Grace Smith Investigates Read online

  GRACE SMITH INVESTIGATES

  An Omnibus

  Liz Evans

  © Liz Evans 2018

  Liz Evans has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published by Endeavour Media Ltd in 2018.

  Table of Contents

  BLINDSIDED

  CAUGHT IN THE ACT

  HEIR APPARENT

  BLINDSIDED

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter I 6

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Grace is undertaking these investigations during the late nineteen nineties and early twenties in a time when smart phones and tablets were just coming into general use (and weren’t coming into use at all as far as Grace was concerned!) Facebook was still just a gleam in Mr Zuckerberg’s eye and Twitter had yet to be invented.

  This book is a slightly edited version of the original print edition of what was previously called JFK is Missing.

  CHAPTER 1

  Henry Summerstone wanted me to find a missing person.

  There were a few drawbacks.

  He didn’t know her name. He had absolutely no idea what she looked like. He didn’t know where she lived or worked. In fact, when we got right down to it, he wasn’t even certain she was actually missing. A real doddle of a job, in fact.

  But to get back to the beginning; I’d sauntered into the office late because (in order of priority) I’d had to wait for a slack period before I could scrounge a free breakfast from my favourite greasy spoon; it was a beautiful late-May morning and I was enjoying the walk along the Seatoun seaside promenade; I’d got nothing to do when I got in anyway.

  One of the advantages of being a self-employed investigator is that I can set my own hours. The disadvantage is that at the end of the month when wage slaves receive a salary slip, I get a bill from our distinguished leader - Vetch the Letch - for my share of the office facilities.

  The premises of Vetch (International) Associates Inc. are housed in a tall, gloomy ex-boarding house, flanked by rows of similar depressing properties. Once they were all seaside boarding houses. Some still are. Others have been converted into bedsits. And a few, like Vetch’s, are offices.

  Sauntering up the outside stairs, I stepped into the former hallway. Janice glanced up from her processor screen.

  ‘You’ve come in then.’

  ‘Amazing, Jan. Why not consider a career move? With powers of detection like that you could be doing my job.’

  ‘A cerebrally challenged turnip could do your job.’

  I was thrown. Not by the insult, but by the fact that Janice had managed ‘cerebrally’. Her typing tends to suggest she hasn’t found the spell-check program yet.

  Before I could recover, Jan jerked her head in the direction of the row of clients’ chairs. ‘Mr Summerstone wants to see you.’

  A figure rose from the gloom behind the receptionist’s area. With my eyes still adjusting from the brightness outside, I had only a vague initial impression of tallness coupled with average slimness.

  ‘Hardly, my dear. I have long ago given up any hope of a convenient miracle.’

  As he moved nearer, his hand outstretched, the reasoning behind this cryptic remark became clear. Even if he hadn’t been carrying a white stick, the characteristic slightly upward tilt of his head would have announced his blindness.

  ‘Oh. Sorry,’ Janice said, as the import of what she’d said dawned. ‘What I meant was ... Mr Summerstone needs a private investigator. And you’re free.’

  Her tone implied that they’d scraped the bottom of the barrel. But having come up empty-handed, they’d turned it over and found me lurking underneath.

  I was silently furious. It was an unwritten rule in the agency that no matter how inept and/or thick we might privately consider our colleagues to be, in front of the clients we maintained a fiction that we were a bunch of hot-shot dynamos who could solve anything from dognapping to alien takeovers of nuclear power plants.

  ‘Cheers, Jan. Would you like to come up to the office, Mr Summerstone. Stairs are to your right.’

  He found the newel post easily and moved upwards with an assured confidence that suggested his blindness was a longstanding state.

  When we reached the top floor, I instructed: ‘Right-hand door.’

  The rubber tip of the stick flicked out and expertly located the base of the wooden door. He’d found the handle before I could reach round him and insert the key.

  ‘Go straight in. Chair’s dead ahead about three feet. Sorry about the mess.’

  It came out as a reflex action; I spend so much time excusing the state of my housework, my mouth has taken to issuing the apology without any conscious effort on my part.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean ...’

  Summerstone had located the chair and was settling himself comfortably. Clasping the stick between his knees and folding his hands over the top, he suggested that perhaps it would be best if we both ignored all references with visual connotations.

  ‘Otherwise I fear we shall be here all morning.’

  His voice was cultured and well modulated. Slipping behind my desk, I took stock of the rest of the package.

  He was getting on; seventies I’d guess. In any event he’d come from a generation that had been brought up to dress correctly regardless of the weather.

  Despite the mini heat wave that had suddenly arrived a few days ago, he was wearing a tweed suit, crisp shirt and neatly knotted tie. Shifting my position slightly behind my desk, I confirmed that his brown leather shoes were highly polished.

  ‘You’re a local, Mr Summerstone,’ I said, making it a statement rather than a question.

  ‘Are we acquainted, Miss Smith?’

  Actually I did have a nagging sensation that I’d seen him somewhere before, but I’d been basing my remark on his clothes. He struck me as the sort of person who’d wear tailored slacks and a blazer if he were on holiday.

  His eyes were hidden behind oval gold-rimmed glasses tinted a deep bottle green; the rest of the face was sharp-nosed and long-jawed, with a neatly trimmed grey beard. His hair was nearly white but still thick, and worn brushed back in sculptured waves. He had the look of a mischievous satyr.

  He agreed that I was correct. ‘I do indeed live locally, Miss Smith.’

  ‘Grace,’ I offered.

  ‘How do you do.’ He rose slightly and offered a formal handshake once more. ‘Henry Summerstone. Please feel free to call me Henry if you wish.’

  ‘Fair enough, Henry. So what can I do for you?’

  ‘I should like you to find someone for me. A young woman.’

 
‘Hang on.’ Drawing a pad towards me, I started to make notes. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘K.’

  ‘K-A-Y?’ I spelt it out for him.

  Henry’s thin eyebrows met over the chiselled nose. ‘I’m afraid I really don’t know. I had gained the impression it was simply the initial K. But you may of course be correct.’

  ‘What about a surname?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Although I suppose K may have been a reference to her surname rather than her Christian.’

  I blew out an impatient cloud of breath. Henry’s sharper ears must have caught my irritation.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘it would be simpler if I explained in my own words and you ask questions as we go along.’

  I agreed that did seem the best option.

  ‘It is,’ Henry began, ‘my habit to walk along the sea front most mornings.’

  ‘That’s it,’ I yelled.

  Henry jerked back nervously.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, yet again. ‘It’s just that that’s where I’ve seen you. I used to work out along the beach some mornings.’ Henry inclined his head in acknowledgement of this riveting insight into my personal habits.

  ‘As I said,’ he continued, ‘I walk. Quite early usually. I have done for years. One gets used to the others who share one’s routine: walkers, runners, cyclists and the like.’

  ‘And K was one of these?’

  Henry nodded. ‘She ran.’

  ‘Er, look.’ I didn’t know how to put the next question tactfully. But Henry anticipated it for me.

  ‘How do I know she isn’t still running straight past me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because Beano would have told me.’

  ‘Who’s Beano?’

  ‘My dog. He was very taken with K. If she had passed us, I’d have felt the change in him.’

  ‘OK.’ I roughed out a couple of headings and asked Henry when he’d actually met K.

  ‘It must have been about six weeks before Christmas. I’d taken shelter in one of those wooden huts along the promenade, under the cliffs. The wind was particularly fierce that day and I was feeling a little breathless. K stopped to adjust her shoe.’

  He paused as if re-seeing that moment in his mind. But then I guess that’s the way he’d see everything.

  ‘She was wearing one of those recording things.’ He looped one index finger from his right ear to his left.

  ‘MP3 player?’ I suggested.

  ‘I believe that’s what they’re called. I heard the noise as she sat down. And then stronger as she took the headphones off. I caught a few words ... it was Little Dorrit.’

  ‘I don’t know them. I tend to go in for middle-of-the-road stuff myself: you know, Alison Moyet, Enya. And a bit of country and western.’

  ‘I was referring to the book. By Charles Dickens.’

  ‘Oh that Little Dorrit. Sure. Right. Fine.’

  Henry explained he was a great fan of Dickens. ‘A writer who embraces all the elements of emotion, don’t you find, Grace?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I’d seen Oliver! three times on dvd, but I don’t suppose that would count. ‘Go on. You said something to this K, did you? About the tape?’

  ‘Yes. I cannot remember my exact words now, but I know we spoke briefly about debtors’ prisons and the uselessness of preventing those who owe money from earning any.’

  Amongst my jotted notes I added ‘pretentious bore’ and circled it.

  ‘I daresay you think that makes me sound a bit of a pretentious bore,’ Henry remarked.

  ‘Not at all,’ I assured him, sliding a blank sheet of paper over the notes. I wondered whether I dared waggle a couple of fingers in front of my nose to test out his supposed blindness. Deciding against it, I told him to go on about K. ‘She really didn’t give you any other name?’

  ‘No. Call me K, she said. Everyone does.’

  ‘I take it that wasn’t the only time you spoke to her?’

  ‘Oh no. After that she’d speak to me whenever we met.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Dickens mostly. Occasionally she’d attempt to describe the scene around us for me. She meant it as a kindness, but it was really of little use to me. You see, I have been blind for so long that I no longer relate to the world in a seeing way.’

  ‘How often did these meetings take place?’

  ‘Two, occasionally three times a week.’

  ‘Any particular days? Or were there any days you definitely didn’t meet?’

  A deep V appeared above the cheese-cutter nose again. ‘I hadn’t thought about it before, but now you ask, I do not believe I ever met her at the weekend.’

  ‘Fine. Go on. How come you think she’s missing? Maybe she just moved out of the area. Or got lazy and started having a lie-in.’

  ‘Possibly. However, there is the question of my tapes.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘I have a large collection of audio books and radio plays on tape. Particularly Dickens. I mentioned them to K and she asked to borrow a recording of David Copperfield. It’s an early version and I don’t believe it was ever released commercially. I took it directly from the radio.’

  ‘Isn’t that against the copyright laws or something?’

  The sardonic smile that tilted the corners of his well- formed lips reinforced his resemblance to a satyr. It occurred to me that as a young man he must have been pretty dishy.

  ‘I doubt if the BBC would wish to be seen to be suing a blind pensioner,’ he said dryly.

  ‘I guess not. So you gave K this tape.’

  ‘Tapes. There were ten in all. Twenty half-hour episodes, two per tape.’

  ‘Are they valuable? I mean, they’re not collector’s items or anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you seen ... I mean, spoken with K since handing them over?’

  ‘Twice. She was enjoying the recording. In fact she’d practically finished and promised to let me have the tapes back on our next meeting.’

  ‘Which never happened?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  I was still inclined to go with my first impression; viz., K had flown the district.

  But Henry wasn’t having it. ‘At first I assumed we just kept missing each other. And then that she was on holiday. Or ill, perhaps.’

  ‘Perhaps she still is.’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. It has been too long. Over three weeks. She was an honest young woman. And she knew I was expecting to get the tapes back shortly. Had she been planning a long trip, she’d have returned them before leaving. And if she were taken ill, I believe she would have found some way to get them back to me.’

  ‘Did she know where you lived?’

  ‘No. But it would not have been that difficult to locate me on the promenade. As I said, my habits are fairly regular. I am certain something serious has happened to her, Grace.’

  It all seemed rather nebulous to me. I was pretty sure this was going to turn out to be a complete waste of time.

  But still, if he was going to pay me to waste it? I checked that he was, and received five days’ flat-rate fees in advance, plus a signed contract agreeing to pay reasonable expenses incurred.

  I gave him a copy so he could get someone else to read it to him and check everything was above board, and then tried for a clearer picture of the vanished runner.

  ‘You must have picked up some other details, probably without realising. I mean, when she ran, did she sound heavy or out of breath?’

  ‘No. She was very light on her feet. And quite fit, I’d say.’

  Probably slim-to-average build, then. ‘What about her height?’

  Henry stood up abruptly. I thought I’d bored him into flight. I quite often have that effect on men.

  ‘Would you stand up too, Grace/’

  Obligingly I disentangled my legs from the desk.

  ‘How tall are you?’

  ‘Five ten.’

  He nodded slightly. ‘Then K is approximatel
y five feet eight inches, I should say.’

  ‘Great.’ We both folded down again. ‘What about age? Young, you said. How young? Teens?’

  ‘No. Older than that.’

  ‘Twenties? Thirties?’

  ‘I’m not certain.’ He hesitated. ‘Under thirty I’d have said. But I don’t know why I should say so. I do not recall any mention of her age.’

  Henry didn’t recall much at all when we got right down to it. He had no recollection of K’s mentioning where she lived; who she lived with; where (and if) she worked; her hobbies; her haunts; her friends.

  ‘I’m not being a great deal of help, am I?’ he murmured after we’d worked our way (abortively) through an exhaustive list.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ I lied, folding his cheque into my inside pocket. ‘What about her accent? Was it regional? Or local? Foreign?’

  ‘Definitely not foreign. Or regional that I can recall. It was just ordinary English. Perhaps slightly common. She used a lot of abbreviations and the occasional slang word.’

  ‘OK. Now you say you walk early - how early exactly?’

  He shrugged. ‘It varies. When I wake, normally. Light means nothing to me, so I don’t have to wait for it. However, I’m rarely later than six thirty. Usually earlier.’

  I could feel the blood draining from my face. I was going to have to get up at five thirty! I hadn’t done that on a regular basis since the end of my inglorious police career.

  Looking across the desk at Henry, for a moment I thought he was having sympathy pains. His complexion was a pasty reflection of my own. Then I realised the upward tilt of his head had acquired a list to starboard. He was listening to something beyond the office.

  Concentrating against the screaming racket of the herring gulls who were murdering each other on the roof ledge outside the window, I heard it too.

  Light footsteps were coming up the stairs.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘You have another client,’ Henry said, standing abruptly. ‘I would really rather not ...’

  His tinted glasses swept in an unseeing arc around the office as if he was looking for hiding places. Unless he wanted to crawl under the desk or climb out of the window on to the roof parapet, he was out of luck.