Strictly Murder (32 page)

She gave him her best haughty stare.

"If I can think of any, Inspector, you'll be the first to know."

He left shortly
afterwards
, telling me to take care, stay out of trouble and behave.

"He doesn't know you well, does he?" remarked KD after he had gone.

"Not yet," I replied.

I was working on that, though I didn't feel it necessary to tell her so. I leant back on the pillows, eyes closed, thinking about JayJay's riddles. Jerry had said nothing about not working on the remaining conundrum. Five down, one to go. Spaniel.

I was still scratching my head over the identity of the last remaining name on my list the following morning when the door bell rang. A moment or so later, KD walked into the living room with a large rectangular box.

"What have you got there?" I asked from my semi-reclined position on the sofa.

"It's for you. Something I ordered yesterday. Special delivery," she replied setting the parcel down on the coffee table at the side of the fire place while she fetched a paper knife from the desk.

"For me?"

She pulled a large book from the box and I groaned inwardly. I'd been 'recuperating' at Bishop Lea for nearly three days. Over sixty hours of KD clucking round me like a mother hen was beginning to grate. She had been very kind but I'm not one of those women who 'enjoy' poor health. With the exception of Jerry's very welcome visit, my boss had done her best to keep the world at bay. I hadn't seen a newspaper or any television since the previous Thursday and she had gone to quite inordinate lengths to keep the conversation off the topic of murdered celebrities. Yesterday, when I'd protested that I was bored and needed something to read, she had presented me with a new hard backed tome and said,

"You might like to read this."

"What is it?" I'd asked, picking it up and looking dubiously at the lurid front cover of sand, pyramids and a curvaceous blonde wearing a pith helmet sitting atop a grinning camel.

"It's a new biography of Dame Freda Park by that dreadful woman Polly Tinker. My publisher has given it to me in exchange for a quotable quote to go on the cover of the next edition."

"Have you read it?"

"Oh yes. Freda Park was an amazing woman. A great adventurer and explorer and an inspiration to her sex. She led a truly exciting life. It's just a shame that the writer of that particular effort," she'd pointed to the unopened book in my lap. "couldn't write with the same excitement and panache."

"Is that going to be your 'quotable quote', then? I suggested mischievously.

KG glowered at me over the top of her glasses.

"Certainly not. Polly Tinker might be seated on the same table as me at the next publisher's lunch and bore me rigid with the details of her forthcoming project."

"Is Freda Park still alive?" I asked, idly flicking through the photos in the middle of the book.

"Heavens no! She disappeared about ten years ago on an expedition to the Hindu Kush. She was over ninety at the time."

"It's a wonder she lived that long if some of these chapter titles are anything to go by. Danger in Darfur, Terror in Timbuktu, Bekkar and Beyond."

"You see! Bloody woman can't write for toffee."

I'd agreed with KD's assessment by the end of the first chapter.

That had been yesterday, and another book was not what I needed right now. I needed - no, wanted - to go home.

"Here we are. Especially for you."

KD carried the huge volume across from the table and placed it, carefully, in my lap. Her face was wreathed in smiles - it would be churlish not to appear delighted at the gift. I looked down.

"Oh."

'The Complete Encyclopedia of Crime', I read. 'Solved and Unsolved Cases From the Middle Ages to the Present Day'.

"It's my latest idea," explained KD from the end of the sofa. "There must be dozens of interesting cases in there for you to check out over the next few months."

Months? It could take years, judging by the thickness and size of it. I flicked through the pages. Arranged alphabetically, it covered everything from the A6 murder to somebody called John Young.

"According to the reviews it contains all the details we need for my stories. And, if we want more information, there's still the internet."

She's determined to keep me out of trouble, I thought, looking at her beaming face.

"Thanks, KD. Do you want me to get started straight away?" I grinned at her. "Seriously, this is going to prove a great help. Where did you find it?"

"Kristy Baker-Sanders mentioned it to me sometime last week, and after our conversation at the hospital …" She meant when I'd cried like a baby about losing my job, "… I thought you might find it useful ."

"Oh, I'm sure I shall, thank you,"

"I said that I don't want to lose you, Verity, and I meant it. You're too good at your job for me not to take your concerns seriously."

She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen and, easier in my mind, I returned to my self-imposed task of finding JayJay's and Greg's killer.

"We are taking the rest of the day off," announced KD, coming back into the living room an hour later carrying a wicker basket covered with a cloth.

"We are?

"Yes, you could do with a change of scene and some fresh air. I've made an executive decision."

"Well, OK, though I'm hardly dressed for it. Still, if you insist."

"I do. Bring your notebook and mobile, just in case."

That was more like it. Despite outward appearances and protests to the contrary, KD never switched off. Never stopped being a writer. Ideas came to her in the most unlikely places and at the most inconvenient times; it was up to me to keep pace with her, to get everything down for later retrieval. Where she led I would follow. Mind you, I would draw the line at the bathroom door.

"Where are we going?" I asked, when we were in the car.

"You'll see."

KD turned the nose of the Range Rover towards Bellhurst and waited for a break in the traffic, peering to her right to make sure the road was clear before pulling out.

"We are going for a picnic," she said as she accelerated away from Bishop Lea. Behind us the automatic gates swung, silently, closed.

I checked my watch. Half past eleven, which meant an early lunch or a long drive. Just short of the outskirts of Bellhurst she turned right onto a minor road. With no idea of her ultimate destination, I relaxed and enjoyed the drive. The height of the Range Rover allowed me to see over the tops of the hedgerows to the patchwork quilt of the English countryside stretching away on either side. Green and brown squares were dotted here and there by the bright yellow flash of rape fields, like a Mondrian painting. A tall row of poplars shot past on the left, sheep ambled on a distant hillside, fields of torpid, cud chewing cows gathered around the single sentinel left standing guard in their midst. I breathed a contented sigh.

"Nearly there," said KD a few miles further on, taking a left hand fork down a country lane. The road was rising, carrying us up an escarpment towards woods of beech and oak. We hadn't passed another vehicle in miles, which was just as well given the width of the Rover and the narrowness of the roads. Almost at the brow of the hill KD stopped just past a gate on the left.

"Shan't be a second."

I waited till she got out of the car and opened the padlocked gate as wide as it would go.

"Here, hold that, will you?"

She dropped a combination lock into my hand before reversing the Range Rover, rather expertly I had to admit, between the gate posts.

"Here we are." She switched off the engine. "Can you close and lock the gate, please, Verity. I'll make a start unloading the car."

I'll say this for my boss, when she plans a picnic she does it in style. None of this sitting on the ground getting grass stains on your clothes whilst sipping lukewarm fizz and nibbling a curled up sandwich. Oh no. The back of the car was packed with folding chairs, a collapsible table, blankets, rugs, a food hamper, two cool boxes, the wicker basket and table cloth she'd been carrying earlier and a wine cooler.

"You've forgotten something," I told her, surveying this baggage train of goodies.

"Oh?"

"Yes, the old fashioned wind up gramophone with trumpet."

She laughed.

"Damn! So I have. And I specifically told old Besom, the butler, to put it in the car. Never mind. We'll have to make do without."

She handed me two of the chairs.

"Just through there. Follow that path and turn right."

I did as I was told, catching my breath in delight at the view that unfolded beyond the thin screen of trees.

"Do you like it? This is one of my favourite places." KD came up behind me with the folding table and a holdall, the rug tucked under her arm.

I nodded. "I can see why. What a view."

We stood on a grassy ledge on top of the escarpment looking out over the 'green and pleasant land' below.

"Thankfully, I know the man who owns it and he's more than happy to let me come here."

Which explains the padlock, I thought, as we battled with the furniture.

"I'll leave the food in the car for the moment."

KD shook out the rug before laying it on the grass and placing the table on the top of it. From the voluminous black holdall she removed a plastic bowl, a paper bag with salted peanuts in it and two tubes of potato based snacks.

"There."

She sat on one of the chairs and poured the peanuts into the bowl.

"How civilized. Damn, I've left the booze in the car."

"I'll go back for it," I volunteered.

She threw the car keys at me.

"It's in the blue cool box and the glasses are in the white cutlery bag. Bring the wine cooler, as well, will you."

I wandered off, leaving her to apply the sun cream she'd also thought to bring with her. Honestly, travelling with KD is like a planned military operation. She was wasted as a writer. She was a natural born logistics expert.

Seated at last, I poured two glasses of chilled mineral water before re-capping the bottle.

"Water, Verity? There's white wine in there as well."