Chapter 26

Hayden arrives and enters our small room, closing the door behind him.

“You shouldn’t have said anything, Tiggy. May I remind you this is a murder, not a cosy mystery where a dagger is baked into the birthday cake. And other than the victim and his sister, yours are the only fingerprints they can match with anyone of interest.”

Meaning the murderer wore gloves. Who would have thought?

“They tricked me, Hayden. They let me bring Raider with me and I got distracted. DC Ben Baker has had a complete personality change since he’s turned detective. I may never speak to him again.”

“He’s the least of your problems. A witness has come forward, saying she met a strange woman with a Dalmatian in the dog park in Serpentine Crescent. And she told this witness she has a friend who lives there.”

“I chatted to that lady and I was referring to Helena Loxton. Helena and I are not exactly friends but I had morning tea at her house a couple of weeks ago.”

“Then afterwards the witness remembered she’d seen you recently, visiting Number 24.”

“The police know I visited. Once.”

“More than once, the witness said. Arguments were heard between you and Ambrose Loxton.”

“Not me. I’ve never met the man.”

“She’s identified you from a photo line-up.”

Because she remembers me from the park. Arrgh! The police ask residents to report anything strange and she drums something up from our chance encounter. But now I’m remembering my likeness to Electra Loxton. I pull out my phone and show Hayden the pictures of Electra on the opening night of her Werewolf play.

“She could be you, Tiggy.” He reads the caption. “Ambrose Loxton’s daughter. This is a game changer.”

I remind him of the bad news.

“Died five years ago. I remember you telling me that now. Did she have a sister?”

“Not that I know of. Only an adopted sister who grew up in France. Louise nicknamed Lou-Lou.”

“How do you know that?”

I tell him.

“It wasn’t me who visited that house, Hayden. This photo just proves there are always people wandering around who look quite a lot like someone else.”

Hayden is still frowning as he gets up and leaves the room.

On his return he says, “The police are getting prints made of these photos from Electra’s opening night. If the witness picks her out of the photo line-up they’ll probably let you go.”

“But it couldn’t be Electra either.”

“Exactly. It casts doubt on this witness’s reliability. She didn’t come forward until after she met you. She could be one of those helpful members of the public who gets a buzz out of offering up clues.”

Another character for Piper to contend with. I don’t think I can reach for my notebook in front of Hayden.

“Have you learned anything else that might help us?” he asks.

The word ‘us’ feels very comforting right now. Even Raider, who hasn’t made up his mind about Hayden yet, has crept forward and put a nose-print on one of Hayden’s over-polished shoes.

“You were obviously on the snoop at the dog park,” he adds.

I ignore this in favour of a question. “What about the hidden connecting doors? Helena or someone from her house could have gone into Number 24, unseen by passing dog-walkers, and been upstairs when I was there. Both doors were ajar.”

“They haven’t found any doors, Tiggy. Just your fingerprints on the wall panel beside the blood.”

“The panel opens!” I cry. “The doors must be fitted with invisible catches. Why don’t they get a historian who knows about secret priest holes? Or ask Helena herself. Surely she wants to find her brother’s killer.”

And if it was Helena herself, pretend she wants to.

“They did ask her. She has no idea what you’re talking about.”

What? “Because she’s losing her memory! That’s why I had morning tea with her, Hayden. It’s a secret but she wanted me to dig into her past and help her remember something she’d forgotten.”

Hayden reels back in the metal chair. “If that’s true, it’s your secret.”

“It’s true! I don’t make these things up, you know.” Except for a living.

“Well, I can guarantee Dr Loxton won’t confirm it,” he says. “With her reputation and her role in securing so many convictions, there’d be mayhem in the courts at any suggestion she might have a fallible brain.”

It’s what Rupert and I wondered.

Ben Baker sticks his head through the door. “You can go now, Ms Jones. Thank you.”

What? That’s it? I’ve just given up a whole morning.

I glare at him but he seems oblivious. And Raider likes him too much to race over and gnaw his ankle.

When Ben’s gone, Hayden says, “The witness is in another room. That’s why they had to get you out of the waiting room so quickly. They were expecting her to come in and view the photo line-up, and you and Mr Look-at-me were prancing around like movie stars. If she’d seen you on her way in, any evidence would have been invalid. In the end it probably is anyway but not because of a glitch in the seamless scheduling of the station.

“What are we going to do about the secret doors? The handling of evidence in this murder investigation is even less seamless than their scheduling of witnesses.”

“You paused the interview. We can ask for it to be continued, even though they’ve decided to let you go.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s a risk. You and I won’t be able to control their questions, only your answers. What else do you want to tell them?”

I explain how I think the blood smears came to be on the panelling, that Helena or someone else who knows about the connecting doors had blood on their hands, opened the door putting blood on the wall, heard me speaking to Ben just outside and wiped the blood off in their hurry to escape.

“The back door was ajar when I was talking to Ben. I told him I hadn’t been burgling the place but he could have wanted to check.”

“The murderer wouldn’t have known if Ben was going to come in. Let’s see if the police want to hear your theory.” He leaves the room again and is back in a minute. “Let me quote: ‘We don’t need theories from mystery authors. Tell her to stick to her knitting and we’ll stick to ours.’”

“This sounds like the mantra of DC Ben Baker, whose parents happen to live in Serpentine Crescent. It’s why he bumped into me leaving the crime scene.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Tiggy. It’s probably a conflict of interest but as your lawyer I suggest you let it go.”

Not doing what I’m told will be my ‘undoing’ one day. But hopefully not today.

I discover that Serpentine Crescent is directly on the way to Lympstone from police headquarters. And it’s not a coincidence that Raider and I see our helpful witness getting out of her car. She doesn’t know my Skoda, and Sugar the fluffy white dog is being difficult so we cruise past without drawing her attention.

What am I doing here?

I’m not sure, but ‘ground-truthing’ is never a waste of time.

I remember her reference to the house where the fine china mugs were smashed and the tropical fish were poisoned and I wonder again if Tremayne’s comment about a ‘burglary gone wrong’ might explain the murder of Ambrose, in a house often unoccupied and full of French antiques. The owner of the saliva on one smashed mug from the other break-in is in prison so it’s not down to him. But Rupert and I saw Ambrose leave in a taxi and a would-be burglar could have done the same. Then Ambrose returned soon after for some reason. Something he forgot? He could have surprised a burglar who murdered him. Then when Helena came into Number 24 to meet me, she found her brother’s body and panicked.

“Why wouldn’t she just call the police?” I ask Raider, who’s looking at the lavish homes as we drive around the Crescent. “Was her faulty memory somehow to blame for her reaction? Or … was it because she found something else she needed to cover up?”

The last thought pops up just as we approach Number 24 at the end of our circuit. Through its magnificent bay windows, the walls of mirrors are reflecting the daylight in fractured ways, reminding me of the photo at the camera club last week. Taken by Zaylee who likes sitting next to Baxter. What did she call it? Reflect-shone. I enjoyed the play on words to indicate the role of the light.

Now I’m sure it was taken through the window of Number 24, a photo of all the mirrors bouncing their ‘reflect-shones’ around. They’d be visible from the rise in the middle of the park opposite, a good location for a budding photographer to choose.

It’s when we’ve parked in Holt Street and walked back to the dog park for Raider’s much deserved run that I think more about that photo. There were shadows. Was there also a person in it?

I’ll have to ask Baxter.