for her addiction, Jess asked, ‘So where’s “back home”?’ Jess had read his name on his lapel badge. Kuzbari.

  ‘I am from Syria.’

  Syria, to Jess, meant war. Bombed-out streets the colour of hay. Children’s bodies lined up in rows after a gas attack. She almost said she was sorry to hear that. Instead, she said, ‘You’re a long way from home.’

  He seemed to weigh that up. ‘Yes.’ Mr Kuzbari put the patches in a small paper bag. ‘You see Syria on the news, I expect.’ He accepted her nod with a nod of his own. ‘They don’t show the pomegranates. The dates. The wonderful mahshi my wife makes.’

  The mention of food had Jess standing an inch taller.

  ‘Oh yes. You take a zucchini – very fresh – and stuff it with tender ground lamb and rice and nuts.’ His natural pout deepened. ‘There’s nothing like it.’

  ‘Certainly not in Castle Kidbury,’ agreed Jess. ‘Although Greggs do an excellent pasty.’

  ‘Ah, Greggs!’ Mr Kuzbari laughed. ‘The height of British cuisine.’

  ‘Does your wife cook . . .’

  ‘Mahshi,’ offered the pharmacist gently.

  ‘Yes. Mahshi. Does she cook it here?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s not quite the same.’ Mr Kuzbari shrugged. ‘Many things are not the same.’

  Jess paid up. She didn’t want to leave. She liked the air of gentle learning around this man. The previous chemist had spectacles on a chain and Jess had never forgotten his expression when she came in for the morning-after pill.

  The Royal Seven Stars was still there. Jess felt nostalgia curl about her. She hoped against hope it would still have red velour seating, still have the bulky hotel reception desk on the left and the dark wooden public bar to the right.

  It did.

  Same desk. New receptionist. Jess remembered her as a kid, but now Carli had gel nails and fake lashes. Her heart was real. ‘All right, you!’ she yelled when she saw Jess.

  ‘Is that how you welcome guests at this establishment?’

  ‘What?’ Carli was an irony-free zone.

  ‘No, I mean, oh nothing. Hi Carli.’

  ‘You’re back then,’ said Carli.

  ‘I am,’ agreed Jess.

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Is it?’ Jess corrected herself; no joking with Carli. ‘Yes, it is. It’s nice. Is Eddie a
bout?’

  ‘Yeah, somewhere. I like your hair,’ said Carli as she picked up the buzzing phone and said ‘GoodmorningRoyalSevenStarsHotelHowMayIHelp?’ She put her hand over the receiver and hissed at Jess. ‘Scary about Keith Dike! I heard he was beheaded.’

  Eddie was in the dimmest recess of the bar, ticking things off a list. When he saw Jess, he smiled and rocked back on his heels. Short. Stocky. A yeoman. Eddie looked like the copper he had once been. ‘What do we have here?’ Broad Manchester out of place among the clotted cream.

  Jess felt at home around Eddie. No airs and graces with him. ‘It’s been ages,’ she said, before he had a chance to do so.

  ‘Nah, feels like yesterday. You back for good then?’ Eddie threw in a wry look, as if scoffing at the very suggestion.

  ‘Just visiting. Making sure you haven’t changed the decor.’

  ‘Plush red seats, patterned carpet and horse brasses are what people expect from a coaching inn and that is what they’ll bloody well get as long as I’m behind the bar.’ Eddie leant on the counter. ‘This murder . . . has your dad got any ideas?’

  ‘If he did, he wouldn’t tell me, Eddie.’ Jess vaguely remembered Keith Dike. ‘Was Keith the one whose trousers fell down every night at five to eleven?’

  ‘You could set your watch by Keith’s trousers. Colourful bloke. And horrible, to be fair. But why anybody would want to kill him . . .’

  ‘Maybe it’s a serial killer.’

  ‘Yeah, you get loads of them in market towns,’ smiled Eddie. ‘Fancy a drink?’

  ‘Just a lemonade. Proper R. White’s mind, not that cloudy nonsense. And crisps . . . chicken flavour.’ Her mouth watered. Lovely, bad-for-you crisps.

  The door of the gents’ delivered a small shabby man to the bar. He was talking to himself, mid-conversation. Coughing. Patting his pockets. Like a collection of ferrets, his body fidgeted beneath a filthy overcoat. He saw Jess and his eyes widened as if he’d seen an apparition. ‘Jessica Castle? What brings you hither?’

  Jess dodged the outstretched arms, parleyed them into a handshake. This close, Squeezers smelt like a hamster cage. ‘What are you up to, Squeezers?’ She liked him. He was peculiar. Among the tidy houses and tended gardens of Castle Kidbury, this made him precious to Jess.

  ‘I can’t say.’ Squeezers looked both ways in the empty bar. ‘Something big. Another job for Beefy Dave.’

  Jess looked to Eddie for clarification; if a leaf stirred in the town, Eddie knew about it.

  Eddie shrugged. ‘Never met the guy. But if I ever get my hands on him . . .’ He whispered, ‘He runs Squeezers ragged, the bastard.’

  ‘Either of you need any marbles?’ Squeezers was urgent, furtive. ‘Nice tidy consignment, I’ve got.’ Squeezers made himself jump with the disclosure and an asthma inhaler fell from his complicated clothes. He picked it up, sucked greedily on it and leant on a polished table. ‘I’ve got to run,’ he wheezed.

  At his feet a hairy item stirred. Darling was a dog, or as near as dammit. Thin as a lurcher, nervous as a greyhound, her eloquent brown eyes stared out of a coat of many colours, all of them best described as ‘meh’.

  ‘I’ve an appointment at the cop shop.’

  ‘What’ve you been up to now, cock?’ Eddie shook his head, schoolmarmish.

  ‘Nothing. It’s to do with this murder, I think.’

  ‘You what?’ Eddie laughed. ‘You, Squeezers? Come off it.’

  ‘That Detective Sergeant wants to talk to me.’ Squeezer’s rabbit-bright eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t like the cop shop much,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Jess.

  Eddie’s eyebrows lifted.

  ‘I’m not letting Eden push him around, Eddie.’

  Eden sat on one side of the banal table, Squeezers and Jess on the other. She’d turned up with him, declaring him to be a Vulnerable Adult and herself to be his Appropriate Adult. Ever keen for a simple life, Eden had allowed it, and now they waited for the inevitable cups of tea from the inevitable DC Knott.

  ‘So, helping Squeezers is the only reason you’re here, Jess?’ asked Knott as she sugared and milked and was mother. ‘You’re not here, for example, to nose around?’

  ‘Just doing my civic duty, Karen. Any of those custard creams left?’

  Wishing Jess and Knott had mute buttons, Eden began. ‘Thank you, Squeezers, for coming in. The reason I wanted to see you—’

  ‘Why do you want to see him?’ asked Jess.

  Eden carried on as if she hadn’t interrupted. ‘Is because I remember you suffering with asthma. Is that correct?’

  ‘It’s not a crime,’ said Jess, ‘to have asthma.’

  ‘I might have asthma.’ Squeezers had refused to take off his coat and now he withdrew into it. ‘Then again, I might not.’ His eyes flickered here, there, all over. He looked at his tea but lacked the courage to reach for it. ‘I hate cop shops,’ he murmured.

  ‘Am I right in thinking you use an inhaler?’

  ‘I did not nick it!’ Squeezers was adamant. ‘From the chemist’s, on Saturday. That is a lie!’

  ‘Squeezers,’ sighed Eden, ‘don’t give me more work to do. Just a yes or no, all right?’

  ‘You’ve called him in to make up numbers, haven’t you?’ Jess leant back. Cockiness set at eleven. ‘You have to look like you’re doing something, so you drag in the village idiot for questioning.’

  ‘Ooh, is he here?’ asked Squeezers, looking round for this village idiot.

  ‘Squeezers!’ DS Eden slapped the table.

  ‘Yessir!’ yelled Squeezers. ‘I do have asthma and I do have an inhaler.’

  ‘Right. Good. You were wheezing on your way in, weren’t you?’

  Jess put her head to one side. ‘Was Keith Dike wheezed to death?’

  ‘Squeezers, do you really need an Appropriate Adult for this little chat?’

  ‘S’pose not.’ Squeezers was genial.

  Jess kicked him. Quite hard.

  ‘Then again,’ said Squeezers, shooting her a sore look, ‘I quite like having an app . . . appro . . . approprial dultitude, so . . .’

  ‘You’re stuck with me, sergeant,’ said Jess.

  Knott leant over Eden’s shoulder. He ducked out of her way as she said, ‘I like you for this, Squeezers, I really do.’

  ‘I like you too, Miss DC Knott,’ said Squeezers.

  ‘Knott, could you . . .’ Eden sat up straight again as his DC withdrew. ‘Squeezers, we’ve asked you in because the first person on the scene heard wheezing as he approached, and so we’re touching base with everybody who has compromised breathing.’

  ‘Of course there was wheezing,’ said Jess. ‘You don’t nail a bloke to a cross without wheezing.’

  ‘We have to start somewhere, Jess,’ said Eden evenly. ‘Squeezers, I’d like to know your whereabouts from approximately eleven p.m. on Saturday evening to five a.m. Sunday morning.’

  ‘That’s easy.’ Squeezers looked at the ceiling. Presumably he’d riffled through a mental Rolodex. ‘The Druid’s Head. There was a lock-in. I slept under a table and woke up at opening time.’

  Eden craned his neck to look at Karen. ‘Knott, check that with the Druid’s Head.’

  ‘Keep an eye on him, Sarge,’ said Karen as she backed out of the room.

  They sat in silence and waited for DC Knott to do her thing.

  The phone on the desk buzzed. ‘Yes? Okay. Thanks, Knott.’ Eden put down the receiver with some relief. ‘Squeezers, you’re free to go.’ He showed him to the door. ‘Your alibi checks out. Stay out of trouble, okay?’

  Squeezers bowed. A discreet fart sounded. ‘I would be loath to lower your opinion of me, sir.’

  Eden watched Squeezers make his way, head held high, through the station. ‘I’m not sure he could. The cheek of it!’ He gasped. ‘He’s swiped a packet of biros from DC Carver’s desk.’

  The phone buzzed again. ‘Jess, hang on one second.’ Eden jogged back to the table. He winced when the
caller identified themselves. ‘Yes, guv. I’m just—’ He motioned for Jess to wait outside.

  She did just that. With her ear cocked.

  ‘Uh-huh . . . um . . . I . . .’ Eden seemed to be waiting for the wall of sound on the other end of the line to cease. ‘With all due respect, sir . . .’ He paused, listening. ‘Yes, I hate that phrase too, to be honest, but, guv, I don’t see Danny as having the strength necessary to erect a cross and then haul a body onto it, never mind kill the victim in the first place.’ Another pause. Shot through with tension. ‘Yes. I do hear you. I’ll talk to him again.’

  A smash, the kind of smash a phone makes when jammed back onto its mount.

  ‘You were listening.’ Eden wasn’t asking. He was telling.

  Jess put her head around the door. ‘They’re leaning on you to lean on Danny.’

  ‘My nephew has Down’s,’ said Eden. He was pulling on his jacket with unnecessary force. ‘No way does he have the muscle tone for a caper like this.’ He closed his eyes. Opened them again. ‘I don’t want to generalise, but it’s vanishingly rare for a man with Down’s syndrome to commit violent crime.’

  Jess remembered Danny from her babysitting career. ‘Danny’s one of the good guys.’

  ‘Any more thoughts about that symbol I showed you?’

  ‘The one on Keith’s body? Plenty. None of them helpful. I can tell you what it isn’t. It’s not Greek. It’s not Roman. Certainly not Ogham, or Futhark. It’s most probably made up. It doesn’t really signify anything much.’

  ‘If it meant something,’ said DS Eden, ‘that would help.’

  Knott was back. Bristling. She looked from her boss to Jess and back again as if she’d caught them doing something illicit. ‘You still here, Dr Castle? What is your relationship to Squeezers?’

  ‘We’re lovers,’ said Jess.

  Eden passed his hand over his face.

  Chapter 5

  THE HIGH MASTER PIG-WIZARD

  Wednesday 18 May

  Kidbury Road.

  The bridge.

  The long-stay car park.

  The medical centre.

  The vet’s.

  And then the long turn into the main thoroughfare, where the gabled buildings leaning over the pavement regularly gave American coach parties orgasms.