Chapter 18

“We need you to come down to the station, Tiggy,” says DC Ben Baker.

What? His voice on the phone sounds serious.

“Straight away?” There’s a tremble in mine.

“Or sooner. They wanted to send out a car to pick you up but they’ve let me call you first.”

“Are you allowed to tell me what it’s about?”

“No.”

I wait.

“Call Hayden. And tell the truth.”

Hayden Sinclair is my solicitor. Ben thinks I need a lawyer?

“I’m staying at a writing retreat for a couple of weeks,” I say. “It will take me a little longer to get there. And I don’t know if Hayden can drop everything.”

“Call him now and come straight here. We’ll wait for him to arrive before we interview you.”

“Thank you, Ben.”

“It’s protocol.”

He’s not doing me any favours.

“And I’ll have to drop Raider at the Punt Lane flat.” In case they lock me up.

“Be quick about it.”

Click.

The room spins and I rest my head on the table. What’s going on? Raider tiptoes over and puts a wet nose in my ear. After a minute of this special kind of comfort, I sit back and dial Hayden. He picks up and listens.

“Do you have any idea what it’s about, Tiggy?”

“None.” I stifle a sob. “And I’m … scared.”

“Well, hang in there. I’ll go straight to the station and get them to brief me before you get there. Then you and I will have a private conference.”

I gush at him with thanks, throw a few things in a tote bag and put Raider in the car. On the way, I phone Rupert.

“It has to be a mistake, Tiggy. You know you haven’t done anything criminal.”

Then I remember bumping into Ben. “Only trespassed at Number 24.”

“You were invited to go there.”

Via an anonymous message on a burner phone.

I hear shouts and building noises in the background. Rupert’s busy.

“I’ll let you know what happens,” I say.

I’m allowed one phone call, aren’t I?

“Do that,” he says. “And leave Raider in the flat. The boys and I will keep an eye on him.”

At least the pooch will have some fun.

I’ve been to police headquarters in Exeter several times, but never like this. I manage to enter and approach the front desk without my legs giving way underneath me. My voice is stiff and sounds like it’s coming from someone I don’t know.

Hayden is already here and we’re shown into a private room. When we sit down at a small table, I wish Hayden’s lined face didn’t look so grave.

“Have they told you anything?” I ask him.

“Two things, Tiggy. A body has been found at a house in Holt Road, Exeter.”

A body? Has Helena died? If she went in there and had a stroke or something while her brother’s in France, no-one would find her for days.

“A male,” Hayden says. “In an upstairs bedroom. They’ve identified him as Ambrose Loxton.”

I gasp.

“Do you know him?” he asks.

“No.”

“But you’ve been to his house. Number 24.”

I breathe out. Ben. Is this all because he saw me coming out of the back door?

“Yes.”

“When? And why were you there?”

Hayden listens to a summary of my meeting with Helena, the flash drive and her voice message not to contact her again, then the note slipped under my door.

“This is all very odd, Tiggy. Like living in one of your books. You were sure the note was from Helena?”

“Because the password opened the flash drive. And the files were all about her.”

“And then you followed the instructions and procured a burner phone.”

“Yes.”

He lifts a querying eyebrow but he doesn’t need to know about the secret stash of phones I inherited from the former tenant.

“When I sent her a text message,” I continue, “she sent back the time and place – the address in Holt Road.”

He wants to see the text messages. The phone is in my tote bag. He takes screenshots and sends them to himself.

“What happened when you got to Number 24?”

As I run through knocking with no answer and my tentative two-minute visit down the hall to the sitting room, I’m wondering when Ambrose Loxton dropped dead upstairs. A heart attack? But with all this fuss it must be … suspicious.

“You’ve got Helena’s last text message,” I tell Hayden. “She said she couldn’t keep our appointment.”

“And then you left.”

“Yes.”

“Now this is important, Tiggy. Did you touch anything while you were there?”

“The doorknob from the mudroom to the hall.”

“Anything else?”

I close my eyes and remember standing in the middle of the sitting room under the huge chandelier and noting the lavish French furnishings. Then my phone pinged, I read the text and walked back to the mudroom.

I gasp.

“What?” Hayden asks.

“There was a vertical strip of light running down a join in some panelling in the hall. A hidden door behind the panel was slightly open and I saw another dividing door between the two houses.”

“You touched the panelling,” he says. “The police have found your fingerprints. The only other identifiable fingerprints in the house belong to the deceased owner and his sister who lives in the house on the other side of that dividing door.”

Does that mean Helena killed her brother?

“And before you say you didn’t go upstairs, Tiggy, there’s blood on the wall panelling but no-one’s mentioned any hidden doors.”

I try to get my head around this.

“Well there wasn’t any blood when I was there. If Ambrose died upstairs how did his blood get there?”

“Forensics are still trying to work out what happened. And the murder weapon is missing. The police think you can help them.”

“DC Ben Baker knows when I was there. He saw me. When did Ambrose die?”

“They haven’t told me. What did you tell Ben?”

That’s when I know I’m in trouble. “I said the door had been unlocked and I’d stepped into the mudroom to see if the key was there.”

“And which of those things was true?”

“The first one. The door was unlocked.”

“But you didn’t tell Ben you’d walked down the hall to the sitting room, did you? That you’d seen a hidden door and touched the wall panelling to open it.”

“No. I thought he might think I’d been burgling the place.”

“And you even let him think you were there because the house is for sale.”

I throw up my hands. “You’re supposed to be on my side, Hayden.”

“I am. I have to know every detail of what happened so there are no surprises in the police interview and I can advise you effectively.”

“The interview?”

I almost thought this was the interview!

“Do you have a key to 24 Holt Road? Don’t try to protect Helena if she gave you a key.”

“I don’t have a key.”

“Did you go back there at a later time?”

“No.”

“Do you know of any reason for someone to kill Ambrose Loxton?”

“Hayden, I’ve never met the man. But,” – I’ve thought of something – “I’ve read about his two children. Both dead. His son Alex was abducted and murdered as a three-year-old about twenty years ago and his daughter Electra drowned in Woolley Wood about five years ago – accident or suicide.”

“Hmmm. What’s your interest in the Loxton’s? The police will want to know.”

“Dr Loxton contacted my publisher offering her private life as a plot for one of my books. I’d never heard of the woman. She is not famous in Australia. Before I met her, I did some homework. I read a long article about her life and her first case gave me an idea for my latest book.” Then I remember Anita Blaine. “And Anita Blaine from the Echo told me about Electra’s death.”

“I remember when Alex went missing,” he says. “I joined the search party. There were fears he’d run off and fallen into the Exe. The Holt Road house isn’t far from Quayside. Then that paedophile confessed.”

Hayden knows more about Alex’s murder than I do. If the paedophile confessed, it confirms that Tremayne Templeton wasn’t involved in the case. Hayden hasn’t asked who told me about Alex so I can keep Tremayne out of it.

Then Hayden leans forward and murmurs a few words of advice.

There’s a knock on the door. Ben Baker puts his head in.

“We’re ready for you, Tiggy.”