5
Is he . . . ?” Mrs. Woolgar asked when I stumbled out of the library and closed the door.
“Dead. It’s Trist,” I said, my voice more air than sound. It was difficult to swallow.
“That writer?” Mrs. Woolgar put her hand to her chest.
“Then you know him?” Pauline asked.
The secretary frowned. “And he’s been there all night?”
“No—they left,” I said firmly. “I saw them all leave.” And yet here he was.
The three of us stood in a tight group on the landing as a creeping dread came over me. Could someone else be in the house with us? When I noticed Mrs. Woolgar glance down the stairs, I knew the same thought had occurred to her. My eyes darted up toward my flat and the attic above it.
I tugged on my jacket, coughed, and said, “We need to phone the police.” My voice was loud and reverberated in the space.
“An ambulance!” Pauline protested.
“That won’t help now,” I told her, using my mum voice and trying to keep my mind on autopilot. “It’s the police we need.” I took Pauline’s arm as if to reassure her—but I didn’t mind the extra support myself. “Mrs. Woolgar?”
“Yes, coming.”
We turned our backs on the library and the three of us made our way carefully down the stairs, Pauline still clinging to her duster. At the bottom, we paused.
“Why don’t we all go into my office?” I suggested. A part of me knew how ridiculous this was—surely we didn’t need to hide. Hadn’t Pauline and I walked all round the ground floor earlier? Hadn’t Mrs. Woolgar and I both been in our flats? It wasn’t possible for anyone to elude us.
Still, as we made our way, we paused at the secretary’s office—empty—and the kitchenette—also empty. I closed us in my office. Pauline crossed the room and stood by the fireplace. Mrs. Woolgar took up a post behind the wingback chair. I rang 999.
Once I’d reported the death, we had only to wait, but that wasn’t as easy as it might seem, because when I sat at my desk, it was as if I could feel the weight of Trist’s body above our heads in the library. I couldn’t bear it and immediately sprang up.
“I’ll go stand on the pavement—how will they find us otherwise?” It was an excuse that you could knock over with a feather, but they took no notice.
I flung open my office door to find an indignant tortoiseshell cat on the other side.
“Bunter!” I swept him up in my arms. “I’m sorry. Mrs. Woolgar—”
I turned, and she took him from me, saying, “Come here to me, boy.”
Right, at least the cat was safe. I went outdoors. The sun shone, but the chilly air cut through my suit jacket, and I shivered. I felt odd and empty and wrapped my arms round myself, wishing for a cup of tea and then feeling guilty for wanting it.
The terrace had seen nothing like this before. When two police cars with their checkerboard blue-and-yellow side panels pulled up in front of Middlebank, and four uniformed officers—two men, two women—emerged, heads popped out of doors up and down the road. I led the police inside and up the stairs, talking over my shoulder along the way.
“I’m Hayley Burke, curator here at The First Edition Society. I know the man who died—he was part of a writers group that meets here on Wednesday evenings. But he left last evening when they finished—I saw all of them leave.” We arrived at the library door, and I kept talking. “I don’t know how he got back in—it’s all quite confusing and—”
“Thank you, ma’am.” A female police constable stopped me with a light touch on my shoulder. She looked about Dinah’s age, and it made me feel so old. “Would you wait downstairs, please? Other officers will be on their way.”
Behind her, in the library, the uniforms bent over the body while one spoke into a radio attached to her shoulder. I followed orders—gentle though they were—and went back to my office. Pauline and Mrs. Woolgar remained in place and Bunter had hopped up to the mantel, where he impersonated a ceramic cat figurine.
“We’re to wait,” I explained.
And we did—another fifteen minutes of silence that felt like hours until the front-door buzzer went off and we all jumped. I hurried out and let in several more people wearing plain clothes. “Hello,” I said, not sure of which one to address, “I’m Hayley Burke, curator here at The First Edition Society. I—we—found the body. Upstairs—the other officers are there. I know the man, and I don’t understand how he could’ve—”
“SOCO,” a man replied, holding out his identification. “Scene-of-crime officers, ma’am. And the ME—medical examiner,” he added, nodding to a woman as they all suited up in paper coveralls and slipped on paper booties over their shoes. “We’ll take it from here, thanks.”
They spread out, two going back toward the kitchenette, another looking in Mrs. Woolgar’s office, several heading upstairs.
“Don’t you want to know—”
“Police,” a voice behind me said.
I turned back to the front door to find two more men. One looked about fifty, with mostly gray hair and a thick, bushy mustache like a push broom. His raised eyebrows seemed to question everything. The other, younger, had dark skin and shiny black hair—he had a notebook and pencil in hand. They both wore dark suits—I suppose they could be mistaken for door-to-door missionaries, if it weren’t for the fact that there was a dead body upstairs.
The older man introduced himself as he held out a warrant card. I dutifully leaned in to read what I could. Detective Sergeant Ronald Hopgood.
“. . . and this is Detective Constable Kenny Pye,” he continued. “I see the uniforms arrived and SOCO. And you are?”
“I’m Hayley Burke—I’m curator here. I knew the deceased, but I don’t understand how he came to be in the library.” I rushed through my explanation, afraid he, too, would cut me off. “I saw him only last evening, but he and the rest of the group had left by half-past ten.”
“And you found the body this morning?”
For a moment I couldn’t go on, too overcome with emotion that at last someone was listening to me. I nodded and inhaled deeply. “I don’t know how he died, and I don’t know how he could’ve come back in. We’ve a security system, and the doors were locked—it really doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“And you are curator of . . . ?” Hopgood asked.
“Boss.” DC Pye tapped his pencil against the brass plate beside the door, directing the sergeant’s gaze to read The First Edition Society.
“We specialize in the Golden Age of Mystery authors,” I added.
Hopgood’s brows rose. “And where did you say the deceased was found?”
“In the library,” I replied.
“Well, Ms. Burke, as it isn’t April Fools’, I will believe you,” DS Hopgood said. “So what we’ve got is a body in the library at a society that specializes in murder mysteries. Doesn’t that just take the biscuit?”
Mrs. Woolgar and Pauline had their heads stuck out the door of my office, and so I managed quick introductions before DS Hopgood and DC Pye went to the library. I started up after them, but the sergeant held up and suggested I wait on the ground floor with “the others.” And so, I returned to my office. Pauline had gone back to the fireplace and was absentmindedly dusting the screen when I walked in.
“We’re to wait,” I explained, dropping into my desk chair.
“Again,” Mrs. Woolgar added. She took the wingback.
“Yes—but I’m sure the detective sergeant will want to talk with us. Why don’t you sit down, Pauline?”
She sank into a corner chair and twirled the lambswool duster in her own face.
“I’m sorry—are you meant to be somewhere else by now?” I asked.
Pauline shook her head. “This is my only house today—the other three each have two cleanings. Thursdays are popular—getting ready for the weekend, you know. And I don’t have a shift at the pub until tomorrow.”
“We’ll need to inform the board members,” Mrs. Woolgar said.
“No!” Panic rose in me and caught in my throat. “That is, I mean, perhaps we should wait until the police have finished here. What could we tell the board members now?”
“That a dead man was found in the library—a man who was part of the writers group you invited to meet here at Middlebank.”
True, all of it—although I didn’t care for her accusatory tone. “Yes, Mrs. Woolgar—those are the facts, but other than that, we know nothing, and I feel it would be better to have answers to their inevitable questions. How did Trist get back into the house? Why was he here? He may’ve had an accident, perhaps he was ill, and fainted and hit his head in a fall.”
We fell silent and watched the steady stream of traffic flow past my office door. At last, DC Pye stopped and put his head in.
“What’s behind the locked doors—above and below?”
“Our flats,” I explained. “Mrs. Woolgar and I live on the premises. We usually keep our doors locked—we wouldn’t want any visitors thinking our flats were part of the Society.” Not that we ever had any actual members of the public ask to come in—not since I’d been on staff. “But we leave them unlocked on Thursday mornings for Pauline.”
“Are you the basement flat?” Pye asked me.
“Lower ground floor,” Mrs. Woolgar corrected him. “That is mine.”
“Mine’s on the second floor—above the library.”
“And you heard nothing during the night?” the DC asked.
“Not a sound. Good Georgian construction,” I replied.
“With sympathetic updating by Lady Fowling in the 1980s,” Mrs. Woolgar added. “Middlebank is, after all, Grade II listed.”
The DC didn’t seem interested in architectural standards. “And neither of you found anything disturbed in your flats?”
We shook our heads.
“The French doors in my flat that open onto the back garden are always locked and bolted,” Mrs. Woolgar said.
“And the other door,” Pye continued. “In the . . . lower ground floor?”
“The cellar,” the secretary said. “It’s used for storage—furniture mostly. Her ladyship’s.”
“And that leaves the top floor. Attic?” the detective constable asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve some cartons up there, but that’s about all. Do you want me to get the attic key for you?”
“I’ll leave that for the boss to decide.”
“Could I make a pot of tea?” Pauline asked.
DC Pye glanced over his shoulder and said, “Yeah, you’re all right.”
Set free, Pauline dashed into the kitchenette, but returned to whisper a complaint that police had left dust everywhere.
“They’re looking for fingerprints,” the detective constable said from behind her. Pauline flinched. “We’ll need to eliminate the three of yours from any we find. Sorry—that’ll mean a trip down to the station. This afternoon, if you can.”
Mrs. Woolgar’s office was conscripted for what DC Pye called the “interview room” and DS Hopgood referred to as “a place to sit down and have a chat.” Pauline supplied tea and a plate of Marie biscuits. I went in first. As DC Pye escorted Mrs. Woolgar upstairs, I heard him say, “Boss—no sign of forced entry.”
Hopgood followed me into the office and settled into Mrs. Woolgar’s chair, and I walked him through last evening and this morning, ending with a hopeful, “Was it an accident?”
“No, Ms. Burke,” the sergeant replied. “Not an accident.”
“He was . . . murdered?” My voice squeaked like a rusty gate.
Hopgood ignored my question and asked his own. “You had no idea that he—or anyone else—knew how to get back in?”
“How could he know? Was he a professional cat burglar? When did he get in? We left no windows open. After the group had left and Mrs. Woolgar returned, I switched on the alarm system, and this morning I switched it off when I left for my walk. And the doors were always locked.”
“Security systems and locks are playthings in the hands of some, Ms. Burke. So—it looks as if this is one of your locked-room mysteries.”
“Those are books, Sergeant Hopgood—stories.”
Stories I hadn’t read. I hoped he didn’t start questioning me about plot lines.
“And speaking of those books”—the DS sat forward in Mrs. Woolgar’s desk chair—“are they worth a great deal?”
“Lady Fowling had three hundred and fourteen first editions by the various authors—many by Agatha Christie—that were each worth about two thousand pounds.” Hopgood’s eyebrows shot up and I understood the question. “Those books are safely in storage at the bank. Not forever, you understand—they’ll be coming out of the vault for an exhibition the Society will be mounting on the Golden Age of Mystery, so that the public can see the extent and deep interest the genre can engender.” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Mrs. Woolgar didn’t hear and, just to be on the safe side, added, “We’re still in the planning stages, of course.”
“But you have a library brimming with old detective books,” Hopgood pointed out.
“Yes, but the total worth of the library upstairs might be two hundred thousand pounds on a good day—so much depends on the whims of the collectible book market.”
The DS gave a low whistle. “For a few books?”
“For five thousand twenty-seven books, and that includes Lady Fowling’s own novels. Among the collection in the library, there are a great many second and third editions—reprints. A new dust jacket or a freshly written preface can be quite appealing to the collector. Foreign language editions, too. Several shelves are books signed by the authors to Lady Fowling personally—a lovely gesture, but it can decrease the value. That means each book is worth less than fifty quid, so unless Trist had decided to nick the entire library one book at a time and didn’t think we’d notice, he wasn’t going to be a wealthy man.”
“Pye has taken Mrs. Woolgar upstairs to do a once-over. She would know if any were missing just by looking?”
“Oh, indeed she would,” I replied. “And she’d be able to tell if they had been misshelved or were a quarter inch out of alignment.”
“So you’re saying no one could take a book away—even with permission?”
“Middlebank is the home of the collection—we are not a lending library. Fans of books and mysteries come to us.” At least, that was the intention. What would this death do to my chances of revitalizing the Society?
“Is there anything else of value in the house?” Hopgood asked.
I shook my head. “Even our tea service is silver plate. Good quality, of course. Sergeant,” I continued, breaking my Marie biscuit into pieces too tiny to dunk, “apart from how he got in, how did he die? I saw the—” I gestured to the back of my own head. “Did someone hit him?”
“It’s early days yet, Ms. Burke, and the medical examiner will have more information for us once she’s got him—”
He seemed to swallow his next words, and I was glad of it. My eyes fell to my cup of tea, sitting in the saucer, surrounded by biscuit crumbs.
“How well did you know the deceased?” Hopgood asked.
“I didn’t know him—well. Just after I began my job here, I saw a notice that the writers group needed to find a new place to meet—their previous location was no longer available.” Actually, I was unclear on that point—I had a feeling they’d been booted out of a coffee shop or something. “And as their focus is writing Agatha Christie fan fiction, I felt they would be a good match for the Society.”
“And were they?”
“I . . . they . . . of course, I’m in no way able to . . .”
A commotion at the front door caught our attention.
“Where is Hayley?” I heard a familiar voice ask.
DS Hopgood strolled out of the office, but one of his team stopped him with a question. I continued to the door. A uniform blocked entry to Harry, who stood on the threshold, clutching her laptop to her chest.
“Harry, what are you doing here?”
“You’ve got the police,” she replied, trying to see over my shoulder.
“Yes, but how did you know that?”
“Amanda,” she stated. “Amanda runs.”
I waited for her to finish the sentence, and then realized she had.
“Yes, that’s right. I saw her late one afternoon—running.”
“And she ran past here earlier and saw the police cars. She texted the group to say did we know what was up, and no one did.”
“She texted you? And everyone answered?” Beads of cold sweat broke out on my forehead.
“Yeah—no. Mariella, Peter—” She counted them off on her fingers. “But nothing from Trist yet. He’s probably at work. Was it a break-in?” She caught sight of a member of the coverall brigade coming down the stairs. “Cor—SOCO. What’s happened, Hayley?”
Her answer came from the DS. “I’m Detective Sergeant Hopgood.” He held his warrant card over my shoulder, and I took a step away from the door. “And you are . . . ?”
“Harry Tanner, sir. What’s happened?”
“Harry, is it?” he asked.
“Harriet, if you must,” she replied. “Although I prefer Harry. You’ve no idea the prejudice that still exists when it comes to a woman writing crime. Look how many of us still must resort to hiding our identity in order to be accepted—using initials and the like.”
“Harry is a member of the writers group,” I explained.
“Ah, in that case, Ms. Tanner, I’d like to have a word with you. One of your fellow writers, Tristram Cummins, was found dead in the library, and we have yet to sort out the circumstances.”
Harry’s eyes grew as big as full moons. “My God, Trist?” she whispered.
“Come with me, please.” DS Hopgood led the way to Mrs. Woolgar’s office.
Harry lagged behind as she pulled her phone out of a pocket. Her thumbs flew over the screen, and before she’d reached the office door, the phone had been put away again.