Cross Check: The second Posh Hits story Read online

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you search the flat for them?”

  “Of course. They weren’t there.”

  “You looked in all the rooms?” The sergeant was watching Matt closely. Matt nodded.

  “Right then. And you’ve been here ever since? With the children?”

  “Yes, look what is …”

  “Don’t worry, Matt, I just needed a bit of background.” The sergeant leaned forward, “look, obviously you’ll be hoping to get custody of your boy. I understand Tracey blocked you from having full custody of him before?”

  “Yes, she used the fact that I’d been in prison to stop me – she had this lawyer, he made me sound like a mental case.” Matt looked down at his hands then glanced across to where Paddy and Billy were still standing crying at the door. Lill patted his hand. I cleared my throat.

  “If I might interject, Inspector.” I said.

  “Sergeant,” he replied, but looked pleased. “Please do, Mrs – er …”

  “Somehow – and I don’t know how – this woman seems to have been able to afford a top-notch lawyer and together they put forward a fabricated case to prevent Mr Hopkins from obtaining custody of his dear little boy …”

  “Yes, ma’am. It seems she was supplying her solicitor with drugs – and – er – sexual favours.”

  “Ah.” I said. “Well I suppose that explains that. From the little I know of my housekeeper’s son’s case, he was imprisoned for a short while for fraud. But that doesn’t speak to his lack of suitability as a parent, does it, and I can honestly say, I’ve never seen such a devoted and committed father. And surely now it’s become known that Ms Whatsit doped her lawyer, that is going to damage any claim to prevent Mr Hopkins from gaining custody of his child.”

  “Er - quite possibly, ma’am.”

  “Moreover, he has completely turned his life around since coming out of prison. He’s living in a safe and child-friendly environment – here. He has his parents on hand to support him, twenty-four seven, three hundred and sixty five days a year. He has done a wonderful and physically demanding job landscaping my garden and is in the process of setting himself up professionally in that capacity. Furthermore, it will be my pleasure to recommend him to my friends, who I believe will seek out his services, thus making his enterprise a success. If called upon to testify, I will support whole-heartedly his application for full custody of his little boy, who will be very welcome to live here with those who love him.”

  There was a moment’s stunned silence followed by a snuffle from Lill as she found a hankie and wept into it.

  “Oh Mrs Cressida …”

  Even Matt and the sergeant appeared to be moved. The sergeant covered his emotion by making a few jerky notes in his notebook and then snapping it shut and putting it away. He cleared his throat.

  “Well, Matt, I really don’t think that you’ll have any further problems convincing anyone. From the look of the flat, those kids have had a poor start in life. Time for something better for them. It’s a shame there’s no next of kin for the little girl. She’ll probably end up in care.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it.” Matt said quietly. The sergeant got to his feet and held out his hand to Matt.

  “Good luck, son. I’m glad to see you’ve put your past behind you.”

  “Sergeant, how did she die?” Matt asked. The sergeant turned to beckon to his colleague to come back inside. The second the door opened the children ran in and threw themselves at Matt, clinging to him in relief.

  “Nasty business. Beaten to death by Mick in a drunken rage. With one of those little hand-held weights. Then he seems to have knocked back a phenomenal amount of vodka, and topped it off with an overdose of cocaine. Lethal. We don’t know if it was deliberate or an accident. Found him lying on the sofa surrounded by empty bottles and packets of coke, weed, syringes, condoms, all sorts. We have discovered he was well known to our colleagues in Vice as a dealer and a user of various illegal substances not to mention pimping out his girlfriend to earn a bit more cash. I’m afraid his death is not a huge surprise. Though we didn’t realise Tracey herself was in any danger from him. I’ll be filing my report with social services and letting them know you have the children. Obviously they’ll be in contact very soon, and I can’t promise anything but I’m sure they will be only too happy to have two needy children given a loving home. Right constable, let’s get off. Goodbye to you all. Goodbye Mrs Parker – er - Barker …”

  And they were gone. Lill came back from showing them out and we all sat round the table, Paddy on Matt’s lap, Billy on mine. We adults just looked at each other.

  “You know,” Lill said, “I hardly slept last night for worrying about the kiddies going back to that place today. And now look. I can’t hardly believe it. It’s like a bleeding miracle.”

  “Thank God.” I said.

  Matt said nothing. He looked at me for a second, then looked down to drop a kiss on Paddy’s hair.

  Tuesday 15 July – 9.45pm

  We had the ladies from Social Services’ Child Welfare department here this morning – the first of several such visits I should think. And although I was only on the periphery, (we’re still not announcing Matt and I as a couple or the fact that we’re expecting) the meeting seemed to go well. I know they have to ask a lot of nosy questions, and I had to leave at that point, due to confidentiality issues but from what Matt told me afterwards it seems to have gone well. In fact they seemed quite impressed and they pretty much intimated this was really just going to be a rubber-stamp job.

  I left the ladies in the kitchen with Matt, Sid and Lill and obviously the two little ones, and a massive pot of tea and pile of fairy cakes. Not to mention a couple of nosy kittens. Couldn’t pry too closely to the kitchen door for fear of discovery, but I heard such phrases as ‘support systems’, ‘new start’ and ‘background check’ which were all a bit daunting but then I also heard ‘delightful area’, ‘excellent school’, and the more telling, ‘simply delicious’. So I think it should be okay. Shouldn’t it? I can’t bear to even think that we might lose the children. I know they’ve only been with us for five days, but already they have completely taken over all our lives. I don’t think there’s much chance they will take Paddy away from Matt, but what about Billy? No, I’m not going to think about it. It makes me feel sick. So I will stop these mad thoughts now.

  Anyway, I gave up eavesdropping and went to the pub to meet Henrietta. It’s becoming our bi-weekly routine.

  I barely had time to sit down with my hot chocolate when she said, as if she’d been brooding on it for a long time and couldn’t hold back a moment longer, “so how easy would it be to hire a hit man, do you think?”

  Back to that again. As I looked at her, she added, “also, how much do you think they’d charge, because I could only go up to about £5,000. By the way, you’ve got a marshmallow moustache.”

  For God’s sake!

  “Henrietta,” I began, “we’ve already gone into this …” but she interrupted, still agitated, turning to face me, and clutching my hands.

  “I’m desperate, Cressida. I’d do anything to help Mavis and get rid of that odious man. You have no idea what it’s like, day after day, the strain we’re under. I can’t do it anymore. All I want is to spend the rest of my life with the woman I love.”

  “Well you won’t be able to do that if you’re in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, will you?” I said waspishly. Nabbing a teaspoon and giving it a wipe on the hem of my Paul Smith shirt. (I’ve just been such a scruff since I found out I was pregnant but of course the great thing is, here in the country, it doesn’t matter how bad one looks as no one here has any fashion savvy anyway!) I began to clear a path through the rapidly deflating aerosol cream to the gooey marshmallow raft afloat on the sea of hot chocolate. Yum!

  “Only if one gets caught. I shouldn’t get caught.” Henrietta declared in her nice grammar.

  “Of course you would, Poppet.�
� I said. “Because the police would simply ask the killer who put him up to it in exchange for a reduced sentence. So of course he’d blab. Unless you kill your assassin to shut him up. In which case, if you’re going to go to that much trouble, you might just as well go the whole hog and kill the bastard yourself to begin with. In which case why hire a hit man in the first place? Cut out the middle man so to speak.” I paused for a moment. How many cases did that make?

  She sat for a moment with a hand shielding her eyes, apparently absorbed in a study of the surface tension of her rum and OJ. A droplet ran down her cheek. I couldn’t resist the urge to pat her knee and say softly, “chin up, Henrietta. Something will turn up.”

  I’d already offered her a ‘loan’ for the amount Mavis needed, not that I’d dream of taking any repayments off the old girls, but Henrietta had hotly refused it in no uncertain terms.

  That really only left me with one alternative.

  We nursed our drinks in silence whilst Henrietta pulled herself together a bit and then she reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled envelope.

  “Here,” she said, presenting me with it, “that’s the latest epistle from His Majesty. I’d be interested to know what you think. See if you can think of anything we can do about it. I suppose we shall have to get a solicitor involved.” She got up and went to the loo, and I opened the envelope and drew out the letter.

  It read simply:

  “Mavis (no ‘Dear’, I thought. How rude!)

  “I need that money. It’s no good you telling me you can’t raise £45,000, you must have it tucked away somewhere, or if not, I’m sure your old dyke has some savings. You’ve got another month to get it back to me. I need it by then because that’s when Linzi and I are getting married – August 16 – and I need the money to put down a deposit on our new apartment on the Costa del Sol as that’s where we will be living from August, apart from the odd trip back to Blighty for Christmas etc. My house won’t be sold in time but in any case, you owe me. You’d better not let me down again, I don’t want this to get nasty, and trust me, neither do you!

  Simon”

  He didn’t want it to get nasty? What did he call this? I shot a quick glance towards the Ladies to make sure I was safe and I quickly scribbled down his name ‘Simon Meesham’ - and his address from the somewhat garish letter-head, (I do hate it when tossers have ‘From The Desk Of …’ printed at the top of a letter head, it’s so ostentatious; usually employed by people for whom ostentation should be banned. It might just as well say ‘this piece of A4 has touched the hem of the garment of the Apostle Paul and is therefore a sacred relic’) before putting the letter back in its envelope and placing it next to Henrietta’s drink. At that moment she returned, looking a bit red around the eyes. Poor old bat.

  “Well?” She demanded.

  “He’s a bastard, all right.” I agreed. “I suppose it’s possible a solicitor could make out a case for intimidation or something, based solely on the tone and language of this one letter, but there’s no overt threat. I don’t think you’d get anywhere if you did try to pursue it. Anyway, a solicitor would cost you a packet.”

  “Which I don’t have.”

  “Which you don’t have.” I agreed. “Drink up. I’ll get another one in. Then we’ll go back to the churchyard and listen to Mavis mangling Bach.”

  She dashed away a few residual tears and swilled down the last of her drink. I waited at the bar for our next round, and glanced back at our table. She was sitting there, gazing down at the floor, shoulders hunched. She suddenly seemed so old, so frail. Her skin pulled tightly across her cheek bones, but sagged on the jowls and under the eyes. I had never noticed her age before. She seemed smaller, and a bit defeated. I hated to see her like this. I realised suddenly she might not have many years left. What was it to live each day knowing it might be your last? I mean, we all know accidents can happen to anyone at any time, irrespective of age. But the reality is, the older one gets, the closer one draws to death. And Henrietta is pretty old. I couldn’t deny her the last happy weeks slash months slash year of her life.

  So, as I turned back to smile at the barman and to take our drinks from him and hand over my cash, I made my decision. It was time to plan my trip to that mythical place, Hemel Hempstead.

  Wednesday 16 July – 11.25am

  A rare moment alone at home. The Boys and Lill have gone to get the groceries for the week and they’ve taken Paddy and Billy with them. I predict the children will be spoiled rotten and will arrive home again with lots of presents! (Note to self, when all this is over and we have got full custody of the little ones, I will take Billy shopping so she can see some of the Vogue pictures in ‘real life’. In fact might not wait until then. It wouldn’t do to let her go on thinking that supermarket jeans and t-shirts are all life has to offer, even if she ends up being dragged from my arms kicking and screaming and placed with a foster family who might not know any better. Over my dead body.)

  Meanwhile I have a little time to potter about and to flesh out my plans. Eventually hope this will bear fruit and bring happiness to two daft old bats in the village, and not be a total waste of time, as I have this awful nagging feeling I ought to be sorting out Desmond, and I’ve got this terrible sense of achieving nothing meaningful whilst time is draining away like sand through an egg timer.

  But I have to tackle this latest crisis now. So armed with the address I copied from the letter, I did a virtual drive past Simon Meesham’s house in Hemel Hempstead courtesy of Mr Gongle maps. I found the house was quite accessible and there were plenty of useful spots to park and - you know – sort of loiter about a bit until the most appropriate moment. And even though it’s a nice enough estate, certainly there is nothing about it that warrants “From The Desk Of …”

  As housing estates go, it’s okay, I suppose, a bit unimaginative, and consists almost entirely of semi-detached council clones set cheek-by-jowl in their tiny rectangles. I don’t think I could bear to live somewhere like that. His house is three in from the end of the road, and that intersects with an arterial road that crosses the whole estate. On the other side of the arterial road is a high garden wall and a bit of scrubby grass verge with a couple of biggish trees (one a very pretty copper beech) and plenty of room for a well-to-do, slightly pregnant woman in dark (but very nice) clothing to wait until she sees the lights go out in her chosen house-of-interest. I can park not too far away in one of the other streets, so it should all work out perfectly.

  Now I need to think about MEANS. Time is not of the same extreme issue as it was in the case of Paddy’s mum and step-dad. It won’t matter if this chappie’s death doesn’t happen immediately, so long as he’s gone within the month. So this might be an opportunity for me to deploy the EG once again – have been desperate to use it since I first read about its very useful properties.

  Am ensconced on the sofa in the large sitting-room with all three cats and a teddy – Paddy’s I think. I’m fairly certain this is Mr Growly, as he’s got a kind of a growly thing in his chest and when he falls over on his back he emits a growl that wouldn’t fool a five year old. Paddy however, is four and a half and still thinks it’s fabulous. Bless him. Fancy never cuddling your baby or giving him a teddy to love???? I know Tracey didn’t die in a very pleasant manner, to say the least, but when one thinks of the nasty way of life she led, it’s hardly a surprise. And I will never forgive her or Mick for what these children have suffered.

  We have made an appointment to see the head-teacher at the village primary school on Tuesday. Hopefully Paddy will be enrolled to start school in September as he will be four and threequarters by then.

  And of course, on Monday it’s the scan. Am a wee bit nervous about that. What if there’s nothing there and I’m just a weird freak who’s putting on weight? What if my desperate need for a child has made me lose the plot completely?

  You know, I don’t think the EG will work in this situation. So …

  He’s no spring chicken at
81 years of age, but apparently in the pink of health. He must be if he’s contemplating nuptials with a ‘bimbo of fifty’. LOL. So obviously the cause of death can’t be anything that would show up in an autopsy, which EG would, if they bothered to examine his kidneys. I mean, if he doesn’t die under the care of a doctor, then they are going to do an autopsy, that’s a given. So I can’t use anything that is blatantly going to leave crystals in his vital organs. Bugger.

  Of course, if he was under the care of a doctor …

  But no, because even with say, a gippy tummy, anything that didn’t clear up in a day or two would worry the doctor, which would mean the old git would be hospitalised purely because of his age, so there would be no opportunity to poison him. And I’m assuming there would still be an autopsy.

  Oh God! It’s the same bloody problem time after time! Why is this happening to me? I can’t believe it’s so bloody difficult to kill a few people without some do-gooder raising an eyebrow!

  Can’t shoot him, bludgeon him, poison him. Can’t push him down the stairs or under a train. Can’t suffocate him, can’t – what on earth can I do?

  I mean, it doesn’t really matter how he dies, does it? So long as no one thinks it was me. Or anyone I care about. So not Matt, Lill, Sid, or Henrietta or Mavis.

  Hmm.

  I suppose I could – shoot him, bludgeon him, or poison him??? As long as I am miles away in full view of a large group of people including all of the above.

  Ooh – sound of car doors! Family is back. Must go and see what they’ve bought. V. exciting!

  Later - 7.05pm

  Right then. Been having a bit of a ponder.

  Have come to this conclusion: I’m going to need some help with this one. I have come to realise there’s no way I can kill Mavis’s Mr Wrong and make it look either accidental or natural. I just can’t be bothered to spend that amount of time on research. So I propose to make it look like he was attacked coming into/going out of his not-very-fine abode.