Murder by the Minster

by Helen Cox

  Heather walked towards Kitt then, her white canvas trousers and a loose, navy top flowing in neat lines over what the librarian judged to be a well-toned body.

  ‘Hi Heather, so sorry to bother you. I know you must be busy, but—’

  ‘Wanting a sneaky eyebrow appointment, are we?’ asked Heather, staring just above Kitt’s eye level.

  ‘Oh. No,’ Kitt said, fighting the urge to bring a hand to her forehead and explore just how bad the situation up there had become in the last week. Funnily enough the state of her eyebrows hadn’t been of paramount importance.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Heather said, the tightening of her jaw muscles betraying the fact she understood her misstep. ‘Despite the sign on the door I tend to get a few people asking if I can squeeze them in for a quick re-shape on their lunch breaks.’

  ‘Not to worry. I’m actually not here on beauty business—’

  ‘Everything all right?’

  OK, thought Kitt. She wasn’t sure if she had any acting skills. But if she did, now was the time to employ them. She allowed every muscle in her face to droop.

  ‘You haven’t heard, then? Well, there’s no reason why you should, the police are trying to keep a lid on it.’

  ‘Keep a lid on what?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to say anything, but I can trust you to be discreet, can’t I?’

  A thin smile spread across Heather’s lips. ‘Of course you can trust me.’

  ‘Well, if anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from me, but there’s been another murder.’

  The smile on Heather’s face was fixed into place, but she swallowed, hard. ‘What?’

  Her voice was over-polite given the circumstances.

  ‘Oh, I know, it’s awful, isn’t it? It’s just like the other murders. Poison. A pen stabbed through the heart.’

  ‘But, but – that can’t be right. There can’t have been another murder.’

  Kitt frowned at Heather. ‘What do you mean?’

  Heather’s eyes widened just a fraction. If Kitt had blinked she would have missed it. But she didn’t miss it. She had what she came for: a reaction, even if it was minuscule.

  ‘I mean,’ Heather said, pausing, biding her time, ‘it’s too horrible. I can’t bring myself to believe it.’

  ‘I didn’t want to believe it either,’ said Kitt. ‘And it gets worse. Evie’s missing.’

  Kitt had thought this ruse through with care, mingling facts the killer would know with a fact they would know couldn’t be true to make the story sound more plausible, and as a consequence knocking the killer off-balance, putting them at a disadvantage for once.

  ‘Missing? Oh no,’ Heather said, but she didn’t ask any questions. There was no query about when, how or why, which Kitt thought would have been natural questions to ask if Heather knew nothing about Evie’s disappearance.

  Kitt did all she could to look concerned before she spoke again, which, given how desperate she was to find her friend, wasn’t difficult. ‘You haven’t seen her, have you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Evie. You haven’t seen her?’

  ‘No, no, I haven’t.’ Heather rapped her long nails on the desk. ‘So, was there anything else?’

  Kitt smiled. Heather wanted to get rid of her. She no doubt wanted to be alone so she could check into the non-existent murder. The one murder she hadn’t seen coming.

  Time for phase two.

  ‘Well, now that you mention it, I could use a friend to talk to right now.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes, you don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘I—’

  Kitt’s phone buzzed in her pocket.

  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ said Kitt. ‘That’ll be my assistant at the library. They can’t cope three seconds there without me.’

  Aware that Heather’s breathing had become somewhat irregular, a faint hint of panic showing, Kitt unlocked the keypad on her phone and sure enough there was a text message from Grace sitting in her inbox.

  Scrolling to the screen, Kitt read:

  Heather left by her fiancé on her wedding day two years ago according to FB. Angry block cap posts directed at her ex. Hopefully you’re already out of there . . . but if not get out asap. Will try calling police station.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Heather asked, stepping closer than Kitt had expected and startling her enough that she dropped her phone. Heather reached for it, but Kitt managed to snatch it up herself just in time.

  ‘I’m fine, sorry. I need to get out of the habit of being jumpy. I’ve been a little bit on edge at the thought of a serial killer roaming the streets.’

  ‘I think we all have,’ said Heather, that thin smile ­resurfacing.

  Phase two had been to talk to Heather and try to weed out a motive, but Grace had done that now. She could report all of this to Halloran, and the police could take it from here.

  ‘I’m so sorry, it turns out I’m going to have to get back to the library after all. There’s been a filing emergency – such is the excitement of my life.’

  Heather’s face brightened at once, probably because she was going to get rid of Kitt quicker than she’d hoped. ‘Oh, I understand,’ she said. ‘And I am so sorry to hear about Evie. I do hope she turns up all right.’

  ‘Me too,’ Kitt said, looking at Heather. ‘I shouldn’t like to say what I would do to anyone who might have hurt her.’

  Heather’s eyes narrowed just a touch, but Kitt wasn’t going to hang around long enough for Heather to realize she was onto her. At least, that wasn’t the plan, but as she turned back to the doorway she noticed something that hadn’t been in her line of vision on the way in. The set of hooks by the door where several coats were hanging.

  They looked to be men’s coats, which struck Kitt as odd given that Heather appeared to run the salon single-handedly, and there was nobody else in the salon right now as far as she was aware. Then, on looking closer at the arrangement, she saw it. Hiding underneath one of the other coats was a hint of turquoise material patterned with blue raindrops. Kitt pushed the heavy brown coat on top of it to one side and gasped.

  ‘This is Evie’s coat.’

  No sooner had the words left Kitt’s mouth than Heather’s hands were around her throat. Unexpected, tight, and unrelenting, Heather’s grip from behind was suffocating as she tightened her fingers around Kitt’s airway. Kitt hadn’t had a second to take a breath, and already sensed the world around her blurring. She pulled at Heather’s fingers, but they wouldn’t budge, and her arms and legs were weakening from the lack of oxygen.

  Then, a thought came to her.

  She dug in her pockets for something sharp, anything she might use as a weapon, but all she had in her pocket was her mobile and . . . something else. Something hard and rough.

  Clutching it as tightly as she could, Kitt drew the rock Ruby had given her from her pocket and smashed it down hard on Heather’s fingers. She repeated this again and again. Heather cried out, her fingers loosened, but didn’t totally let go. Kitt continued to smash stone against bone until the fingers withdrew, just long enough for Kitt to make a dash for the door.

  Heather, her hands bloody, lunged after Kitt as far as the threshold but no further. People, witnesses, were walking by. There was nothing more Heather could do without arousing suspicion. Clutching her throat, Kitt didn’t take the time to look back, but instead ran as fast as she could up Bishopthorpe Road in the direction of town.

  Hands shaking, she fumbled for her mobile and dialled.

  ‘Halloran?’ she gasped, but then groaned as his voicemail clicked in. Hanging up the phone, Kitt dialled 111 for the police switchboard. ‘Hello, I’m trying to get in touch with York Police Station. I’ve got vital information about a murder case they’re working on,’ Kitt told the operator as she power-walked across Skeldergate Bridge in the direction
of the police station.

  Thirty-seven

  Fifteen minutes later when Kitt stepped through the entrance of York Police Station there was a commotion going on at the front desk and it didn’t surprise Kitt in the least to see who was behind it.

  Grace and Ruby were blabbering almost incomprehensibly at the man standing behind the counter who, Kitt had learned from her last visit to the station, was called Jasper. For some reason they had worked themselves up into a state where they were both speaking at once and consequently it was possible only to pick out the odd noun or verb. Words like ‘salon’, ‘danger’ and ‘murder’.

  You would think at least two of those words would arouse some concern, but Jasper’s face was unmoved as he told them both in the most neutral voice Kitt had ever heard from a person to calm down.

  Stepping towards the fray, Kitt placed a hand on each of her friends’ shoulders.

  ‘Kitt!’ shouted Grace, throwing her arms around her boss.

  ‘You’re alive!’ Ruby said, joining in the hug, which was, to Kitt’s mind, more like being caught in the coils of a boa constrictor than a comforting embrace.

  ‘If you thought I was dead,’ said Kitt, shrugging the pair off just enough that she could breathe, ‘then why didn’t you call 999?’

  ‘Well, we weren’t totally sure you were dead,’ said Ruby.

  ‘And we didn’t want to misuse the number,’ said Grace.

  Kitt nodded, gently disentangled herself from the group hug, and then turned to the man at the counter.

  ‘Jasper, I’ve been trying to get through via the switchboard for the last fifteen minutes,’ said Kitt.

  ‘I couldn’t deal with the phones because I was trying to get to the bottom of what these two were talking about,’ he said. ‘Something about a psychic vision. Not Ms Barnett’s first, it should be added.’

  Kitt turned to Ruby and sighed. ‘Couldn’t you have dialled down your “psychic abilities” just this once?’

  ‘It’s not something you can just turn on or off, love,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Kitt, before turning back to Jasper. ‘Is ­Halloran here? This really is urgent.’

  ‘Inspector Halloran is currently engaged with a suspect.’

  ‘Not any more he’s not, what’s going on?’ said Halloran’s voice.

  Kitt turned to see him and Banks standing just in front of the double doors that led back to the interrogation rooms.

  As he looked at her, she remembered that she was still in yesterday’s clothes, had had about two hours’ sleep, and had just been unexpectedly choked. She had hoped to go home and freshen up before seeing Halloran that evening, but as there were so much bigger things to think about, Kitt couldn’t bring herself to care. It seemed Halloran didn’t much care either. Not just about how she looked, but about what anyone else might think.

  Frowning, he marched towards Kitt, placed two fingers gently under the librarian’s chin and tilted her head upwards. Kitt didn’t know why she let him, maybe because she wanted a professional opinion on how bad the damage was after Heather’s attack. Maybe because his skin against hers was the best thing she had felt in a long time. Or maybe, she just liked the idea that he cared what happened to her.

  Halloran’s face darkened as he studied her neck.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I got a lead on the murderer. It’s Heather. I tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up, I . . .’ Kitt placed a hand against her throat. It was painful to speak. What she wouldn’t give for a soothing cup of tea.

  ‘She tried to choke you, didn’t she?’ said Halloran, his jaw setting.

  Kitt nodded. ‘I noticed Evie’s coat – we’ve got to help her. God knows where she is, or even if she’s still alive.’ Kitt stopped short at that thought and shook her head. She mustn’t think things like that. Evie had to be alive.

  ‘Where did you see her coat?’ asked Halloran.

  ‘It was hanging on the pegs near the door in Heather’s salon. She realized I had seen it. She nearly killed me, but I hit her with a rock.’

  ‘A rock?’ said Banks. ‘You just carry rocks around with you, do you?’

  ‘It was . . . a gift,’ said Kitt, ‘from Ruby. It has magical qualities . . . apparently.’ From Kitt’s expression it was obvious to all that the librarian didn’t believe a word of what she was saying. That didn’t stop Ruby from beaming a big smile and pointing her thumb at herself.

  A glint appeared in Halloran’s eye for just a moment before vanishing. He sighed, removed his hand from Kitt’s chin and rested it against her cheek. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Kitt frowned. ‘What are you sorry for?’

  ‘If I’d had the right person in custody, this wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘Mal—’ The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it. The librarian shook her head. ‘I should have come to you first, before checking it out. I just didn’t want to bother you if it was a dead end.’

  ‘This investigation was never your responsibility, it was mine.’ Seemingly remembering himself again, the inspector folded his arms across his chest, looking around.

  ‘Did you get her to talk? Say why she’d done it?’

  ‘There was no time for that.’

  ‘But we know why,’ Grace interjected. ‘She was left at the altar on her wedding day two years ago and, from what I can tell, never really got over it.’

  ‘So she’s taking revenge?’ asked Halloran.

  ‘Seems that way,’ said Kitt. ‘She’s a real-life Miss ­Havisham. Granted, she’s not sitting in a yellowing room with a rotten wedding cake, but from what Grace says about her Facebook profile, she didn’t take the whole being jilted thing lightly.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Grace. ‘I’ve just found out how she hunted her victims down.’

  ‘How?’ Halloran and Kitt asked together and then exchanged a little smile.

  ‘She was advertising on LoveMatch, offering a discount to any subscribers who booked an appointment with the salon.’

  ‘What better way to hear about dating horror stories than through a dating website?’ said Kitt.

  ‘And people put so much online these days,’ said Grace. ‘Once she’d heard their break-up stories, it was just a matter of watching them for a while, getting a sense of their lives.’

  ‘But she couldn’t have done it alone,’ said Banks. ‘Assuming her accomplice isn’t Ritchie, that he’s been set up like Evie, who’s in on it with her?’

  ‘She mentioned a boyfriend,’ said Kitt. ‘At the Belle’s Ball . . . right before you arrested me.’

  ‘Just about to crack the case, were you?’ Halloran said, with a gleam in his eye.

  Kitt shrugged, raising her palms to the off-white ceiling. ‘Now we’ll never know.’

  Halloran shook his head before turning to his partner. ‘Banks, we need to bring Heather in before she makes a run for it.’

  With that the pair turned their backs and began to ­strategize.

  Ruby sidled closer to Kitt and nudged her elbow. ‘Least you ’ad some help today, eh love?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ said Kitt.

  ‘That rock I gave you didn’t let you down.’

  Kitt resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead smiled at the old lady. ‘No . . . but it wasn’t quite of use in the way you suggested it might be—’

  ‘And let’s not forget the coat.’

  ‘The coat?’

  Ruby shuffled in her seat. ‘I told you that a blue coat would be important to this case.’

  ‘You never told me any such thing.’

  ‘Oh. Didn’t I? I meant to mention it, must have slipped my mind.’

  ‘Well, thanks for almost helping me out,’ Kitt said. She almost chuckled but couldn’t quite manage it. Not when Evie was still out there and in trou
ble.

  ‘So . . .’ said Grace.

  Kitt looked at her assistant. Somewhere, off behind the double doors she had walked through more times than she would like, baritone voices echoed.

  ‘Anything you want to share with the group?’ Grace pushed.

  ‘I’ve told you everything that happened.’

  Grace eyed Halloran and then looked back at Kitt. ‘Doesn’t seem that way.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Kitt, pressing her lips together.

  ‘It’s true lovey,’ Ruby said, looking at Grace. ‘The way he was with her just then said it all.’

  ‘Shhhh,’ said Kitt, noticing that Halloran was on his way back. She wasn’t sure what, if anything, was really going on between her and Halloran, but she didn’t need the interference of Grace and Ruby.

  ‘Right, Banks is going to the salon to pick up Heather. I’m going to her home address in case she’s shut up shop and to see what – or who – else I can find there. Jasper, alert the train station and the bus depot.’

  ‘I’m already on it,’ he said, picking up the phone.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Kitt said to Halloran.

  ‘You can’t. It’s not safe.’

  ‘If Evie is anywhere alive, she’s there. She needs her best friend. I’m coming.’

  Thirty-eight

  Sitting in the passenger seat in Halloran’s car, Kitt felt her eyes drift, not for the first time, to the inspector’s hand, resting on the gear stick. She chided herself for focusing on that kind of detail. On how easy it would be for her to reach down and place her hand over his, as though they were two lovers on a road trip when in fact they were on their way to apprehend a serial killer and, with a bit of luck, rescue her best friend to boot.

  ‘You thinking about Evie?’ asked Halloran.

  ‘Yes,’ Kitt said, because that was what she should have been thinking about. In fairness she had thought about nothing else for the past twelve hours; perhaps it was OK to give herself a break. ‘I really hope she’s at Heather’s. I don’t know where else she could be.’