Love Him to Death

  It seemed like there was nothing we could do.

  That evening at the beach party, Sally roasted a whole ox – it looked like something out of a Greek myth and I half expected Zeus to turn up and strike a few people down with thunderbolts. Two more of the staff had succumbed to the dreaded bug during the course of the afternoon so Graham and I finally came in useful, handing out plates and cutlery to the wedding guests and collecting up empty glasses.

  Bill didn’t perform live in the end – he said he wasn’t feeling up to it, which was understandable. Instead, the DJ played a never-ending stream of Bill’s greatest hits, from early ones such as “My One, My Only” (the song that launched him on the road to superstardom, according to Graham) and “All Time and For Ever” (the first of his hits to top the charts simultaneously in Britain and the United States) to “You Won’t Never Need No One But Me” (which sold a record-breaking number of copies in the first week), “I’m Yours, You’re Mine, End of Story” (fifteen weeks at number one) and last year’s Christmas smash hit, “He Ain’t the One for You”. Then the DJ put on “Ain’t No Escaping My Love” and Josie and Bill danced, arms wrapped around each other, in their own little world. When the song finished, Bill got the DJ to put it on again, and then again. After the fifth time I was pretty sick of hearing it and we were both bored by the sight of grown-ups behaving like kids who’d drunk too much fizzy pop.

  When Kelly suggested a skinny dip to one of the satyrs, Sally decided the beach was no longer a Suitable Place for Children and we were despatched to the villa. Bill’s music followed us all the way back and we could still hear it when we were inside, throbbing through the walls. We climbed the stairs, passing Angelica’s room. The music was loud, but not loud enough to drown out her pitiful, despairing sobs. I’d never heard anything quite so lonely. It reminded me of Mum and Becca and all those heart-to-hearts around the kitchen table. Maybe they were what had kept Becca afloat.

  “It’s odd,” I said to Graham when we reached our rooms. “Why hasn’t Angelica got a shoulder to cry on? Where are all those ‘close friends’ of hers that were mentioned in the papers?”

  “Maybe she drove them away,” replied Graham, yawning. “I gather that mental instability can have an alienating effect on people.”

  Perhaps he was right. There was something scary about Angelica: I could see how her deep misery would put you off. But it still felt strange. I mean, when anyone at school’s upset, they’re like a magnet – the first sniff of a tear and girls flock around like pigeons, cooing soothing words. So why didn’t someone as famous and popular as Angelica have anyone?

  As I got into bed I knew there was something I was missing. Some clue I’d overlooked. If I could just catch hold of it, everything would fall into place. But right now it was like trying to grab a bar of soap – the tighter I tried to hold on, the faster it slipped away.

  killer heels

  I slept fitfully – the noise of the party kept waking me up throughout the night. Then, as dawn approached, there was the banging of doors and the giggling of guests as they returned to the villa and fell into their beds. By the time the house was finally quiet, the sun was pouring through the thin curtains of my bedroom. I turned over crossly but couldn’t get back to sleep.

  Graham must have had the same problem, because soon afterwards there was a soft tapping on my door.

  “I was just seeing if you were awake,” he said as he stepped into the room. He was wearing his swimsuit and had a towel in one hand.

  “Awake?” I said grouchily “Of course I’m not. I’m sleeping like a log, me.”

  Graham ignored the sarcasm. “Fancy a swim?”

  Let me explain here and now that Graham is not what you might call a natural athlete. The fact that he’d woken me for an early-morning swim was so out of character that I realized he had Things on His Mind that He Wished to Discuss. As we couldn’t talk freely in the villa, the beach was our only option.

  “Give me five minutes,” I said, throwing back the covers and heading for the bathroom.

  As it turned out, I didn’t get to hear whatever it was that Graham wanted to say. When we got down to the cove we discovered that we weren’t the only ones to have woken up early. Bill was sitting on a rock, gazing out to sea, looking exhausted by the events of the past two days. We stopped dead, not wanting to disturb him, but he smiled when he saw us – that kind, friendly grin that warmed you right through.

  “All right, then?” he said. “Some night, eh? Enjoy the party?”

  “Erm…” I wasn’t quite sure what to say and didn’t want to lie.

  Bill laughed. “Guess it was a bit boring for kids.” He changed the subject. “Hey, I meant to say – I really appreciated you helping out like that. Them cupid costumes? They was Josie’s idea. And I felt like a right freak in that frock! But you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? What can I do? I’m putty in her hands. She’s my one and only.”

  Neither of us could think of a reply, so Graham and I just stared silently at our feet. It wasn’t long before Bill spoke again.

  “Funny old day, wasn’t it? Poor mum!” A tear rolled down his cheek and he looked so sad and helpless, I wanted to wipe it away for him. “Why’d she forget them pills? She’s never done that before.”

  “She probably had a lot on her mind,” said Graham, trying to sound neutral. “That’s what the doctor said, isn’t it?”

  I wasn’t so cautious. This was the first opportunity we’d had to talk to Bill alone and I wasn’t going to waste it. “We wondered if someone had taken them from her bag,” I blurted out.

  Bill looked at me blankly. “You mean, like, deliberately? But that would kill her!” His eyes widened as he took in my meaning. “Blimey!”

  Graham said carefully, “Angelica wanted your mother to persuade you to call off the wedding.”

  Bill nodded. “Yeah, Mum said. But she knew how I feel about Josie. Ain’t no escaping love. It hit me like a ten-tonne truck.”

  His words sounded like they could have come from one of his songs, and for some reason I found it slightly unnerving.

  “Do you think Angelica might have been angry with your mum?” I asked him. “I mean, angry enough to want to hurt her?”

  “Angelica?” Bill winced as if even the mention of her name made him feel deeply uncomfortable. “Well, she’s always been a bit… I don’t know … unstable, I suppose you’d call it. Bit of a control freak. She doesn’t like it when people don’t do what she wants. You don’t reckon she…?” His eyes narrowed as he looked from me to Graham and back again. “Crikey! You do. What about Sizal? You reckon that was no accident either?”

  Graham and I just stared at him and Bill’s mind started turning things over. We could practically hear the cogs grinding. “Angelica could have put that wasp in the room, couldn’t she? She was right there with him on that sofa … and if she killed the two of them … Josie! Oh my God! She’s alone!”

  With that he spun round and sprinted across the sand and up the steps. We were soon hot on his heels and the three of us raced back to the villa so fast, we could have won Olympic gold.

  It wasn’t fast enough.

  By the time we reached Bill’s room, Josie was lying dead on the bed. She’d been stabbed through the neck with one of her own killer heels. And there was Angelica, sitting beside the corpse, the blood-stained shoe in her hand, telling Josie over and over again, “I warned you. I did. I told you what would happen. Why didn’t you listen?”

  Bill let out a low, despairing moan and staggered towards the bed, barely in control of his limbs.

  Angelica looked at him. “You shouldn’t have married her,” she said. “Why did you do it? Why?” She examined the shoe as if she’d never seen it before. “No… I know why.” Then she suddenly threw herself at her ex-husband and demanded, “You’ll visit me in prison, won’t you? You’ll come every day. I know you will.” She stared at Bill with dark, dead eyes. And strangely, for a moment, she looked as though it was the v
ery last thing she wanted.

  mick

  Angelica had been caught red-handed. And yet I had a feeling it wasn’t quite as simple or straightforward as it seemed.

  Tessa swung into action the second we called her. She got Gregor Ravavich to lock the unresisting Angelica in her bedroom and stand guard by the door while she sealed off Bill and Josie’s suite so no one could disturb the crime scene before the police arrived. She then made about a zillion phone calls to various authorities before frogmarching all three of us to her office, where she made sweet tea.

  While the kettle boiled I noticed Tessa looking at Bill with desperate concern. There was no doubt that she’d fallen for him. Had she had a schoolgirl crush too? Or had this only happened since she’d been working for him? Did it matter?

  Bill broke the awful silence when Tessa handed him his tea. He looked at his cup and said in a cracked, hoarse voice, “Sorry, Tessa. I don’t fancy this. Get us a coffee, would you, babe?”

  When he called her “babe” – even though he said it absent-mindedly – Tessa flushed. To cover her confusion, she said brusquely, “What did your last slave die of?”

  Given that Bill’s wife had just been murdered, it wasn’t what you might call a well-timed remark. He flinched, glanced at me and Graham then sat, staring into space while Tessa made him a cup of instant coffee.

  “Hey, thanks,” he said huskily when she pressed it into his hands. “How would I manage without you?”

  Bill smiled gratefully at his PA, and for a second Tessa’s eyes flashed with adoration and something else. What was it? Hope? It looked suspiciously like it. Bill didn’t seem to notice but I certainly did. My stomach started churning.

  “We’d better go and tell Sally what’s happened,” I announced loudly, tugging at Graham’s arm. “Come on.”

  Tessa watched us leave with obvious relief – she didn’t seem to like kids very much. We headed off towards the kitchens, where Sally was preparing the Post-Party Pick-Me-Up for Bill’s guests – a massive fried breakfast with all the trimmings, judging by the smell of bacon wafting through the villa. The minute we were out of sight I changed direction.

  “Where are we going?” asked Graham, running to keep up.

  “Your mum’s bedroom. Her laptop will be up there, won’t it? We need to look some stuff up.”

  “What? Why?”

  “This whole thing with Angelica – her being caught in the act after all those rows and threats – it’s too obvious. What if she’s been set up?”

  “Set up?” echoed Graham. “Well, I suppose anything’s possible… But who could be responsible for plotting something so ingenious? What would their motive be? To frame Angelica, you’d have to really hate her.”

  “And a jealous person would. A jealous person who’s madly in love with Bill … Josie hated Angelica enough to kill her, didn’t she? You could see it in her eyes. Only then she died first and now both of them are out of the frame. Did you see how Tessa looked at Bill just now?” I asked, forging on before he could reply. “She’s besotted with him, I’m sure of it. At first I thought she must have fallen for him once she’d got the job, but what if it was before? What if she’s been obsessed with him since she was a kid, like Josie was? Graham, do you remember what your mum said to Tessa when we arrived?”

  Graham answered me with a passable imitation of his mum. “What a job to land! There are people who’d kill for an opportunity like that.” His eyes narrowed shrewdly. “And then Tessa mentioned that Bill’s former PA had died in an accident…”

  “Well, maybe he didn’t! Maybe Tessa committed murder to get the job! She’s not a celebrity – it was probably the only way she could get close to Bill. And then killing Josie … framing Angelica… What a neat way to get rid of your rivals!”

  “And Ruby? Sizal?” asked Graham. “How do they fit in?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed. “Of course, we can’t prove that either of those were murders. The doctor might actually be right. And even if he’s not, it only strengthens the case against Angelica. She’s the only one who might have wanted them dead. Maybe that was a good enough reason for the murderer to do it.”

  We’d now reached Sally’s room. She’d locked it but luckily there was a door that connected through from Graham’s. Once inside, Graham wasted no time in switching on the computer.

  “OK,” he said grimly. “Where shall we start?”

  “Bill Strummer,” I said. “News items. There’s got to be something about that PA’s accident.”

  There was so much coverage about Bill and Josie that it took ages to find anything. Some of the Z-list guests had clearly been making use of their phones – there were already pages and pages of photos of the wedding and last night’s party, and it was half an hour before we managed to discover anything about Bill’s old assistant. Then we found a small entry that described how a man called Mick Tucker had been tragically killed by a herd of stampeding cattle back in April of this year. He’d been employed as PA to Bill Strummer for the previous six months. Tessa had told us the truth: the coroner had recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.

  “Another accident,” I muttered. “Do you remember what Angelica said when we found her with Sizal? Natural causes, just like the others. She didn’t just say ‘like Ruby’, she said others. Plural. Why didn’t I see it then? She must know something about Mick’s death. We need to talk to her right now, before she gets carted off by the police.”

  “She may be innocent of murder,” Graham warned, “but I believe she’s in a highly unstable condition. Besides, Tessa has locked her up. Gregor Ravavich is standing guard outside her door – and he’s massive. We can’t possibly get to her.”

  “Oh really?” I said. “Are you sure about that?” I steered him out of Sally’s room, through his, and across the landing to mine. I threw open my window and pointed. “That’s Angelica’s balcony. All we have to do is jump.”

  Graham peered over the window ledge and paled. It was a good four-metre drop, and if I hadn’t thought it was our only hope of solving several murders, I’d never have suggested it. But as far as I could see, we had no choice.

  Graham may not be a big fan of extreme sports, but in an emergency he can be surprisingly brave. He didn’t say a thing. Instead he swallowed hard, nodded, then swung a leg over the sill. He rolled onto his stomach and wrenched his other unwilling limb across before lowering himself down. He clung on by his fingertips for a moment, then let go. There was a loud splat as his bare feet hit the tiled floor of the balcony below.

  “You OK?” I called softly. He looked at me and gave a half-hearted thumbs-up. He was bent almost double as if the fall had winded him, and was rubbing his left elbow, but he moved over to make way for me.

  My turn. I did the same as Graham, landing awkwardly and feeling a bolt of pain shoot from ankle to knee. “Ouch!” I complained. “That hurt!”

  “It was your idea,” whispered Graham. “Let’s hope it proves worthwhile.”

  There were heavy net curtains hanging across the French windows so we couldn’t see into the room, but the door was open a fraction and it would be easy enough to get in. I took a deep breath to steel myself. I was pretty sure Angelica was innocent, but suppose I’d got it wrong? Josie had been stabbed to death with her own sandals. The viciousness of that attack made me feel suddenly nervous.

  “Well,” I said a little squeakily, “here goes.”

  I slid the door back, pulled aside the net curtain and Graham and I stepped through. It was dark inside compared with the sunlit balcony, and it took a few moments for our eyes to adjust.

  We didn’t have to go far in search of Angelica. She was sitting on the bed, staring at nothing, and as we approached she looked through us as if we were ghosts.

  “Angelica?” I said uncertainly. “Can we talk to you?”

  She made an effort to focus on me, wrenching her mind away from wherever it had been. She rubbed her eyes, shook her head and asked, “Me? You can’t
. No one’s allowed to talk to me. Only Bill.” Her eyes slid away again. This was going to be even harder than I’d thought. I was just wondering how to bring her back to the real world when Graham decided to speak up.

  “Mrs Strummer?” he said. “We believe you’re being framed. We’d very much like to know more about the personal assistant Bill employed before Tessa Whittam. I understand he was called Mick. Can you tell us anything about him?”

  Angelica heaved the deepest sigh I’ve ever heard. It seemed to come up from the depths of the ocean. And then she said in a strange sing-song voice, “He wanted to see the bluebells.”

  The woman’s mad, I thought. Unhinged. Deranged. Barking. There was no way we would get any sense out of her.

  Then I recalled the photograph of her running through the woods, mouth open in a silent scream. Running through a bluebell wood, where the newly emerged flowers heads were just beginning to open.

  And all of a sudden I caught the clue I’d been missing. It was like being doused with ice-cold water. I’d been so disconcerted by the embarrassing glimpse of her bra that I’d failed to see what was really wrong with that photo. Those bluebells were the key to everything.

  I mean, you can’t have a landscape gardener for a mother and not know that bluebells flower in the spring. And it had come unusually early this year. They’d started blooming the first week of April and had gone by the end of the month. Bill hadn’t met Josie until June, which had to be at least six weeks after that photo was taken.

  So why had Angelica been running through the woods screaming?

  My mind went into overdrive, frantically recalculating. This changed everything. Before I had a chance to say anything, Graham pressed on.

  “Mrs Strummer, we believe Tessa Whittam may be in love with your ex-husband.”