Gin and Daggers by Donald Bain;Jessica Fletcher

Author:Donald Bain;Jessica Fletcher
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: detective
Published: 2012-03-06T02:45:10+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Lucas had wanted me to take part in a panel discussion on creating believable female detectives in fiction, but I begged off, agreeing instead to join one the next morning on the relative merits of small-town settings versus big cities.

I couldn’t get the vision of the battered face I’d seen in the Wapping police headquarters out of my mind, nor could I ignore Maria’s comments about Jason Harris’s stepbrother, David Simpson. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to maintain order in my life. Like any writer who’s made a living at it, discipline has been the key, and I’ve had to be a disciplined person.

There are times, however, when, hard as I try, I am drawn to something like a moth to a summer candle. That’s what was happening as I mulled over the circumstances of Jason’s death. How had the police known to contact David Simpson in the middle of the night? I should have asked that. Perhaps Jason carried a card that indicated in the event of emergency, his stepbrother was to be called.

Each time I raised a question-and answered it-I was dissatisfied with my reply.

I went through the London Yellow Pages until I came to the Talent Agent section, which told me to look at Booking Agents. I did, and found an agency in the listing: Simpson Talent Bookers, located on Dean Street, in Soho. I noted the address and phone number on a piece of paper and decided I needed a leisurely walk in London to help clear my mind. It might as well be to Soho. Besides, I’ve often found that simply dropping in on someone can be more effective than trying to arrange a meeting in advance. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it was the approach I decided to take.

It was a lovely afternoon as I strolled the streets of Soho. It had, like New York ’s Times Square, deteriorated because of a proliferation of striptease clubs and sex shops, but they seemed relatively innocuous in the daylight. Unlike the case with Times Square, legitimate business hadn’t fled the area, and Soho was still filled with quaint restaurants, fascinating newsstands, and boutiques.

I stopped in at St. Anne’s Church, bombed during the war, its tower and clock now faithfully restored. Behind it, in simple graves, were buried Dorothy Sayers, a churchwarden and no relation to the writer, and the other Hazlitt, William, no relationship to my friend Seth.

I stopped for tea at the York Minster Pub, known as the French Pub because its owners are probably the only French pub owners in all of Great Britain. Frank and I had enjoyed a beer there before going on to hear jazz at Ronnie Scott’s club on Frith Street. Afterward we’d had a scrumptious dinner in the Neal Street Restaurant; I could almost taste the grilled calf kidney I’d had that night, and a dessert I have never experienced again called tiramisu. Those were good memories but, because they could never be repeated,

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