Personal Protection (20 page)

“Just answer the question.”

“I knew the deceased.”

“In the biblical sense?”

She slapped me. The sound rang out like a pistol shot in the wet churchyard. Mourners turned to us with frowns. Face burning, I ignored them until I was sure their attention was on their own
concerns and schooled my temper.

“I probably deserved that. This is a memorial. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll apologise.”

I watched her switch hands with the umbrella then smooth the free one down the front of the raincoat. Her silence confirmed my suspicions. She’d slapped me because she could and because
she enjoyed hitting me.

“We played once or twice. She wasn’t really my type.” She looked straight into my eyes daring me to ask what her type was. “I still miss you, Randall. You’re so
strong. You can take so much punishment.”

I took a step back in spite of myself. Slowly she unfastened her coat. Stroked bare flesh. Shit! She wasn’t wearing anything underneath! I took another step away. This wasn’t going
at all the way I’d planned.

“Tell me you don’t miss the excitement of our trysts. If you were still with me we could escape this sad little charade and do something more exciting. Over there, in that crypt.
I’m sure your imagination can supply details.”

Another step away put my back to the church wall. She smiled and closed in.

“Randall? Are you coming? I thought you were driving us to the reception?”

Tori.

Cecily’s smile became a grimace. She reordered her raincoat and her expression to something appropriate for the occasion before she faced off with my lover.

“Victoria, always a pleasure.”

“Afraid I can’t say the same.”

Cecily started to make some caustic remark then Dean loomed up out of the rain and her mouth shut with an audible snap. You don’t get into a bitching contest with a gay man if you know
what’s good for you. She knew when she was outclassed and withdrew with what grace she could muster.

“Must be going, no time for chit-chat.”

“You aren’t going to the reception?” Tori enquired sweetly, cutting wide of her to take my arm. It wasn’t quite possessive but it came close.

“I just came to pay my respects. Some of us have real work to do.”

“What a pity. I was so looking forward to continuing our conversation.”

“Another time.”

“Count on it.”

Cecily walked away, swinging her hips. I masked a shudder.

“What was the bitch up to?” Tori asked as we started for the car.

I wasn’t going to tell her Cecily had propositioned me. “That’s just what I was trying to find out. She says she’s slept with Lisa a few times. I don’t know how
much is true and how much was to get a rise out of me.”

“Ignore her,” Dean advised wisely. “Let’s get out of here. We have a reception to go to. And I’d like to arrive before my clothes are completely wrecked.”

Interrogating bouncers was becoming a nasty habit. I wasn’t sure I liked the person this case was turning me into.

Frustration that Tori was leaving me, that the case was going nowhere, that Cecily seemed to be stalking me, came to a head just after we arrived. Vic was standing in a corner cracking
inappropriate jokes with his friends.

I hung around with Tori and Dean, listening to their small talk with half an ear until I saw the guy leave for the toilets, then made my excuses and followed. I gave him just long enough to do
what he came there for, and incidentally to let another guy leave, before I pushed in through the door.

Either he’d had a conversation first or he pissed like a horse; he was only just putting it away when I arrived. Another man in a similar position looked up at my entrance and did a double
take in the mirror. He opened his mouth to protest, saw the masculine cut of my suit, the determined expression on my face and the purpling bruise from the fight, thought better of it and fled,
almost catching himself in his zip in his earnest desire to be anywhere but here.

“What the..?”

“Lisa Moran.”

“What about her?” Said with enough bravado to make himself feel better, but enough respect to show he’d heard about the fight even though he hadn’t seen the results until
today. So far so good. I stepped closer, invading his body space threateningly.

“Cast your mind back. First night I worked the Paradise. We were queuing to get paid. Lisa hadn’t been into work for the third night running. ‘That dyke bitch is going to get
her ass fired,’ were your exact words. Didn’t sound as if you liked her very much. Now she’s dead. See where I’m going with this line of thought?”

“I didn’t! I’d never! You think that I..?”

He crossed himself and pulled out a rosary, then fell to his knees and started praying. Right there on the bathroom floor!

“Holy Mary, mother of God…

Tears spilled down his face. The door opened. Two slightly tipsy men sobered abruptly on seeing our tableau and backed out. Shit! I had to get control of this situation.

“Get up! I’m not your priest. If you need absolution you’re not getting it from me.” I hauled him to his feet. He was weaving. He must have got tanked before he went to
the memorial; no wonder I was on the receiving end of his emotional outburst. Oh well,
in vino veritas,
perhaps?

“I didn’t hurt her. I swear! I asked her out. She was really vicious. Told me I didn’t have the right plumbing. I didn’t know she was a d…” He looked at me.
“A lesbian. She made me look stupid in front of my mates.”

How many more times was I going to hear this adolescent excuse to do or say something cruel? I wondered if this was what Lisa’s murderer had thought. Or Tori’s or Sammi’s
rapist. Disgusted, I left him sobbing and praying to his unforgiving reflection and went back to report my findings to Dean and get something to eat. At least this reception could be good for
something.

“Well, that was a turn up! The Bitch-Queen of St Annes at the funeral. What did she really want? Aside from butch-baiting, that is?”

I should have known Dean wouldn’t let Cecily’s appearance go. I told him.

“So she was just here to annoy you.”

I didn’t tell him how close to my own thoughts that came. “Then how did she find out about it?”

“Obits column like everyone else. Really, Randall, don’t buy her ‘I’m here to pay my respects because I once slept with the deceased’ excuse. Cecily wouldn’t
piss on someone she thought was a crap shag if they were on fire.” He bit into a carrot stick viciously.

Where was this animosity coming from?

“Look, I know you hate her from when she and I were going out. But this sounds personal.”

He considered his immaculate manicure as if considering whether he should divulge some great truth, then said quietly, “Did I tell you I went to law school with Cecily?”

“You never mentioned it.”

I was getting shades of
Basic Instinct
about this conversation and told him so.

“You and your trashy movies,” was his rejoinder.

I grinned. “Unlike you and Craig with
Titanic?”

He made a face. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted! I went to law school with Cecily. She was a brilliant student, but she had a bad rep. She wasn’t into anything
violent then. Just swung both ways and had a lot of lovers. She wasn’t backward at coming forward with the details of her affairs. I thought when she got the CPS job I’d seen the last
of her. Then she turned up on the scene with you. I couldn’t say anything. I knew you’d get over her once you discovered what she was like. And you did. I wish you’d come to your
senses earlier. Still… I have to tell you I questioned your taste for a while. Gina, Cecily, that string of women…”

“Dean!”

“All right! As you say, I’m not your mother. Sometimes I worry about you.”

I wisely let that lie. Though I appreciated the sentiment.

Dean nibbled on a triangular sandwich.

I sneezed. I hoped I wasn’t getting a cold after standing around in the rain. I glanced over at Tori, standing with the girls from the Paradise, coolly elegant in her little black dress.
She’d keep me at arms length so she wouldn’t get infected. At T minus two and counting I didn’t think I could bear that.

“You were right about the bouncer,” I said around a mouthful of sausage roll. I filled him in on my conversation in the washroom. He raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment.
“Pissed off because he didn’t get a shag.”

Dean sipped his brandy and looked pointedly at my piled plate.

“What?”

“Randall, it’s a funeral reception, not all you can eat for a fiver.”

“The food’s got to be eaten, the caterers will throw it away if we don’t. I’m cold, wet and hungry. Where’s the harm?”

“Ever heard of respect for the dead?”

“And people think it shows more respect if you don’t eat the buffet?”

“Irish,” he muttered.

Yes, I’ve Irish blood. What did you expect, with a name like McGonnigal? My family would be having a wake with much carousing and feasting at the deceased’s expense at this point.
It’s traditional to try and outdo the lavishness of the last send-off. Better than sitting around soggy in a sad little two-star hotel, talking in whispers as if we’re in a library or
moping.

“We’re being more disrespectful talking business than eating the food,” I said by way of defence, starting on a chicken leg.

“You’ll get salmonella.”

“I’ll risk it.”

He made one final attempt. “We could circulate, ask a few questions.” Anything else he might have added was drowned out by a commotion at the bar.

Remember what I said about ambulance chasers?

“All we’re asking for is a comment!” a trench-coated reporter pleaded, thrusting a micro-cassette recorder in Lisa Moran’s father’s face.

His colleague was on the floor clutching a bloody nose with one hand while he scrabbled to salvage his own machine. One of the bouncers was stomping on it with an ugly look on his face and no
regard for the guy’s fingers.

“Bloody vultures! Let my daughter rest in peace!”

Lisa’s mother tried in vain to grab her husband’s swinging fist as he let fly at the second man. Unlike his partner, this reporter was quicker on the uptake. He dodged the punch,
only to back into two plain clothes police officers. They strong-armed the troublemaker out, closely followed by the man on the floor. Seemed there was a point to police at funerals after all.
Speaking of which…

“I thought I told yous to keep out of my investigation?”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Even though he was sitting down, Dean somehow managed to look down his nose at the man. Completely unfazed. Wish I could have said the same.

“Do you investigate funerals now, Chief Superintendent? Who are the suspects and what might they be accused of? Poisoning the guests? Bad taste in paper napkins? I fail to see how
attending a memorial service and reception qualifies as interfering in a murder investigation. We are here as moral support for someone acquainted with the deceased.”

“Amazing how they always start with the legalese when they’re rumbled, don’t you think, sergeant?” my nemesis mused to the lackey at his elbow.

“That might be because I am a qualified solicitor. Now, if you’ll excuse us, my colleague and I were discussing our business before you interrupted us.”

Even seated, the weight of Dean’s stare was formidable. It always is when he’s in the right. I was so not looking forward to the conversation we’d have when they were gone.

The Chief Super knew when continuing would just make him look like a point-scorer. He turned and stalked away. His oppo couldn’t resist trying for the last word though. “Just watch
it, you.”

“One more word and I’ll be filing a harassment suit, officer… Just what is your monkey’s name, Chief Superintendent?”

The man grabbed his blustering subordinate’s arm and pulled him away with a stare that could have melted steel. I noticed Grey drifting over to join them as soon as they were clear.

The look Dean turned on me after they’d gone was no less blistering. My appetite was completely ruined. I set down the paper plate.

“Warned us to stay out of his investigation, did he? When were you going to tell me?”

I told him now. He looked shocked.

“I knew you’d want evidence. I couldn’t begin to imagine how to go about it.”

“I take it this was the thing you had to get straight in your head?”

I’m not the only one with near perfect recall.

“Yes.”

“If Tori didn’t seem convinced her attacker was a woman, after what you’ve just told me, he’d be top of my suspect list,” he began, tucking his notebook away.

I was surprised to hear him agree with my thoughts. And after the way he’d threatened Tori at the club… Who would know better than a police officer about not leaving traces forensic
could pick up?

A caterer was circulating with a bag and I emptied our table of rubbish. “Even if she wasn’t, I am. The other women who saw their assailant have confirmed they were female.
Tori’s attacker wore Lou Lou! There is no male equivalent of that.”

“I hate to disabuse you, but I know a man who wears it.”

“You’re shitting me!”

“Cross my heart. But he’s gay, so I think we can rule him out.”

“Tasteless bastard.”

“I won’t tell him you said that.”

“Like I’d care if you did.”

For a time we sat there gloomily. Then Dean mused, “I don’t suppose any of the dancers at the club wear that perfume?”

“No, they don’t. I’ve been close enough to know. And neither do any of the women clients. All except one tend towards unisex perfumes that smell similar to aftershave, like me.
The odd woman out wears scent so expensive that Lou Lou would be slumming. Even if she was trying to make a point, she’d do it extravagantly; she’s that kind of woman.” I thought
of how I’d embarrassed that particular woman, carrying her back to her husband after she propositioned me. She was drenched in something worth about £1000 an ounce.

“Could be a red herring. Maybe a man who got the scent on his clothes from his wife!”

“At this rate we may as well start accusing ourselves and our friends, since nothing is narrowing down the suspects!”