One Way Ticket (19 page)

“Yes, I was named after an uncle in the
hope he’d leave me something when he died. He didn’t.”

“How well did you know Tina Lloyd?” I
couldn’t help asking, even though Addi wouldn’t be happy. I didn’t have a
strong feeling about this one. Maybe it was the beard, but I couldn’t tell
right off this time if he was innocent or not.

 “Hmm,” he hedged. The fact he didn’t
answer straightaway said a lot, I thought. “Not well. I met her through Mrs
White, next door.”

“How would you describe your
relationship?” I pressed, ignoring the black look Addi was giving me.

“Friends, not even that really,
acquaintances I suppose.”

“We found a birthday card to her signed
‘all my love Paul’. Are you saying that wasn’t from you?”

“Well−”

“Because I’m sure we could do a
handwriting analysis on it.” That was a lie, I had no idea what sort of
forensics they could do.

Paul gave a defeated kind of shrug.
“Alright, I did know her a bit better than that. We saw each other a couple of
times but that was all, it only started a few weeks before her death.”

“And you didn’t think to come forward with
this information?” Addi asked.

“Why should I? What had it got to do with
anything? We weren’t serious, we were just friends. She was friends with lots
of blokes.”

“Did you tell Mrs White about these dates
with Tina?” I asked.

“No, like I said it wasn’t serious. We
went out to dinner once, then to a movie another time. That’s it.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “All my love?”

“So? That’s what you write on these cards,
isn’t it?”

His answer reminded me of a certain love
rat back home I’d had the misfortune to be involved with. Still, I’d shown him.

“Who did know of your relationship?” Addi
asked.

“I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t know if
Tina did. We weren’t exclusive, I know she was friends with other men.”

“And how did that make you feel?” Addi followed
up.

“Fine, it was only a bit of fun. Like I
said, we weren’t exclusive or anything.”

“What other men was she seeing?” Addi’s
questions were coming thick and fast now, not giving me a chance to get my oar
in.

“There was some bloke called Roger−”

Not him again.

“We know about him,” Addi said. “Who
else?”

“I don’t know.”

“When was the last time you saw Tina?”

“Two days before she died. We went to the
cinema.”

“And how did things end between you?” Addi
snapped out, not giving Paul much time to think, or concoct.

“What do you mean? Things ended fine, I
said I’d give her a ring to sort out about going out again at the end of the
week.”

“You didn’t have an argument then?”

“No.”

“And what were you doing the afternoon of
her death?”

“I went out and did some shopping at some
point, the big supermarket in town, then I came home again. I went over to Mrs
White’s about quarter to five.”

“Can anyone confirm your whereabouts that
afternoon?”

“Supermarket shopping is hardly a social
event.”

Addi looked at him.

“I went alone,” Paul Marshall explained.
“No, there were no witnesses. I presume it would be on the CCTV at the
supermarket though.”

“What time do you say you were at the
supermarket until?”

“It’s so long ago. I guess I got back a
little after 4 o’clock because there wasn’t much time before I had to leave for
Dorothy’s.”

I made a note of this on the interview sheet
whilst Addi continued, unrelentless. “How did Tina seem when you last saw her?”

“Fine, happy enough.”

“She wasn’t worried about anything,
mention any problems to you?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Mr Marshall, it would have been a lot
better if you had come forward at the start of the investigation so we could
have eliminated you from our inquiries.”

Paul Marshall nodded. When Addi got into
his stride he really sounded quite convincing.

“What will happen now?” Mr Marshall asked.

“We’ll check your alibi. I have to ask you
to not leave the area without informing me first. Do you understand? If you
think of anything further, please give me a ring.” Addi handed him one of his
business cards as we got up to leave.

“Oooh,” I started, on our way back to the
car. “Not much of an alibi and he was dating the victim. Things are looking
up.”

“I don’t know,” Addi said, “I don’t feel
like he did it.”

23 Your Mama Don’t Dance

Despite what Addi had said, I
went home that night with a feeling we were a step nearer our killer. I knew
I’d get to the bottom of this case eventually, given the chance.

“We’ve made a bit of progress today,” I
told Aunt June as she tidied the kitchen. “It won’t be long now.”

“It’s about time, this has been going on
for months.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

“Don’t sit there,” she cried out as my
arse was moments away from a chair in the kitchen. “Helena’s coming round
tonight, I need to mop the floor in here.”

I looked down. “It looks alright to me,
she won’t mind.”

“Cleaning just passes you by, doesn’t it?”

“I happen to think there are better things
to do in life. I would give you a hand,” I lied, ”but I haven’t got long before
I’m due out again.”

My aunt sniggered. “Oh yes, you’re having
dinner at Addi’s, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I can’t wait. I’d better go have a
shower.”

“Oh, Kostas has fixed that humming noise
in the shower.”

“Great.”

“Now it’s in the pipe by the sink.”

“Perhaps he can work it round to where my
radio used to be before he broke it. Then I could sing along to it.”

“He tries, dear.”

Yes, he was a bit trying at times. He
wasn’t the only one.

“Aren’t you putting on a skirt?” my aunt
asked a bit later when I emerged from my room in jeans and a jumper.

“No. I don’t want to dress up and look
like I’m trying to impress her. She’ll think I am after her son. Addi said it’s
not a dressing up thing.”

“You don’t understand, things are
different here. It’s a different culture.”

“Please don’t start with that ‘women
should wear skirts business’, this is the 21
^st
century. We’ve been
liberated from the corset for quite some time now.”

“I think it would look better.”

“Then we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

She looked me up and down. “Haven’t you
got anything to give to the hostess?”

“My coat?”

“Jennifer! You can’t turn up empty handed.
I don’t know if I’ve got anything in, there may be some cooking sherry somewhere.”

“Alright, I’ll get something on the way.”
I grabbed my keys and headed to the door before my aunt could criticise
something else. “Bye.”

“Good luck,” she called. I could tell she
was laughing.

Being fifteen minutes late wasn’t the best
of starts. “Sorry,” I told Addi when he opened the door. “I stopped off to buy
some flowers and then I couldn’t find your street.”

“Don’t worry,” he told me, ushering me in.

It was a pleasant house, decorated in the
Cypriot style with white walls, ceramic tiled floors and light furnishings.
About as different from English decorating as you could get, with our love of
plush carpets and heavy curtains, hell we’ve even been known to hang rugs on
the walls. Mind you, the weather here is a teensy bit different.

“Just to warn you,” Addi whispered, “it
would be better not to talk about politics, religion, the North, expats,
English holiday makers, English football fans, the English in general.”

This was going to be a relaxing evening.

“Right.”

“And whatever you do, don’t mention the
other night. In the monastery.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Addi’s mother came in from the kitchen
wielding a ladle. I prepared to duck.

“Mamma, this is Jennifer. Jennifer, this
is my mother.”

“Kalispera,” I told her, pleased to see
the only similarity she had with Attila the Hun was the moustache. I’d imagined
her as a dragon, dressed all in black. In fact she was a short, rotund woman
and was wearing a pretty print dress with a large gold necklace.

“You think I can’t speak English?” she
asked in a thick accent.

I could tell then this evening wasn’t
going to go well. “No, of course, I’m sure you speak perfe−”.

“We eat now,” she told us, pointing at the
clock and heading back to the kitchen.

Did I get the feeling I hadn’t made a good
impression? Addi pointed me to a table laid at the end of the room. As I took
my place, I found myself checking among the settings for toothpicks to be
forced under my fingernails later and other potential instruments of torture.

We’d just settled ourselves when Mamma
came back with some small bowls of soup. As she sat down next to Addi, I presented
her with the bunch of pink flowers Aunt June had guilted me into buying from
the petrol station.

She stared at them for a moment as if
she’d never seen a bunch of flowers before.

“That’s nice, isn’t it, Mamma?” Addi said.

“Yes,” she told me almost smiling, before
getting up, opening the nearby patio door, and putting them next to an almost
identical plant growing in a pot in her garden.

“Lovely,” I said and turned my attention
to the soup. “This looks delicious,” I ploughed on.

“Traditional Cypriot cheese soup, made
with soured milk, and yoghurt,” Addi explained.

“Sounds…delicious,” I lied.

Later, in the garden, I tried to
apologise.

“How many times can I say I’m sorry? It
came out before I knew it.”

“I told you not to mention religion!” Addi
hissed back at me.

“It was just a little joke about priests and
schoolboys, that’s all.” Admittedly, not the sort of thing I’d normally say at
a family dinner but the anxiety of being interrogated by Addi’s mother had put
my brain into some kind of seizure.

“My mother didn’t find it funny.”

Loud banging sounds were audible from the
kitchen. “Yeah, I think I got that message.”

 We were sitting underneath some
impressive vegetation tangled above us around a trellis.

“Your grapes are fantastic,” I said, changing
the subject. It worked, Addi stood up and walked about proudly, pulling off the
odd dead leaf. “Not much fruit though,” I added.

“No, well, the grape season’s finished
now, isn’t it?” he said.

“Table or wine grapes?”

“Oh, table. Mamma doesn’t agree with
drink.”

I couldn’t think of anyone who might
benefit from it more. “She doesn’t know about your sideline selling cheap
booze?”

“Sssh,” he hissed at me.

“Where d’you keep it anyway?”

“Sssh, Jennifer.” He put a finger to his
lips.

“Alright, have your little secret. I guess
you wouldn’t have become a wine merchant then, if your mother hadn’t insisted
you be a police officer.”

“No, I don’t think that would’ve gone down
very well.” He dropped his voice so I had to lean forward to hear the rest.
“She didn’t insist I go into the police. She just, you know, wore me down.”

“I think I can imagine.”

Addi insisted on showing me the rest of
the plants in his back garden.

“So, are we going to tackle Paul’s alibi
tomorrow?” I asked, looking at a spindly plant I would have pulled up if it had
been growing in Aunt June’s garden.

“I suppose so. I’m not convinced it was
him.”

“You told me off for doing that.”

“What can I say? I have a feeling.”

“No wonder, you should try chewing your
food more.”

Addi rolled his eyes at me.

“Supermarket tomorrow, CCTV footage,” I
said.

“Yes.”

I glanced at the kitchen window. “Do you
suppose it’s alright for me to go home?”

He looked a bit crestfallen. “You didn’t
like the meal?”

I’d put my foot in it again. “No, the food
was lovely, delicious.” It was the company that was a problem. “It was very
nice to visit a typical Cypriot home, as well. I’d better get off though, we’ve
got a potentially exciting day tomorrow.”

We went via the kitchen so I could thank
my hostess. She looked as impenetrable as ever as I showed my gratitude.

The large lungful of air I took as I
stepped out of their door, ordeal over, was very refreshing.

24 Good Girls Go Bad

I didn’t go home straightaway, I
needed to apply for my own overdue residency permit, especially now I knew the
penalties of not having one, and somehow I didn’t want to do it at the office.
That meant another visit to the internet café.

On the drive there I got caught up in some
kind of crusiers’ convoy, lots of cars with young drivers being driven very
slowly along the seafront. It was what passed for entertainment for youngsters
around here, doing laps around town. After I joined the line, the car behind me
started honking its horn.

“What do you want me to do?” I shouted
back. The honking continued. I was just giving an age old, hand signal when I
realised someone in the car behind was waving. It was Vara. So this is what she
did on her nights off. I waved back before gratefully turning off and finding a
parking space near the café. It was too much excitement for me.

The café was pretty empty. After I’d found
the right government page online and submitted my application, I found myself
logging into my email account again. I must be a sucker for punishment but I
wanted to see if I’d had any Christmas messages. It was a masochistic exercise
to discover if I really had any friends left or not.

Once again, there were a lot of
promotional emails. How did these people get hold of my email address? I was
sure I’d never bought anything from ‘Golden Insurance’ before and I was
absolutely certain I’d never purchased from ‘Big Bad Girls Online’. Deleting them
all didn’t leave much again. The rush to wish me Christmas cheer was distinctly
underwhelming. It was a confirmation of just how lousy my friendships back home
had been. Oh, and I still hadn’t returned my books to the library so they were
cancelling my membership.

And then I saw it. The email from
‘Rupert’.

From Him.

Yes, it wasn’t bad enough I’d chosen
someone who turned out to be a right git, he was also a git with a really
pathetic name. What had I ever seen in him?

 Suddenly, I felt the anger all over again,
a sense of rage passing over me as fresh as if it was yesterday. I forced
myself to take a deep breath before going any further.

The subject line of the email was empty.
What was he writing to me about? Dare I read it or would it be better to delete
it straightaway?

Of course I couldn’t delete it without
reading it! The idea was preposterous (and if that’s the best you can come up
with it would be better if you kept quiet). Like a rabbit caught in the
headlights, I opened it.

‘
Merry Xmas everyone!
’ it started.
There were a large number of email addresses in the recipients’ list, not just
mine.

Oh brilliant, just what everyone wants at
Christmas, the round robin email.

‘
What a great year it’s been
’, the
message read. ‘
Work has been hectic, challenging but rewarding. Janice and I
hope you will have as happy a Christmas as us
. ’

How lovely. Of course, the message
required some interpretation. Lucky ‘Rupert’ was one language I had learned to speak
so well.

What a great year it’s been
= lie.
I’d seen to that.

Work has been hectic
= disciplined
for unprofessional behaviour (also partly due to me).

challenging
= threatened with the
sack.

but rewarding
= he’d gotten away
with it.

Janice
= the latest poor cow he’s
suckered.

as happy a Christmas as us
= rowing
all the time.

Textbook Rupert.

It shouldn’t have surprised me he would
include me on his email list, sensitivity wasn’t one of his strong points. I
actually found I wanted to laugh at the whole thing. I wasn’t even tempted to
reply back and tell him what I thought of him.

I was cured.

Instead, I did a reply all and let
everyone know what kind of person Rupert was. (Come on, he was asking for it,
including everyone’s email addresses in the mail instead of blind copying them in
like a sensible person) Signing off with ‘And a Happy New Year to Everyone’, I
sent it off with a song in my heart. Job done.

Humming merrily, I drove back to Aunt
June’s. No, I corrected myself, home. It was home now.

The next morning, Addi and I
left early (for us) for the supermarket. Addi asked for the manager and was
offered a range of assistants instead. They spoke Greek so fast it was
difficult for me to keep up but I got the idea the manager was enjoying a
Christmas holiday somewhere. Addi asked how far back their CCTV recordings ran
and that sent them into a tailspin as well. We settled in at the supermarket
café for a long wait. Two cups of tea and a piece of baklava later, we were
surprised to be presented with a dvd. The last three months of security footage,
the assistant manager assured us.

“Lucky we didn’t leave it any longer or it
would have been overwritten,” Addi said as we drove back to the office. “The
afternoon of Tina’s murder should be just on it, but not by much.”

“Let’s hope it’s good quality film.”

“We’ll watch it on your computer,” Addi
told me, “your office is still empty.”

The quality of the images were
surprisingly good, we could make out customers entering the supermarket quite
clearly.

“Paul Marshall said he was there about 3
o’clock,” Addi said, fast forwarding the film.

We sat and watched it for a while. And a
while. And a while. Then we rewound it and checked again.

“He’s not on it,” I agreed after we’d
watched it twice. “I knew it. I knew he was suspicious.”

“Right.” Addi stood up. “I’m going to
bring him in for questioning. He’s lied in his alibi and he was involved with
the victim at the time of her death, that’s grounds enough. It’ll give me a
good update for the mayor tonight, as well.”

“Okay.” I watched him leave with the
knowledge that, once again, I wouldn’t be allowed to help with the questioning,
I’d have to wait for an update to find out what was going on. To get this far
with the case only to have it pulled from my hands was more than a little
disappointing.

The stack of case notes in my in-tray had
grown again. I grabbed one from the bottom and opened the app on my computer.
Life wasn’t very fair, I felt as I began typing. I’d been working for about
thirty minutes when Addi rushed back in.

“What’s happen−”

“He’s not there,” Addi cut me off, breathing
hard. “Neighbours say he went out last night in his car and hasn’t been back
since. I think he’s gone on the run.”

I got up from my desk. “Wow, so it was
him. What do we do now?”

“I’ve got to get a bulletin to the airport
in case he tries to leave the country, I just hope he didn’t fly out last
night.”

As Addi rushed back to his office to put a
block on Paul Marshall’s passport, I found myself picking up the phone and
dialling Aunt June. (Look, I couldn’t help it, I was excited, I had to tell
someone.)

“Hello?” she answered after a few rings.

“Aunt June, it’s me,” I whispered down the
phone. “We’ve got him.”

“Got who?”

“The murderer, it was this man, Paul
Marshall.”

“Paul Marshall? I don’t think I know him.”

“He was going out with Tina when she died,
lives on the Minerva estate. Anyway, he’s done a runner, Addi’s having to alert
the airport in case he tries to escape.”

“Sounds very exciting. What time’ll you be
home for your tea?”

“Usual time, I think.”

“I’ll do something nice to celebrate.”

Addi came back in a few moments later.
“Right, that’s the airport notified. Now I’m going to put out an alert to the
local police stations. Oh,” he stopped and put his hand to his forehead. “I’ve
always wanted to do one of these.” He rushed off again before I could say
anything.

I had to carry on typing up case notes for
the rest of the day, but it wasn’t quite so bad now I knew I had helped identify
a murderer. After lunch, I continued whittling down my work pile, comforted with
the knowledge that Kythios would now be a safer place and people like my aunt
could sleep sounder at night. If only I could get some recognition for it, my
heart still harboured dreams of that front page photo of me accepting the keys
to the town.

The phone rang. “Yes?” I answered.

“Don’t start celebrating just yet,” my
aunt replied.

“What? Why not?”

“Someone called Paul Marshall is currently
at Ron Coleman’s house, sleeping off the king of hangovers.”

“Who’s Ron Coleman?”

“Frank’s friend’s neighbour.”

“Who?”

“I rang Kate, she rang a few people.
Someone called back and said they knew where Paul Marshall was. He hasn’t
escaped. He was just drunk.”

“You rang… Oh dear.” I could just imagine
how this was going to go across with Addi. “Are they sure?”

“That’s what Kate said. Of course, you can
never be absolutely certain when things are passed along the grapevine like
this.”

“No. Would you happen to have the address
of this Ron Coleman?”

My aunt read it out.

“I’ll ring you back later,” I said and put
the phone down. Why did this keep happening to me?

Addi wasn’t in his office. He’d gone to
speak to the mayor, someone told me. A bit premature, I thought. I rang his
mobile but it went to voicemail. Part of me was relieved, he’d probably go mad
when he found out what I’d done.

I was holding the piece of paper I’d
scribbled down the address on. The best bet seemed to be going to see if Mr
Marshall was there myself before having to admit to anyone I’d spread the name
of our suspect around town. I drove off.

Ten minutes and only three wrong turns
later, I pulled up at Ron Coleman’s house.

“He’s only just woken up,” Mr Coleman told
me, looking fairly worse for wear himself when he opened the door. “We had a
big night last night.”

“He is here, then? I need to see him,” I
said firmly. He led me through to the living room. Paul Marshall was sitting
amongst a tangle of blankets and cushions on the sofa. He was rubbing his head
as if afraid it was going to fall off.

“Mr Marshall,” I began.

He turned his bloodshot eyes on me. “What
are you doing here?”

“I’m going to escort you to the police
station. They need to have a word with you there.”

“Now? I’m hardly in a good state.”

“You need to come with me. They’ve been
looking for you, they think you’ve run away.”

Andy Marshall got to his feet unsteadily.
“Let me splash some water over my face.”

Whilst I waited, I tried Addi’s mobile
again. Still off. I didn’t ring the normal police number, I thought it would
look better if I brought the fugitive in myself, I’d be more likely to be forgiven
for my slip that way.

“Right, what’s this about,” Paul Marshall
said, coming back into the room looking a bit more awake.

“The police need to speak to you. When you
weren’t at home last night, they were worried you’d run away. You need to go to
the police station before it gets any worse, you can see how it looks to them.”

For a moment I thought he was going to
refuse. Then he reached over to the dining table and threw a bunch of keys at
me. “Alright, you’ll have to drive, I’m in no fit state yet.”

“That’s okay, we can go in my car,” I
said.

“Like hell, I’m not going to be stranded
at the station. Pay for a taxi back here, would they?”

“I’m sure someone would give you a lift.”
If you were coming back, I thought.

“I’m not. We’ll take my car.”

I followed him out of the house to a small
hatchback parked up the road. It took me a few moments to get used to the
controls and the seat position before setting off for the station.

“So they still think I was involved in
Tina’s death?” he asked as I drove down the wrong street again and had to find
somewhere to turn around.

“Um, I think we’d better wait till we get
to the station, it’ll all be sorted out there. Sorry to drag you away from your
friend’s, looks like you had quite a night.”

“Yes,” he said, rubbing his head again, “I
felt terrible after you and that other policeman left, decided to drown my
sorrows at the pub, Ron came with me.”

Coasting along the main road I could hear
a siren going off in the background. “Oh, I hope that’s not an accident,” I
said, looking in the rearview mirror to see if I needed to pull over and let
them pass. “This mirror’s not as big as mine, difficult to see…”

Blue flashing lights came into view behind
us and I immediately pulled over to the side. “We’ll be on our way again in a
moment,” I tried to reassure Mr Marshall. Instead of zipping past, the police
car pulled in behind us.

“I wasn’t speeding, was I?” I asked Paul
Marshall, “your dials are different, it’s hard to tell.” We both watched the
policemen get out of their vehicle and walk towards us in our side mirrors.

“Step out of the car, please,” the
policeman on my side said.

“I’m not used to the dials,” I said,
getting out, realising I didn’t recognise him.

“You’re under arrest,” he told me,
grabbing my arms and turning me around to face the car. I saw the other
policeman had done the same with Paul.

“What the−”

“You’re wanted for questioning in a
homicide, there’s an all station alert out for you and this car.”

“It’s not me, I work for the police force,
I was bringing that man in.”

“Where’s your i.d.?”

I looked down but it wasn’t hanging round
my neck like usual. He wouldn’t let me look in my bag but had a quick root
through himself. “I must have left it in the office,” I explained when his
search proved fruitless.

The policeman looked at me. “They all say
that.”