One Way Ticket Page 8

  Yes, it could have been, of my neck probably.

  We heard later the surrounding outbuildings had contained several cars stolen in recent weeks with new number plates and documents ready to be shipped out.

  “That was lucky,” Aunt June remarked when I told her later that evening.

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I complained. “Stumbling into the middle of a car stealing operation doesn’t seem at all lucky to me, it was actually pretty dangerous.”

  “It was lucky for local car owners.”

  Yes, don’t worry about me at all.

  “I take it you won’t be cooking dinner tonight?” my aunt asked as I spread out on the sofa, comforting bar of chocolate in hand.

  In the excitement I’d forgotten all about my plans to update my aunt’s tastebuds. “Ah.”

  “Don’t worry, I can get something from the freezer.”

  “Sorry, thanks. I’ll do dinner another night. There was no sign of the trophies by the way,” I told her. “They searched the house but they weren’t amongst the things they found.”

  “Oh well. When I’d heard Beth had been asking people about metallic polish, I’d just assumed she was talking about your cups.”

  “Metallic polish? And you just assumed she was talking about the blinking cups?”

  “She used to be a very active member of the church. It’s come as quite a shock.”

  “You’ve had a shock? Imagine how I felt about to walk up to them and offer Addi’s car. You could have gotten us killed, you know that?”

  “Jennifer, you’re being all melodramatic again.”

  “It’s been a melodramatic day.”

  “You do seem to get yourself into these situations.”

  With a lot of your help, I wanted to answer, but held my tongue.

  “I hope you’ll get some kind of reward for this?” my aunt asked.

  I had a horrible feeling there would be some kind of reward for me in this, and I was right. More paperwork.

  As well as providing witness statements, I had to undergo countless hours of questioning, answering the same questions over and over again, by an ever changing round of policemen. It felt like every senior officer in the station wanted to be involved and had to get the story directly from me.

  Addi, of course, got a commendation. His mother’s wish finally came true as he was assigned some of the more serious cases. At least it meant the case notes I got to type became slightly more interesting.

  After a couple of weeks, I noticed Addi’s manner seemed to be changing. He breezed into the office nowadays, full of confidence and eau-de-cologne. Instead of sitting around chatting as he used to, he never had time to talk, there was always an important meeting he had to rush off to. Yes, it seemed Constable Markou had gotten a taste of his own importance and, as a result, was rapidly disappearing up his own arse. (I tried to explain this phrase to Vara but she couldn’t grasp it and spent the rest of the day giving me funny looks.)

  Aunt June’s friends suddenly became extremely interested in me and would insist on talking to me whenever they visited, concerned for my welfare. Of course, what they really wanted to ask about was the capture. They should have teamed up with the detectives from the station and run a joint questioning session.

  The unexpected bonus in all this was that I had finally stopped thinking of home. I had stopped looking over my shoulder a while ago but now, I realised, in this busy time, I hadn’t thought of Swindon, or what had gone on there, once. Perhaps I was cured? Coming here had produced the desired result. It was expunged from my mind, never to return.

  Well, you can hope.

  Still, at that moment life seemed to be good. I was gainfully employed (okay, it wasn’t the best job ever but at least I didn’t have to ask people if ‘they want fries with that’), Aunt June was thriving, and I’d finally put events back home behind me. There were other little successes to glory in too - my Greek was coming along leaps and bounds, Aunt June’s villa was more liveable now I’d tamed the triffid outside and done some minor d.i.y. jobs inside, and the local bakery had decided to stay open into the new year instead of closing until March due to unprecedented sales (what can I say, I have a sweet tooth).

  So happy was I feeling that I found myself actually whistling on my way to work one day. I only wish I had recorded it to preserve it for posterity.

  Firstly, Addi somehow solved a case without my help (alright, without Aunt June’s help). He managed to track down a gang of local kids who’d vandalised a classroom in a nearby school. Not that I begrudged him this, I was happy he had found some success without me. Mostly. That wasn’t the problem. He was moving onto bigger and better cases, that was the problem.

  “Can’t stop, got to get out and interview another suspect,” he told me one day, throwing a load of rough notes into my in-tray and just pausing long enough to give me a wink. This patronising gesture was what passed for conversation with him nowadays. Ignoring my irritation, I pulled his notes across and started to read. Over the weeks I’d gotten used to his terrible handwriting but they still took a while to decipher.

  “What’s he working on now?” Vara asked.

  “Hard to tell from this, kind of him to let me know, wasn’t it? I’ll have to look up the case number.” I typed in the reference. “Tina Lloyd, homicide,” I read out.

  Vara actually jumped excitedly, “You’re on the murder case. I told you it might work out in the end.”

  “Addi’s on the murder case,” I pointed out. “I just get to type up this stuff.”

  “It’ll be interesting though,” she told me, her eyes shining. I started to wonder about Vara and whether it was healthy for her to be around criminals.

  She was right to an extent though, it would be a break from typing up the insurance fiddles. At that point, I hadn’t realised how much more notes a murder case would generate. Four days and two files worth of case notes later, it seemed like Addi had interviewed half the population of Kythios.

  “I need to have a word with you,” he announced, walking briskly into the office.

  “Okay.” I put down the notes I was trying to read on the desk. “Go ahead.”

  “No, better outside.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Vara but followed him out. He led me outside the police building and onto the path at the back that ran down to the seafront.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, shivering into my cardigan, suddenly feeling the cold.

  “You know the case I’m working on?”

  “Yes, Tina Lloyd. What’s happened?”

  “I’ve been interviewing the local residents.”

  “I know, I think you must have been through most of them.”

  Addi looked down and seemed to be examining the sandy earth covering the path. “I’ve run out of suspects.”

  “You need my help?” Clearly the man was struggling. I would have to step in and help. Again. “I suppose I could give you a hand.”

  “Actually, I was wondering if you could ask your aunt?”

  I can’t deny it felt a bit like a slap in the face. “My aunt?”

  “Obviously, I need your help as well,” he quickly blustered.

  “Too right you do.”

  “I just think we’ll need some local information as well.”

  “We’ll talk about that, shall we?” I hooked my arm through his and led him further towards the shore. “You’d better tell me how far you’ve gotten.”

  10 Secret Cops

  “So, she was strangled?” I asked as we tried to shelter from the wind behind some rocks. “That much I heard.”

  “Yes. She had a cerebral hypoxia which means...” Addi seemed to struggle with this, “…it’s to do with strangling.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up. Tina Lloyd was a big woman, wasn’t she? Not height wise but size wise, I saw it in the notes. It would take some strength to strangle her?”

  “Hmm, maybe. She was big but she’d just recovered from a bad illness. She
was probably quite weak. A person wouldn’t have had to be that strong.”

  “Oh. That doesn’t let out many people, does it? Weren’t there any fingerprints?”

  “Millions. All over her flat. Too many.”

  “And it wasn’t a robbery?”

  “Didn’t look like it. The place was very tidy, there didn’t appear to be anything missing.”

  “So someone deliberately killed her? And no one had broken in right? So she’d let them in herself?”

  “Yep. Unless she’d left the door open, of course. It was unlocked when her body was found.”

  Automatic ‘Yale’ locks weren’t the norm here. I’d spoken to Aunt June about getting one fitted on her front door, the old fashioned one she had wasn’t overly secure. Aunt June had been shocked at the thought of needing to lock the door during the daytime. Bless.

  A boat was crossing the harbour and we both paused, watching it. “We’re not doing very well so far,” I said. “What about the motive? Who gained from her death?”

  “Her sister inherits pretty much everything. It isn’t much though,” he added quickly, seeing my eyes light up. “There’s only a small amount of savings and they’re not worth much now with the current exchange rate. Mrs Lloyd was living on a work pension which stops with her death.”

  “But what about her apartment? That had to be worth a bit. The neighbour’s one was very upmarket.”

  “Rented. Her neighbours thought she owned it, but it was actually owned by family friends who let her live there cheap.”

  “That was very generous of them, why did they do that?”

  “She took care of it for them. They only stayed there a few times a year, Mrs Lloyd looked after it the rest of the time. She used to stay with her sister when the owners came over.”

  “And the neighbours never knew? It’s the first thing my aunt would have winkled out if she’d been her neighbour.”

  “It’s a fancy area. They keep themselves to themselves. That’s why we need someone like your aunt helping us.”

  “Let’s hold on before we start jumping the gun.” I saw Addi’s brow furrow at that phrase and quickly continued: “What if the owners wanted Tina out and she was refusing to go? Maybe they needed to sell it?”

  Addi shook his head. “The owners, what’s their name? Burkiss, live in England. We’ve had your English police take a statement. There’s no evidence to say they were trying to get her out.”

  “What about the neighbours? Didn’t anyone see anything?”

  Addi shook his head. “We haven’t found any so far.”

  “There were loads of them there that day Sergeant H and I interviewed them, they were practically forming a queue! And no one saw anything? Hm. Okay.” I thought for a moment. “Let’s go back to the sister. If she was desperate for money even the small amount of savings might be worth it to her?”

  “No. She has a pension from her late husband as well as her own. She’s not rich but she’s not badly off.”

  “And her sister knew the apartment wasn’t Tina’s?”

  “Yes, she knows these Burkiss people as well.”

  “And Tina didn’t have any children?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “We can rule out matricide then. What about her love life?”

  “Well,” Addi adjusted his position on the rock we were leaning on, “that’s a bit more complicated. We’ve linked her to a few men since she’s been in Cyprus but at the time of her death she was apparently single.”

  He pulled out his police notebook and flicked to a page. It was a list with five men’s names. I didn’t recognise any of them.

  “Do they have alibis?”

  “Pretty much. We couldn’t find any real motive for any of them either.”

  “Nothing else juicy come out of your interviews?”

  “A few more men were mentioned, but they all deny being involved with Tina.”

  “What if one of these men was hoping to inherit something in her will, especially if everyone thought she owned that flat?”

  “Tina made no secret of the fact she was leaving everything to her sister since she had no family of her own. It was something she told people quite freely, probably to get sympathy. There’s no indication anyone else would hope to get anything. Not unless a new will suddenly pops up. Otherwise it was all settled years ago.”

  “So, what we’re saying is, she had nothing worth killing for, no kids, no bloke, and no enemies.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That doesn’t leave much, does it? I’m beginning to see why this case is still unsolved.”

  Addi gave me a ‘tell me about it’ kind of look.

  “Most murders boil down to money or love, don’t they?” I asked.

  By Addi’s blank look I could see he hadn’t read the same women’s magazines as me.

  “Trust me, they do. What about her bank accounts? Had there been much activity?”

  “I got statements from her bank, no major transactions lately. Apart from her pension and rent, nothing larger than 40 euros had gone in or out for a long time.”

  “She sounds a bit tight-fisted.” The little crease appeared on Addi’s forehead again. “Never mind. Tell me what she was like. What was her apartment like? “

  “Nice, roomy. But it belonged to the other people.”

  “No, I mean what about her stuff? What sort of things did she have? You know, did she collect anything? Handbags? Jewellery? Books?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I can’t remember.”

  “You’ve still got access to the apartment?”

  Addi nodded.

  I stood up. “Well, let’s go have a look. I haven’t seen her place yet, just one of the neighbours. It might give us some idea of what sort of person she was.”

  “Her stuff isn’t there anymore. Her neighbour packed most of it up and sent anything of worth to Tina’s sister when we’d finished with it.”

  I went back to leaning again. “Great, so there’s nothing left?”

  “Probably not. We bagged up some things. They’re in the evidence room.”

  “Can we have a look?”

  I’m not sure how Addi explained my presence to the officer responsible for the evidence room, but he didn’t bat an eyelid when I entered. There was a box of personal papers that had belonged to Tina, and a large plastic sack of her personal belongings. I noticed Addi didn’t bother putting on gloves to touch them.

  Tina, it seemed, had been keen on garishly coloured, plastic jewellery.

  “Not worth anything,” Addi commented as I pulled some of the pieces out.

  There were also a couple of bright red lipsticks among her possessions, well used. A picture of Tina was forming in my mind, it was a little different from the rather more conservative image that had appeared in the local newspaper report of her death.

  Luckily, whoever had bagged these seemingly random items had picked up some photographs. They confirmed my impressions of Tina Lloyd. In one photo, she was laughing at the camera, sprawled on a man’s knee, skirt riding up and stocking tops flashing. In another, she was blowing kisses, chest prominently displayed in a low cut top. Tina had obviously been no wallflower.

  “Liked to enjoy herself by the look of things,” I told Addi, showing him the photos.

  “Seems like the usual expat to me,” Addi said, dismissively.

  “You’d hardly see Aunt June dressed like that. And you reckon Tina had no bloke on the go when she died?”

  “That’s what her sister said.”

  “I find that hard to believe. She looks the sort who needed a man in her life.”

  “Doesn’t every woman?”

  He had a lot to learn, but I left it for now. “What did her friends say?”

  “Too many men came and went for them to keep up.”

  “Could be a motive for murder there. She may have been playing around with someone’s husband, or maybe one of the men was possessive. What about the blokes in this photo
?” It looked like her 65th birthday party (the banner hanging over her head was a bit of a giveaway), she was surrounded by four men.

  “We’ve only traced two of them.”

  I tucked the photo in my pocket.

  “You can’t do that!” Addi whispered, horrified. “We’re not allowed to just take evidence out of the lock up.”

  “I expect I’m not allowed to help with an investigation either.” I looked at my watch. “It’s gone lunchtime, I’d better go back to my desk, Vara will think it’s strange if I miss a meal.”

  “What about the investigation?”

  “We’ll come back here afterwards and go through that box of Tina’s personal correspondence.”

  Back at my desk, I tried not to rush through my ham sandwich and banana too quickly in case Vara thought something was wrong. I am a bit of a greedy eater naturally so it wasn’t many minutes before I was finished.

  “I’m just helping Addi catalogue some documents, if anyone needs me,” I told her before ignoring the work accumulating in my in-tray and sailing off.

  Addi and I settled down at the desk in the back corner of the evidence room for an afternoon examining Tina’s paperwork. He’d brought the case file too and I had a read through of the notes I hadn’t seen yet.

  It was kind of fascinating going through someone else’s correspondence. Piecing Tina’s life together was like doing a jigsaw puzzle. A terrible, tragic puzzle. Her murder had become a bit more real since I’d found the photos of Tina and touched her belongings. She didn’t feel like just a statistic anymore.

  I picked up a plastic bead necklace and looked at the other items that had been considered important enough to be bagged up. Cheap jewellery, some garish nail varnish, a pair of sunglasses that, according to the name inside, looked like they came free with a magazine, some well read paperback romances. It wasn’t much to sum up someone’s life. I’d yet to see a statement from anyone really upset by her murder. It made me wonder if many people had been at her funeral. Had anyone cried? Would this have happened to Aunt June when her time came if I hadn’t come along? No one caring enough to give a damn? I suddenly felt quite sad.