Three Little Maids (4 page)

‘What’s this Jason like?’

‘He’s a good looking boy. Seems quiet and a bit dopey till you get to know him, I’d say.’ She stubbed out her cigarette carefully and stood up.

‘If you want to know more about him.’ She looked at Turner. ‘You’d better ask your Sergeant here. He’s dealt with Jason Perkins before. I think the boy’s got a wild streak in him. His mother Pam went to Glastonbury had a fling while she was there with a foreign musician. Afterwards she dumped the baby on his gran, June Perkins, and buggered off. And as far as I know she’s never come home since to see her kid.’

Kent put down his empty cup, stood up and Turner closed his note pad. ‘Thank you Stacey, Mrs
Flitch. You’ve both been a great help.’

‘I hope you won’t need to call again, Inspector,’ Kathie Flitch said seeing them out. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on Stacey in future. She’s too trusting for her own good and I wouldn’t want her to become another victim.’

‘We hope that we catch Angela’s murderer before he can hurt anyone else. If Stacey should remember anything else, anything at all; you will let us know won’t you, Mrs Flitch?’

She nodded and turned round to put her arm round her daughter. ‘You can count on it, Inspector.’

‘I think Kathie Flitch had Angela summed up all right, Turner. We’ll have to see the boy, Jason Perkins. You’d better fill me in about the lad. We must find out how long he’d been fooling around with Angela. You’ve got to hand it to those kids. Even if he suspected the worst, Carey wouldn’t think of looking in there for his daughter.’

Turner saw Kent’s concerned face as they walked down the garden path. ‘Mrs Carey’s the one I feel sorry for, guv,’ he said, opening up the wooden gate. ‘She probably thought the sun shone out of her Angela’s eyes. And all the time she was having a high old time in their Funeral Parlour with one of her father’s youngest
employees. If Carey found out it was being used as a knocking-shop he’d give Perkins the sack, I reckon.’

Kent chuckled. ‘He’d hardly say a prayer for him.’

4

Another Friday regular took her place at the library counter and by then Viviane had shaken off the goose bumps that Esmeralda parting words had given her earlier. Mrs Perkins, in her late fifties, with her tight bleached blonde curls, in a pink and blue flowered shift dress that wrinkled up into creases over her heavy hips and stomach and natural high parlour in her plump cheeks, arrived breathlessly through the glass doors.

She spilled out a large pile of paperback romances from her shopping trolley down onto the counter with a loud sigh of relief and a smile in her creased washed out blue eyes.

‘Good morning, Mrs Sherlborne.’

‘Good morning, Mrs Perkins.’

‘How ever do you manage to look so slim and cool? You’re so lucky, dear. You don’t pile on the pounds like I do,’ June Perkins remarked cheerfully as she sorted out the romances on the counter. She was an avid reader of romance. Employed as a cleaner by Mrs Frost as a cleaner at the White Rock Hotel, she was highly recommended by her employer as most dependable and thorough in her work.

A bottle of Irish Stout peeped from her trolley; her usual nightcap. That, plus her fondness for strawberry chocolate creams, which she’d confessed once to Viviane that she sandwiched between bread and butter slices as a supper time snack; no doubt made her a lost cause for Weight Watchers.

Viviane chuckled and fibbed
wickedly; ‘I’ve put myself on salads for lunch and no biscuits or cakes between meals, Mrs Perkins. I want to get into a new summer dress I’ve just bought myself. It’s a jolly good incentive when I feel like eating cream cakes. So, how are you today?’

Oh dear
, this inquiry was fatal. She should have known better. Anything concerning June Perkins’ wellbeing and good health in general inevitably resulted in a report on her latest ailment which varied from week to week on her library visits. Today, it was a large boil that troubled her.

‘An’ it’s awful painful,’ she whispered over the counter. ‘I’ve had to sit on a rubber ring. Doctor Winters said I’ve got to take them antibiotics for a week.’ She made an agonized face. ‘An’ would you believe it
, the injection he gave me was almost as painful as the boil.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs Perkins. I hope it clears up very soon.’

It had been suspected gall stones last week and fluid on her left knee the week before that. They were mostly inclined to make bets now on what part of her sensitive anatomy was likely to fall foul to a dreadful complaint next.

But apart from that she often entertained them with what she thought were with the best sexy parts from the latest romantic novels she’d read. June Perkins was the ideal romantic critic. She much preferred the heroes, she said, with the dark good looks, passion filled eyes and hot Latin blood. The French, Spanish and Italian men passed muster with her as far as she was concerned. ‘And the Yanks aren’t bad because they’re pretty mixed bunch,’ she said.

‘I suppose you’ve heard about the poor girl that was found on the cliffs this morning,’ she said conversationally leaning over the counter. ‘It don’t seem safe anywhere these days. Makes me glad I haven’t got to worry about my daughter. I wouldn’t like to be those poor souls when they hear that they’ve lost their child.’

‘I’ve did hear something earlier, Mrs Perkins.’

June Perkins leaned closer still over the counter. ‘Well Fred Hill, the hotel porter, told me about it before I left the hotel this morning.’ Viviane nodded. Fred had spread it round pretty quickly. ‘I don’t mind telling you it gave me one of my queer turns. Shook me up proper, it did, Mrs Sherlborne.’

‘I’m sure it did, Mrs Perkins.’

‘Mrs Frost gave me a glass of her best sweet sherry to get me back on my feet. Went down a treat.’ She smacked her lips. ‘Bad news travels quickly, don’t it? It’s not safe for kids to be out alone. Not late at night, it’s not, dear.

‘I always make sure that my grandson, Raymond tells me where he’s going since he was mixed up with those gangs of kids from the Nelson estate. Now that he’s working for the Carey’s he has to behave. It’s up to the girl’s parents
, I reckon. If they let them out to dance in discos in the early hours without checking that they get home safely in one piece. It’s just asking for trouble.’

‘I agree with you there, Mrs Perkins. I worry about my daughter living in London. But she is a sensible girl. You have to trust them.’

‘Oh... I trust Raymond. It’s the girls I don’t trust. I don’t like him messing about with girls. I don’t want any trouble like that with him.’ She shook her frizzy head. ‘I don’t want any kid calling him Daddy at his young age.’

She left the counter for the romance section and Viviane wondered how June Perkin’s eighteen
-year-old grandson was really finding work at Carey’s Funeral Parlour. She smiled his looks certainly suited the undertaking profession. Thick wavy fair hair, dark eyes, tall and gangly, with a spotty skin, plus a melancholy expression on the long thin good looking features.

If the job paid well and kept him out of trouble his grandmother would be happy. But was he as simple as he looked? She recalled she’d heard some rumours earlier on while he was still at school. It brought the police on her doorstep more than once and he had been cautioned but these June Perkins
, for once. had been careful not to mention.

5

Viviane left her colleagues, coping in the library and took her packed lunch with her to the sea front as she usually did on most fine days. She preferred a late lunch and more especially today as it was exceptionally warm. She sat down on a wooden seat in the sun shelter facing the sea and slowly ate her ham and salad sandwiches, and sipped her can of diet cola.

The raucous sea gulls turned somersaults
, like acrobats, in the air to catch the crusts she threw to them whilst the sparrows and pigeons descended like a plague of locusts around her sandaled feet and feasted on the remains. She wasn’t all that hungry and she wondered if she might still be doing this every day when she was old. The thought was sobering as she’d spotted that some of the other shelters were part filled by pensioners.

She leant back with a sigh against the hard wooden seat, and winced as it scorched her back through the thin cotton blouse. She made a conscious effort to relax and watched the holidaymakers passing by, making their way to the livelier end of Harcombe.

The picturesque old town, with its good share of black beamed houses still and narrow streets filled to bursting point with antique and second hand bookshops had its obvious attractions. But the pier and entertainment on the sea front, consisting of the slot machines arcade, the dodgem cars, motorboats on the lake, the merry go round and the miniature golf course, along with the rock shops, whelk and cockle stalls, fish and chip shops and the pubs, was what really pulled in the crowds.

There was a slight quiver of salty breeze coming off the sparkling sea. The tide was going out and the smell of the brown seaweed covering the rocks was strong and pungent as they were exposed to the sun. Noise rose from the beach as children climbed over the rocks with their string nets and plastic buckets to get to the small sheltered pools which gave some sanctuary to the pink starfish, small crabs and the scuttling, darting shrimps till the tide rushed in quickly again.

Behind her, across the busy road, was the White Rock Hotel, owned by Mrs Esme Frost; still held its own, although it struggled yearly against the high council rates and the increasing stiff competition from the bigger hotels.

It owed its success mainly because it held a good position on the sea front and Mrs Frost
provided good value for money in meals, personal service and rooms. Like the swallows, most of her summer guests came back year after year and she relied on permanent boarders, like the Wilberforce sisters during the winter.

A change of view further along the sea front gave Viviane a different aspect. She could see the minuscule figures of the fishermen sitting patiently with their rods on the tail end of the long
, white painted Harcombe Pier behind the Victorian ballroom and the theatre. Even at that distance, she could hear the distorted blaring music and announcements from the various callers on the rival bingo stalls, rifle ranges and hoopla stalls. The noise of this entertainment blended in naturally with the squeals of laughter and conversation coming up from the beach below.

She listened with closed eyes behind her sun glasses to the scrunch of hot pebbles shifting underfoot, and the gentle, soporific swish and flow of the tide pulling and sucking up the wet shingle and sand in its haste to retreat further out.

Everything seemed as normal as it should be on a bright summer day. But it wasn’t, was it? She frowned, stirred uneasily and opened her eyes. There was someone evil in this seaside town that had taken the life of a young girl and it was frightening to think about.

A chink of falling coins on the ground beside her interrupted her thoughts. A pound coin rolled along the stone tiles to rest by her sandaled foot. She leant forward and picked it
up. A girl, hardly more than a child in her skimpy blue cotton blouse and denim skirt, her light brown hair styled in a jagged urchin hair hut, leant round the glass partition Her clear grey eyes met Viviane’s as she took the coin from her and put it into her leather purse she carried on her shoulder.

‘Thanks.’

Viviane smiled. ‘Have you got it all?’

‘Okay
- thanks.’ The girl left the shelter abruptly and ran lightly down the stone steps on side leading to the underground car park. Just for a second or so, Viviane thought that she’d seen her before somewhere but the memory eluded her.

Then, as she got up to leave, she saw the canvas tote bag stuffed underneath the seat that the girl had just vacated. It had a newspaper left in it and a women’s magazine; it had either been forgotten by its rightful owner or picked up by the girl. Viviane decided to drop it into the police station on her way back to the library. She gave the girl the benefit of the doubt; the purse
, and its contents, might have belonged to her.

There was no sign of DI. Jon Kent in the station and she handed over the bag to the Desk Sergeant who recognized her with a smile when she gave her name. She noticed a reporter and cameraman for the local Observer newspaper waiting outside and knew that it wouldn’t be long before Maureen Carey’s death crime was reported on TV and the other papers would soon be sniffing it out for their headlines.

6

The girl hesitated a minute or so in the open doorway of the colourful Tarot booth on the Pier, casting a slender dark shadow into the booth. Esmeralda looked up from the cards she was studying carefully on the green baize topped table in front of her. So she had come then. Esmeralda had pictured the girl clearly in her mind more than once that morning. And she had worried about her ever since.

‘Come in and sit down. Is it a reading from the Tarot cards you require?’

‘Mais oui
- yes - please.’

The accent settled it. She was the young French girl Yvette, she had seen briefly for a minute or so talking to Cliff Jones, the hotel chef in the White Rock Hotel foyer
, that morning. She studied the girl carefully as she took her place at the table. Yvette was attractive, her shining raven black hair was accompanied by a glowing honey coloured skin, and large golden brown doe shaped eyes. Her perfume was both tempting, subtle French and expensive, the black, brown and tan cotton dress simple but also expensive like the slender gold anklet round her slim left ankle.