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I had never before been to Susan’s house though I knew she lived on the outskirts of Castlefield. The cottage was small and appeared dilapidated, though that was mostly due to chipped paint and a garden that wasn’t tended to at all. I rang the doorbell twice before the light was turned on, and I heard movement. It was by now four in the morning.
She opened the door in her pink pyjamas and her eyes widened, but then she composed herself. “Maggie? What are you doing here so late? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“Oh, she’s good,” Detective Black said.
“Quick, you have to come to the Pembroke,” I said, proud that I managed to sound panicked. “Someone tried to kill me and Alistair.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but Mr Field showed up and rescued us.”
This time she took a step back. “What? How—I thought he was dead.”
“Me too. Apparently the police lied because he knows who the real killer is. Alistair said that I should tell you to go to the Pembroke while I wait here.”
Her eyes darted from left to right as she visibly contemplated her options. Alistair was on the lookout, and so were Nancy, Eleanor, DC Daniels, and Nick. Alistair and DC Daniels had eyes on us right now, whereas the others were either at the nearest bus stop or the train station, just in case. Since Susan was in her pyjamas, she would most likely get dressed, grab some stuff and try to run off.
But I wasn’t so sure. She could have disappeared a long time ago, but instead she stayed and decided that murder was easier. She obviously had sociopathic tendencies, but there could have also been a part of her that believed she was doing the right thing. That she had been wronged and was simply protecting herself. I wanted to get to that part of her.
“You know what?” I said. “I’m kind of sick of this whole investigation. I’m not sure Victor deserves all this effort. Or Mrs Field.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. Probably torn between keeping up the charade and vehemently agreeing with me.
“He was a selfish cheater who used people. I mean look at you, you’re gorgeous, and yet he still couldn’t commit to you. He stayed with that frumpy Patricia and then even dated Mrs Field. I mean, come on. I can’t believe I respected him. He kind of had it coming, don’t you think? I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be insensitive.”
She bit her lip. “No, no, I understand. He could be very selfish. Sometimes he would—it would be like I didn’t exist.”
I shook my head. “Typical man. Doesn’t even know what he wants.”
“Exactly!” she said in a sudden outburst. “He didn’t know that he wanted me. I kept telling him and telling him.”
“But then he just started avoiding you because he was scared of his true feelings.”
She grabbed my wrists. “Yes, that’s right. He loved me. He loved me as much as I loved him, he just didn’t see it.” She brushed her brown hair out of her face and looked up and down the street.
“Do you need help?” I asked in my most friendly tone. “Because of what you did? You’re in trouble now, aren’t you?”
She stared at me. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I knew Mrs Field was trying to get close to Patricia, and so I got close to Mrs Field. Even though we were friends, she still made me call her ‘Mrs Field’, can you believe it? The tart. She was desperate to be like Patricia, and to have Victor to herself and be popular. I got into her head, it didn’t take much of an effort at all. She barely hesitated when I told her we could get rid of Patricia. I ordered the mushrooms, and she was supposed to put them in Patricia’s cup when she was playing bridge with that old woman and her friends. Except that she didn’t get the chance to do it, the cow. So I simply walked into their house. They don’t lock the gate to the back of the house and sleep with the windows open. It wasn’t difficult at all.”
“She’s so stupid. She would have deserved to die,” I said, hoping she couldn’t see me tremble.
“Yes, she really should have died. There was a sweet tea that she had bought and mentioned in front of Mrs Field. I put it in there, not believing for one second that Victor would drink that stuff. Apparently he did.” Her mouth turned downwards.
Damn. We better warn Patricia as soon as possible.
“And Mr Field was blackmailing him, so he had seen it, hadn’t he?”
“He knew, yes. The greedy bastard. He was using it to blackmail his wife. He wanted her to come back to him, but I knew she didn’t want that, so I got rid of him and the evidence by setting fire to his office with him in it. Crushed some sleeping tablets in the tea kettle in his office. His wife still knew all his habits, and he never changed his routine. He had insomnia, apparently. But when he was dead, she said she never meant for that to happen. What did she think I was going to do? Just destroy the evidence? Am I that stupid?”
“Of course not. That would be completely irresponsible. He had to go.” I was beginning to feel nauseous.
“And I needed someone to blame. I was planning on blaming the curse first, but you started snooping around, so I decided to focus on Patricia. That’s why I went back and put that DVD there and put myself in that shed. It was all a gamble, but it paid off. You thought she was the killer. But then you asked questions about Victor today, and I realised you had your suspicions. Why was that?”
“The way you got so upset when Patricia implied Victor wasn’t interested in you and when you attacked me after you thought I was having an affair with him. You weren’t sad or hurt, you were very angry. I also thought it was odd that you wanted to untie your own hands. I was aware that you knew I suspected Patricia, so it was possible that you pretended to be attacked and put in her shed. In addition to that, you also mentioned that Patricia made a joke about killing Victor. Technically you could have heard that as a rumour, but all these things combined I just had a feeling.”
“And now you’re here.”
“Now I’m here.”
We stared at each other.
“You don’t think Victor deserved it, do you? You just want me to confess?”
“You just did, so I guess it worked,” I said, ready to bolt.
“I had a good run,” she said. “I’m going back inside. Tell Alistair he can come arrest me.” She moved back and shut the door.
I exhaled as I’d been holding my breath. There was a fluttering of wings behind me, and I jumped up. Pandora stared at me. From across the street, Daniels headed my way.
“If you were Susan, what would you do?” Detective Black said.
At that moment Daniels approached. “What happened?”
“She confesssed. She said she was going to wait inside for you to arrest her. Where’s Alistair?”
“I just saw him move around the back,” he said.
“I think we should go in. She might try something stupid.”
Pandora shrieked as if to agree.
Just then the front door opened again, and Susan lunged forward with a wooden cricket bat. She hit Daniels in the head since he was closer to the door, and he fell to the ground. He groaned, so he was still alive. She swung at me, and I ducked. She missed me by a hair’s breadth.
I punched her in the stomach, but I didn’t hit her hard since she moved back. This time she swung lower and forced me to move out of the way. She ran past me, but Pandora started her pursuit and pecked her in the heels.
Susan yelled and fell over. She had changed out of her pyjamas, but still wore her slippers. Her eyes were bulging, and she reached for her wounded heel.
I seized the opportunity and jumped on Susan. We fought for the bat, which she finally relinquished, after I bit her wrist. We struggled and she pushed me over, but just as she wanted to get on top of me, Pandora attacked her face.
Susan screamed again, and she flailed on the ground.
“Maggie,” Alistair yelled as he came running. Within a few seconds he had his handcuffs around Susan, and Pandora calmly pecked at the ground, as if she wasn’t the devil’s spawn.
Although in this case she had saved me, so maybe she wasn’t that bad.
Pandora shrieked.
––––––––
THE SUN WAS SHINING and the temperature was nice enough that I didn’t need a cardigan for my picnic the next day. After Susan’s arrest, Nick had stayed the night and we slept until noon, but we set the alarm regularly in order to wake me. The doctor had confirmed that I had a mild concussion.
The weather was too nice not to go outside, and so we sat in a park near the vicarage with the woods in the short distance. The picnic basket was filled with fruits, sandwiches and nuts. His backpack was next to the picnic blanket; after this he would leave. Since this was the last thing Nick and I would do, he did his best to make me laugh, and I did my best to forget that I’d probably never see him again after this.
“How do you feel about having solved the murders?” Nick asked after we finished eating and lied down on the blanket, staring at the clear blue sky. There wasn’t a puff of cloud in sight.
I hesitated. Several people had stopped us on the way to the park to check if the story was true and then congratulated me, but I didn’t think I deserved their praise. After all, I had been wrong. Part of me wondered if I just didn’t want it to be Susan, because I had hired her, and I felt responsible. I should have seen what she was. But then again, how could I? “It took me too long,” I said. “Because I made a mistake.”
Nick turned on his side. “So what? You did better than the police. Without you they wouldn’t have figured out it was Susan, and who knows who she would have become obsessed with afterwards? That shrine was creepy.”
After Alistair had arrested her, we checked out her house and found what could only be described as a shrine to Victor. She had been following him for a while, probably ever since he’d stopped by at the bookshop a few months ago. They must have struck up a conversation. Maybe he put the moves on her, but changed his mind when she was a bit too eager. That had to be what he wanted to talk about. Perhaps he suspected the blackmailer was Susan, not knowing it was Mr Field. Or he suspected he was followed by two different people; that could explain why he was so scared when he spoke to me.
“Very creepy. I’m just glad Patricia hadn’t drunk that tea. She could have been on her way to the grave as well.”
“What will happen to Susan?”
“I don’t know. Prison, most likely. She knew what she was doing,” I said. “Anyway, it was pretty cool that you saved us. Without you we couldn’t have apprehended her.”
“What kind of knight in shining armour would I be if I didn’t save my lady?” Nick said.
I laughed. “Well, I’m grateful.”
He leaned forward and kissed me. “This has been fun, but I’m glad there are no more murders to solve.”
“Only in my books.”
“Which I am going to buy as soon as I get home,” he said.
My smile disappeared. “I’ll miss you.”
“Come on, now. We won’t say goodbye, okay? We have the internet and phones, we’ll be fine.”
But I knew that as soon as we both got into our routines, we would lose touch. That always happened, didn’t it? Especially since we knew that neither of us wanted to move. My ex hadn’t moved for me because he didn’t love me enough, according to Alistair. Did this mean we didn’t love each other enough? That wasn’t odd; we had only known each other for a few days and most of that time we’d been running around trying to figure out a real-life mystery.
“Right,” I said and snuggled closer to him.
When it was time to go, I walked him to the train station with my picnic basket in one hand and his hand in the other one. I held on tight until the train appeared. It felt like my stomach was being squeezed.
Nick leaned forward and kissed me. “I’m glad I met you.”
“Same. I’ll see you around.” I tried to sound breezy.
“See you around.”
He kissed me again, this time long and hard. This was more difficult than I would have thought, and I was tempted to follow him onto the train. Instead, I waved until the train started moving and I couldn’t see him anymore.
Tears stung my eyes, and I tried not to cry, but when I turned around and saw the Castlefield Book Club standing there with sympathy in their eyes, I started sobbing. The women rallied around me and gave me a group hug.
“We figured you could use some support,” Eleanor said into my ear.
“Thanks,” I cried. How could I be lonely when I had these women in my life?