A Matter of Murder Page 2

  He glanced round the bar room of the pub he was in. It was a small, ordinary sort of place. The people who drank here of an evening weren’t the sort who drove expensive cars and did property deals. But Miff found himself searching faces.

  ‘A girl, then, was it?’ asked a voice nearby. ‘This body they found?’

  ‘Yeah, don’t know who she is, don’t think the police know yet. Someone said she’d been strangled!’ came the reply.

  ‘And dumped out in the old warehouse?’ The questioner was a doubting Thomas.

  ‘I told you! It was early this morning and there was some ruckus, a couple of fellows chasing across the back gardens beyond. Several people heard them, saw them, even. One of them is a friend of mine. He was just about to go down and put the kettle on, when he heard the commotion, and looked out in time to see some joker kick over his stone Venus.’

  ‘His stone what?’ came the incredulous response.

  ‘Venus, you know, one of them goddesses wearing a bit of drapery and nothing else. He’s pretty furious. He paid two hundred quid for that Venus. Not marble or anything, just some sort of substitute mix.’

  ‘Two hundred quid for a fake stone Venus? Not even marble! He’s nuts, your mate.’

  ‘Well, his wife wanted it. And she’s very upset because its head broke off. Anyway, he called the cops and reported it all. He wasn’t the only one. The cops went out there and searched around. They thought it might be dossers in the warehouse and checked it out. That’s when they found the body.’

  ‘Well, you never know what’s going to happen, do you?’ replied Thomas, convinced at last. ‘Listen, tell your mate he wants to get on to his house insurance! Has he got cover for garden contents?’

  Miff decided it was time for him to make an unobtrusive departure. Once outside on the pavement, he felt horribly vulnerable. The police were looking for a murderer. Miff had witnessed the murderer in the act of disposing of the body. The murderer would be looking for Miff. There was a cruel and inescapable logic to this. However you shuffled the cards, the deal was the same. The murderer had seen Miff as he scrabbled on the ground. And Miff had seen him. The image of that white face, distorted in rage, was printed on his memory. Miff’s bearded countenance, and long hair braided into a plait, would be stored in his attacker’s memory banks. The killer had no option but to find Miff and silence him.

  He had to get away from here. Where could he go? Get across to Europe and thumb his way down to the Algarve, arriving on his parents’ doorstep looking like Van Gogh on a bad day? Out of the question.

  So, where? Somewhere no one else would think of looking for him. That was when he had his brilliant idea. He’d go into the country. That’s what people did years ago, when they wanted to get away from things. They rattled off in their carriages to their country estates. So Miff would do the same.

  BMW man would never think to look for him outside of any urban area; the homeless were a feature of towns and city centres.

  Miff had no country estate. But he had family members rusticating away in retirement. He was long out of touch, but they were both, as far as he knew, still alive. He would go and stay with old Uncle Henry and Auntie Prue in that sleepy neck of the woods called – what was it? – Weston St Ambrose. It was in another county, Gloucestershire, and well away from his present location. Yes, that’s what he’d do. It would give Henry and Prue a bit of a shock when he turned up. But they were kindly souls and they wouldn’t shut the door in his face. Or so he hoped. They’d always been decent to him when he was a kid, after all: less demanding and critical than his parents, and always good for pocket money.

  Throwing himself on their mercy for sanctuary would mean giving up, at least temporarily, the independence he had won by learning to survive on the streets. He’d have to invent some reason for turning up out of the blue. He couldn’t tell them the truth. They would advise him to go to the police, insist on it. But Miff had been on the streets long enough to be wary of the constabulary. He’d make up some other reason. He was a hunted man, prepared to do anything to save his skin.

  Chapter 2

  Miff spent a restless night in the local park. He’d waited until the park keeper had made his final patrol, because although he might have hidden from the man himself, the dog would’ve scented or heard him. The park keeper’s dog, Miff knew from previous encounters, was large, muscular, provided with a fearsome set of teeth – and it really didn’t like people like Miff. But once the keeper had locked up and taken himself off, with his canine sidekick, Miff climbed over the boundary wall and kipped in the area behind the tennis courts. There was a rickety shelter there, much like a bike shed – only, these days, the tennis players didn’t arrive by bike but by car.

  Early the following morning, before there was any chance of being awakened to find a fanged hairy face growling at him, Miff hopped back over the wall. He headed first to the nearby garage forecourt where he cadged another coffee from the girl on the till. He then bought a bacon sandwich from an early-opening roadside van. The public toilets had been unlocked now and he could spruce up. Then, as soon as it was open, he made his way, yet again, to the local library.

  This time, Miff chose a book of quotations for his purposes. He’d grown rather tired of the law, and the medical books were disturbing. He settled down near a window now and began to leaf through it idly, eyes on the page, mind elsewhere. He had to organise his flight carefully. Be well organised: he’d learned that in his brief stint in a merchant bank in the City of London. He’d done his best to erase that term of imprisonment, as he viewed it, from his mind, but the discipline it had instilled in him came to the fore now.

  He had to change his appearance. That was a priority because it would throw the murderer off, at least temporarily. But chiefly because he couldn’t turn up at Uncle Henry’s door with his plait of hair and bushy beard. Henry and Prue were an old-fashioned pair. True, they had a slightly unconventional side to them, in that on Henry’s retirement, both he and Prue had decided they would each write a novel. Miff wondered whether either of them had ever finished the project.

  The other thing Miff needed to do, before making for Weston St Ambrose, was think up a reason for being there. The Blackwoods would have been told, by Miff’s parents, that he was digging toilets in some wild spot where the locals had managed for generations by simply wandering into the forests when need arose. So he had to explain why he wasn’t still doing that, how long he’d been back in England, and why he’d not informed his parents of his change of location. It was always best, when laying a false trail, to include as much genuine detail as possible. A fellow street dweller had once told him that. ‘Tell ’em something they can check out,’ had been the advice. ‘If they find one thing is true, they won’t bother checking the rest.’

  Living rough was an education in lots of ways, thought Miff. You did meet some really interesting people. Perhaps he should write a book about them, and his own experiences on the street.

  Yes! Miff almost dropped the book of quotations in his excitement. Eureka! As the old Greek guy had said when taking a bath; and thought of the answer to some puzzle or other. The thing Miff did know about aspiring authors was that they tended to congregate in groups. They tracked one another down and needed no introduction to other members except the revelation that they, too, were writing a book. Henry and Prue were probably still working on their books. So, tell them he was writing a book about homelessness and alienation from society. Tell them he’d been researching for a couple of years by joining the rough sleepers. (After he’d returned from digging latrines in the jungle, of course, mustn’t forget to work that bit in.) Henry and Prue would accept that explanation without a moment’s hesitation. He, Miff, might even write the book – one day.

  The librarian had twice drifted casually past his chair and was heading his way again with more determination in her aspect. She knew him of old and her tolerance of his presence got shorter every time he visited. Miff got to his feet, bra
ndished the book of quotations at her enthusiastically, and told her, ‘This is a really good reference book!’

  She removed it firmly from his hands. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is. Shall I replace it for you?’

  ‘How sweet of you,’ Miff told her with his most charming smile, probably lost in his facial hair.

  Ah, yes, the beard… and the long plait. Next port of call, a barber’s shop. And not any old barber’s shop. Miff knew exactly the one to make for. It was a razor barber’s shop run by a Turk. He had a passing street door acquaintance with the barber, who had occasionally given him a cup of very sweet, thick black coffee, while eyeing Miff’s hair and beard with an air of frustrated ambition. ‘You want to lose all that? You come to me.’

  So Mick went to him; and was received like a prince.

  ‘Why now?’ asked the barber.

  ‘Family…’ Miff told him in a confidential tone. ‘Family reunion, got to be there. Grandfather’s birthday. Ninety-five years old. But very traditional, you understand.’

  The barber understood absolutely. ‘Family…’ he said. ‘Ah, yes. Don’t worry, I fix you up so they will be delighted to see you.’

  Well, thought Miff, they might not be delighted, but at least he hoped they wouldn’t have hysterics.

  The Turk was a creative artist. Miff had to admit he was genuinely impressed. He had to answer some questions about the ninety-five-year-old grandpa, of course. Miff became very creative over that, giving the old fellow a terrific backstory, so full of daring exploits that the barber was entranced. ‘Ah, what a wonderful old gentleman!’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ agreed Miff, himself quite sorry he wasn’t ever going to meet the ancient hero.

  There were only a couple of moments when artist and customer disagreed. One was when the barber lit a match and waved it around Miff’s ears. The other concerned Miff’s refusal to consider a moustache. ‘I could create a beautiful moustache,’ said the barber wistfully, eyeing Miff’s upper lip and the growth of hair adorning it.

  ‘No moustache,’ said Miff firmly. ‘The family would argue about it. They argue about everything, you know.’

  ‘Ah, families…’ said the barber.

  Miff inspected his newly revealed face in the mirror. It was a lot thinner than he remembered it the last time he’d viewed it, before the beard. Where features had been exposed to the elements, his skin had a weather-beaten look, tanned and a bit leathery. Where the hair had been shaved off, the skin resembled that of an oven-ready chicken, pale and naked. With luck, his complexion would even out in a few days. Right now, his face was rather disconcerting, like looking at a stranger, or someone he used to know and had lost touch with. But would it be enough to throw the man who hunted him off the scent? Could they pass in the street in safety? Miff could not be sure about that. Anyone could see he’d recently lost a beard. The murderer would notice that. The shave alone would not be enough to ensure his safety.

  He was well aware he would be a stranger to Henry and Prue when he knocked at their door. They might recognise him, just. They’d have no idea why he was there. He wondered how suspicious they would be. He felt mildly sorry for them, but not enough to change his resolve. In Weston St Ambrose, he would be safe.

  ‘Your family will be pleased to see you,’ the barber said, with a beaming smile, as he graciously accepted the handful of assorted coins Miff handed over as payment.

  ‘Yeah…’ mumbled Miff. Initially, yes, they might be. Once they realised he meant to hang around, they might prove less keen.

  * * *

  Family reunions were in the air, including in Gloucestershire where Jess Campbell was visiting her mother, Leonie, accompanied by Mike Foley. For some time, Mike had been working alongside Jess’s twin brother, Simon, for a medical charity in Africa. But Mike had fallen ill there, seriously so. He’d been sent back to the UK. Although he’d now been given a clean bill of health, he was still obviously a man who had got through a spell of illness. The weight he’d lost was slow to return. He looked much better than he had when he’d arrived home and Jess had seen him for the first time in years. She wouldn’t forget the sight of him waiting outside her flat, leaning on a car borrowed from his uncle. Simon had warned her that his old friend had been ill. He hadn’t told her to expect a walking scarecrow, his clothes hanging loose, his joints angular, his features drawn.

  Mike had now recovered sufficiently for Jess to judge it safe to take him to see her mother so that he could update her on Simon’s situation. They were both unsure of what kind of reception they would get.

  To describe Leonie Campbell as a worrier didn’t do the situation justice. She had carried worrying to a fine art. She worried about Jess because her daughter had chosen a career in the police; and Leonie couldn’t understand why. ‘It seems such a – strange thing to do, dear,’ she’d said, on originally being informed of her daughter’s decision. Jess had tried to explain but her mother had simply looked more bewildered.

  Leonie worried even more about Simon’s medical work, ‘Out there in such danger!’ She was desperately anxious to hear first-hand from Mike that all was well.

  ‘Dad was in the army,’ Jess had pointed out to her. ‘The army isn’t a safe career – not your idea of risk free, anyway.’

  ‘It was different for your father,’ retorted Leonie.

  Because of this, they had put off visiting her until Mike was reasonably fit again. Even so, things were not going well.

  If Jess had needed one word to describe her mother, the word she would have chosen would have been ‘tidy’. She’d always been neat in appearance. Jess couldn’t remember her mother with tousled hair, or starting the day without carefully applied make-up, or clean clothes. As an army family, they had lived in a variety of accommodation, when Jess and Simon had been young. But any house or flat, wherever it was, had been marked by Leonie’s obsession with tidiness.

  She and her brother had once discussed this, after Jess had joined the police. ‘You know what it is that attracts you to a police career?’ Simon told her. ‘It’s because the cops deal with people whose lives are untidy. They’re people who’ve got into a mess, either deliberately or accidentally, but in any case, their lives are out of sync with society.’

  ‘Hey! You’re not a shrink!’ Jess had protested.

  ‘Don’t need to be a shrink. Just observant.’

  ‘Okay, then, what if I said you had gone into medicine for the same reason. People get sick. You want to make them whole. You want to tidy them up.’

  This had led to a lively argument but had ended amicably.

  She and Mike sat now in Leonie Campbell’s cottage, where not a thing was out of place, ate cake and made stilted conversation.

  ‘You are quite sure, Mike dear,’ Leonie Campbell said for the umpteenth time, ‘that Simon isn’t ill?’ She leaned forward and scrutinised him. ‘You caught something awful, didn’t you? Anyone can see you’ve been terribly ill. When I think of what it must be like, out there with all those diseases; and no proper sanitation or anything. Besides, there are all those men with guns, as well. There was a bit on the news about it recently. They said fighting had flared up there again.’ She shuddered. ‘Simon must be in the same awful danger.’

  ‘He was as sound as a bell when I last saw him,’ Mike told her – again.

  ‘Only I worry about him, you understand.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I quite understand, Mrs Campbell.’

  ‘You could so easily have died,’ went on Leonie, meaning well but being, thought Jess, tactless, to say the least.

  ‘I’m altogether recovered,’ Mike assured her.

  ‘You won’t be going back there again, though, will you?’ asked Leonie anxiously. ‘Do have another piece of the sponge cake.’

  ‘No, really, oh, thank you…’ The cake had appeared on his plate.

  Jess closed her eyes briefly. She did not visit her mother often enough. She acknowledged this freely. But being force-fed cake, and discussing every possible
disaster likely to befall either Simon or herself, was discouraging. Now Leonie had Mike to worry about, as well. New material.

  Mike had a look on his face that told Jess he was gearing up to defending his determination to return to his work overseas. This wouldn’t be something Leonie would understand, just as she couldn’t reconcile herself to her son’s dedication to his chosen career. There was a further complication, too, in Mike’s case. Put simply, the charity had doubts about sending him back into the field. His battle with disease had left him vulnerable. They didn’t want to fly him back out there, only to have to evacuate him in a rush later. They’d offered him a job at their London headquarters. He’d turned that down. ‘I’m not a deskman. I’m a doctor!’

  Yes, and a dedicated one, which meant, in turn, there was a brake on their relationship, his and Jess’s. How and when could it develop beyond the point it had reached now? And what was that, exactly? Jess wondered. They didn’t talk about the future. They were both thinking about it. But neither of them could find a way to talk about the subject.

  Leonie had turned her attention to her daughter. ‘I’m sorry, darling; I should be asking you how you are getting along. Still determined to stay in the police force?’

  From the corner of her eye, Jess saw that Mike looked relieved, now he had been spared Leonie’s cross-examination. Her mother was looking at her with a forlorn sort of hope. Jess steeled herself to reply cheerfully.

  ‘Absolutely, Mum. I am in CID, you remember. It is interesting.’

  ‘Is it?’ asked Leonie, with disappointment echoing in her voice and showing in her body language. She sighed. ‘Well, I hope you have pleasant people to work with. I mean, not the criminals, they must be awful. I meant, your colleagues.’