Expose!

Table of Contents

 

 

PRAISE FOR
A Vicky Hill Exclusive!

“A dizzy romp with an endearingly gullible investigator and a plot twist on every page.”

—Ann Purser, author of the Lois Meade Mysteries

 

“A Vicky Hill Exclusive!
is a smashing debut! Yes, Vicky is more Lucy Ricardo than Christiane Amanpour, but CNN’s loss is Gipping-on-Plym’s gain—and ours. Hannah Dennison writes a delightfully clever mystery with wit and warmth to spare. May the dead bodies abound.”

—Harley Jane Kozak, award-winning author of
A Date You Can’t Refuse

 

 

“Hannah Dennison rings up a laugh a page in
A Vicky Hill Exclusive!
, a racy romp and hilarious debut.”

—Carolyn Hart, author of
Dare to Die

 

“Vicky Hill is a delightful heroine who would be right at home in a Jane Austen novel. When author Hannah Dennison plunges her into an Agatha Christie-like plot, she gives readers the best of both worlds.”

—Linda Palmer, author of the Daytime Mysteries

A VICKY HILL EXCLUSIVE!
SCOOP!
EXPOSÉ!

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

EXPOSÉ!

 

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / December 2009

Copyright © 2009 by Hannah Dennison.

 

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without
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author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-15183-9

 

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PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
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1

People like to believe that an investigative reporter never sleeps. It certainly seemed the case this morning when my mobile woke me at a ridiculously early hour.

“Are you Vicky Hill?” a woman said in a low voice.

“It depends,” I said crossly. It’s not often I dream of the elusively gorgeous Lieutenant Robin Berry but when I do, I resent being woken up at
the
crucial moment.

“Don’t you do the funerals?”

When I mumbled that I did, she said, “You’ve got to get to St. Peter’s. It’s urgent.”

“Now?”
I glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. It was barely six thirty. “You must be mistaken,” I said. “Reverend Whittler is away on holiday and everything is on hold until he gets back.” In fact, Whittler had left strict instructions with Dr. Frost and Coroner Cripps that bodies from
any
deaths arising whilst he was in Disney World were to be kept in cold storage at Gipping morgue.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“Who is this?” I said.

“Don’t bother. I’ll phone the other girl—”

“No. Don’t do that,” I said quickly, knowing full well that the “other girl” could only mean my nemesis and rival, Annabel Lake. “I’m on my way. Hello? Are you still there?”

The phone was dead. I immediately hit one-four-seven-one only to be told by an infuriating mechanical voice that the “number you have called is not in service.”

As I dragged on the jeans, sweater, clean underwear, socks, and sneakers I always left folded and ready on the floor next to my bed (childhood memories of nighttime police raids die hard), I wondered who on earth could have died and why I was only finding out about it now.

Frankly, I was grateful to the mystery woman. In the one hundred and forty-odd years of being in existence, the
Gipping Gazette
had never once missed sending a reporter to the church to record the names of all the mourners. The thought that I almost broke the tradition was too horrible to bear.

I hurried down the stairs surprised that my landlady, Mrs. Evans, was not in the kitchen listening to Radio Two. It was unusual for her to sleep in. I was sorely tempted to grab a quick cuppa and slice of toast but the tone of the caller implied it was urgent.

Donning my helmet and goggles, I set off on my red Yamaha SR125. Within minutes, 4 Factory Terrace was far behind me. I headed north toward Upper Gipping, taking the shortcut through the narrow country lanes flanked by green, luscious hedgerows.

It was a gloriously sunny May morning. Lambs frolicked in the fields; late-blooming daffodils and primroses sparkled in the early dew. I couldn’t help thinking it was a lovely day for a funeral.

With practically no traffic at this early hour—apart from the odd tractor en route to a field—I reached St. Peter’s the Martyr in record time.

Turning into Church Lane, the twelfth-century gray stone Norman church peeped between the treetops a quarter of a mile farther on. I entered the gravel car park and discovered two cars were parked outside the wooden lych-gate.

One was a hearse—and an unconventional one at that.

It was an American Cadillac—the sort seen in old movies from the sixties. Faded black, scalloped curtains hung in the large picture windows. Embellished in gothic-styled lettering on the side panels was GO-GO GOTHIC—OUR PASSENGERS GO ALL THE WAY.

This hearse certainly didn’t belong to Ripley and Ravish, Gipping-on-Plym’s funeral directors—DUST TO DUST WITH DIGNITY—who owned a very smart fleet of Peugeot DA3’s. Besides, they had taken Whittler’s absence as a chance to close their facilities for refurbishing.

I’d heard about rogue funeral outfits such as Horizontal Taxis and
Hearsedriver.com
available on the Internet. Hatch, Match, and Dispatch was a common sight in the less affluent areas of Plymouth, but I never expected to see such a tacky sight in Gipping-on-Plym.

As I pulled up behind the Cadillac, I was astonished to see a sleek black Audi RS Avant with the registration plate DF 007. I recognized it as belonging to Douglas Fleming, the managing director of Gipping-on-Plym Power Services.

Thanks to my usual daily dose of funerals, I prided myself on knowing the domestic state of all my readers. Douglas Fleming had been married to Scarlett, an American from Atlanta, for more than forty years. As far as I knew, they had no children or relatives on this side of the Atlantic so the presence of his car at this early hour was most intriguing.

What’s more, Douglas Fleming came from an old Devonian family and was unlikely to flaunt convention. Besides, Scarlett was as ostentatious as her namesake from
Gone With the Wind
. Everything she did had to be bigger and better than everyone else. From hiring a team of gardeners so she could win the Best-Garden-of-Gipping prize, to training with a French pastry chef and snagging the Best-Victoria-Sponge trophy at Gipping Church Fete.

Taking out my Canon Digital Rebel, I ran off a few quick snaps of the American Cadillac both inside and out. The hearse had none of the gleaming brass and burnished wood fixtures that any of the Ripley and Ravish Peugeots boasted. I even spied an empty wine bottle, a half-eaten egg-and-cress sandwich and a copy of
Land Ahoy!
a well-known guidebook to Plymouth nightlife.

My curiosity was piqued.

Passing through the church lych-gate, I took the shortcut diagonally across the cemetery, taking care not to trample on late-blooming daffodils. Within minutes my sneakers were soaked through with early morning dew.

The churchyard was enormous. I scanned the rows of lichen-covered headstones for any sign of life—no pun intended—and then recalled that the Flemings kept a family vault in the posh part of St. Peter’s.

Known locally as Albert Square, the private enclosure had been created in the late nineteenth century during Queen Victoria’s reign when Gipping-on-Plym had a thriving wool and textile industry.

Located in the sheltered southwest corner, Albert Square was enclosed by a beautifully clipped yew hedge and accessed by a six-foot-high, wrought-iron gate flanked by stone angels. The gate stood ajar.

As I drew closer, I noted paper streamers and dead flowers were woven through the railings. One stone angel even wore a cone-shaped party hat—all remnants from another grand Devon family funeral held a few weeks earlier.

Ninety-five-year-old Samuel K. Larch’s tragic passing had been a true celebration of an eccentric life—or death—depending on how well you knew him. Everyone from the newspaper was invited to the post-service shindig and we all got plastered on scrumpy and cheap sherry, which was more than I could say for this morning’s sad event.