Episode 1 - Laura I

Cleo Hartley turned the latchkey in the glass door of her new office, opened it, stepped inside and bent down to retrieve the mail that had been pushed through the letter flap below the security glass. She had expected mail to be waiting for her, but was startled at the shadow that fell on the wall between her and the window behind her desk. It looked as if someone was lying there.

Cleo straightened up and tried to decide what to do. Had she disturbed someone? There was a small utility room and a toilet behind the main office, but she could not get there without crossing the room and passing whatever it was that was making a silhouette on the wall. This was something Miss Marple had not had to contend with, though there tended to be lots of mysterious shadows in the movies made out of her stories. A deep silence pervaded the office. Cleo realized that it was someone uninvited who should certainly not be lying flat out on the floor. As she got nearer she could see who it was. Blood had seeped into the carpet. The corpse was cold. It must have been there for some hours. Cleo took her mobile phone out of the pocket of her blazer and pressed the quick dial spot.

“Robert?”

"What is it, Cleo?"

"You won't believe this, but I'm looking at my first professional corpse."

"You've only been in business five minutes, Cleo. Are you sure it's a corpse?"

Cleo knelt by the body and checked its pulse.

"There's no heartbeat, Robert. She's dead."

"She?"

"It's Laura Finch."

"Good God. How the hell did she get into your office?"

"I've no idea. You've got the second set of keys."

"Well, I didn't let her in. You'd better call the police, Cleo, and don't touch anything. I'll phone Phillis. If she can come in, I'll leave her in charge and come over."

Robert Jones lived with Cleo.  He owned and ran the village butcher’s shop just a block or two away from Cleo’s office. Phillis was Robert's part-time sales assistant. She was always glad of extra hours work, assuming she could be bothered to get out of bed.

Cleo dialled emergency services and Middlethumpton police, since there was no Police Station in Upper Grumpsfield. They would come as soon as possible. She did not ring the man who played the most important emotional role in her life, D.I. Gary Hurley, but as head of the homicide squad he was informed immediately.

Cleo sat on the chair designed for clients and tried to come to terms with the situation. She had dreamt of opening Hartley’s Investigation Agency, but instead of investigating crime, she was sitting in the middle of one.

Gary phoned Cleo as soon as he received the notification.

“What’s all this, Cleo?” he asked.

“It’s Laura Finch,” she told him. “I came to open up and she was lying there in a pool of blood, Gary.”

“How come? Didn’t you lock up?”

“Sure I did.”

“Have you told Robert?”

“Yes. He says he’s coming as soon as he can leave the shop.”

“I’ll come anyway. You should have phoned me on my mobile, Cleo.”

“I had to take the formal route, Gary.”

“OK. I’m leaving now.”

“Thanks.”

“Je t’aime, Cleo.”

“I can’t think about love right now.”

“You should.”

“I have to think about Laura Finch, Gary.”

“That won’t bring her back.”

The paramedics arrived at that moment. Only a few minutes later, Gary Hurley arrived on the scene.

"You didn’t really need to come, Gary. I can manage with ordinary cops.”

"After that business with your mother, I told the patrol team I wanted to come myself. Forensics will be here sometime soon. It could have been Gloria, couldn’t it?”

"My mother is safely back in Chicago now."

"Good. She was quite a handful."

"But she couldn't have known how dangerous her situation was."

"She should have. Normal people don't wander off to a strange city to hunt someone down. She also stole an address book from the dead woman's flat.”

“In defence, I should say that my mother was doing what she thought best.”

“That’s as may be. Normally, she would have been charged with breaking and entering, not to mention theft of important evidence in a murder case."

"Why wasn't she? That might have cured her meddling for all time."

"To be honest, her interference led us to several criminals we'd been trying to pin down for some time. She wasn’t trying to do anything illegal. She could have destroyed the notebook, but she didn’t."

Cleo knew her mother better than that. The subversive gesture of hiding the notebook rather than declaring it was indeed motivated by criminal energy and the urge to do something spectacular, but she was not going to tell Gary that.

"What happened to that ginger-haired guy? Gregor, I think his name was."

"He worked with the Rossi woman. Top secret stuff."

"Rossi worked for Interpol, didn't she?"

"Yes. Undercover. Like Gregor. I'll tell you about it some other time."

"I’d appreciate that."

Memories of her first experience of Gary Hurley and the irresponsibility of her own mother, who was rather too inquisitive for her own good, had come flooding back. Getting to know Gary had been connected with a corpse. The fact that she had had sex with him a couple of hours later did not make things any easier.

Gary looked at Cleo intensely. He was grinning.

“You actually defended your mother, Cleo. This corpse has really hit you.”

“Laura wasn’t a person I particularly liked, but I did not want to see her dead in my office. Don’t laugh. The situation is too serious for that.”

“We could make love in the utility room again,” said Gary.

“You must be joking,” said Cleo.

"OK. Let's look at this little problem for the time being, shall we?" said Gary.

"It's not that little a problem. Laura Finch was not only a large woman, but also a complicated one. I'm sure she had several skeletons in her cupboard."

"How should I understand that? Don't talk in riddles!"

"Something happened recently that led her to drinking herself into a coma and having to be hospitalized."

"Go on."

"I'd been looking into why her ladies' chorus had mobbed and then deserted her."

"Did she ask you to?"

"Not directly, but I felt sorry for her and thought that was what had made her turn to drink."

"And did you find out anything useful?"

“Sort of, but now she's dead, the little we do know is taking on an entirely new dimension."

"We being who?"

“Dorothy Price."

“Your assistant sleuth?”

“That’s her. She’s a great help, Gary. She gets brilliant hunches and she has also said that Laura was drinking heavily and regularly.”

Gary did not comment on that statement. He had a problem with private detectives that he had no desire to discuss. Cleo knew this. She would prove him wrong, she decided. Sometimes it was possible to love someone without liking them, she mused.

Dorothy had known Laura Finch in her London days. She had accompanied her singing and coached her before Laura had departed for a life as cruise entertainer on liners. Gary Hurley did not think much of employing a retired pianist as an assistant.  He could just about get along with a sociologist’s interest in crime. Cleo was a sociologist.

"Then she could have been drunk when she was killed.”

“What difference would that make, Gary?”

“She might have been to a pub with someone.”

“Not Laura. She was a secret drinker. I don’t think she realized that her secret wasn’t one.”

“She won’t have any more problems, will she? Chris will get the forensics done and the corpse taken to the pathology lab, and then you can tell me what you found out about Mrs Finch. Chris is bound to analyse the alcohol content in her blood."

“Will that make a difference now?

“No, unless her drinking partner was also her killer.”

"Talking of drink, would you like one? There's a bottle of something in the utility room."

Gary followed Cleo into the back room, stood behind her and put his arms round her.

“You are pretty cool, Miss Hartley,” he said. “I’m not sure I should be if there was a corpse on my carpet.”

“I’m not cool inside,” said Cleo.

“I agree. You’re pretty hot stuff, if I may say so.”

“You may.”

The forensic team arrived just then, led by Chris Marlow. Paramedics fetched a stretcher from their ambulance. Laura Finch was examined by the accompanying doctor and pronounced dead. The position she lay in was marked with chalk and numerous photos taken using markers to show the exact position of the body before it was heaved unceremoniously onto the stretcher, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. The blanket in which the corpse had probably been wrapped was nowhere to be seen. Chris thought she had been transported face down then rolled out of it onto the carpet. Cleo winced, not least because her newly laid velour carpet was ruined. She knew she should be feeling sad and emotional, but she didn't.

"She was stabbed three times in the back as far as I can judge," said Chris. "She was probably killed somewhere else and then brought here. Can anyone see a breadknife? That might contradict that idea.”

“There’s one in the utility room.”

“We’ll take it with us,” said Chris. “It might have traces of blood on it.”

“Why would a killer deposit a corpse and then go into the back room and leave the weapon there, Chris?”

“He might have taken it there to wash the blood off. We’ll find out. Any one of the stab wounds might have been fatal, by the way, judging from the blood lost. And there’ll be more blood where she was killed unless it was cleaned off.”

The autopsy would probably confirm which stab wound had been most effective. Someone had definitely had it in for Laura Finch.

"It was probably a man," said Chris. "The wounds are deep and were inflicted with venom."

The doctor agreed.  

"Or someone was wishing me luck for my new enterprise," remarked Cleo.

“Surely it wasn’t case of mistaken identity,” said Gary, looking at Cleo’s olive skin. “Do you know anyone who might have put the corpse here to spite you, Cleo?"

Chris looked at the two of them. Were they an item? What about Robert?

"No,” said Cleo. “It's the sort of thing my late husband might have done, but he died in a brawl last year."

"I suppose that rules him out. Unless…."

"He died in a prison in New York. I have the confirmation and death certificate."

“I suppose that takes care of that, then. Did you ever have the feeling of being stalked?"  Gary asked

Cleo looked startled. Shouldn't nascent detectives notice things like that?

"Are you connecting it with my mother's case, Gary?"

"We can't rule anything out."

The A & E doctor wrote a short death certificate and left. The paramedics would take Laura’s corpse straight to the forensic lab at HQ since no hospital could do anything for her. The coroner would find an open verdict and the perpetrator would be found and brought to justice.

Once the corpse had been removed, the forensic team could make a detailed search of the premises. For a start, they took a close look at the old sash window in the utility room. It was about a yard wide and the sash was well-oiled so that the window could be pushed up and down without any noise. It was possible to get in and out that way. It was now open a fraction. Since they were on the ground floor, it was a viable means of entry. There were only garages opposite.

“Have you touched the window lately?” Chris asked Cleo.

“No.”

"It’s opened a fraction. Check the yard and access immediately!" Chris ordered. "Good job it hasn't been raining."

There were no signs of the window having been forced, but it could have been opened far enough from the outside for the earthly remains of Laura Finch to be pushed through that window, Chris explained.

“The woman was probably wrapped in one of those insulating metallic blankets. That would explain why there was no trail of blood between the windows and where the corpse was found,” said Chris. “We’ve had that before.”

"There must have been two of them lifting her through the window," Gary said. “She was a hefty woman.”

"Surely rigor mortis would make her stiff for long enough for one strong guy to finish the job," said Cleo.

Chris smiled at her approvingly.

“Two would find it easier,” he said.

 "I wonder if she was killed in the yard outside," Cleo mused.

"What a pity I did not play ‘spot the killer’ before leaving, yesterday. Maybe I should have stood at the window and shouted ‘come and get me’."

“Whoever helped push the body through the window must have also climbed in to retrieve the blanket,” said Chris. “You ‘ll have to do something to make sue it can’t be opened from outside.”

“I’ll get a bolt put on,” said Cleo. “Will that be enough?”

“Or board the window up,” said Chris. “Or get a burglar grill.”

“Talking of Barbeques….”

Gary wanted to laugh, but didn’t. He loved Cleo’s repartee. A wave of simple physical desire passed through him. Chris thought that Cleo and Gary were playing a sort of lover’s game. Cleo was egging Gary on and Gary was totally smitten. At that moment Chris could not know that Cleo was just as emotionally involved. Gary was just a nice, sexy guy that a girl might want to get near. After all, she had Robert. Why wasn’t he here?  If he wanted to hang on to her, he should offer her more than Gary was obviously keen on doing. Chris was something of an expert on romance, not least because he did not know what he wanted himself.

***

Back to the job on hand. Chris asked the team to check for traces of plastic, foil, or other material that the corpse could have been wrapped in. There could be signs of it on the rough pebble dash of the wall under the window.

Gary gave instructions on his mobile phone for the search for witnesses to begin. A patrol team led by Greg Winter would take on that job. Greg was ambitious and competent. Too good for traffic duty. Gary hoped he would join the homicide squad one day.

Chris was sure Laura Finch had been dead for about twelve hours. That would mean that she was killed the previous evening rather than earlier that morning.

"What if whoever brought her here was waiting for me to leave?"

"Be thankful they did wait. At any rate, you know you weren't a target for murder - this time," said Gary.

"That's a great comfort. Can we get out of here now?"

“Don’t you want to wait for big brother?” said Gary.

“I forgot him. I’ll just tell him I’m leaving forensics here and going shopping.”

“Are you?”

“Can you give me a lift, Gary?”

“Now you ask…”

"OK, but I'll tell Robert that I'm going to be at HQ for an hour or two before shopping. I need to put a statement in writing."

“That sounds authentic. We’ll have lunch at Romano’s before I run you home. OK?”

“Bless you both,” said Chris who was now certain that something was going on between the two.

***

Robert had not found anyone to look after the shop, so had to stay there. Gary asked Cleo a few questions, mainly to create the right impression. Chris saw through that ruse, too. The report at HQ was a blind, he decided.

"When exactly did you leave last night, Cleo?"

"It must have been about eight. Supper was on the table when I got home."

***

Chris said the team would go to HQ as soon as they had finished their routine.

"We'll have to seal the place off," said one of them. "But we'll release it as soon as possible."

"There's no hurry," said Cleo. "I'm not sure I want to come here again."

***

She and Gary got into his car and drove off.

“There goes a pair of lovers,” said Chris to no one in particular.

“That’s what I was thinking,” said one of his colleagues. “She must be quite a girl when she isn’t baiting Gary.”

“That’s part of their act,” said Chris.

***

The drive into Middlethumpton did not take long. Cleo was silent. She had switched on the car radio and was listening to sad music.

"Beethoven 7^th,” said Gary. “You'll get over this business, you know. Just think of all the publicity!"

"Negative."

"Nonsense! You couldn't have a better advert."

"A corpse instead of a Champagne reception? I wish I could believe that."

"You should. We’ll need formal identification at HQ, Cleo.”

"I'd better not have any cognac then."

"You look as if you need it."

“I am in shock, Gary. One of your coffees should help.”

“You told me to get a new machine.”

“Any coffee is better than none.”

Fortunately, Gary had actually bought an espresso maker like the one Cleo had in her utility room. Cleo was impressed and felt much better after drinking some of the aromatic brew.

"I can get you something stronger, Cleo. Not cognac, but I have a supply of bourbon in that cupboard over there."

"Better not. I'm OK. Just a bit upset at what happened to Laura."

"Do you feel up to talking about her?"

"Sure. We have to get at the truth, whatever it costs."

"It won't cost you your agency, Cleo."

"All I wanted to do was help people out of tight corners, find errant fathers, get grounds for divorces sorted out, and maybe collect evidence of fraud. Things the cops can't do as well. Murder was not on the menu."

"It is now. You knew Laura Finch. There must be something relevant you can tell me. Something that made her chorus ladies ditch her, perhaps?"

"I think she was too bossy for them. Nothing specific. Just personality clashes. Some of those women have delusions of grandeur.”

“It sounds as if Laura finch had the delusions of grandeur, Cleo.”

“She did too. But was that a reason to kill her?”

“She may have been drunk at rehearsals. Who knows?" said Gary.  “She may have said something so awful that it cost her her life.”

"OK. We women do tend to show off to one another, but men do that as well, and don’t end up killing one another.”

“Some do. But not me, I hasten to add."

“Nor me neither. I didn't like Laura, but didn't want her to end up stabbed to death."

"Better just think of her as someone in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"That would be the most charitable conclusion. I'm not sure if that isn't the story of her life."

"Keep going. I'm listening."

"It's a long saga."

"Just tell me what you think I need to know now. There may be something to go on."

“I don’t think it’s relevant now, but the last time I saw her she was unconscious. That was the incident of her coma drinking. She’d awarded herself a cocktail of diazepam and vodka. “

"Is that important now?”

"Julie, Robert’s daughter, found a job working for a photographer in London. Robert told her about the drama we'd had finding Laura half dead in her bed, and knew of no other relative than Jason,  the son she declared was her nephew until Dorothy had one of her hunches. His exact whereabouts were unknown to us, but Julie offered to look for him."

"But surely you could have simply asked Laura Finch."

"I didn't know if Jason was at the root of her drink problem. I just wanted him to know what had happened."

"And take responsibility?"

"Someone had to do something. We assumed Jason was back in London Laura had boasted that Jason intended to audition for a part in a musical, but we couldn't find any address or phone number for him and the theatre agents were not forthcoming, either. That left us thinking he might have gone back to the Caribbean."

"I remember him well. A tall, dark-skinned young man with a beautiful tenor voice."

Not that young. Mid-thirties, I would say."

"How old was Laura Finch?"

"Over sixty I think, but very vain about her appearance. You could ask Dorothy Price for details, but Laura’s passport will be among her papers, won't it?"

"Wasn't Mrs Finch part of the organization of that talent show event? That’s where I heard Jason sing, of course.”

“Sure. She made a terrific fuss because it looked like he would not show up.”

"I saw Mrs Finch looking around a lot. She looked worried, I remember. A big woman with a loud voice. Now I remember all that. I wondered where I’d seen the corpse before."

"Jason turned up very late that evening. I think she'd given him up, and considering the way she'd praised him at the meetings, I could understand why she was upset."

"But he did turn up after all," Gary commented. "I thought the finale was brilliant."

"Do you mean Robert, too?"

“Meaning your Robert?“

„Sure.”

“Jason seemed quite put out that he hadn't won outright."

"Blame that on Laura Finch. She'd given him the impression that it was going to be a pushover. I think that was how she'd got him to come, actually."

"As if winning a village competition means anything."

"It did to Robert."

"Sorry. I didn't mean it that way, but Jason is a professional singer."

"To be honest, I think he was doing his mother a big favour and had wanted to straighten things out between them. Playing the nephew game must have got on his nerves. That story was invented in the Caribbean, by the way. That’s where Jason was born, and he was a nuisance to Laura, who had better things to do than rear a bastard. I’m sure he had no intention of continuing to support Laura Finch's unblemished character by keeping up the act, and thanks to Robert he didn’t."

"I would have felt the same."

"Jason might have wanted revenge and killed his mother, Gary. Taking revenge for being pushed out of her life as a small boy; maybe revenge for not having known the truth about his parentage; maybe he didn’t know that the lady who visited him now and again was his mother and that the persons she paid to say they were his parents, weren’t."

"It's all very dramatic and could even be a murder motive, but how do you know Jason could be like that?"  

"Because after Jason had had the big row with his mother on the night of the talent show he came to my cottage to get to know the character who had stolen his outright win. On that evening Jason dropped quite a few hints about his mother. He also wanted to thank Robert by helping him to reveal that Laura is in fact his mother."

"Some of that information could be relevant now," Gary conjectured. "How did Robert's daughter deal with her mission to find Jason?"

"Julie soon found out where Jason was living and took turns with friends to watch the house round the clock from where they could not be seen. They were in luck. Jason was usually alone, but one afternoon he arrived together with a young woman."

"That sounds harmless enough."

"The guys investigating speculated about whether it was his wife or a relative, as her skin colour was similar to Jason's."

Now Gary was giving the account his full attention.

"But they were only in the house for half an hour at the most. Then they came out and went different ways without any visible sign of affection between them."

"That could have been an act. Like the one we put on, Cleo. Has Julie found out who the woman is?"

"Not yet. That was only three days ago, and the woman has not been seen since."

"Tracing persons is something the police can do. Jason is an immigrant. He must be registered somewhere."

"Maybe that's where Julie started. She's an immigrant, too."

"But her father is British."

"She didn’t know that. She didn’t know she still had a father and she had a New Zealand passport."

“You'll have to tell me that story, Cleo."

“Come to dinner. I’ll tell you my story too, if you’re interested."

“I’m interested. Let’s go to Romano’s now.”

“We don’t do much talking there, if I remember rightly.”

“We might talk even less if we met more often, Cleo.”

“I’m trying to kick the habit, Gary.”

“Why?”

“All those roses you gave me that time. 28 of them. A rose for every tryst and more to come, you said.”

“I was optimistic, but I am still holding on to that idea. I didn’t realize how serious you are about that butcher.”

“I’m between the devil and the deep blue see.”

“Before we go to Romano’s let’s just finish the shop talk here, shall we?”

“I haven’t said yes to Romano’s, Gary.”

“But you want to.”

“Yes.”

***

"On consideration, I think you’d better call Julie's observation team off,” Gary said. “The police can take over. They need the son, of course, but we don’t know if he killed his mother, so a confrontation might tip the scales for him."

"I'll send her a text and explain why when she phones back."

"Don't tell her about Mrs Finch's murder. The press will find out soon enough."

Cleo left a text on Julie's mobile.

There was a pause while Gary refilled the coffee mugs. They both thought there could be a lot more to the case than simply bumping off an unpleasant person and dumping her through the first available open window.

"Thanks, Gary. Your coffee is great."

"Italian espresso. My life-saver."

There was a pause to appreciate the skill of Italian coffee roasters and Cleo marvelled again at the new espresso machine.

"To sum up, we can say that the relationship between Jason and his mother was strained."

"Extremely difficult. After all, she'd farmed him out as a baby to a couple in the Caribbean. She was a cruise entertainer, Gary, and I don’t think she even knew who the father was."

"Poor Jason…being dumped, I mean."

"I think he probably had a better life than he would have had with Laura."

"He’s a prime suspect, Cleo."

"What about the chorus women?"

"We'll haul them in for questioning, too. Are you hungry?"

“Hungry for food?”

“That too. I’ll tell Romano we’re on the way, shall I?”

“Do that, Gary. I am in need of a little TLC. ”

“So am I.”