The Big Chill: A Sam Smith Mystery (The Sam Smith Mystery Series Book 3) Read online

  THE BIG CHILL

  THE BIG CHILL

  Hannah Howe

  Goylake Publishing

  Copyright © 2015 Hannah Howe

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Goylake Publishing, Iscoed, 16A Meadow Street, North Cornelly, Bridgend, Glamorgan. CF33 4LL

  ISBN: 978-0-9566909-7-5

  Special thanks to Melanie and Lucy at

  headandheartpublishingservices.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  To my family, with love

  The Sam Smith Mystery Series

  by Hannah Howe

  Sam’s Song

  Love and Bullets

  The Big Chill

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  SAM’S SONG

  LOVE AND BULLETS

  Web Links

  Chapter One

  Maybe it was all a dream. I was lying, naked, in a strange bed. The night had brought a series of exquisite delights, from the delicious meal of tagliatelle tricolore with broccoli and a rich cheese sauce, to truly wondrous sex, to lying in each other’s arms watching Vera Caspary’s Laura on the bedroom DVD. My eyelids fluttered at the memory, my insides turned to liquid honey and I realised that after thirty-two years of troubled existence, love had ferried me to Elysium. This was the happiest phase of my life. I was deeply in love for the first time in my life and I found the strains of Kiki Dee’s ‘Amoureuse’ drifting through my mind. I hugged my pillow and smiled. Then I rolled over to hug my lover, and found that he wasn’t there.

  I panicked. Grabbing the first thing to hand, Alan’s shirt, I ran from the bedroom into the hall. He wasn’t there. With my heart in my mouth, I ran into the living room. He wasn’t there. With my pulse pounding in my temples, I raced into Alan’s study. He wasn’t there. Then I heard the sound of a frying pan on the stove while my nostrils scented the aroma of fried bacon. I sighed and as I wandered into the kitchen, my pulse returned to something approaching normal.

  Alan grinned at me from his position beside the stove. He picked up a spatula, rolled a sausage into the bacon fat then eyed my slender body, only partially concealed by his shirt. He winked, “Very fetching.”

  Automatically, I gathered the shirt around my midriff, then I ran over to him and gave him a big hug. Abandoning his spatula and his breakfast, Alan turned and hugged me in turn. We kissed. Then, with my arms still wrapped around him, I placed my head on his shoulder, against the soft fleece of his dressing gown.

  Of course, he was there. What did I expect? A note saying that that was the most miserable night of my life ever, in fact, you’ve made me feel so depressed I’ve gone to the cliff top to throw myself into the sea. I had come a long way in a short time, but such thoughts were indicative of my insecurities, legacies of my violent past when my mother and my ex-husband had beaten me mercilessly. With Alan’s help, I had come a long way in a short time, but I was still making the journey, I still had some way to go before I felt truly comfortable with the idea of being in love.

  Sensing that something was amiss, Alan caressed my long auburn hair. He kissed my forehead and asked, “Are you all right, Sam?”

  I hugged him and smiled. I looked up into his sympathetic brown eyes. “I am now.”

  The bacon spat and hissed, recapturing Alan’s attention. “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “Not that,” I frowned, pulling a face.

  “I know, you’re a veggie. Maybe some cereal?” He nodded towards a pine cupboard, nestling beside a Welsh dresser. “Help yourself; you should find something in there.”

  I squatted beside the cupboard, then removed a packet of muesli. That would suit me, so I sprinkled the cereal into a bowl, poured myself a cup of coffee and added a glass of fruit juice.

  As I sipped the fruit juice, Alan placed mushrooms in his frying pan. He was pushing the boat out this morning, preparing a full, cooked breakfast. Though, fair play, he deserved it, for he had worked up quite an appetite.

  As though capturing my thoughts, Alan turned away from the stove and smiled at me. “It was a beautiful night. And you, my love, were truly sensational.”

  My hips offered an involuntary wiggle while my cheeks turned scarlet. “Just doing what comes naturally.”

  Alan laughed, quietly to himself. He flicked the bacon over in the frying pan, then chopped three tomatoes and added them to the mix. “The forecast is set fair for today,” he said, glancing towards the kitchen window. “I thought maybe we could go for a ramble along the coastal path and have a picnic lunch.”

  I nodded and smiled. “I’d love that.”

  “Then home for tomorrow. Are you working on anything of interest?”

  My thoughts wandered away from Alan’s holiday cottage, situated in the beautiful surroundings of the Gower Peninsula, to my crumbling Victorian office in Butetown, Cardiff. Soon, our romantic weekend would be over and we’d be back at work, Alan as a psychologist, yours truly as an enquiry agent. I knew from talking with Alan that he loved his work. I also knew from conversations with his daughter, Alis, and his friends, that he was highly regarded by his peers. Without wishing to sound boastful, I had carved out a steady career for myself too. It had been a hard slog for five years, but now my agency was showing a modest profit, my reputation was growing and most important of all I loved the work.

  “You remember Angus?” I asked, returning to Alan’s question.

  “Uh-huh. Isn’t he the man who encouraged you to become an enquiry agent?”

  “He is. Well, Angus asked me to help him with a case. Builders are dismantling an old chapel in the city and lead from the roof is disappearing into thin air. Angus asked me to tail the builders’ lorry, though my task is to show myself. Hopefully, when the builders have spotted me they will drop their guard and so make it easier for Angus to tail them. From there it’s up to him. It’s a simple task, and Angus was very good to me, so it’s nice to return a favour.”

  “Uh-huh,” Alan agreed while reaching for the coffee pot. As he poured himself a cup of coffee, he glanced at me and said, “It’ll be Christmas soon; would you like to spend the holiday with A
lis and me?”

  My eyes widened and sparkled at the thought. “I’d love to.”

  “Excellent.” He leaned towards me then kissed me, full on the lips. “So that’s settled.” The kiss developed into a hug and the hug...well, I’ll leave that to your imagination...suffice to say, when we came up for air, we were both rather flushed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like this,” Alan mused, his chin resting on the crown of my head, his gaze, I sensed, lost in the middle distance. He kissed my hair, then said, “You make me feel whole again, Sam, you make me feel alive.”

  I looked up, into his eyes, and smiled. Alan had lost his wife, Elin, to a climbing accident and I knew that a part of him was still with her, that he was still troubled by the events of that fateful day. I had no illusions about myself, no pretentions; I could never replace Elin, I could never be his wife. But we could still be there for each other and we could still share special days, and nights.

  While I completed the ritual of early morning ablutions, Alan returned to the stove where he switched off the gas before loading his plate with his greasy spoon breakfast. Consuming food like that, he should be overweight and sluggish, yet he was lively, athletic and trim. Good genes, I guess, and along with handsome looks, he’d been blessed in that department.

  Alan joined me at the breakfast table, a solid pine affair that was a hundred years old, if it was a day. “Are you doing anything tomorrow night?” he asked.

  “I was thinking of painting my fingernails.” I held my left hand in the air and wiggled my fingers. Before Alan, I had the terrible habit of biting my fingernails. Now, my nails were growing nicely, a small example of the calming effect Alan had on my life.

  “Alis is attending her art class,” Alan informed me after a mouthful of tomato. “I have a two hour window,” he grinned suggestively.

  “Only two hours?” I replied, hiding my blush behind my coffee cup.

  “Should be long enough.”

  “For dinner and, er, dessert?”

  “I was thinking dessert first,” Alan said, “then Alis could join us for a late supper.”

  I splashed some milk over the muesli and stirred the cereal with my spoon. Then, after a sip of coffee, I complained, half-heartedly, “You’re going to ruin my figure.”

  “Nonsense, you’re good for at least another ten pounds.”

  I nodded, smiled, then scooped up a spoonful of muesli. Alan was right, as he was about most things. I was a size ten, who could occasionally squeeze into a size eight; an extra ten pounds would do me no harm, in fact adding a dress size would probably do me good.

  As Alan tucked into his breakfast, I gazed at my cereal bowl and reflected. “This weekend has been magical.”

  Alan nodded. “And it’s only the beginning.”

  “I hope it will never end.”

  “Can you think of anyone who could tear us apart?”

  I shook my head decisively. “No; no one.”

  Alan smiled, a smile of contentment. He reached across the table and took hold of my hand. He gave my fingers a gentle, affectionate squeeze. “Then I guess we’re stuck with each other, forever and a day, until hell freezes over.”

  I returned his smile and nodded. Soppy as it sounds, I’d found the man of my dreams. Forever and a day. I could settle for that.

  Chapter Two

  The following morning I completed my task for Angus. Tailing by car was one of the toughest skills I had to learn as an enquiry agent. Ideally, you maintain a distance of one or two car lengths in towns and cities, a gap of four cars on country roads and a larger gap of up to a dozen cars on motorways. Surprisingly, people who drive too fast are easier to tail than people who drive too slow, mainly because fast drivers seldom use their rear-view mirrors.

  Angus had set me an easy task – make sure I was seen, so I travelled bumper to bumper along the city roads until we arrived at a pre-arranged destination, a junction crowded by road works. There, I allowed the builders’ lorry, loaded with its cargo of lead, to escape, aware that Angus would resume the tail. My job complete, I made my way to my office.

  I was in my office, sorting through the mail, mainly of the junk variety, replying to messages left on my answering machine, filing documents in my filing cabinet, when a feline face appeared at the window. Marlowe. I opened the window and the cat, complete with a split ear – fighting again, Marlowe, I hope she was worth it – entered and rubbed himself against my arm. Marlowe purred, a deep, throaty purr, then he leapt on to my desk and licked the space where my computer should be. After months of aggravation, I’d dropped my old computer out of the window – not a wise, but a cathartic gesture – and ordered a new one. The new computer lasted two weeks before it started to play up. After some haggling, I managed to negotiate a replacement and now I was waiting for that replacement to arrive.

  The weekend with Alan was still fresh in my mind and I was in a joyful mood. In fact, I was singing Patti Smith’s ‘Because the Night’, swinging my head, really getting into it, allowing my long hair to sway all over my face, about to play some air guitar when someone entered my office, a young girl, around seven years old. She had fair, collar length hair, thick and shaped into a basin cut. Her eyes were blue and wide, as though staring in wonder, while her face was innocent and cherubic. Dressed in blue jeans, she wore a ragged woollen jumper, which was short-sleeved despite the cold December weather, and small stud earrings in her ears.

  “Hi,” the girl said while eyeing me with some suspicion, “I’m Rosie.”

  “Hi, I’m Sam.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her suspicion deepened. “Sam...that’s a man’s name.”

  “My full name is Samantha.”

  “My full name is Rosie Appleyard. People make fun of my name.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Rosie Apple,” she explained. “They call me pipsqueak or apple face. Do you think it’s wrong for people to call you names?”

  “Yes, I do,” I smiled.

  Rosie’s cherubic face mirrored my smile and, gaining in confidence, she took a step towards my desk. “Have you got a middle name?” she asked, her hands clasped in front of her midriff, her body swaying gently from side to side.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a secret,” I replied mysteriously.

  Rosie frowned and suspicion returned. “Do you keep lots of secrets?”

  “Sometimes I have to. Sometimes I discover things and only my client must know about them.”

  She nodded, trusting me, accepting my word. “You’re the lady private detective,” she said while glancing around my spartan office, her eyes finally alighting on a small bookcase crammed with reference books.

  “I am. Do you want to hire me?”

  “I do,” Rosie grinned. She had a mischievous grin, the preserve of the young and innocent. Her hand wandered towards my client’s chair, a wicker affair with a padded seat. “Can I sit on your chair?”

  “Of course you can.”

  She jumped on to the chair and proceeded to swing, gyrating from side to side. “It’s not very comfortable,” she complained, her face adopting a scowl.

  “I’m saving up to buy a new one.”

  “Ah, right.” Rosie viewed me through bright, blue, appraising eyes, eyes that were all knowing, eyes that had seen the rough and tumble of our local streets. “You’ve got very long hair,” she observed.

  On cue, I flicked my hair from the collar of my blouse. Then I sat on my faux-leather chair, at my desk, opposite Rosie. “I think long hair suits me. What do you think?”

  “My dad says you’ve got hair that shimmers like silk. He says the angels spun your hair from the finest gossamer.”

  My lips twitched into a smile. “Is your dad a poet?”

  “Nah.” Rosie shook her head while gyrating in my client’s chair. “Long distance lorry driver.”

  I sat forward in my chair, placed my elbows on my desk then eased my chin on to a bri
dge made by my fingers. “Where do you live?” I asked.

  Rosie pointed, with her chin, towards my office window. “Across the road.”

  I nodded. “I thought your face was familiar.”

  Her eyes wandered from me, on to Marlowe. The cat, no doubt exhausted by his nefarious night-time activities, had curled into a ball and was asleep on my desk. “Is that your cat?” she asked.

  “That’s Marlowe.”

  “Does he bite?”

  “Only people he doesn’t like.”

  “Do you think he’ll like me?”

  “If you’re kind to him, I’m sure he will.”

  “I’m always kind to animals.”

  “Do you have a cat?” I asked.

  “A dog,” Rosie replied. “Bugle. He’s a beagle. I took him for a walk and he ran away. I want you to find him.”

  “Sorry,” I shook my head, “I don’t do pets.”

  Rosie’s bottom lip started to quiver. She stopped swinging in my client’s chair. Her blue eyes filled with tears. “I can pay you,” she insisted producing a handful of coins from her jeans pocket and placing them on my desk.

  “Where did you get that money from?” I asked.

  “My money box.” Rosie gave me an up from under, sad, manipulative look. “My dad says my mum will kill me if I don’t find Bugle before she comes home from shopping. My dad says my mum loves the dog more than she loves him.”

  Call me a soft touch, but the threat of waterworks, combined with Rosie’s pitiful look, convinced me that I should spend some time helping her.

  “I tell you what,” I said, ‘it’s your lucky day. I have a special offer on today – the first person who walks into my office gets an hour of my time, free. So put your money in your pocket and let’s go look for Bugle.”

  Cheered, Rosie scooped up her money and returned the coins to her jeans pocket. Then she stroked Marlowe, who barely batted a whisker, before following me out of the office into the street.