One Way Ticket (8 page)

Addi, of course, got a commendation. His
mother’s wish finally came true as he was assigned some of the more serious
cases. At least it meant the case notes I got to type became slightly more
interesting.

After a couple of weeks, I noticed Addi’s
manner seemed to be changing. He breezed into the office nowadays, full of
confidence and eau-de-cologne. Instead of sitting around chatting as he used to,
he never had time to talk, there was always an important meeting he had to rush
off to. Yes, it seemed Constable Markou had gotten a taste of his own
importance and, as a result, was rapidly disappearing up his own arse. (I tried
to explain this phrase to Vara but she couldn’t grasp it and spent the rest of
the day giving me funny looks.)

Aunt June’s friends suddenly became
extremely interested in me and would insist on talking to me whenever they visited,
concerned for my welfare. Of course, what they really wanted to ask about was the
capture. They should have teamed up with the detectives from the station and
run a joint questioning session.

The unexpected bonus in all this was that
I had finally stopped thinking of home. I had stopped looking over my shoulder
a while ago but now, I realised, in this busy time, I hadn’t thought of Swindon, or what had gone on there, once. Perhaps I was cured? Coming here had produced the
desired result. It was expunged from my mind, never to return.

Well, you can hope.

Still, at that moment life seemed to be
good. I was gainfully employed (okay, it wasn’t the best job ever but at least
I didn’t have to ask people if ‘they want fries with that’), Aunt June was
thriving, and I’d finally put events back home behind me. There were other
little successes to glory in too - my Greek was coming along leaps and bounds,
Aunt June’s villa was more liveable now I’d tamed the triffid outside and done some
minor d.i.y. jobs inside, and the local bakery had decided to stay open into
the new year instead of closing until March due to unprecedented sales (what
can I say, I have a sweet tooth).

So happy was I feeling that I found myself
actually whistling on my way to work one day. I only wish I had recorded it to
preserve it for posterity.

Firstly, Addi somehow solved a case
without my help (alright, without Aunt June’s help). He managed to track down a
gang of local kids who’d vandalised a classroom in a nearby school. Not that I
begrudged him this, I was happy he had found some success without me. Mostly.
That wasn’t the problem. He was moving onto bigger and better cases, that was
the problem.

“Can’t stop, got to get out and interview
another suspect,” he told me one day, throwing a load of rough notes into my
in-tray and just pausing long enough to give me a wink. This patronising
gesture was what passed for conversation with him nowadays. Ignoring my
irritation, I pulled his notes across and started to read. Over the weeks I’d
gotten used to his terrible handwriting but they still took a while to decipher.

“What’s he working on now?” Vara asked.

“Hard to tell from this, kind of him to
let me know, wasn’t it? I’ll have to look up the case number.” I typed in the
reference. “Tina Lloyd, homicide,” I read out.

Vara actually jumped excitedly, “You’re on
the murder case. I told you it might work out in the end.”

“Addi’s on the murder case,” I pointed
out. “I just get to type up this stuff.”

“It’ll be interesting though,” she told
me, her eyes shining. I started to wonder about Vara and whether it was healthy
for her to be around criminals.

She was right to an extent though, it
would be a break from typing up the insurance fiddles. At that point, I hadn’t
realised how much more notes a murder case would generate. Four days and two
files worth of case notes later, it seemed like Addi had interviewed half the
population of Kythios.

“I need to have a word with you,” he
announced, walking briskly into the office.

“Okay.” I put down the notes I was trying
to read on the desk. “Go ahead.”

“No, better outside.”

I raised my eyebrows at Vara but followed
him out. He led me outside the police building and onto the path at the back that
ran down to the seafront.

“What’s going on?” I asked, shivering into
my cardigan, suddenly feeling the cold.

“You know the case I’m working on?”

“Yes, Tina Lloyd. What’s happened?”

“I’ve been interviewing the local
residents.”

“I know, I think you must have been
through most of them.”

Addi looked down and seemed to be
examining the sandy earth covering the path. “I’ve run out of suspects.”

“You need my help?” Clearly the man was
struggling. I would have to step in and help. Again. “I suppose I could give
you a hand.”

“Actually, I was wondering if you could
ask your aunt?”

I can’t deny it felt a bit like a slap in
the face. “My aunt?”

“Obviously, I need your help as well,” he
quickly blustered.

“Too right you do.”

“I just think we’ll need some local
information as well.”

“We’ll talk about that, shall we?” I
hooked my arm through his and led him further towards the shore. “You’d better
tell me how far you’ve gotten.”

10 Secret Cops

“So, she was strangled?” I asked
as we tried to shelter from the wind behind some rocks. “That much I heard.”

“Yes. She had a cerebral hypoxia which
means...” Addi seemed to struggle with this, “…it’s to do with strangling.”

“Thanks for clearing that up. Tina Lloyd
was a big woman, wasn’t she? Not height wise but size wise, I saw it in the
notes. It would take some strength to strangle her?”

“Hmm, maybe. She was big but she’d just
recovered from a bad illness. She was probably quite weak. A person wouldn’t
have had to be that strong.”

“Oh. That doesn’t let out many people,
does it? Weren’t there any fingerprints?”

“Millions. All over her flat. Too many.”

“And it wasn’t a robbery?”

“Didn’t look like it. The place was very
tidy, there didn’t appear to be anything missing.”

“So someone deliberately killed her? And
no one had broken in right? So she’d let them in herself?”

“Yep. Unless she’d left the door open, of
course. It was unlocked when her body was found.”

Automatic ‘Yale’ locks weren’t the norm
here. I’d spoken to Aunt June about getting one fitted on her front door, the
old fashioned one she had wasn’t overly secure. Aunt June had been shocked at
the thought of needing to lock the door during the daytime. Bless.

A boat was crossing the harbour and we
both paused, watching it. “We’re not doing very well so far,” I said. “What
about the motive? Who gained from her death?”

“Her sister inherits pretty much
everything. It isn’t much though,” he added quickly, seeing my eyes light up.
“There’s only a small amount of savings and they’re not worth much now with the
current exchange rate. Mrs Lloyd was living on a work pension which stops with
her death.”

“But what about her apartment? That had to
be worth a bit. The neighbour’s one was very upmarket.”

“Rented. Her neighbours thought she owned
it, but it was actually owned by family friends who let her live there cheap.”

“That was very generous of them, why did
they do that?”

“She took care of it for them. They only
stayed there a few times a year, Mrs Lloyd looked after it the rest of the
time. She used to stay with her sister when the owners came over.”

“And the neighbours never knew? It’s the
first thing my aunt would have winkled out if she’d been her neighbour.”

“It’s a fancy area. They keep themselves
to themselves. That’s why we need someone like your aunt helping us.”

 “Let’s hold on before we start jumping
the gun.” I saw Addi’s brow furrow at that phrase and quickly continued: “What
if the owners wanted Tina out and she was refusing to go? Maybe they needed to
sell it?”

Addi shook his head. “The owners, what’s
their name? Burkiss, live in England. We’ve had your English police take a
statement. There’s no evidence to say they were trying to get her out.”

 “What about the neighbours? Didn’t anyone
see anything?”

Addi shook his head. “We haven’t found any
so far.”

“There were loads of them there that day
Sergeant H and I interviewed them, they were practically forming a queue! And
no one saw anything? Hm. Okay.” I thought for a moment. “Let’s go back to the
sister. If she was desperate for money even the small amount of savings might
be worth it to her?”

“No. She has a pension from her late
husband as well as her own. She’s not rich but she’s not badly off.”

“And her sister knew the apartment wasn’t
Tina’s?”

“Yes, she knows these Burkiss people as
well.”

“And Tina didn’t have any children?” I
asked.

“Nope.”

“We can rule out matricide then. What
about her love life?”

“Well,” Addi adjusted his position on the
rock we were leaning on, “that’s a bit more complicated. We’ve linked her to a
few men since she’s been in Cyprus but at the time of her death she was
apparently single.”

He pulled out his police notebook and
flicked to a page. It was a list with five men’s names. I didn’t recognise any
of them.

“Do they have alibis?”

“Pretty much. We couldn’t find any real
motive for any of them either.”

“Nothing else juicy come out of your
interviews?”

“A few more men were mentioned, but they
all deny being involved with Tina.”

“What if one of these men was hoping to
inherit something in her will, especially if everyone thought she owned that
flat?”

“Tina made no secret of the fact she was
leaving everything to her sister since she had no family of her own. It was
something she told people quite freely, probably to get sympathy. There’s no
indication anyone else would hope to get anything. Not unless a new will
suddenly pops up. Otherwise it was all settled years ago.”

“So, what we’re saying is, she had nothing
worth killing for, no kids, no bloke, and no enemies.”

“Exactly.”

“That doesn’t leave much, does it? I’m
beginning to see why this case is still unsolved.”

Addi gave me a ‘tell me about it’ kind of
look.

“Most murders boil down to money or love,
don’t they?” I asked.

By Addi’s blank look I could see he hadn’t
read the same women’s magazines as me.

“Trust me, they do. What about her bank
accounts? Had there been much activity?”

“I got statements from her bank, no major
transactions lately. Apart from her pension and rent, nothing larger than 40 euros
had gone in or out for a long time.”

“She sounds a bit tight-fisted.” The
little crease appeared on Addi’s forehead again. “Never mind. Tell me what she
was like. What was her apartment like? “

“Nice, roomy. But it belonged to the other
people.”

“No, I mean what about her stuff? What
sort of things did she have? You know, did she collect anything? Handbags?
Jewellery? Books?”

He thought about it for a moment. “I can’t
remember.”

“You’ve still got access to the apartment?”

Addi nodded.

I stood up. “Well, let’s go have a look. I
haven’t seen her place yet, just one of the neighbours. It might give us some
idea of what sort of person she was.”

“Her stuff isn’t there anymore. Her
neighbour packed most of it up and sent anything of worth to Tina’s sister when
we’d finished with it.”

I went back to leaning again. “Great, so
there’s nothing left?”

“Probably not. We bagged up some things.
They’re in the evidence room.”

“Can we have a look?”

I’m not sure how Addi explained my
presence to the officer responsible for the evidence room, but he didn’t bat an
eyelid when I entered. There was a box of personal papers that had belonged to
Tina, and a large plastic sack of her personal belongings. I noticed Addi
didn’t bother putting on gloves to touch them.

Tina, it seemed, had been keen on garishly
coloured, plastic jewellery.

“Not worth anything,” Addi commented as I
pulled some of the pieces out.

There were also a couple of bright red
lipsticks among her possessions, well used. A picture of Tina was forming in my
mind, it was a little different from the rather more conservative image that
had appeared in the local newspaper report of her death.

Luckily, whoever had bagged these
seemingly random items had picked up some photographs. They confirmed my
impressions of Tina Lloyd. In one photo, she was laughing at the camera,
sprawled on a man’s knee, skirt riding up and stocking tops flashing. In
another, she was blowing kisses, chest prominently displayed in a low cut top.
Tina had obviously been no wallflower.

“Liked to enjoy herself by the look of
things,” I told Addi, showing him the photos.

“Seems like the usual expat to me,” Addi
said, dismissively.

“You’d hardly see Aunt June dressed like
that. And you reckon Tina had no bloke on the go when she died?”

“That’s what her sister said.”

“I find that hard to believe. She looks
the sort who needed a man in her life.”

“Doesn’t every woman?”

He had a lot to learn, but I left it for
now. “What did her friends say?”

“Too many men came and went for them to
keep up.”

“Could be a motive for murder there. She
may have been playing around with someone’s husband, or maybe one of the men
was possessive. What about the blokes in this photo?” It looked like her 65
^th
birthday party (the banner hanging over her head was a bit of a giveaway), she
was surrounded by four men.

“We’ve only traced two of them.”

I tucked the photo in my pocket.

“You can’t do that!” Addi whispered,
horrified. “We’re not allowed to just take evidence out of the lock up.”

“I expect I’m not allowed to help with an
investigation either.” I looked at my watch. “It’s gone lunchtime, I’d better
go back to my desk, Vara will think it’s strange if I miss a meal.”

“What about the investigation?”

“We’ll come back here afterwards and go
through that box of Tina’s personal correspondence.”

Back at my desk, I tried not to rush
through my ham sandwich and banana too quickly in case Vara thought something
was wrong. I am a bit of a greedy eater naturally so it wasn’t many minutes
before I was finished.

“I’m just helping Addi catalogue some
documents, if anyone needs me,” I told her before ignoring the work
accumulating in my in-tray and sailing off.

Addi and I settled down at the desk in the
back corner of the evidence room for an afternoon examining Tina’s paperwork.
He’d brought the case file too and I had a read through of the notes I hadn’t seen
yet.

 It was kind of fascinating going through
someone else’s correspondence. Piecing Tina’s life together was like doing a
jigsaw puzzle. A terrible, tragic puzzle. Her murder had become a bit more real
since I’d found the photos of Tina and touched her belongings. She didn’t feel
like just a statistic anymore.

I picked up a plastic bead necklace and
looked at the other items that had been considered important enough to be
bagged up. Cheap jewellery, some garish nail varnish, a pair of sunglasses
that, according to the name inside, looked like they came free with a magazine,
some well read paperback romances. It wasn’t much to sum up someone’s life. I’d
yet to see a statement from anyone really upset by her murder. It made me
wonder if many people had been at her funeral. Had anyone cried? Would this
have happened to Aunt June when her time came if I hadn’t come along? No one
caring enough to give a damn? I suddenly felt quite sad.

“This woman’s electric bills were really
low,” Addi said, piling the bills up.

“Yeah?” I answered, pulling out of my
thoughts. “What do you think that means?”

“That I have to tell my mother about this
rate, she could save a fortune.”

“Addi, concentrate.”

He looked a little hurt. “It’s a good
deal.”

“This is a real person. Was a real
person,” I corrected myself. “I think we should be a bit more respectful.”

I saw him pull a face before he went back
to his pile of paperwork.

After digging through some bills and more copies
of her bank statements, I found a pile of old birthday cards. “Have you spoken
to the people who sent these?”

Addi looked up from a pile of newspaper
clippings. “Yes. Well, I expect so. Maybe, if they’re from the friends we
interviewed. We did go through her address book, you know.”

“Mobile phone?”

“She didn’t have one.”

I stopped at one of the cards. “This one
is written to ‘Aunty Tina’. I didn’t know she was an aunt?”

“Yes, her sister has a son and a married
daughter.”

“It doesn’t say that anywhere in the
notes.”

He pulled the file over and quickly
scribbled something on a page. “There, it does now. It doesn’t matter anyway,
they don’t inherit anything.”

“And yet, still nice to know.” No wonder
he hadn’t solved this case. “Are there any other relatives lurking around?”

“I don’t think so. Is it important?”

I began to despair.

“They don’t stand to gain anything. None
of them are going to inherit under her will so what’s their motive?”

When Addi nipped off to use the toilet, I
slipped some of the birthday cards into the back of my notebook. I knew someone
who could help with those.

“You said she was living off a work
pension, where had she worked?” I asked on his return.

“She’d been a receptionist back in England.”

“What, in an office?”

“No, in a doctor’s clinic, you call it a
surgery? I don’t understand that, they don’t operate on people there, do they?”

“No, not anymore, it’s probably an
historical thing.”

“Hysterical?”

“I doubt it was very funny for the people
involved.”

“It’s very confusing some of the names you
have for things.”

“What about ex-patients? Would she have
had access to people’s medical records? Some things people might want to kill
to protect. Although I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head. Paternity
tests? HIV positive?”

“No, she couldn’t see their medical
history, only their names and addresses.”

“Huh, I’ll bet she saw some.”

“Well, we haven’t found a connection to
anyone here.”

“Yet. Let’s go through the rest of this
stuff.”

It took us a few hours to go through the
whole box of papers.

“There wasn’t much there,” Addi said,
stretching up his arms.

“I don’t know. I think we’ve got a better
picture of her now. Despite the bubbly persona, she was quite lonely at times,”
I pointed to letters from a friend back in Essex telling her to cheer up. “And
she was very careful when it came to money, we’ve seen her bills. She managed
to live well on very little.”

“And she had trouble with something called
bunions,” Addi chipped in, waving letters from her chiropodist, “but none of this
helps find her murderer.”