Mixing With Murder

  Mixing With Murder

  ANN GRANGER

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2005 Ann Granger

  The right of Ann Granger to be identified as the Author of

  the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law,

  this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted,

  in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing

  of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production,

  in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the

  Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7242 3

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ann Granger has lived in cities in many parts of the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka. She is married, with two sons, and she and her husband, who also worked for the Foreign Office, are now permanently based in Oxford.

  To the memory of my late parents Eugene (‘Bill’) and Norah Granger

  Chapter One

  When I was very small, not more than three years old at a guess, some grown-up figure took me to the children’s playground in a nearby park. I wish I knew who it was. Even now, nearly twenty years later, I’d go and find her and give her a piece of my mind. I know it was female, so wasn’t my dad, but it wasn’t my grandma. It ought to have been my mother because this was before she walked out on us all when I was seven years old. But to my knowledge my mother never took me to the park or anywhere else. In my one clear mental image of her before that time she is sitting in front of the mirror of her dressing table, carefully applying lipstick. She is wearing a dress in shiny green material. She smells nice. I think she is beautiful.

  On that day in the park, however, I think I must have been with some older child in whose charge I’d unwisely been put. There were other people around but they were, I suppose, totally occupied with their own small children and unaware of me. My memory serves up a background of shouts and laughter, dusty trees and trampled green grass with many bare worn patches defiled by dog dirt. Against this urban idea of an open space my temporary guardian hauled me up some steep, slippery metal rungs and we found ourselves at the top of a long slide. Not the little slide for tots but the big slide for older children. It gleamed in the sunshine, polished and silvery, a torture machine of the first order.

  Arms wrestled me into a seated position at the top and a voice commanded, ‘Go on, down you go.’

  I was petrified. I clung to the raised metal edges. I was sure I was so high up I must be near the treetops and the birds but I was too scared to raise my eyes from the ground far, far below. It looked very hard, unwelcoming and unstable at the same time. It lurched about in my vision, rising up and sinking, waltzing from side to side. The rims of the slide didn’t look high enough to prevent me toppling out sideways. As well as dizzy I felt horribly, painfully sick. I’ve disliked heights ever since.

  ‘No!’ I screeched.

  ‘Oh, stop making a fuss!’ commanded my kindly carer and gave me a hearty shove.

  My clinging hands were ripped from their desperate grip. I hurtled down, wind whistling past my ears, at a speed I’d never experienced before. At least, my outer shell did. My inner organs, heart and stomach, seemed to have remained back there at the top. I was powerless to do anything about it. I wasn’t old enough to know what death was but I was sure I was rocketing towards a final end of some sort. I’d never come out of this alive. I’d never go back home and see my family again. It lasted seconds and seemed to take hours. Then I reached the bottom and was caught in someone’s arms.

  I was lifted from the slide and stood up on my wobbling legs. Belatedly my heart and stomach caught up with me and I was sick, really sick, as only a small child can be.

  My carer was furious. ‘What did you do that for, Francesca?’

  Above my head a battle soon raged. ‘Well, I’m not going to clean her up.’

  ‘You’ve got to. We can’t take her home like that.’

  The park keeper arrived, stout, angry and red-faced, and joined in, probably furious at the possibility of the park being sued. I howled.

  I was taken home, still howling, and there was another argument. The air filled with yelling voices while I stood in the midst of it all, snivelling in my vomit-stained clothes. Then Grandma gathered me up, took me away to be bathed and made everything right again. It would be nice, in the adult world, to have someone there who’d walk in when everything was going wrong and make it come right. Pity it never happens except in detective stories, I suppose, when the detective does the sorting out. My experiences of detection have not been like that at all. There are always loose ends or ends which are tied up in unexpected or not altogether satisfactory fashion. Life takes a hand and plays odd tricks. I sometimes think the most unwelcome gift a genie could grant anyone would be that of being able to see into the future. Looking back is difficult enough.

  My childhood is full of memories like the slide one. I must have had some fun times but they didn’t imprint themselves in the same way. It makes me wonder whether some imp of ill fortune has always hopped along behind me, waiting his chance. Perhaps bad memories just squeeze out the good ones, like the evil that lives on after someone’s death and the good that’s interred with their bones. I know my Shakespeare. I mean to be a proper actor one day. I did most of a drama course in my teens until circumstances forced me to quit. I’ve only done amateur stuff since. But I’ll make it to the real stage one day, you’ll see.

  In the meantime I take any job offered that’s legal and lets me keep my independence. I even do a little confidential work for people. I like to call it that. Calling yourself a private detective is dodgy. Clients expect an office. The tax people expect proper records. Most of the work is stuff I wouldn’t want to touch. A friend of mine, Susie Duke, runs a detective agency and I know most of what she does is pretty seedy. I’m unofficial and take the jobs I want to do. Or that had been the idea until that Monday morning in August.

  It was holiday time. The tourists had moved into London and those office workers who could, had taken themselves off to foreign sunspots. This year, as it happened, they needn’t have bothered. We had a splendid sun-drenched summer at home. Even in Camden, where I was living, walking along the heat-baked pavements one could imagine oneself in a distant exotic city where life at midday retreated behind shutters and all unnecessary activity was suspended. Along the length of Camden High Street the racks of fantastically hued clothing outside the shops and packed on rails in its crowded markets no longer appeared garish and out of place. They
looked quite natural with the sequins sparkling in the sunlight and the bright colours giving the impression parakeets had escaped from nearby Regent’s Park zoo and nestled among the coat-hangers. The shopkeepers had dragged wooden chairs into the shade and watched passers-by with lazy indifference. Even the pushers selling marijuana down on the bridge over the canal couldn’t be bothered to tout for trade. They leaned against the brickwork watching the sluggish water down below, the occasional slow progress of a pleasure craft, walkers on the towpath and the pale-faced group of youngsters sitting in a circle at the foot of the steps, like so many nomads round a camp fire, to snort coke.

  Bonnie, my dog, didn’t like the heat at all, so that morning I set out to take her for a walk right after breakfast, before the sun got up. My intention was to take her as far as the newsagent’s where my friend Ganesh works for his Uncle Hari and I work on a part-time basis, when needed. There I hoped to cadge a cup of coffee and a look at the tabloids for free before strolling home. Bonnie was happy, pattering along, stopping to sniff occasionally. I felt pretty happy myself. But I’d only just turned out of the road where I lived when a large sleek car purred to a halt beside me. The driver got out and hailed me across its roof.

  ‘Oi, Fran!’

  I’d taken little notice of the car but a greeting like that can’t be ignored. This wasn’t just someone who knew my name. It was someone who felt free to be familiar. I squinted at him. The sun was shining into my face but I could make out his burly form easily enough. He raised an arm and wiped perspiration from his brow.

  ‘I was on my way to your place,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Harry,’ I said unenthusiastically. I made to walk on, even though I knew it was a vain attempt to escape destiny. If Harry was here looking for me it was because his boss, Mickey Allerton, had sent him. The happiness in me evaporated. Here we go again, a voice said in my brain. What is it with you, Francesca Varady? It was as if a booming voice, like the old lottery commercial, informed me it could be me. It nearly always was me, not winning lotteries but drawing the short straw. Hey! I said crossly to the invisible imp, just go and play in someone else’s backyard for a bit, will you?

  ‘Don’t be in a hurry,’ Harry was saying in a friendly voice. He was a friendly man for a bouncer. He was a professional, he told me once. He prided himself on that. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I come looking for you. He wants to see you.’

  A kind of discretion prevented him naming his employer aloud, as if listening ears might be all around and some inkling of Mickey’s private business leak out. Mickey Allerton is a very private man. I don’t know if much of what he does is illegal. Probably it’s mostly legal on the very edge of the meaning of the word. He’s the sort of person who doesn’t take unnecessary risks. In Mickey’s world all the risks are borne by others. This is why a summons from him would make anyone wary. The horrible thought struck me that Allerton himself might be in the car. I stooped and peered inside. It was empty. I probably looked my relief.

  ‘Nah,’ said Harry, watching me with amused tolerance. ‘He’s at the club. Go on, get in.’

  I wondered if it was any use pleading a pressing engagement and admitted to myself that it wasn’t. I opened the rear door of the car and slid on to the seat. Bonnie hopped in with me, puzzled at this curtailing of our walk but loyally assuming we were going somewhere interesting. She scrabbled up beside me and settled down; ears pricked and paws neatly together like a dog who spent her life travelling in fancy motors.

  Harry retook his place behind the wheel and slammed the door. He turned to stare at me over the back of the seat. ‘Oi,’ he said again. ‘Don’t let that dog get up on the cushions. It’s all real leather. She’ll scratch it.’

  I pushed Bonnie down into the well by my feet and asked boldly, ‘What does Mickey want?’ I didn’t expect to be told but there was no harm in asking.

  ‘ ’Ow do I know?’ he returned.

  We rolled away from the kerb. I sat studying the back of Harry’s brick-red neck where it bulged uncomfortably over his collar. Pearls of sweat trickled down it. His close-cropped greying dark hair studded the roll of flesh with damp battered bristles. It looked like a past-its-best nailbrush.

  I supposed we were heading towards the Silver Circle, one of Mickey’s adult entertainment clubs. He had an office there. I’d originally met Allerton in the course of one of my previous investigations. I’d managed by pure chance to do something which had pleased him but that didn’t mean I was anxious to see him again. He, on the other hand, was apparently keen to see me. I ought to be feeling surprise instead of just dread. The surprise was missing because something had always told me that I would see him again, that it was a question of ‘when’ not ‘if’ Allerton would send for me. Once you’re drawn into the orbit of someone like Mickey, your name goes down in his little book.

  But what could he want from me, of all people? I sat bolt upright, not because I was worried about the ‘real leather’ seat but because my stomach muscles were clenched so tightly I couldn’t lean back and relax. I might as well have been an aristocrat on the way to the guillotine, although as a tumbrel the car was comfortable enough. One or two pedestrians looked curiously at us as Harry drove smoothly around one-way systems: big Merc, chauffeur, me seated rigidly to attention in the back like a royal personage. I resisted the temptation to raise my hand in a listless wave as we glided past.

  At my feet Bonnie whined. She had picked up my sense of unease and now didn’t like this any more than I did. She pushed her little black nose into my knee and I put down a hand to stroke her head reassuringly. Her ears drooped and her brown eyes were anxious. She’s a small animal of terrier type, mostly white with some black patches, curiously placed. If you look at her from one side, she’s white with a black patch over her eye and a larger one on her flank. If you look at her from the other side she has no patches at all except a tiny one on her back leg. The result is that, depending on which side you see her from, she is like two different dogs. It’s the sort of detail which might usefully confuse a witness if the occasion arose. It hasn’t yet. Give it time.

  We had reached a narrow street beside the block which housed the club. Harry got out and, ever the gent, came round to the pavement side and opened the rear passenger door for me. I scrambled out, impeded by Bonnie who was so keen to get out of the car she squeezed between my feet and nearly brought me down flat on my face.

  ‘Steady does it,’ said Harry, putting out a meaty hand and gripping my shoulder.

  We set off towards the corner. I walked in front and Harry followed. That was so I couldn’t double back and run away. When Harry wasn’t driving Mickey’s car he was guarding the club door. It wasn’t like Mickey to leave the entrance unattended and it wasn’t today. As Harry and I reached it, another male figure emerged from the gloom within and briefly intercepted us before he saw who was there.

  I didn’t know the new man but he was of a sort once seen, never forgotten. He was tall with an exaggerated muscular build. I guessed it resulted from excessive weight-training. I can’t stand that kind of physique myself. Mostly those guys are all bulging biceps and triceps, with necks the same width as their heads. They have a funny way of standing with their arms hanging by their sides and their feet turned out. This one was blond-haired, thin-lipped and had the round bright blue eyes you see on dolls. As is generally the case with bodybuilders, he clearly thought himself the bee’s knees.

  ‘ ’Ello, Ivo,’ said Harry and something in his voice suggested to me that he shared my opinion of muscleman. ‘Boss there?’

  ‘You are late,’ said Ivo. He had a distinct accent I couldn’t quite place. ‘Mr Allerton is waiting.’ He emphasised the last word and accompanied it with a disdainful glance at me.

  I met the glance with a steady look. I knew he meant Mr Allerton wasn’t to be kept waiting at any time and certainly not by nonentities like me. He didn’t like me staring back at him showing neither awe (which he expected) nor admiration (which he�
�d have preferred). He blinked and into the china-blue eyes came a very nasty look indeed. Harry gave me a little push in the small of the back. I sensed a message. Harry didn’t want me making an enemy of Ivo. He knew Ivo better than I did and the warning push was to be taken seriously.

  Bonnie made a decision at this moment. She wasn’t going into the club. She trusted my judgement up to a point but that point had been passed. She didn’t like the look of the place and that was that. She flattened herself on the pavement and I couldn’t drag her forward. It was then Ivo made a mistake.

  ‘Mr Allerton is a busy man,’ he said. ‘Get rid of that animal.’ And he stooped to grab her collar.

  The next moment he jumped back, swearing in an unknown language, nursing the bitten fingers of his right hand. The blue eyes blazed with rage.

  ‘Pick her up!’ snapped Harry to me. At the same time he moved to place his own considerable bulk between me and the doorman.

  I scooped up Bonnie, tucked her under my arm wriggling protestingly, and hurried past Ivo inside. He said something to me in his own language as I entered. I didn’t know what it meant exactly but I could guess the general drift.