Episode 9 - Jason

As Cleo crossed the road back to Laura Finch's bungalow, a taxi drew up and she was glad to see Jason get out. Now she would be able to get back to her cottage and do some of the tasks that were piling up. He waved to her. He didn't seem particularly cut up about his mother's death.

"Would you be sad, Cleo?"

"She was your mother, Jason."

"She was to all intents and purposes a stranger. I was lucky that my foster parents were great people, but my mother didn't even check up on that, let alone visit me regularly."

"We didn't miss her because we didn't really know who she was," Jessica chipped in, accentuating the "we" and looking at Jason very pointedly. "We didn't even know she was still in Bermuda until she had left, and certainly didn't know what she was doing with her life."

Jason took the hint.

"That's less important, Jess,” he said. “We wouldn't have understood anyway."

“How did you find out that she had left Bermuda?” Cleo asked.

“She had been running a brothel, Cleo. I knew where it was and went there. It had gone and the people living around there told me that the Big White Mother’ had gone home to England.”

Cleo did not comment. Laura’s past was awful enough without adding that occupation (and title) to the list.

"It's really a pity you didn't clear things up with her before she died" she said.

"Someone else got in first," said Jason, and immediately regretted it. "Don't misunderstand me. I’m not accusing anyone, but I was here for the talent competition and she behaved disgracefully."

"At least she mentioned you, even if she lied about your relationship. She didn't mention me at all," said Jessica.

Jason looked sharply at Jessica. Cleo wondered what kind of game they were playing. She reflected on her own difficult relationship with Gloria. But at least her mother had never denied that she had a daughter. Recently, now she had accepted that she had been totally wrong about Cleo's violent ex-husband, things had improved between them, but what about her own past, her rejection by Cleo's father and her mother being mobbed so hatefully by the Hartley family that she just left, pregnant and without any visible means of support. A pregnant dancer does not dance in public.

The Hartleys could not reconcile to having a coloured chorus girl in their midst. Gloria did not tell the Hartleys that she had given birth to a little girl until it became so difficult to make ends meet that she appealed to John Hartley for help. It was granted under a vow of secrecy so that Cleo had a decent upbringing and education ending with a PhD in sociology. Gloria did not tell Cleo’s father that, either. Would he have been proud of her, or would racism and bigotry be so deeply embedded in his personality that he would have ignored that achievement?

***

Cleo could well imagine that working as a hooker was not what Laura Finch had envisaged for herself, but somehow she had managed to wrench herself from that shadow world by returning to her roots. Cleo wondered if she had found someone to pay her fare back to Britain and look after her. Blackmail again? Had that all gone wrong and whoever it was had taken belated retribution?

***

"You'd better go inside, Jess," Jason said.

"I think I should be getting home now," Cleo said. "How long are you planning to stay, Jason?"

"Only as long as it takes to sort things out. We’ll talk about the old days in Bermuda. It all seems light years away now."

“What old days?” said Jessica, earning a grim look from Jason.

And that memory stuff was definitely a pack of lies, Cleo decided, wondering if play-acting ran in the Finch family. Why did the two Jays really meet up in London and what was their relationship?

***

"Cleo knows about us, Jason."

"Everything?" Jason looked startled. Cleo again asked herself how much of Jessica's story had been true.

"In confidence, Jason, and I don’t spill beans," said Cleo, sure that Jessica had not told the whole truth.

To finish the meeting on a lighter note she added "There's edible food in the fridge. Laura seems to have lived mostly on stuff out of cans, so you won't starve. "

"No problem. We'll be fine," said Jason.

***

If Cleo had qualms about the situation, she would try to quash them. She would leave them to sort things out between them. If they wanted to play the siblings game, who was she to interfere? The same thing applied if they were married to one another. Cleo thought that whatever their relationship was, they were emotionally cold. The bungalow had no atmosphere at all. Laura Finch had lived there only briefly and made no attempt to make it homely, possibly because she was more interested in drowning her sorrows in cheap alcohol than in her living quarters. Cleo suspected that the heavy furniture was almost exactly where the removal men had put it, and they would not be the least bit interested in what it looked like. But it least it had all been dusted by the forensic team, she thought wryly. Selling the place off would be the best solution. She could not imagine either Jason or Jessica wanting to stay in Upper Grumpsfield.

Walking home, Cleo remembered the business with the sanatorium. Was Jessica really safe with Jason? And what could she do about it? What about the lecherous Betjeman next door? Could Jessica deal with him if she had to? Cleo wisely decided to keep her speculations to herself for a day or two. The wisdom of that decision was soon to be put to the test.

***

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Dorothy phoned from the vicarage and begged Cleo to walk up the road and make sure everything was all right at her cottage. Cleo phoned Gary and told him she could not get to Middlethumpton. She could not leave things here to their own devices.

Shirley Temple let Cleo into the cottage and they exchanged notes. The forensic team had long since gone and Shirley didn't think there was any point in her being there, but orders are orders. Cleo could not provide Shirley with much information about Laura.

"Dorothy Price is the person to ask," she told the policewoman. "But I don't think Laura Finch was either informative or truthful to anyone who knew her."

"You do private investigating, don't you, Miss Hartley?"

"Cleo, please. And yes, I've had a few successful cases, but nothing like murder. In fact, someone in the house opposite Mrs Finch's bungalow has just asked me to track her husband."

"What were you doing there, Cleo?"

"I took Jessica Finch back to Laura’s bungalow and thought I should tell the neighbours about her  since she would probably not want to do that herself, and neighbours might otherwise think there'd been a break-in."

Cleo was aware that Shirley was not going to pass up this chance of quizzing her about something she thought suspicious. Her concern was that if Cleo was snooping around, it might endanger police inquiries, so Shirley decided she would put a stop to it. She was, of course, unaware of Gary Hurley’s involvement in Cleo and the Hartley Agency.

"Did anyone say anything of interest?" she said.

Cleo thought Shirley’s questioning was superfluous and certainly not sanctioned. The young woman was clearly irritated by the task she had been given.

"No. Hardly anyone was at home. Why are you quizzing me."

“I just thought…”

“Well, don’t think, Shirley. I don’t do anything I have not agreed about with Mr Hurley. He needs my help and your cooperation and discretion.”

Shirley was incensed by being spoken to like that by a private eye.

Cleo wondered what Shirley wanted. Was she hoping a potential murderer was lurking in front of the Dorothy’s cottage? Did she want to crown her mission with a capture?

Cleo decided to change tactics.

"Are you wearing one of Dorothy's bathrobes?"

"Yes, just in case anyone catches a glimpse of me."

"Wow. what a good idea!"

"Cleo, I have to say this. Don't keep anything you know about this case to yourself. You might be putting yourself and Miss Price in danger!"

Cleo decided to go with the flow.

"I realize that. We'll be careful."

"Good. I'm staying here tonight. There'll be a patrol car nearby, too."

"Won't that cramp the style of anyone trying to get in here?"

"Possibly. But we police have to stick to the rules, Cleo."

It was on the tip of her tongue to comment on that being the reason ‘we policeman’ often failed to catch or even locate a suspect, but she knew that having a go at Shirley would annoy Gary, so she stayed on safe ground.

"And that's where private investigators come in, Shirley. Gary is convinced of that. I'd better get back home. My partner will be wondering what's become of me."

As she left, Cleo called out "Bye, Dorothy. See you tomorrow."

Anyone listening would have heard that, and Shirley Temple might have realized that Cleo Hartley was someone to be reckoned with.

***

It was a weird situation. So much had happened since Cleo had found Laura Finch's body, but not a single question about her death had been answered. Was she missing something that was staring at her in the face?

Cleo would have liked to go back to Laura's bungalow and confront the two Jays there. Could she get them to tell her something she needed to know? But she thought better of it. A talk with Robert was what she really needed. A little sanity and no frills.

***

“A lot of small talk and no progress,” Cleo told Robert when she got home.

"I hope poor Laura Finch's murderer will be caught soon," said Robert, who was mashing potatoes stealthily enhanced with a lot of butter and cream. “Someone must have left clues, Cleo. Criminals always leave clues.”

Robert’s idea of crime detection was straightforward. Unfortunately, crime, especially murder, was not.

“Can you just taste this mashed potato, Cleo?” he called now. “Did I put enough salt in?”

Cleo laughed heartily. Robert had left the butter on the worktop. Most of the packet was in with the potatoes. “Soul food again?” she joked. “I’m sure all the angels would like your mash, Robert. I expect you really want to know if there’s enough butter in there, don’t you?”

“I’ve replaced some with double cream,” he explained.

“We’ll have to eat standing up,” Cleo said.

“Why?”

“There are only calories in food if you are sitting down,” she said.

“You could go without,” said Robert, who was a big guy and had never gone on a diet, though he needed one.

“I’ll think about it,” said Cleo. “I’ll lay the table.”

“I thought you were going to stand,” said Robert, who had finally caught on to the humour.

“Next time,” said Cleo reflecting that mealtimes were really the only happy times in her marriage.

***

Robert had lived alone for most of his adult life, and after a spate of heavily augmented commercial sofa dinners, pub meals and his own sporadic but calorie-laden singles' cooking he was now doing his best to cook healthy meals, though the proportions of fat and protein still got out of hand. It was not easy to keep a diet up and he was far from sure that he would want to. After all, he was the proprietor of a thriving butcher's shop and prided himself on his Welsh lamb (‘direct from my cousin's hill farm’), his incredibly tasty pork sausages (‘my granny let me into the secrets of aromatic herbs and spices’) and latterly, giant sized T-bone steaks, on which he and Cleo supped at least once a week. Tonight he was cooking a lamb casserole to be supplemented with a heap of his buttery mash. The braised lamb and onions would be drowned in aromatic Bordeaux laced gravy, smothered with more of the mash and topped with grated cheese. Twenty minutes later a steaming golden gratin would emerge from the oven. Cleo thought he was a marvellous cook and never interfered. She ate the calorie-laden extras appreciatively, though she knew she would regret them when she stepped onto the scales.

"It's such a pity we never invited Laura Finch here," she regretted. "Maybe I could have answered some of the questions surrounding her death if we'd had her to dinner and given her enough wine."

"There's no knowing if she would have said anything relevant, even when drunk," Robert commented. "I always thought she was rather secretive. Force of habit, I suppose. If you've got something you desperately need to hide, your whole life revolves around it."

"You should know, Robert Jones."

"And so should you, Cleopatra Hartley."

There was a minute's silence while each looked into the past.

“Laura ran a brothel in Bermuda,” she said.

“That do not surprise me,“ said Robert. "Remember those church committee meetings when Laura would be silent for half an hour and then rise up to make negative comments?"

"Unfortunately, Laura was one of those people who never had good ideas themselves, but always criticised anyone who had!"

"Even though she'd had a few good ideas in her chequered past, if you include the brothel," Robert said, laughing heartily at his own witticism.

“On reflection, I think she was trying to come to terms with herself, Robert. At least she went along with some suggestions and she was on good terms with the vicar. Sometimes I couldn't help wondering…"

"Never!"

"Frederick Parsnip is only human, Robert, and she did lay it on thick with him."

"But surely not tralala with the vicar. At her age?"

"By tralala I suppose you mean sex,“ said Cleo.

“I did not want to put it so bluntly,” said Robert. “He’s a churchman.”

“Churchmen have sex, Robert, except for some RC priests and we don’t know about all of them.”

“I’d rather not think about it.”

“The clergy are not immune to offers from women unless they prefer men, Robert. Laura already worked as a hooker on those cruise liners."

“Who told you that?”

“Jessica.”

“Shocking!”

"The only problem is that I don't know if Jessica was telling the truth."

"Let's assume she was."

"The shipping company fired Laura for soliciting."

“There you are then. That’s enough of a confirmation,” said Robert.

"I suppose she had a captive audience," said Cleo.

***

Robert's eyes grew wider and wider as he listened to Cleo repeating Jessica’s amazing account. His judge of character admittedly left him in the lurch from time to time, but unlike Cleo and Dorothy he never speculated on what made people tick.

Robert divided people into potential customers. There were the affluent regulars who bought plenty and ignored the prices, the stingy ones who tried to strike bargains on the best cuts, and the needy ones, who got his full attention and far more than they actually paid for. He didn't have to like any of them, but he had to admit that Laura Finch had been fond of her food and a good customer. He found it hard to believe that behind Laura’s ‘grande dame’ façade there was such a debauched individual.

***

"Jessica told you all that? I wouldn't have touched Laura Finch with a barge pole," he said, not without a twinge of conscience that he had been quite impressed by he in a theoretical sort of way.

“You don’t touch me with a barge-pole, either, Robert.”

“I’ll try harder,” he replied.

"Let’s not get personal, shall we? We were talking about Laura’s youth, Robert."

"Prostitutes all look the same to me," Robert said. "Like the carcasses at the meat market on Mondays. All strung up for inspection."

Under different circumstances Cleo might have been amused by that macabre comparison.

"I hope you don't normally think about women that way, Robert. A slaughterhouse isn't a peep show."

"Don't be daft, Cleo. But you have to admit that every piece in the Laura Finch jigsaw is more startling than the previous one."

***

Washed down with a bottle of excellent Cabernet Sauvignon and followed by a dessert sugary enough to satisfy even the sweetest tooth, the casserole and the rest of the meal restored a certain contentment to the cottage. Even if Robert had never preferred impromptu erotic interludes to hot suppers, he was nonetheless sentimental at heart.

An hour discussing Laura’s life followed the repast, after which Robert decided it was bedtime for him and Cleo decided she would write a report of the day’s events before she forgot them.

“You can sleep in your bed tonight,” said Robert. “I’ll be asleep. You won’t disturb me.”

Cleo wondered how likely it was that Gary would make such an offer.+