Also by Elly Griffiths

  The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries

  The Crossing Places

  The Janus Stone

  The House at Sea’s End

  A Room Full of Bones

  Dying Fall

  The Outcast Dead

  The Ghost Fields

  The Woman in Blue

  The Chalk Pit

  The Dark Angel

  The Stone Circle

  The Lantern Men

  The Night Hawks

  The Locked Room

  The Last Remains

  The Brighton Mysteries

  The Zig Zag Girl

  Smoke and Mirrors

  The Blood Card

  The Vanishing Box

  Now You See Them

  The Midnight Hour

  Other Works

  The Stranger Diaries

  The Postscript Murders

  Bleeding Heart Yard

  For Children

  A Girl Called Justice

  A Girl Called Justice: The Smugglers’ Secret

  A Girl Called Justice: The Ghost in the Garden

  A Girl Called Justice: The Spy at the Window

  This ebook published in 2023 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2023 Elly Griffiths

  The moral right of Elly Griffiths to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  HB ISBN 978 1 5294 0 990 1

  TPB ISBN 978 1 5294 0 991 8

  EB ISBN 978 1 5294 0 993 2

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook by CC Book Production

  Cover by Ghost Design

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  For Dennis’s other granddaughters:

  Giulia, Sheila, Ellie and Katie

  Contents

  The Great Deceiver

  Also By

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  April

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  May

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  June

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Part 1

  April

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday, 12 April 1966

  Max Mephisto always dressed carefully for a rendezvous with a woman, even if said female was only two days old. Check suit with the new thinner lapels, white shirt, narrow tie. He paused in the hallway to select a trilby. Men were going out without hats now but Max, although he liked to think of himself as a modernist, could not quite bring himself to do this.

  He walked briskly down the stairs, ignoring the lift (he wasn’t in his dotage yet). In the entrance hall, light was glowing through the stained glass in the front door and Alf, the concierge, was dozing on his chair. He straightened up to a full salute when he heard Max approaching.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Mephisto.’

  ‘Morning, Alf.’ Max was grateful that the man didn’t know that he was also known by the frankly ridiculous title of Lord Massingham. He had a feeling that Alf would enjoy that one far too much. As it was he liked to salute and remind people that he’d been in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (‘The Sugar Stick Brigade’).

  ‘It’s a lovely one,’ said Alf. He gave Max an enquiring look as if to say, ‘off somewhere nice?’ but Max just responded with a vague smile. He liked to keep his life private and, besides, explaining his errand would involve saying the word ‘granddaughter’.

  Leaving a plainly disappointed Alf behind him, Max stepped out into the sunshine. He was about to walk towards Kensington High Street in search of a cab when someone shouted, ‘Max!’

  Max turned. Something about the voice seemed to drag him backwards, through velvet curtains, stage doors, vanishing cabinets and digs that smelt of rain and cigarettes. He had to rub his eyes before he could focus on the figure hurrying towards him: grey hair, threadbare suit, anxious expression.

  ‘Max. Thank God I caught you.’

  ‘Ted?’ said Max. ‘Ted English?’

  Max was proud of himself for remembering the man’s real name when it was his stage name that was clamouring to be heard. Ted was another magician. The Great Something. With a pang, Max thought of his old friend Stan Parks, also known as The Great Diablo, dead now for two years.

  ‘I’ve got to talk to you,’ said Ted. ‘I’ve just come up from Brighton.’

  By the looks of him, he’d run all the way. But Max was intrigued, despite himself. He had a soft spot for Brighton. He often thought that he and the south coast town had a lot in common: both smart on the outside but with something steelier and less charming lurking backstage. Plus, many of his friends lived there.

  ‘I was just on my way out,’ said Max. ‘My daughter’s had a baby.’ There, he’d said it. ‘I’m on my way to visit her in the maternity hospital.’

  ‘Ruby Magic’s had a baby?’ Ted seemed temporarily distracted. Ruby would be pleased that he remembered the name of her TV show.

  ‘Yes. A little girl.’ No name yet. Ruby said that she and Dex were still arguing over it.

  ‘Please, Max. Just a few minutes. It’s . . . it’s a matter of life and death.’

  Now Max was definitely interested. He steered Ted past the gawping Alf and into the lift. He didn’t look as if he’d manage the stairs. As the iron cage creaked upwards, Max suddenly remembered Ted’s stage name.

  The Great Deceiver.

  DI Bob Willis and WDC Meg Connolly stood outside the seafront house and breathed deeply. Sea air is good for you, Meg’s mother always said, but today the exercise was more to do with expelling the stench of death.

  ‘You never really get used to it,’ said the DI after a few minutes.

  Meg was grateful that the DI acknowledged what they’d just seen. She had been involved in violent cases before. Just last year she had investigated the death of a show-­business impresario and had nearly got herself murdered for her pains. She had seen a dead body then but it had been recently deceased. She had never before been in a room where a body had lain for two days. The pathologist, Solomon Carter, thought that Cherry Underwood had been stabbed on Sunday night. It was now Tuesday and she hadn’t been missed because there was no show on Monday. But fellow lodgers in the boarding house had noticed the smell and, eventually, the landlady had used her skeleton key. She had fainted, right into the arms of Ida Lupin, strongwoman.

  ‘We need to check everyone who was in the house on Sunday night,’ said the DI, still expanding his chest like someone in one of those advertisements on the back pages of the newspaper. Shamed by your poor physique?

  ‘Yes,’ said Meg. It would be a long job because the boarding house was full of people performing at that week’s Old Style Music Hall show on the Palace Pier.

  ‘What was her act again?’ asked the DI. Meg knew, from station gossip, that the DI’s wife had once been part of a troupe that performed naked tableaux. Perhaps this accounted for his embarrassment when discussing anything theatrical now.

  ‘Magician’s assistant,’ said Meg. ‘The act was called The Great Deceiver.’

  DI Willis grunted. Meg thought that it was a noise of disgust but, a few minutes later, he said, ‘I once knew a magician called The Great Diablo. Lovely chap.’

  ‘Was he a friend of Max Mephisto’s?’ asked Meg. This might be

a gruesome murder case, but she still couldn’t get over her fascination with the famous magician.

  ‘They were good friends once,’ said DI Willis. ‘Served in the war together. With the super too.’

  The fact that Max was a friend of their superintendent, Edgar Stephens, only added to his mystique.

  ‘Do you think Max knew Cherry?’ asked Meg.

  ‘He wouldn’t be bothered with an act like that,’ said the DI. ‘Max is a Hollywood star now. He’s beyond all this.’ He waved at the building behind them, which was certainly looking shabby in the spring sunshine, the wrought-­iron balconies leaking rusty tears. ‘Come on,’ he said, as if Meg had been keeping him waiting. ‘Let’s go and find out who killed Cheryl.’

  ‘Cherry,’ said Meg. It seemed very sad that you could be murdered and still people wouldn’t get your name right.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Have you got anything to drink?’ asked Ted.

  Max glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was only ten a.m. But he opened his drinks cabinet. It occurred to him that Ted must have taken a very early train from Brighton.

  He poured a whisky for Ted, who downed it in one gulp. Max refilled the glass, resisting the tempt­ation to have one himself. Nothing says ‘devoted grand­father’ like turning up at a maternity hospital smelling of alcohol.

  ‘It’s Cherry,’ said Ted, after a few seconds. ‘She’s dead.’

  Max waited. He wondered if he was meant to know who Cherry was.

  Ted drained his glass. The whisky didn’t seem to have had much effect and Max thought he remembered rumours about Ted having a drink problem. It happened to lots of old pros but Max was determined that he wouldn’t be one of them. He stopped himself from offering Ted another drink. He didn’t want the magician to drink himself into a stupor. Not without telling his story first.

  But Ted suddenly seemed to pull himself together. He said, ‘Cherry was my assistant. A good one too. I went to see her in her digs on Sunday morning. Just to go through the act. Well, this morning her landlady telephoned. Cherry’s been murdered. Stabbed to death in her bedroom. They’ve just found her body today.’

  ‘My God,’ said Max. ‘How terrible.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ted. ‘She was a lovely girl. And to think . . .’

  He produced a large handkerchief with a flourish, as if he was about to perform a trick, but, instead, blew his nose loudly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Max. He remembered when Ethel, who had once worked with him, had been brutally murdered. You become close to your assistants. You travel with them, rehearse with them, perform twice nightly. On stage, you need to be able to communicate without words. That was why Max had worked so well with Ruby.

  Ted emerged from his handkerchief and his voice changed, became businesslike.

  ‘You know the head of the Brighton police, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ said Max, suddenly wary.

  ‘I want you to go and see him,’ said Ted. ‘Everyone will think I did it. Tell him I didn’t.’

  How do I know that you didn’t? Max wanted to say. Instead, he tried for a soothing tone: ‘I’m sure the police won’t jump to any conclusions . . .’

  ‘Please,’ said Ted. ‘I didn’t do it. She was like a daughter to me.’ And he started to cry in earnest into the handkerchief.

  Meg’s first interview was with the owner of the house, Linda Knight. She wasn’t anything like Meg’s image of a seaside landlady. She was quite young, for one thing, and rather stylish. Linda had dark hair, cut in a chin-­length bob with a heavy fringe, and was wearing a skirt that, if not quite a mini, still ended halfway down her thighs. Meg was conscious that her uniform skirt was slightly too short when she was sitting down and that, as usual, she had a run in her tights. But, thank goodness for tights. Meg still remembered the agony of stockings, the annoyance when a suspender broke, the chance that someone would see an inch of goose-­pimpled thigh when you sat down.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Linda. ‘What a morning. That poor girl.’ She had a distinct cockney accent, which made Meg like her even more. Meg knew that her own voice betrayed the fact that she was born and brought up in Whitehawk, one of the poorest areas in Brighton.

  ‘Can you take me through what happened?’ said Meg. ‘I know it’s hard. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK, love,’ said Linda, ‘it’s your job. Shall I ask Annie to bring us some tea?’

  Meg had no idea who Annie was – the maid, perhaps – but she was all for the idea of tea. Linda went to the door and shouted downstairs, then came back to sit opposite Meg, knees neatly together. They were in what Linda called ‘the lounge’, a room with rather startling red walls. It had probably once been a grand drawing room but now the paintwork was peeling and the marble fireplace had been boarded up and replaced by a three-­bar electric heater. Two faded sofas faced a large television set. Only the sea view, displayed in the French windows, was unchanging and magnificent.

  ‘When did you suspect something was wrong?’ asked Meg.

  ‘I didn’t see Cherry on Monday,’ said Linda, ‘but that wasn’t strange in itself. I thought she was probably rehearsing. She didn’t come down to supper but I just thought that she might be out with friends or a boyfriend.’

  ‘Did she have a boyfriend that you knew of?’

  ‘No, but I didn’t know her that well. She’d only been here a few days. Some of the others – Bigg and Small, Ida – are regulars. But Cherry hadn’t been in the business that long.’ Linda dabbed her eyes with a small lace hankie.

  ‘Do you know what Cherry did before becoming a magician’s assistant?’

  ‘She said something about working in a shop. She was from up north somewhere. Sorry, I’m not being much help. I try to chat to the guests but I don’t want to pry.’

  ‘Let’s go back to Monday,’ said Meg. ‘When did you first start to worry?’

  ‘It was the smell,’ said Linda apologetically.

  The miasma still pervaded the house, even though Cherry’s room was, at this very moment, being cleaned by two stalwarts sent from the police station. The sea breeze, which made the velvet curtains rise like sails, couldn’t entirely blow it away.

  ‘I smelt something on Monday night,’ said Linda. ‘But I thought it was the drains. Sorry, I know that’s horrible . . .’

  ‘When did you think it might be something else?’

  ‘This morning the smell was still there. It seemed to be worst on the second floor landing and I thought it was coming from Cherry’s room. I knocked and there was no answer. I shouted Cherry’s name. There were a few of us gathered there by then. Me, Annie, Ida, Bigg and Small – the double act – Mario Fontana, the singer. Eventually I got my key and opened the door. She was on the floor . . .’

  Linda stopped and blinked.

  ‘Take your time,’ said Meg.

  ‘There was blood on the bed and on the carpet,’ said Linda, ‘and the smell . . . I almost fainted. Ida caught me. Mario brought me a glass of water. Then I pulled myself together and telephoned the police.’

  The call had come in at eight-­thirty. Meg and the DI had been on the doorstep at eight-­forty-­five. Now, according to the clock on the mantelpiece, it was half past ten.

  ‘Did you telephone anyone else?’

  ‘I rang Cherry’s partner, Ted. I thought he might know her next of kin but he said he didn’t. Then he rang off. Useless article. Probably drunk.’

  Ted English was top of Meg’s list of suspects. She asked when Linda last saw Cherry.

  ‘It must have been Sunday lunchtime. I always do a roast. Cherry came to the table but she didn’t eat much. She said she had a headache and didn’t feel well. She went back to her room before dessert.’

  ‘Did you see her again that day?’

  ‘No. I put out sandwiches and cocoa at six but not everyone comes down for that. And, as Cherry said she was ill . . .’

  Solomon Carter thought Cherry had been killed on Sunday night, something about blood clots, room temperature and decomposition of the body. The DI had gone quite green listening to him. Meg asked if Linda had seen anyone strange entering the house.

 

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