Turn and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 7)

by Stella Whitelaw

  “And the result?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “I want to know everything. What else have you been doing?”

  The drug was still filtering out of my body but I felt I could remember most of what had happened, except afterwards. That bit was a confused blank.

  “I went to the pub,” I began. I almost said, “as ordered”. “I had a good look round but I would have needed a ladder to get up to the canopy over the bar. The two proprietors were there and the second one was not at all pleased to see me. But I found the suit of armor in the boiler room and there definitely seemed to have been some tampering to the means of securing it to the canopy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Sawn bits.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “Did you know that they are going to move the Medieval Hall to some other site? The owner has sold it to a Russian football millionaire with a mansion in West Sussex.”

  “I know that.”

  “Did you oppose it? On the grounds of wasting public money, of course. It’s the kind of thing you would do.”

  “I did.”

  “So maybe someone wants to get rid of you, or at least put you out of action for a few months while the Hall is moved.”

  “That is possible. What an astute mind you have, Jordan. Have you recorded the evidence before they decide to remove it?”

  “Record the evidence. Why don’t you say did you take any photos? You talk like a policeman.” I nearly said, No wonder your wife left you; but then I remembered the horrific circumstances. She must have been unhinged, to take the lives of two little boys. James was still grieving. He would grieve for the rest of his life.

  “Well, are there any photos?” His voice softened with half a degree of warmth. Perhaps he was mellowing. I straightened a sheet that didn’t need straightening. I wanted to put my hand over his. I wanted to send him strength and healing. He was holding on to his computerized control panel.

  “Yes, I took photos, different angles. Flash camera. Not yet developed, but then a lot has happened since.”

  James did not seem to mind my hand on his. I did not know now whether to remove it or how to remove it without drawing attention to the fact. It could look like an accidental touch. It was a moment of decision and one I could not make. My hand lingered and absorbed his warmth. He had never held my hand, but I was holding his.

  James came to my rescue. “Could you pour me a glass of water, please, Jordan?”

  I flashed him a smile of relief for having been extracted from a tricky situation. He was still drinking from a silly cup with a spout, so that he didn’t have to sit up. He couldn’t sit up. Of course some spilled, so I dabbed it up with a towel.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Quite the little mother figure.”

  “Not long now,” I said.

  “No, not long.”

  “You’ll know soon what the doctors think.”

  “Thank you for reminding me. What else has happened?”

  He was hopeless. I couldn’t have a normal conversation with him when he was so touchy. It wasn’t kosher to smart-answer a sick and helpless man. Not fair on either of us.

  “Apparently there was a hold-up on a bus, a hoodie wanting money for a fix.”

  “So I heard on local radio. He was tackled by some plucky schoolgirl heroine who took off rather than talk to anyone.”

  “Very plucky.”

  “But you’ve saved your camera? Well done. Have the shots developed as soon as you can. I want to see them and get a police expert to give me an opinion.”

  “As soon as they let me go home.”

  “Duke will drive you.”

  “Is this a permanent arrangement?” I asked, quite saucy. “My own police driver? Cool. I’d like that.”

  “Don’t push your luck,” he scowled. “And don’t say ‘cool’. It isn’t professional.”

  He was getting better. That was the old DI James.

  Nine

  They let me go home as soon as I was given the all-clear. I was told, strict instructions, to take it quietly for a few days, write out a few price tags, dust a few books. Nothing strenuous. Maybe I’d take their advice for the first half-hour.

  Again and again, I went over my visit to Faunstone Hall. It had to have happened then. I remembered that Holly had not had any coffee. And she’d been annoyed with me. For being a good detective? But I could not believe that Holly or Mrs Malee would have spiked my coffee. There was no reason. To scare me? To get me out of the way? I could see no sense to it.

  I sat quietly on my button-back Victorian chair the next morning. If it had had the magic words “Howard & Sons” on its underside, it would have been worth £3,000, the Rolls-Royce of armchairs. Fortunately, it had nothing and was worth only a few hundred pounds, so I could sit on it without worrying.

  A long time ago, it seemed, I had been checking through a box of old books, bought as a job lot. There had been a book on Sussex history which might bring in a few pounds. The rest of the box had been rubbish, or had it?

  Nothing strenuous, they’d said. Rifling through a few old books was not strenuous. Dust rose politely, but not enough to bring on my asthma. Old orange-and green-covered Penguin issues, Enid Blytons, Agatha Christies, a scrapbook full of postcards.

  The tooled-leather cover had a patina of sweat and polish. They were seaside pictures, ladies in flounced swimming costumes bathing from machines, children in sailor suits playing on the beach. Then further on came war pictures, bedraggled soldiers in mud-filled trenches, desolate battlefields with crippled canons and pillboxes, rows of gravestones. World War One, the bloodiest of them all. If I had the energy, this should go to an auction in Chichester. It would be worth far more than my usual £6 ticket. I’d hardly get drugged at an auction.

  The rest of the Japanese Arita blue-and-white ware had gone quickly, as I’d known it would. The window needed redressing or the customers would be nil. Teddy bears. There was a box of teddy bears out the back, a rumble-tumble of beige and gold mohair plush that I had collected from charity shops. I couldn’t resist abandoned teddy bears. Their faces pleaded with me to take them home. But it was time to move on, to rehome them. I doubted if there would be a Steiff or a Chad Valley bear among them, but people would love them all the same.

  Some of the oldest bears were in plastic bags with mothballs to kill any infestation. I fished out a black bear, much sought after, and put him in the center of the window, then surrounded him with bears of all shapes and sizes. Then I arranged a set of doll-sized teacups and saucers in front of them, as if they were having a bear party.

  The door flew open and a woman came in, bright-eyed and eager. She was tidily dressed but everything was of the 1950s era, left over from her youth or charity-shop buys.

  “I’ve just spotted that bear,” she said. “That one in the window. I think he used to be mine. I’m so excited. He vanished when I got married. My mother threw him out. I didn’t know where he’d gone and I missed him so much.”

  Oh dear, one of those tear-jerking stories. My £6 ticket began rapidly dwindling. How could I possibly charge her £6 for her own bear? This was becoming a charity shop, not First Class Junk, apparently, dispensing charity to all and sundry.

  It was an ordinary brown sort of bear, no shoebutton eyes or distinctive button mark in the ear. He looked a bit chewed. The paw pads needed mending, a few stitches. I took him out of the window and removed the price ticket.

  “You’d better take him home then,” I said. “He needs some tender loving care.”

  “Oh yes, he does… how much, miss?”

  “Are you sure he’s your bear?”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure. He’s my bear all right. I always chewed that ear.”

  “Then you can have him.”

  She was genuinely pleased, words getting all mixed up. Her pension didn’t stretch to impulse buys. She kept patting my arm, which was a bit embarrassing.

&nbs
p; “I can’t thank you enough, young lady miss,” she kept saying. “Don’t wrap him up. I want him to see and breathe the air. I’m going to show him the sea. Teddy, I called him.”

  “I’m sure he’ll like the sea,” I said. “Goodbye, Teddy.” I waved to him. He had a sort of pleased look too, which was somewhat alarming. He’d looked quite downhearted before. It didn’t matter whether he was her childhood bear or not. If she thought he was, then he was home and dry. Honey for tea forever.

  “I’ve got a box of bits and pieces at home,” she said, as she was going out of the door. “Shall I bring them to you? I’m down-sizing, as they say. Two rooms to one.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Any time.”

  I needed sight of the sea as much as Teddy. I closed the shop, bought some rosy apples from Doris and made my way to the beach. The tide was on the turn with the sea pounding the shingle. I crunched my way to a groyne and found a length of timber to sit on that was not wet.

  The waves thrashed the moving pebbles, coming towards me in great rolls of moss-green water topped with dancing white. They spoke to me in a language that I couldn’t understand. They grumbled and rumbled, whisking and whispering, washing the hidden edge of sand with teasing wavelets. Baby crabs struggled to find old hiding places. Seaweed streamed like green threads in a Chinese soup.

  The apples were sweet and juicy but I was not sure if they were breakfast or lunch. My mobile rang and I answered the call. It was Holly Broughton.

  “Jordan, Jordan. Are you all right?”

  “Just about.”

  “Thank God, thank God. We were so worried. We didn’t know what to do. We thought you were dead. Mrs Malee and me, we were distraught. Who found you?”

  “The police and a security officer. They were out looking for me. So it was you who dumped me on Climping beach?”

  “Yes, we were at our wits’ end. I’m sorry if it was the wrong thing to do, but you couldn’t be found at the Hall. We couldn’t have that – not after me being accused of plotting to murder my husband. I couldn’t go through all that interrogation again. It would have been the end of me.”

  “So you dumped me on Climping beach,” I repeated. “Rather callous, wasn’t it? I find it difficult to believe.”

  “But you were found, weren’t you? So that’s all right. I’m so relieved. I’m sorry if you’ve had a bad time but we couldn’t be involved. Perhaps we should have taken you to a hospital.”

  “Exactly. It would have been more sensible to dump me on the doorstep of Latching hospital. A beach in the middle of nowhere is not signposted for the paramedics. Fortunately I have good friends and they were out looking for me or I could have drowned on that beach. The tide was coming in.”

  Holly caught her breath. “I’m so sorry, Jordan. I didn’t want this to happen. I had no idea. We weren’t thinking straight.”

  They weren’t thinking at all. She sounded sincere but it was so naive. Surely, she’d known I might die on the beach? Perhaps she was a hinge missing on the top shelf. It had been a gross error of judgement. The seagulls cawked a flat note. I swallowed a healthy retort. I thought I heard a movement, a chair scraping.

  “Well, I was rescued, so we won’t talk about it any more. All I want to know is who put the drug in my coffee? Is that why you didn’t have any?”

  “No, no. I try to cut down on coffee. It isn’t good for you. I don’t know anything about a drug or what anyone put in your coffee. All I know is that you suddenly slumped over and passed out and were hardly breathing. We thought it was a stroke.”

  “I’m so glad you didn’t call 999 for an ambulance,” I said dryly. “I didn’t have my clean undies on.”

  “I realize now that we should have done, but at the time we just wanted to get you out of the house. Mrs Malee helped me get you into the car and we drove to the beach,” Holly went on. It sounded like a pack of lies. She was breathing fast as if she wanted to tell me something urgently. “Where are you now, Jordan?”

  I wondered if the call was being recorded or someone was there, listening in. It made me look over my shoulder. The beach was deserted apart from a distant man walking his dog. It was a shaggy sort of collie.

  “Holly? Mrs Broughton? Are you still there?” But the phone was dead. She had gone, though her voice lingered. All I could hear was the waves and the gulls in concert. It was a raucous tune and I didn’t have to buy a ticket.

  *

  It was time to do some work on the hens and rabbits case but I had no idea where to start. There was a big pet shop in Latching that sold puppies and kittens as well as food, baskets, kennels, bird baths and bouncy cushions. The window was full of handwritten adverts looking for good homes for sweet, adorable, frisky little baby animals of all kinds, furred and feathered.

  Three adverts were selling lop-eared rabbits. I took the phone numbers and spent an interesting few hours looking at various bunny rabbits. They all looked the same: long-eared, nose-twitching, suspicious. Some almost matched the description of the missing rabbits. I took photos of them all, making sure I included some background details so that later I could identify where I was. The owners were terribly impressed.

  “I want to buy them for my niece who is visiting me soon, so if I send her photos, she’ll be able to chose which ones she would like.”

  “That’s very sweet. You must be very fond of her.”

  “I am.”

  “Let’s hope you find the rabbits she likes.”

  “I’m sure I shall.”

  This finished up the film and I took it to be processed and printed. I paid the top price for the hourly service, which went against the grain, but there were the pub photos on the same film and James wanted to see them. A reason to visit him again, photos hardly dry in my hand.

  A whole hour free. It was an oasis of time just for me. Not enough time to solve a case, or open the shop and sell anything, or go to an auction. But I could lie in the bath and let lavender oil soothe away the last traumatic hours. I turned on the tap. A little smooth jazz would help. I wondered where my famous jazz trumpeter was these days. I had not seen him for a long time. When he came to Latching, it was always as if he had never been away. When he played the trumpet, those teasing melodies, and the high notes, melted my bones.

  I picked up the developed photos. The ladybird started up without a murmur, a little spurt and she began to move as if glad to see me. I eased her out of the parking lot behind my shop and drove to Brighton. This was becoming autopilot. I wanted to take James a gift but perhaps the photos were enough.

  He had not moved an inch since the last time I’d seen him. That was the treatment. Not to move him till the fragment eased away or dissolved.

  “Spinal waistcoat next week, Jordan,” he said without looking at me. “Things are looking up, thanks to you. If you had sat me up after the crash, the sharp slither of bone would have gone straight back and sliced my spinal cord.”

  I nodded knowingly, as if I was a qualified neurosurgeon.

  “And what about this bit of bone?”

  “They reckon it will eventually dissolve. Light physiotherapy and then maybe, after a scan, I’ll be allowed back on duty.”

  “Does that mean your transfer north?”

  “No, that post has been filled.”

  Hurrah. I curbed a desire to dance wildly round the room. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” I said with false sincerity.

  “No, you’re not. Now, show me the photos. I’m hoping you have brought them with you. Hold them where I can see them. Put the light on.”

  “Use your remote. I know you can put the light on yourself.”

  I fed him the photos. They were pretty good if you knew what you were looking for. Close-ups of hinges and screws and brackets. Very art deco. His eyes glinted.

  “These are good,” he said. “You’ve done well. I’ll get them blown up. I’d like an expert’s opinion. Does the owner know you’ve taken these photos?”

  “No, I sort of got ordered out. Th
e owner was quite nasty. He didn’t like me looking around. But the other one was nice. He offered me a pineapple juice.”

  “The other one – what other one? You’re getting confused again.”

  “No, I didn’t get drugged until long afterwards, remember? Events were in this order: ghost-busting visit to Medieval Hall, bus hold-up then being drugged.”

  “My brain is still working, thank you, Jordan.”

  “I’m glad about that.”

  “And what are these other photos? Ah, dear little bunny rabbits. How delightfully sweet. I didn’t know you were into the species. Are you planning to keep rabbits?”

  “This is my other case. The stolen property from an allotment on Topham Hill. My client is Arthur Spiddock. He’s got a dog called Nutty. I’m trying to find his rabbits and hens. It’s not easy. No leads at all. Not a feather in sight.”

  “And what’s this photo?” He nodded to a blurred one, which I had skipped over, taken halfway between pub and rabbits.

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember taking any other photos. Let me see. Heavens, it’s on the bus. Look that’s the hoodie that held up the passengers. A bit sideways, but if you turn it round, like this… It must have taken itself as I took the camera out of my pocket to hide it under the seat. It does happen, you know. The button gets pressed accidentally. Once I took an excellent photo of the pavement outside M&S.”

  “You’d better let the station have this one. Sergeant Rawlings is back on duty, so give it to him. Any kind of evidence is always useful. He’s due in court tomorrow morning and will probably plead it wasn’t him. Mistaken identity.”

  “They all look alike these days.”

  “This one doesn’t. Look at the tattoo on his hand.”

  It was a serpent curled round a dagger. Very fetching. Not easy to forget.

  “I’ll take it in,” I said, putting the photo back into the folder with the rabbits. “It’ll give me a chance to say hi to Sergeant Rawlings. I’m glad he’s better.”

  “He was on the point of retirement but got talked out of it. Recruitment is slow these days. We are under-manned.”