by Tim Ellis
‘We discovered the note and key in Toby’s apartment, and we’re assuming that Miranda left those things for him.’
‘I don’t know about those two things specifically, but I do know she left him an envelope with a letter and some personal things inside. I have no idea what they were, and Toby never showed me. Toby and I used to get on fine until the end of Miranda’s life, and then he became all secretive and sullen. Three months after Miranda’s death, he told me he was leaving. We hugged and said goodbye, and that was it. I mean, he was twenty-six by then anyway, and I wasn’t his biological father, although I’d brought him up for most of his life. In the end though, I don’t think he had any reason to stay. He didn’t tell me he was going back to Marple, but it doesn’t surprise me that’s where he ended up. It seems now that Miranda and Toby both had unfinished business there.’
‘Do you know what happened to the letter she wrote Toby?’
Victor pointed at the fire. ‘He burned it. As soon as he read it, he screwed it up and threw it in there.’
Dark showed Victor the photograph of Miranda and Albert Flagg in Rhyl, North Wales, which was dated October 13, 1990. ‘Have you ever seen that before?’
‘No, long before my time. Do you know who the man is?’
He glanced at Lake. ‘Well, it’s Albert Flagg, isn’t it?’
Victor got up, rummaged in the bottom of the Welsh dresser and came back with a photograph album. He flicked through the leaves until he found what he was looking for and withdrew a photograph of Miranda Flagg arm-in-arm with a different man on a pier at sunset. ‘That’s Albert Flagg. He and Miranda were married on September 29, 1989. That’s a photograph of them on their honeymoon in the two weeks following their marriage.’ He turned the photograph over. “Llandudno, October 1 to 14, 1989” had been scribbled on the back in the same handwriting as the photograph they’d found in Toby’s apartment.
Dark pointed at the man in the photograph on his phone. ‘We’d assumed that was Albert Flagg.’
‘Then you assumed wrong.’
Dark noticed another photograph of Miranda Flagg in the album and held out his hand. ‘Can I?’
‘Sure.’ Victor passed him the album.
He slid the photograph that had drawn his attention from the plastic sleeve. Miranda and three other women were linking arms, laughing and leg-kicking like dancers at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. But they weren’t in Paris, they were outside Whitchurch Architectural Partnership on St Ann Street in Manchester. ‘What’s Miranda doing in this photograph?’
‘I think it’s fairly obvious what she and her work colleagues are doing.’
‘Work colleagues?’
‘Yes. Miranda used to work for Whitchurch as one of their junior accountants.’
He turned the photograph over. Miranda obviously liked to record the date on each of her photographs. This one was dated July 11, 1990. He passed the photograph to Lake. ‘Would you mind if we kept that photograph?’
‘No, I don’t mind. It doesn’t mean anything to me. It was long before Miranda and I met and started living together.’
‘Thanks.’ His head was racing. All along they’d been under the impression that Albert Flagg had been killed because of what he’d found out about Whitchurch, but maybe they’d been wrong and it was Miranda who had discovered something, and Albert was murdered to keep her quiet. He thought of the note:
You know why he was killed.
Leave now.
If you stay, your boy will be next.
Maybe Miranda did know why Albert was killed, and it was to do with her job as an accountant not his job as a property solicitor. And who was the man in the photograph she was with in Rhyl, a year after she’d married Albert? There were too many dates. He needed a timeline of events to try and piece it all together.
He stood up and offered his hand. ‘Thanks for your time, Mister Green. You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Sure thing, Inspector. I hope you find Toby’s killer. He was a good lad who turned into a decent young man.’
‘We will. We’re a couple of steps behind the killer now. It’s only a matter of time before we catch up to him and put him behind bars.’
They made their way back out to the Rav-4 and climbed inside. During the short time they’d been in the stone cottage the windows had iced up, and the daylight had given itself up to darkness.
While they were waiting for everything to defrost he said to Lake, ‘Get your notebook out, let’s make a Flagg timeline.’
‘I was thinking about doing that as well. It’s all got a bit confusing, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes . . . Well?’
1988
March: Whitchurch Architectural Partnership founded by Alan Doyle and Jeffrey Higham;
1989
September 29: Miranda married Albert Flagg;
October: Honeymoon in Llandudno, North Wales;
1990
February: Miranda joins Whitchurch Architectural Partnership as a junior accountant;
July 11: Photograph taken of Miranda with three women outside where she worked – Whitchurch Architectural Partnership;
October 13: Photograph of Miranda and an unknown man in Rhyl, North Wales;
1991
July 02: Toby Flagg was born;
July: Albert Flagg appointed as legal representative overseeing contracts for Whitchurch Architectural Partnership;
1995
August 14: Miranda becomes a member of Marple Library;
2002
June 13: Albert Flagg purchased a safe deposit box in perpetuity from Montague’s in Manchester;
June 14 (Wed 7:45pm): Albert Flagg killed by ?joyrider in stolen (from Glossop) black BMW outside his place of work;
June 14: Detective Constable Angela Vickers from Hazel Grove Police Station appointed to investigate the hit-and-run death of Albert Flagg;
June 18: Note addressed to Miranda Flagg stating that she knew why Albert was killed and to leave Marple or her son would be next;
July 14: Miranda accessed safe deposit box at Montague’s and every July after that until July, 2015;
July: Alan Doyle, wife and three children killed in boat explosion in Poole, Dorset;
July: Miranda took Toby and moved to Chester;
November: Miranda and Toby moved in with Victor Green in Saltney, Chester.
2016
January: Miranda decided to end her cancer treatment and die on her own terms;
January 23: Miranda accessed safe deposit box and then borrowed 14 books from Marple Library;
March 29: Miranda returned books to Marple Library and left library card in safe deposit box;
May: Miranda Flagg dies;
September: Toby Flagg moves to an apartment in New Mills;
2017
January 13 (Mon 11:15a.m.): Toby called Whitchurch and spoke to someone for 3 minutes;
January 13 (Mon 4:30p.m.): Toby met two men at Rose Hill train station;
January 14 (Tue 3:30a.m.): Toby Flagg’s time of death;
January 15 (Wed 3:00p.m.): Toby Flagg found dead in Lock No.9 at Marple;
January 17: (8:30p.m.) ACC Angela Vickers phones ?Jeffrey Higham at Whitchurch Architectural Partnership from a public telephone box in Buxton after a visit from DI Dark and DC Lake to discuss the death of Albert Flagg.
‘I think that’s about it,’ he said. ‘So, any theories, Lake?’ He put the SUV into gear, pulled out and headed back towards the M56 and Manchester. It had taken them hour to get to Saltney, but the return journey would probably take them a lot longer in the rush-hour traffic.
‘I just knew you were going to ask me that.’
‘You should be able to provide me with a well-considered and sensible answer then, shouldn’t you?’
‘I think Miranda had an affair with a man – and I’m guessing that man was Jeffrey Higham. It probably started around October 1990, which was eight months after she began working for Whitchurch, and the two of them spent time together in Rhyl, N
orth Wales.’
Playing devil’s advocate he said, ‘That photograph doesn’t necessarily mean they were having an affair.’
‘On its own no, but the photograph was important enough for Miranda to leave it to her son, and for Toby to bring it with him to New Mills. We thought it was because the two people were Miranda and Albert Flagg – Toby’s parents, but maybe there was another reason.’
‘Such as?’
‘Maybe the two people in the photograph were his parents – his biological parents. I think Jeffrey Higham is Toby’s father, and Toby came back here to find him.’
‘Go on.’
‘Toby Flagg was born on July 02, 1991 – nine months after Miranda’s trip to Rhyl with an unknown man. Albert was appointed to oversee the Whitchurch contracts in the same month.’
‘An unusual string of coincidences.’
‘You don’t believe that any more than I do. Anyway, everything was fine until June, 2002, when something happened. What? We don’t know, but it could be something to do with money, because she was an accountant at Whitchurch.’
‘How do you explain Albert Flagg buying the safe deposit box? If it had been Miranda, I might be in a position to accept what you’re saying.’
‘Maybe . . .’
‘Ah! We’ve started on the maybes now, have we? Your theory is beginning to unravel.’
‘No. I think they were both in on it?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Maybe Miranda found some financial discrepancy, and Albert helped her to collect the evidence. It makes sense that they would both be involved.’
‘I agree.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, but it could also have been the other way around. It’s possible that Albert found something that wasn’t quite right with the contracts and asked his wife to use her position in the company to help him prove it.’
‘Okay.’
Traffic had slowed to twenty miles per hour and it was stop-start as far as the eye could see. The flashing light above the motorway had been activated and was advertising an accident up ahead. All three lanes were moving at the same speed, so he stayed in the middle lane.
‘You’re missing a number of key points,’ he said after a while.
‘Oh! And what would they be?’
‘Whatever the two of them found was enough to give Higham a reason to kill Albert. And Miranda must have known he had killed her husband and why . . .’
‘The note?’
‘Exactly. It stated: “You know why he was killed”. So, why didn’t she go to the police with everything she had on Higham?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A couple of ideas spring to mind. First, she didn’t want to put the biological father of her child behind bars, and maybe she loved him. Second, Higham didn’t kill Miranda, possibly because she was the mother of his son, but he left her in no doubt what would happen if she didn’t leave. And third, have you considered the possibility of blackmail, or at least a lump sum pay-off?’
‘Ah! That would explain why Miranda kept accessing the safe deposit box in July every year – to remove money.’
‘Yes. And lastly, I agree that Miranda and Albert found something, which they then locked away in the safe deposit box as insurance, but where is it now?’
‘Miranda moved it on March 29 last year?’
‘To where?’
‘She left the library card as a clue? The list of books tell us where?’
‘And what about DC Angela Vickers? Why didn’t she find all this out in 2002?’
‘Maybe she did, but Higham paid her off?’
‘And Higham’s partner – Alan Doyle and his family?’
‘It might have been an accident, but it probably wasn’t. He must have known what Miranda and Albert had discovered and threatened to go to the police, but Higham killed him before he could?’
‘We’re nearly there, Lake. Why did Miranda move the evidence from the safe deposit box and leave a library card in its place?’
‘She didn’t want Toby to find it?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I suppose it would put him in danger.’
‘It got him killed anyway.’
‘Mmmm! That doesn’t make sense, does it?’
‘Which part?’
‘That Jeffrey Higham killed Toby. Higham must have known that Toby was his son. Also, Toby hadn’t found and opened the safe deposit box, so all he knew was that Higham was his father, which Miranda must have told him about in the letter. The note from 2002 was unsigned, so he had no idea who had sent it. Toby didn’t know anything and wasn’t a threat to Higham, so why kill his own son? Toby probably called Higham on Monday morning to arrange a meeting with the father he’d never known.’
‘So, who killed Toby?’
‘I don’t know. The manner of his murder doesn’t fit with the rest of the case. I find it hard to believe that a father would hammer a wooden stake through his own son’s heart and then dump him in the canal lock. I also doubt he would have paid someone else to kill him in that way either. I think someone else, who we don’t know about yet, killed Toby Flagg.’
‘Not bad for a wet-behind-the-ears apprentice, Lake. It’s mostly speculation though. Now we need to prove your theory, and to do that we have to find the evidence. How do you think we’re going to obtain that?’
‘We probably need to verify that the man with Miranda in the Rhyl photograph is Jeffrey Higham?’
‘That goes without saying. If it’s not Higham . . . Well, all the speculation is merely sand in the wind. What else?’
‘Maybe get a court order for a paternity test?’
‘An interesting idea, but I don’t think a magistrate would sanction that based on what we’ve got so far.’
‘We have to find out what the clue is that Miranda left in the list of books. Without that, we have nothing.’
‘I agree.’
‘We could check Miranda’s bank account, but even if she deposited the money in her account, which is doubtful because she was an accountant, and the dates of the deposits coincided with the dates she accessed the safe deposit box, it would only be circumstantial, it wouldn’t tell us where the money came from.’
‘True, but we have to consider that we might never find the actual evidence Miranda and Albert hid. If that comes to pass, do we let Higham get away with the murder of Albert Flagg, Alan Doyle and Doyle’s wife and three children? The Crown Prosecution Service might think that the weight of all the circumstantial evidence was enough to proceed to prosecution.’
‘Okay. Well, we could also get a court order to examine ACC Vickers’ bank account from 2002?’
‘Your dad would love you.’
‘My dad already loves me.’
‘He’d love you even more if you went after Vickers and found nothing, which would be highly likely. She wouldn’t have been so stupid as to leave a money trail.’
‘But there’s the call to Whitchurch from the telephone box in Buxton?’
‘More circumstantial evidence. She’s thinking of having some work done on her house, and she’s sounding out reputable companies before making a decision to proceed.’
‘Why didn’t she use her mobile phone?’
‘No credit left.’
‘Why did she call them at eight-thirty at night?’
‘Busy day. It was the only free time she had.’
‘Okay. Well, we could ask for the Doyle boat accident to be re-opened?’
‘We could, but it depends on who investigated it in the first place. It could have been the police, the fire brigade, or the Marine Accident Investigation Branch of the Ministry of Transport.’
‘I’ve never heard of them.’
‘There’s no reason you would have done unless you’d been involved in a case where they were involved. What I’m saying is that, it was probably investigated as an accident, the cause identified, the deaths ruled accidental, case closed. None of the evidence would have been kept
for fifteen years, so all we’d have was the report.’
‘We should get that anyway?’
‘I agree.’
‘You’re doing a lot of agreeing tonight. Are you taking pity on me?’
‘From your limited knowledge of me, do you think that’s likely?’
‘No.’
‘I’m agreeing with you because you’re right. I’m not the type of person who will say you’re wrong if you’re right, or the other way around for that matter. You’ve had a good couple of hours. You’re beginning to use your brain like a detective. Now, it could be a one-off, or it could be a sign of things to come. We’ll have to wait and see what the future holds, won’t we?’
Chapter Seventeen
Eventually, Dark navigated the Rav-4 into the car park at Bootle Street. “You have reached your destination”, the satnav said helpfully. What should have taken them – at most – an hour and a half, had taken three hours. He had planned to get Lake to do a couple more hours work, but the minute hand had already crept past eight o’clock.
‘Go home.’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘Are you sure?’ she said, climbing out of the car in an effort to escape before he changed his mind.
‘Mmmm! I’m not sure whether I’m sure, or not. Maybe you should wait here until I am sure.’
‘Like hell. I need food, sleep and a hot bath.’
‘You also need to make sure you have a list of every pair of stork scissors you’ve bought, which includes how much you expect to sell each pair for. I’ll give you a day’s grace, but first thing on Monday morning someone will arrive to take your collection away.’
‘Please . . .’
‘Please what? Please suspend me, because I’ve become a liability? Please put me in a home for crazy addictive people who collect peculiar things? This is your one chance to get straight, Lake. I’m going to help you kick your addiction, but you’re loitering in the Last Chance Saloon. If you screw it up, you’re on the scrap heap. There are thousands of people out there who want to be detectives. We don’t need . . . I don’t need, someone with psychological problems as an apprentice or a partner. Eat some food, soak in a hot bath, get some sleep, make the list and pack up your collection . . .’