Expose! (20 page)

Having spent a restless night, haunted by dreams of Probes covered in trifle playing the drums, I got up early and crept downstairs.

Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Evans were still fast asleep. I peeped into the open sitting room door and saw a mass of empty glasses and bottles of half-drunk gin, wine, and a keg of beer. There were going to be a lot of hangovers this Saturday morning.

The kitchen wasn’t much better. There was no bread left in the stoneware pot and only enough milk to make a cup of tea. In the end I ate dry cereal.

Scribbling a note to Mrs. Evans, I mentioned I was off to Plymouth that night and if she wanted me to give Sadie a parcel, I’d happily deliver it.

I had a slight headache but that was nothing compared to the feeling of utter dread that had settled in the pit of my stomach at the prospect of seeing Wilf.

The
Gazette
looked the worse for wear, too. In the window the inflatable snail’s shell lay limp and puckered. In reception, the remnants of yesterday’s all-day party were still in evidence.

Tony was jumping childishly on the semi-collapsed helium balloons, trying to pop them. Every time there was a loud bang, Barbara clutched her head in pain.

“Where is today’s
Gazette
?” I said anxiously.

“Wilf took them all upstairs,” said Barbara. “Dreadful snafu on the front page, dear.”

Tony strolled over and thrust a copy in front of me. “Kept this one back for you,” he said with a smirk. “Nice photograph of Randall.”

Written in bold in gigantic font was LARCH LEGACY NAMED! Under more headlines—TIRELESS PETITIONER TRIUMPHS AT LAST and LARCH LEAP IS NEW JUMP FOR OLYMPIC HOPEFULS—a grinning Dave stood in front of a flourishing yew hedge wearing a moleskin jacket emblazoned with the logo,

“Looks like someone is going to be writing retractions and apologies today,” Tony went on. “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing all morning with indignant cutters and baffled readers.”

“It’s not ringing now,” I said defensively.

“That’s because I had to take it off the hook,” said Tony.

“Oh, be quiet, Tony,” Barbara snapped. “Haven’t you got something better to do?”

“I’ll tell Wilf you’re here.” Tony sauntered out of reception.

“If you want my opinion,” said Barbara. “I’d stick to your guns. I’ve known Dave since he was a nipper, and if he said Sammy Larch promised him the money, then he did just that.”

“Did Olive say there had been a mistake?” I said hopefully.

“Olive doesn’t bother herself about money.” Barbara rubbed her forehead. “I really must take another aspirin.”

“Are you feeling all right?” I said noting the dark rings under her eyes.

“I was up most of the night with Olive,” Barbara said with a sigh. “Poor thing was very shaken up. I don’t care what that
dreadful
sailor said, the Pratt woman tried to suffocate Olive to death. Her health isn’t good—and now she’s begun to hallucinate. . . .”

“The Beast of Bodmin?”

Barbara nodded, but wished she hadn’t. Clutching her head again, she sank down into one of the two brown leatherette chairs. “It sent her over the edge. I’m very worried about her state of mind. Douglas seems to be the only person who she feels safe with and if that
dreadful
sailor presses charges. . . .”

“Pssst!” came a voice from the nook. Barbara rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I forgot to mention Topaz has been waiting for you, though why she thinks there is any privacy in that nook is anyone’s guess.” Since Barbara liked to maintain that the flimsy plywood structure built across the far corner of reception was extremely private, it just showed how severe her headache was this morning.

Topaz peeped out of the brown-spangled curtains. “Over here. Hurry.”

“I suppose I’d better put the telephone back on the hook,” Barbara grumbled, taking a silver hip flask out of her cardigan pocket. “There is only one way I am going to get through today. Would you like some?”

“No thanks.” I slipped inside the nook. Topaz was sitting on one of the plastic chairs dressed in her medieval serge uniform and white-lace mop cap.

“
Good grief!
What happened to you?” I said. Her face was covered in telltale red splotches. Despite Steve’s protests that he never wanted to be alone with Topaz, he’d clearly changed his mind.
Men!

Topaz frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Your face? It’s all red.” I bet she’d try and deny it.

Topaz thoughtfully touched her chin. “Oh,
that
.”

“A food allergy, perhaps?”

“No. I kissed that Steve chappy,” Topaz said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Why? Are you jealous?”

“Of course not.”

“For a man, he’s a frightfully good kisser but I have to say that pillow talk is a complete waste of time,” said Topaz. “He refused to tell me a thing. Are you going to sit down?”

“Can’t stop. I’ve only got a few minutes. What kind of information were you hoping to get from him?”

Topaz shrugged. “Just snippets really. In my new role as the Caped Kitten it’s frightfully important that I’m ahead of the game.”

“What game?”

“Being in the loop,” said Topaz. “Steve hears lots of snippets but he said he’d only tell a real reporter.” She slumped back in her chair and scowled. “I told him I worked for the
Gazette
but he didn’t believe me.”

“I’m sure if it’s a life-or-death situation, we’ll soon know about it.”

“Aren’t you a tiny bit curious?”

“About snippets? No,” I said. “But I
am
curious about what really happened in the ladies’ loo last night.”

Topaz fell silent. She began to twiddle with the lock of hair that always seemed to dangle out of the front of her mop cap.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude,” I said. “But I really have to go upstairs.”

“I was trying to think,” she snapped. “All right. I’ll tell you what happened in the ladies’ loo if you tell Steve that I’m a real reporter.”

“An undercover reporter,” I corrected her.

“Sssh.” Topaz jabbed her finger at the brown-spangled curtains. “I bet Barbara is listening.”

“Barbara already knows.” I sat down at the table and took out my notebook and pencil. “Start from the beginning.”

“You promise, you
swear
you’ll tell Steve?” Topaz extended her hand. “Shake on it.”

“I promise.” I took it—taking care to keep my other hand hidden behind my back with my fingers crossed. Where Topaz was concerned, I didn’t want to promise anything. “You’ve got five minutes to tell me what happened in the ladies’ loo.”

“Well, it all started with Annabel.”

“
Annabel
? What’s she got to do with it?”

“You think she’s your best friend, but she isn’t.”

“Go on.”

“Remember when that sailor was in such a fizz over his missing aunt?”

How could I forget? “Yes. Go on.”

“Well, I thought I’d go and look for her, too,” Topaz said. “I’m not
just
a vigilante, I like to do nice things for old people.”

“So you went to the bathroom . . .”

“That was afterward. On my
way
to the ladies, I overheard Annabel talking to you’ll never guess who.”

“Topaz . . .” I said in a threatening voice. One of my pet peeves was her insistence on playing childish guess-who games.

“Ronnie Binns.” Topaz beamed.

“I’m sure she wasn’t happy about that.” I already knew that Ronnie had been trying to corner Annabel for days.

“But she
was
!” Topaz said triumphantly. “There was a funny alcove covered by a heavy dark blue curtain outside the gents. I saw her drag him behind there.”

“
Drag
him.” I laughed. “Behind a
curtain
?” Like everyone who’d experienced Ronnie’s personal hygiene problem, the idea was ludicrous.

“So I crept up to the curtain to listen and you’ll never guess—”

“Topaz!”

“Sorry. They were talking about you.”

I went very still. Why would Annabel be talking to Ronnie Binns about
me
? “What were they saying?”

Topaz shrugged. “I only heard snatches because her mobile phone rang and she said something about Plymouth and a photograph tomorrow night—that must mean,
tonight
. They both came out and I had to dart around the corner and
that’s
when I saw Eunice going into the ladies.”

I’d lost interest in Eunice and the ladies’ loo. “Why didn’t you find out who Annabel was talking to?”

Topaz frowned. “Don’t be silly. I could hardly go up and
ask
her.” But all I could think was why Plymouth? What photograph? “I hear lots of gossip at the café,” Topaz went on. “Everyone knows that Eunice was frightfully in love with Douglas Fleming. My vigilante instincts knew she was going to pick a fight with Olive. And I was right!”

“How did you know that Olive was in the ladies’ loo?”

“I saw her go in.”

“So you set off the fire alarm.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Topaz said. “I heard the two women screaming at each other and knew it was a case for the Caped Kitten, which was why I never go anywhere now without my equipment.” She pointed to her orange rucksack under her chair.

“Tell me exactly what you saw in the bathroom.”

“I came in through the bathroom window.”

“How?”

“I’d opened it earlier in case I needed a getaway plan. The Caped Kitten always plans ahead,” said Topaz. “That awful Pratt woman was sitting on top of Olive Larch holding a brown paper bag over her face,” Topaz said. “It was frightfully exciting. Olive was thrashing about trying to stab her with a pair of scissors.”

“Couldn’t you have just separated them?”

“In my line of business, you have to act fast,” Topaz said. “I just pulled the Pratt woman off Olive—incidentally, I have been weight training—bundled her into a stall and then you turned up.”

“You are going to have to tell this to the police,” I said, closing my notepad.

“No way.” Topaz shook her head vehemently. “Are you kidding? The Caped Kitten never deals with the cops.”

“Then, I’m not telling Steve you are an undercover reporter.”

“But you promised!” Topaz wailed. “All right. All right. I’ll tell Colin—but no one else.”

Barbara’s head poked in between the curtains. “Wilf is asking for you, Vicky.”

“I have to go,” I said to Topaz, and got to my feet. My heart began to thump disconcertingly in my chest at what lay ahead.

“Just one more thing. . . .” Topaz paused at the entrance to the nook. Was everyone stealing my
Columbo
technique? “You absolutely
swear
that you’re no longer friends with Annabel?”

“We just work together, Topaz. Okay?” Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to argue. I had far more important matters on my mind.

“Goody.”

Leaving Topaz seated in the nook to write up her report, I approached Barbara behind the counter in reception.

“What sort of mood did Wilf sound in?” I said.

Barbara shrugged. “It’s hard to say, but remember, follow your instincts, dear. That’s what I always do.”

And with that in mind, I thrust back my shoulders, held my head high, and mounted the steps to the scaffold.

21

“Dave was just as shocked as we were, sir.” I’d been standing at Wilf ’s desk watching him clean out his Dunhill pipe for a full three minutes and he hadn’t even acknowledged my presence.

The front page of the
Gazette
lay accusingly before me. In the bottom left-hand corner was a photograph of Scarlett Fleming dressed as Cleopatra holding a Victoria sponge cake with the caption: ON THE STAGE OR BEHIND THE STOVE: GIPPING MOURNS LOCAL CELEBRITY and, TURN TO PAGE 11 FOR THE FULL STORY.

I hated being in Wilf ’s office even more than Pete’s. It was so claustrophobic. That was the problem with these old Queen Anne buildings with their small, square rooms and high ceilings.

Piles of newspapers towered on every available surface—floors, filing cabinets, and even under Wilf ’s desk. The only reason there were none on the windowsill was because when the stacks got too high, Wilf would open the window and toss them into the backyard below where they slowly decomposed over time.

I glanced over at Pete who was lounging against a dry-erase board that was divided into fourteen sections—each representing a page in the newspaper. Since today marked the start of a new week, it was currently blank.

“Dave really
was
shocked,” I said again.

Pete yawned. He looked tired. “Shocked doesn’t cut it.”

Wilf still said nothing. He just carried on scraping the bowl with a small penknife, tipping the caked tobacco onto a small mackintosh square on his desk. Finally, he looked up. “I’m disappointed in you, Vicky. Taking Randall’s claim at face value without checking the facts smacks of amateurism at the lowest level.”