Bunburry--A Murderous Ride Page 7

  He glimpsed a flicker of emotion – fear? anger? – and then her face and voice were utterly expressionless. “I really wouldn’t have any idea.”

  Richard’s querulous voice emerged from the workshop. “Beth! Are you going to stay out there all day? “

  She tossed the cigarette butt on the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe. “Got to go. Tell Marge I’ll be in touch as soon as.”

  That had got him precisely nowhere, he thought as he waited for the bus back to Bunburry. And then, when the bus finally arrived and was trundling its way towards the village, he returned to the plan he had dismissed earlier, to contact Mike’s mother. He dreaded the prospect, but he couldn’t see an alternative if he was to find out more about Mike’s Russian visitor.

  He went straight to Jasmine Cottage to talk to Liz and Marge.

  “When I met Mike, he got me to talk to his mother on the phone,” he said. “She invited me to visit her. I think I should do that in case there’s anything she can tell me about his business.”

  “Surely the police will have interviewed her and got any relevant information,” said Marge. “She’s just lost her son – I don’t think you should be bothering the poor woman.”

  “She and her husband may have emigrated from Russia because they had problems with the authorities,” Alfie argued. “In that case, she might be quite wary of the police, and not entirely frank.”

  Marge gave a sceptical sniff, but Liz was nodding. “You would be very sensitive if you spoke to her, wouldn’t you, Alfie?”

  “I would certainly hope to be,” he said. “The only problem is that Mike never gave me her details. Do you think Emma might have her number?”

  “If she doesn’t have it already, I’m sure she can find it,” said Liz. “I’ll ring her and ask.” She moved towards the phone.

  “I don’t think she likes being disturbed at work,” said Alfie. “It might be better to ring her this evening.”

  “Nonsense, dear,” said Liz. “Time is of the essence if we’re to get you off the suspect list. And I can’t imagine she’ll object to my ringing – I’m her great-aunt, after all.”

  As Liz dialled, Marge said: “And I can’t imagine what help Mike’s poor mother can be anyway. If he was part of some international gang, the last person he would tell would be his mother.”

  “Whose side are you on?” Alfie wanted to say, but he had to concede that Marge was right.

  “Well, thank you, dear,” Liz was saying. “Of course, I understand.”

  She hung up, then shook her head. “She says she can’t give me the number, that it wouldn’t be appropriate. I must say, she’s getting very headstrong as she gets older.”

  Alfie had hoped Emma would be more cooperative: she must know how precarious things were for him. But he simply gave a resigned smile. “Thanks for trying, Liz – that was good of you.” He stood up.

  “Oh, are you going?” asked Liz. “When you get home, you might want to look up the online telephone directory. According to Emma, there’s only one listing for Melnikov in Northampton.”

  7. Mike’s Mother

  “Hello?”

  Even in that single word over the phone, Alfie had heard Mike’s mother’s grief.

  She had sounded dazed, but she recognised who he was and repeated that he was very welcome to visit her.

  He had gone straight to the Bunburry taxi office.

  “Bunburry to Northampton?” said the woman at the desk. She did a quick calculation. “I’m afraid that would be sixty pounds.”

  “That’s fine,” said Alfie. “And I’d like the driver to wait for me and bring me back – I shouldn’t be long.” He produced his wallet and gave her eight twenty-pound notes. “Will that cover it?”

  And now here he was outside a modest red-brick terrace house, ringing the doorbell.

  Marina Melnikov was still recognisable as the young wife on the screensaver, slim and long-legged, but she was no longer carefree. Her face was etched with grief, her eyes dull and unfocused.

  “I’m so very sorry about your son,” he said, giving her the bouquet he had bought en route.

  She clutched his hand, and whispered: “Thank you. I thank you for coming.”

  There was a single public room, containing a sofa with a coffee table in front of it, and four chairs round a small dining table. The table was laden with food.

  “I’m sorry,” said Alfie, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your meal.”

  “No, this is for you, you have had a long journey,” said Marina Melnikov, ushering him to the sofa.

  “I’m sorry my husband is not here to greet you also, but he is working. I have taken a few days’ leave.” Her voice faltered and then she rallied. “Sit, sit, eat.”

  She overruled his protests, handing him a large dinner plate, and then bringing dish after dish to him, all perfectly arranged, sliced tomatoes garnished with parsley, potato salad, hams, cheeses, pickled herring.

  She brought over one of the chairs and sat opposite him across the coffee table.

  “Eat, eat,” she insisted, scooping a bit of everything on to his plate.

  “Please, you must have something as well,” he said.

  “I have no appetite,” she said, and he knew not to press her further. “But I will drink tea with you.”

  She left the room briefly and returned carrying a tray with a teapot, two glasses in silver filigree holders, and a small ceramic dish filled with some sort of berry jam.

  She poured them each out a glass.

  “Is the jam for the tea?” Alfie asked uncertainly.

  She nodded. “Yes, try it – it’s good. The jam is my own.”

  He took a teaspoonful and stirred it into the glass, watching the small berries swirl round and settle at the bottom.

  She watched him as he took a sip. “You like it?”

  “Very much. It’s very good. I’ve never had tea with jam before.”

  Alfie was desperate to ask questions that might lead to uncovering the murderer, but it would be insensitive to barge straight in. The taxi driver, fortunately not the one he had encountered previously, insisted that he was happy to wait as long as necessary.

  “The lady’s just lost her son? Awful to lose a kid. I don’t think you’d ever get over that. I’ve got my blockbuster, I’ve got my sandwiches – you stay as long as you want.”

  Alfie put down his glass of tea. “Mike – Mikhail – had a beautiful picture on his laptop of you all at the beach.”

  Marina Melnikov gave a wan smile. “Blackpool. He loved it, playing in the sand, swimming in the sea, climbing the big tower. Always laughing, always having fun.”

  “Was he always interested in cars?”

  “Cars, yes, cars, always, from when he was so little. He had toy cars, we would say what are you doing, you’re breaking your toy, and he would say: ‘No, I want to see how it works.’ When we got our first car, he was so happy, always with his father, wanting to look at the engine.”

  Alfie had taught himself basic car mechanics because he had to, but Mike had been following his dream, just as Alfie had with his start-up.

  Marina Melnikov was looking at the floor, the fingers of one hand tight over the other. She suddenly sprang up. “I forgot – I go to put your beautiful flowers in water.”

  He knew it was an excuse to leave the room so that she could compose herself.

  She returned some minutes later and sat back down opposite him. “The police said it was not an accident,” she said without expression.

  Alfie saw no need to tell her that he was the one who had discovered Mike’s body, or that he was a suspect.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ve heard that in the village.”

  “But why would anybody do such a thing? I asked if it was a robbery and they said no.”

  “Marina.�
�� He leaned forward. “If I can, I want to help find out what happened. I have a friend in the local police force, a good officer, capable, reliable, and I want to make sure she has all the information she needs.”

  Marina Melnikov nodded slowly, but said nothing.

  “May I ask you a little about Mikhail?”

  She gave a small sigh, then said, “Yes.”

  “When he set up his new garage business, do you know where he got the money?”

  “He said from a friend.”

  “Do you know who the friend was?”

  “No.”

  He recognised that she wasn’t being difficult, she was just exhausted. But this wasn’t encouraging.

  “And do you know how the business was doing?”

  “Well. He said very well. He was very happy.” There was a catch in her voice. “He loved these old cars.”

  Alfie remembered what Beth had said about him. “He was very well thought of in the trade for the quality of his work.”

  She bowed her head in acknowledgement of the tribute.

  “There were no problems, no difficulties with money?” he went on.

  “No problems, everything was very good. He was a hard worker, it was a good business.”

  Alfie remembered what the sergeant had said: Mr Melnikov had something of a reputation with the ladies.

  He asked, “Did Mikhail have a girlfriend?”

  She gave a half-smile. “Always. It was always cars and girls.” Then she seemed to reconsider what he was asking. “No, no, no, he always treated his girlfriends very well, he treated them like princesses.”

  Alfie wondered briefly how Emma and Betty would react to being treated like princesses.

  “No, this is not an angry girlfriend who has killed him,” she said.

  Alfie hadn’t actually considered that Mike might have been killed by a woman. Was he being sexist in thinking it wasn’t a woman’s crime? It wasn’t as though it required strength, she just had to know how to operate the mechanism.

  But there was already a key suspect. Alfie couldn’t any longer avoid the question he had come to ask.

  “Marina, the day Mikhail … died.”

  She looked straight at him, her eyes wide, clearly afraid of what he was going to say.

  “There was a man who came to the village looking for him. He was a big man, wearing a track suit, and he didn’t speak English. We think he was Russian. He was driving a red sports car.”

  “Yes, the Ferrari, from Mikhail’s garage.” She relaxed back into the chair.

  This wasn’t at all what Alfie had expected to hear.

  “You know who the man was?”

  “Of course, my brother’s son, Lev, staying with us for a holiday. Mikhail came with the Ferrari as a present for him to drive while he is here. Lev was going to London and drove to him for a surprise on the way. They had a good meeting, they sent me a picture to my phone, Lev went to London and then – and then I have the police at my house to tell me about my boy.”

  She began to cry softly.

  ***

  Alfie was catapulted into a memory he had hoped to erase. From the moment Vivian had left, he had been planning what he would say to say to her when she came home. But he couldn’t find the right words. There were no right words. He would say nothing; he would simply hold her.

  He sprang up when the doorbell rang – she had gone in such a rush that she must have forgotten her keys. He was momentarily bewildered to find two strangers on the doorstep. The doorman always rang to check with him if anybody unexpected called.

  And then he realised that his visitors were police officers and he simultaneously registered that the car keys were gone from the porcelain bowl by the door.

  In that instant, he knew what they were going to tell him, but until they told him, it still wasn’t true. He confirmed his name, he agreed that they could come in, he sat down as they suggested. Vivian had never liked driving his car, she found it too powerful and ungovernable, but she refused to let him buy her a car of her own. After the film, she said, then she would have the money to buy the car she wanted.

  The policewoman had told him now, her male colleague looking ill-at-ease and desperate to leave. She told him that Vivian had been in a car accident, that it had been a bad accident. The only comfort – the coldest comfort – was that Vivian had died instantly.

  Alfie politely but firmly declined the policewoman’s offer to make him a cup of tea. She asked if there was a relative or friend who could be contacted, and Alfie simply accepted the assumption that it was more appropriate for the police to contact Oscar than for him to ring his best friend.

  “Please tell him that if he’s busy, there’s no urgency.”

  He escorted the police to the door, thanking them for their time, and after that he had only odd, disjointed memories – lying curled up on the floor – aching for the release of tears that never came – Oscar feeding him soup as though he was an invalid. And the moment when, his tongue thick in his mouth, he managed to speak: “She was pregnant – our baby – Oscar, my family’s gone.”

  And knowing that there was more to say that could never be said.

  ***

  He had lost his child and now Marina Melnikov had lost hers.

  And the mysterious Russian was mysterious no longer.

  “So, Lev is Mikhail’s cousin?” he asked.

  “Cousin. Yes.”

  “Marina, how do you say ‘Mikhail’s cousin’ in Russian?” He held up his hands in apology. “I’m sorry, I’m not asking for a Russian lesson – it’s just, this could be helpful.”

  Looking puzzled, she said: “Kuzyn Mikhaila.”

  “That’s it!” he said. “Someone thought he was saying ‘cushion Mahalia,’ which makes no sense in English but of course he was talking Russian.”

  And of course Lev could no longer be considered a suspect. The timing of Lev’s selfie with Mikhail would show he had been there before the time of death, and his mileage and possibly other photographs would show he was well away from the crime scene when Mikhail was killed. Leaving Alfie as Sergeant Wilson’s only suspect.

  But now he was determined to discover the truth not only for his own sake but so that Marina Melnikov could know.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you but I promise I will do everything in my power to find out who killed your son. Forgive me if I ask one last question. Did your son ever mention a man called Charlie Tennison?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, “Tennison, I think I know this name. The man with all the cars, yes?”

  There was the sound of a powerful engine approaching and then growling into silence outside the house.

  “Mikhail’s cousin,” said Marina as they heard the key in the lock.

  A powerfully built young man in a tracksuit walked into the room and kissed Marina on both cheeks, hugging her in the process. Marina spoke to him in Russian, and he turned to Alfie, holding out his hand.

  “Dobriy dyen,” said Alfie, shaking his hand. “Menya zovut Alfie.”

  “Lev,” said the Russian, and then said something else. Marina interrupted him, speaking for some time.

  She gave Alfie a little smile. “He thinks you speak Russian. I tell him not yet, until you come for lessons. I explain who you are.”

  Lev touched Marina’s arm and spoke to her a little anxiously.

  “Vozmozhno,” she said.

  Alfie remembered that word from his previous lessons: perhaps.

  “Alfie,” she said, “Lev is worried about the car Mikhail gave him, the Ferrari. You can take it back to the garage?”

  Lev had taken a step towards him and was offering him the car keys.

  Alfie flinched away. “No, it’s all right,” he said. “I don’t think I’d be allowed to do that.”

 
“I’m sorry,” said Marina. “I did not know.”

  Alfie didn’t know either, but there was no way he was getting behind the wheel of the high-octane sports car.

  “I’m sure it’s fine for Lev to keep driving the car while he’s here,” he said, not being sure at all.

  He shook hands with Lev and then went to shake hands with Marina, but she impulsively put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.

  “I thank you,” she said. “I wish you success in …”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I promise,” said Alfie.

  8. Lord Teflon

  When he got back to the cottage, he made the next logical phone call. He had dreaded ringing Mike’s mother, but this turned out to be much worse.

  “Alfie!” David Savile greeted him. “Good to hear from you. A hundred thousand thanks for putting the Bunburry fudge people in touch. My wife has decided that we shall serve fudge with coffee at all our dinner parties from now on. I had a charming message from a Ms Margaret Redwood, who’s given me an extraordinarily good deal. I hope her bosses don’t find out.”

  Marge was her own boss, Alfie reflected, since Liz took nothing to do with the financial side of the business. And Marge was also astute enough to have worked out an arrangement that delighted David while still ensuring a healthy profit.

  “I’m glad it’s worked out. I’ve been thinking about the Jag and I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. I wondered if your cousin might be interested – is he likely to be in Bunburry soon?”

  “Charlie? He’s here right now, has been since Tuesday. Hang on, I’ll get him for you.”

  Alfie, horror-stricken, made a sharp protest. He hadn’t the slightest intention of selling the car to Tennison. All he wanted was to find out Tennison’s whereabouts, and he had just done that. Tennison had been in the area the day before Mike was killed, and he was still here.

  All he needed to do was to go to Emma with the information – there was no way he was going to have a conversation with Tennison.

  But his protest had gone unheard, and before he had the sense to end the call, a drawling, patrician voice said: “Alfie McAlister, the start-up multi-millionaire?”