Dead Funny

  Lieutenant Weinburger grunted. Then he asked Sylvia the same question he’d asked Judy. “Did you see anyone when you left for the airport today? Anyone who shouldn’t be here?”

  “Not when I left. But when we got back there was a man – a stranger. An intruder! He was running towards the gates. The girl spotted him. I can’t imagine how he got in.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Sylvia gave a sketchy description and then apologized. “I’m sorry, I was driving – I only had a brief glance at him. The children are the ones to ask.”

  “I’ll do that, Miss Sharpe. In the meantime, what can you tell me about Miss Sugarcandy’s will? Any idea who gets her millions?”

  “Judy and Toby I expect.”

  “Nothing to you?”

  Sylvia gave an embarrassed cough. “She paid me very well, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t expect her to leave me anything. And now, unfortunately, I’m out of a job.”

  Lieutenant Weinburger pressed on. “Tell me more about her son, Toby. What do you know about him?”

  “Not much. He’s some sort of eco-warrior, I think. He’s in South America helping to save the rainforest. I’ve never met him,” explained Sylvia.

  “These Brits… What are they doing here?”

  “Miss Sugarcandy was getting nostalgic in her advancing years. She wanted the estate to be turned into an English country garden. Lili Fields is a landscape gardener. She was invited here to do the design.”

  “Why did she choose Lili Fields?”

  “Oh… Well…” For the first time, Sylvia stumbled over her answer. “Er… I invited them… I mean her. On Miss Sugarcandy’s instructions of course. I’m not quite sure why she chose Lili Fields, to be honest. She gave me her contact details and I took it from there.”

  “Thank you, Miss Sharpe, you’ve been very helpful. Send the Brits in now.”

  Sylvia came back and gently shook Mum awake so that we could all be interviewed. I didn’t have a chance to say anything about it to Graham, but I wondered why that particular question had ruffled Sylvia’s calm, efficient manner so badly.

  into the lounge

  Baby Sugarcandy’s lounge was odd rather than stylish. The floor was covered with yellow-ish slabs of stone. Glass doors opened out onto a terrace, where a blue-tiled square pond reflected sunlight back into the room, sending patterns dancing across the ceiling. The red-and-white striped curtains on either side looked thick enough to stand up by themselves, and there were so many sofas and armchairs upholstered to match the curtains that they reminded me of deckchairs lined up on a beach.

  Lieutenant Weinburger asked us to sit down and we did as we were told. I sank into a chair so soft that I felt as if I was being swallowed like a prawn in an anemone.

  Stifling yawns, Mum answered all the policeman’s questions. No, she hadn’t had any direct contact with Baby Sugarcandy; no, she’d never met Sylvia or Judy before today; no, she hadn’t seen the raccoon that Sylvia had braked to avoid; and no, she hadn’t got a good look at the man running down the steps – she’d been on the wrong side of the car. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not very helpful, am I?”

  Lieutenant Weinburger shrugged and smiled. “No problem,” he said. Then he turned to me and Graham.

  “It was you who called 911, right?” he asked, fastening his steely eyes on me.

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “Let’s see what you said on the phone…” He looked at his notebook to pinpoint my exact words. “‘She’s dead. It looks like an accident but I don’t think it is.’” Lieutenant Weinburger pierced me with a steady gaze. “What made you say that, kid?”

  I took a deep breath. “I thought it looked like murder.” My voice came out all squeaky. I cleared my throat and tried again. “It was just a feeling, really. Something wasn’t right. Her hair was wet for one thing.”

  “Maybe she was washing it.” Lieutenant Weinburger batted my words away with an impatient flick of the wrist.

  “With her earrings on?” I asked pointedly.

  “So she forgot they were in.” He was unimpressed. “It happens, believe me. When you get older you forget what’s what. My own mother doesn’t know what day of the week it is half the time. So, tell me about this guy you saw. You get a good look at him?”

  I shut my eyes and tried to remember. But what flashed through my head was something completely different: an image of the production of Mary Poppins Mum had taken me to when I was little. “He looked like an old-fashioned English gentleman,” I said. “Like someone off the stage.”

  “The stage, huh?” The policeman looked from me to Graham with one eyebrow raised. “You like the theatre? Movies? TV? Crime shows?”

  I shrugged but didn’t answer. I could see him thinking my imagination had been working overtime and it made me really cross.

  “What was the guy wearing?” he asked.

  I described the man as fully as I could: the white trousers, the waistcoat, the stripy blazer with the flower in its buttonhole.

  “Like this?” Lieutenant Weinburger put a plastic evidence bag containing a tattered red carnation into my hands. The stem was broken. Like Baby Sugarcandy’s neck, I thought, and my stomach gave a little heave. “My men found it by the gates,” he added.

  “I think that’s the one,” I said. “It looked like it was about to fall out. And he was wearing a straw hat. Quite a smart one. That fell off too.”

  “We’ve got that. Anything else?”

  “A bow tie.”

  “Colour?”

  “Red.” I looked at the policeman intently. “And his jacket was red-and-white stripes, exactly the same colours as the sash on Baby Sugarcandy’s dress. And the curtains, and the sofas. Weird! What is it with all this red and white?”

  “I don’t know, kid. You Brits have funny taste, I guess.” Lieutenant Weinburger wasn’t at all interested in my observations. I could see him thinking that Graham and I were just a pair of over-excitable children. It was really starting to annoy me. “OK, here’s what I think happened,” he said. “She’s washing her hair, setting it, doing whatever she does to get that style of hers in place. The guy comes to the door and rings the bell. Her PA’s collecting you from the airport, and her daughter’s shopping, so Miss Sugarcandy goes to answer the door herself. She’s at the top of the stairs and trips. He hears her fall, panics and runs away. Until we get the pathologist’s report we’re going to assume it was just the way it looks. An accident.”

  I bit back the words of protest that tried to leap out of my mouth. I was sure I was right: I had a hunch the size of the Empire State Building that Baby Sugarcandy had been murdered. But until the police admitted it Graham and I couldn’t say or do anything more. Could we?

  The interview was over. We stood up and Mum shook Lieutenant Weinburger politely by the hand.

  “Go get some sleep,” he told her. “I’ll bet you all need it.”

  “Yes,” yawned Mum. “We’re really jet-lagged.”

  “You guys staying here?” the policeman asked.

  A cloud flitted across Mum’s face. “Oh… I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “We were supposed to, but now… Maybe we should find a hotel or something.”

  Sylvia’s voice interrupted her. “They were invited by Miss Sugarcandy and they’ll stay here, Lieutenant,” she said firmly as she crossed the room towards us. “I’ll take you to the guest wing now, it’s all ready for you. Take as long as you need to get over your journey.”

  We followed Sylvia through the kitchen and out of the back door into a large paved courtyard that was lined with potted orange trees. Several shiny metal dustbins were tucked behind a low wall.

  “The guest wing is just here,” Sylvia explained as we crossed to a door diagonally opposite the kitchen. “As you can see, you have your own entrance. I’ll leave you a key so you can come and go as you please. I do hope you’ll find everything you need. If not, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. The telephones by your beds connect str
aight through to my office.”

  My mind was racing, but when I saw the guest rooms all thoughts of crime and punishment were driven out of my head. Downstairs the lounge was as big as a tennis court, with a television the size of a cinema screen. A spiral staircase led up to three massive bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. I bagged the one overlooking the courtyard, and Graham took the one next to mine while Mum opted for the one across the landing, which had a view over the grounds. Sylvia, after ensuring that we had everything we could possibly want, marched away.

  I had a foaming bubble bath in a tub so vast there was a serious danger of me drowning. I dried myself on a towel so plush it felt as if it had been woven from clouds, then sank into a bed that resembled an enormous pink marshmallow.

  Sleep came almost at once. But just before blackness overwhelmed me I wondered how Sylvia had managed to come in so promptly at the end of our interview. No one had called her, after all. Had she been sitting in our place by the open window in the kitchen? And had she heard everything we’d said?

  full english breakfast

  I slept solidly for fourteen hours and probably would have carried on sleeping if Mum hadn’t woken me up the following morning.

  Wafting a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice under my nose, she said, “Come on Poppy, love. Graham’s up and about already. A new day, a new challenge, and all that. The sun’s shining.”

  “What?” I sat up, squinting at her. “You seem very cheerful.”

  “Sylvia’s been here,” replied Mum. “She brought us breakfast, see?” She lifted a tray holding a plate of bacon, eggs and sausages and put it on my lap. “A full English,” she enthused. “The complete works! It’s enough to put a smile on anyone’s face.”

  I took a sip of juice and asked, “What happens now? Do we have to go home?”

  “No,” Mum replied. “Apparently we have to stay here as long as the police are investigating. Sylvia says I might as well go ahead and draw up the designs. It will give me something to do, at any rate.”

  “OK,” I said. “So you’re going to be busy all day?”

  “Yes. But you can help if you like.”

  I shook my head firmly: plants weren’t nearly as interesting as people.

  “Well,” said Mum. “Sylvia says there’s a pool at the far side of the house that you’re welcome to use. There’s the TV downstairs and she’s left a whole stack of DVDs. Or you could explore the grounds…”

  “We’ll do that,” I said.

  “No sneaking around, though,” warned Mum. “You heard what that policeman said. It was an accident, remember? Don’t go sticking your nose in and upsetting people.”

  “Me?” I said. “As if.” I tried to look innocent and Mum went off with a pen and notebook to survey the gardens.

  Graham came in to keep me company while I finished my breakfast.

  “What do we do first?” he said.

  Crunching a piece of crispy bacon I considered the matter. “Swim,” I decided. “I like the sound of that pool. And then we’ll search the grounds.”

  “What for? Clues? I would think it’s highly improbable that we’d find something that the police have missed.”

  “They reckon it’s an accident.” I stuffed a piece of sausage in my mouth. “They probably haven’t looked properly. I want to work out how that man got in.”

  “The one with the blazer?”

  “Yes. Of course, he might have sneaked through the gates when Sylvia set off to pick us up.”

  “She’d have noticed him,” said Graham. “His clothes weren’t what you might call inconspicuous, were they?”

  “OK. So how did he get in then?” I asked.

  “Climbed over the wall?” suggested Graham.

  “His trousers were spotless. If he’d done that there would have been marks on them. Anyway, he looked too old for that sort of thing.” I spread butter thickly on a slice of toast. “Hey, you don’t think someone might have let him in, do you?”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Sylvia could have. Or Judy.” I took a bite of toast. Spitting crumbs at Graham I said, “Judy’s not at all upset about her mother. And Sylvia said they’d been arguing about money. Maybe Judy let him in before she went shopping?”

  Graham agreed that it was a distinct possibility. I’d finished eating, so Graham went downstairs and waited while I got dressed. Brushing my hair forward for maximum invisibility, I gathered up my swimming things and made for the door.

  To reach the pool we had to cross the courtyard at the back of the house and then walk along an avenue of vines where a few over-ripe bunches of grapes were still hanging just out of reach.

  “You wouldn’t have thought the Californian climate would be suitable for cultivating an English country garden. It’s so warm and dry here,” observed Graham. “How will your mother get things to grow in this heat?”

  I didn’t bother to answer. I wasn’t interested in plants. We reached the end of the shaded avenue and there before us was an expanse of terrace, edged on two sides with columns of thin, pointy cypress trees and dotted with potted cacti. In the centre was a lovely circular pool. My heart lifted at the thought of us having it entirely to ourselves but before we stepped out of the shadows something bobbed across the water that made me sigh with irritation.

  Judy. Blonde hair brushed up into a hideous pink cap, wearing movie star sunglasses and a glittering gold bikini. In one hand she held a large, purple cocktail and in the other was a glossy magazine. She was lying on the biggest inflatable I’d ever seen – long, bright green and resembling some sort of amphibious reptile. A dinosaur, perhaps. Or a crocodile.

  who benefits?

  We couldn’t go for a swim with Judy in the pool so we went for a walk instead. We explored for a while, but the weather was incredibly hot compared to England. When we found a shaded seat with a view out over the grounds to the city beyond, we slumped into it gratefully. We were sitting there quietly when we heard the heavy tread of Lieutenant Weinburger’s feet and saw the gleaming dome of his bald head on the path just below us. He was with another officer, but neither of them had spotted us. Without a word, Graham and I slid further back into the trees so we could remain out of sight.

  There was the crackle of a radio, and the lieutenant had a brief, angry conversation with the person on the other end. Then he turned to his colleague.

  “The pathologist’s report has just come through,” he said. “That kid was right. It was no accident.” He didn’t sound pleased, but then you wouldn’t expect a streetwise cop to relish being proved wrong by a mere kid.

  I punched the air silently and grinned with satisfaction.

  “Was she pushed?” asked the other policeman.

  “No.” Lieutenant Weinburger’s tone was troubled. “Or at least she didn’t die as a result of the fall.”

  “But her neck was broken, wasn’t it?”

  Lieutenant Weinburger nodded. “Yeah. But she was already dead when that happened. She died by drowning.”

  Graham and I looked at each other, mouths agape.

  “Drowning?” the other policeman echoed. “But she was fully clothed! How? Where?”

  “In her bathroom. The forensic team are up there now. It seems someone held her head under water. That smell of bleach was cleaning fluid. She was drowned in the john.”

  “The what?” I mouthed at Graham.

  “It’s an American word for toilet,” he whispered back.

  “Strangest way to kill someone I ever heard of.” Lieutenant Weinburger was shaking his head. The two men continued along the path, moving out of earshot.

  “How extraordinary!” said Graham. “I’ve never read about anyone being drowned in a toilet. That would have to top a list of the Most Unusual Murder Methods.”

  I didn’t answer. “Head in the toilet…” I muttered. “Thrown down the stairs…” Some faint bell rang in a distant memory but try as I might I couldn’t quite catch what it was. “Right, Graham,” I
said, rubbing my hands together, “let’s consider the MMO.” I’d heard the phrase on a TV crime show and was glad to have a chance to use it in real life. “Motive. Means. Opportunity. Who’s number one on our list of suspects?”

  Graham considered. “The intruder, I suppose,” he said at last. “The man who was running away. He was here just before we found Baby’s body – he would seem to be the most obvious culprit.”

  “OK. He had the means and the opportunity all right. But what’s his motive?” I asked.

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “He looked English, didn’t he? I don’t think Americans dress like that. He might be someone from Miss Sugarcandy’s past – I mean, she was English too. Maybe he had some sort of grudge against her.”

  “That sounds plausible,” agreed Graham.

  “Or maybe he was hired to kill her? That would explain how he got in – someone from the inside could have helped him.”

  “He didn’t look like an assassin,” objected Graham. “From my understanding of the criminal underworld, I gather hit men don’t usually wear flowers in their buttonholes.”

  “True.” I nodded. “Let’s forget about him for a moment. What about Sylvia? Do you think she might have had something to do with it? She could have let the man in. Or suppose she killed Baby Sugarcandy before she drove to the airport?”

  “No motive.” Graham looked at me, frowning. “She said herself she’s going to be out of a job. Why would she do it?”

  “I don’t know. She’s odd though – she’s been watching me. Watching you, too. I’ve caught her at it a couple of times. Like she’s expecting us to do something. And her smile is really fake.”

  “This is Hollywood,” Graham said. “Everything’s fake. I should think most of the women here have had cosmetic surgery and the ones who haven’t are probably saving up for it. I gather Botox injections freeze certain areas of the face. If she’s had that particular treatment it might explain why her expression seems insincere.”