Running Scared (10 page)

‘No, it’s not Gan and I don’t need an ambulance – I need the police.’

I had to tell her about the dead man, there was no way out of it. She reeled back but, true to form, she rallied fast. Daphne is tough.

‘You are quite sure he’s dead, Fran? You’re not a doctor. Perhaps you should send for an ambulance as well.’ She patted the cardigan pockets wildly. ‘So silly, I ought to have my other glasses. Perhaps I should come and have a look? I did a first-aid course once. I know how to put him in the recovery position and that sort of thing. We should wrap him in a blanket, but not give him anything to drink.’

All this sounded so sensible that for a moment I even hoped that after all, Coverdale might only be unconscious. But even before the hope took root, I knew it was no more than a desperate wish unlikely to be fulfilled. The recovery position, I explained to Daphne, wasn’t going to help Coverdale. Nor was he in need of a blanket. He was dead, all right, and I didn’t think it a good idea if she came downstairs to view the body. But I asked for an ambulance anyway.

The paramedics confirmed the diagnosis the moment they arrived. Or as one of them murmured to his mate, ‘No rush, this one’s a stiff.’

During the few minutes’ wait before the ambulance arrived at the door, Daphne had provided tea and brandy in her kitchen for myself and Ganesh. We sat miserably avoiding one another’s eye until Daphne, perhaps desperate to talk, took the opportunity to make an apology for which she’d no reason at all.

‘This gives me a chance, Fran dear, to say how sorry I was to learn how badly my nephew Charlie behaved earlier today.’

Even with my mind on other things, I was startled. Had Charlie confessed his amorous advances? No.

‘He had no right whatsoever to come downstairs without even mentioning it to me and ask you to agree an inventory. He did it entirely off his own bat and I’m very annoyed with him. I told him so. It’s absolutely none of his business and I shouldn’t have allowed it, if I’d known what was in his mind.’

She hadn’t known all that was in Charlie’s mind and he certainly hadn’t told her about the scuffle in the bedroom. But he had told her about the inventory in case I complained. He could deny the little episode in the bedroom, but he couldn’t deny he’d been in the flat. It went without saying that Daphne must guess that Charlie had crept down to the basement without mentioning it to her, because he’d known full well she’d have forbidden it.

‘I realised you had nothing to do with it, Daphne,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to say sorry. Forget it.’

Nevertheless, I hoped she didn’t, and that it’d have demonstrated to her that Charlie and Bertie were already counting their chickens, and she must be on the watch for further tricks on their part.

‘Well, at least we know who the poor bugger was,’ said DS Parry.

On the heels of the ambulance, a patrol car of uniformed men turned up. Swiftly after that, CID moved in, in the person of Parry, also the police doctor and a posse of photographers.

I had hoped that after my last run-in with Sergeant Parry, I’d seen the last of him. But no, here he was again, sitting in Daphne’s kitchen, drinking coffee, still trying unsuccessfully to grow that moustache, still suffering from a shaving rash and with a haircut even worse than mine. His resembled a ginger coir mat.

You wouldn’t think, would you, with disadvantages like that, and lacking any kind of charm, Parry could possibly imagine I might be brought round to fancying him? But deep in what passes for his heart, or more likely in what passes for his brain, it seems he fantasises about me. It was Ganesh who pointed this out to me and at first I wouldn’t – couldn’t – believe it. But I’ve been brought round to the horrid conclusion Gan is right about this, as about so much else.

Outside, men measured and photographed and crawled round under their arc-lights for clues to put in their plastic bags. The remaining population of the street had turned out to watch and speculate, but were kept back behind a blue and white plastic tape tied across the thoroughfare. Behind the crowd, indignant motorists had got out of their cars to demand why they were being denied access.

Inside this cordon, like a set of plague victims sealed off from normal humanity, we were at Parry’s mercy.

He took Daphne’s statement first, rightly surmising whatever she had to say would be less interesting than anything he could bully out of Ganesh and me. Daphne hadn’t heard or seen anything because she’d been in her sitting room at the back of the house. Parry thanked her with a politeness he never wasted on me, before dismissing her from her own kitchen and turning his attention to Ganesh and me, his preferred prey. Daphne was the starter, we were the main course.

‘All right, then, let’s have it,’ he said. ‘You first, Miss Varady, being as it’s your flat where the bloke copped it.’

‘Not
in
my flat,’ I protested vigorously,
‘outside
my flat!’

‘In your basement,’ said Parry, unimpressed.

I told him my version and Ganesh told him his, which was virtually the same. We also had to tell him about the business at the shop when Coverdale – as we now knew him to be –staggered in and I told him about the man who’d come enquiring later.

The
bombe surprise
was Hitch’s discovery of the packet behind the pipes of the washroom and the roll of film it contained. This had Parry scribbling like a man possessed, all the while chewing one straggling corner of his moustache, his expression steadily more disapproving.

When he heard that I’d taken the film to be developed, he stopped scribbling and turned puce. ‘You did what? Don’t tell me, I can guess. You were playing detective again, Fran? Right? How many times have I told you? You got anything suspicious to report, you bring it to us.’

‘It wasn’t suspicious,’ I argued.

‘You still oughta have reported it. Where are these snaps now?’

‘At the shop, stuck under the till,’ Ganesh said.

‘Then we’ll have to go over there and collect ’em, won’t we, son? If they’re still there – which I hope they are. If they’re not, you two are in a spot of trouble. They’re material evidence, they are.’

‘Look!’ I said sharply. ‘We didn’t know he was going to get murdered, did we? We offered to call the police when he was beaten up and he didn’t want it. What else could we do?’

‘You are certain, are you,’ Ganesh asked in a very formal voice, ‘of your identification? The only reason we’re calling him Coverdale, as I see it, is because a note signed in that name was pushed through Fran’s letter box.’

Parry gave Ganesh a dirty look. ‘Well, no one’s identified him yet, if that’s what you mean. But he’d got business cards in that name in his pocket and a press pass with his phizog on it. He’s – was – a journalist, Graeme Coverdale. Don’t worry, we’ll track down someone who knew him to take a look at him in the morgue.’ Nice.

Parry was tucking away his notebook. ‘I think the best thing would be if a constable accompanied you to the shop, Mr Patel, to get those photos and negatives. You’d better stay here, Fran – Miss Varady – until Inspector Harford arrives. He’ll want to talk to you, both of you.’ Parry gave a sinister leer.

‘Who’s he?’ I asked. Obviously this was a serious crime and they weren’t leaving it entirely to Parry, but there was a relish in Parry’s voice which suggested Harford would prove some sort of ogre. Parry, by contrast, would be a regular Peter Pan.

‘Harford? Oh, he’s the blue-eyed boy, he is. Graduate intake, fast-track promotion. He’s been to university, has Inspector Harford.’ Parry oozed rancour. Even the ginger hair in his ears seemed to bristle. Then he rolled his bloodshot gaze in my direction and added, ‘So don’t you try giving him any lip, Fran. He’s not tolerant, like me.’

On this breath-taking misstatement, he ushered Ganesh out of the door and left me in the kitchen.

Daphne put her head round. ‘All right, Fran?’

‘Wonderful,’ I said gloomily. ‘I’m waiting for an Inspector Harford, apparently the Met’s finest.’

‘A car’s just drawn up outside,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and spy out the land.’

She pottered off quite cheerfully. Daphne never fails to amaze me and I realised that far from being terrified at the thought of gory death in her basement, Daphne was enjoying all the hullabaloo. This must beat reading about murder in one of the whodunits lining her shelves. This was the real thing.

There was much conversation going on in her hallway. I could hear Parry’s voice and another man’s, more of a tenor to Parry’s bass growl. Daphne scurried back.

‘He’s here!’ she announced, eyes shining. ‘And he’s awfully young. I suppose policemen do get younger as one gets older, but really, this one looks like a schoolboy. I suppose he’s got enough experience for this sort of thing. It hardly seems possible.’

Unfortunately, as she spoke the last words, a new figure loomed up behind her.

‘Good evening.’ The voice had a noticeable edge to it. He’d overheard. ‘My name is Harford. Excuse me, madam,’ the newcomer sidestepped Daphne, ‘I’d like a word with Miss Varady, if she’s up to it.’

He didn’t look like a schoolboy, but also he didn’t look all that much older than me, though I suppose he must be. He was chunkily built, with a shock of light brown hair, parted on the side and brushed straight with a ruthless hand. Add to that, a wide mouth, good complexion, blue eyes and, most striking of all, an air of arrogant self-possession. He was wearing an expensive-looking suit and a clean shirt, all pressed and starched, even at this time of night. I wondered if he’d jumped into his car when he’d got the summons, or taken time to shower and change first.

His voice matched his looks, with clean-cut vowels which must have made him something of a novelty at our local nick. In fact, I shouldn’t have thought they knew what to make of him at all. I’d have loved to be a fly on the canteen wall.

I met his gaze and found it was studying me in no very generous way. By comparison, my own appearance was distinctly at fault. Harford’s gaze suggested he classed me with something brought in by the cat. I was glad I’d had my hair trimmed, but wished I wasn’t wearing the assembled contents of a jumble sale stall. If I’d been sitting here in a power suit and stilettos I might have stood a chance. As it was, he’d clearly labelled me riffraff.

‘Right, let’s get started, shall we?’ he said bossily, taking his place at Daphne’s table. I felt a fleeting sympathy for Parry.

‘The coffee’s cold,’ I said, to make amends for Daphne getting us off on the wrong foot. ‘I can make some more.’

‘We won’t worry about coffee.’ His tone put me firmly in my place. ‘Now, I’ve had a quick word with Sergeant Parry and glanced over your statement and Mr Patel’s. But I’d like to hear it from you.’

‘Starting from when?’ I asked.

‘From the incident at the shop where I believe you’re employed.’ He made it sound as though I sold sex aids and porno videos.

‘It’s just a newsagent’s,’ I said. ‘And I work mornings only.’ He said nothing, only sat there looking fit, sharp and unpredictable, like a police dog. So I went through it all again, about the stranger, whom I now knew to be Coverdale, how someone had come to the shop enquiring about him, how Marco and Hitch had found the envelope containing the film and how I’d taken it to be developed. This last, as expected, proved the stickiest bit.

‘Why did you take the film to be developed?’ he asked.

‘There might have been something on it to tell us whose it was.’

‘But you realised it had been hidden by a total stranger. Why did you think you’d recognise anything on the film?’

‘I supposed – we supposed – it’d been hidden. We didn’t know it for sure. We didn’t know what sort of pics they were. They looked like holiday snaps.’

‘Why should someone want to hide holiday snaps?’

‘How should I know? I’m not the detective, you are!’ I retorted unwisely.

He froze. The blue eyes bored into me. ‘Just answer the questions, Miss Varady, if you don’t mind.’

‘I do mind. I’ve been through this already for Parry.’ I realised I was doing badly but his attitude was niggling me. He was managing to make it sound as if I was hiding something.

‘Tell me about this evening.’

I told him how I’d found the note but hadn’t read it until I was in the restaurant with Ganesh.

‘Ah, yes, your boss, Mr Patel, had taken you out to dinner. Does he often do that?’

‘It was our staff Christmas dinner,’ I said tightly. Now it was my friendship with Ganesh he was managing to make sound seedy. ‘We went to a Greek restaurant.’