Georgia on My Mind Read online

  She soon established that Sophie didn’t really know what a migraine was, and that she just felt rather sick and head-achy, probably as much from the early start and the excitement as anything. She was demanding painkillers, but Chloe had flatly refused to take responsibility for the teenagers unless she was given a free hand.

  Chloe put her violin between the seats, and started to undo the small flight bag. ‘Rub some lavender oil on your temples,’ she said.

  Sophie accepted the lavender oil with a martyred sigh. By now she had worked out that no one was going to make a great fuss of her, the way her mother did when she complained, in which case it might be more interesting to go and sit with her friend, who had settled by a group of young men outside the burger bar. ‘I probably just need a drink.’

  ‘Water would be better than anything fizzy,’ said Chloe, without much hope of being attended to. The lavender oil was weaving its spell on her at least, and she could happily have closed her eyes right there and then. With all the last minute rehearsals, the packing and the abrupt change of arrangements for childcare, the last week had been hectic. ‘Once we’re on the plane you can sleep.’ But Sophie was already gone.

  ‘Your children?’ said the man next to her, as she screwed the top back on the little blue-glass bottle. He was in his fifties, rather scruffy, wearing an old tweed jacket, a well-worn rucksack open at his feet. His eyes darted constantly back and forth, to her, back to the departure board, across to the security man outside Tie Shop, then back again, as if unwilling to miss a single movement of the milling throng.

  She shook her head. ‘School orchestra trip.’

  He leaned forward eagerly. ‘Ah. You are a teacher. My wife too.’ His accent was very thick and she had to concentrate to understand him. As she slid the folder of paperwork across to get at the little pouch where she kept the oils and the arnica cream, her hand encountered something soft and furry. She jumped, her tired mind imagining all sorts of hidden dangers in the innocuous depths. Concentration slid away from her neighbour as she groped beneath the papers, finally unearthing a small teddy bear.

  Little Ted. The children must have popped him in last night. She’d finally finished packing, thrown the concert notes in on top of her soap bag and collapsed on the bed, hand over her eyes.

  ‘You haven’t left room for your violin,’ said her daughter from the doorway.

  ‘I’ll have to carry it separately,’ said Chloe.

  ‘I’m going to practise every day till you come back. Then I can come to the next Tricenta- ’ She tried again. ‘Tricentenarium celebrations.’

  ‘Tricentennial. But they won’t be for a long time, sweetheart. We’ll all be too old by then.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Another hundred years. That’s what centennial means, you see.’

  ‘I’m going to miss you,’ said Hannah, her eyes blinking rapidly.

  ‘Me too.’ That was Christopher. Neville Wharncliffe maintained Chloe should have called him ‘Meetoo’, then he’d have learned to say his name a lot faster. He still called himself Kistoper, which made Mrs Wharncliffe wince. Everyone else called him Kit, but Neville’s mother refused to countenance diminutives.

  ‘I’ll be back before you know it,’ said Chloe. ‘What would you like me to bring you back from America?’

  ‘A Lion King baseball cap,’ said Kit, who had loved the film and still sang the songs in a reedy treble.

  ‘A Beanie Baby,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Bed now.’ She fought back a huge yawn. ‘I have a very early start tomorrow.’ She hugged them both to her. ‘Be good for Grandma.’

  And that must have been when they’d popped Little Ted in.

  She must have made a sound, for her neighbour put a hand on her arm. ‘There is something wrong?’

  ‘No. No.’ She shook her head, vexed to find her eyes welling up. She drew the teddy bear out of the case. ‘My children.’

  ‘Ah. They love their mummy very much, eh? They will be missing you. My children...’

  He began to tell her of his children, grown up now, of course, one working as a doctor, the other in government. All the time his eyes darted restlessly around the area. ‘Are they in America?’ she asked, but before he could answer, there was a tap on her shoulder.

  ‘Do you think your headmistress will be thrilled to hear about one of her girls sharing French fries with a boy with three eyebrow rings?’ came the breathy tones of Jemma Forster. ‘I rather think she’ll have a fit.’

  Chloe focussed blearily on the little group over by the fast-food area. There was the lead trombone – mini-skirted Moth – pout at one end of a long chip, and a heavily-studded youth on the other. She shuddered. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the stranger. ‘I must just see to my charges.’

  ‘Pretty damned quick,’ advised Jemma, pencilled eyebrows disappearing into her henna dyed hair. ‘I don’t imagine His Worship the Mayor will be too thrilled either.’

  ‘Stay with the bags, Jemma, would you?’ Damn, damn, damn, she thought, as she hurried off to sort out the girls. It would have to be the Mayor’s daughter. He’d been the only one to voice reservations about Chloe as chaperone for his daughter – what was the wretched girl’s name? Trombone…Moth…Tamara, that was it. Tamara Prenderville.

  Prenderville’s reservations were probably due to the fact that Pete had always been a thorn in the side of the Town Council, particularly over the proposed sale of the ancient meadowland at a knockdown price to a crony of the Mayor’s. Pete would have hated the fact that she was indebted to Prenderville and his Twinning Committee for her airfare. But then, he should have thought of that before he upped and died, leaving the business in such a mess that they were only now emerging from the nightmare.

  With as much good grace as she could muster, she detached the girls from their unsuitable admirers, and led them back across to the seating area. ‘We have to keep our eye on the departure board. Our plane could be boarding any minute.’

  ‘You could have stayed with my bag,’ complained Tamara, looking at the seating area, where the contents of her bag spilled luxuriantly over three adjacent seats. Chloe’s own bag and violin case were still there. Of the thick-accented stranger there was no sign: he and his tweed jacket and old rucksack had disappeared.

  ‘I didn’t even know you’d left it there,’ said Chloe. ‘Besides, Mrs Forster was keeping an eye...’

  ‘I think she’s found something more interesting to do,’ said Sophie – Cobweb – percussion – with a giggle. Jemma, her back turned to the baggage, was batting her eyelashes at Gavin, the athletic young man who played Puck.

  ‘Someone more interesting to do,’ said Tamara. She whispered in her friend’s ear, and the two girls dissolved into screeching laughter that put Chloe’s teeth on edge.

  Watching Jemma bring out the full battery of her wiles against the hapless young man, she could imagine the kind of thing the girls were saying, but decided it was better to ignore it.

  ‘Really, so careless to leave your luggage lying around like that, Chloe,’ said Jemma, pausing briefly in her conversation. ‘We might all have been evacuated, and missed the plane. I know you don’t have the opportunity to travel as much as most of us, but surely even you must have heard that the authorities treat all unattended bags as potential bombs.’

  ‘But Miss Keating asked you to look after them.’ Mustardseed – Kirsty – was swinging her clarinet case dangerously close to Jemma. ‘I heard her. So if it’s anyone’s fault...’

  Before Jemma could spit back an answer, another girl strolled across, carrying her flute and an ungainly back-pack, which caught the statuesque actress a hefty swipe and almost knocked her off her elegant high heels.

  ‘Our flight’s up on the board, Miss Keating.’

  Ignoring Jemma’s spluttered protest, Chloe coralled the girls and did a swift check. Seven fairies, all but two with instruments, and each with their jackets and hand-luggage. ‘Where’s Peasblossom?’ she demanded.

  ‘Melanie? Just popped into the loo,’ said Sophie. ‘Helen’s got her gear though, haven’t you, Hell?’

  ‘I’ll fetch her,’ said Chloe, heading for the Ladies. ‘You all wait for me here. Stay together. Don’t move.’

  When she emerged from the Ladies with Peasblossom in tow, the others were outside, as instructed, though Chloe could have done without the sight of Tamara making eyes at a tall young security guard. He was propped against a pillar, winking at Tamara while he talked into his radio, when Andy Simmonds shot out of the Men’s Toilets, his face ashen.

  ‘In the Gents,’ he gasped. Hands on his thighs, he leaned forward, shaking his head slowly from side to side as if he’d just run a marathon. When the guard didn’t move he shouted at him. ‘You’ve got to come!’

  Another man, a stranger, emerged from the door, looking as though he was going to be sick any moment. He turned the palm of his hand to his face and looked at it in disbelief. ‘Christ Almighty,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘There’s a man in there. Bleeding to death on the floor.’

  2

  They took her and Andy into separate offices for questioning. The senior airport officer, they were told, was off-site and so they would have to wait for the arrival of officers from County HQ. Meanwhile, there were a great many questions to be answered.

  All their protests that their plane would shortly be boarding were overruled. ‘I don’t give a tinker’s curse about your tour, see.’ Sergeant Randwick, a burly man with a nicotine-stained moustache, and ash down his uniform, showed her into a shabby, smoke-filled office. ‘This bloke didn’t just drop dead. We’re talking murder.’

  Chloe had anticipated and dealt with so many obstacles to her trip to the USA. The corpse of a man to whom she’d just
been talking had not been one of them.

  ‘I know. But I’ve already told you, I don’t know who he was.’ A note of desperation crept into her voice. ‘We were just sitting next to each other. When I sat down he was humming to himself. Looking over my shoulder all the time, as if he was expecting someone.’

  ‘Or running from someone.’

  She shrugged. ‘I was seeing to Sophie – one of the girls. She had a headache. When she went off to join the others, he started talking to me. I was only sitting there so I could keep an eye on the departure board.’

  ‘So you said. Departure board ahead of you. Burger King to one side, and the Tie Shop behind you.’ Her interrogator read from his notes in a flat voice. Leaning back in his chair he inserted a stubby finger into his ear. ‘So what was his name?’

  ‘How do I know?’ The smell from the brimming ashtray caught the back of her throat and she almost heaved. ‘I’d never seen him before.’ She closed her eyes and tried to recall the man who had sat by her, not the picture that constantly overlaid it, of the same man sprawled on the floor of the Gents, a pool of blood around his head. ‘He was wearing a scruffy tweed jacket, he had an old rucksack at his feet. Oh, and he spoke with a very strong accent.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He mentioned his children, he said his wife was also a teacher....and that’s it.’

  ‘He was travelling on the same plane as you.’

  ‘Was he? He didn’t say.’ She shrugged. ‘Lots of people must be travelling on the same plane as us. There are only thirty-five of us. Even with all the instruments and props and costumes, we don’t exactly fill the charter.’

  ‘But we’re not interested in any of the other passengers. None of them got themselves killed.’

  ‘I just sat there because there were a couple of seats free.’ She coughed, and waved the smoke away from her face. ‘Look, he could have talked to any one of us.’

  ‘But he didn’t. He talked to you. And you were in the toilets when he was killed.’

  ‘I was in the Ladies. He was in the Gents.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘I think someone might have noticed if I’d gone through the wrong door...’

  She was trying desperately not to let her mind go back to that other time when she’d had to sit in a police station and had been questioned for hours, while Hannah sobbed in the next room and the baby, in the inexperienced hands of a young WPC, had howled endlessly. She couldn’t go back there, she just couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  It was when Randwick lit his third cigarette from the stub of the second that it dawned on Chloe that she might not get to America. All because some poor man had passed the time of day with her just before he died.

  All those months of excited preparation wasted. All the carefully laid plans overturned. All that wonderful anticipation flattened. It was all she could do to choke back the tears – but she did it. Nothing would please this smug bastard more, she sensed, than to sit there and watch her fall apart.

  She steadied her breathing with some effort. ‘If you don’t put that cigarette out,’ she said in an icy voice, ‘I’m going to walk out of here, find your superior officer and make an official complaint.’

  He looked at her in affected surprise. ‘You should have said.’ He stubbed the cigarette out. But the interrogation went on, round and round in circles, getting nowhere. She looked anxiously up at the clock. ‘If you don’t let me go, I’m going to miss the flight.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? Plane’s been delayed. Won’t be taking off for at least another hour.’

  ‘Then who’s looking after the girls?’ She despised the note of panic in her voice.

  ‘I dunno. Twenty-odd adults out there.’ Some odder than others, as he’d said to his mate in the outer office. Fairies, the lot of them, he was willing to bet. Load of grown men poncing about on the stage. ‘Don’t need to worry about them, Miss Keating. Or is that Mrs Keating?’

  ‘Whichever you like. Or neither. It really doesn’t matter.’

  Randwick picked up her passport and flicked through its pages. ‘Well, Ms Chloe Keating...you have two children here on your passport.’

  ‘Yes.’ She bit back the temptation to commend him on his observation.

  ‘Not travelling with you?’ He began investigating his ear again.

  ‘Hardly. This is a combined trip: senior school orchestra and adult theatre group. If you look at the entries, you’ll see they are too young for either.’

  ‘I see they’ve got a different surname.’

  ‘My passport is in my own name.’ She had always performed under her own name of Chloe Keating, although she’d always been just as happy to answer to Pete’s. It was just that she’d started her public performances before she’d married. ‘My children have their father’s surname.’ It hadn’t been worth the expense to get them their own passports when the law changed: at present they hadn’t enough money for a family trip to Brighton, let alone abroad.

  ‘He looking after them?’

  ‘My mother.’ She couldn’t be bothered to explain.

  ‘You could be seeing them again sooner than you thought.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Chloe saw the door open silently behind him; a second officer came into the room, unnoticed by Randwick.

  ‘You’re an important witness.’ He leaned back in his chair and grinned, enjoying the power. ‘I don’t see how we can let you outa the country. At least till we’ve identified this corpse.’

  ‘There’s nothing more I can tell you – I didn’t see the murder! I didn’t know the murdered man!’ She forced herself to steady her voice; she wouldn’t let him provoke her. ‘Keep me here and you’ll ruin the entire trip,’ she protested. ‘I’m chaperone for eight teenage girls travelling with this group and without me they can’t go.’

  Fortunately for her temper the newcomer was from outside the airport and senior to the man behind the desk. Inspector Moray ushered her into another, cleaner, office while he read swiftly through her statement. His attitude was much more business-like, and she found her original anger fading.

  ‘Well, Ms Keating,’ he said after a few pertinent questions, ‘I don’t think we need to keep you. If you’ve told us all you know...’

  She returned his smile. ‘I’d like to help, but he was a complete stranger.’

  ‘If you think of anything else, you’ll let us know?’

  ‘But if I’m in America...?’

  ‘I’ll arrange for someone to speak to you and Mr Simmonds in a few days’ time. You never know – when the shock has passed, something else may occur to you.’

  3

  She only just made it onto the plane: there had been a spirited discussion between Inspector Moray and the airline, and she’d been rushed down the walkways on one of the little vehicles usually brought into service for elderly or disabled passengers. The final mortification was when she was greeted by ironic applause from some of the seething passengers who had been kept waiting out on the tarmac in the heat. No doubt they thought she was some ditzy female who hadn’t the sense to find the right boarding gate.

  Not until the engines roared into life could Chloe really believe that she was going to go to America. Finding herself in the middle of a murder investigation had not been part of her plans for the day.

  The group might have decided to go ahead without her: after all, they had commitments in Connecticut. Deirdre could always have stood in as Helena: as producer she knew all the parts fairly well, although she was pretty much the same size as Debbie, who was playing Hermia, which would have killed all Shakespeare’s little jokes about maypoles and dwarves stone dead. Perhaps there was something to be said for being tall after all.

  It was too long since she’d travelled abroad; she’d almost forgotten that lurch of mixed terror and excitement deep in the stomach as the heavily-laden plane rose up from the tarmac. As the plane levelled out, she made a conscious effort to concentrate on the air stewardess and the lifejacket drill, but tiredness weighted her eyelids. Playing on the back of them like a film screen, each time they closed, was the same awful projection. A sickening snapshot of the bleeding body, framed by the open door, was burnt onto her retina.