One Way Ticket Read online

  It was nice to see some 21st century décor. After Aunt June’s place and the police station, I’d almost forgotten walls and curtains came in colours other than brown. It looked like a high end place - large, airy rooms and I could just spy marble topped surfaces in the kitchen, the people living in these apartments must have some money. The place was empty apart from a put-up table and three spindly looking chairs.

  H went straight to the table and placed his file on it. “You sit there.” He indicated a seat and took the one next to it. “You will take notes. If I don’t understand what they say, I will look at you.”

  “Fair enough.” I sat down and pulled my notebook out, hoping he realised I didn’t do shorthand. Perhaps I could feign a hearing problem and get the residents to repeat everything a few times?

  “You do not speak to the witnesses,” he continued, “only write what they say, you understand? I am the policeman here.”

  Touchy. When he had set out his file and pen, he spoke to someone outside who ushered in our first customer. A mousy looking woman, visibly trembling. Shock or guilt, I wondered?

  “Name, please?”

  I was so absorbed in watching the woman, I almost forgot I was meant to be keeping notes and had to scrabble for my pen. Even then, I had to ask her to repeat what she’d said.

  It became clear to me, after only a few minutes, that this woman knew nothing, had seen nothing, and would never in a month of Sundays be involved in anything like murder, and yet we carried on with the questions for a further ten minutes. It seemed a little cruel.

  The next one looked a more likely candidate and I gave H a lift of my eyebrows to show him I thought so. Not only did the man have a very shifty look, he couldn’t remember where he’d been on the day of the murder. Instead of going through the same set of questions though, to my amazement, H dismissed him almost immediately.

  The morning continued in that way with each resident being subjected to, in my mind, a haphazard peppering of questions from Sergeant H. Fortunately for me, most of them were elderly and asked the sergeant to repeat each question before coming up with a reply, giving me time to write everything down.

  I was only called on to ‘translate’ twice. Once for a very plummy voiced man who pronounced the word ‘house’ like ‘hice’, and even I struggled to catch what he was saying, then for the other extreme, a cockney, who threw in a few rhyming slangs (dog and bone) which had the sergeant baffled.

  After a couple of hours of this, we had apparently covered everyone and Sergeant H began packing up.

  “You don’t want to ask that first bloke a few more questions?” I queried as he gathered his paperwork together.

  The answer was brusque. “No.”

  I couldn’t believe it, the old guy was obviously covering something up. Why was the sergeant letting him get away?

  “But he was so vague, so evasive, you didn’t think he was suspicious?”

  “The man who has, you pronounce it dementia?”

  Well, you can’t get everything right.

  I picked up my notepad and we retired back to the police station to type up the notes. When I say we, that’s in the royal use of the word. I typed up the notes whilst the sergeant drank a cup of coffee. I was asked to start a new file online and print out a copy as well (they really hadn’t grasped the idea behind the paperless office). After depositing such, I decided to take my lunch break and go home.

  Alright, so I was busting to tell Aunt June what they’d said about the murder. I know I signed a secrecy statement and all that, but you can’t tell me people don’t go home and talk about this stuff or how would newspapers get their stories? So, imagine my disappointment when I get home and Aunt June already knows all about it. In fact, she knows more about it than I do because she’s heard the main suspect is the victim’s sister.

  “How do you know this? I’ve just left the station and they never said anything. I only work there, it’s so unfair.”

  “Expat community grapevine. I suppose if I had a mobile phone I’d have found out sooner.”

  “Sooner? That’s not funny. How did they think at first it might be an accident? She was strangled. Did they imagine she got caught up in her own washing line or something?”

  “Poor Tina.”

  “Did you know her?” It hadn’t occurred to me that my aunt might have known the woman.

  Aunt June squirmed in her seat a little. “We were both on a local committee once. I wouldn’t say I knew her exactly.”

  “Well, too late now,” I pointed out. (That may sound a bit harsh but you have to be tough when you work in law enforcement.) I got some ham and salad stuff out of the fridge and started making myself a sandwich. “D’you want one?”

  Aunt June looked a little tired. “No thanks, dear.”

  I stopped my sandwich assembly for a moment. “You’re not frightened about this, are you? The murder.”

  “No, no. I expect it was that sister of hers. They were always rivals.”

  There was a bump in the room next door.

  “What was that?” I asked. It had come from Aunt June’s bedroom.

  “Probably just something fallen over. Don’t bother,” she shouted as I went to the doorway.

  Spooked with this talk of old ladies being murdered, I picked up a frying pan from the stove on the way. I could hear Aunt June shuffling behind me and held out a hand, motioning her to stop in case it wasn’t safe. Holding the pan in front of me, I nervously reached for her door handle.

  Wrenching the door open, I gasped at the appalling sight that greeted me.

  5 Who Let The Dogs Out

  The naked septuagenarian inside my aunt’s bedroom had obviously just bent over to pick up his trousers, so it was an unfortunate view that met my eyes.

  “Oh, my God!” I screamed, nearly losing my grip on the pan, and my breakfast.

  The man screamed as well and, turning, grabbed for the counterpane on the bed (there was that 1970s décor again). Aunt June appeared in the doorway and started screaming too.

  The best thing seemed to be closing the door before the man flashed any more, so I did. “Aunt June, there’s a naked man in your bedroom!”

  “Well, we didn’t realise you’d be home in the middle of the day, I made you a packed lunch this morning.”

  “I ate it on my way to work,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling a little ill. Obviously, I had disturbed something here. Something very disturbing.

  “That’s my friend, Kostas Kassiotis. We’re seeing each other.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve just seen quite a lot of him too.” I went back into the kitchen and put the frying pan down. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you and your… gentleman friend. I didn’t realise you were… did… otherwise I wouldn’t have come home.”

  “We didn’t hear the car, until it was too late.”

  “Right.” I can’t deny it wasn’t a shock to find out my 73 year old aunt was still… up for it, especially in the way I found out, but I was here as her helper not her keeper. “Perhaps we’d better get some signal system going so I know not to come in? When you’re busy. Perhaps you could tie something round the front door handle, maybe?”

  “Yes, alright, I’ll look something out,” she told me as she fiddled with a pile of plates. Poor Aunt June hadn’t looked me in the eye since I’d seen Kostas’ eye.

  “I’ll get going, leave you to it.”

  “Aren’t you going to have your lunch?” Aunt June indicated the half made sandwich I’d left by the fridge.

  My insides did a little wobble. I’d seen enough old meat and veg this lunchtime. “No, don’t really feel like it now. I’ll see you later. About four o’clock. If it’s going to be any earlier I’ll ring first. Say goodbye to your friend for me.”

  I got in the car quickly and pulled away before I discovered any other naked persons on the premises (you never know nowadays).

  Aunt June, the sly devil, who’d have thought? I’d stupidly assumed my aunt led a sexl
ess life, mostly because of her age. How wrong I was.

  “That was a quick lunch,” Addi remarked when I arrived at work.

  “Yes, suddenly found I wasn’t very hungry.”

  “I hope you haven’t been discussing the case with your aunt?”

  “She knows more about it than I do. Says it’s the sister.”

  “She’s probably right. Here are some notes from that missing dog case. Can you type them up, please?”

  “Missing dog?” Hardly front page stuff, in fact it was a bit of a letdown after being on a murder investigation. “Haven’t you got any more fraudulent cheque cases or Nigerian email scams instead?”

  “No, sorry.”

  It wasn’t even a cute dog, just some strange, cross-breed spaniel-poodle thing. There were far too many of these boring cases to my mind, the local criminals were obviously not trying hard enough.

  Thoughts of my aunt’s sex life were thankfully banished as the missing dog was followed by two stolen jewellery cases (both insurance scams if I’m any judge), a lost camera (same), and a building permit dispute, before I packed up my papers and clocked out for the day.

  On the car journey home, I decided to handle what had happened at lunchtime in the time honoured English fashion and never mention it to Aunt June again. Happily, it seemed she had decided the same.

  “Any news on Tina?” Aunt June asked as I joined her in the kitchen, something delicious smelling sizzling on the stove.

  I looked enquiringly at her.

  “The dead woman, this morning.”

  “Oh.” Lunchtime had pushed all thoughts of that out of my mind. “No. Didn’t seem to be much going on, probably haven’t had the test results yet. You’re not worried about it, are you?”

  “Me? Why would I be worried?”

  “I’m not saying you should. I’m saying don’t be.”

  “Good.” She went back to stirring her pan for a while. “I’ve been thinking Jennifer…”

  I braced myself. In my experience, those words, especially when spoken by a family member, only ever precede some particularly bad news.

  “…let’s have a day out somewhere on your next day off. We haven’t done much since you’ve been here.”

  “Oh.” That wasn’t what I had been anticipating. “Okay. I thought you said the weather wasn’t good enough to go anywhere.” The grey clouds of the day before had been looming again this afternoon.

  “It’s not going to get any better, is it? And you have the car. Let’s go up into the mountains, shall we?”

  “Yes, that would be nice.” I couldn’t help being a little suspicious of Aunt June’s sudden change of heart, but I wasn’t going to reject a day out, perhaps she was feeling guilty about the incident (never to be mentioned again) earlier.

  “Good, that’s settled.” She dished up the minced lamb, tomatoes and olives she’d been simmering with a pleased look on her face that made me feel like I was a piece of cog, just slotted into place.

  “That woman’s gone off with the ticket inspector again,” one of the admin girls from an office down the corridor had just announced the next morning when Sergeant H walked into the office and cut her short. It was starting to become irritating that he kept interrupting some of the best gossip around.

  “Where’s Constable Markou?” H asked us, prompting the girl to scurry back to her office.

  I shook my head at him. “Don’t know,” I said. Vara said the same.

  “When he comes in, tell him I’m looking for him. He has another report.”

  I’d noticed Addi appeared to go missing sometimes. At first, I’d thought he was out on a case, but lately I’d been wondering if those cases were the kind you drive to the airport, with their owner and get paid for it. He seemed to like sailing close to the wind.

  When he turned up half an hour later, Vara gave him the message and he wandered off to find Sergeant H. Only a few minutes had passed before he was back with a piece of paper and a scowl.

  “Another missing dog!” he said. “What is it with you British and your dogs? In Cyprus, if a dog goes missing it goes missing. We don’t expect the whole police force to be out looking for it.”

  “Hmm, well in Britain a lot of people do look on them like children,” I explained.

  “Yes, I’ve seen pictures of dogs dressed in costumes. What’s that all about?”

  “Just something for you to look forward to when the craze strikes here.”

  I was alarmed when he sank down on my desk. He must really hate dog outfits. “Why do I get all the crap cases?” he moaned.

  It was tempting to offer my theory about his unexplained absences, but I could sense it was a rhetorical question.

  “What about the old lady that died the other week, Tina Lloyd?” I asked hopefully. It was probably the biggest case the department had but, after my initial involvement, I hadn’t heard any more about it.

  “Dem and Yiannis have been assigned.”

  They had their own admin staff so I probably wouldn’t get to see any of the reports.

  “They get all the good stuff,” Addi carried on, “and I get stolen dogs.” He waved the paper at me angrily.

  “Perhaps it’s a gang stealing valuable dogs?” Vara suggested, hopefully.

  “No, another mongrel.”

  “Stealing for animal experiments?” Katerina, who’d snuck back in from the other office, chirped up. “Could be happening across the whole district?”

  Addi shook his head. “It’s no use trying to cheer me up.”

  I prised the paper out of his hand whilst it was still readable. He was right, it wasn’t a pedigree dog but another strange cross-breed. “You know, these funny types could still be worth something. There was a tv star carrying something similar to this around the other week. It was in ‘Like!’”

  “What is ‘Like!’?” Addi asked.

  “A trashy magazine for people obsessed with celebrities. It’s imported from Britain.”

  The others looked at me.

  “My aunt gets it,” I told them, my voice sounding more defensive than I liked. “It’s her one weakness she tells me.” (We know that isn’t true.)

  “And you think this dog was valuable?”

  “To saddos who want to copy their favourite celebrity. Maybe. It’s like the one that went missing last week.”

  I had to explain the word ‘saddo’ to him. And the idea of people wanting to copy celebrities. Even then it was like talking to a brick wall. Annoying, as I was convinced I was onto something. It could be more than a couple of dogs, who knew how long it had been going on? There could be a huge underground market in stolen pets, not spotted because they weren’t pedigrees.

  Determined to prove my point, I drove home before lunch to find the magazine. After last time, I rang first to make sure the coast was clear. No answer, so my aunt was probably out with her dazzling social life again.

  There was no scarf tied round the door handle and, to my relief when I went inside, the villa was empty, so I set to, looking through the pile of magazines by the sofa. After a few minutes, I heard the front door close then a man’s murmur and a woman’s giggle.

  “I’m in here,” I shouted, hoping to stop them before I witnessed anything else I’d regret.

  My aunt put her head round the living room door. “Oh, Jennifer. You’re here, are you?”

  “I just nipped back to find an article in one of your magazines. Don’t mind, do you?”

  “No, of course not. Kostas has just come round for… lunch.”

  My hands frantically flicked through the remaining pile as I suddenly felt the need to leave as quickly as possible. “Ah, here it is.” I grabbed the magazine and stood up. “I’m not stopping. Hello Kostas. Must get back to work.”

  My aunt took the magazine out of my hands. “Sally Matthews? What d’you want an article about her for?”

  I’d forgotten old people + nosiness = a lot of time wasted.

  “The dog her hairdresser is carrying. Cou
ple of them have gone missing around here.”

  “That is a dog? I thought it was an old wig.”

  “Put your glasses on. It’s a cockapoo…doodley thing. A couple of these crossbreeds have gone missing lately, I reckon there’s a dog stealing thing going on.”

  “Oh, rubbish. That’ll be Reg Trantor. He gets a bee in his bonnet if he thinks owners aren’t treating their pets right. He’s probably staged an intervention, he was trying to get me to take a dog at bingo last week.”

  “I hardly think it’ll be that, Aunt June,” I told her, pityingly, “I can’t see these dogs being fenced at bingo night.”

  “A small wager?”

  So, my aunt wanted to add gambling to her list of vices?

  “Alright. A fiver?”

  “Done. Now Kostas, where were we?”

  I left the building as fast as my legs could carry me.

  I was not a happy bunny when I returned home that night.

  “That was cheating,” I complained as my aunt prised the five euro note from my fingers.

  “How?”

  “You knew that man had taken the dogs.”

  “Reg Trantor? Well, I didn’t think he’d pulled them out of fresh air. So, it wasn’t a big organised crime thing after all? No Russian gangs preying on poodles and Chihuahuas?”

  “Ha, ha, ha.”

  When questioned by Addi, the ‘thief’ had broken down in tears about what he called the terrible treatment of the dogs by their owners because they’d been left alone in the daytime. He’d never heard of ‘Like!’ magazine. I wasn’t about to give my aunt any more satisfaction.

  “Has Reg been arrested?” she asked.

  “Cautioned. Friend of yours, is he?”

  “Now, now, Jennifer. No need to be a sore loser. I expect they were pleased at work, weren’t they?”

  Addi had been thrilled. He was hoping that was an end to missing dogs for a while.

  “I still think it was withholding evidence.”

  “Local knowledge is what they call it, I believe. They don’t offer a reward for these things, do they?”