Staging Death (30 page)

‘You’re back already!’ I greeted Martin from my knees in his back garden.

‘It’s nearly eight,’ he said almost defensively. ‘Even cops have to come home sometime. And you’re still working.’

‘Gardening isn’t work, not as far as I’m concerned. Though my knees might argue.’ Shedding my gloves, I took his outstretched hands and let him pull me to my feet. ‘And look, I’ve found an arbour under all those brambles.’ I pointed to a paved area I’d filled with a table and chairs that had lurked in his garage.

He looked shamefaced. ‘You know what it’s like with a rented place. You feel temporary, and only do the essentials.’

I didn’t argue, not when there was a decent bottle of white chilling in the fridge beside a dish
of
salade niçoise
– both ideal for a balmy evening like this.

‘How are things at Aldred House?’ he asked later, as we ate.

‘Allyn’s still sticking it out. Her medics have arrived from the States.’

‘Personal physicians?’

‘Absolutely. More prosaically, Ginnie from St Jude’s was back today. It seems she’s got someone to reconsecrate the chapel and Allyn’ll be able to have Toby’s funeral there. Just family and friends. So long as she never knows what Toby got up to in the pulpit.’

‘What about Ted Ashcroft’s widow?’

‘Allyn offered to let her have Ted’s funeral there too, but she prefers the crematorium, she says. And who can blame her? She wants nothing more to do with the place, I should imagine. As to the future, and this is for your ears only, Allyn’s got her legal team to set up a retirement fund for her. A very generous one. And it’s binding, even if Mrs Ashcroft sues Toby’s estate over his death.’

‘Do I detect your hand there?’

‘Maybe. And maybe Miss Fairford’s.’

‘Are you two still not on first-name terms?’

‘No. I did suggest it, but she was so uncomfortable I gave up. Whatever I call her, she’s working like a Trojan organising Toby’s memorial service.’

‘Holy Trinity I presume?’

‘You presume right. And Allyn’s paid to have the roof fixed so it doesn’t leak on all the great and good paying their respects.’ I took our plates back to the cramped kitchen and returned with a plate of strawberries crushed with balsamic vinegar and black pepper, a dessert Martin was fast becoming addicted to. ‘And how are you getting on with SOCA?’

‘Emails. Bloody emails. Have I got this? Is there a record of that? It seems to me that my team and I are doing all the work and they’re going to get all the glory. As for feeding back the latest news to me…’ He tore his hair. ‘Seriously, it’s so demoralising when you learn the chief problem at the moment is the battle between them and Steptoe and Son…’

I said prissily, ‘I take it that’s your distinguished colleagues investigating scrap metal theft?’

‘Distinguished! They might be if they weren’t bickering over which is the major crime, drugs or scrap metal, and which squad should deal with the murders. Sometimes all these government targets and statistics make us lose sight of the important things – like fighting crime and locking up criminals.’

‘At least you got to interview Christopher Wild,’ I pointed out.

He snorted. ‘Usually it’s hard to make people talk. It was hard to make him stop.’

‘And I bet he told you he hadn’t told a soul about the statues, nor that they were big and bronze.’

‘Absolutely no one. Only half of Stratford!’ He said, more quietly, ‘If only he could get dried out he’d be a decent enough man.’

‘He’ll never do it on his own. Not even with AA. But I do know the odd actors’ charity – I’m sure they could fund residential therapy. I’ll get on to it in the morning.’

I was still in my identity limbo, as I would be till every last member of the gang was safely apprehended by whichever agency got round to it. Then, of course, there was the trial to look forward to. Or not, as the case might be.

So I was glad I had Martin’s garden to deal with. As my real self I couldn’t go looking for new work, of course, and though Allyn insisted that one day she would complete the refurbishment of the whole house, I couldn’t press her. What she did ask me to do, very delicately, as if afraid she had insulted me, was cater for the
post-funeral
wake. Greta was still helping the police, SOCA, that is, with their enquiries and wouldn’t be available. While she was sure Miss Fairford could find a firm of caterers, she wondered if I
might help out. Only thirty or forty mourners? Easy-peasy, I told her. It would bring in cash, and mercifully render me too busy to be asked to contribute to the funeral itself with either a reading or a personal tribute. Friends though we now called each other, I don’t think either of us could have dealt with that. So while the family were driven to the crematorium, I stayed behind to ensure the booze and canapés were ready when they returned. After all, I’d already said my last goodbye, rather publicly.

A couple of days later, Martin came back from work even later than usual, but with a decided smile.

‘Someone’s talking?’ I asked, passing him a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio.

‘To SOCA. And SOCA’s talking to me, praise be. About your old friend Frances Trowbridge.’

‘She’s got tired of monosyllabicism?’

‘I do love it when you talk dirty. Yes, she’s decided to pin the blame on someone else. Well, everyone else. From the TV-watching and theatre-going public downwards.’

‘Who wickedly ignored her acting so she had to turn to crime?’

‘Pretty well. Seems she still insists that at first she was only doing a decent day’s work, accompanying a man she only knew as Mr Gunter, to look at houses. But SOCA have got
her to admit how much she got paid, which turned out to be so much I’m sure someone like you would have smelt a rat immediately.’

‘Anyone seeing Gunter would have smelt a whole Hamelin full of rats.’

‘Then he put pressure on her to do one more job, calling himself by a different name this time. Just the one, he assured her. And this time she was so scared she agreed to.’

‘Does her story hang together? What about the dress exchange visit? She was buying clothes like anyone’s business. And got arrested by you people. And got let out. And then did this other job? And what if she hadn’t been caught?’

‘Exactly. So her story that she’s as pure as the driven snow doesn’t convince me. Or SOCA or the Crown Prosecution Service. We shall have to wait and see what a jury thinks of her eloquence.’

I topped up his glass. ‘She did save my life.’

‘Only after you told her to. And you had suggested she might be on his death list too, as I recall. It’s a pity Mr Nasty isn’t likely to confirm or deny her story.’

‘Come on, Martin – he must have a proper name. Surely all these interdepartmental emails don’t refer to Mr Nasty?’

‘Indeed they don’t. He is actually one Kenneth Carter, a career criminal with form as long as your
arm. He’s been involved in a long and unpleasant war to control drugs in Birmingham, and there’s a lot of evidence linking him to prostitution.’

‘How very versatile of him.’ And then I remembered where he was, and became serious. ‘What do the medics say about his prospects?’

‘He’s no better. Probably never will be. The medics are talking about persistent vegetative state.’

I nodded, trying hard to care.

The next day I played tennis with Allyn. Strictly therapeutic tennis. Cynically I’d expected her American therapists to come up with all sorts of drugs and endless psychotherapy, but to my pleasant surprise they seemed as calm and full of common sense as a dear old-fashioned GP. One of them even insisted that she take exercise outdoors. Neither of us mentioned her tennis coach; instead, I joined her every few days to knock up on the court. I found singles pretty hard work, and she got bored with beating me all the time. So I had a brainwave. Ambrose had always played like a demon, and he said that his art expert girlfriend, Sonia, was a bit of a whizz. So we started to play foursomes.

The doctors were right. For the first time since Toby’s death, Allyn started to laugh, and not just at my serve. She dragged the pair of them
back to the house for post-shower drinks and nibbles, insisting they saw every exquisite piece of furniture. And there were many. Ambrose was in antiques heaven, especially when he recognised pieces I’d bought from him. I’d have expected Sonia to be equally delighted with the paintings about the place, but she got grumpier and grumpier. It was a relief to wave them off the premises.

I made my way home via the Avon Industrial Estate to buy some paint from Scotts. Martin might have a bog-standard house but it deserved better than the bog-standard magnolia that some previous tenant had inflicted on it. It might improve my tennis if I went through the bending and stretching that painting walls and ceilings involved.

Martin viewed the changes tolerantly, and ran hot baths to ease my aching back. One evening he brought me a glass of wine to sip and sat on the floor – why had he never bought so much as a stool to fit the space? – to talk to me.

‘I had some interesting news today,’ he began. ‘About Greta.’

‘The Valkyrie? What’s she been saying?’

‘A great deal all of a sudden.’

‘What kept her?’

‘Fear, she alleges. Fear of Frederick, no less.’

‘She didn’t look very afraid of him when I saw
them together, though I admit it’s hard to tell if a gyrating pair of hips is happy or not.’

‘I hope yours are.’

‘Always. But you’re not Frederick.’

‘Which is a good thing, if what she says about him is true. She says – and SOCA seem inclined to believe her – that she and Frederick met in London, on a language course. He was particularly keen on her getting the job with the Frenshams. But having met her there a couple of times, he insisted that they changed their trysting place. Actually, this seems to have coincided with the heightened security. Anyway, she started to go to him instead – he has a very chic apartment in the middle of Birmingham – for their hot sex.’

‘I’ll bet it wasn’t as brilliant as ours,’ I said. ‘Hey, you’ve got far too many clothes on.’

Sometime later he resumed his narrative.

‘It seems that apart from being a red-hot lover, Frederick could also be pretty vicious if crossed. By anything or anyone. So while Greta would have liked to break off the relationship, she was too scared to. Oh, don’t look so cynical, woman. Or I shan’t tell you the part of the story involving you. Apparently she got you removed from Aldred House simply to protect you.’

‘Pull the other one.’

‘She alleges that your presence irritated him so much that he threatened to kill you.’

‘What? For interrupting their coitus? Or for spotting him making a phone call in a stable? Seems a bit extreme even for someone burdened with his Christian name.’

‘A man with a very short fuse, obviously. She came up with what even I admit is a devious plot to get rid of you, simply to stop him killing you. She tells Toby you must go or she’ll tell Allyn about their activities in the chapel. So you go. But Fred is furious, and the only way she can appease him is by offering kinky sex with the added frisson that the pulpit is where Toby liked his sessions with her.’

Which Toby had first assured me he hadn’t had. On the other hand, his last text to me suggested he might have been lying.

‘They even added a refinement Toby hadn’t thought of. They taped that mirror to the canopy. And they took it in turns to tie each other up. When it came to her turn she tied him up very tightly indeed. And left him there.’

‘Part of which is true because we found him there.’

‘And forensic evidence suggests the rest’s true, too. Would she have left him to die there? Or did she have other plans? She says she was trying to collect evidence so she could tip off the police. And certainly Interpol place young Fred right at the heart of a huge prostitution ring. The Big
Cheese. Cold and calculating and very clever. Drugs were almost a sideline. And then when the price of scrap metal shot up, he got into that racket too.’

‘So you’re tempted to believe Greta?’

He made a rocking gesture with his hand. ‘It’s up to the jury, not me.’

‘And what does Fred say?’

‘He will only talk in Russian in the presence of a tame Russian lawyer and an interpreter who looks scared to death. I’d say some of what Greta says is true, anyway.’

I wrinkled my nose. So much easier since I’d given up my Botox habit. I could dip into the public purse for clothes and shoes and even make-up, but the puritan in me drew the line at that sort of beauty treatment. ‘So why encourage her to move out to Warwickshire? Did he plan to use Aldred House as a dropping-off place for his drugs or something? And then found, of course, that Ted Ashcroft was a very efficient and conscientious man? Is that why they killed him so horribly? He was a decent man, Martin, and didn’t deserve it.’

‘I know. All he knew was that he’d tightened security - his job. He wasn’t to know he was interfering with their plans. Fred had to come up with a new way of making the exchanges. Posh people looking at posh houses - who’d
ask questions about them? Which is where your brother’s firm – and others – came in so handy. And they’d get their disguises from dress exchanges like the one you used, and others, of course.’

‘I bet those were Greta’s idea,’ I snarled.

‘You really don’t like her, do you?’

‘Not a lot. I don’t think Sandra did either. Perhaps she’s just not a woman’s woman.’

At least she was still in custody.

Tennis doubles, much more fun than singles, would have proved problematic when Am and Sonia had a terminal row. However, Allyn press-ganged one of the gardeners to make a fourth – he had a serve strong enough to knock my racquet out of my hand. I also spent time a couple of afternoons each week with Karen. At first I simply read aloud to her. Then the good news came that her sight was saved and that she would soon be out of hospital.

Each week I could see an improvement in her appearance, but clearly she couldn’t. And I could understand why, having once spent all that money on my face, which wasn’t in bad condition in the first place. The plastic surgeons might have done a superb job on her face, but it was only a job. It wasn’t her face, not as she’d always known it, as she sobbed out one day when I dropped in
unannounced only to find her in tears.