Strictly Murder (31 page)

"You can't drive home. Your car is a write-off, anyway."

I groaned. Great! More expense.

"But we can see about getting you a new one later. You aren't fit to look after yourself so you can come to me for a few days until you are. Do you understand?"

Well of course I understood. I'd been in a car crash, not had a brain transplant. I nodded meekly.

"Yes, KD, and thank you."

"Pfft! And stop worrying about your job. We'll discuss this when you're home because I have no intention of losing you, Verity. Be very clear on that."

I smiled tremulously at her.

"Right. Now I'm going to leave you to get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

She pecked briefly at my cheek before sailing out, a one-woman marvel, prepared to take on the world.

KD often claimed that Bishop Lea was haunted by the ghost of the departed rock star who had once owned it and if she got up in the night for any reason - she meant her bladder - she would hear the spectral sounds of his music drifting through the darkness. Personally, I thought it far more likely that she had forgotten to turn the radio off before going upstairs to bed. Certainly, no such unearthly sounds had kept me awake the night before.

The taxi had dropped me off at Bishop Lea the previous afternoon and KD had insisted I go straight to bed. I hadn't demurred, I'd had very little rest the night before, finding it impossible to sleep in the hospital. The constant beep of monitors, ringing of alarms and interruptions by the nurse to take my blood pressure were hardly conducive to restful repose. Now I lay on the long, three seater sofa in KD's lounge covered with a fleece blanket and propped up by pillows, looking through my notes on Jaynee Johnson in a desultory way. I still ached all over as a result of the accident and Jerry had been spot on with his cryptic reference to a small garden bird. Noticing blue bruises developing nicely across my … erm … chest and down my left side in the shower that morning, I'd begun to appreciate the Inspector's warped sense of humour.

"You have a visitor," KD announced, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers into the room.

"Oh, how lovely!" I said catching sight of them. "And lilies! My favourites. Who sent them?"

"I did," said Jerry Farish, appearing from behind my employer and her armful of trumpets and greenery.

"That's very kind, Inspector."

"I also bought these."

He placed a box of Belgian chocolates on the small table pushed up against the side of the sofa.

"Why, thank you."

I fluttered my eyelashes at him before looking down, coyly. I love a man who buys me chocolates - especially of the Belgian variety.

"How are you, Verity," he asked, pulling a pouffe closer to the sofa and sitting down on it.

"I'm OK, thanks, Jerry."

Hoping I looked wan and palely loitering, as the poet had it, I whispered his name softly. KD took the hint and left us - muttering something about finding a vase and water.

"Have you arrested Greg Ferrari?" I asked when she had gone.

He looked at me gravely.

"No."

"But, why ever not.?"

I pushed myself up on the pillows the better to berate him.

"Jerry, he killed that girl. I told you. And he tried to kill me. It was definitely him. You should have arrested him for that. You …"

"Verity."

The voice was low, urgent. He placed a hand over mine.

"We can't arrest him. He's beyond our justice now."

"What?" Had they let him escape? Had he flown to some far off place with no extradition treaty? What was the man blethering about? I looked at him blankly.

"He's dead, Verity. Greg Ferrari was murdered three days ago."

"Oh, my God!"

I subsided, turning my face away from him and into the cushioned back of the settee.

"I'm sorry, Verity." He squeezed my hand, continuing to leave his own gently on top of mine.

I turned back to face him, seeing the pain in his eyes. Why? Was he blaming himself for this?

"What happened? How was he killed? Stabbed?"

"No," he shook his head. "He was found in his flat, a cable tie tight around his neck. The flat had been trashed, though whether he arrived home and found someone there, searching, or whether the place was turned over after his death we don't yet know. And I owe you an apology. You were right about the girl in Northworthy."

I nodded. Strangely I felt no satisfaction in the fact.

"We broke the news of Ferrari's death to his mother - the woman in Cotdene - and when we asked her about the hit-and-run, she admitted that Greg had been driving the car the night that Charlotte Neill was knocked down and killed ."

Poor woman, I thought. Her son had brought her nothing but grief.

"We also think, agree rather, that he tried to kill you."

My eyes flashed.

"He did."

"Yes. His mother told us that he'd rushed off on Friday to see his cousin on the same estate. A cousin who owned a 7½ ton truck. But he can't have killed JayJay."

"What? Look, Jerry, I know it's a different MO this time." His lips quirked at my use of the term. I ignored it. What did he expect? I worked for a crime writer. "But he could still have stabbed Jaynee Johnson."

"She was murdered on the Sunday evening," he began in a patient voice, "the day before you found her."

I grimaced at the memory. He squeezed my hand again, it was getting to be a habit.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean …"

"It's all right. Go on."

"Well, Ferrari was in London that evening, in full view of several hundred people at an awards ceremony. He didn't leave until after midnight - by which time JayJay was dead."

"Oh."

My brain ran furiously.

"How long have you known this?"

And why didn't you tell me, I wanted to ask but kept my peace. He'd probably told me more than he should anyway.

He smiled.

"For a while. Like you, we made the connection between Ferrari and Mr Smith. Sergeant Harrison's a bright girl. Then we began a deeper search into his movements and his background"

"Was he drugged too? And how did the killer give Miz - whatever you called it - to JayJay?"

"Midazolam. No, he wasn't and Midazolam is soluble in water, so she probably drank it. It was a hot day, remember."

I nodded.

"I'm sorry about JayJay, Jerry."

It was my turn to give the sympathetic squeeze.

"Oh?"

"Well, I'd forgotten she was your friend …"

"She wasn't," he interrupted firmly. "It's my job to find her killer but I hardly knew the woman."

He pulled at his lower lip, perhaps debating whether to continue. I remained silent looking at his face as if for the first time; the strong jaw, the brown hair curling over the wide forehead, his straight nose and dark, deep-set eyes.

"I met Jaynee Johnson only once at a civic function last November. We exchanged no more than a few words, though, luck being what it is, that was long enough to get us snapped by some photographer who sold the picture to the tabloids. I presume that's where your friend Jim Hamilton saw it. And before you say anything …"

He held up a hand I closed my mouth with a grin.

"… she wasn't my type. For all her modicum of intelligence, behind the make-up and hair dye she was a fairly ordinary woman underneath. Satisfied?"

"Satisfied."

I smiled, retrieved my hand from under his and picked up my notebook again. I flipped through the pages until I found the one on which I'd written the list from JayJay's diary.

"We're still left with two names unaccounted for. Spaniel and Dawn."

He nodded.

"Yes, the two that feature on dates closest to her death. Any ideas, Sherlock?" He grinned.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"None at all," I admitted, looking down at the book again. "We've identified, JB, Holly, Greg Ferrari and Candida …"

"Woh-oh, Candida."

KD's voice filled the room as she carried the flower filled vase to the mantelpiece.

"What?" She looked across at us. "I was only singing."

"Yes, we know. 'Candida' by Tony Orlando. She's named after it, apparently."

"No," said KD.

"Well, that's what she told me," I said.

"No, I meant, it wasn't by Tony Orlando, at least, not the first time it was released. It was by Dawn. Though they did become Tony Orlando and Dawn later, I'll grant you."

Jerry and I looked at each other. Was this what we'd missed?

"Dawn? Really?"

"Oh yes. Believe me, when it first came out, in 1970 I think, well before your time, anyway, it was by Dawn. Google would confirm the year."

"Why would JayJay have two different names for Candida Clark?" asked Jerry, voicing my own thought.

"I don't know. The first was hardly complimentary, though."

"What, thrush? I thought it was just a songbird."

KD guffawed loudly at the Inspector's innocence. I looked down unable to meet the gaze of either of them and unwilling to enlighten him. KD, bless her, had no such niceties.

"My dear Inspector Farish, Candida is the medical term for vaginal
thrush, a rather nasty, irritating and persistent fungal infection. Believe me, JayJay was not referring to birds nor was she being complimentary."

I felt my cheeks turning as red as my hair and sank lower down the sofa in the vain hope that it would swallow me during KD's doctor-like explanation. Farish, however, remained unabashed.

"Nasty, irritating and persistent, eh? She really didn't like her, did she? Perhaps Jaynee found cause to change her opinion of the producer if she later referred to Ms Clark as Dawn. Unless," he turned to KD with a wicked gleam in his eye, "you know of any other embarrassing female conditions with that name?"