Three Little Maids (5 page)

She could be a student at the language
college in town, but was certainly not living on a small income. She settled in the chair, gazing around curiously at first, and then she focused her full attention on the clairvoyant.

Esmeralda collected up the Tarot cards, wiped them carefully with a green silk scarf and handed them over to her young client. ‘Think well, my dear, on what you wish to know. Shuffle and select fifteen cards and give them to me, please.’

Yvette obeyed, dropped a couple on the floor, and picked them up, before choosing the others from the colourful pack. The fallen cards were the Tower and the Emperor. Esmeralda laid them out on the table. What falls to the ground sure to come sound. Her keen eyes noted the girl’s choice with a wry twist of her wide, expressive mouth. And studied them carefully for a minute or so.

The girl cupped her hands under her small chin and waited, her flame red mouth pursed tight with concentration, her eyes intent on the cards displayed there.

Esmeralda picked up Justice and placed the card beside the Queen of Cups. The girl needed to sit down and think clearly and practically about her situation. The Eight of Clubs suggested her emotional disappointment. The Emperor beside the Ten of Pentacles showed that the girl’s attachment to material security was an overriding thing. She needed to place less value on it. The Page of Swords reflected her present troubled frame of mind. And the Tower was the catalyst that lay ahead, accompanied by the King of Wands, the Emperor and the Knight of Swords. Denoting the three men in her life...

‘So you wish to know what lays ahead for your future, my de
ar?’ Esmeralda said dryly. ‘It is what you make it. You have it in your own hands to do what you will with your life. I see you have a young man. Two men are close to you...’

‘Is the young man the right one for me?’

Esmeralda’s voice was caustic. ‘Don’t you know already? But which one do you prefer? Here is the Emperor. He represents the strong influence of wealth in your life. He is a rich man with much experience.’ She frowned. ‘But I now see more than two men here with you.’

Yvette’s black brows knitted together tightly. And her hand fidgeted with the slender gold watch on the bare honey brown arm held in her lap.

‘There is a third man here.’ Esmeralda looked for her reaction to this. ‘His intentions towards you are veiled from me.’ Her dark brows frowned. ‘But I feel that the portents are not so good, my dear. So beware - you must be careful how you handle your love life. You understand what I am saying to you, ma petite? You are so young. I must warn you that none of these suitors are right for you.’

‘You lie, Madame! How do you know this?’

‘You picked them out, my dear. You are in sole command of your own fate.’

‘What you say... It-it cannot be true.’

‘The cards tell me this and they do not lie. I advise you to take great care during the next few hours. It could be vital for your safety.’ Esmeralda hesitated and touched the Tower card. She saw it as a symbol of trouble, and closed her eyes for a second or so. What else could she say to this girl? Should she say, ‘Beware of the companion you choose for the weekend? He could be so wrong for you. Dangerous even.’

Instead she said
softly; ‘Your choice should not be a married man. He is wrong for you. And this other younger man he is only thinking of prospering from you. He takes and never gives willingly. He leads you here into making a mess and chaos of your young life.’

‘How do you know this?
Have you been told bad things by the old ladies who gossip at the hotel and you listen to them? Is that not so?’

‘No, child.’ Esmeralda shook her head, loosening a frond of bright hennaed hair from her turban as she firmly declared: ‘I knew nothing about your personal life before you walked through this door.’

‘I cannot believe what you say! You are a-a nosy old bitch,’ Yvette declared loudly and other sharp words followed in gutter French which Esmeralda was thankful she couldn’t interpret quickly off the cuff.

The girl stood up abruptly, shaking the light table and her purse fell open on the green rush matting floor, where its contents mixed with the fallen cards. She bent over and retrieved her possessions hastily and threw some coins down on the table. ‘Here
- -here is your money. And I - I hope you choke on it, Madame!’

She walked out of the door and slammed it shut after her. Sending the long strands of glittering crystal beads on the ceiling mobile tinkling like crazy for a minute or so. Esmeralda sat still for a moment, thinking quietly. Then she picked up the angry voices filtering in from outside. Accompanied by the sound of the noisy traffic along the sea front it didn’t make pleasant hearing. The girl was arguing loudly with a man.

One of the men that she had warned her about. Esmeralda gathered up the cards slowly and those that had fallen and scattered onto the floor. She shook her head and sighed sadly. She had failed and it was entirely up to the girl now what she did with her life.

7

‘Raymond Perkins, Turner. What do we know about this lad?’ Kent said, as he took his seat in the car next to Turner, outside the police station prior to moving off. He took the top off of his carton of coffee cautiously. He hadn’t put the canteen to the test much before. ‘He’d be working at the funeral parlour today, I suppose.

‘It’s possible that Maureen led him up the garden path like she did her parents. He’d have some idea perhaps of what that young madam was up to last evening. If she felt like telling him.’

‘Carey’s has a funeral this morning. He might still be out,’ Turner said taking a large bite appreciatively out of his thick ham and pickle sandwich. It wasn’t bad as canteen food went but he’d much rather he lunched at home. Kent was working him, and the rest of the team, hard as befitted a new broom. Let’s hope he’d get good support from those that mattered in the Town Hall, Turner thought smiling. If Kent stepped on any of their toes it spelt big trouble.

The town was beneficially crowded, hotels, guesthouses and local traders were doing well and
, for once, the weather was on their side. They didn’t need any nasty business like this murder of a young girl, and a local one, at that to spoil the holiday trade.

Kent sipped his plastic cup of scalding hot coffee carefully. If he guessed what his colleague was thinking he showed no signs of it. ‘So tell me what you know about Raymond Perkins if anything? You recognized his name when it was first mentioned.’

‘He’s not a bad lad, guv. He’s a bit simple but hard working. His grandmother’s brought him up from the age of three and made a pretty good job of it.’

‘So
- what’s he like? I’d hardly expect him to be the average teenager working in that place.’ Kent chuckled. ‘Still it’s respectable enough and someone has to do it.’

Turner finished his sandwich and opened up his carton of strong saffron coloured tea and grinned appreciatively. Just how he liked
it; Carole, his wife, often scolded him about it. ‘Your stomach lining must be like old leather, Stan.’

‘Raymond
- on the whole is a quiet lad. He’s surprised me behaving like he has with young Maureen. But you’ll have to make your own judgment when you meet him, guv.’

He made a face now tasting the tea. ‘Bugger! Forgot the sugar!’

*

At the Carey Funeral Parlour they were met with a
; ‘Sorry, Inspector Kent, Raymond Perkins is not in today. He’s at home sick. He has a bad migraine according to his grandmother who phoned in first thing.’

Frances Leach, a quiet, brown-haired woman in her
mid-forties, smiled apologetically at them over her office desk. ‘Mr. Carey naturally is not here. Mr. Sharman had to take over. Maureen’s death has affected everyone.’ Her own distress was visible in her troubled blue-grey eyes. ‘Poor Mrs Carey. She is in bed; the doctor has sedated her. But you want to see Raymond?’

‘Yes, as soon as possible, we need to question everyone who knew the girl personally.’

‘I can give you his home address. But I expect Sergeant Turner knows it.’ She smiled. ‘He used to be the community policeman. He’s the man to ask about most local affairs.’

‘Thank you, Miss Leach.’

Back in the car Kent said, ‘So - let’s go see the Perkins, Turner. How much do we know about the lad? Anything at all?’

‘He’s lived with his
gran ,Mrs June Perkins, guv, since he was a small kid. Mrs P. is a cleaner for the Carey’s, the Welbecks, the Chapel and the White Rock Hotel on the sea front. A nice hard working woman, a bit of a character and a gossip,’ Turner said with a smile as they drove to the Perkins house on the council estate. ‘And a devout chapelgoer. She takes her religion most seriously. And attends the same chapel as the Carey’s.’

June Perkins looked startled to see the law standing on her doorstep. ‘Mr. Turner! What brings you here?’

‘Mrs Perkins may we come in? I’m Detective Inspector Kent and it appears that you know Sergeant Turner already. We would like to speak to your grandson, Raymond please? We were told at Carey’s Funeral Parlour that Raymond is home on sick leave.’

‘That’s right, he is.’

Letting them in, she said, ‘What do you want with him? He’s not well. He has a migraine. I get it bad myself, at times.’ She opened the door to her front room, partly shaded by dusty window blinds, and smelt strongly of lavender furniture polish. ‘Would you like to wait in here? Is it police business, Mr. Turner?’ she inquired looking anxious.

‘Yes, Mrs Perkins, I’m afraid it is.’

‘I’ll see if I can get him up.’ She shook her head doubtfully. ‘He looked really poorly when I called him for work this morning. Had to phone in for him.’

‘Just tell him we’re here, please. The sooner he speaks to us the quicker he’ll get it over with. We need to ask him some questions about his whereabouts last night.’

A plump hand flew to her mouth. ‘It’s about that dreadful murder, isn’t it? Raymond is a good boy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, he wouldn’t,’ she said with trembling lips. ‘Mr. Turner can tell you that, Inspector.’

‘Just fetch him down, please.’

Ten minutes later Raymond Perkins appeared in the doorway of the room. A thin lanky youngster in a white sweatshirt and frayed blue jeans, he did look pretty sick, Turner had to admit. If he knew about it already, he was taking the girl’s death hard. Not bad looking, his skin looked grey and his brown eyes, red rimmed and strained blinked back at them as the afternoon sun streamed in bravely through cracks in the slightly crooked French window blinds. He collapsed and slumped into the nearest easy chair like a skinny beanie toy and scratched a spot on his chin with a long clean nail.

Kent introduced himself pleasantly. ‘Inspector Kent, lad. We shan’t keep you long, Raymond. Can you tell me where you went last night and if you met anyone who could verify your movements?’

An interruption came as Mrs Perkins brought in a tea tray and a plentiful helping of chocolate wafer biscuits on her best gold-rimmed china tea service. She put it down on a small linen topped table and sat down in a chair with a loud, breathy sigh. ‘Help yourself, to milk and sugar, Inspector Kent, Mr. Turner.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Perkins.’

Kent tried again. ‘So from the beginning, Raymond...’

‘Tell them where you went and what you did, there’s a good boy
- -’ His grandmother beamed encouragingly.

‘I went down the old town. About seven, I think,’ he said, rubbing the knees of his worn jeans nervously with the palm of his hands.

‘And - how did you pass the evening, son? Did you have company? It wasn’t with Maureen Carey according to her friend Susan Flitch, was it?’

He pushed back the thick flaxen hair that fell in a heavy lock in a Byronic fashion over his high forehead with his hand. Anger sparked his eyes into life and a crimson flush charged the pale cheeks. ‘She told me she was seeing someone else.’

‘Did she tell you his name? I take it that it was a man and not a girlfriend?’

He looked down at his scuffed white trainers and
mumbled; ‘She wouldn’t tell me who it was.’ He sniffed and rubbed a balled fist into his eyes. ‘She-she laughed at me. The silly cow!’ His face twisted into a painful grimace. ‘She said, `wouldn’t you like to know?` She likes playing games with me she does.’ He sniffed again.

‘Did she say what time her date was and where?’

‘She told me she’d see that I was kicked out of my job if I said anything to her Dad or asked her anymore questions.’

‘So
- what did you do to pass the evening? Did you meet up with friends or what?’

He shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘This and that
- what do you want to know all this for?’

He looked over apprehensively at his grandmother. The kid’s a scared bunny
, Kent thought and with that the answer came abruptly from her.

‘Have you been playing on those fruit machines again? What have I told you about wasting your money on gambling?’

‘No, Gran. Honest. I-I went into the bowling alley. Yeah... That’s right. That’s what I did.’

‘And what time was that?’

Again the frightened look flung at Mrs Perkins. ‘Half seven or thereabouts, can’t remember exactly.’