Dead Woman's Shoes: 1 (Lexy Lomax Mysteries) (13 page)

She suppressed a retort. She was clocking up a lot of firsts tonight. First time she’d done a private investigation job, first time she’d seen a murder victim, first time she’d given false evidence to the police… not strictly true, she thought, remembering an incident with her dad, when they had to go to Somerset for a few months and not talk to anyone… But it was certainly the first time she’d been blackmailed by a policeman.

DI Milo watched her intently, until his mobile suddenly chirruped. He delved into his pocket. “Milo.”

A faint yammering came from the phone.

The DI stiffened. “I see.” His expression was unreadable.

The voice jabbered on.

Oh great, thought Lexy. They’ve tracked down Roderick Todd and he’s told them everything.

“Right, thanks.” Milo flipped the phone shut. “Just had a tip-off. Volvo’s been found.”

“What?”

“Abandoned in a ditch about two miles away from the crime scene. No one in it.”

“So whoever it was just used the Volvo to get away, then drove it off the road and picked up their own car,” said Lexy, slowly.

“Looks like it.”

“Wonder if anyone saw the second car parked up?”

“What are you – a frustrated detective?”

“No – that’s you, isn’t it?” she said, pointedly.

At that moment the front door opened and a pair of plain-clothed policemen strode into the reception area. “Venus?” one of them said, sounding astonished. “You all right, mate?”

Venus
? Lexy stared uncomprehendingly at the detective.

He gave his colleagues a bloodless smile. “I’m fine. Just a flying visit.”

The newcomers carried on through the reception area, making hearty comments to Milo, but looking, Lexy thought, slightly embarrassed.

“Thought he’d been pulled off active duty after…” she overheard heard one mutter under his breath as they passed through the door.

“After
what
?” she wanted to yell after them.

Milo was holding the front door open, clearly wishing to escort her from the premises. Thoroughly disconcerted, Lexy followed him out to the police car park and unlocked the passenger door of the Panda. “Hi, Kinky,” she said softly. The chihuahua wagged his tail to show that there were no hard feelings.

“The investigating officers will contact you if they need any further information,” said the detective. “Oh – have you got a mobile phone?”

“No,” said Lexy, heavily. “Not any more.”

“You should get one,” said DI Milo, seriously. “Especially if you’re driving alone at night.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Lexy said.

“See you at eight on Sunday, then.”

“Eh?” Oh, yeah, that. Lexy got in and fitted the key into the ignition. After a couple of turns, the engine spluttered into reluctant life.

She wound down her window. “By the way,” she said, tapping her watch. “Didn’t you have an appointment at twenty-two thirty hours? On the dot?”

DI Milo shot a look at his own watch and cursed under his breath.

Only when the police station was well out of sight did Lexy let out a long breath. “Well, pal,” she said to Kinky with false brightness, “I hope the Case of the Missing Cat doesn’t give us this much trouble.”

She found herself gripped by a bout of hysterical giggling. Kinky’s look turned to one of alarm.

It was half past midnight when Lexy drove back along Clopwolde high street towards Cliff Lane. A few people were still variously strolling or staggering around the village centre. The car wheezed and backfired a couple of times, making a group of teenage boys duck.

“Come on, Panda,” Lexy pleaded. “Don’t make me walk up the hill.” But with a final apologetic shudder, it fell silent. Lexy coasted to the side of the road, and stopped under a streetlight. She felt like screaming.

She opened the door, got out, and hoisted the bonnet up. As she scanned the unfathomable, oily depths of the engine, Lexy became aware of approaching footsteps. She straightened up and looked around, composing her face into the best impression of a helpless woman she could muster: a kind of contorted smile that probably made her look more like a psychopath.

“Oho! Alexandra Lomax, as I live and breathe! Pray, what are you doing?”

It was Tristan Caradoc. Not exactly the knight in shining amour she had been hoping for. More like a pompous ass in a cloak and a top hat.

“I’m trying to find a dipstick.” Funny, that.

“Oh – you ladies…” Tristan bent over the engine, fished out the oil gauge, wiped it on a handkerchief, re-inserted it and checked it again.

“Bit low, but not critical. What happened, anyway – did the engine cut out?”

She nodded.

“Well, that won’t be your oil.” He scanned the car’s innards. “Bit of an old banger, isn’t she? I should know – I’m married to one, ha-ha.”

Charming. “Been all right until now.”

“There’s your problem.” Tristan suddenly pointed. “Loose connection. Got a torch?”

“Thanks,” Lexy said gruffly, when the engine was ticking over again.

“My pleasure.”

Lexy was well aware that she now owed Tristan Caradoc two favours.

As if reading her thoughts, he threw her a mock-accusing glance. “And where were you earlier, madam, when I was waiting all alone in the graveyard, clutching my flaming brand?”

“I’m not with you.”

“
That
was precisely my problem,” he said. “Our ghost walk!” He produced another of his leaflets and held it out to her. “How could you have forgotten! On such a lovely, velvety black night, too,” he added, huskily.

Might have been for you, mate, Lexy thought. She’d been having a real-life horror show, and pleasurable thrills hadn’t exactly featured high on the menu.

She dutifully scanned the leaflet. At the top was a picture of a church and graveyard, backlit by a fork of lightning. Below this was written:

Explore Olde Clopwolde by night!

Listen to Tales that will Terrify!

An experienced actor, whom some of you might recognise(!), will show you a side of Clopwolde village that you could never imagine – in your worst nightmares! Lighting your way with a flaming brand, he will recount ancient legends of ghosts, ghouls, demons, witches and…the Drowned Sailor who Walks the Pier!

(Starts from St Ethelred’s churchyard at 8pm and 10pm every Friday. Tours last approx 1½ hours and include a pub visit!)

“Were you really waiting for me?” she asked, half-guiltily.

Tristan smiled. “I kept an eye out, but I knew it would be a forlorn hope. Anyway – there were several very loud ladies from Philadelphia who had done the eight o’clock session, and liked it so much they were clamouring for it all over again.” His copper eyes danced riotously. “Now then – I want a promise from you – ghost walk, next Friday night, ten o’clock.”

“All right, all right,” she said. As long as it would make them quits.

She waved Tristan off with a relieved smile, the ghost walk leaflet tucked behind the curled-up, fed-up form of Kinky on the front seat.

They pulled up at Otter’s End a few minutes later.

“C’mon, pal,” Lexy pushed open the car door. Her words seemed to be bitten up by the darkness. She turned her head sharply at the sound of a snapping twig, and peered blindly into the shadows, finding herself fumbling with the keys.

She pushed open the door and groped for the light switch. Kinky hopped in and made a beeline for the kitchen. Lexy shut the front door, locking it behind her. She yanked the curtains closed, and joined Kinky in the small kitchen. The dog was sitting pointedly in front of his empty food bowl.

Sighing, she took one of the dog biscuit samples from the cupboard, and emptied the contents into his bowl. She released Kinky from his ruff and watched him dive in.

“I’m tempted to join you down there, mate.” Lexy put a small saucepan of water on to boil, and poured a measure of porridge oats into it.

She waited pensively for the gruel to cook, even managed to force some of it down straight out of the pan, then went into the living room and began pacing the floor, going over and over the unexpected and horrible events of the evening. Two particular questions plucked insistently at her mind.

Did the murderer see her? And, if so, did he recognise her?

Skin starting to crawl, Lexy crept to the bedroom, shed her clothes and got under the pink candlewick bedspread.

She heard Kinky patter down the hall, and felt him jump lightly on to the end of the bed, and curl up. Moments later there was a small snore.

Lexy lay awake.

Perhaps she should have come clean with the police. It had been a mad, risky thing to do, giving false witness like that. But she was already in deep water, what with the stolen cash under the bed. She didn’t want to get busted before she’d managed to off-load it.

Lucky she had a card up her sleeve. Just the one. All she needed to do was play it right.

11

When Lexy came to the following morning, she lay blankly for a moment, struggling to remember where she was. When she did, she wished she had stuck with the amnesia.

Kinky was scratching urgently at the door. Lexy checked her watch. It was gone nine. Her stomach was frisking about like a nervous racehorse.

She got up, walked swiftly through the cabin and unbolted the back door. The view that met her was every bit as peaceful as it had been the previous day, but Lexy’s nerves were unsoothed. A lot was going to depend on the next couple of hours.

Kinky, seeming to sense her apprehension, attended to his toilet quickly and returned to her side.

She gave him the last packet of Doggy Chomps. Somehow or other she had to get some cash that day.

Lexy went to the bathroom and quickly began to wash, her ear cocked for any sound. She had one remaining clean t-shirt. She put it on and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring unseeingly until she became aware that she was gripping her toothbrush so tightly she was in danger of snapping it in two.

The phone rang.

Kinky barked.

Lexy leapt out of the bathroom still half-dressed and snatched up the receiver, almost knocking her front teeth out.

“Yes?” she said breathlessly.

“Oh… er… is that Ms Lomax? It’s Roderick Todd here.”

Thank Christ. “Mr Todd…”

“Is everything all right?”

Lexy forced herself to keep her voice calm. “Where are you at the moment?” She had been rehearsing this conversation in her mind since yesterday evening at the murder scene, when she realised there was only one way out of this mess for her.

“In my hotel room. Why?”

“Are you on your own?”

“Yes, of course.” He sounded indignant.

“Look. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

“Oh?” She imagined his quick frown.

“Mr Todd, I’m really sorry. Your wife was killed last night.”

“What?” His voice was suddenly faint. “Avril killed? My Avril? Oh, God – are you sure? Was… was it a car accident?” He obviously knew how she drove. She heard his breath start to quicken.

“No. She was… found murdered.” This wasn’t easy.

“Murdered? By… who?”

“The police don’t know yet.”

There was a silence. “Mr Todd?”

“I
knew
this would happen one day.” His voice was hollow.

Lexy frowned. “You did?” Well, she wished he’d bloody well told her before she agreed to follow the woman.

“I told her back in Maida Vale that if she kept on doing this it would end in disaster. I
begged
her to get help. But she was addicted to it, you see.”

Oh yeah. The sex thing again.

“Do… do you know… how… it happened?” he faltered.

“She was struck on the head,” said Lexy. There was no way of delivering the news delicately. “The blow killed her outright. I was following her, as we arranged, but I arrived on the scene too late to see her killer. He’d just made his escape in her car,” she added. “But he abandoned it not far away.”

She heard a giant sniff. “Where was this?”

“In a field. A place called Nudging.”

“A field?” Roderick Todd was clearly bewildered. “What was Avril doing in a field? She didn’t even like the countryside.”

Did Lexy have to spell it out? “Well, she was meeting someone, of course. I was hoping you might know who that was?”

She crossed her fingers. As soon as Lexy had the answer to that question she was going to give an anonymous tip-off to the police. Salve her conscience for withholding evidence.

“
Meeting
?” The voice registered even more astonishment, but this time tinged with scorn. “She wouldn’t have gone to
meet
any of them.”

“Them? What do you mean –
them
?”

“You know. Her victims.”

Victims? Rather a blunt way of putting it.

“You mean she had
more
than one lover?”

Roderick Todd spluttered. “Lover? Avril didn’t have any lovers. I’m talking about her
blackmail
victims.”

“Oh… my… God,” said Lexy.

“Didn’t I make that clear?”

“Not exactly.”

“Sorry… I… I find it difficult to cope…”

There was a sob, then suddenly it all came out, a torrent of words, as if he was in a confessional.

“She promised me that she’d stopped doing it after last time, but I
knew
she was at it again. She gets a particular look in her eye. And she’d started spending hours in the library, of course. That’s what happened last time. She looks through local newspaper archives and finds past scandals, makes connections, snoops around. She does it very subtly.” He stopped to gulp noisily, then rushed on. “It always follows the same pattern – when she finds something she can use, she sends the person concerned a few anonymous letters, hinting that she knows about their secret. If they seem to be rattled, she suggests they might want to pay to keep it quiet. Keep it from being raked up again.”

Lexy shut her eyes briefly.
Hope Ellenger
.

“Her ‘clients’ are almost always willing to pay to keep their dirty linen out of sight.” He paused, and Lexy heard him trumpet into a handkerchief. At least she hoped it was a handkerchief. “As soon as I found out what she was doing last time, back in Maida Vale, I faced her with it and she became very contrite. Straight away she agreed to our moving. We came here, and I encouraged her to throw herself into house and garden design.”