Jazz and Die (18 page)

We went out onto the walkway. It was cool and dark, lights in the darkness from other blocks of flats, from far distant roads, a few winking planes flying across to the channel and Europe.

I made sure I had not locked myself out, put the safety bar across the opening of the door. It was an ingenious device.

‘What do you want to tell me?’

‘There has been another development. I have some bad news for you. Your admirer, Tom Lucas, he’s been found dead, in one of his own pig sties.’

I steadied myself on a rail. I was devastated. That dear man. It was very dark below. I could make out the shape of my wasp.
Her light colour made her different to all the other parked cars. I could see the black lines of the luggage rack which had prompted her name. The news was hard to take in.

‘How awful. He was such a nice man. Tom was kind to me,’ I said slowly. ‘No one special though. I think he was lonely. The last time I saw him was at the farewell party. He was getting on very well with your Ruth. Did he have a heart attack? He was a bit overweight. What happened?’

‘Not a heart attack. Something far more brutal. He’d been dead at least twenty-four hours when we got the call so that puts the time of death at not long after Maddy’s impromptu party.’

I felt a cold shudder. ‘Far more brutal? Not another murder, surely?’

James nodded. ‘It’s not in any way pleasant. He was killed with a pitchfork and died among his pigs.’

J
ames didn’t go into details. I didn’t want to know. It was too grotesque. Poor Tom. Was it the same killer? Was the killer into pointed things? An umbrella tip, a pitchfork? How had Sarah Patel been killed?

‘Yes,’ said James, reading my thoughts. ‘We think it is the same killer. Sarah was killed with a knife, the sort used by painters. A palette knife. Similar hallmarks. Pointed weapon. Unprovoked attack. And somehow all connected to the jazz festival. Don’t tell Maddy.’

‘I may appear stupid at times but it’s purely a professional screen,’ I said, using the ice in my voice to cover my dismay at this new murder. ‘Of course I shan’t tell Maddy. But you should phone Chuck. After all, he contacted you in the first place about these threatening messages.’

‘I’ve already done that. He thinks that he should take Maddy out of school and go abroad somewhere after the Wigan gig, maybe to the States. They might be safer in another country. He says he can pick up work anywhere.’

‘And that’s the flaw. It’ll go on the internet that Chuck Peters is playing in wherever, Baltimore, Chicago, and the killer will follow them.’

‘I’ll warn him of that. The internet broadcasts information in seconds. Nothing is secret any more. The world knows everything, instantly, whether it’s true or not.’

James moved closer on the dark walkway and for a few
moments put his arms round me. I breathed in his closeness, the firm hardness of his body, the warm closure of his arms. I had a feeling that something at last was going to happen.

‘I know you are upset, Jordan. No one likes death, especially sudden and violent death. But I see so much of it, I suppose I have grown a shell. You can do the grieving for both of us.’

Then he was gone, leaving me outside on the walkway, the warmth from his body gradually evaporating into the night air.

I was glad I had found Doreen and given her a chance of freedom. If she decided to go back to the dominating Reg, that was her choice, but I had a feeling she would find a new life on her own. I could not get Tom Lucas out of my mind; I felt guilty.

But I needed some new cases. Reg had only employed me for two days. My fame travels fast but not fast enough to pay the bills.

The next morning we opened the shop and arranged new window displays. Maddy liked doing windows so I left her to it. I had to admit she had a flair. She ravaged the storage boxes outside and brought out items that had not seen the light of day for months.

‘Look at this!’ she crowed. ‘I love it. A golden mask, probably from one of those wicked festivals in Venice. It’s fabulous.’

‘I hate it.’

‘Bet I can sell it.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Usual commission?’

‘Don’t push me.’

But it sold, within minutes, to a guy going to a fancy dress party. I was glad to see it go. I’m not into grotesque, especially after the previous night’s news. Chuck Peters had been on the phone to me. He asked not to speak to Maddy, not to alarm her.

‘Don’t tell Maddy anything. I know she’s safe with you. I’ll make it short,’ he said.

I was in the middle of typing up my report for Reginald Taylor. I told the truth, detailing the steps I had taken. I wrote
that I had found his wife but did not say where or how. I also said that for the time being she was not ready to return to him. The report left it all rather vague. He had not instructed me to bring his wife back. He had instructed me to find her and I had. As I said, mission accomplished. I would post it to him at the end of the day.

‘I’ll be down tonight as soon as the second gig is over. Is that all right? Expect me extremely late, if that is OK? I want to see my Maddy,’ said Chuck. ‘I think it’s time we made a fast disappearance.’

‘Any time,’ I said. ‘Just buzz the flat number and I’ll let you in.’

It looked like being a disturbed night. How long would it take Chuck to drive down from Wigan to Latching after his last show? Several hours at least. I could see hours of dark waiting before his arrival.

Maddy had a profitable morning. Customers liked her Shirley Temple charm and bright smile. She sold a few odds and ends that had not moved before. She totted up her commission.

‘I could have a holiday job with you,’ she said as we munched our late lunch-time sandwiches. ‘Dad would let me stay with you in your flat and I like it here. I love the pier. I could go swimming. Lots of girls have holiday jobs. I’d have to be paid, of course.’

‘Of course,’ I murmured. ‘Only fair.’

‘And you could get on with solving crime in Latching.’

‘My ambition in life.’

‘While I look after your shop.’

‘The perfect solution.’

‘I know that my commission so far today is not a lot, but I do like that scarf. The filmy one, all blues and purples, mingled.’

I knew the one. And there hung a problem.

I also liked the scarf. It was hand painted on silk and quite beautiful. It had come in a box of vintage clothes from a house clearance. I put a date of about 1920 on it. It had not yet been on sale in the shop, only used to dress a window.

It was not a plaything for a teenager. A sudden whim. Something to be cast aside or to be left behind at a disco when
the novelty wore off. My possessive buttons went on hold.

The door to the shop opened, saving me from a reply. It was my friend, Doris. She was carrying a tray of goodies, fresh and canned. Vegetables, fruit, juice, rolls and cheese.

‘I heard that a siege was imminent,’ said Doris. ‘Can’t have you and your young visitor starving. Though you could lose a bit of weight, Jordan. Putting it on a bit round the waist, aren’t you?’

Jazz drinking. And too much snack food. Doris was right.

‘What do you mean, a siege?’ I asked.

‘Your knight in shining armour phoned me. He said you might not be seeing daylight for a couple of days. I’ll keep an eye on your shop.’

‘I have no idea what he means.’

Doris had a worried look. She put the tray down on my counter with a hand-written bill.

‘He means that someone is after you, ducky. And I think you ought to get off home and put up the barricades. Like in
Les Mis.
Great film. Mavis and I have seen it twice.’

‘Did James actually say that? When?’

‘He phoned about ten minutes ago. He couldn’t get through to you. He tried several times. Maddy? Is that her name? He said you ought to make tracks for your flat now.’

‘And you waited ten minutes to tell me?’ I knew why he couldn’t get through to me. My phone needed recharging. Mentally I was already locking up the shop. We’d go out the back way. There was a yard at the back and a locked gate.

‘I had a customer.’

‘Thank you for the food. It was a kind thought.’ I pressed a brown ten pound note into her hand. ‘You’d better go, Doris. Don’t say a word to anyone. You’ve got my mobile number. Please phone.’

Doris went quickly. She had left her shop unattended. Business was not that great this end of town.

‘Are we closing?’ said Maddy, still on her tuna sandwich.

‘No more customers this time of the afternoon. No one shops this late. We might as well pack up. Doris has done some
shopping for us. We’ll go out the back way.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve already locked and bolted the front. Get your things. I’d like to go now.’

‘What’s the hurry?’

‘Don’t ask, Maddy.’

Maddy caught the degree of urgency in my voice but was not dismayed. She followed me out the back way; watched me locking the back door and then the back gate.

‘This is all very cloak and dagger,’ she said. ‘Has something happened that I don’t know about?’

‘I don’t know. DCI James phoned. He said we ought to get back to the flat.’

‘Perhaps he’d like a game of Scrabble.’

‘That’s probably it.’

We walked fast. I was glad I had not brought the wasp. I took short cuts through the narrow twittens. I knew every one like a smuggler of old. Their ghosts clapped their hands at my ingenuity. If we were being followed, we’d have lost them by now.

I didn’t even go in the front entrance of the flat but made Maddy walk up the twisting car ramps of the multi-storey to the car park and then unlock the door to the stairway to the flats. We could have been one of many shoppers, walking up to collect any car, parked on any level.

‘I love your flat even more and more,’ she said. ‘Two different ways of getting in and out. That’s cool.’

The flat was still flooded with the afternoon sunshine. The double-glazed windows acted as solar heating. I wondered what it would be like in the winter. I wondered if I would be around to find out.

Maddy went straight to the bathroom and I heard the shower on full blast.

I hoped the water was still hot. I only used economy heating at night for the immersion heater.

I locked every door, front and back onto the balcony.

As Margaret Thatcher once said: ‘Pennies don’t drop from
heaven, they have to be earned on earth.’ It seemed appropriate.

I made a big salad for supper, enough veggies for our daily five. We ate on the balcony, bathed in the late warmth, me with a glass of white wine and Maddy with her customary bottle of fizz. I would have rationed her to one a day, but it was an addiction and no way was I her mother. This was Chuck’s problem.

She hung over the balcony rail, people watching. I knew what it was like.

The ever-rolling panorama of people walking the seafront, young and old, cycling helmets for the young and motorized chariots for the elderly. Kids were on scooters, dog walkers, runners, strollers, lovers. A moving slice of Latching life.

And there below on the beach, dogs enjoying the freedom of space and, when the tide was far out, horses galloping for miles, their manes and tails streaming. Worm diggers in Wellington boots, finding the bait for their hooks. Seagulls tossing through the flotsam of dead fish from the fishing boats. It was all in the food chain. Everybody had to live.

Maddy turned round from the rail and fixed her eyes on me. ‘You don’t have many clothes, do you? You keep wearing the same old thing. You need to jazz up your wardrobe.’

It was true. My wardrobe was limited and always had been. Clothes were not my first priority. They never had been. In the force, it was a uniform. Then when I left, it was another uniform. Jeans and a shirt.

‘We’ll go shopping together tomorrow morning,’ Maddy decided. ‘I’ll find you a few decent things to wear. Nothing showy since you are a detective, but so that when DCI James takes you out, you’ll look like decent arm candy.’

I couldn’t wait to look like arm candy.

We listened to jazz tapes, played cards, talked till the light faded. I went to bed early, hoping to get a couple of hours’ sleep before Chuck arrived. It might be three or four in the morning. The motorway would be fairly empty in the small hours. He might put his foot down.

‘Your dad’s coming here straight from Wigan,’ I told Maddy.
‘He’ll be here by the morning, I should think.’

‘Great,’ said Maddy. ‘I can show him your shop.’ She paused, some manners returning. ‘Would that be all right, Jordan?’

‘Of course,’ I said, hoping that the morning would bring a normal day. I had no idea what was going to happen next. ‘He might want to buy some of those old LPs.’

‘I spotted a signed Stan Kenton,’ said Maddy. She knew more than she let on. ‘They are pretty rare.’

‘And I’ve two copies of that particular LP,’ I said. ‘I will never sell mine. It even has his voice on it, introducing the numbers. An absolute gem.’

Maddy was impressed. ‘Perhaps I ought to buy it for my dad.’

‘Why don’t you take it as today’s commission?’ I suggested. ‘Then you could give it to him as a present. He’d love it.’

I didn’t want to let the LP go but I knew Chuck would treasure it. Nor did I want to let Maddy have the painted silk scarf. I was a real meanie some days.

It was nearly 5 a.m. when my entrance bell rang. I switched on the visual and it was Chuck standing there in the foyer. I buzzed him in and told him to take the lift to the top floor.

I wrapped a robe round myself and stood on the walkway outside my door. The night walkway lights were still on. Their time switch didn’t think it was morning yet.

Chuck looked knackered. It was a long drive from Wigan. He came in and leaned on the kitchen counter while I made him a hot drink.

‘I need a couple of hours’ kip,’ he said.

‘We’re a bit short on bedrooms here,’ I said. ‘But I do have a very comfy sofa, a big three-seater. Plenty of blankets. Maddy is still asleep on the floor, on an air mattress.’

‘I’ll take the sofa,’ said Chuck. ‘I’ve slept on a lot of sofas. All part of the life of a wandering jazz musician.’

Chuck was also on the short side so he might fit. I didn’t fit. I would have to lay on my side with my knees bent. I found him a clean pillow and a blanket. My stock of linen was good.

‘We’ll be off and out of your hair by the morning,’ said Chuck.
‘I’ve got Maddy’s passport. We are going to put a few thousand miles between us and the UK. Not a nice place to be till they have caught this rotter.’

‘Maddy will be sorry. She likes it here.’

‘So I’ve gathered.’ He grinned. ‘Regards your flat as her second home apparently Could live here forever, she said.’

‘Not when we run out of space for her clothes.’

‘Could be a problem.’

‘So where are you going? The States, Australia, New Zealand?’

He put down his mug. The tea had revived him. ‘I think it’s better that you don’t know. I know I could trust you, but the less you know the better.’

Did he think I was going to be taken hostage and tortured? Did he know something that I didn’t?

‘I agree,’ I said. ‘Surprise me when you come back. When DCI James has caught the killer and Maddy is safe again.’

‘Thank you for understanding. Maddy is all I have. I have to keep her safe and I am grateful for everything that you have done. Maddy couldn’t have had a better bodyguard or better friend.’ He took a brown envelope out of an inner pocket and put it on the counter top. ‘A little bonus for you,’ he said. ‘Open it after we have gone.’