A Perfect Death (21 page)

But Gerry wasn’t paying attention. ‘If Demancour is acquainted with one or more of Morbay’s working girls then that gives
us a tentative connection with Nadia too.’ He pursed his lips, a picture of frustration ‘It’s all ifs and buts, Wes. Nothing
I feel I can get my teeth into yet.’

Wesley saw Gerry pat his stomach. They’d had lunch early, just a sandwich on the move, and at that moment he looked as though
he’d like to get his teeth into a good dinner.

There was a knock on the door, more a scrabbling than a bold tap. Gerry shouted, ‘Come in,’ and Nick Tarnaby shuffled over
the threshold. He was holding a sheet of paper and his normally blank face looked unusually animated.

‘I’ve think I’ve got a name for that person who called at Nadia Lucas’s house in Neston, sir.’ He said no more but hovered
there expectantly.

‘Well, aren’t you going to let us in on the secret,’ Gerry snapped.

‘His name’s Forsyte Wiley.’

Wesley caught the DCI’s eye. ‘Have you found out anything about him?’

‘I Googled him.’ Nick Tarnaby looked pleased with himself. Almost preening.

‘And?’

‘He’s a private detective. He’s just set up in Neston. Works on his own and advertises in the Yellow Pages.’

‘The big time, eh,’ Gerry chipped in. ‘You’ve rung him, I take it? You’ve asked why he was looking for Nadia?’

Nick Tarnaby’s face turned red. That was answer enough for Wesley. ‘Ask Sergeant Tracey to do it, will you?’ He made no effort
to keep the impatience out of his voice. If Rachel dealt with it he was sure it would save time in the long run.

Once Nick had scurried out of the office like a frightened animal to relay the inspector’s instructions to DS Tracey, both
men realised that, if they wanted to be sure of being punctual for their appointment with Chantalle de Rose, it was time to
go.

‘The things I do in the course of duty,’ Gerry mumbled to nobody in particular as he marched out, a determined expression
on his face.

By the time they reached Chantalle’s front door, any misgivings Gerry Heffernan might have felt about his deception had disappeared.
He knew he might be following the wrong trail altogether but he and Wesley
wanted to know more about Yves Demancour, especially his dark side, if he had one. And Nadia had mentioned Yves’ ‘dirty little
secret’ in one of her e-mails to Rowe.

The house was in one of Morbay’s seedier areas: not a red-light district as such but pretty close to it. Here large Victorian
houses had been converted for multiple occupancy and their warren of flats and bedsits was filled with students and benefit
claimants. The stucco on the house fronts crumbled, the paintwork flaked and the wheelie bins overflowed.

Chantalle was easy to find. A sign by the row of doorbells told them she was on the top floor. ‘You’d be too knackered to
do much by the time you got up there,’ Gerry observed as he huffed and puffed up the narrow staircase.

‘You should really get more exercise, Gerry,’ Wesley replied.

‘Don’t you start. Joyce is always going on about it. Wants me to start swimming, of all things.’

Before Wesley could comment they’d reached the summit. The door to Chantalle’s flat stood slightly ajar. Gerry put out a hand
and pushed at it tentatively. It swung open to reveal a shabby interior, undecorated since the days when brown paint and large
orange flowers were first in fashion.

He called out an experimental hello and a female voice responded with an unenthusiastic ‘Come in’. The accent, Wesley thought,
sounded foreign but probably not French.

As they entered the flat, Wesley’s eyes began to
adjust to the dim light – the thin floral curtains were closed. But he could see the woman sprawled across a large bed with
a grubby red satin cover.

Wesley saw her eyes widen in alarm. ‘Not two of you. I do not do two at once.’

‘It’s OK, love. Police,’ Gerry said as they held out their warrant cards. ‘Nothing to worry about. We’d just like a quick
word, that’s all. We won’t keep you long.’

From the expression on the woman’s thin, pinched face, Gerry’s words did nothing to reassure her. In her world police were
bad news. ‘I don’t know nothing. Why don’t you piss off and leave me alone?’

The foreign accent had suddenly disappeared and they realised that Chantalle de Rose was definitely local. Gerry wasn’t going
to be deterred from his goal. He’d come across many Chantalles in the course of his career, most of them sad and drug-addicted,
and he imagined this one was no different. ‘We were wondering if you know a girl called Anya,’ he began. ‘She’s in the same
line of business as you. Has a friend called Yelena. They came over recently from Lithuania.’

Chantalle snorted in disgust. ‘Bloody foreign girls, coming over here and taking our trade.’

‘That’s the free market for you,’ said Wesley catching his boss’s eye. ‘What can you tell us about these foreign girls who
are brought over? Do you know where they work?’

‘God knows.’ She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. Smoking in the workplace was banned but this obviously didn’t bother
Chantalle. ‘Their pimps bring
’em over and keep ’em in some big building, so I’ve heard. Never let ’em out. They don’t have nothing to do with the likes
of me.’

Gerry coughed a little, wafting away the smoke with his hand. ‘What do they say on the streets, love? Got any names for the
pimps?’

She looked wary. ‘I don’t know and I’d never ask. I’ve heard they’re vicious bastards. If a girl escapes and they find her,
she doesn’t survive for long.’

Wesley thought of Pam’s words –
pour encourager les autres –
to encourage the others. They suddenly took on a sinister meaning. ‘So you don’t know where we can find this girl Anya?’

She shook her head. It had been a long shot and, if it hadn’t been for the burned woman in the field, it was something they’d
normally have left to the vice squad.

But Wesley had another question to ask. ‘Do you know a man called Yves Demancour? He’s a professor at the university.’

She suddenly looked wary. ‘Yeah. I do as a matter of fact.’

‘Any trouble?’ Gerry asked.

There was a short pause. ‘Nah.’

‘Never?’

Her face clouded, as though she was reliving an uncomfortable memory.

‘What is it?’ Wesley said quietly.

The woman hesitated for a few seconds before answering. ‘He was fine, no trouble but …’

‘But what?’

She took a deep breath. ‘I burned myself quite
badly on the stove about three weeks ago. Had to go to A and E with it.’ She rolled back her sleeve to expose a patch of shiny
flesh on her left forearm, mottled and raw looking. ‘It was really odd. He’d been quite normal but as soon as he saw it he
seemed to get all excited. Then he wanted me to—’

‘To what?’ Gerry said, impatient.

Chantalle looked from one man to the other. ‘He wanted me to scream. He wanted me to pretend I was caught in a fire … that
I was burning. He watched me for a bit, getting all twitchy, then he goes and pretends to rescue me then he … well, he does
the business if you know what I mean.’ She frowned. It was clear the incident had disturbed her but now professional bravado
took over. ‘He paid me extra, mind,’ she said defiantly.

‘Has he asked you to do it again?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve not seen him since.’ An uneasy look flitted across her face, there for a second then gone.

‘Do you know whether he visits any other girls?’ Wesley asked. ‘The ones from Lithuania for example?’ Perhaps, he thought
Demancour had looked for someone other than Chantalle … someone who’d take his fantasies a step further. Perhaps he’d met her
in Grandal Field.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing you ask. I’m not his bleeding wife, am I?’

Wesley’s eyes met Gerry’s but they didn’t say a word.

Then she looked Wesley in the eye and smiled. He noticed that her teeth were stained with nicotine. ‘Sure
I can’t do anything for the boys in blue? I must say you’re gentlemen … not like those sods from Vice.’

As they made a swift retreat, Wesley saw that Gerry Heffernan had a grin on his face. ‘What do you make of that, eh, Wes?’

‘I think it’s worth checking out Professor Demancour a bit more thoroughly,’ Wesley replied, deadly serious.

They said little on the journey back, both of them impatient to discover whether Demancour’s fantasies had become reality
in Grandal Field.

The first mention I found of Urien de Norton was in Stephen de Grendalle’s will of 1232 in which he refers to Urien as ‘my
cousin’. He leaves Urien his share of a cog, the
Saint Magdalen
, which plied between Tradmouth and Bordeaux.

The bulk of Stephen’s estate was left to the Morre Abbey, on condition the monks there pray for his immortal soul and for
the forgiveness of his many and grievous sins. There was also a generous bequest to the Sisters of Stokeworthy Priory. There
is no mention of Jeanne, which suggests that she was dead by the time he drew up the will. And I can’t help wondering whether
one of the sins mentioned in this will was her murder.

(From papers found in the possession of Professor
Yves Demancour)

The small town of Neston wasn’t home to many private detectives. Most residents of Neston who were in need of that sort of
thing usually ventured into the nearby large seaside resort of Morbay where the choice was better and the surroundings more
anonymous.

Rachel listened carefully to Forsyte Wiley’s account of how, up till four months ago, he had been a member of this fraternity
of Morbay sleuths. But, after a falling-out with his business partner, he had made the decision to set up on his own in a
shabby office with woodchip walls and a garish carpet above a wholefood shop off Neston’s main high street. So far business
wasn’t brilliant but the current fashion for divorce ensured that things ticked over nicely.

When Nadia Lucas had turned up unexpectedly in his office with an intriguing proposition, he’d thought all his birthdays had
come at once. It wasn’t the money, he claimed, but the fact that the task she set him was a challenge. It was a chance to
do some real detective work for a change instead of recording the activities of unfaithful spouses. Something to get his brain
working again.

As Rachel sat next to DC Paul Johnson, sipping tea, she watched the private detective, fascinated. She hadn’t come across
many private eyes outside the pages of detective novels and this one certainly didn’t fit any of her preconceived ideas. Although
he wore a wedding ring, he had an uncared-for look. His suit needed a good clean and his hair needed a wash. In some ways
his appearance reminded her of what DCI Heffernan had been like before he had started seeing his lady friend, Joyce, and she
wondered whether Wiley, like the boss, was a widower.

‘So when did Ms Lucas visit you, Mr Wiley?’

‘Must have been about six weeks back,’ the man said. Rather than a world-weary gumshoe drawl, he
had a homely Devon accent. ‘She turned up at the office and said she wanted me to find out the truth about what happened to
her mother.’

‘And did you?’

Wiley nodded. ‘I found out all right. Not that it was much help.’

Rachel caught Paul’s eye. ‘How do you mean?’

‘It was all in the papers at the time. I’ll show you.’ He stood up, walked over to a large metal filing cabinet and after
a few moments of fumbling, took out a cardboard folder. ‘I had to go down to the
Tradmouth Echo
archives to get this lot,’ he said as though he was recounting some tale of derring-do in some exotic and dangerous location.

He placed the folder on the desk in front of Rachel and she opened it. Inside were several photocopied newspaper cuttings
which she studied before handing them to Paul. They were all reports of the same event, some dated soon after it happened,
others later, after the inquest.

In September 1983 a car belonging to an archaeologist called Dr Wendy Haskel was found at the beach car park at Littlebury,
unlocked and obviously abandoned. A note was found back at her house saying she was distressed about the death of her colleague,
Dr Maggie March, and that she’d decided to end it all. Her body was never found but the currents are treacherous in that particular
part of the coast so the coastguard wasn’t particularly surprised.

‘So this Wendy Haskel was Nadia’s mother?’ asked Rachel.

‘That’s right. She’d kept her maiden name after she married Nadia’s father.’

Rachel read on. Wendy Haskel had been working on a dig in Queenswear and the woman in charge of the excavation, Maggie March,
had died in a car accident the day before Wendy’s disappearance. The two women must have been close, Rachel thought, for the
death, however shocking, to have had that effect on Wendy. Or perhaps it had just been the thing that tipped her over the
edge. The last straw.

Rachel looked up at Wiley. ‘This all seems pretty straightforward. She even left a note. Why did Nadia Lucas want you to investigate?’

Wiley shrugged. ‘To tell you the truth I don’t really know. She told me she thought there’d been some sort of cover-up. She
said she suspected that her mother had been murdered … or maybe even that she was still alive.’

‘Any evidence of that?’

‘Not that I could see, no.’

‘Is her father around?’

‘He died just over two years ago. Cancer. He’d brought Nadia up. It seems he accepted the Coroner’s suicide verdict. He’d
been living apart from Nadia’s mother for a couple of years and he had custody of their daughter, which struck me as a bit
odd. Nadia was only four when her mother died.’ Wiley frowned. ‘Who knows, perhaps Wendy Haskel couldn’t cope with motherhood.’

‘Could she have had post-natal depression?’ Paul Johnson piped up helpfully.

‘Possibly. We’ll be charitable, eh.’

‘Well some kind of depression would certainly explain her suicide,’ said Rachel. She flicked through the cuttings again. ‘To
be honest, Mr Wiley, I don’t see much here to contradict the inquest’s verdict. Did you find out any more?’