Bitter End Part 6

'Not Buchanan,' Fizz insisted, perfectly sure in her own mind. If she herself couldn't get a rise out of Buchanan and G.o.d knew she'd been trying for two years -n.o.body 39. could. Buchanan might be a stubborn b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he might abominate bullies with a deep and implacable loathing but he was polite to the last ditch and, what was even more to the point, he had never once displayed suicidal tendencies.

The gossip was either a tissue of lies or exaggerated out of all recognition.

' You didn't see him when he came in this morning,'

Beatrice said. 'The minute he walked through that door I said to myself, "You haven't slept much last night, my lad.

I wonder what you've been up to." I suspected he must have got himself a new girlfriend and, to tell you the truth, I was glad to think it because I don't believe there's been anyone -not lasting, I mean -since Janine . . .' Fizz was d.a.m.n sure there hadn't been: she'd made sure of that. She might not -at the moment -want Buchanan for herself, but she wasn't having him bonking anyone else. '. . . but now -now, Fizz -I realise what must have been giving him a sleepless night: not feeling piqued about the bawling out, of course, but regretting what he'd done. You don't insult Lawrence Gra.s.sick and get away with it. Poor boy, he must be wretched.'

Fizz gave up trying to convince her. Beatrice was entrenched in her own opinion and, besides, right now it was more important to find out if there really was a new girlfriend in the frame.

It was only later, when Buchanan himself actually confirmed the accuracy of the communique, that she was forced to accept it as fact but, even then, she was too stunned to react. Buchanan . . . belligerence ... It was impossible even to craft a sentence containing both words.

The world was coming to an end, she thought. There would be signs, portents, fiery comets and showers of frogs. Hamsters would prophesy. Virgins would bring forth armadillos.

She studied Buchanan's face as though seeing it for the first time. There was no outward sign of his having been inhabited by a malevolent ent.i.ty from another planet and, 40. if there were a new flintiness in his eye, at least there was no suggestion of the onset of insanity. He had slept very little last night, that much was obvious from the grooves under his eyes, but he showed no sign of regret and that only made her more alarmed.

'I've never known you to lose your temper,' she said, totally in denial. 'I know Gra.s.sick can be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d but I can't believe you let him get to you.'

Buchanan rose from his chair as though it had ejected him and started to walk up and down behind his desk with his hands in his trouser pockets. Fizz loved it when he did that because -forget all his other faults -he had the cutest b.u.m in Christendom.

'I didn't lose it, Fizz. I wasn't even angry at him. I was just sorry to see him out of control like that.' He stopped by the window and stared out at the traffic. 'You hear stories about his temper but you imagine it differently clean, somehow, and purposeful and deliberate. Like a scalpel. But it was disgusting, Fizz. He wasn't using his temper: it was using him. Watching him ... it was embarra.s.sing more than anything else . . . and alarming. He looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel.'

'Oh, pooh!' Fizz had no patience with such rubbish.

'Even if his temper were killing him, it wasn't up to you to tell him so. You have to let people go to h.e.l.l their own way.'

'Yeah, well, this time I didn't. Maybe he'd rattled me more than I realised but, even now, believe it or not, I don't regret saying it. And, anyway,' he twisted his lips a fraction in a sardonic smile, 'he was already as mad at me as he could possibly get. You've said it yourself more than once, I seem to remember: the best kind of security is to have nothing to lose.'

Fizz did recollect spouting some such nonsense, probably when under the influence of a few G&Ts, and there were times when she actually believed it, up to a point. But she'd been referring to the wonderful sense of liberty she'd 41. experienced when she was wandering the world with nothing but what she stood up in, and she very much doubted if Buchanan, who was used to a cushy lifestyle, could achieve the same sort of nirvana.

There wasn't much hope of Gra.s.sick regretting his threats once he cooled down. Nor was he likely to forget Buchanan's parting shot, not when it was ricocheting around town like a flu germ.

'Does this mean you're going to drop the investigation after all?' she queried, but seeing Buchanan's upwardly mobile eyebrows she knew it had been a silly question.

There was no stopping now. The only thing to do was to forge ahead and get some positive result to prove to Gra.s.sick that Buchanan had been right to be concerned.

'So, where do we start on this one?'

He turned to look at her. 'We start,' he said with solid emphasis, 'by making you understand -and accept -that,

much as I'd appreciate any behind the scenes help you feel motivated to give me, you have to keep a very low profile on this one. n.o.body's even going to nod to me in the street for a while in case Gra.s.sick gets to hear about it and the last thing we want is for you to nip your career in the bud by being actively involved.'

Fizz hadn't actually got around to considering that aspect of the affair and although she was sick as a parrot at the thought of staying out of things, she wasn't going to argue. 'You're d.a.m.n tootin'. I'll make sure Ghengis couldn't distinguish me from the Invisible Man.'

She wasn't daft, she told herself. She'd worked hard at her course for more than two years and it hadn't been easy, either academically or financially, so she sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to put all that effort to the slightest risk. But -h.e.l.l!

it would be tough cheddar if she couldn't find a way to grab herself a part of the action. Gra.s.sick had never seen her and was never likely to but, anyway, it would be no trouble to disguise her appearance enough to foil any verbal reports that might get back to him. She'd done it 42. often enough before. No need to mention it to Buchanan right at this moment, though, since it would only cause an argument.

Buchanan returned to his chair and drew his scribbling pad towards him, flipping to a fresh page. 'I'll have to talk to Vanessa's business partner, Joseph Rudyard, I suppose.

He's the one -the only one, as far as I can see, to profit much from Vanessa's death, so he ought to be our prime suspect. Then there's the neighbours, Mrs Pringle and her husband. Then the other woman who accompanied Mrs Pringle to the hospital. Elizabeth something.'

'Elizabeth Armstrong,' Fizz remembered. 'The local postman, Lenny Napier, appears to be the local Reuters, so we should talk to him. And the older waiter at Chirnside House said something about some daft old folk who were making sceptical noises. He mentioned no names but I reckon, if we could talk to him again, he'd finger them for a half pint.'

'Okay. Probably the Pringles.' Buchanan added those leads to his list and sat back, studying them. 'We'd better make a start right away. I don't want to give Lawrence Gra.s.sick any time to put pressure on Dad -or the police or anybody else -to have this thing stopped.'

Fizz swung her chair round to prop her feet on the corner of his desk. 'Are you, by any chance, thinking what I'm thinking: that Gra.s.sick's got something to hide?'

'Everybody's got something to hide, Fizz, if you dig deep enough, but we're not likely to be doing that. However, if you're asking me if I suspect Gra.s.sick of blowing up his wife, the answer's no.'

'Why not?' Fizz persisted. 'They say most people are killed by members of their own family, don't they?

Gra.s.sick could have killed her in a temper.'

Buchanan clasped his hands behind his neck and stretched his spine. 'Gra.s.sick gets rid of his aggression by shouting, not by lashing out.' He clenched his teeth to smother a yawn. 'And anyway, why murder his wife when 43. he could divorce her? It wouldn't make sense.'

Fizz was much inclined to believe that reasons for doing so could exist, even if they were not immediately apparent.

If Vanessa's death really did turn out to be non-accidental, Ghengis Gra.s.sick was top of her list of suspects, whatever Buchanan thought.

She watched Buchanan add a name to his schedule.

'Another lead?' she asked.

'Not really. It's just a chap I play golf with who's a Labour activist. I might have a word with him eventually if things swing that way. I know Gra.s.sick is chairman of one of the Labour wards in the city, sits on various committees, has a lot to say at their conferences. I don't suppose that side of his life will impinge on anything we're likely to be interested in, but you never know. Anyone else you can think of?'

Fizz stared at her toecaps for a minute. The police?' she suggested, half in fun.

'I've already spoken to the police,' Buchanan surprised her by saying. 'I had a brief chat with a DCI Virgo, who was in charge of the investigation. A very brief chat. I don't see us receiving much help from that quarter.'

'I'm not surprised. They can't stand anyone else taking an interest, can they? What about asking your old chum DI Fleming to do a little spying for us? He owes us one for handing him Mr Big on a plate. We did all the work on that case and he got all the glory.'

Buchanan drooped his eyelids at her. 'I suspect the now DCI Fleming viewed Mr Big as fair exchange for his not arresting you after your previous felony,' he said. 'I reckon we still have some work to do to build up our credit with him. I may have to lean on him eventually, but I'll postpone it as long as I can.' He raised his chin from his fist to give her a hard look. 'Also, one doesn't want to nag, but it would be nice if we could stay within the law this time.'

Fizz returned the hard look in spades. 'It really gets on my t.i.ts,' she snapped, 'the way you always make it out that 44. I antagonise the police deliberately. If I take the law into my own hands once in a while -and it is only once in a while -it's because there's no other way out. I'm not stupid, you know!'

Buchanan closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. A minute later she realised he wasn't pretending. Vanessa Gra.s.sick's commercial art business, Rudyard

Gra.s.sick, occupied s.p.a.cious but unpretentious premises

above an Indian restaurant in Nicholson Street. It was

entered via a gloomy staircase with old stone stairs that

were worn concave in the middle from the pa.s.sage of many

feet, but inside it was filled with light from tall Georgian

windows. The minimum amount of money had been spent

on turning the interconnected rooms into a congenial

works.p.a.ce but the staff appeared cheerful enough at their

drawing boards and someone had a tape playing somewhere

that sounded like a cla.s.sic Chris Barber. The Rudyard half of the partnership turned out to be a woeful-looking guy in his mid-to late-thirties, so thin that his ribs showed through the tee-shirt he wore under an open shirt. His hair was coal black and cut in an expensive but unflatteringly geometric style that skimmed his eyebrows and framed his ears in a C-shaped curve. It was very eye-catching but, in Buchanan's opinion, it only accentuated the angularity of his face. In one ear he wore a small gold earring shaped like an anchor, and that didn't make him irresistible either. Nevertheless, he looked just as amenable to being interviewed as he had sounded earlier when Buchanan had phoned to suggest a meeting.

'Bit of a mess in here,' he apologised, in voice that was already grating on Buchanan's nerves, and led his visitor into a cramped office. 'Things have been getting a bit out of hand recently. Somehow or other we never seem to get time to spend on organisation.'