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.
“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 7th,”
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.”
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