Jazz and Die (15 page)

‘May I have a look at your hairbrush, please, Maddy?’ he went on. He’d already got out a plastic sample bag. He was going to take a few of her hairs and see if they matched any on the monk’s robe.

She went next door to her bedroom, glad to have a chance to repair her face. While she was gone, there was a discreet knock
on the door and a voice called: ‘Room service.’

‘Come in,’ said Chuck.

It was the same smart waiter who had been serving me such lovely breakfasts. He gathered up the used cups, plates and cutlery and put them on his trolley. He smiled at me.

‘No omelette this morning, Miss Lacey? I had very special one for you, for your last morning at Whyte Cliffside Hotel.’

‘Unfortunately, no. I overslept. I shall miss those omelettes. But thank you just the same.’

He reached over for the empty croissant dish. I froze. His hand was a few feet away from me. It was only for a second. But one glimpse was enough. Partly visible from under his white shirt cuff were a few inches of plaited string, the meditation kind, the charity kind, the save the world in friendship kind.

‘T
he young lady? She does not want any breakfast?’ the waiter enquired casually.

I thought quickly, on my feet, though I was sitting down. ‘She’s gone out,’ I said. ‘To the library. She had some books to return.’

‘Ah, that is good that the young lady likes to read books,’ he said as he wheeled out the trolley. He opened the door and took the trolley out onto the corridor.

Chuck Peters and DCI James looked at me in surprise.

‘Jordan? What was all that about?’ His voice was low.

‘I didn’t know that Maddy had borrowed any books,’ said Chuck, bewildered. ‘She only reads magazines.’

I waited until I heard the footsteps receding and shook my head, miming ‘no questions, please’.

‘They make a lovely breakfast here, don’t they?’ I said brightly. ‘I’ve had several delicious omelettes.’

James caught on immediately. ‘The hotel has an excellent reputation, that’s why it’s always full.’

‘I’ve been coming for years,’ said Chuck, wondering what on earth was going on. ‘It’s the best.’

‘So, Jordan?’

I thought I heard the service lift doors closing.

‘The waiter’s wrist,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘He was wearing one of those string things. Maddy said that her assailant wore a string wrist band.’

‘Lots of youngsters wear them,’ said James. ‘They are very
popular. A charity thing. A friendship thing. They never take them off.’

‘But not always people at the same hotel as me and Maddy,’ said Chuck. ‘And not one who asks where Maddy is. Who knew all our movements.’

James flicked on his phone. ‘I’ve a constable waiting outside in an unmarked car. Pete? Watch the staff entrance, see if a young man comes out, about thirty, slicked-down dark hair, slim build. See if he goes towards the town. Get another plain clothes to get to the library immediately. Let me know if this guy goes anywhere near the library.’

There was a long pause.

‘What will you do? Take him in for questioning?’ asked Chuck.

‘Ask where he was last night?’ I said.

The constable was back on the phone.

‘Coming out now, guv, yeah, in a bit of a hurry. Jeans, blue T-shirt, dark hair, making for the town. Walking quite fast. Lighting a cigarette.’

‘Get someone to the library immediately. I’ll come down now. We’ll follow him at a distance, then take a different route once we get to the front.’

James switched off his phone. ‘Well done, Jordan. You’ll make a detective yet.’

The charm of the man. He could really lay it on. No wonder I was insanely mad about him.

Maddy came back into the room. She was wearing different sandals. ‘The others hurt,’ she said. ‘And the straw itched.’

‘I think they are probably made for the beach,’ I said.

‘You stay here, Jordan,’ said James, getting up to leave.

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re staying with Maddy. We might do an identity line-up if we pull him in. You’ll need to bring Maddy to the station.’

‘I actually want to go home to Latching,’ I said desperately. ‘I’ve things to do. My life to live. A new case to solve.’

‘They can wait.’

‘The jazz festival is over.’

‘So?’ James looked at me coldly, no warmth in those granite eyes. ‘Are you a clock-watcher now? That’s not like you, Jordan. You usually stick to a case until it is resolved, one way or another.’

‘This is not my case. It’s your case.’

‘Are you two having a row?’ Maddy asked with interest. ‘That’s cool. Do you know each other that well? Have you got a thing going on?’

I could see James struggling. It was a moment I quite enjoyed. ‘No,’ he said, at last, straightening his face. ‘We don’t have a thing going on. And we are not having a row. Jordan will follow her conscience.’

Maddy came over and flung her arms round me. She smelt of some strident new perfume. ‘Jordan is my bestest friend. She’ll look after me. For always and always and forever.’

I wondered if she had been drinking. Had she got some left-over Bacardi Breezer stashed away in her room? But I gave her a hug back. I think the girl needed a few hugs.

‘Off you go then,’ I said to James. ‘Do your Sherlock Holmes sleuthing. Don’t trip over your pipe.’

Maddy thought this was funny and started laughing. It was good to see her laugh.

‘I’ll borrow some jigsaws from the lounge. I am serious about the jigsaws. I’ll get a really difficult one, loads of sky.’

‘Do your worst,’ said Maddy, jumping about. ‘I’m brilliant at sky.’

‘I still have to drive to Wigan,’ said Chuck, even more bewildered by what was going on. He seemed to have lost the plot.

I turned to him. ‘Off you go, Chuck Peters, jazz maestro, go do your Wigan sell-out concert. I’m sure the police will have finished with your car by now. We will look after Maddy. She is the most important person here, you’ll agree. But please keep in touch: email, mobile, text, landline. Whatever suits you, but Maddy will be safe with me.’

I knew I sounded optimistic. But his Wigan concert was
important. I’d looked it up on the internet. Thousands of tickets had been sold.

James had gone. I hoped he would keep in touch. Swanage was a delightful place. I loved it as a watering hole from the past. But the view from the hotel was limited. Even if it was the same sea that I loved.

While we waited for the call from DCI James, I took the opportunity of packing Maddy’s things. No easy job, since she had bought a ton more. It was easier to pack my belongings. There was only the black silk top to add to my wheelie bag. It went in without protest.

Maddy was playing games on her laptop when I got back from my room. She did not seem at all perturbed at my brief absence. She had recovered.

Chuck was ready to leave for his long drive to Wigan and I assured him that Maddy was in good hands. He was reluctant to leave her. The police had returned his car, precious instruments safe.

‘It’s best for this malicious person to think that his plans have gone awry and that you are not at all worried and work is back on schedule.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘That’s how he would think.’

We were booked out of the hotel before anyone could know. No trail. No forwarding addresses. Chuck met all the bills. I drove Maddy down to the police station, only stopping to fill up with petrol and collect the pink velvet stool. The wasp only did about twenty-eight miles to the gallon. She was a thirsty girl. I parked her discreetly out of sight, in a side road.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Maddy, not looking up from her laptop. She was playing a game. She was some wonder woman shooting down monsters with rapid fire.

‘You are going to do an identity parade,’ I said. ‘It’ll take about ten minutes.’

But it took considerably longer because Maddy was reluctant. She’d put on a baggy pink fleece with the hood pulled forward
as if she didn’t want anyone to see her face; she was also wearing big sunglasses. They told her to stand behind a double glass wall, reassuring her that no one could see in.

‘Are you sure? I can see them.’

There were six young men, five of them off the streets, all dressed identically in something dark with a hood over their heads, lined up against a wall. The station sergeant couldn’t get six monk’s cowls. The five men off the streets got paid. I’d seen the advertisements. Not a lot, but it was beer money.

Maddy was breathing fast. She didn’t like this. At first she wouldn’t look at them.

‘Take your time, Maddy,’ said DCI James, who had recovered the more kindly aspect of his nature. ‘They can’t see you. Just say which man looks like your attacker.’

It was impossible. The poor girl had no idea. They all looked the same. She did try but I could see that the whole procedure was gruelling. She couldn’t identify the wrong man. She had not been told that the waiter from the hotel was among the six. I knew which was the waiter immediately from his height and the shape of his head. But then I had seen him many more times than Maddy.

‘I don’t know,’ she faltered. ‘It could be any of them. Number three or number six, but I’m not sure.’ Number three was the waiter. Something about the taut body language. ‘Five is a bit too tall.’

After the identity parade, when the six were all dismissed, Maddy was asked to help with a police identikit drawing. But again, this was useless. Loads of grey shadow, more hood than head. I was itching to depart, especially if the suspect waiter was returning to the hotel. He might be on lunch duty and discover that we had booked out. As far as the hotel was concerned, Maddy had left with her father, on her way to Wigan.

I didn’t ask DCI James what happened when they detained the waiter or on what grounds he was included in the identity parade. The less I knew the better.

We went outside, instantly energized by the sea air after the
stuffy offices. Maddy looked ready to take a dive to the shops again but I was having none of that. She was totally my responsibility now.

‘Ready for our drive to Latching?’ I said. ‘It’s quite a way. We’ll take the scenic route.’

‘Hit the road, Jack,’ she sang.

It was an exhilarating drive. The wasp seemed to know she was homeward bound. She was not exactly on automatic pilot, but near. Perhaps she had a homing instinct, like a sea bird, and the Latching seashore had a different smell to the fishy Swanage Bay.

‘Am I really going to stay in your new flat?’ Maddy asked.

‘Yes, for the time being. I’m not quite sure how we’ll manage. It’s very small.’

She was watching me at the controls of the wasp. ‘Will you teach me to drive, Jordan? Dad will never let me.’

‘Quite right too. You are too young to drive.’

‘But I ought to know what to do in case you have a heart attack or a stroke.’

She really knew how to cheer me up.

There was some logic in her argument. I talked her through the basic controls, told her what I was doing and when. She took a genuine interest.

‘I’m going to have a car exactly like this, when I’m sixteen.’

‘You’ll be lucky. The Mazda MX5 is unique. They don’t make them like this any more.’

We stopped at a small nondescript wayside cafe for coffee and the ladies room. The single-storey building needed a lot of paint-work. I was paranoid about Maddy being recognized.

‘Pull your hood up,’ I said. ‘I’m going to call you something different in the cafe. Not Maddy. What name would you like?’

‘What fun, like in a film? In case we are being followed? I’d like to be called Summer. I love the name. Summer. Can I switch off for you?’

I nodded. She leaned over and switched off the ignition and took out the key.

I pocketed the keys, in case she decided to take off somewhere. She probably thought she could drive now.

We went into the cafe, sat in a corner where I could see the door, and ordered coffee, Coke and toasted teacakes. Maddy had decided to call me ‘sis’. She had either upped her age or reduced mine. Either would work.

‘This is a crummy joint, sis,’ she said.

Not the moment for a lecture in politeness. ‘It’ll have to do, Summer,’ I said. ‘As long as the loos are clean.’

‘Shall we go to the cinema tonight, sis? I’d like to see the new Bond film. That is, if there is a cinema. Where are we going?’

‘Eastbourne,’ I improvised quickly. ‘I’ve booked us in at the Grand. Right on the front.’

Maddy gobbled down the toasted teacakes. Her appetite had recovered too. We found the toilets. They were clean. Paper towels. We were back in the wasp in fifteen minutes.

‘Can I switch on for you?’ she asked expectantly. I let her. I didn’t see any harm. It was all part of her education. Her father would buy her a car as soon as she was old enough. Driving lessons were expensive.

It took several hours but the wasp ate up the miles. I would have put the hood down except I didn’t know how to do it.

Maddy liked the look of Latching as we cruised into the town, especially the amusement arcades. I drove along the front so that she could get some idea of how wide and spacious and safe it looked, so different from the claustrophobic Swanage Bay. Then I turned in towards the long and tortuous climb to the car parking area of the flats. She was still impressed.

‘But this is lovely,’ she said. ‘It feels so safe. No one can get in without your parking pass. The security arm won’t rise. Let me do the pass, please. I can reach the screen. Look.’

Maddy leaned over and activated the parking pass without any trouble. She was flushed with achievement.

We heaved our cases and carrier bags out of the car and took the lift up to the top floor. I was beginning to get the dreaded vertigo feeling. No James to talk me along the walkway. Would
Maddy notice my hesitancy?

But she was talking non-stop and we were dragging along so much luggage, the walkway seemed crowded. I got a few waves of unsteadiness but nothing like the dizzy sickness of before. I left the velvet stool in the car for the next day.

We were at my front door. It looked like home. I almost apologized to it for going away. The moment I switched on the lights and the bathroom night storage heater, it became warmer and more welcoming. Maddy danced through the two rooms and was soon out on the balcony, leaning over the rail, watching the crowds walking below along the promenade. The sea was washed out, far to the horizon. The pier stood on black spidery legs across the sand.

‘I love it,’ she said. ‘It’s like a doll’s house. So tiny. I could sleep out here, Jordan, on the balcony.’

‘No way. The pigeons will wake you at dawn, fly down and nibble your ears.’

‘I won’t be a nuisance, I promise. Can we go on the pier?’

‘We’ll see. One shred of nuisance and I’m packing you off back to your father.’

‘Wanna bet, sis? Then that nice detective won’t like you any more.’

Maddy had certainly recovered her spirits.

‘I’m going down to the leisure and camping shop to buy an inflatable mattress for you. I’ve got a sleeping bag. Do you want to help me choose? I might get the wrong colour.’

‘Sure, sis,’ she said, casually, coming back into the sitting room. She had already unpacked her belongings. My sofa was strewn with clothes. Her cosmetics were stood all along the windowsill.