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179 pages

English

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Marilyn Monroe has been brutally murdered. Tough, streetwise (and let's be truthful here - tightwad) ex-cop PI Grace Smith is hired to track down the murderer... But this isn't LA. It's a seedy run down English resort and Marilyn Monroe is a decidedly dead donkey.Grace is inexorably drawn into a web of greed, betrayal and murder, whilst she gamely sticks to her mantra of 'What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine if I can blag it'. As the tentacles of the case stretch out to touch on murders in the past, Grace acquires a donkey man with a secret, a potential boyfriend with a wife, a cop with a grudge, and a race against time to prevent the killer claiming another victim herself.An entertaining broth of a book, packed with comic set pieces and cracking one-liners. - The TimesFunny and engaging. Give her a go. - Literary ReviewThis is not a book to make you a better person; it will not change your life nor enhance you sex appeal but you might enjoy it. - Oxford Times

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Publié par	eBook Versions
Date de parution	12 décembre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781843961123
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0180€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Published by Henbane Publishing

Copyright © 1997 Liz Evans
This ebook edition copyright © 2013 Liz Evans

Liz Evans has asserted her right
under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified
as the author of this work.

ISBN-13 978-1-84396-112-3

A CIP catalogue record for
this ebook edition is available
from the British Library.

Epub ebook production
www.ebookversions.com

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be
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photomechanical, photocopying,
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liable to criminal prosecution.
Author s Note

Grace is undertaking these investigations during the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands, in a time when smart phones and tablets were just coming into general use (and weren t coming into use at all as far as Grace was concerned!) Facebook was still just a gleam in Mr Zuckerberg s eye and Twitter had yet to be invented.

This book is a slightly edited version of the original print edition of Who Killed Marilyn Monroe? .
Who Killed
Marilyn Monroe?

Liz Evans

HENBANE PUBLISHING
Contents

Title Page
Copyright Credits
Author s Note

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
Epilogue
Chapter 1

Finding out who murdered Marilyn Monroe nearly got me killed as well.
Well it obviously didn t, did it, you re no doubt muttering, so why mention it? Mostly, I guess, because I have to start somewhere. And I don t suppose many of you will remember Tara Lloyd, although she did make a couple of paragraphs in the national papers, a brief mention on the local television news round, and five minutes at my dentist s as he scraped, drilled and polished.
A girl, Miss Smith. One of them druggies I expect. Overdosed I daresay.
Aaaargh.
Or raped. Rape went up three per cent in this area last year, you know. Day trippers probably. You seen what some of these girls wear? Asking for it.
Still against t lor.
Daresay. But you ve got to make allowances. Right little teases some of them. I get em in here. Forty D in a bit of lace that wouldn t make a decent table doily and all thrust in my nose while I m trying to extract a nerve. Rinse.
Gratefully I removed the disgustingly slurping saliva extractor from my bottom lip and took a mouthful of pink liquid. I missed the local news. My telly s bust. Where d they find her?
Out along Halfpenny Lane by the cemeteries, I think. Open up.
Puffs of air were squirted over my cringing enamel.
Feel anything?
No.
You re done then. Don t eat for an hour.
Reprieved for another six months I paid my money, signed my form and made my way down to the beach promenade. It would have been quicker to cut along the back streets to the office, but I liked walking by the sea.
It was, in theory, the beginning of the season . But the streets were so quiet the local tourist officer was probably contactable via a ouija board.
The town s heyday had been in the nineteen twenties and thirties, when hundreds of Londoners flocked to this corner of the coast every weekend to enjoy two weeks of bracing winds sweeping over the North Sea and ruffling the crashing ice-cold breakers, until the landladies let them back into the boarding houses at five o clock.
Nowadays their grandchildren opt for sun and chips on the Spanish Costas or two weeks in Florida, and most of the boarding houses call them selves private hotels and exist on an intermittent stream of overnighters: pensioners, early-season bargain breaks, foreign language students and DSS claimants.
Leaning on the blue-painted iron balustrade that separated the promenade from the beach, I squinted against the light, watching the off-shore breeze rumpling frilly cream borders on the steel-grey sea. Here and there on the wide sands a striped windbreaker or solitary deckchair billowed and cracked as a counterpoint to the surf s booming whooosh.
A niggle at the back of my mind said the scene looked wrong; but I couldn t quite place why. At least trying to work out what was missing provided an excuse for a bit more time- wasting. I let my eyes drift.
A couple of kids were burying something in the sand; filling their hole in and patting it down with short plastic spades the colour of ripe tangerines. Fine powder grains flew up in swirls as they thumped with single-minded concentration. In the centre of their activity the sand heaved and buckled.
Oi! I vaulted the railings and landed in a soft drift that promptly poured into the sides of my shoes. Get out of there.
Seeing me floundering towards them, both kids hesitated. They were in their early teens; chunky bodies underneath grey and yellow jersey shorts and T-shirts. Their arms and legs had a plump white softness that suggested a life of junk food and amusement arcades. I could see them assessing me as I got nearer.
I hoped they d scarper before I got any closer. At a distance I look quite impressive if I do say so myself (and I usually have to). At five ten I could give them both six inches in height. The trouble is, according to those charts that assess your weight in relation to your height, I should be five foot three.
Whilst we re on my appearance, I ve short blonde hair, brown eyes and a face that has been described as sensitive and aesthetic (although I ll admit the usual reaction is You look pale, you reckon you got anaemia? ). My name is Grace Bernadette Smith.
The kids were standing shoulder to shoulder; a couple of solid little buckets of lard. I just hoped they weren t going to hit me. They looked like they could really hurt.
Luckily as I arrived they decided to back off. The spade they threw at my head came in handy for digging up the wriggling bundle they d just covered up. It was an old pillowcase, twisted and knotted at the top to hold something in.
Wrestling with the tight mauve nylon cloth, I forced the material apart and tipped out a trembling tabby cat.
Crouching on the sand, it hugged the cold grains, claws flexing and retracting as it sought for a firm grip. I could see the violent thudding of its heart beneath the grey and black striped coat.
Whoa, easy girl, I soothed, running a hand lightly down its back. You re safe now.
She turned a furry head to peer in my direction; her irises narrowed to ellipses in the bright sunlight. Gently I fondled the pricked ears. She nuzzled against the palm of my hand, rubbing her head into the hollow.
Then she sank her teeth into the ball of my thumb, bit a large lump out of the flesh and took off across the beach.
By the time I reached the office, the wound had pumped what looked like half a pint of blood into the grubby handkerchief I d twisted round my wrist.
The premises of Vetch (International) Associates Inc. were located in a four-storey house (five if you counted the basement) in a street of similar buildings. Once they d all been boarding houses. A couple still were. Others had been converted into flats. And some, like ours, were offices.
You couldn t really tell which was which until you mounted the flight of steps to the front door and found the rows of bell- pushes, name-plates or local tourist office awards.
Vetch s had a simple brass name-plate affixed next to the door. There was nothing to indicate the nature of the business. Those consulting private investigators didn t usually want the fact announced to the rest of the world.
There were six investigators working out of the premises. We were all self-employed. That was Vetch s idea. It gave us, he d explained, the advantages of a corporate identity and shared office facilities, whilst ensuring we retained our independence when it came to working methods and accountability.
In practice it meant he saved on National Insurance contributions and got to pinch all the best clients for himself.
Janice, our receptionist/typist, was just emerging from Vetch s office in the former residents lounge when I entered the hall.
Hi, I said. Anyone been looking for me?
I shouldn t think so.
She humped a pile of files over to the word processor behind the reception desk and slung them down. I took that as a no and made my way up the flights of stairs to the top floor.
There were three doors leading off the square landing. The right-hand one had G. Smith in wavering black paint on the white woodwork. The left had a brass name-plate engraved A. Smith . I headed for the one straight ahead marked Bathroom .
The boarding house had been left to Vetch by his gran. When he d had it converted to offices, some of the original bathrooms remained in place. This one had cracked lino patterned in black and white diamonds; a white bathroom suite and real copper piping both stained with interesting designs in green rust and algae; an ancient geyser; and a framed notice informing guests:

Baths are to be taken between four and six o clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays only.
An additional is.6d. to be paid in advance for each bath taken.

I washed off the bitten hand, splashed it with disinfectant and improvised a bandage with the loo roll. That done, I stuck my head in my office, confirmed there were no messages, and knocked on the door opposite.
Just because we share the most common s