Mixing With Murder Read online

  I guessed Tom and Maryann were repeating their version of events at Pereira’s request. That meant Tom would be giving his view of it and Maryann was probably interrupting at intervals to accuse me of being a violent mugger. I thought wryly that Pereira hadn’t brought them upstairs to their room as she had me to mine. She didn’t want them walking into me.

  I went back to my room and lay down on the bed. I was exhausted. My limbs were weak and felt disjointed. I must have resembled a puppet whose strings had snapped. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this. I didn’t know if or when they’d identify Ivo. I forced the image of his floating corpse into my mind although my deepest wish was to blank it out. I strove for any tiny detail which might give me a clue. All I could remember was that he’d worn shorts and a cotton top. I couldn’t recall seeing any jewellery like a chain and medallion round his neck, or one of those identity bracelets, anything distinctive. It could take a long time before they found out who he was and by then I’d be back in London. They couldn’t keep me here indefinitely. In theory, they couldn’t keep me here at all. They had my London address. They’d check it out, of course they would. But once they confirmed it was all in order, well, there was nothing to stop me leaving.

  Except that I hadn’t done the job Mickey Allerton had sent me here to do. I’d met Lisa, I’d spoken to her, and she knew I came from Allerton. But I’d yet to persuade her at least to call him. I reckoned there was no chance of persuading her back to London.

  I pushed myself up to a sitting position, dragged the pillows into a mound behind my back and tried to work out some plan of action. Did I go looking for Lisa? Or, in the circumstances, did I stay away? Did I phone her? She’d seen the crowd and she’d got my telegraphed message to clear off out of it, but had she learned from a bystander why the crowd had gathered? That a body had been discovered? Even if she had been told, she hadn’t been near enough to see it. She couldn’t know it was Ivo. Did I tell her? She’d freak out if I did. She’d bolt away from Oxford and I’d never find her.

  There was a tap at my door, heralding Beryl with a steaming mug of tea and some chocolate biscuits. ‘For shock,’ she said briskly. ‘When the Americans came back, they said you’d found a body in the river. Shame,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘Bloody nuisance, that.’

  ‘Too right, Beryl,’ I agreed. Her use of the word ‘nuisance’ showed that she had her priorities in strict order and I wasn’t first on the list. Mickey Allerton was. She knew I was here on his business and a police inquiry would not be welcomed by him. Any inconvenience to me personally was a secondary issue. Not that Beryl lacked sympathy for my plight, as the tea showed. I was glad of it, despite having refused Pereira’s offer to fetch some.

  Beryl put the tray on my bedside cabinet. ‘Eat the biscuits. The sugar’s good for shock and chocolate gives you a boost,’ she ordered.

  ‘I will,’ I promised, ‘thanks. Beryl, I need to contact Mickey Allerton. I’ve lost my mobile phone. I don’t want to use the public phone in your hall. I can go uptown and find a kiosk . . .’

  She shook her burnished auburn helmet of hair. ‘No, no need. When the copper’s gone, come down to my flat and use the phone there.’ She stared at me thoughtfully and sat down on the chair vacated by Pereira, her false leg stuck out awkwardly in front of her. I realised how difficult it must have been for her to bring the snack upstairs for me and felt embarrassed as well as grateful.

  ‘Listen, dear,’ she said, ‘I’m not asking your business or Mickey’s. All I’m asking is, the phone call you want to make to Mickey, is it about your finding this dead bloke in the river?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted.

  ‘Is it likely to worry Mickey?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed.

  ‘I see.’ She bit her lower lip and scarlet lipstick smudged her top teeth. ‘Well, dear, in that case, I’ve got a suggestion. Before you go phoning Mickey, you’d better have a word with Mr Filigrew.’

  ‘Oh, Gawd . . .’ I groaned, falling back on my pillows. ‘He’s Mickey’s tail on me, isn’t he? I thought he was a dodgy sales rep with a woman in every port of call.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Beryl, giving me an old-fashioned look. ‘Think I can’t recognise one of them when they turn up?’

  ‘Someone should have told me,’ I said grimly. ‘Either you or Filigrew or whatever his name is. What is he? Some sort of solicitor?’

  ‘A proper one!’ said Beryl earnestly.

  ‘Hah! So, did Mickey think I might fall foul of the law? If so, why?’

  ‘No need to worry you, dear,’ she soothed. ‘Mickey was acting for the best. Mr Filigrew is only here in case you had any trouble.’

  ‘Yeah, well you can tell him I’ve got lots of that.’ I picked up my mug of tea. ‘And tell him I don’t want him phoning Mickey before I do!’

  ‘You can trust Mr Filigrew,’ Beryl assured me before hobbling away.

  I considered that the first blatant untruth she’d told me although perhaps she believed it at that. I knew I couldn’t trust Mr Filigrew. I wasn’t paying him. Nor did I think his presence in Oxford meant he would lend me a helping hand if I had trouble. He was here in case Lisa had any.

  I paused with the tea halfway to my lips. ‘Why should Lisa have any trouble requiring a dodgy lawyer?’ I wondered aloud. ‘Or is Mickey worried she might make damaging allegations of some sort?’ Was Filigrew here to pay off Lisa, if need be? How many mysterious ingredients were mixed into this brew?

  When Pereira had finally left and Tom and Maryann clattered upstairs and past my room, still arguing, I slipped down to Beryl’s basement flat.

  ‘Ah, there you are, dear,’ she greeted me cosily, as she opened the door at the foot of the stair, just as if I’d dropped by for a nice chat. ‘Come along in, then. Spencer! Behave!’

  Spencer was bouncing around in his demented fashion, jumping up at me. I scratched his ears and thought again of Bonnie. I heaved a sigh. Whatever happened, I had to get Lisa to make that phone call to Allerton and then they could sort out their differences without my further help. I could go home and reclaim my own dog. That was all that mattered to me. The police could sort out the business of Ivo in the river. That was their job.

  Beryl’s flat displayed an extension of the style in which my room was done out. It was all frills and flounces and cute ornaments and photographs of Beryl in her heyday including one in which she was dressed up like Marlene Dietrich in a top hat and fishnet stockings.

  ‘I wasn’t bad, was I?’ asked Beryl, seeing me study it.

  The sound of a throat being cleared prevented my reply. Mr Filigrew was sitting bolt upright in an armchair wearing what I supposed were his off-duty clothes, that is to say he’d taken off his jacket and replaced it with a navy-blue knitted cardigan. On his feet were leather slippers. A newspaper on his knees lay folded at the crossword puzzle. Quite making himself at home. He still wore the flashy tie.

  Seeing that my attention was turned to him, he took off his rimless specs, polished the lenses with a little bit of yellow cloth and invited me to, ‘Sit down, my dear.’

  Now there are two things I don’t like and he managed to score both of them in one short sentence. I don’t like being called ‘my dear’ by any person I don’t look upon as a friend. I don’t like it when people assume an authority they don’t, in my view, possess. This was Beryl’s flat and any invitation to sit down should come from her. Moreover, he was attempting to take the initiative in any conversation we were to have. He didn’t know me. He soon would.

  ‘My name is Fran,’ I said coldly. ‘All right if I sit here, Beryl?’ I indicated a funny-looking chair with no arms and a floor-length flounce all round it. It looked as if it might dance away across the carpet.

  ‘Anywhere, dear,’ said Beryl. It was all right when she used the endearment. I did count Beryl as a friend. She was Mickey’s friend before she was mine, of course, but I felt she was well disposed towards me.

  Filigrew, or whatever his real name m
ight be, I sensed was not well disposed towards me - or, probably, towards anyone. He had that dyspeptic look which holds the world at fault. He’d taken my snub by baring his long discoloured teeth in a curious grimace, not a smile and not a snarl. He just wrinkled up his upper lip and let me see he needed to visit a dental hygienist. There was something very unsettling about the whole thing and suddenly I knew what it was. Some dogs do that when they aren’t sure of you. They sidle up, baring their upper teeth in a sort of canine grin. Their body language is subservient but the teeth display isn’t unintentional. They are hedging their bets.

  Speaking of dogs, Spencer liked me. He settled down at my feet and looked up at me, pink tongue lolling and button eyes bright with expectation.

  Filigrew cleared his throat again but I got in first. ‘Beryl tells me you act for Mickey Allerton.’

  He replaced his spectacles and surveyed me through them, his mouth pursed. ‘That depends,’ he said.

  ‘Either you do or you don’t,’ I told him crisply. ‘If you don’t, I’ll leave now.’

  ‘I represent certain of Mr Allerton’s interests,’ he snapped. Now he actively disliked me, but so what?

  ‘I need to phone Allerton,’ I said. ‘But Beryl suggests I listen to you first. I’m prepared to listen, but make it brief.’

  He put both hands to his spectacles and removed them again. His fidgeting with them was beginning to annoy me. It was his way of gaining time - and he who gains time gains the initiative. He knew he’d lost it at the outset, but he was going to get it back again, by hook or by crook.

  He blinked watery eyes at me. ‘I need an assurance from you that this unfortunate incident, I mean of course your discovery of a body in the river . . .’ Here Filigrew paused and murmured, ‘T-t-t . . .’ in the manner of a man who’d just discovered something nasty sticking to the sole of his shoe. ‘You could, I suppose, have avoided finding it?’ His voice was heavy with reproach.

  ‘How?’ I asked him, amazed. ‘Do you mean, having found it, I should have run away before anyone else turned up and pretended I knew nothing about it? Isn’t that an offence? Aren’t we supposed to report something like that to the proper authorities?’

  ‘You might have been forgiven for thinking you were mistaken about the man being dead. You might have thought he was swimming. There would be no offence in making a genuine mistake. You should have phoned here and asked my advice.’

  ‘I didn’t know about you, did I?’ I retorted. ‘You didn’t tell me you represented Mickey. That’s your fault. Mickey’s not going to blame me for that!’

  ‘Then you should have phoned Mr Allerton and asked him what he wanted you to do.’ Filigrew glared at me. He knew as well as I did that Mickey would seek to blame someone for introducing an element which could seriously screw things up.

  ‘Don’t talk daft,’ I said to Filigrew. ‘I didn’t have time. There were other people around.’

  He conceded the point. ‘Well, well, perhaps you might be excused for not seeking advice.’ He rallied. ‘But that means there was all the more reason to get out of there before other people arrived. People, incidentally, who could safely have been left to find the man themselves.’

  ‘I found him, me, right? All by myself,’ I said bleakly. ‘It wasn’t by choice but that’s what happened. There was no possibility he was swimming. Stop bleating about what I might have done or should have done. If I had tried to run away, it would have been worse, because the Americans came along in a punt just moments later and they would have seen me disappearing into the distance. Someone who runs away is a lot more suspicious than someone who stays. Anyway, I fell in the water.’

  ‘That,’ said Filigrew sharply, ‘could certainly have been avoided.’

  ‘What’s this assurance you want?’ I demanded.

  ‘That the police will not be seeking to interview the young lady.’

  ‘You mean Lisa Stallard? No, they won’t, because by the time she arrived there was a crowd. I managed to catch her eye and send her a message to clear off. She did.’

  ‘Good.’ He looked relieved. I don’t think he was any happier at the idea of giving bad news to Mickey Allerton than I was. ‘You haven’t yet spoken to the young lady, I mean about Mr Allerton’s request?’

  I wished he’d stop referring to Lisa as the young lady. I was sure he’d never refer to me like that. ‘I’ve spoken to her,’ I told him, ‘but it was difficult as most of the time her parents were present. She doesn’t want them to know about her working for Allerton. That’s why she agreed to meet me down by the river so we could sort things out. I still hope to persuade her to phone Mickey. I want my dog back.’

  ‘What dog is this?’ asked Beryl, who though taking no part in our conversation had been listening.

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, Beryl,’ I said. ‘Because I know Allerton’s your friend. But he’s got my dog and is holding her hostage - or rather, he’s given her to one of his musclemen to keep until I return.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think Mickey would hurt an animal!’ protested Beryl.

  ‘I didn’t say he’d do it himself,’ I snapped. No, his idea had been that Ivo should take care of this bit of business. Mickey was shrewd enough to guess what Bonnie meant to me. At least, I thought, now Bonnie won’t fall into Ivo’s hands, whatever else happens.

  ‘No one has hurt her - yet,’ I went on more calmly. ‘But I’m not going to see her again if Lisa doesn’t phone Allerton. That’s it in a nutshell. You don’t like this situation and I don’t like it. I didn’t want to come on this errand in the first place and I don’t know why Mickey chose me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Beryl unexpectedly. ‘Mr Filigrew has been telling me about it, about the dancer who left the club without a word to anyone and how Mickey asked you to get her back because he’s concerned about her. These girls who want to be dancers . . .’ Beryl clicked her tongue. ‘They’ve no idea what a tough life it is and how uncertain. You want to be an actor, don’t you? Well, that puts you and this girl Lisa on much the same wavelength. You’re both young and stage-struck. She’d talk to you.’

  ‘I’m not stage-struck!’ I defended myself. ‘I am an actor. I’ve worked as an actor. I don’t like being used by Allerton. I don’t like being talked about and I don’t like any of this!’

  ‘To return to the body in the river.’ Filigrew drew the conversation firmly back to the main matter. ‘Your feelings are immaterial. If the young lady is not going to be involved, then perhaps we don’t have to trouble Mr Allerton about it. It’s not his concern, after all, it’s yours. You took the job, whatever your reasons, and all this is your responsibility.’

  Filigrew was as worried about Mickey Allerton as I was. He wasn’t working out how to get me out of trouble, but how to extricate himself. The look of contempt on my face must have warned him. He essayed his unattractive smile again.

  ‘The police are not being difficult, are they? You are not under any kind of suspicion? I am on hand to give you any necessary advice and you can, if they wish to question you, ask that I be present.’ His watery eyes blinked at me again.

  He really was a solicitor. But not in a thousand years would I ask for him to be there. He wouldn’t be representing me; he’d be representing Allerton and himself. The very request for a solicitor would alert Pereira. That I, a stranger in town, could call one up at a moment’s notice would make her even more suspicious. Last, but by no means least, I didn’t want Filigrew sticking his nose into my business.

  ‘I’ve already made a statement to Sergeant Pereira,’ I said, ‘and signed it.’

  He looked worried. ‘What did you say? I wish you’d spoken to me first.’

  ‘We’ve been through all that,’ I pointed out. ‘I didn’t know you were Allerton’s mouthpiece. Anyway, there was no chance. DS Pereira brought me home and we went straight to my room.’

  ‘Fast work,’ said Beryl with grudging approval. I guessed she wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with police methods.


  Filigrew muttered, ‘Pereira,’ and wrote the name down in the margin of his paper, by the crossword. ‘Detective sergeant, you say?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t think she’s bent, so don’t go offering her a holiday in Tenerife to lose her notes, will you?’

  I didn’t really think he’d do that. It was a sort of joke on my part. But his neck flushed as red as a turkeycock’s and the colour rose up his pale cheeks in a crimson tide. He even gobbled like a turkey. ‘That is an outrageous suggestion—’