Mixing With Murder Read online

Ganesh took my arm. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let the local police sort it out. And don’t worry about justice. That has a way of getting done. Let’s go home.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the time we got back to London my wrist had swollen up like a balloon, so stiff I couldn’t move it, and was very painful. At Ganesh’s insistence we went directly from Paddington to the nearest A and E department.

  They took my details and asked me how I’d come to hurt the wrist, also get the black eye which had developed nicely on the journey from Oxford, to the great interest of other train passengers and some signs of embarrassment on the part of Ganesh. A large stout lady sitting opposite us had kept glaring at him. As she came to leave the train she declared, on rising to her feet and fixing Ganesh with a gimlet eye, ‘There is no action lower than that of a man who raises a hand to a woman!’

  She then sailed majestically away leaving poor Ganesh with his mouth open and she’d gone before he could rally and explain he hadn’t been responsible.

  ‘Never mind, Gan,’ I said to him. ‘She probably wouldn’t have believed you.’

  This did not make things better and the remaining passengers had now caught on and we got even more curious, sympathetic (for me) and critical (for him) looks. It was mostly because of this, I fancy, that he’d insisted we go straight to A and E on arrival in London.

  In reply to the nurse’s question now about the cause of my injury, I told her I’d been in a fight, which was true. She didn’t ask how or why or with whom. It was a pretty normal explanation for injury in their world. She just wrote it down.

  ‘What about you?’ the nurse then asked Ganesh.

  ‘What about me?’ returned Ganesh, nettled.

  ‘Keep your hair on,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I only want to know if you were injured in the same fight.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t,’ said Ganesh.

  ‘Don’t be rude!’ I muttered at him as the nurse scurried away with her clipboard.

  ‘What did she mean, then? What’s it got to do with me? I’m just here with you, as a friend, supporting you.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Gan.’

  We sat for an hour after this before seeing anyone. During this time Ganesh sat with his arms folded, glowering at everyone else and muttering that if we lingered there much longer we’d catch some horrible disease. I pointed out that A and E didn’t deal in diseases, but in accidents and unforeseen medical emergencies. How did I know, asked Ganesh, what diseases all those other people waiting might harbour?

  I told him he was beginning to sound like his uncle. This didn’t improve his mood and he sulked. I found a copy of the Sun newspaper which someone had left behind and read that, which didn’t take long. Fortunately I was called at last and after examination sent along for X-ray. We then had to wait for the result. The wrist wasn’t broken, thank goodness, only badly bruised. I was advised to rest it, as if I could do anything else with it. They gave me some painkillers.

  All in all, it was quite late when we left the hospital. Ganesh was still in a sulk and mumbled at intervals all the way back to Camden. I gave up trying to listen: it all seemed to be on the same theme, i.e. how complicated I made his life and why couldn’t I be like everyone else?

  When we arrived he said loudly and distinctly, and fixing me with a stern gaze, that he had to go straight home to Hari to explain what had happened in Oxford. He thought it better I didn’t go with him. If I walked in with a black eye and arm in a sling, Hari would probably pass out among the magazine racks and suffer a prolonged nervous breakdown after he came round. Moreover he, Ganesh, had had enough of people giving him funny looks and asking leading questions.

  ‘First that fat woman on the train and then the nurse at A and E. All the other people in the waiting area were giving me odd looks, too, like I’d committed some crime.’

  I told him he was being neurotic. But I wasn’t anxious to have Hari lecturing me on the entirely foreseeable results of my rash behaviour and was happy enough to go on to my place alone.

  Sadly, alone was what I found myself when I got there. No sign of Bonnie and enquiries among my fellow tenants and neighbours failed to turn up any hopeful news. The flat had an empty, abandoned feel to it. Dust had settled on all the surfaces and the jar of marmalade on which I’d breakfasted only that morning hadn’t been returned to the fridge and had managed to grow a coat of grey mould already. I threw it in the bin. Then I put Bonnie’s dog bowl in a cupboard out of sight. Not because I feared she wasn’t now ever coming back; I refused even to consider that. But the sight of the unused dog bowl was more painful than the throbbing wrist.

  Over the days that followed several people told me they thought they’d sighted Bonnie in a variety of locations. I went immediately to every one but didn’t find her or anyone there who’d seen a dog like her. Erwin’s musician friends were especially keen to help but their sightings of her were, I suspected, often influenced by banned or semi-banned substances which made it difficult to be sure what they had actually seen. One of them brought me a very small dog with very little hair which he said he’d found in the street. It was a nice little thing but it wasn’t Bonnie and I told him to take it back where he’d found it or to the RSPCA.

  ‘You sure this ain’t your dog?’ he asked, uncomprehending, picking it up in one hand and staring at it thoughtfully. The little dog stared back with bulging eyes.

  ‘Yes, I’m really sure. My dog is a bit bigger than that one.’

  ‘Bigger, right!’ he said, put the mini-dog in his jacket pocket and departed.

  Two days later he was back with a bewildered Doberman on a length of string. I explained that was too big and begged him to return it immediately to the backyard of the drug dealer from whom he’d probably abducted it. I watched them leave. The Doberman seemed to have taken a fancy to him and returning it might not have proved so easy.

  Next I was asked to return to Oxford for the formal opening of the inquest on Ivo. Lisa was there, accompanied by a chap in a City suit with an expensive briefcase. This would be the lawyer Allerton had hired to watch over her interests. Pereira told the court that the deceased had been identified by a cousin (I assumed this to be Jasna but she wasn’t there in person). He was Ivo Simić, who had been working as a doorkeeper at a club in London. I was asked to explain how and where I’d found the body. The inquest was then adjourned. The coroner said he understood the police were awaiting forensic reports and making some further inquiries.

  At this I caught a fleeting expression of alarm on Lisa’s face, but the smart lawyer whispered in her ear and she relaxed. My heart sank. Whatever questions came out of the further inquiries, the pair of them were pretty sure they had answers.

  When the inquest was resumed, not long afterwards, there were more people there. Lisa appeared escorted not only by the lawyer but by her mother, who looked pale and drawn and wore black. Hovering protectively over the pair of them was Mickey Allerton himself, sporting a black tie. I deduced from this that Paul had probably passed away and Mickey had taken up the role of man of the family. I was sorry if this was the case. I’d liked Paul and sympathised with his situation. Nor did I like Mickey making himself prominent as the family’s protector. It reinforced my belief that this inquest was unlikely to turn out as I might wish.

  I stole a look at Lisa. She was also very pale and wore a dark trouser suit, the jacket bulging a little over her stomach. She had tied her hair back with a black ribbon. But she took the stand to give her account in a composed manner. She left London, she explained, after a dispute with her employer. This had all proved to be due to a misunderstanding but at the time she had been upset and returned home to Oxford. Simić had followed her and made contact. She knew him to be a violent and unpredictable man. She went to meet him as arranged because she did not want him to come to her family home. Her father was in poor health. He had since passed away.

  There was a short break during which she sipped a glass of water, was asked if she wished to
sit down, declined the offer, sniffed into a nice clean handkerchief, and carried on. She had also arranged to meet Francesca Varady, a private detective sent by her employer and she asked Simić to come to the same place, but earlier, as this was convenient for her. She took with her to the meeting a grass snake which lived in the garden of the family house because she knew that Simić was afraid of snakes. She carried it in a cloth bag. She had handled the snake before and wasn’t afraid of it or of being bitten. Or the smell, she added.

  ‘The smell?’ asked the coroner, interested. He had appeared impressed by Lisa’s lack of fear of snakes. He probably didn’t suffer as Ivo had done from ophidophobia. But most people were nervous around snakes, I supposed.

  ‘They can discharge a smelly substance as a defence,’ she explained. ‘But Arthur knew me.’

  ‘Arthur, Miss Stallard?’

  A blush and prettily contrived confusion on the part of the witness. ‘We called him that. He was a sort of pet.’

  By now, I thought sourly, she had added the coroner to her list of pets. But then, she looked such a nice girl, standing there. Pretty, apparently frank, well-spoken, bereaved and to top it all in what the Victorians liked to call an interesting condition.

  I stole a glance at Jennifer Stallard. She looked twice as tense and nervous as her daughter on the witness stand. She leaned forward slightly and watched Lisa’s face with a desperate intensity. Her thin white hands were twisting a handkerchief into an unrecognisable rag. She’s lost her husband, I thought. Now she sees the possibility of losing her daughter, too, although in a different way. Has she guessed? Has she got some inkling of what Lisa really did down by the river that morning?

  Lisa was speaking again. She explained that Simić had panicked on seeing the snake. He had stumbled backwards and fallen in the river.

  ‘And when Simić fell into the river, what did you do next?’ asked the coroner in a kindly way.

  ‘I panicked too,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘But I thought he’d be all right. I mean, I was sure he could swim. Anyway, I didn’t think the river was very deep. But I knew he’d be angry and I’d dropped the grass snake. It slid away, so there was nothing to stop him attacking me.’

  ‘So you simply left the scene?’ the coroner asked her.

  She hesitated. ‘He was near the bank and I thought he would climb out.’ Her voice began to break. She stifled a sob. ‘I didn’t think he’d drown! I wouldn’t leave anyone to drown!’ Tears began to trickle down her cheeks and an usher offered more water but she gestured the glass aside. The tears burst out uncontrollably. I was more than startled. I was shocked. I had assumed she’d been acting her distress but this was all too real. I saw Jennifer begin to rise to her feet and Mickey Allerton put a hand on her arm. Jennifer sank back, her face a picture of utter misery.

  Did my mother, I wondered, after she’d left us all, ever spend a night of misery like that, thinking about me? Had she loved me like that? I could never know now. For years Jennifer had been a prisoner in that house in Summertown with her invalid husband. No thought of her own freedom or of fulfilment, but comforting herself that Lisa, at least, had every opportunity and was making the most of it. And this was how it had ended, in a coroner’s court, cool and dim in marked contrast to the outside heat, already building up although this was still quite early in the morning. Here she sat and listened to all her dreams fall apart.

  I looked across the room to Pereira but her face was expressionless.

  Lisa was helped back to her seat where Jennifer put her arm round her shoulders.

  Mickey was then presented to the court as Mr Michael Allerton, a businessman and club owner. He said he wished it to be known that although he had employed Ivo Simić, he had not sent the man to Oxford in pursuit of Miss Stallard. He had in fact been on the point of sacking Simić due to Simić’s unsatisfactory behaviour during his time in his employment. He, Allerton, had asked Miss Francesca Varady, a private detective, to go to Oxford and talk to Miss Stallard on his behalf. Miss Varady had done so. As a result, the matter under dispute between himself and Miss Stallard had been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.

  I must say, Allerton looked pretty satisfied when he said this.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said the coroner, shuffling his papers, ‘we heard from Miss Varady the - ah - private detective at the previous inquest.’ Private detectives, in his view, were obviously to be categorised together with snakes.

  A pathologist’s statement was then read to the court, stating that death had been from drowning.

  What had been the result of the further forensic tests? Pereira was asked when she took the stand next.

  ‘Inconclusive,’ she said briefly.

  ‘So you have nothing further to add, Sergeant Pereira?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The coroner summed up with the air of a headmaster doing his best to be fair. This whole sorry affair had arisen from a dispute at her place of work between Lisa Stallard and her employer, Michael Allerton, a dispute the coroner understood had now been resolved. At the time of the tragedy, however, Lisa Stallard had left London in haste and in some mental confusion. The deceased, Ivo Simić, had followed her to Oxford and made contact, requesting a meeting. The coroner accepted that Lisa Stallard had been afraid that Simić had come to Oxford to force her to return to London with him. The court had heard from Mr Allerton, Simić’s employer, that this had not been so. Mr Allerton had in fact sent Miss Francesca Varady to make contact with Miss Stallard and as a result the matter under dispute had later been settled in a peaceful manner. But at the time Simić contacted her, Mr Allerton and Miss Stallard were not on speaking terms. Being with some justification afraid of Simić . . .

  Here the coroner rustled papers and observed that police records showed Simić had a conviction for affray and another for assault and could therefore be assumed to have been a dangerous man. So, being afraid of Simić but aware Simić suffered a phobia regarding snakes, she had taken a grass snake from her family’s garden. Mrs Jennifer Stallard, who on medical advice was not being asked to give her evidence in person, had given the court a written statement that the snake had lived in her garden and been a pet of her late husband’s. The court was sorry to hear of Mr Stallard’s recent demise and the coroner would not prolong his summing-up unduly, causing more distress. However, Lisa Stallard took the snake as insurance, shall we say?

  He peered at us over his spectacles as if this was the moment when one of us, had any of us an objection, should jump up and say so. Rather like a priest conducting a marriage ceremony. If any one has just cause . . . I had just cause but no evidence. The usher would probably eject me from the court if I made a fuss, Allerton would be seriously displeased and Pereira would tell me I was out of order and what the hell did I think I was doing? I sat on my hands. If ever justice was done for Ivo Simić, it wouldn’t be here.

  The coroner took up his thread.Yes, an insurance against an assault on the part of Simić. Unfortunately, Simić’s reaction on seeing the snake had been so violent as to involve his stumbling back and losing his footing, falling in the river. While Miss Stallard should really have remained and made sure that he had climbed out, knowing him to be young and fit and seeing that he was conscious and moving in the water, she can be forgiven for believing he was well able to climb out unaided. Her explanation for leaving the scene was - ah - unfortunate but understandable.

  Accidental death.

  We all left the court. Lisa, her mother, Allerton and the sharp-suited lawyer formed a tightly knit group. I was standing alone on the pavement watching them when I heard my name called and turned to find Pereira standing nearby.

  ‘So, she got away with it,’ I said. ‘I knew she would.’

  ‘There was no evidence to support your theory, Fran,’ Pereira told me.

  ‘What about the branch?’ Despite Pereira’s warnings, I’d fixed my hopes on that branch.

  ‘It had been lying in the open for a while. Any DNA
on it was too degraded. We couldn’t make a match. Anyway, if you’re right and one end of the branch had been in the river, the traces would’ve washed off - oh, we weren’t even able to get a trace of yours, Fran. Perhaps that was just as well. Think about it.’

  I stared at her in horror. ‘You mean I might have ended up charged with killing Ivo?’

  ‘You were the one who was discovered in the river with the body,’ she reminded me. ‘You handled the branch. I think, Fran, you should go home and try and forget all about this.’ She paused. ‘As for the parentage of Lisa’s baby which you questioned in your interview with me, that did not arise. It’s a serious allegation, Fran, and I’d keep it to yourself, if I were you. You have no reason to believe you are right and unless Mr Allerton himself should get suspicious and ask for the relevant tests . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to tell him. But I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t want to be there if he ever finds out! Lisa’s going to have to worry about that for the rest of her life!’