8
‘Who do you think you are – Miss Marple?’
The question came from Freida, but it might just as easily have come from either Carter or Jason, as all three of her friends were looking at her as if she was off her chump.
‘Well, if you’re not going to take me seriously,’ Lyssa began, half laughing herself, ‘I might as well chuck you out.’
They were grouped around her coffee table, Jason doing his usual lounging act in the biggest recliner chair, with Carter and Freida sitting on the small settee, facing Lyssa, who was in the second biggest chair placed opposite them.
They’d been drinking wine and catching up, and when the talk had come around to what she’d done with her day – and she’d told them – they’d all leapt on her like ravening wolves, demanding to know what she made of it all.
And when she’d finally got to the part when she was on the train coming back, and her thoughts had begun to turn to the question of murder, they had all but erupted.
‘Well, you have to agree, it does all sound a bit Agatha Christie-ish and “anyone for tennis?”’ Jason drawled from his supine position.
Lyssa was sure that if she tried to drape herself over the furniture like that, she’d have backache for a week.
He was absently eating the grapes out of Lyssa’s fruit basket, and he had a definite twinkle in his eye.
‘Please, can I play Watson to your Sherlock?’
‘That’s Arthur Conan Doyle, you philistine,’ Freida shot at him, and Lyssa laughed.
‘You lot are as far removed from fictional sleuths as it’s possible to get!’ she told them firmly.
‘Hey, I resent that,’ Carter said mildly. ‘I’d like to think I have as good a brain as any of them. In fact, if we put our heads together, I reckon we could solve any whodunit going.’
‘To be sure,’ said Jason. ‘We could call ourselves “The Oxford Detective Society” and set ourselves up in business. Finding lost pooches and nefarious villains a speciality.’
Freida threw a cushion at him, which he fielded expertly, and promptly turned her attention back to Lyssa. ‘Seriously, though, are you honestly thinking there might have been foul play involved?’ she asked.
Lyssa sighed and shrugged helplessly. ‘I’ve just told you all the basic facts that I’ve managed to amass so far. Your guess, at this point, is as good as mine.’
‘Do you think it’s possible that you might just be getting a little bit carried away though?
’ Carter, always the voice of reason, asked tentatively.
‘I mean, you’d just had a long session with a tipsy rock chick, and then Elizabeth throws you the curve ball over the question of who actually wrote the hit songs.
Your sense of drama was probably off the scale by that point. ’
‘Yes – don’t forget, we all rely on you to be the serious, level-headed and sensible one,’ Jason said, delicately spitting out a grape seed and leaving it in his cupped palm. ‘When Freida lost her head over that Neanderthal of a bouncer, who pulled her irons out of the fire?’
Freida threw a rather wrinkle-skinned orange at him, which he deftly caught.
‘And when Carter . . .’ Jason swept on, then stopped, looked at his beloved and made a face.
‘Yes, well, we know Carter never puts a foot wrong. But when I had a meltdown over that Flemish Rabbit incident, who calmed me down and found a vet and made sure everything was sorted? You did. Otherwise, my besties might not be speaking to me, even now.’
Lyssa didn’t want to contemplate the foolishness of people who asked Jason, of all people, to babysit their pets when they went abroad on holiday.
‘All right, all right,’ she said, holding up her hands in surrender. ‘Maybe I am going over the top a bit.’
‘Just a smidge,’ Freida grinned, holding out a finger and a thumb, showing a gap of barely a couple of millimetres between them.
‘I shouldn’t worry though; even if it does turn out that this groupie chick was pushed instead of fell, who’s going to worry about it all these years later?
Practically everyone concerned at the time is now dead, right?
’ But there was just a trace of anxiety in her voice.
‘Yes, I suppose they are. But there are the families of those concerned still to consider,’ Lyssa pointed out stubbornly. ‘Just for the sake of argument, what happens if I do start to find things out that look a bit . . . er . . .’
‘Murderous?’ Jason said, lowering his voice dramatically.
‘I was going to say iffy,’ Lyssa said, with dignity. ‘What then?’
‘Call the police,’ Jason said with a grin. ‘Why is it, in all the films you see, whenever a woman finds herself in a tricky situation, she never just calls the police?’
‘Maybe because most of the scriptwriters are male?’ Freida suggested sweetly.
‘Cut it out, you two,’ Lyssa said sternly. ‘I’m serious.’
‘Well, what are you thinking?’ Carter asked, coming to her rescue. ‘As a biographer, you’ve undertaken to write a memoir of Amelia Montrose. If you find evidence that questions her death, are you really going to suppress it?’
‘No,’ Lyssa responded instantly, without even thinking about it.
‘Well, there you are, then,’ he said, somewhat smugly, and leaned back. ‘You’ve already decided, haven’t you? You’ll publish the truth.’
‘And Super-Carter strikes again,’ Jason said sardonically. ‘Honestly, does the man have no faults? Good-looking, rich, brainy and reliable. No wonder I have to keep fighting off rivals with a stick.’
Carter held out two hands in a ‘what can a guy do?’ sort of gesture, and they all burst out laughing. It was Freida who got serious first, shooting Lyssa a long, careful look.
‘Really, Lyss, are you genuinely worried about this? I mean, are you feeling that uneasy about it all?’
Lyssa looked at her friends, who were all now – Jason included – examining her closely.
She shook her head helplessly. ‘I just don’t know.
It’s simply too early to say, at this point.
I need to do way more research before I can answer that.
Right now, the mystery of how Amelia died is just that – a mystery. ’
‘Well, if you come up with something really alarming, you have to let us know,’ Carter said firmly, leaning forward a little on his chair. ‘We’ll do whatever we can to help.’
‘Yes. And from now on, let us know where you’re going,’ Freida said, then added quickly, as she saw the look on her friend’s face, ‘Oh – nothing major, just give one of us a ring whenever you head out somewhere on the hunt so that we know where you are and who you’re seeing.
And a rough time of when you expect to get back. Just as a precaution.’
Lyssa laughed. ‘Now who’s going over the top? Who do you think you are – Inspector Morse?’
Freida gave her a hurt look. ‘Please – I’d be somebody-or-other of the Yard. And a Chief Superintendent at the very least.’
Jason gave a mock shudder. ‘Perish the thought.’
‘Yes, but Freida’s right about letting us know your movements,’ Carter insisted. ‘If only to stop us worrying about you. Please?’
Lyssa, feeling humbled to have such good friends, thanked them and opened another bottle of wine.
And when they finally began to make going-home signs, she dutifully informed them that tomorrow she was going to Hayling Island to talk to the unmarried mother who had benefited from Monty’s short-lived charity, the YMT.
And that she expected to be back before dark.
Once they’d gone, she checked her phone and saw she had a notification on Facebook. Logging in, her heart fluttered to find it was a message from Justin Tillman, giving her his telephone number and saying he’d be happy to speak to her.
Within moments she was calling the number, feeling almost breathless with anticipation.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Mr Tillman? This is Lyssa Moore.’
‘Who? Oh, the writer. Yes, hello. I must say, I was very intrigued by your message. And yes, you were quite correct – it was my father, Frank Tillman, who was at that party where that poor woman died.’
‘Oh, I’m so relieved to hear that,’ Lyssa said in massive understatement.
‘As I mentioned, I’m writing Amelia’s biography and, as you can imagine, when I found out there had been actual film footage taken at her last birthday party, I’ve been hoping against hope that it might still be in existence? ’
She was now perched on the edge of her seat, her mouth feeling dry. Realistically, she was expecting him to give her bad news, but there was still that little spark of hope in her that had her mentally crossing her fingers.
‘Well, you might just be in luck,’ Justin said, his voice thoughtful.
‘I’m pretty sure my dad’s old stuff – cameras, music memorabilia and all that – is still up in the loft.
My mother packed it away carefully when he died, and then when she passed I just moved it from her loft to mine.
You know, the way you do with family things.
You can’t bear to throw them out, can you? Do you want me to check and see?’
Lyssa bounded up from the sofa, fists clenched in jubilation, then had to force herself to sit back down again and get herself under control.
‘That would be marvellous, if you’re quite sure it’s no trouble?’ she said as casually as she could.
‘Not a bit,’ he said promptly. ‘Now that you’ve jogged my memory, I wouldn’t mind taking out his old films and looking at them again. It must be thirty years or more since I last did. I just hope the film hasn’t perished.’
So did Lyssa! They agreed that Justin would have a ‘sort out’ tomorrow and then he’d ring her back in the evening to let her know how he’d got on.
Hanging up the phone, Lyssa gave a little squeal of delight. Bibbie, alerted by the sound, came soft-footedly across the carpet and headbutted her in the shins, to remind her it had been at least an hour since he’d last been fed.