A Is for Apple (15 page)

Speaking of Doyle and Maretti… I tried to catch Harvey’s eye but he was talking to a girl about some sculpture work she wanted to do. Maybe he was boning up on art facts from his brother. My phone buzzed in my bag and I thought, if he yells at me for reading a text I’ll— Well, I don’t know what I’ll do, I’ll do something to him.

I pulled the phone out. As so often, it was my fancy work Nokia, not my ageing personal Siemens. The text was from Luke and said simply
Call me. NOW.

Frowning, wondering what could be so important, I picked up my bag, slid from my seat and approached Harvey.

“Sir?”

He looked surprised, then a flicker of amusement crossed his handsome face.

“Can I go to the toilet?”

He looked puzzled as to why I was asking, but he nodded and waved me off to the door. Men never ask questions about girls and toilets, because they don't want to get involved in any nasty women’s problems debate.

I found the girls loos around the corner—graffiti’d and smelling of many things, of which cigarette smoke was about the most pleasant. Ah, schooldays. I checked under the doors of all the cubicles, then called Luke.

“What’s so urgent? I’m in the middle of an art class.”

“I’m sure Harvey won’t mind.”

“Yes, but my sketching is suffering. What’s happening?”

“You know the police radio I have?” Stupidly, I nodded. “Well. I heard something very interesting ten minutes ago. A body has been found. In the woods outside Green Roding. Not a very long way from Marc’s house.”

“Eep.”

“Er, yes. And it’s a male body, in a suit, dead for at least a day.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And what I’m thinking is, we go out there and have a look.”

“They’ll let us in?”

“Do you have your ID?”

“Of course.”

“Then they’ll let us in.” He told me where the body was and told me to get there ASAP.

I signed off, trying to think of a way to get out of this. No. I had to go and see the body. I had a rather nasty suspicion I might know whose the body was.

Which left me with trying to think of an excuse to get out of class. Thank God it was Harvey, and not a real teacher.

I drummed my fingers on the edge of a sink, then looked at the sink and washed my hands. There was nothing to dry them on—at least, nothing that wouldn’t merit a second bathing in, say, bleach—so I stood there with wet hands for a bit.

Then someone came in, and I darted into one of the cubicles.

“Sophie?”

Christ, it was Lucy.

“I, uh—” Perfect excuse. “I’m really not feeling too well. I think I ought to go home.”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised. “You looked okay…”

“Well, it’s sort of come on suddenly. I think if I go back in there I might be sick. Could you—could you go back there and tell Harv—Mr. Harvard I really feel bad. I think I should go home.”

“Can you drive?”

I ground my teeth. “I’ll be fine. I don’t live far.”

I waited in silence for her reply.

“Well, okay then.” She sounded reluctant. “Hope you feel better.”

As soon as she was gone, I dashed out and in the opposite direction, out of the building and round to Ted. I jumped in and off we went, making it to Green Roding in far less time than was legally possible.

The great advantage of a car like Ted is that if you have to rumble off over a field to look at a body or whatnot, he takes to it perfectly happily. No worrying about scratching paint work or anything. It’s already pretty scratched.

I pulled up on the edge of the little wood, where a couple of police four-by-fours were parked up, and a young copper was stringing stripy tape around the trees. I could see Luke leaning against one of the cars, talking to a guy in a white coat.

The young copper tapped on my window. “I’m afraid you’ll have to move on, miss,” he said. “This is a crime scene.”

“Duh,” I said, opening the door. “That’s why I’m here.” I showed him my ID (I love doing that) and went over to Luke.

“Took your time,” he said.

“Had to get out of class. So,” I looked at the copper in the white coat, “what’s going on?”

“Who are you?”

“She’s with me,” Luke said, and I couldn’t help a smug little smile.

“Woman with her dog found him,” the copper said. “About half an hour ago. Doesn’t look like he was killed here—there’s no blood around and he’s not lying right. Must have been left somewhere else while he stiffened up.”

And I know where, I thought. “Do you have an ID on him yet?”

He shook his head. “No wallet or anything.”

“Can I see?”

“Be my guest.”

“Sophie—” Luke caught my shoulder as I made my way over to the steep bank, at the bottom of which was a cluster of people and a police photographer taking pictures.

“What?”

“Do you remember last time you saw a body?”

How could I forget?

“You nearly passed out.”

“That’s because it was on my sofa. Besides, I think I have an idea of who it is.”

“Who?”

I shook my head and made my way down the steep slope. The body was now on its back, one arm broken at a grotesque angle, and the shiny suit was muddy and torn. My guess was it had been rolled down the bank, quite some time after death as the pathologist had suggested, and although I couldn’t be sure that the arm hadn’t been broken in the garage, I was pretty certain it wasn’t normal for people to die with their arms stuck up in the air.

“…must have been on his side for quite a while,” one of the policemen was saying. “Look at that arm.”

Ha! One step ahead.

“And what’s that stuff on his side?” asked another. “Petrol?”

I made a mental note to check Marc’s car for petrol leaks.

As I got closer, I felt a shudder run through me, and it wasn’t just because this body was dead. It was because last time I’d seen it, it had been pointing a gun at me and firing.

“Frank Doyle,” Karen said, slapping a grainy file photo down on the desk.

“That’s him.”

“Well, well. Made it here and got a knife in his back.”

“What kind of knife?”

“Don’t know, haven’t got the path lab reports back yet. We’ll know tomorrow. You haven’t seen anything of this character, have you?” She put another photo on the desk.

I looked at him. “Is this Maretti? I saw him in New York. I think he was driving the car that hit me.”

Karen nodded and sat back down at her desk. “Chances are he’s dead too. Luke, keep monitoring those channels.”

Luke, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, nodded.

“In the meantime, we need to find where our friend Marc has got to.”

“We checked his house on the way back,” I said. “No one there.”

“Maybe they ran away,” Luke said idly.

“I’ve checked with the office in Dunmow where Shirley Shapiro works,” Karen said. “She’s there.”

“Did you ask her about Marc?”

“How could I, without alarming her? Oh, and Sophie, what was the car that hit you?”

I stared at her, nonplussed. “Big. American. Hard. Why?”

“I’ve been checking Manhattan police records. When they found Shapiro’s body they also found a Crown Victoria, registered to Mario Maretti.”

“In the water?”

She nodded. “It had a rather fetching Sophie-shaped dent in the front bumper.”

Luke laughed. I made a face. “Could have been made when it went in the river,” I said.

“Not if it was Sophie-shaped,” Luke said. “Mmm. Bet it was curvy.”

“Shut up,” I said. “I don’t suppose there’ll be any skin traces on it or anything?”

“No. Not any more. But trying to prosecute Maretti for a hit and run would be hard enough if he was in the country. Don Shapiro’s men are a set apart from the police.”

“Plus, he’s probably both out of the country—” I began.

“And dead,” Luke finished.

“We can only hope.”

Luke stayed to look up some contacts for Maria, who was still in Spain, and I drove home alone. My phone started ringing when I was halfway there. Ignoring safety protocol, I answered it, driving with one hand.

“Harvey?”

“Are you okay? Lucy came in and said you were going home… All your stuff’s still here.”

“It’s only artwork. And barely that. I’m okay, I just got a call from Luke, there was something I had to do.”

“Are you gonna tell me what?”

There was a note of concern in his voice, and I forgot that I was professionally mad with him. “Yeah. Remember Shapiro’s friends? Doyle and Maretti?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, it seems all we have to worry about is Maretti.”

There was a pause. “This cannot be good,” Harvey said.

“Nope.”

But when I got home there was more bad news waiting for me. Docherty was leaning against my front door, looking like sin, catching the rays of the sun on his high cheekbones. Well, fancy that. He doesn’t combust in sunlight.

“What are you doing here?” I said, rummaging in my bag for my keys.

“Got news for you.”

“Oh, goody. But I meant out here. Usually you just let yourself in.”

“Felt like being polite.”

That must be a new sensation.

I found my keys and Docherty followed me into the chaos of my little flat. It’s not that I’m untidy, it’s just that… Okay, I’m untidy. There’s always stuff everywhere, usually covered with a fine patina of dust and cat hair. I flipped some laundry (clean) off the sofa and gestured for Docherty to sit down.

“Tell,” I said.

“Firstly, did I hear that one of your pursuers has been found?”

“You mean Doyle? Yeah. Just goes to show, if you work for the mob you’ll get stabbed in the back.”

“Shapiro wasn’t a mobster,” Docherty said, calmly ignoring my bad joke. “He wanted to be, but he’d never have made it. Really he only had those two to call his mob.”

“So I don’t have to worry about a dozen irate Americans trying to kill me,” I said, rolling my shoulders to try and get rid of the art room backache, not to mention the tension Docherty induced in me. “That’s always nice to know.” I frowned. “I’m still not very sure on why they were trying to kill me.”

“Possibly it’s something to do with you seeing the body,” Docherty said dryly, and I wondered, not for the first time, where he got his information from. “It’s that I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Are you my counsellor now?”

Why was I being so scratchy? The body? Or was it Docherty? At the back of my mind I remembered his threat about the apology. I thought I had a good idea of what he wanted, but with Docherty you could never be sure.

Besides, that’s a hundred and fifty grand car I’m paying off. Whatever terms he’s working on, I can’t afford them.

“Be nice, or I won’t tell you,” Docherty said. “I found out what killed Shapiro.”

“I was going to go with the slit in his throat. But maybe that’s too obvious.”

“Yeah,” Docherty said, “too obvious.”

He held my gaze for a while. Eventually I said, “Okay, so what did kill him?”

“It was probably the knife that did it,” Docherty conceded, “but there was also the matter of the bullet in his back.”

I blinked. “Xander didn’t mention that.”

“Ah, yes. Xander. Your American friend. In whose apartment the body was found?”

“Well, so he says.” I started pacing. “It had gone when I got there. Are you saying he was shot before his throat was slit?”

“Either before or after. It’s impossible to tell.”

“Wait—how do you know this?”

He smiled. “I have contacts.”

Of course he did. Everyone had bloody contacts.

“But that’s not the best part,” Docherty said. “The best part is, they found the gun that shot him. Right there in Xander’s apartment, under a pile of canvasses.”

“Good. Do they know whose it is?”

He gave me a steady look. “Yes. Xander’s.”

Docherty didn’t stay long after he’d dropped his bombshell. I wondered if Xander knew. Or Harvey. Or anyone else.

I wondered why Docherty had told me.

I sat around for a while, feeling scratchy. It was still only early afternoon—school wouldn’t be out yet.

I made a decision and put some books in my bag, then put my bag in the car. I got in too, to keep the bag company, and together we set off for Mont House.

I was feeling icky about Marc. A body turned up in his garage, then vanished, and was found later just down the road. And Marc hadn’t been seen all day.

Just like in New York.

I pulled up his steep drive and parked outside the house. It looked dull, no movement behind the windows. No TV. I rang the doorbell and waited.

And waited.

I rang a couple more times, my alibi in my bag. Still nothing.

Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Ted and I motored back the way we’d come and further, up towards Ugley and Angel’s church. I didn’t know if she’d be in, but I was pretty sure Xander would be there.

Outside her door a gargoyle peered at me, and something inside its gaping mouth whirred and clicked. The door opened, and Xander looked out at me nervously, his hair still shocking, although it had faded to an ugly khaki now.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I said brightly. “Can I come in?”

He pulled the door back. “Sure. Are you on your own?”

“Yep. Luke’s working.”

“Oh.” He went over to one of the sofas in the nave and collapsed, looking boneless.

Well, that’s not exactly true. He didn’t look boneless so much as bony. Skinny.

“Have you lost weight?”

He shrugged and lit up a cigarette. “I guess. Kind of. Maybe.” He looked up at me. “Not on purpose. Angel’s always cooking but I…”

“Not hungry?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Bastard. Whenever I was shocked or depressed I made a beeline for the fattiest, sugariest food there was, and hoovered up the calories.

“Does Angel mind you smoking here?” I asked.

He shrugged again. “She has air fresheners all over.”

That wasn’t really an answer.

“Xander,” I began, about to tell him about the gun, but right at that exact moment Angel walked in, looking beautiful, carrying some shopping bags.

“Sophie! What are you doing here?”

“Came to see Xander. When’s Harvey coming home?”

“I think three-thirty.” She checked her watch. “Not long now.” She sorted through her bags and chucked a couple at Xander, who looked inside, then up at her with an expression of joy.

“These are really French Connection?”

“Of course. Although over here we have FCUK. Far funnier.”

Xander pulled out a couple of slogan T-shirts. “Cool as FCUK” and “I’m not perfect…But there are parts of me that are FCUKing excellent.”

“Oh, I love this,” he held up “FCUK, feel the swell”.

“Very cute.” I had a couple of Franglais T-shirts from there myself.

“This is excellent. They had some in Bloomies, but not like this. And jeans! Angel, you’re an—well—”

“I know,” she said, resigned to the joke. “I’m a seraph. Anyway. Sophie—how’s school?”

I made a face. “School’s hard.”

“Is Harvey behaving himself?”

“He’s very convincing.”

“I’ve been tutoring him,” Xander said proudly.

“Xander,” I broke in, hating to interrupt his admiration of his new clothes. “Did you hear about the body?”

His face fell. “What body? My apartment body?”

“Yes—well, actually…”

I told him about Shapiro being found on Sunday, which he already knew, and then about Doyle, which he didn’t. Angel messed around in the background, putting away her new clothes, coming out and showing us some shoes, making up some cake mixture. I wanted to live with Angel. She was such a good
wife
. And she took the whole SO17 thing completely in her little stride. You didn’t have to pretend with her.

“Does Harvey know?” she asked as I told Xander about Doyle.

“Yes. Well, sort of. Not in detail. Not with, you know, visuals.”

“Maybe he could paint it,” Xander said.

“And there was one more thing. Until we get this sorted out you’re going to have to keep a very low profile,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because they found a bullet in Shapiro. And it came from your gun. Which has bits of his blood on it.”

Angel put down her wooden spoon and stared. I knew how she felt.

“But—I didn’t—I never used the gun—in fact, I kept it in a drawer by my bed,” Xander stammered.

“So why was it under the sofa? In Shapiro’s blood?”

He did a dramatic palms-up. “I don’t know! I was really stoned that night.”

I sighed. Angel sighed.

“Maybe you should keep off the grass while you’re here,” she said.

“Like I could get any.”

There was silence for a bit, broken by my phone ringing. It was my Siemens, and the number on it was my parents’ house.

“Hola?”

“Hello, love.” My mother. “Listen, I’m just off to Tesco’s, is there anything you’d like me to get?”

I thought about this for a while. “You do know I don’t live with you any more, right?”

“But you’re coming for tea.”

“Am I?”

“Didn’t you get Charlie’s message?”

“Apparently not. What are you having?”

“Tuna steak. And those little Celavita potaoes…”

Oh. So that was it. “Mum, do you want me to cook the tuna?”

There was a pause. “Well, you know you always do it better than me…”

This was true. I am, by and large, not the world’s greatest cook, but I do damn good tuna.

“See if Luke wants to come,” she offered eagerly.

“I think he might be working.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Well, ask him anyway. Do you want to come over about seven?”

Luke still hadn’t called. I suspected that whatever Maria needed from him was going to take a while.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

I ended the call and looked at Angel and Xander.

“Hours to kill,” I said.

“Where’s Luke?”

Honestly, was I not a separate entity any more?

“He’s got some stuff to do,” I said. “Do you want me to go?”

I gave Angel my puppy eyes. The scent of chocolate cake was gorgeous, and her sofa was really comfy, and her TV was really big, and look, there were all these
Buffy
DVDs just piled up next to it.

“Which series?” she asked, and I beamed.

I sent Luke a couple of texts, which he replied to halfheartedly. One appeared to be in Russian. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be up for tea with my parents.

At six forty-five, I picked myself up and stretched. “Bye bye, Spike.” I waved to him on screen, and he gave me a smouldering look. “Mmm. See you guys later,” I addressed the real occupants of the room, who waved goodbye as I got in Ted and drove back to Stansted and through to my parents’ house.

“Isn’t Luke coming?” Mum asked as I went in, and I started to feel a bit annoyed.

“No. He’s working. He has his own life. Working. We don’t go everywhere together.”

She looked slightly taken aback. “Okay, all right. I just wondered.”

“Why are you so desperate to see him?”

“He’s nice. He likes you.”

I should hope so, he was sleeping with me.

I cooked the tuna, incinerating Mum’s and leaving mine slightly rare, as always, and we ate outside. Chalker was out with whatever girl he was currently seeing, so the three of us sat and bickered pleasantly about airport expansion (my family is one of those where, even when we all agree on a subject, we can still argue about it for hours) until it got cold and dark and Mum went to bed. Dad and I sat out for a while, listening to music coming from the neighbours. There was a bottle of wine on the table and I really fancied a glass, but I had to drive home some time and I’d rather do it now than in the morning. Besides, I'd got rat-arsed last night after we’d found the body “Okay,” Dad said after a while. “I’m going to bed. Are you stopping out here?”

“I think I might,” I said. “If that’s okay.”

He smiled, looking surprised. “Of course it is. Just lock the doors when you go, and drive safely. Unless you want to stay…?”