Running Scared (11 page)

‘Food any good?’ he asked suddenly.

He must think I was stupid. ‘I had the moussaka and Ganesh had something which was mostly chickpeas. He’s a vegetarian. You can check at the restaurant. The waiter’s name was Stavros. He had it on a label pinned to his shirt.’

Harford’s face twitched. He leaned forward slightly. ‘You still have this note?’

‘I gave it to Parry.’

‘Ah—’ He paused and straightened up. ‘You’re something of an old acquaintance of Sergeant Parry’s, I understand.’

‘We’ve met. Strictly official.’

‘Yes . . .’ Harford tugged at his crisp white cuffs. ‘You do seem to attract trouble, Miss Varady. I made a few enquiries before I came over here. Not your first brush with murder, is it? Or three murders, to be exact, not to mention a kidnapping.’

‘I don’t go around collecting corpses,’ I said wearily. ‘I wasn’t involved in the others. I just happened to be around and got drawn in.’

‘The bodies just drop in your vicinity?’

Was this meant to be a joke? He wasn’t smiling although there was a sort of rictus round his mouth. If he was joking, it was at my expense.

‘I can’t tell you anything else,’ I snapped. ‘Go and enquire about Coverdale, if that’s his real name. That’s your lead, for goodness’ sake. Parry says he was a journalist. Find out what story he was working on. I bet it’s connected with that.’

‘I think we can manage our own investigations, thank you!’ His face had reddened. ‘I – we don’t need advice from you.’

‘It seems to me you’re wasting time, sitting here with me,’ I countered. ‘Look, Coverdale said in his note he’d come back at ten o’clock. Ganesh and I were here by quarter past ten, but Coverdale was already dead. So he couldn’t have been dead long. What does the doctor say?’

‘That’s police information.’ The red flush had now crept up his throat. He looked about to explode.

‘Well, I reckon it couldn’t have been more than fifteen – twenty minutes. Someone followed him here.’

‘That’s supposition.’

‘Or was waiting for him when he arrived,’ I mused. ‘It’s dark in the well. Someone could have been hiding down there.’

And Ganesh and I had just missed him. It was an eerie thought. A few minutes earlier and we could have met the killer coming back up the basement steps, knife in hand.

‘We’ve thought of that!’ Harford was getting really annoyed. ‘Just leave the detection to us, will you? Don’t start pretending you’re Miss Marple.’

‘Miss Marple?
Miss Marple!’
I fairly bounced in my chair with rage. ‘Do I look like some old girl who snoops on her neighbours? How about a murder weapon? Have you found it?’

‘Look, I’m asking the questions.’ He was getting flustered now. That ‘I’m-in-charge’ air was slipping. Now it was more ‘it’s-my-cricket-bat-and-I-say-who’s-out!’ ‘Let’s get back to Coverdale.’

‘That’s what I was telling you to do,’ I muttered.

‘Thank you!’ he retorted sarcastically. ‘Did you see anyone else in the street when you arrived? Anyone walking, driving, anyone apparently going into a house.’

I said we hadn’t. I was sure. I’d been scanning the scene for Coverdale and I’d have noticed anyone else.

‘How,’ asked Harford, ‘did the killer know he’d find Coverdale here?’

‘He followed him,’ I said patiently.

‘All right, so how did Coverdale learn your address?’

‘Someone followed
me
from the shop yesterday, I’m fairly sure of it. It could’ve been him.’

‘But you didn’t see him? He didn’t approach you?’

‘Of course he didn’t. Someone else might have been watching me. He had to be careful.’

‘Not careful enough, it seems,’ said Harford as if the whole thing was entirely my fault.

Luckily we were interrupted. A tap at the door heralded Parry, looking pleased with himself. He brandished a yellow envelope.

‘Got ’em, sir. Got the snaps and the negs.’

Harford rose to his feet with dignity. I got the impression he wasn’t sorry for the interruption either.

‘Good man,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your time, Miss Varady. We’ll talk again.’

Parry gave me a triumphant wink.

‘Do you know, Daphne,’ I said, when they’d left, ‘I never thought I’d say it, but I think I’d rather deal with Parry than with Inspector Harford.’

‘He’s a very handsome young man, isn’t he?’ said Daphne sentimentally.

I’d noticed that, but I wasn’t going to let it influence me. Women of Daphne’s age, I told myself, were susceptible to young men of Harford’s ilk. Not so yours truly.

Eventually, after all the photographs were taken, everything measured up, and documented, they dismantled their lights and Coverdale’s body was removed, leaving behind a sinister chalked outline, over which I had to step to return to the flat at one in the morning. They really didn’t want me returning to the flat at all. They said I’d be interfering with a scene of crime. I pointed out I wasn’t going to sleep in the basement well, but in my flat, in my bed – and Coverdale hadn’t crossed my doorstep. I can’t say I relished the idea of going into the flat, let alone sleeping there alone that night, but I insisted as a matter of principle, even though Daphne offered me a bed.

‘Don’t touch anything, right?’ Parry warned.

‘He wasn’t ever in my flat,’ I repeated, I don’t know for what number of times.

‘We’ll just check, shall we?’

Parry followed me into the flat, also stepping over the chalk outline, and stared around. ‘It don’t look touched,’ he admitted.

‘It’s not. Now can I be left in peace in my own home? I’ve had a very trying evening.’

‘Just mind how you go in and out. Don’t touch anything in the stairwell. Although we’ll want your dabs for elimination. Bloke will come round tomorrow for ’em.’

‘Where’ve I heard that before?’ I muttered.

They were still scurrying around out there when I went to bed, and in a way that was comforting. I still went to sleep with the light on.

‘Hitch looked in this morning and turned the water off again,’ said Ganesh plaintively. ‘He said he and Marco will come over later and install the new loo and washbasin ready for tomorrow morning.’

It was Sunday morning and he’d arrived around nine. That’s classed as daybreak on a Sunday in my book at the best of times and after a disturbed night, I’d hoped for a lie-in. I wasn’t dressed or ready for visitors and had to open the door in my Snoopy nightshirt.

‘Turn it on again,’ I said grumpily, padding back inside.

‘I did and it spurted out the hole in the wall where the washroom tap used to be.’

‘But you must be able to turn off the washroom plumbing separately.’

‘Well, I haven’t found a way to do it. Can I use your shower?’

‘How much are they charging you to come in on a Sunday?’ I asked. ‘Or haven’t they said?’

‘Hitch is a mate,’ Ganesh defended him. ‘He’s doing it so’s we don’t have to keep running round to the petshop on Monday morning every time we want to take a leak. You know how you grumbled about that.’

‘That’s right, blame me. Go and take your shower.’

I trailed back to the bedroom and tugged on jeans and a sweater. Ganesh was still locked in the bathroom when I came back, and outside the window, in the basement, the police were back and still searching around. There was a guy fingerprinting the doorway and the windowsill. Like it or not, I was living on a scene of crime. I made coffee against the splashing of water from the bathroom and handed Ganesh a mug as he emerged, his long black hair dripping. I could’ve made coffee for SOCO outside, but I drew the line at that. They were causing me enough disruption.

‘Got a hair dryer?’ Ganesh asked.

‘Do me a favour,’ I said. ‘With a haircut like mine? What’d I do with a hair dryer?’

‘I’ll catch cold,’ he said sulkily.

‘I’ll turn up the gas fire. Gimme that towel.’

He sat in front of the gas fire grumbling as I towel-dried his long hair briskly. ‘Ouch! Ow! That’s my ear, Fran!’

‘Oh, shut up or do it yourself!’

‘He grilled me again, too, you know,’ said Ganesh, emerging from the towel. ‘Harford, I mean. He went bananas over those negatives. Said we should’ve turned them in straight away. But there wasn’t anything on them for us to need to do that.’

‘Conceited snooty prat.’

‘Got your back up, then, I see. I thought he seemed bright enough. He’s probably worried you won’t take him seriously.’

‘I do take him seriously. He’s set to be a real pain. What else did he ask you?’

‘Kept making me go over the same thing over and over again. I began to wish we’d just chucked those photos away.’

‘Harford would love that,’ I said. ‘I wish I knew who the rich-looking guy in them is. He must be the one who was after Coverdale to get them back. Why is he so worried about them? They don’t show anything criminal, just three guys having a drink.’

‘Perhaps it’s to do with the other two men in the pictures? I know you can only see one’s face. Perhaps this other man is the one who wants the negatives back.’

I shook my head. ‘No, the dark one is just a regular thug. The light-haired man with the bright shirt is the important figure. He’s the one we’ve got to worry about.’

Ganesh put down the towel and stared at me in concern. ‘We’ve got to worry?’

‘Yes, of course we have. He doesn’t know where the film is and he’s still looking, right? I bet whoever killed Coverdale went through his pockets and didn’t find it. They know Coverdale ran into the shop to escape his pursuers the other day. They’ll find out pretty quick I work there. Coverdale was ringing my doorbell when his killer found him. What would you make of it all, if you were him?’

Ganesh looked unhappy. ‘I should’ve warned Dilip. He’s looking after the shop this morning.’ They were open for the Sunday newspapers until noon.

‘Dilip’s built like a brick barn,’ I reassured him. ‘He can look after himself.’

A ring at the bell announced that the fingerprint guy whose visit Parry had promised me, was ready for me. He took my prints. ‘Are you the bloke who was with her last night?’ he asked Ganesh. ‘Right, let’s be having yours as well.’

‘My father,’ said Ganesh emotionally, scrubbing black ink from his fingertips when the man had gone, ‘must never know about this.’

‘It’s routine, calm down,’ I said, old hand at this sort of thing as I was by now.

But Ganesh carried on fretting and said he ought to go back to the shop and make sure Dilip was still in one piece. I walked out of the flat with him, through the SOCO, and up to pavement level, ducking under the police tape which still cordoned off my basement. Across the road, someone was taking photographs of the front of the house. He didn’t look like a copper and I suspected he was press.

The road was open to traffic again and, as we emerged, a taxi drew up and out popped the Knowles brothers. They were wearing identical blazers today, with some badge or other on the breast pocket, but by now I could tell them apart, having had the chance to view Charlie so close at hand in my flat. He had the coarser skin and slightly less hair, but he did have his own teeth. Bertie, I noticed now as he bared them at me in rage, didn’t.

‘We knew it!’ they cried in unison. ‘Nothing but trouble! Poor Aunt Daphne! A victim of her own kind heart.’

‘What are you talking about?’ snapped Ganesh, who was in no mood for this sort of thing. ‘Who are these people, Fran?’

‘Oh,’ I said with a sigh, because this was all I needed. ‘Allow me to introduce Bertie and Charlie Knowles, Daphne’s nephews. I did mention them to you before.’

‘And who,’ asked Bertie icily, ‘is this gentleman?’

‘He’s Mr Patel. I work for him.’

‘Work? Indeed?’ said Bertie nastily.

‘Murder!’ Charlie moved in, practically salivating with revenge. He flung out a hand towards the basement and the boiler-suited figures down there. ‘To think poor Aunt Daphne, a solitary, defenceless lady of mature years, could have had her throat cut. And all because of you.’

‘We shall insist,’ said Bertie, ‘that you leave these premises at once! Aunt Daphne cannot be left at risk.’