| |
I made it back to my bookshop when my mobile phone went off. The display told me it wasn’t someone I knew. I never liked it when I didn’t know who was calling, but I decided to answer.
“Maggie Matthews,” I said.
“Err, hello. It’s David.” He sounded hesitant.
My heart beat a little faster. Wouldn’t it be handy if he rang to say he was the killer? It would save me a lot of bother.
“Admit it,” Detective Black said. “You like the bother.”
“I’m sorry to ring you, but I understand that you’re looking into Valerie’s death and I was just wondering if—well, I may have some information. I just—well, I’m just not comfortable telling the police. Not that I did anything—I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this well.”
I bit my lip. “Why don’t we talk somewhere.” Somewhere public.
“Do you want to meet up at my local pub? It’s called The Drunk Cow, not hard to find.”
“Sure. I can be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay, see you then.” He hung up.
“I’m not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign,” I said to Detective Black. “Maybe he’s planning something.”
I bit my lip. He wouldn’t have suggested the pub if he was plotting my demise, and I had the feeling I’d get more out of him if I came on my own. It was very likely he didn’t see me as a threat.
“Ha. He doesn’t know you then.” Detective Black grinned at me.
I grinned back.
––––––––
I BORROWED NANCY’S Land Rover, which was parked out back, but decided to call Miles at the last minute. It was a moment of weakness, but fate had apparently already decided I was to go on my own because Miles didn’t pick up.
“I guess Super Sleuthers has to be Super Sleuth for now.” I started the car and drove towards Woolfield.
When I arrived, I no longer felt nervous. Instead, excitement bubbled to the surface. Perhaps I should have become a detective; it seemed I enjoyed solving murders way too much.
“It’s never too late,” Detective Black said helpfully.
David was in the back of the pub and had already ordered an iced tea for himself. He smiled when he saw me and I smiled back. I hadn’t really expected him to be so polite considering why I was here. Then again, perhaps he was grateful that I was looking into the murder. Perhaps he had really loved her and wanted the killer caught as much as I did.
One could only hope.
“Helpful suspects are the best suspects,” Detective Black said and lingered near my back.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
He ran a hand through his hair. “It still hasn’t hit me yet. I keep expecting her to pop up and yell surprise. It just doesn’t seem like it’s possible. She was so full of life and she—” he choked.
“I’m sorry for your loss. I really mean that. I know you cared about her a lot.”
“You do?” he looked up, frowning.
“Yes. It’s clear from all the pictures on The Dramateers website.” I didn’t want to point the finger to Brenda just yet. Nor did I want to ask the questions burning on my tongue. He had invited me. I would wait to see what he would tell me.
His mouth opened like a gaping fish, then he closed it again and sighed. “The thing is, we had been having an affair for about three months, but I ended things last week.”
I nodded. “I see. Do you have proof that you broke things off?” I asked, feeling more and more like a detective.
“Err, I don’t know. No, wait, I do! I have a few text messages that I took screenshots of.”
“Good. Keep them. How did she take the break-up?”
“Not well. She didn’t like that I was the one who did the breaking up. I think she would have been fine with it if she had been the first to do it. She acted insulted.” He shrugged. “I hadn’t expected her to be so angry. It was like she was showing her true colours, and I didn’t like what I saw. Not that she wasn’t great,” he hurriedly added. “But she showed a side of her that was...not so great.”
“Everybody has more than one side,” I said with a smile, hoping to put him at ease. “Was that what you wanted to tell me? That she had an affair with you?”
“Not just that. She had told me she was pregnant when I broke up with her. I think she said it so I would stay with her and take care of her. I think that’s what she wanted. Someone with money and a steady job. Someone who didn’t treat her as badly as Johnny did. I think she wanted to be saved. But to me it had just been a fling. And I didn’t believe her when she told me she was pregnant.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t take that well either.”
“She admitted not being pregnant but was adamant that I would be crawling back to her.” He smiled wryly.
“Is that why you’d been talking with her in the garden at the Pembroke?”
“I didn’t kill her!” he said loudly, causing some of the other patrons to look up.
“We’re rehearsing for a play,” I said just as loud.
David looked at me sheepishly. “Thanks. But I really didn’t.”
“I don’t mean on the night of her murder. I mean, earlier.”
“Oh. That. Yeah. She handed me a flower and I handed it back to her. She was trying to charm me. To be honest, it was making me question my decision, but then she started flirting with that redhead and Miles and it made me see her for who she really was. Very manipulative.”
“Who do you think strangled her?”
He paled slightly at my question. “I really don’t know. Lately, she had been saying something about a big break and that she’d be getting a lot of money.”
“And she didn’t say why?”
“No. She just smirked when I asked about it, like it was some secret. She liked secrets.”
Apparently so.
“Who else did she hang out with apart from all of you at The Dramateers?”
He shrugged. “No clue. But I don’t think she had many friends. She only texted her husband, and I never heard her talk about anyone else or see her with anyone else. Even during the shows, there was never anyone in the audience that she knew. Not even her husband visited our performances.”
“Wasn’t that weird?”
“Yes, of course. Once, when she was looking particularly spaced out, I asked her if she was okay and she said that she sometimes felt like she lived in a cocoon, waiting to become a butterfly, and it was the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I nodded slowly. “Especially since we know she never got the chance to become one.”
––––––––
WHEN I RETURNED TO Castlefield, I didn’t feel like going back to the bookshop and instead stopped by the vicarage. On my way I spotted Pandora chasing a woman with a toddler. I swear, during the month of Halloween, she got way more evil.
Eleanor was in the kitchen baking an apple cinnamon pie. Her entire cottage smelt like it. A ginger cat purred gently on the rocking chair by the crackling fireplace and we sat down in the living room. The pie was in the oven, but she had grabbed us both a scone with clotted cream and jam and I’d put down the teapot for us.
“I knitted Marjorie a scarf and handed it to her today,” Eleanor said.
Marjorie lived in one of the cottages close to the vicarage. Her husband had left her two months ago.
“Did she appreciate it?” I asked.
“She cried. Poor thing.”
Before we could gossip any further, Harold wheeled himself into the room and brightened at the sight of me. His grey hair was damp from the rain and he had a plastic bag from the local convenience store on his lap. “Maggie,” he said with a beaming smile. “Let me put this away and I’ll join you ladies.”
“And get yourself a scone,” Eleanor called after him.
“As if I need prompting,” he called back from the kitchen.
“How are things going with you? When is your new book out?”
“It will be a while, I’m afraid. I’ve sent a draft to my editor again. Fingers crossed.” I took a sip of Earl Grey.
“And the ghastly murder? Have they found the culprit yet?”
“Working on it.”
“What’s this about the murder?” Harold wheeled in and positioned himself across from the sofa and close to the warm fire. “How are you doing? It must have been awful finding a body. Again.”
I winced. “Yeah. I do seem to have a knack for it, don’t I?”
He shrugged. “It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose, but I am quite worried about what people are capable of. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that murder is a way out.”
“Neither can I,” I said. “But not everyone is like us.”
“True. It takes all sorts. I suppose sins are part of humanity, but I have trouble accepting them all.”
He had never said anything like this before. “I think that’s a good thing, Harold.”
His smile was weak. “And with the robberies as well. It’s very disconcerting.”
I perked up. “Robberies? Plural?”
“I figured our own Nancy Drew was the first to know,” Harold said, surprised.
“Yes, I thought you knew too. Otherwise I would have said,” Eleanor added.
I shook my head. “What happened? Who got robbed this time?”
“This time it was someone’s home. I didn’t recognise the name. It was a middle-aged woman who lives on the other side of the village and apparently is from a wealthy family. They took all of her jewellery and her iPad and laptop. It happened an hour ago, in broad daylight.”
“Who? Did she get a description?”
“She said they were three men, not too big. They had guns,” Harold said this time.
My eyes widened. “Guns, really?”
Eleanor shook her head. “Very worrisome, indeed. This is supposed to be a village where you can leave your backdoor unlocked.”
“I’ve stopped doing that since the first murder,” I said.
“Good. You might be at more risk since you’re known as our local sleuth.” Harold winked at me.
“Yes. Goody for me.”