Chapter 19

Ben sits beside another detective, introduced as DS Chubb. Hayden and I sit opposite.

Chubb asks all the questions Hayden asked me, with the same brusque tone of mistrust. I send a silent thank you to my lawyer for preparing me so well.

Ben takes a turn. “You’ve been lying to us from the beginning haven’t you, Ms Jones?”

Hayden jumps in. “Please ask my client specific questions and she’ll answer them to the best of her knowledge.”

Ben clears his throat. “You say now, Ms Jones, that you only visited the house once. On the Sunday when I bumped into you in the back lane. But you told me then that you’d found the door unlocked – letting me think you were house-hunting – and you’d opened the door to see if the key was inside. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. I didn’t want you to think I was a burglar.”

“You could have told me you were meeting Dr Helena Loxton.”

“She wanted to keep the meeting a secret. When I found the door unlocked, I went down the hall to the sitting room because she’d sent me an invitation by text message to meet her there.”

“We’ll need to see copies of those messages. What’s this about seeing a pair of hidden doors connecting the two houses?”

“I’ve researched secret doors for a previous book. When I was leaving, I saw a slit of light down the wall. I knew straight away it was a hidden door. I opened it a crack. And saw the other door. It was open too, letting light in from the other house.”

They haven’t mentioned the blood on the wall.

“You say you didn’t kill Ambrose Loxton. Can you think of any reason for someone else to kill him?”

“No.”

Hayden suggested I keep my knowledge of his dead children to myself because it makes me look interested.

The detectives terminate the interview and get up.

“Please don’t leave the country, Ms Jones,” DS Chubb says.

“They didn’t arrest me!” I say to Hayden when we’re outside.

“Because they’re pretty sure you’re not the killer but they have to follow the evidence. Your fingerprints are only inches away from the blood smears on the wall and you’re the only suspect.”

“What about Helena? Aren’t most murders family-related? I didn’t even know Ambrose.”

“I’m not privy to that information.”

That closes the conversation.

“Thank you for schooling me in interview procedure,” I say.

He does the eyebrow again. “Use it in your book.”

I’m not Hayden’s only client and he’s off to deal with one of the others. As I watch him walk to his car, I call Rupert.

“Tiggy. At last.”

“Still on the right side of the barbed wire fence.”

“They didn’t think you had crim potential?”

“Their only suspect but not a plausible murderer. Don’t tell my fans.”

“A murderer? Do you fancy a debrief over a takeaway? Or do you just want to go back to the cottage? I can look after Raider till tomorrow.”

“Thanks me ‘andsome. I’ll pick up some curries for us and doggy samosas for him.”

Rupert used to work for Hayden until they fell out. But Hayden has handled the insurance claim on the boathouse damage for me and after I recap his role in both interviews, Rupert is impressed.

“Hayden and I respect each other more if we don’t work together,” he says.

My shock at the murder of Ambrose Loxton, not long after we were at his house, is doubled by Rupert’s reaction.

“The guy we saw getting in a taxi? That’s a bit close for comfort. Then you were inside his house leaving your fingerprints everywhere. And we thought he was going to France on Friday night but he was dead at home on Sunday. What was the motive?”

“The police don’t know. They asked me if I had any idea. About a man I didn’t know. And Hayden told me not to mention this to the police, but how unusual is it that his children died by murder and possibly suicide? And now he’s been killed too.”

“Someone playing a long game of revenge?”

“I want to see the report on the abduction and murder of young Alex. It must be the case Helena is pointing to with her three ‘loose ends’ photos. I’ll ask Anita Blaine to get me special author access to the Echo archive. I think historians can dig deeper than the general public.”

“Why?” he asks. “Does this have anything to do with writing your book?” Rupert’s eyebrow-lift rivals Hayden’s. They’d both hate me to point that out.

“Not exactly.”

“Not at all, Tiggy. You might have found your starting idea in Helena’s past but since then she’s distracted you with intriguing but completely irrelevant rabbit holes. And now her brother’s been murdered and you’ve wasted most of today’s writing time being grilled as a suspect. You need to get back to your book.”

He doesn’t remind me about our deal. He’s working half time at his day job to project-manage the renovations and my job is to get this book out to bring in a boost of funds so we don’t need to borrow to our limit.

“Thanks for being so gentle with the reminder,” I say.

“Not that gentle,” he says. “I know there’s no point creeping around and blocking the rabbit holes with rocks. You’d just look under the rocks.”

His tone makes Raider bark once.

And of course they’re both right. But we haven’t mentioned that Helena is likely to get in touch again. Now that her brother’s been murdered right where we were going to meet.

What will I do then?

Raider and I get an early night at the cottage and wake ready for a day on Death by Deception. As much as I need to put words on the page – and send a hefty word count to Rupert this afternoon in response to his pep talk – I also need my plot to be plausible. Especially the murder.

The whole book hangs on the tripwire idea. And Rupert won’t hear this but Helena’s famous bikini experiment on the jetty has inspired me.

I need to go to Merton Mire and ‘trip’ myself up. A little voice tells me I could do it in the local park in Lympstone but I’d be almost certain to attract an audience and so far, I’ve managed to avoid being noticed here. If I have to explain why I’m falling over my own tripwire – with the old ‘I’m a mystery author’ schtick that excuses all sorts of suspect activities – my cover will be blown.

Kelly Field’s murderer could buy a roll of wire that’s found later on his credit card and CCTV in the hardware shop. But for my purposes, Sim’s kitchen drawers turn out to have some useful everyday items. Armed with wire coat-hangers, rolls of two different kinds of string, scissors, a small hammer and some tomato stakes borrowed from the garden, Raider and I set out for Merton Mire.

The carpark is empty again. With the end of Raider’s lead around my waist, I carry the tools and look for some rough ground that resembles the edge of the bog. I won’t be sneaking through the Authorised Entry Only gate but I note the word ‘author’ in ‘authorised’ and wonder how I could make that work. There are dry places lumpy with tussocks where the bog must have existed in wetter times.

A slightly overgrown path has bramble bushes on each side. I hammer in the stakes and stretch out the string. Raider wants to run with me so I tie him to a bush where he can watch. The jute string is virtually invisible against the brownish ground but when I run through it, it tends to stretch. The poly string is easier to see – but only if you’re looking for it – and it stays taut.

I take another run and go down.

“What on earth are you doing?” says a voice. Male. Not friendly. “This is a restricted area for protected wildlife. Not a circus ring.”