Jo liked the northeast corner of the cottage best. Morning light came in through the panes, painting fat yellow squares on the wood floor, and if you sat at an angle (which she was presently doing), you could see out the window to your left and still have a view of the fireplace to the right. It offered good thinking room, and so she’d conscripted Gwilym into finding a tiny antique writing desk that would fit.
That summer, if she wasn’t in Roberta’s archive, she was in her own—surrounding by stacks of books now high enough to serve as end tables in a pinch. One of them supported a slate coaster and her by-now-cold coffee. She was elbows deep into the last of her uncle’s archive boxes, and had forgotten it.
Uncle Aiden: he had always been a shadow figure in Jo’s life. Her late mother rarely ever spoke of him, and never positively. Some sort of major fallout had occurred, though Jo never could work out what about. Despite all that, she had begun to think of him as a kind of ally. After all, he was the one who restored Evelyn’s painting. And he was the one who preserved her photograph. Roberta had collected the things Aiden donated to the museum for Jo: a mishmash of books about Abington, maps of the Pennines, a history of Newcastle and a copy of Burke’s Peerage, possibly for tracking the Ardemore baronetcy. Despite her love of books, however, none of those had absorbed her attention half so much as the loose sheets of paper that lined the bottom. “Rubbish,” said Roberta.
And she wasn’t all wrong. Old flyers, a crumpled cash receipt from Abington’s Sainsbury’s, several used envelopes. But each had been pressed into service as notepaper, Aiden’s handwriting scribbled in pencil.
They didn’t offer stunning revelations. Two of them appeared to be grocery lists; others offered up random notes in a stream of consciousness that endeared him to Jo: “if you are going to call it a cab service, you should at least know the way to the station, or don’t try your luck on the roundabout.” Pleasant. Distracted. Conscious of details, though not always to the right ones. Jo stretched her back and looked at Evelyn’s painting.
“Where are you in all of this?” she asked, standing. It was getting to be nine-ish, and coffee was no kind of breakfast. She tidied the stack of motley notepaper and hunted for a book to put it in—no sense in tossing them back in the bottom.
But there was already a note in the bottom. Jo rubbed her nose; had she missed one? A bit of paper poked up through the cardboard folds. The flap had been glued down; whatever it was had to be thin and stiff enough to slide inside. She carried her mug to the kitchen and returned with a knife. Roberta would have to forgive her. Sharp end to the back and a good prying popped the seam—and out dropped two halves of a photograph: the wedding portrait of William and Gwen, with a missing square where Aiden had snipped out Evelyn.
Uncle Aiden had used the cutout and given it to the artist in charge of repairing Evelyn’s painting. He hadn’t discarded the cut up remains, and they had ended up with his other “rubbish,” care of the Abington Museum. Well. They weren’t going back there. Jo would have to keep them. For posterity.
She turned them over to look for the photographer’s insignia. There wasn’t one. Instead, fine pencil lines scrawled across the flat finish: “save the painting for repair,” it read, running into the empty center. On the other side, it picked up once more: “for when Evelyn comes home.”
A partial message, cryptic, it sent a thrill of electricity right to Jo’s toes. It meant something. She just didn’t know what.
* * *
Day two of the investigation began bright and early at the Abington Arms hotel. Sunday breakfast was underway, the downstairs dining room awash in linen tablecloths and smartly clad servers in blue uniforms.
“I’ve never actually been in here,” Green admitted, admiring the high ceilings and their scalloped plaster. “Fancy.” MacAdams couldn’t disagree; mahogany balustrades, wide front stair, ornamental rugs—the Abington Arms was a far cry from the comfortable environs of the Red Lion. As was the price to stay.
“It caters to a certain sort.”
“Gotta be out-of-towners. Have a cucumber water, will you?” she asked, bucking her chin at the glass bell jar.
“Country men, and the various types they court from high society.” Particularly those with under-the-table dealings, though he didn’t say this out loud. Mainly because he’d been cautioned to quit bringing up the past (and their last case). “Ah—there’s our man.”
A green-suited gentleman with a close-cropped mustache had just appeared at the reception desk. He was slightly balding these days and wearing spectacles that didn’t fit his face, but largely looked the same as ever: fastidious, ingratiating—and ruffled. Evans.
“Oh! Detective MacAdams,” he said with a rising tenor. “You—Did you come for breakfast?”
“Afraid not,” MacAdams said, reaching for his police ID. Evans stopped him with a flutter of fingers.
“Not necessary—I of course know you,” he said (but, MacAdams knew, really meant: please do not flash that around in front of the guests). “How can I help?”
“We have some questions,” Green said. Evans had noticeably ignored her but was quickly rectifying it. “About a guest.”
MacAdams enjoyed the way Green’s voice carried even above the dinging noises—more so Evans’s horror at the same. His eyes ferreted between them and the guests beyond.
“Could, eh, could we do this in the lounge?” he asked. MacAdams remained stubbornly where he was.
“Here is just fine. Talk to me about the booking process. Website? Telephone? Email?” he asked. Evans gave up trying to shoo them out of sight.
“We do have a website, as all businesses must these days. But we still do our booking by phone—and occasionally, email.” He gave a presuming little smile. “Our guests prefer the personal touch.”
Didn’t they just, MacAdams thought. The good and the great, meaning the rich and the richer, of course expected such treatment. A place like Abington Arms handpicked its guests almost more than the guests picked the rooms. Of course, he reminded himself, he shouldn’t make assumptions.
“And who takes these calls?”
“The phone is answered by the host on duty.” Evans said, smoothing his sideburns. “Someone is always on duty; names and notes are recorded here.” He jogged the computer mouse to wake up the screen and brought up a spreadsheet. “Emails go to a general inbox that all hosts can access.”
“Good.” MacAdams flipped open his notebook. “I need to see if you received an email or call from one Ronan Foley on Friday. Part of a murder investigation.”
Evans suddenly looked like he might fall through the floor.
“You can’t mean the gentleman found dead at the festival?”
“He wasn’t found at the festival,” MacAdams corrected. “And he wasn’t a guest here, as far as we know.”
“Oh thank God—”
“But,” Green interrupted, wisely keeping up the tension, “he could have been. He apparently tried to get rooms around town; the Red Lion was full. We want to know if he called here, when and why.” Her delivery was perfect, given that this was MacAdams’s hunch they were following up. Evans pursed his lips and called up the records on his computer. He wasn’t enjoying any part of this, but neither did he want them to say the word murder again.
“Three email requests on Friday, all accounted for, but none from that name,” Evans said, inviting them to view the subjects over his shoulder.
“And phone records?” MacAdams asked. Evans toggled back to the spreadsheet and scrolled to Friday.
“Eleven outside calls,” Evans said. “I really don’t like sharing details, Detective, our guests have a right to privacy—”
MacAdams ignored this milk-and-water protest and took over the mouse. The first ten calls had been received before five in the afternoon. The eleventh at five thirty. Name: Ronan Foley.
“Got him,” MacAdams said. “I don’t see his number registered, though. Green—call up Andrews and have him request records for Abington Arms.”
“Detective!” Evans protested. MacAdams turned around swiftly, taking him enough by surprise that the man took a step back.
“Who took the calls after five on Friday?” he asked. “You or someone else?”
“Ms. Templeton,” Evans stuttered. “She took the late shift due to a call-off.”
“Templeton,” Green repeated with a head tilt.
“Yes. She’s overseeing the Sunday brunch, just now—”
MacAdams didn’t wait for more. He walked directly through to the dining room, where several dining couples in luxurious Sunday best raised curious heads. Evans had chased after, but MacAdams had already spotted a likely candidate. Tall, ropy-limbed and wearing another management-level green suit. She turned as they approached, and he watched her expression take three leaps: confusion, professionalism—recognition.
“If it isn’t Sheila Green,” she said, shaking her sleek ponytail over one shoulder.
Green returned a laconic smile. “Hello, Arianna. We have a few questions about a call you received here Friday night.”
The woman cast a glance at Evans, but she remained unperturbed, and invited them to sit with her at an empty table.
“Tea? Or perhaps coffee?” she asked, as if they had been ushered into her own very grand living room.
“Two coffees. With cream,” MacAdams said, and enjoyed watching a rankled Evans dart off to fetch it. With him gone, Arianna’s smile iced over slightly.
“What can I do for you, Sheila?”
“DS Green,” Green corrected, coolly composed. This was apparently her act and scene, so MacAdams gave her the lead. While he and Green knew most details of each others’ pasts and histories, Arianna was a new name, and was curious to read their dynamic. “Friday night, you took a shift as host, is that right?”
“Yes. We were busy helping our guests—twenty arriving almost at once. You know we’re a premier venue; weddings, events. Our clients expect the best.” She said this with evident pleasure. MacAdams steered her back to the questions at hand.
“And five thirty, you took a call from a man named Ronan Foley.”
“I don’t remember his name, but sure. I’m assuming you have already checked the phone register.”
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Green asked her.
Arianna smiled toothily—and Evans returned with coffee. MacAdams took a grateful sip. An awful lot was being communicated here, but none of it about the murdered man. Green pushed her coffee away, course correcting.
“Ronan Foley called here on Friday night. Saturday morning, he was found dead on Upper Lane. We need to know exactly what he said to you.”
Arianna’s expression and posture remained unchanged as she absorbed the news, and its implications.
“God. How awful,” she said, but without much feeling.
“Do you remember him?” MacAdams pressed.
She nodded. “I do. But he didn’t want a room. He didn’t even ask if we had any available.”
MacAdams was poised with his pencil, ready to write down her statement, but this caught him out.
“He called a hotel, but didn’t want a room,” he repeated, making sure he’d heard that right.
“Honestly, it’s probably why I remember it,” Arianna said, lacing her fingers in front of her. “He asked if we already had a booking for him. But we didn’t.”
“I want you to think back very carefully, Ms. Templeton. What exactly did he say,” MacAdams asked.
“I already said—”
“You summarized,” Green interrupted. MacAdams didn’t need Arianna to bristle, however; he put up a placating hand.
“Here, try this—” MacAdams wrote a series of letters down in his notepad: T, F, T, F. “T for Templeton, F for Foley. Can you fill in the basic conversation as closely as you can?”
She took the pad and pencil and a deep breath.
“I answered as I usually do.” She scribbled a note. “‘This is Abington Arms, how may I help you?’ Next, he said his name was Foley—he gave his first name, too, but I didn’t remember till you told me. ‘Did I have any rooms under my name?’ Mumbled something about his secretary possibly booking it for him, and he wanted to verify. I told him we didn’t have anything booked for him, but we still had available suites. He didn’t ask about pricing. He wanted to know if we were busy. I told him the whole town was booked. One of our guests checking in complained that everywhere ‘affordable’ was taken for the night. That’s when—Oh.” Arianna tapped the notepad, but didn’t write anything down. “He wanted to know if there were self-catering places.”
“Self-catering,” MacAdams repeated. Places where you check in and out on your own, flats where no one greeted you, almost fully anonymous. “What did you tell him?”
“Sorry, you said he was found on Upper Lane?” Arianna narrowed her eyes. “That’s by the new gardens, isn’t it. And the—the American’s cottage.”
“What did you tell Mr. Foley?” Green repeated with an impatience MacAdams now shared.
“The place was in the paper; that’s the only reason I knew about it. Part of the old Ardemore estate.”
* * *
“He chose her cottage on purpose,” MacAdams said, climbing back into the sedan, “because he didn’t think anyone would be there.”
“And the Hammersmith meeting seems connected,” Green said. “He had a meeting Friday and booked about an hour later. But why ask if there were rooms booked for him at Abington Arms?”
MacAdams was already batting that question around his brain. “The easy answer is that he expected there to be. As in, someone else made reservations for him.”
“And he does the opposite. I mean, he doesn’t stay there, and he chooses an out-of-the-way cottage he expects to be empty,” Green said, warming up to his idea. “You still think he was expecting trouble, don’t you?”
“Or he doesn’t want to be recognized,” MacAdams said. They hadn’t found any indication of train travel (Gridley checked), and so far no word on abandoned vehicles. Then again, if he were trying to be inconspicuous . . . “Let’s check car hire; he got here somehow. And he was being quiet about it.”
“Shame we have to wait till Monday to tackle Hammersmith.”
It was, at that, but it gave them time to do some digging in Newcastle. He turned onto the main road and flipped on the wipers against a warm drizzle. The next stop would be Ronan Foley’s apartment and—if they were lucky to find him at home—Burnhope’s uptown residence as well. They had an hour to kill, however, so he determined to venture into guarded territory.
“About Arianna Templeton. History?”
Green gave him a side-long look.
“I could ask you the same thing about Evans.”
It was a fair point. MacAdams leaned back against the headrest.
“Yes. I always wondered how old boss Clapham got his money after it came out that he was selling off his military equipment,” he explained. “It was clearly through connections, because every pound and penny were squeaky clean. Well, Evans was a personal friend of our Clapham. He was also an accountant at a London firm.”
“A city boy? Running a hotel?”
“Yes, about that. His firm was nailed for fraud. But not Evans.”
“So he either has an exceptional moral compass, or somebody bailed him out in exchange for special accounting.” Green nodded out the window. “Neat little theory.”
“And still only a theory,” MacAdams said. “But there were goings-on. I suspected back then, I know now—and I doubt we’ve heard the end of it. Anyway, there’s my little story. Are you going to tell me what’s up with you and Ms. Templeton?”
“Nope,” she said, then put the car in gear and pulled out of the hotel parking lot.