‘I’ve just been having lunch with Larry. He thinks poor old Ted’s past it. He wants to replace him with a real star.’

  Max said nothing. Across the road someone shouted, ‘It’s Pal! Hug or hit, Pal?’ Pal waved a jovial hand.

  ‘Can you guess?’ Pal squeezed Max’s arm again.

  ‘I’m sure I can’t.’

  ‘You, Max!’ Pal laughed delightedly. ‘He wants to replace Ted with you.’

  Chapter 10

  ‘Good work, WDC Connolly,’ said Edgar.

  He was pleased to be able to praise Meg. He thought he’d been a little harsh about the theatre visit and Bob had mentioned that Meg seemed quiet yesterday. Today, though, she was glowing with the knowledge of a job well done.

  ‘The white-­haired man has to be our main suspect,’ said Bob. ‘We’ll get the witness in and do an identikit drawing.’

  ‘They never really look like anyone human though, do they?’ said Meg.

  Edgar ignored this, though he knew what she meant.

  ‘Could it have been Ted English?’ he said. ‘His hair was greyish.’

  ‘Mr Glover definitely said “white”,’ said Meg. ‘And he was going in the opposite direction to Ted’s digs.’

  ‘We’ll show Mr Glover a picture of Ted when he comes in,’ said Bob. ‘There must be one outside the theatre.’

  ‘If our man went towards the aquarium,’ said Edgar, ‘he could have caught a bus. We need to check with all the companies.’

  ‘Unless he had a car,’ said DC Black.

  ‘If he had a car, you’d think he would have driven off in it,’ said Edgar. ‘But the witness described him walking away, moving quickly.’

  ‘Unusual for an old man to move so quickly,’ said Bob.

  ‘I said to Danny . . . to DC Black,’ said Meg, with a glance at her colleague, ‘that he might not be old if he was moving fast. Maybe his hair was blond. Like Tommy Steele. Or dyed white. Like Harpo Marx.’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ said Edgar. ‘And wasn’t there something about a Beatles jacket? That hardly sounds like the wardrobe of an elderly man. Though we have to be careful about stereotyping.’ A picture came into his head of an elderly man in a white suit, moving quickly through the holidaymakers on the promenade. The man stopped and winked at him. Diablo.

  Edgar realised that the others were looking at him. He hoped he hadn’t winked back. He cleared his throat. ‘DC Black, you keep on with the door-­to-­door. And ask around the Aquarium. There aren’t many residential houses in the area but people might have been working on Sunday night. WDC Connolly, go back to number 84 and ask about the white-­haired man. Bob, let’s get an identikit done and hope it looks human. Good work, everyone.’

  The younger officers left the room but Bob remained. Clearly had something on his mind.

  ‘Just wondered . . . about Emma . . . Mrs Stephens. You know they’re working on the case? Holmes and Collins?’

  ‘I do,’ said Edgar patiently.

  ‘Should we share this with her? About the white-­haired man?’

  Edgar hesitated. The police investigation should remain confidential but, if anyone was likely to make a breakthrough, it was Emma.

  ‘I’ll tell her,’ he said. ‘But let’s keep that to ourselves for now. Where’s DS Barker today?’

  ‘I sent him to talk to Cherry’s parents.’

  Edgar made a face. ‘He’s hardly the man for that sort of job.’

  ‘I know,’ said Bob. ‘But I’m short-­staffed and I think WDC Connolly is still too junior.’

  ‘I think she’d be better than Barker,’ said Edgar. ‘But I’ll try to get you some more manpower.’

  Emma would say that phrase was ‘sexist’, one of her new words, but he could hardly say ‘person power’. Not and retain any self-­respect.

  Emma was lucky. Not, she told herself sternly, that luck was the word to be used in connection with a grieving family. But Michael Underwood, Cherry’s brother, was crossing the hallway just as Emma descended the stairs. She managed to attach herself to the party – Linda, Ida, Annie and Michael – that proceeded to Cherry’s second-­floor bedroom.

  Emma had steeled herself but it was still horrible. The floorboards had been scrubbed but an ominous stain remained on the floor and on the flowered wallpaper. The air smelt suspiciously of bleach. Cherry’s bed had been stripped and her suitcase lay on top of it. Next to the case was a red jacket with a fake-­fur collar.

  ‘I’ve packed everything away,’ said Linda. ‘Do you want some time on your own?’ She glanced, rather accusingly, at Emma.

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ said Michael. He had a northern accent, which made Emma wonder if Cherry had had one too. It seemed wrong that she had never heard her voice.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Linda was saying. ‘Do tell your parents how sorry I am.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ said Michael, looking rather helplessly at the suitcase and jacket.

  ‘Michael,’ said Emma, ‘I’m a private detective employed by your parents.’

  She knew that the women were all glaring at her, but Michael answered, mildly, ‘I think they said something about that.’

  ‘Is it OK to ask you a few questions?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Michael, ‘if you like.’

  Emma looked at Linda, who said, after a pause, ‘We’ll be right outside.’

  ‘All right,’ said Michael.

  Emma sat on the bed and stroked the jacket’s collar. ‘This is lovely,’ she said.

  ‘She liked pretty things,’ said Michael, as if speaking with difficulty.

  ‘Cherry was younger than you, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. Three years younger. My little sister.’ That made Michael twenty-­four. He looked older, perhaps because he was thickset, his fair hair already looking as if it was receding.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Emma. ‘This must be so awful for all of you.’

  ‘We’re broken,’ said Michael. ‘The whole family is broken.’ It was a powerful image and Emma could see that it was an accurate one. The family might recover but the shape would never be the same again.

  ‘Can I ask how Cherry seemed when you last spoke to her?’ said Emma.

  ‘I hadn’t spoken to her for a while,’ said Michael, ‘but she rang Mum and Dad every Saturday. Last time she seemed in good spirits, excited to be in Brighton.’ He looked towards the window but Cherry’s room, like Mario’s, had no sea view.

  ‘Nothing bothering her?’ said Emma.

  ‘Not that I know of. And Cherry was never one to keep things to herself.’

  ‘Did Cherry have a boyfriend? Anyone at home?’

  ‘There was Harold. They walked out for a while. I think he was keen. But he married someone else last year.’

  That made Harold a less likely suspect, thought Emma. Not an impossible one though.

  ‘Someone said something about Cherry meeting a boyfriend on Sunday. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘No,’ said Michael. He rubbed his hand through his hair, making it stand up in a crest. ‘She didn’t know anyone in Brighton. This was the first time she’d been here.’

  That was the trouble with theatricals, thought Emma. They moved around so much it was hard to form relationships, except with each other. But the fact was that Cherry had arrived in Brighton on Saturday and on Sunday she was dead.

  Meg arrived at the boarding house to be told, by Annie, that there was a private detective upstairs.

  ‘A woman detective?’

  ‘Yes. Emma, her name is.’

  ‘I know her.’

  ‘She’s a pushy one. Managed to interrogate poor Cherry’s brother when he was here. Now she’s with Bigg and Small. They came in just as she was leaving so up the stairs she went again.’

  Meg could just imagine it. She’d been with Emma when she travelled the breadth of England to follow a lead. A staircase wasn’t going to put her off. Annie was looking decidedly flustered though.

  ‘It was you I came to talk to you, actually,’ said Meg.

  ‘To me?’ Annie sounded amazed and not unpleased.

  ‘I wondered if you’d seen a man hanging about the place on Sunday night. Medium height, white hair, wearing a dark blouson jacket.’

  ‘A what jacket?’

  ‘Like the Beatles wear. Or used to wear before they got all long-­haired.’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone like that,’ said Annie.

  ‘Like what?’ Linda appeared in the hallway. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said to Meg. She sounded less friendly than she had on Tuesday. Meg explained about the white-­haired man. To her surprise, Linda looked quite pale. ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘We’ve had a witness come forward,’ said Meg, falling back on police-­speak.

  ‘I didn’t see anyone strange in the house on Sunday night,’ said Linda.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Meg. ‘But you look quite shocked.’

  ‘You do, too.’ Unexpectedly, Annie backed her up.

  ‘It’s just a silly story,’ said Linda. She looked over her shoulder but the hall and staircase were deserted. A voice that could only be Mario’s was warbling somewhere in the eaves.

  Meg smiled encouragingly. No stories were silly as far as she was concerned.

  ‘This house used to be owned by an old man,’ said Linda. ‘An old man with white hair. When he died, it was bought by a young couple. They used to wake up at night to find him sitting on the end of their bed. Sometimes his face was really close to theirs, as if he was short-­sighted. Once he was rocking their child’s cot. They sold up and I got the place cheaply.’

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ said Annie, sounding comfortingly like Meg’s own mother.

  ‘Have you ever seen the man?’ asked Meg.

  ‘No,’ said Linda. ‘I don’t believe in that sort of thing.’

  Meg wasn’t sure that she, in her turn, believed the landlady.

  Emma descended the stairs to find Meg talking to Annie and Linda in the hall. Linda had one hand on her heart – Emma thought the day had been very hard on her – but Meg smiled as cheerily as ever.

  ‘Hallo, Emma.’

  ‘Do you know each other?’ asked Linda, her manicured brows rising.

  ‘We’ve met on previous cases,’ said Emma. ‘Thank you for your time today.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Linda. Rather acidly, Emma thought.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Meg. ‘I’ll keep in touch.’ And she followed Emma out into the street. A fine April rain was falling and the sea and sky had merged into one.

  Emma suddenly felt the need to talk about something other than violent crime.

  ‘I’m going to call on a friend,’ she said to Meg. ‘She lives a few doors down. Do you want to come?’

  Emma first met Astarte Zabini when she investigated the death of her fortune-­teller grandmother in 1953. Then she’d found the girl strange and rather unnerving but, over the years, they had become friends. Astarte took over her grandmother’s gypsy caravan on the pier but was also now rather famous in Brighton for her readings and horoscopes. In some ways, thought Emma, as she waited on the black-­and-­white tiled doorstep, time had stood still for Astarte. She was just as beautiful as she had been at nineteen, still lived in the same house, had never married and had no children. Sometimes Emma felt sorry for her friend, at other times she felt something close to envy.

  ‘Emma! How nice to see you.’

  ‘Didn’t you see me coming in your crystal ball?’

  ‘I did, of course.’

  ‘This is my friend Meg. Don’t worry about the uniform. This is a purely social visit. To get out of the rain.’

  ‘Welcome, Meg.’ Astarte inclined her head, which was ringed with golden plaits like a crown.

  Meg muttered something inaudible.

  ‘I’ve got a cousin staying,’ said Astarte, as she led the way up the stairs to the first-­floor sitting room. Emma knew that Astarte had family everywhere and was expecting a middle-­aged woman draped in fringed scarves. But sitting on the velvet sofa was a young man with long dark hair curling to below his shoulders and gold earrings in both ears.

  ‘This is Logan,’ said Astarte. ‘Do you both want tea?’

  When Astarte descended the stairs to the kitchen, silence fell. Logan showed no inclination to break it. He didn’t seem at all perturbed by the appearance of two women, one of them in police uniform, but grinned at them amiably. His shirt was open almost to the waist and gold medallions gleamed amongst the black chest hair.

  Finally, Meg said, ‘Are you staying here long?’

  ‘Just for a week or so. I don’t like being in houses.’ His voice was deep, with a hint of an Irish accent.

  ‘Where do you normally live then?’ Emma applauded Meg’s savoir faire. Men like Logan made her nervous.

  ‘In a caravan,’ said Logan. ‘I’m a proper gypsy. Not a didicoi.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Someone with mixed blood. Not a real Romany. I’m pure Romany and, yes, I travel in a horse-­drawn caravan.’ He smiled at Meg. His eyes – like Astarte’s – were a shifting mixture of blue and green.

  Meg asked more questions and they learnt that Logan was related to Astarte through her Uncle Merlin. He had two brothers and a younger sister. He used to share a cara­van with his family but now travelled with his brother Bartley. They liked to do something called ‘sulky racing’, which involved horses and carts. Logan and Bartley made their living fruit picking in the summer and selling scrap metal in the winter. But, since 1964, it had become illegal to do the latter without a permit. ‘Everyone’s got it in for us,’ said Logan. ‘There are no stopping places any more and, when we do stop, we get moved on. But we live a good life, a pure life, we do no harm. And there’s nothing like seeing the road unfurl in front of you, the world seen through your horse’s ears.’

  Emma was quite sorry when Astarte reappeared with a tray containing her famous aromatic tea. Logan lapsed into silence again but he continued to smile at Meg, who pretended not to notice.

  ‘Are you here because of the murder?’ said Astarte. ‘Poor Cherry. It’s not second sight – I’m friends with Linda.’

  ‘The landlady?’ said Emma. ‘I met her today. She seems nice.’

  ‘Nice?’ said Astarte. ‘I don’t know about nice. But Linda’s a genuine soul.’

  What was that meant to mean?

  ‘It must be hard work running a boarding house.’ Emma tried again.

  ‘Very hard work,’ said Astarte. ‘I sometimes think I should rent out rooms. This house is too big for one person. But, when I think of all the fuss and bother, I can’t face it.’

  ‘And it means you have room for itinerant relatives,’ said Logan.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Astarte, giving him a warm smile. Emma was ashamed to find herself thinking that ‘itinerant’ was a sophisticated word for someone who had just told them, ‘School and me – we didn’t get on.’

  ‘Were you at home on Sunday night?’ Meg asked Astarte.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Logan. ‘She’s got her police hat on.’ Meg blushed and looked down at her hard-­brimmed hat, which she’d placed on the floor by her chair.

  ‘I had a reading at six,’ said Astarte, not seeming to resent the question. ‘The client left at about seven-­thirty. I was alone for the rest of the evening.’

  ‘Did you see anything out of the window?’ said Meg. The sitting room, like Linda’s lounge, possessed French windows opening out onto a small balcony. There was a table in front of them and on it was a swathed item about the size and shape of a human head. Emma knew it was a crystal ball and she also knew that Astarte spent many hours in that spot, looking dreamily into its depths and then out to sea.

  ‘I saw various people going past,’ said Astarte. ‘Mothers pushing prams, trying to get their babies to sleep, teenagers going out for the night, restaurant workers on their way into town.’

  ‘Did you see a man with white hair?’ said Meg. ‘He would have passed by at about ten-­thirty.’

  ‘I went to bed at ten,’ said Astarte. ‘But I know the man you mean.’

  ‘You do?’ Emma and Meg both stared at her.

  ‘Old Mr Henderson,’ said Astarte. ‘He haunts number 84. More tea?’

  Chapter 11

  ‘She said it in such a matter-­of-­fact voice,’ said Emma. ‘As if haunting was his day job.’

  ‘That’s Astarte for you,’ said Edgar.

  He was quite fond of the fortune ­teller, or at least he had grown used to her over the years, though he did wish that Emma wouldn’t ask her to babysit. Already Marianne (aka Madame Mystica) had foretold that he would lose all his money and go bald at fifty. Unconsciously, he ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘But she hadn’t seen the white-­haired man?’ he said. ‘The actual, living man?’

  He hadn’t been surprised to learn that Emma already knew about their best lead. Apparently, she’d met Meg at the boarding house, and they had called in on Astarte and her cousin ‘who looks like a pop star’.

  ‘She hadn’t seen him,’ said Emma. ‘She goes to bed at ten. I’ll have to ask at the boarding house again.’

  ‘WDC Connolly will do that,’ said Edgar. Then, abandoning any attempt at confidentiality, ‘What did you make of them? The other residents of number 84?’

  Emma settled herself more comfortably on the sofa. The children were in bed and the television was off. The perfect time for a cosy marital chat about murder.

  ‘I quite liked Ida,’ she said. ‘She knew Ted and said he’d once made a pass at her, which might give her a motive. Mind you, Ida said she’d turned Ted down. In fact, she punched him. But they were good enough friends for her to help him with the act. I can’t see her killing Cherry in a fit of jealousy, although she’d definitely be strong enough. Ida mentioned something about Cherry meeting a boyfriend on Sunday but nobody else corroborated that. Her brother said that Cherry didn’t know anyone in Brighton.’

 

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