Turn and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 7)

by Stella Whitelaw

  Turn And Die

  Stella Whitelaw

  © Stella Whitelaw 2007

  Stella Whitelaw has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2007 by Severn House Publishers Inc.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  This book is dedicated to the many, many fans of the Jordan Lacey series who wrote, phoned and emailed from all over the world to know more.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Author Acknowlegements

  One

  I was target number one. My lashes were no protection. Little sharp points were attacking me, silvered with splinters.

  It was an Arctic wind, north-easterly, carrying flurries of snow. Somewhere, a medieval Russian warlord, clad in furs, was hurling bad weather at West Sussex. Latching had not seen snow for decades. But it was seeing some now – scurries of tiny flakes that settled on my nose and shoulders, but nowhere else.

  The promenade became wet and glistening. The palm fronds were still curled up inside their winter hairnets, no one able to decide if we’d had the last frost of a cold spring. The decking on the pier was too dangerous to walk on. Somehow, the sea swallowed the flakes with indifference, pounding the beach, shifting pebbles and thumping to the beat of a Cossack bottle dance.

  I took extra care when walking these days – not exactly convalescent mode but a small module of my brain was always alert. Watch out. Hold on. Don’t move too fast. I had moved, an aeon ago, very fast, speed of light, and the consequences were imprinted on my memory in indelible ink.

  James had been telling me about the reward. We had been celebrating in a normal law-abiding way, laced with a bubble of excitement. Just a few drinks. Then it had happened. One very nasty accident.

  It took some time getting used to having the reward money. It was not mega-bucks but enough to have my shop, First Class Junk, redecorated in alabaster white with tints of waffle, and give my spotted ladybird car a makeover. She was looking ten years younger. The office behind the shop had been brought into this century with a computer, printer and new answerphone. I’d been spending hours on Google at the library, looking up things I didn’t need to know. Now I could waste time in the office. It’s a drier hook than fishing off the pier.

  And I like emailing people. It saves that awkward questioning – “And how are you these days, Jordan?” All that sympathy stuff. I didn’t want to answer those questions.

  Several charities came in for windfalls: the Police Benevolent Fund, Cats Protection League, PDSA and the retirement home for elderly jazz musicians sited along the coast. My stalwart pals, Doris and Mavis, got cheques which they blew on a riotous weekend in Blackpool. Don’t ask me what they did, but they came back wearing broad smiles. I paid for Bruno to have his fishing boat repaired. Not a word of thanks from that source.

  The rest of the reward money went on a self-employed person’s pension. Call me cautious, but I don’t have any marriage prospects and my professional career was equally slow-moving. Of course, I might not live to draw a penny, but that would be the last of my worries.

  Miguel, spectacular chef and owner of the Mexican restaurant near my shop, came to see me regularly in hospital with jungle-sized bunches of red roses. There was nothing I could give him, only reassurance. Not enough when he only wanted me.

  Jack, owner of the amusement arcade on the pier also came to see me in hospital, though he’d had enough of hospitals since the fire in the nightclub on the pier. No roses, not even a clean T-shirt. He’d looked morose enough as he came into the side room, but one look at me and his face fell a further foot.

  “Bloody hell,” he said.

  They’d done a thorough job of bandaging my face after resetting my nose and various other aspects of my head. I’d asked them for the Audrey Hepburn model but I don’t think they took me seriously. They’d shaved off my eyebrows and some of my hair, which gave me a weirdly Virgin Queen look.

  “Can you speak?” he asked.

  “Yes, but it hurts.”

  “What were you doing in this pub?”

  “Having a drink.”

  “With your mate, the DI?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you got attacked by a suit of armor?” I nodded, but that hurt even more and I kept seeing DI James moving towards me, in slow-motion replay.

  “It was lethal,” I said, remembering the pain.

  It was still trying to snow when I got back to my shop. First Class Junk had been my salvation. There was no way I could go back to my private-eye work until I stopped feeling as fragile as a wet moth. But a little genteel retail trading did no one any harm. I could sit and read a book all day if the customers were slow in coming forward. I’d found some interesting books on old Sussex among a job lot waiting to be sorted. Photos of old trams and horse-drawn buses, even a horse-drawn lifeboat on its way to the slipway on Latching beach. Therapeutic photos.

  I put on some coffee, my special Fairtrade brew. I lived on coffee these days and the addiction was getting out of hand, but any thought of cutting down was beyond me.

  Tomorrow, perhaps. I couldn’t eat. Mavis tried to force-feed me my favorite food in her cafe.

  “Come on, Jordan, try a couple of chips and a lovely bit of fresh fish. Just as you like them,” she said. She made the best chips in West Sussex. Her reputation was countywide.

  Even a chip choked me.

  Someone was coming into the shop, but I didn’t hurry. “No hurrying” was my current speed. Doctor’s orders. Something to do with my head. My head felt all right. It still sat in the same place.

  “Hello? Anyone there?”

  It was a female voice, pleasant and youngish. But there was a tension about it that made me curious. I remembered to turn off the coffee before I went through into the shop.

  She was good-looking too. Very good-looking. No scars and funny-growing hair. She was wearing expensive boot-cut blue jeans from Ralph Lauren, highly polished suede-and-leather boots with rivets round the top from Russell & Bromley, a silk scarf from Asprey and a gray sheepskin gilet. It was a killer winter look. Her leather gloves were from Mulberry and the suede-and-leather tote bag (more rivets) by Luella. No change from a thousand pounds for that little lot.

  I knew these fashion names from the magazines they’d fed me in hospital. My normal fashion haunts were M&S and charity shops.

  Her hair was streaky blonde, but salon streaking, not a home kit. The haircut was expensive too, no scissors cutting sideways in the bathroom job.

  “Hello,” I said. “Can I help you?”

  She looked at me curiously. She was older than the voice, about thirty-eight. Any year now and she would be going for the Botox injection and a touch of Restylane filling.

  “Are you Jordan Lacey, the private detective?”

  “I was Jordan Lacey, the private detective,” I said, somewhat sardonically. “On hold for a while.”

  She smiled and it was a sympathetic smile. “Leroy told me about
your accident. I’m sorry. I hope you’re feeling better.”

  “You know Leroy Anderson?” Leroy was a friend of mine who worked with a team of estate agents along the coast, selling classy houses. I didn’t see much of her now, but once she had lent me a floaty blue dress for a special occasion. A very special occasion. Me and DI James, together for once, at a party.

  “I met her when we bought our present home, Faunstone Hall. Perhaps you know it?”

  I didn’t know it, but I knew of it. It lay unseen behind a high stone wall and a canopy of trees. It was a Grade I listed house, mainly fifteenth-century, set in idyllic gardens, so they said – “they” being the glossy magazines that wrote and photographed Faunstone Hall from every angle. I should have taken more notice.

  I nodded, forgetting that it hurt. “And you are…?”

  “I’m Holly Broughton. My husband is Richard Broughton, the banker. He owns Broughton Bank. I’d very much like to talk to you, Miss Lacey. I won’t take up much of your time.”

  I’d heard of the bank. It was somewhere in the city, a shaped skyscraper of tinted glass with a constant stream of foreign visitors, mostly Japanese financiers. I was impressed. But Mrs Broughton impressed me even more. There were no airs or graces in her manner even though my reward cheque would have been like pocket money to her.

  “Would you like to come through? I was just making some real coffee.”

  “I can smell it.”

  She followed me to my back office and immediately made herself at home on my Victorian button-back chair, unbuttoning her sheepskin. The sweater was pale-pink cashmere, the pearls real. I got out the bone-china mugs and put milk in a jug. Mrs Broughton did not look the biscuit type.

  “Lovely coffee,” she said, taking it black, of course. She sat back, looking round my office. It had a desk and filing cabinet, the Victorian button-back, a faded red-and-blue Persian rug and the new computer. “I used to have a little office like this once,” she added. “Very compact.”

  “Compact,” I agreed.

  “I was doing temping work round the city, but I worked for myself. No agency creaming off ten per cent of my pay. I kept what I earned. That’s how I met Richard. Quite a bonus, don’t you think?” She smiled again, almost grinning, but I could still sense the tension. Something was not right.

  “So why did you want to see me, Mrs Broughton?”

  A change came over her face and her hand began to shake so much that I had to take the coffee from her before she spilt it all over herself. She was sweating now and searching for a handkerchief in her pockets. I gave her a tissue.

  “Thank you,” she said unevenly. “You’ve probably seen it in the newspapers. It made the headlines in all the tabloids: CALL GIRL CLEARED OF MURDER HIT, and some were even worse. It was so awful being in court, being accused of something I didn’t do and knew nothing about. Yet people jeered and shouted at me and outside they threw things at me as if I was guilty. It was terrible.”

  It all came out in a rush. The distress was obvious. Holly Broughton had experienced mob violence and that was frightening. She mopped her face and smeared her mascara. She looked even more vulnerable.

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “I haven’t been reading the newspapers recently. Take your time and start at the beginning.”

  She calmed down a bit and took her coffee back, sipping it, perhaps reassured that I knew nothing about the case and she was not already smeared with scandal.

  “I met Richard when I was temping at the bank. We liked each other immediately, although I wasn’t working for him. We kept meeting in the lift. Then we started going out. That he’s much older than me didn’t seem to matter. I knew he was rich, so that was a bonus, but it wasn’t that important, not then. We fell in love and got married. Roses all the way. Everything was lovely.”

  “Sounds idyllic. So what went wrong?”

  “That’s it,” she cried out, gold bangles jangling on her thin wrists. “Nothing went wrong. I thought we were happily married, when suddenly the police arrived, accusing me of plotting to murder Richard. Apparently there had been some attempt on his life in the street and it had been traced back to me.”

  “That’s very strange.”

  “Someone gave the police information, which sparked the police investigation. There were all sorts of bits of evidence that meant nothing to me – phone calls, a meeting in a cafe caught on CCTV, my drawing out a large sum of money from the bank. Then the attempt on his life, which was some hooded thug trying to knife him in the street.”

  “Your husband survived?”

  “Oh yes, thank goodness. Richard was wearing a really heavy Burberry overcoat. It was cold. And the knife nicked his throat and slashed the coat. He was shocked, of course, but is fine now. He didn’t even need a stitch. I was cleared because there was not enough evidence, but even he thinks I had something to do with it. He’s barely speaking to me now.”

  “Are you both still living at Faunstone Hall?”

  “Yes, but Richard also has a flat in London. He comes to Latching infrequently, mostly at the weekends, flying visits. I really miss him. I… I want him back and for things to be as they used to be.”

  I sat back and looked at Holly Broughton. She appeared genuine and everything about her said innocent, innocent. Jordan Lacey, private eye, was taking a real interest, the first stirring of normality. This could be a proper case.

  “What were you hoping I could do?” I asked.

  “I want you to sort this out. Find out who fed malicious information to the police, who planted faked evidence, who is trying to take Richard from me. I want my husband back. I really love him.”

  It was persuasive. Even in my fragile-moth state, I could take it at my own pace, no hurrying. Drive around in my newly MOT’d ladybird. Send Mrs Broughton wordy email reports on my new computer. Put my feet up when I thought I was tiring. A sort-of convalescent doddle.

  Then I thought of all the traveling to London, tracking thugs in pubs, waiting outside Broughton Bank in the pouring rain, following Richard Broughton at night to his flat. It no longer seemed that easy or attractive.

  “My daily rate is a hundred pounds a day,” I said, hardly hearing myself. Was that my voice? Who gave it permission to say that?

  “I will pay you that plus all necessary expenses,” said Holly Broughton. “I want to be cleared at any cost.”

  “But the court has cleared you. Not enough evidence, you said.”

  “It’s not good enough. Someone set me up and I want you to find out who. Then perhaps Richard and I will get back together again. That’s what I want. Me and Richard as we used to be.”

  I got up. I was tired already. Talking tired me out. What was I doing, agreeing to sort out the life of some rich woman, who already had a hundred times over what I had? But I liked the look of her. My life had been wrecked. I couldn’t do much about that, but I supposed I could help her.

  “Let me think about it,” I said, oddly cautious for once. “I’ll let you know.”

  She got up. She’d finished the coffee. She looked drained. You can’t act drained. It comes from inside.

  “Thank you, Miss Lacey. I really appreciate that you have listened to me. You must come round to Faunstone Hall. Let me know when you want to come. You have to talk into the security box at the gates, but I’ll make sure you’re let in.”

  She was buttoning her gilet and starting to go.

  “Why did the newspapers label you ‘call girl’?” I had to ask.

  Holly Broughton turned to me. She didn’t lie. “Because I was a call girl, a high-class escort, before I met Richard. Do you think temping pays enough to meet all the bills? But an escort isn’t always a prostitute. There is a difference.”

  *

  The Internet is a marvel. How did I manage before? I thought of all the hours I had spent in libraries searching books or spinning through microfilm at newspaper offices. The “Broughton Murder case” was detailed on a dozen sites. Okay, so the facts all
needed checking, but they gave me the initial background.

  Holly Broughton did not sound whiter than white in the newspaper reports. They listed lovers by the dozen. But she was beautiful and she was sweet-natured. What did it matter how many lovers she had had before she’d met Richard? She was trying the water as any sensible woman should. I wished I had her appetite and her sense of adventure. Denzil had been a very bad mistake (the jerk), Josh nothing more than a scrounger of money and meals, but my jazz musician had been a real, enduring love. Even if I could not have him. ‘M’ for very much married. I didn’t see him for months.

  Ben had been different. A dedicated detective sergeant who had died in a tragic accident. He had loved me but I had been wavering…

  That was the sum of my love life. You could not count DI James. I meant nothing to him. But he meant everything to me.

  The sun had disappeared from the lightening sky. Perhaps it was a last fling before spring. I never tired of watching the clouds and their changing shapes, now a witch with a pointy hat, a goblin, a giant, an angel. Show me a cloud and I’ll name it.

  I put on my anorak and wandered two doors down to Doris’s grocery shop. She was trying to keep going while all her customers were being seduced by the big supermarkets and cut prices. She had two-for-the-price-of-one offers, organic food and now Asian stock.

  Doris looked up from painting her nails. Her nails were always blood-red, immaculate. “Hi, there,” she said. “Come in for two beans and half a satsuma?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “If you get any thinner you’ll be able to come in through the crack in the door.”

  “I’ll take some cuppa soup. Chicken.”

  “Tomato or mushroom.”

  “Mushroom.”

  I fingered a satsuma, wondering if Doris kept her old newspapers. She might have a stack of them out at the back. I wanted to check on the Broughton story. Read what the local reporter in court thought. I wondered if the operations had given me these rhyming lines. It was weird. Some sort of crossed circuit where none had existed before.