Hot to Kill Page 15

  When she was done she sat back, chancing a glance at the cracker plate. She noticed James had gradually taken all that had been meant for him, plus a couple of others. The plate was empty, so it was obviously a popular choice for book club snacks. And the deed was now fully in motion: there was no turning back.

  It wasn’t long before the first signs appeared, but they were probably only visible to someone in the know – Madeline.

  “Derek, would you mind taking over for a minute or two? I think I need a glass of water. Back in a moment.” Everyone watched as James got to his feet and left the room.

  “He doesn’t look too flash,” said Josh. “He’s looking a little hot. Do you think he’s okay?”

  “Well, it is still quite warm. He’s probably overheating a bit, that’s all. A glass of water will do him good,” said Annabel, cheery as always.

  A moment later, James returned and sat back in his chair. He did indeed look rather warm.

  Josh wouldn’t let it go. “Are you okay, James? Do you feel unwell? Only you look a little on the warm side.”

  “Actually, I really don’t feel my best at all. Must be this damn heat. I do rather feel quite hot. Perhaps if nobody minds, we could draw to a close early tonight? I might just sit out the back and get some air.” It was obvious he was suffering with something, and Madeline had a fairly good idea of what, exactly.

  “Of course we don’t mind,” she exclaimed happily. “If you’re feeling under the weather, an early night is the best idea. We’ll wash up the glasses and leave you be.”

  “No,” James said, a little too fiercely. “I mean, no. Don’t worry about the glasses. Mrs. Stewart will do them in the morning when she comes in. But I’ll take you up on the early night idea. Sorry, everyone.”

  Everyone stood and grabbed their things, making their way back to the front door. Madeline nipped back to the kitchen to retrieve her handbag and the pâté tub containing the evidence. She and Annabel were the last to leave, and they both wished James a peaceful night as she pulled the front door closed behind them. Little did Madeline know that for James, it really would be a very peaceful night.

  James sat in his armchair feeling a little hot under the collar. It wasn’t just the cloying heat of the summer evening, even though it must have been about eighty degrees outside. Something felt wrong. And then there was the feeling he was getting in his pants. He was more than a bit puzzled by the slight erection he’d sprouted. They certainly hadn’t been talking about a book with sexual elements – not this time, anyway. It had made him feel intensely uncomfortable in a room full of people, and he’d needed to get rid of them, to make them leave so he could do something about it and relieve the tension.

  An idea came to mind. Loosening his collar, he went upstairs, cell phone in hand, where he took his clothes off and got in under the sheets. He prepared a text.

  Vivien, are you free now, can you come over? JP.

  He hit send and waited. A moment later, her reply landed back on his phone with a ping.

  Give me forty-five. Can’t wait until tomorrow eh? Naughty boy. VV.

  He’d never known her surname, but she always signed her texts off with VV. He replied with, I want you now, tonight, clicked send and reached for a magazine from under his bed to wait for her to knock.

  Forty-five minutes later, Vivien stood knocking, but James didn’t answer the door, or her repeated texts that evening. Though it was strange, there was nothing else she could do. Eventually she gave up and left.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Madeline climbed into her car outside James’s house. The temperature inside was still hot enough to roast a chicken, and sweat immediately started to glisten on her top lip.

  “Poor old James. He seemed a bit warm himself just before he asked us to leave,” she mused. She knew exactly what was going on in his body right about then. His thinning blood would be starting to heat him up inside, focusing in on one spot. “I’m pretty sure he only had the one glass of wine. Shouldn’t do him any harm.” She chuckled out loud at what she‘d set him up for – a night of extreme, urgent discomfort unless he relieved himself. But even then it might take more than once or even twice. Yes, James was going to be a busy man for the next while. She grinned.

  She drove off towards home feeling pleased. “That should teach him a lesson for making me and Pam feel uncomfortable with that last book.”

  The journey home was short, and she parked the car in the garage as normal, grabbing her bag containing the night’s evidence off the seat beside her.

  “I’m home,” she called out, sing-song-like, to Gordon as she opened the front door.

  “You’re earlier than normal. Everything go okay?” he said, coming into the hall to greet her with a peck on the cheek.

  “Yes. James was feeling a bit under the weather, so we finished early. Fancy a cuppa?” She made her way to the kitchen, Gordon following like a puppy. Flicking the kettle on, she opened the fridge to put the remainder of the pâté in and was just about to put the crackers in the cupboard when a hand stopped hers.

  “Oh – crackers! And was that smoked mackerel pâté I just saw?”

  Oh dear.

  “Yes, the last bit. There’s not much left, really.” But it was too late. He reached for the crackers and retrieved the pâté, taking both to the kitchen bar, grabbing a knife from the cutlery drawer on his way past. Madeline watched, helpless, as he scooped a dollop out and smeared it over half a dozen or so crackers that were now lined up ready to be eaten. Knowing they were contaminated, she could only watch. And wait.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Yes, Jack? What’s up?” Amanda was still chewing her toast. A marmalade ‘stick’ clung to her chin like a glistening golden matchstick. She wiped the sliver of peel with her fingers and popped it into her mouth with the rest of the toast as she spoke.

  “I’m guessing you’re still eating breakfast by the sound of the chomping coming from your mouth. Some of us have been at work a while already, you know.”

  “Stop your whining, Jack, and tell me what’s up.” She added a mouthful of coffee into her food processor of a mouth. Jack grimaced as he guessed rightly what she was doing.

  “We have a stiff. A Mr. James Peterson,” he said, a chortle in his voice. She could hear him consulting his notebook. “Seems he got a little excited last night and now he’s stone cold dead. I’m at his place now. When you’ve a minute, why don’t you come over?”

  Amanda took his insults in stride, bouncing her head from side to side and making a face as he spoke.

  “Address?” She wrote it down and took another swig of coffee. “I’m on my way. See you in ten.” A minute later she was jogging down her front path and getting into her car for the short journey to James Peterson’s place. Jack had sounded calm enough about it, so she figured it was something quite straightforward. Had it been a mass murder or a gruesome stabbing he’d have said something in warning, if only to protect her stomach.

  She pulled up outside the big house where flashing blue and reds were parked and went inside. Jack was in the kitchen with an elderly woman. He turned and excused himself from her when he saw Amanda enter.

  “That’s Mrs. Stewart, the housekeeper,” he said. “She came in this morning and found the body, so she’s obviously in shock. Body’s upstairs in the bedroom.” He started to move down the hall and up the stairs, and Amanda followed his lead.

  At the top of the stairs she could see the bedroom to the left, where a couple of uniforms and a photographer worked the scene inside. When she entered the room, she saw what Jack had meant about ‘having a stiff,’ which in hindsight seemed crass and disrespectful, even for Jack.

  The dead man was on top of his bed, completely naked, surrounded by magazines and used tissues. As she got closer, the subject matter of the magazines became clearer – ancient copies of Playboy and Hustler.

  “I see what you meant earlier now. My goodness, these date back more than ten years. Without a
ny puns, Jack, is there any suggestion of foul play?” Amanda was deadly serious.

  “Not at this point, but it’s still a working scene and the doc hasn’t been in yet. En route. But it looks pretty straightforward from what I can make out. From the size of him it’s my guess the guy had a dicky ticker, and got a bit overactive. I bet you a tenner he died of a heart attack.” He really could be crass sometimes.

  Amanda carried on scanning the room, taking it all in. The bachelor-style décor told her Peterson was probably single. Adding to that theory was the housekeeper downstairs, plus what he had so obviously been doing before he died. Alone. How sad, she thought.

  “Still don’t know the exact time of death until the doctor gets here, but he’s stone cold so it’s been a while. Mrs. Stewart came in at 8 am as usual but didn’t come up here until around nine am, after she’d done whatever housekeepers do downstairs. Apparently, Mr. Peterson is usually up and out for his walk early, so she just assumed he was outside somewhere. Then she came up here and saw the curtains still closed. When she saw him, she just called us on the phone in the hallway.”

  Footsteps were coming up the stairs and Amanda turned to see Doctor Mitchell, bag in hand.

  “Morning, all.” A bright-spirited person, though Amanda wondered how that could be when you were dealing with dead people for your entire working day.

  “Morning, Mitchell. Come on in,” Jack said, pointing the way to the bedroom. “Looks pretty straightforward to me, but then I’m not the doc.”

  “That you are not, but thanks for the round-up. I could have done something else with all my years of medical training instead of wasting my time.” Mitchell was in a good mood, though she never failed to put Jack in his place if he guessed the outcome without evidence or overstepped his mark. She winked at Amanda, who returned the knowing look.

  Faith Mitchell took in the room and the body of James Peterson. At this point only James knew what had gone on, but he was no longer in a position to say.

  “I see what you mean, Jack, but it’s not our job to assume anything, I look for the facts and work with them.” She bent down to undo her bag and retrieved her thermometer. Amanda and Jack stood patiently and waited for the body temperature info, the ambient room temperature info and the estimated time of death that followed.

  “Based on rigor, the temperature of his body and the ambient temperature in here over recent hours,” said Mitchell, “I’d estimate the time of death to have been around ten pm last night. I’ll have to do an autopsy and tox screen back at the lab and let you know what I find, but he’s a big man and, judging by the medication on the bedside cabinet, he had a heart condition. Angina probably, but I’ll know more later. Who found him?”

  “Housekeeper, downstairs. Mrs. Stewart. She’s been working for him for some years and is obviously in a state of shock, poor woman. Can’t tell us anything except he’s just how he was when she found him.”

  “Okay. Well I’ll get on with my examination and fill you in when I have some results.”

  Amanda nodded in response and started back down the stairs, Jack on her heels. She said over her shoulder, “I’ll go and check on Mrs. Stewart and have a chat. You hanging around or going back to the station?”

  “Back to the station. Can’t see I can do much here until Mitchell has finished. Let me know if anything comes up and I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay. See you back there. I shouldn’t be long, unless anything surfaces, of course.” She watched as Jack headed off. It seemed straightforward, but then again, you never could tell.

  She turned into the kitchen, where Mrs. Stewart was sitting at the kitchen table with a female officer, a china cup and saucer in front of her. She looked to be around seventy, though she had remarkably good skin and only a few wrinkles on her face. It was her neck and hands that gave it away.

  “Hello. You must be Mrs. Stewart. I’m Detective Amanda Lacey. I believe you found Mr. Peterson?”

  Mrs. Stewart dabbed her nose with the screwed-up hankie that was in her hand and said, “Yes, I’m afraid I did,” then sniffed loudly.

  “Are you able to answer a few questions for me?”

  “Yes, though I’m not sure how much help I can be. I just came in as usual at around eight am and tidied round down here, then made my way up to make his bed.” She started to cry again at the thought of what she’d found, fat tears slipping down her face and dripping on to the table top.

  Amanda felt sorry for her; it couldn’t have been easy.

  “Mrs. Stewart, do you have someone I could perhaps ring to be with you? It’s an upsetting time, I know. It might help.”

  “Not really. My daughter is away in France at the moment, and James – I mean Mr. Peterson – was probably the one closest to me after her. We go back a long time, you see.”

  “Did you see anything unusual, or anyone unusual, out of the ordinary perhaps, when you got here? Anything out of place, maybe? Any sign of an intruder, an unusual window open, perhaps? Anything at all?” Amanda could see the question moving around in the old woman’s head. She came up blank.

  “No, nothing. Just Mr. Peterson, in his bedroom.” Her eyes met Amanda’s. Their red rims looked sore already.

  “What were you doing downstairs before you went up to his room?”

  “Just some washing up. He runs the book club every fortnight and it was here last night, so there were a few wine glasses to clear away.”

  “How many glasses, do you remember? How many came to the book club?” Amanda was taking notes down onto her pad.

  “Oh, let’s see now. I think there were six wine glasses in all and a couple of water glasses. And a plate. They usually have cheese and crackers. James is – was,” she corrected herself, “always extremely generous and always supplied a nice bottle of wine and something to eat.” She smiled weakly at the thought.

  Amanda joined her. “Do you know who attended? And what time does it start and finish?”

  “I can write their names down for you but I don’t know where they live or anything. They are local, of course. They would be gone usually by nine pm, James wasn’t a night owl and liked his bed. Early to rise, though. Didn’t believe in wasting the day.” She dabbed her nose again. It was a deep pink colour now. Amanda handed her a pen and note pad for the names. Mrs. Stewart hesitated a moment.

  “Why don’t I write them down?” said Amanda, trying to help her. “Who is the first one?” She smiled encouragingly at Mrs. Stewart and waited.

  “Oh dear. Let me see. Joshua, then there’s the teacher – Derek, I think. An artist lady, Ann something, and a couple of others. Oh dear, I can’t think of their names.” She looked even more distressed than she had at the beginning. “Oh! Is it important, do you think? I’m all confused and mixed up.”

  “Not to worry for the moment. I can probably start with what you have given me. In the meantime, why don’t I get an officer to drive you home. Do you have a friendly neighbour nearby? We can talk again a bit later.”

  “Yes. Thank you. You’re very kind. Yes.” The old woman was clearly flustered, and Amanda was a little concerned for her. The female officer who had made her a cup of tea moved forward at Amanda’s nod.

  “Let’s get you home for the moment,” she said soothingly, “and I’ll come and talk to you again later when you are feeling a bit better.” Mrs. Stewart stood on wobbly legs and the officer helped her out of the kitchen and down to her patrol car. It was a slow journey.

  Amanda stood at the door and watched them both leave. She’d catch up with the officer again shortly and arrange to see Mrs. Stewart later, but for now she needed to find out about Joshua, Derek and the others – whoever they were. If Derek was a teacher, the schools were the obvious place to start looking for him.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Friday

  “So you’re saying you never actually met him last night?” Jack had volunteered to talk to Vivien. They went back a long way; she had been one of his first ever arrests when they
were both young and stupid, and he’d been known to be stupid with her on occasion. Right then they were sitting in her small lounge, in a house Jack had visited many times over the years, sometimes for pleasure. The text messages found on James’s phone together with local knowledge had brought them back together this time.

  “No,” she sniffed into her tissue, dabbing her bright red nose in the process. “We weren’t due to meet until tonight, but I got a text from him saying he wanted to see me last night so I got ready and went straight over. Probably about forty-five minutes from getting his text.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “Well, I knocked, but there was no answer. I don’t have a key – refused to have one though he’d offered it to me. Didn’t want the responsibility. In case I lost it, you know?”

  “Go on.”

  “So I sent him a text saying I was outside waiting, which you’ve probably seen by now, but he never answered. I gave up in the end, came back home. Figured he’d fallen asleep or changed his mind, but it wasn’t his way to let people down. And now he’s dead. I can’t believe it. It’s too much to take in.”

  “Do you know why he changed the day to see you? Did he mention anything earlier on?” He twiddled his moustache thoughtfully.

  “No, and it was out of character. He liked the routine, seeing me on a certain day. We’d done the same thing for more than ten years, always the first Friday of the month, and he always looked forward to it.” She sniffed again. James had been a gentleman, unlike others she could mention. He took care of her, and sometimes they even ate together, shared some supper, and had a laugh. It was more like a friendship than a business transaction; they were two people who had sex with each other occasionally, and she knew she’d miss him.