Murder on Page One Read online

  ‘Can you give me a list of all the wannabes who have approached you in the last year?’ Flick was thinking needles and haystacks.

  Aline-Wendy shook her head. ‘The e-mail rejections get a standard response then I delete the submission and our reply. Once we’ve had a look at the manuscripts we send them back. We don’t keep records. You could look through the cupboard, of course.’

  Flick, who had pictured herself writing detective stories in her retirement, was downcast. ‘If they send in their manuscript and don’t hear back, do they not get impatient?’

  ‘Sometimes, but I just tell them we’re very busy and we’ll let them know when we can. About once a year, I go through the cupboard and send back a whole lot even if we haven’t looked at them.’

  ‘Can you think of anyone who has responded angrily after being rejected?’

  ‘They just seem to accept it. Sorry, I can’t think of anyone right now.’ Aline-Wendy shook her head then brightened. ‘But I have an idea. You should contact the Crime Writers’ Association. They run a competition for aspiring writers. It’s called the Debut Dagger. If Ms McNeill’s killer wants to become a crime writer, they’re sure to enter. I think the closing date is early February.’

  ‘Just a week or two away. A lot of the entries will already be in. How do I find them?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’re in England, somewhere. You’d probably be best Googling them.’

  As Flick thanked Aline-Wendy, the door flew open. Osborne rolled in, pungent wafts of spices and nicotine in his wake. Flick took the air freshener from the desk and gave a five-second burst.

  3

  ‘You’re ’aving a laugh, pet … Felicity. Why should crime writers associate? To plan murders?’

  ‘As we can’t compare lists of both agents’ rejects, the Debut Dagger has to be the next best thing.’

  ‘We’re sticking in the real world. I’ll solve this with old-fashioned police work, not by consulting ’Ercule bloody Poirot.’

  ‘They say that all writers reveal more of themselves than they think, and if we’re looking for disappointed wannabe authors …’

  ‘Bollocks. You cannot be serious.’ They were driving past the All-England Club on their way to Lorraine McNeill’s flat, and Osborne mangled the vowels of Brooklyn and Whitechapel as he delivered the famous McEnroe line.

  Flick shrugged. It was no more than she had expected. She would wait till old-fashioned police work hit a dead end before raising the subject again.

  Lorraine McNeill had made her home in a modern luxury block standing back from a road containing expensive houses. Four-by-fours, or ‘Wimbledon tanks’ as Sharon, Flick’s friend in traffic called them, guarded many of the driveways, ready to close in on the local Primary School later in the afternoon.

  Flick had the keys. Once through the outer door, the two officers gazed round the marble-floored foyer, silently asking themselves how much a flat here would cost.

  A ping announced the arrival of the lift. Over his shoulder, Osborne said: ‘You said the second floor? Check out the stairs and I’ll have a look at the lift.’ As the door slid open, he barged in before a smartly-dressed woman could get out. Flick had noticed that, in the presence of wealth, the Inspector became more than usually pugnacious. She smiled apologetically at the woman, who ignored her.

  The stairs were spotlessly clean. Flick saw nothing remarkable as, deliberately slowly, she made her way up. Outside the flat, Osborne scowled at her, an unlit cigarette between his lips. Enjoying his impatience, she selected the correct key, put it in the lock and turned it.

  Cautiously, she pushed the door and peered into the dark hallway. There was a screech and a scrabbling noise. A light brown cat sped past and down the stairs. Both officers pretended they had not been startled. Osborne switched on the light and they went in.

  Immaculate was the word Flick first thought of. Clinical was the second. It was like a show flat until Osborne left muddy footprints behind him. Even the cat’s litter tray and basket, side by side on the floor of the gleaming kitchen, had a designer appearance.

  Flick went to the desk in the living room and began to search through the drawers, unsure what she should be looking for and hoping that she would recognise something significant if she saw it. It did not take her long to bag the financial papers and scan the holiday brochures. Luxury was the constant theme, but from the pages that had been marked it was clear that McNeill had been a single holidaymaker. Flick went through utility bills and boring letters about insurance and concluded that the dead woman had been well-organised and rich, but lonely. The only thing in the room with personality was the bookcase. It occupied an entire wall and most shelves held two rows. There were lines of bleached and battered Agatha Christie paperbacks. Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Georgette Heyer were well represented. Flick ran her fingers along volumes by Drabble, Du Maurier, Mitford and Austin. A leather-bound Dickens set occupied the top shelf. The sole photograph in the room was above the fire. It showed a family group: a father, mother and two pre-teen girls. Their clothes suggested the late seventies. The CD rack was filled by Mozart and Beethoven. Flick wondered if the preening confidence exuded by her office had been skin-deep, and that Lorraine McNeill had come home seeking the comforts of childhood.

  ‘Life is full of surprises,’ Osborne said, making her jump. He came into the room and waved under her nose a pink dildo, which he held by his fingertips, despite the rubber gloves. ‘Bedside table,’ he explained. ‘Hold this bag open, will you?’

  Flick could see no connection between the dildo and the murder, but she showed no emotion as she helped bag the exhibit.

  ‘Got to be thorough, Felicity,’ Osborne said. With a wink that made Flick’s flesh creep, he returned to continue his search.

  The retired stockbroker who lived across the landing told the detectives that Ms McNeill had been a quiet neighbour. Pleasant and polite without being friendly, she worked long hours and seldom had visitors. He and his wife were appalled to hear she had been murdered. She had lived there alone for the past three years.

  ‘So, no partner, no lover, success by day, wanker by night. You say there’s no children, a sister in Australia and a widowed mum in a home near Slough?’ Osborne asked once they were back in the car.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘She drank, you know. She had two gin bottles in the kitchen. And a good few bottles of wine. Chateau this, Chateau that and Chateau the next thing.’

  ‘Were the bottles empty or full?’

  ‘Full, of course, except one of the gin bottles. But you don’t buy that stuff to stick it up on your mantelpiece. Anyway, her ex-husband’s coming in. When?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Do her finances look okay?’

  ‘Can’t say for sure, but yes, I think so.’

  ‘Dig deeper, Felicity. This woman had one deadly enemy, and I plan to find out who that was, without blindly interviewing a bunch of crap crime writers.’

  * * *

  ‘I hadn’t seen her for months, honestly.’ George McNeill, a tall man in a shapeless tweed jacket, who reminded Flick of the actor in the BT ads, looked worried. ‘We are … were divorced,’ he added defensively.

  Neither Osborne nor Flick said anything. Faces expressionless, they eyeballed him across the table.

  He began to gabble. ‘It was a bit acrimonious at the time, but that was three years ago, and we were fine any time we met or spoke on the phone. It was a complicated settlement. Loose ends to tidy up, you know? Lawyers are expensive, so we tried to sort out any problems ourselves. Not that there were many. Or that important, really. No children. Just as well, I suppose … It was a mistake to buy property in Spain. You think our bureaucracy is bad …’ With a twitchy smile he looked at the files on the desk. ‘It got sorted, of course. She could negotiate, I can tell you. She was a natural for her job. I still can’t believe it.’ Sitting back in his chair, he looked almost desolate.

  ‘D
id she have any other romantic attachments?’ Osborne asked sharply.

  McNeill looked shocked. ‘No. We sort of drifted apart. We first got together at university.’

  ‘No other relationships at all?’

  ‘I don’t think she had anyone. I didn’t check on her, of course. And, well, I … but she didn’t mind. It was after we’d split.’

  ‘What’s your lady-friend’s name?’

  McNeill frowned. ‘I don’t see how that’s relevant, but it’s Claire. Claire McNeill. We married three months ago.’

  ‘And your ex-wife didn’t resent this?’

  ‘No. She sent us a wedding present. A pile of books, actually.’

  ‘Did she drink? We found alcohol in her flat.’

  McNeill screwed up his face. ‘Yes, a bit, but not excessively.’

  ‘What about enemies? Maybe writers she’d turned down?’

  ‘Can’t think of any names. I suppose there must have been …’ His voice caught.

  ‘When was the last time you went to her office?’ Flick asked softly.

  ‘Months ago. Let me see. September, it was.’ He consulted a diary. ‘Yes, the tenth. There was a document to sign in a hurry for the Spanish lawyer. Not that he ever hurried.’

  ‘Have you seen her since?’

  ‘No.’ He gulped. ‘I’ve just remembered. When I was in her office in September, Aline-Wendy argued with someone on the phone. She told them not to be so persistent; it wouldn’t get them anywhere. She hung up on them. I remember because it was so unlike Aline-Wendy.’

  ‘And what were you doing last night between five and ten?’ Osborne made it sound like an accusation.

  ‘Oh. Yes. You have to ask, don’t you?’ McNeill put his diary on the table and indicated an entry, ‘5.30. Snowie’. ‘Alan Snow, he’s my dentist. Lambeth, St Georges Road. He always gives me the last appointment of the day and we go for a pint afterwards.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Pig and Whistle. It’s practically next door to the surgery. I got home about eight.’

  ‘And just one pint?’

  ‘Well, two or three, actually, if you want to be precise.’

  ‘Drive home, did you?’ Osborne asked sharply.

  ‘No. Tube. Bakerloo then Jubilee. Claire was cross. The toad-in-the-hole was cremated.’

  As Flick took a note, Osborne said, ‘We need to have a formal identification of the body. Would you mind?’

  McNeill shut his eyes for a moment then sat up straight. ‘Yes, Inspector. Of course. She could be a royal pain, but I … I’m still very fond of her, in an odd way.’ He turned his head and breathed deeply. ‘One thing. Do you know what’s being done about Stanley?’

  ‘Stanley?’

  ‘The cat. Burmese. He was ours, but she got custody, if you call it that. Erm, I’d like to have him now.’

  Osborne said, ‘Find him and keep him, as far as I’m concerned.’

  Flick said, ‘We’d rather not get involved in that.’ Neither officer had given the cat a thought after his speedy exit from the flat.

  4

  ‘So the ex’s alibi checks out, her finances seem okay, and we don’t know of anyone arranging to meet her the day she was killed.’ Osborne summarised their lack of progress. It was noon on the second day of the investigation, and he had called Flick, Peters and Baggo into a corner of the CID room. He did not want them to be overheard.

  ‘Anything interesting from the phones, Baggo?’

  ‘Not a sausage, gov. It was all dull as ditch-water. Authors and publishers, taxis and restaurants. Same goes for the computers. Nothing for you to get your teeth into.’ Baggo’s eyes twinkled as he glanced sideways at Peters.

  ‘No help from CCTV, and no unexpected fingerprints at the scene.’ Flick said, frowning at them. Long ago, she had ceased to find Osborne’s gluttony amusing. ‘I suppose you’ve tried Facebook?’ she asked Baggo.

  ‘A very boring entry, Sarge. Mostly about her cat. There were some nice comments from authors she had helped.’

  ‘She seems to have had no lovers, no sins. Well, just the one …’ Osborne leered at Flick then continued: ‘What do we know about that receptionist, the eyelash woman?’

  ‘Seems okay,’ Flick said.

  ‘She was really upset,’ Peters said.

  ‘Well let’s look at her more closely. My old Sarge, Thumper Binks, always suspected the person who found the body, specially if they were the last to see the deceased alive. Felicity, you do that.’

  ‘What about the wannabes and the other agent? Shouldn’t we at least try and find a link?’ Flick asked.

  Despite Jessica Stanhope’s exotic private life, which suggested a number of leads, that investigation had stalled. Like McNeill, she had been murdered in her office. She had been working late and was found strangled the next morning. An article in Publishers’ Weekly, in which she had deplored the lack of emerging talent, had been scrumpled into balls and put in her mouth. Again, CCTV did not help and fingerprints had been wiped, even off the paper balls.

  Six weeks on, Osborne was far from making an arrest, although his gut told him a jilted lover, Frank Lowe, a financial journalist who owned an extensive collection of handcuffs and whips, was the killer. His alibi depended on a Filipino masseuse in a Soho sauna and his photograph had been posted below the dead woman’s on the whiteboard, the words ‘kinky journo’ scrawled beside his nondescript face.

  ‘In the old days, Thumper Binks and I would have beaten a confession out of him, even if he was a bleeding masochist,’ Osborne had muttered to Peters, who had gleefully told the rest of the station.

  Osborne glared at Flick. ‘Always wanting to use your English degree, aren’t you? All right. On you go. But no going behind my back to the ’Ercule bloody Poirot Association. Peters, you put the squeeze on the receptionist. See if she stood to gain by McNeill’s death. These eyelashes could be hiding something.’

  ‘And don’t forget to ask her about the caller George McNeill told us about, and see if she can now remember any would-be authors who were very persistent,’ Flick added.

  Peters nodded. ‘I’ll go this afternoon. I didn’t get the impression that Aline-Wendy wanted to take over. I heard her talking to someone about other agents.’

  ‘Anything on the techy side for me to do?’ Baggo asked. His instinctive talent for IT and a desire to keep his Brahmin complexion out of the sun made a computer desk his natural habitat.

  ‘Go over the computer and phone stuff in Stanhope’s case and see if you can find a link with McNeill,’ Osborne instructed. ‘These cases are not going to solve themselves,’ he added unnecessarily.

  * * *

  Jessica Stanhope had worked for Creech, Haldane and Laughton. They were a large agency with many clients. Their office was off Mostyn Road at the Gardens end. As Flick stepped into the imposing hallway she looked round the newly-installed cameras. Had they been there six weeks earlier, Stanhope’s killer might have been arrested and McNeill might still be alive. A lift whisked her up to Carol Edwards’ office and Stanhope’s former assistant got straight to the point.

  ‘I’ve prepared a list already, actually,’ Edwards said, handing over seven closely-typed A4 sheets listing names and addresses. ‘These are the people Jessica rejected during the last year. She was our main crime agent, so she had more submissions coming to her than the others. Our guidelines are strict: first three chapters and a synopsis in hard copy. Once a week, generally on a Friday, I’d take her what had come in. She’d look at them all. Some she’d reject after a page or two, but a few would be asked to send the complete manuscript. A reader would give their view, and if it was positive, Jessica would read the whole thing herself. We took on just two new writers last year.’

  ‘What about the rejected material? Do you still have any?’

  ‘No. We sent it back if they’d enclosed the postage. Otherwise we re-cycled it. If we’d let it build up, we’d have been swamped.’
r />   ‘But you kept a list?’

  ‘Some people kept sending in the same stuff. I checked each new submission on the computer and if they’d submitted within the previous year and didn’t tell us, I’d bin it straight away.’

  ‘Can you think of any wannabes who were particularly persistent or aggressive?’

  Edwards thought for a moment. ‘There was one man. He was disabled. An ex-soldier. He kept on going on about that, as if he should be taken on because he was in a wheelchair. I had to be quite firm with him over the telephone. I think his name was Wallace.’

  ‘Could you check, please?’

  Edwards reached for the list and ran her finger down the column of names. ‘Here we are. Ralf Wallace, Flat 2B, 12 Hope Crescent, Bracknell. He could be seriously objectionable.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  Edwards shook her head.

  ‘You list names and addresses, but nothing else?’

  ‘Correct. I’ve no idea what their writing was like.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much. I don’t suppose you’ve had any new thoughts about enemies she might have had?’

  ‘’Fraid not. I did think the paper in her mouth pointed to someone she had rejected, but your inspector seemed more interested in her private life. Do you think this is connected to Lorraine McNeill’s murder?’

  ‘Too early to say yet.’ Flick was convinced it was. She returned to the station and pored over the list as she chewed her muesli bars.

  * * *

  On Mile End Road there was a small, dark pub untouched by designers. In an alcove at the back, Osborne sat beside a thin, gnarled little man whose eyes moved constantly round the bar. He was nearer his patch than he liked, but Osborne had insisted on this place. Two cokes sat on the table in front of them. One was untouched.