Murder by the Minster

by Helen Cox

  ‘You’re right, and I never even went to his new place. I—’ Evie was interrupted by her mobile phone. Due to her love of all things vintage, her ringtone was a recording of Shirley Bassey’s ‘Kiss Me, Honey Honey’. When Evie first downloaded that ringtone, the blare of the brass erupting out of nowhere used to make Kitt jump every time, but she’d since got used to it manifesting in her life without warning.

  ‘Hello?’ Evie answered the call. ‘Oh, Heather. I’m sorry, I totally forgot. Today has been a nightmare, I can’t even tell you.’ There was a pause. ‘Oh, they have? Yes, sorry about that, they asked for a list of people who knew about me and Owen breaking up.’ Another pause. ‘Shocking doesn’t really cover it. Yes, all right, sorry again. All right, bye.’

  Evie hung up.

  ‘Completely forgot I booked myself in for a manicure this afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘Surely everyone at the salon must know you’re unavailable to have your nails done today?’ Kitt said.

  ‘No, this is at another salon, on Bishy Road,’ Evie explained. ‘When I went on that date the other week, I didn’t want everyone at work knowing about it. First one since Owen, and all that. So I booked in there instead. Heather, who owns the place, had a special offer on and the manicure was immaculate, so I decided to go back.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said Kitt.

  ‘But obviously today, with everything . . . I just forgot about the appointment.’

  ‘Not surprising,’ said Kitt. ‘And I’m sure your clients won’t notice if you skip a week.’

  ‘Not exactly a top priority, to be honest. At least the police aren’t wasting any time in running down the leads I gave them, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Kitt.

  ‘Heather was on the list of people I gave Halloran. I’d never met her before in my life, but had to put her on the list just because we got chatting about the break-up while she did my nails. God knows what she thought when the police walked through her door this morning.’

  ‘I’m sure she was surprised,’ said Kitt, ‘as we all were. But it’s not like you can control how the police conduct the investigation. You just followed their instructions. Look, I checked, and there isn’t anyone to cover me this afternoon. Are you going to be all right? You can stay in here if you just want to hide away from the world a little bit. Sit and read, or sleep?’

  ‘I don’t think I could do either just now. I’m going to go for a walk along the river.’

  ‘Good salve for the soul,’ said Kitt. ‘Tea at mine?’

  ‘Thanks Kitt,’ Evie said, leaning across to give her friend a hug. ‘Thank God, I can always rely on you.’

  Six

  A loud thudding sounded at the front door of thirteen, Ouse View Avenue. Startled, Kitt sat upright in her bed, her heart thundering, her mouth dry.

  She waited.

  Had she really heard the noise, or was it just an echo from a nightmare? Nightmare was a bit strong, but she had been dreaming about the events surrounding Owen’s murder. As dreams often are, it was something of a jumble. The last thing the librarian remembered was Inspector Halloran giving her his hard, blue stare whilst fastening handcuffs tightly around her wrists. For some reason, in the dream this hadn’t seemed as alarming as she might have expected and, on waking, an unfamiliar flutter stirred in Kitt’s stomach.

  She sighed and shook her head. ‘Freud would have had a field day with you.’

  Kitt had hardly finished muttering to herself when the pounding against her weathered oak door started again, making her jump.

  So she had been jolted awake by something more tangible than the vision of Halloran and his handcuffs. Kitt turned on the lamp that stood on her bedside table, pushing aside her journal and a copy of A Murder Is Announced, which she hadn’t quite resisted checking out of the library before she finished her shift, to get at her wristwatch.

  Two a.m.

  She let out an involuntary moan.

  But the person banging at her door didn’t care that it was two a.m., which could only mean something serious had happened . . . again. Woe betide her late-night visitor if this wasn’t an emergency.

  Kitt swung her legs out of bed, crossed the short cold span of dark floorboards and pulled the curtain aside to look out of the window, into the street.

  Squinting through the faint illumination provided by a lamp post a little further up the road, Kitt could make out a familiar hooded figure wearing a blue raincoat. A fox shrieked somewhere in the distance, startling both Kitt and the figure below. Then the figure looked up towards the window, and the outline of Evie’s face became visible. Her hand made a little wave. Without thinking, Kitt waved back and then frowned. Evie had spent the best part of the evening here after tea. What on earth had brought her back to her best friend’s doorway so quickly, and at such an ungodly hour?

  Holding back another sigh, Kitt let the curtain fall back into its natural resting place and put on her silk dressing gown, patterned with white roses, before making her way downstairs. She knew her friend wouldn’t wake her without good cause. Evie had experienced one or two of Kitt’s hard stares over the years and, as far as she could tell, wouldn’t do anything to invite one.

  Her cat, Iago, gave her his yellow-eyed glare as she turned on the light in the living room.

  ‘Not my choice to be up at this hour,’ Kitt said to the cat. ‘You often wake me at inconvenient hours. That’s karma for you.’

  Unmoved by his owner’s words, Iago continued to glare, but Kitt didn’t notice. She was too busy rattling the keys in the lock and then pulling hard on the handle to get the stiff old door to move inward. It never was cooperative once autumn set in.

  Evie stood shivering on the other side of the threshold.

  ‘Now then. Before you say anything, I’m sorry,’ Evie said. ‘I know you’re not a morning person.’

  ‘Not a two in the morning person, no. But come in,’ Kitt said, stifling a yawn.

  Evie stepped into the living room.

  ‘Here,’ said Kitt, closing the door and taking her friend’s coat. ‘Come and sit down and tell me what’s going on. At this hour, I assume you weren’t just passing.’

  Kitt hung Evie’s coat on a wooden peg next to the door and then joined her friend near the hearth.

  ‘Mmm, it’s so warm in here. It’s bitter out there,’ said Evie as she sank down into one of the two available armchairs, which were upholstered in a deep, pine green fabric. Kitt had picked it out because it reminded her of the colours of Dalby Forest in the summer. Sunny thoughts weren’t to be sniffed at on days like today – or yesterday, as it was now.

  ‘I sat up and read for a bit after you went home,’ said Kitt, deciding to keep the fact she’d chosen a murder mystery novel to herself lest it come across as a bit macabre. ‘Only put the fire out a couple of hours ago. And I do have a lot of insulation.’ Kitt nodded at the nearest bookshelf. The wall with the fireplace was in fact the only wall in the living room that wasn’t lined with bookshelves, all of them heaving with paperbacks and hardbacks on every conceivable subject.

  ‘Anyway. What’s going on now? You all right?’

  Evie shook her head. ‘Where do I even begin?’

  ‘That bad?’ asked Kitt.

  ‘Well, for starters, you remember I gave the police a list of people who knew about the break-up message Owen sent me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kitt, slowly. ‘They don’t suspect someone on that list, do they?’ If Evie had told those people the finer details of Owen’s break-up message, the likelihood was she trusted them. If Evie had trusted the wrong person, Kitt knew she would never forgive herself for what had happened after the fact.

  ‘Beth Myers.’ Evie’s words were coupled with a shaky nod.

  ‘Beth M— the lass who went out with Owen before you did?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Evie. ‘About
an hour ago, I got woken up by a phone call from her mother. She was past herself. She’d been ringing around Beth’s mates to find out if they were with her on the night of the murder. Said she gave the police an alibi that didn’t check out, and they’d taken her in for further questioning. Her mum has been trying to find out who she was really with. Or why she would lie.’

  ‘She couldn’t have waited until a more reasonable hour to find that out?’ said Kitt.

  ‘Apparently not,’ said Evie. ‘She seemed to be basically going through Beth’s entire list of contacts. Maybe her mum’s a bit over protective?’

  ‘Or a bit shocked to find her child caught up in a murder case,’ said Kitt. ‘Do you think Beth’s capable of something like this?’

  Evie crossed her arms and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I admit, I don’t know her that well. She was part of Owen’s university crowd, you know, and we only saw each other when they all got together as a big group. But . . . she’s never shown any worrying signs . . . at least her behaviour was never more worrying than everyone else’s on a Saturday night. And she went out with Owen a long time ago now. They broke up a good six months before I met him, and he’d been on a couple of dates with other people between her and me. They always seemed on spectacular terms for two people who’d been in a relationship that didn’t work out.’

  ‘Possibly because he didn’t break up with her via ­Facebook Messenger?’ said Kitt, pursing her lips.

  ‘Always helps,’ said Evie. ‘But in that sense the idea that she would kill him, especially in such a freaky way, doesn’t add up. Not. At. All. When I asked Owen about their break-up, he said it was mutual.’

  ‘So it was amicable,’ said Kitt. ‘She wasn’t holding any grudge towards him.’

  Evie stared at Kitt. ‘Well, yeah, but you know what “mutual” really means most of the time if a lad’s saying it?’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘If a lad says that, it usually means he was dumped.’

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Kitt chuckled. ‘Oh, Evie, you can’t possibly deduce that from someone telling you a break-up was mutual.’

  ‘I can. One night, when we were out with his uni mates, I’d had a few drinks and curiosity got the better of me.’

  Kitt took in a deep breath. ‘Oh dear, what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing too outrageous. Just followed Beth to the ladies and asked her about the break-up.’

  ‘How did she take that question?’

  ‘Well, she’d had a few drinks too, so was perhaps a bit more forthcoming than she might have been usually, but I was right. She broke up with him. Said she’d fallen in love with someone else. Though . . .’

  ‘What?’ asked Kitt.

  ‘I’ve never seen her with another boyfriend, so that must have ended pretty quickly too,’ said Evie.

  ‘She’s not had any other boyfriends?’

  ‘Not in the two years I was with Owen,’ said Evie, her eyes darting in Kitt’s direction. ‘But we can’t chalk that up as suspicious behaviour. I only saw her every couple of months, and besides, there’s a lot of that going about.’

  ‘Fair point,’ said Kitt, before raising both her eyebrows and staring into the blackness of the grate. Perhaps Beth had come to the same conclusion Kitt had, that intimacy was too dangerous a pastime.

  ‘Besides anything else,’ said Evie, ‘Beth’s a bit too . . . prissy to be a murderer.’

  ‘I don’t think all murderers come complete with missing teeth and Z-shaped scars down their faces,’ said Kitt.

  ‘I know,’ Evie said, mock-sneering in Kitt’s direction. ‘But Beth is super-fussy about her appearance. In all the times I’ve hung around with her, whether it was a night in with a film, or a night out on the tiles, she always looked just so. Immaculate manicures. Every hair in place, and I do mean always. The idea of her bloodying her perfectly-lotioned hands is madness.’

  ‘Clearly the police don’t think so,’ said Kitt.

  ‘The police thought I did it, six hours ago. Knowing my luck they’ll come back with some theory that me and Beth were in it together.’ Evie paused and looked at her friend. ‘Unless . . .’

  Kitt narrowed her eyes. ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Well, on the way here I started thinking,’ said Evie.

  ‘That sentence always leads somewhere interesting,’ Kitt teased.

  ‘Better that than somewhere dull,’ said Evie, and the smile Kitt had hoped to see on her friend’s full, Marilyn Monroe-like lips made a brief appearance. ‘What if we find out what Beth was really up to that night?’

  Kitt’s nose crinkled. ‘How would clearing someone else’s name help you? Wouldn’t that just make you the prime suspect again?’

  ‘I don’t want to make my own situation worse,’ said Evie, ‘but the police seem to be making a proper mess of all this, and I don’t want to see a friend suffer the same way I have. Besides, if I was guilty it’d make no sense for me to help Beth, the police will see that, and it might make them more open to the idea that I didn’t commit murder last Saturday night.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Kitt, not wanting to seem dismissive about her friend’s well-meaning but misguided plan. Evie had been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours, and self-preservation was not, the evidence indicated, at the top of her priority list. ‘But how are you intending on finding out where Beth was? The police are working on this case full-time and, if Beth’s mum is ringing around everyone, it doesn’t sound as though they’ve had much luck in getting the truth out of their suspect.’

  ‘We could try talking with her housemate,’ said Evie. ‘According to Beth’s mum, Beth gave her housemate as her original alibi. Bet she has her suspicions about where Beth might have really been.’

  ‘But wouldn’t the police have already questioned the housemate?’ Kitt countered. ‘The likelihood is the housemate either doesn’t know where Beth was, or is unwilling to tell the police the truth.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Evie. ‘But maybe the police didn’t ask her the right questions. Maybe there have been some clues about where Beth really was, but her housemate hasn’t pieced them together.’

  The pair lapsed into a moment’s silence.

  Kitt knew that, despite the curiosity that had prompted her to look up a list of common poisons and devise various Christie-inspired theories before resting her head on the pillow that night, she must protect her friend from the consequences of an interfering, half-baked plan hatched at two in the morning.

  ‘Look, even if I thought you might be able to get something out of the housemate that the police haven’t, it’s not a good idea for you to be connecting yourself with this investigation. You need to distance yourself. Otherwise your meddling might lead to the police being even more convinced that you and Beth are in on it together.’

  ‘Well, about that, old chum,’ said Evie, playing with the ends of the blonde curls that fell nearest her face.

  Kitt recognized the slight sparkle in Evie’s green eyes that so often spelled trouble. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re right about the fact that it would probably be for the best if I didn’t show up at Beth’s house tomorrow, given that I’m a suspect in the case,’ said Evie.

  ‘Right . . .’ said Kitt. ‘So you’re not going to interfere? I’m sorry, you’re confusing me here.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Evie, ‘you’re not a suspect, are you?’

  Evie stared at Kitt as she digested what her friend meant by this question.

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Kitt, standing up. She paced along the navy carpet she’d had fitted in a vain attempt to mask the never-ending supply of black cat-hair tumbleweed. She was convinced that animal waited until just after she’d hoovered before shedding – one of the cat’s many treacheries that had caused Kitt to christen him after a defector.

  ‘Kitt, please. At least consider
doing this for me. It’s awful enough knowing Owen’s . . . well, that he’s gone. But the idea of them not catching the right person somehow makes it all even worse.’

  ‘But when you come up with mad schemes like this, it always leads to trouble. Usually for me.’

  Evie tilted her head to one side. ‘This is a pretty niche situation. When have I ever come up with something like this?’

  ‘The details differ, but the suffering’s the same,’ said Kitt.

  ‘You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘Am I? Shall I remind you of that detox diet you begged me to join in with?’

  ‘That was back in January, let it go,’ said Evie.

  ‘I will, once the horror of exclusively eating sesame seeds for four days solid has faded.’ Kitt shook her head. They’d had to stop after four days because the sheer amount of seed oil they were digesting had caused raw, itchy rashes across their skin. The only thing to be thankful for was that the experience had obliterated Evie’s appetite for fad diets for good.

  ‘Kitt, come on.’ Evie looked at her friend with wide, pleading eyes. ‘This is a bit more serious than a post-Christmas crash diet. Beth might have been up to something she shouldn’t have been, but she’s not a murderer.’

  ‘Evie,’ Kitt said, her voice as gentle as she could make it, ‘if she’s not involved in this somehow, then why did she lie about where she was? You have to admit that her lack of alibi is a bit suspicious.’

  Evie closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before opening them again. ‘I can’t explain how I know that Beth’s not to blame for this. I just do. I can’t do anything to help her. But you can.’

  Kitt didn’t say anything. Instead, she ran her fingers through some of the knots in her long red hair and stared up at a gilt-framed painting that occupied the space above the mantelpiece. It depicted a border collie out on the moorland coaxing sheep into a pen.

  ‘All I’m asking is that you go around to Beth’s house first thing and ask a few questions. If the housemate doesn’t know anything, I’ll drop it. But we’ve got to at least try.’