Three Little Maids (31 page)

‘Both, ma’am. Her mother’s a nurse in the local hospital and her dad’s in insurance.’

‘Better get the father to identify her then.’

They climbed up the metal staircase from the beach onto the seafront, to face the interested audience of holidaymakers and locals collecting quickly on the busy promenade. Adventurous children, like monkeys, clambered out from under the pier, and attempted to climb up over the stone groyne to invade the beach but were sent away quickly by the uniform on duty below.

Laura Goring, Clairvoyant and Tarot reader, while out on her early morning stroll, dressed in a brilliant purple silk
kaftan, long chains of amber beads swinging and clinking around her neck, a heliotrope silk bandanna swathing her frizzed hennaed hair, leant over the pier rails to watch the ongoing drama below with an uneasy look on her long, bony features.

Close by on the pier, overlooking the rails, two worried town councillors called on by anxious hotelkeepers, conferred together and looked down at
the police activity with growing anxiety. A brutal murder couldn’t be played down that easily in Harling. This could cause a crisis in the town’s publicity drive. They could do without it occurring at such a busy peak holiday period.

The annual carnival week was due to commence the following Monday, with beauty and baby contests, dancing competitions and talent shows on the pier, the big fancy dress carnival parade and prize floats, culminating in a large firework display in the Victoria Park on the Saturday
. It could all be so easily ruined by this…

Three

In the local newspaper office, Mel Goring answered her phone, ‘Uncle Vic! Hi. What can I do for you on this beautiful Thursday morning?’

‘It’s what I can do for you, Mel. There’s a young woman’s naked body lying on the beach here on the right side of the pier - or there was. They’re bringing her up now.’

Mel Goring pushed aside her empty coffee mug, excitement filling her large brown eyes. ‘Hey there - you’re not kidding me, are you?’

‘Course not. I came across her first thing this morning while I was out digging up lugworms.’

‘
You
did!’

‘Yeah. And it was not a pretty sight, I can tell you. She was battered pretty nasty about the head and face.’ Mel listened and felt sick as he gave her his version of the news story in full.
‘And this should interest you - the boys in blue are in a hell of a two and eight over it. She’s one of them. A police officer, Mel.’

‘What!’ Mel pushed back the mass of springy burnished bronze curls away from her eyes, picked up her biro and opened up a spiral. ‘I’m ready - give me all the relevant details, please - if you can manage it!’

‘The victim is a detective by all accounts. I stayed around offside to listen till they made me get off the beach. They said they’ll question me later.’

‘Where are you now? Can you get the name of the police officer?’

‘Sorry. No can do. The tide’s coming in fast now covering up the tracks. The police are about finished combing the beach for evidence. You’d better try and get the rest from the police yourself.’

‘Thanks. Have a drink on me later.’

He chuckled. ‘I’ll keep you to that, girlie.’

She put down the phone, and tapped the biro on her teeth thoughtfully. Mel had already been at cross-purposes recently with one of the police officers in charge. DI Nick Farmer had been far from forthcoming with the details she’d needed to write up the suspicious death of the middle-aged woman, Geraldine Temple
, in her apartment on the East Hill ten days ago. Found dead in a bath filled with water, with her wrists cut, she had not been a pleasant discovery for anyone to find.

Mel had
managed to get the details from her friend, Linda Handley, who had covered the case personally with DC Calder. No suicide note was found but the Coroner’s verdict said that Geraldine Temple, an alcoholic, had taken her own life while she was in deep depression from a terminal illness.

Mel frowned, rubbing her small chin with the back of her hand as she visualized again the sceptical, hardnosed Nick Farmer. He was a bloody awkward customer to deal with. She grinned. He hadn’t got the better of her yet. Just let him try to keep quiet about this.
This case was different. It was a homicide. A police officer had been killed. And it would sell papers for all the wrong reasons. It was obvious that the body on the beach would bring the kind of publicity that would be awkward for everyone trying to promote and boost the holiday business during the peak of their summer season. She knew that she would have to be careful how she handled it or she would encounter some strong agro from her editor, who stood to lose some good customers amongst the hoteliers and restaurateurs.

Holidaymakers wanted a good time at the seaside. Most came back like the swallows every year and expected to be welcomed with good lively entertainment
, or else they didn’t make a return visit. And it was the
Observer
’s job as a local tabloid to give good news to its readers, not murder reports served up over breakfast.

‘You’ve got to give them happy, enjoyable things they can read when they stay here without getting worried about being mugged on the beach or murdered,’ Editor Bob Peale had told her when she joined the staff two years previously. He’d mellowed some since but she knew she had to be careful how she handled this story.

Mel wanted much more than local weddings, christenings and garden shows to report. She wore several hats during her working week. When the person writing the daily Astrology column packed it in Mel had taken it over. It was something she was really interested in and was quite pleased with her endeavours on the daily star forecasts for the past six months. But she wanted to use her journalistic ability for much more than this. She was aiming for a career in investigative journalism in a big way. Fleet Street was her eventual goal.

And so she presented herself, half an hour later
, with the
Observer
’s young photographer Bill Trent at the local police station in the town centre.

‘Good morning, officer.’

The desk sergeant Pete Bennett on seeing the determination set on Mel’s attractive face scratched his thinning sandy hairline with a spare biro and groaned. He’d dealt with her only the week before. She was as hard to turn away as a wasp on a spoonful of raspberry jam, and she had a lovely smile, great curves and the longest pair of slender legs he’d seen in a long while.

‘Good morning, miss. And what can I do for you?’ As if he didn’t know already.

‘Can you give me anything on the body found on the beach this morning, Sergeant Bennett?’ She smiled sweetly and leaned over the front desk towards him. His nostrils quivered as her attractive perfume became instantly more detectable. ‘When will something be officially released for the press? And - can I speak to DS Handley please if she’s available?’ She smiled back at him hopefully.

‘Sorry, miss, I’m not able to help you
, not at present.’

He shifted the notes on the desk, stuck his biro firmly behind his ear and gazed vaguely up at the printed notices on the wall area behind her.

She frowned. He was being deliberately evasive. Did she read a look of alarm in his eyes? Or was it just irritation? Before she could probe further DI Nick Farmer walked through the front entrance and stopped short when he saw Mel. There was no mistaking the chilly look he gave her.

‘Who let you in on this, Ms Goring? A psychic? Your nosy aunt perhaps?’ He stood close by her with one arm leaning over the front desk, and for a moment his tall shadow made her feel small.

She smiled back coolly. ‘My uncle, Victor Goring, actually. He found the body on the beach. Come on Farmer, I only want to know the facts for the local newspaper. I won’t write anything detrimental to the force or the dead officer. Can’t you give me the officer’s name? It’s someone you’ve worked with obviously.’

‘No - not till identification is made official.’

Blast it he was making it as difficult as possible. Although she couldn’t entirely blame him. She seemed to be spending a good bit of time lately here on police business.

‘Surely you can tell
me
,’ she crooned. ‘I promise I shan’t release it till I get permission. DS Handley wouldn’t be so mean. Where is she by the way?’

It could be just intuition but she’d felt a sense of uneasiness fill her up since she’d seen the blank look creep over Sergeant Bennett’s face when she’d asked to see Linda. And now - now she really wasn’t feeling good about this and - her stomach contracted quickly. Oh
- God! Was it going to be what she didn’t want to hear? She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, sharply tasted blood and grimaced as she did so.

‘It – it’s Linda, isn’t it?’ she said and was rewarded immediately by the harsh truth written on Farmer’s bleak face. She felt like a cold fist
was closing tight over her heart. She tried desperately to take control, swallowed hard and said slowly, ‘Linda ... Linda was my oldest and my dearest friend. You’ve got to tell me what happened to her, Inspector.’ She put away her spiral and gestured quickly to the young photographer standing beside her. He was looking anxious. ‘Keep this under your hat, Bill, for now - please. Wait for me outside.’

He nodded. ‘Okay, if you say so. What shall I tell the boss, Mel?’

‘He’ll find out soon enough.’ She choked back a sob, blinked the threatening tears out of her eyes and tried to cover up her weakness quickly. ‘Off the record, Farmer, can we talk? Now?
Please
?’

His eyes made a swift study of her anguished face. He nodded to a door alongside. ‘Okay. In there. Can’t spare you long though.’

‘Thanks.’ She followed the detective into his office.

He sat down behind the desk and motioned to a chair. ‘So - what can I tell you?’

‘How?’ She blinked back her tears again, drew in her breath sharply and said, ‘How was she killed? I know that she was found near the rocks, naked and beaten up. Got that much from my uncle.’

He leaned forward over the desk, and studied his folded hands for a second or so then cleared his throat before speaking, ‘You know about as much as we do, Ms Goring. Is that your name by the way? You’re married, aren’t you?’

She frowned. So he’d been checking up on her. ‘I was. It’s Carmichael. I use Goring for my work,’ she said defensively. ‘I want to know how Linda was killed. Can you tell me?’

‘You’ve heard all I can tell you so far.’ He opened his hands wide again. ‘So - what more do you want me to say? You know how it goes. We can’t release anything till we have more to go on. Linda could be the victim of a bad sexual assault that became a killing...’

‘No! She knew how to take care of herself better than most women I know.’

He shrugged his broad shoulders dismissively. ‘We’re as much in the dark as you are.’

‘Was she working undercover? I know we’ve got problems, big problems here with drugs. Was Linda involved in any work on that?’

‘You can hardly expect me to answer that.’

He chased a lead pencil across the desk top with a long forefinger.

‘She never blabbed anything to do with her police work to me.
But I’ve heard whispers about the Kaufman brothers...’

He tightened the lines of his generous mouth and frowned back at her but said,
‘No comment, Ms Goring.’

‘Come on now. Since
the Kaufman brother’s opened their Casino here you’ve had more crime incidents, haven’t you?’ She pressed on ignoring the keep-your-mouth-shut look in his keen grey eyes.

‘And you say that she never confided in you,’ he said with those eyes pinning her nicely in place.

She grimaced and pushed a curling frond of hair out of her eyes. ‘I’m not that stupid. I didn’t need to be told anything. I’ve done my own investigation on that pair.’

Farmer
frowned again and moved the pencil across the thick folder of notes on the desk in front of him.

‘They’re not down here for their health on
the coastline, are they? In the last five years they’ve opened up a highly lucrative Health farm, and the Orchid Club Casino.

‘They could be personally responsible for
one - the many drug problems you have here; two - increased prostitution; and three - easy means for laundering money.’ She ticked these off on her long fingers. ‘Am I right?’

He leaned back in the leather office chair.
You’re
keeping
things
from
me
,
you
devil
. She had called his bluff she thought but his eyes were inscrutable as they met hers. He was not about to give anything away. If she’d hit the mark, he’d keep her guessing. She wasn’t on his team. He needn’t think she was letting up on it. No way. She would be doing her own digging into the Kaufman’s murky trade.

It was perhaps a sheer whim for her part when as a teenager she’d decided not to join Linda in the police force after all. She’d decided that she wanted to be a good investigative journalist instead. Only her need to look after her small son, Jack, had kept her home based here so far. Places to live in London were too damn expensive to buy or rent, and he was happy enough at the local primary school with his grandparents and friends living close by.