by Nancy Warren
I hoped that Mary Watt would be able to convince the doctor to come and visit Florence. In the meantime, all I could do was offer her tea and an ear if she wanted it. Nyx must’ve heard the commotion for she came walking daintily out of my bedroom, yawning. She’d been out all night doing I know not what and had spent most of the day sleeping. Her green eyes blinked a few times and then she walked over to the couch, jumped on it, and then stepped into Miss Watt’s lap.
I didn’t know if Florence liked cats so I stood by for a moment in case Nyx needed removing, but Florence seemed comforted saying, “Oh what a sweet little puss,” and stroking her with shaking hands. Nyx circled once and then curled up on the woman’s lap, immediately beginning to purr.
I made strong English breakfast tea, what Gran called builders tea, and put lots of sugar in it. I set it before Miss Watt with a plate of biscuits and thought how strange it was that only a couple of days ago I’d been entertaining her sister in that very spot. Knitting had seemed to sooth Mary Watt and I wondered if would have the same effect on her sister. “Do you knit?” I asked her.
She looked up from cooing at the cat, and blinked at me as though reviewing my words and then making sense of them. “Oh, no. I’ve never been able to get on with knitting, or crochet. My mother used to tat, but I can’t do that either. The only womanly art I was ever any good at was cooking. Gerald says my scones are the best in England.” She glanced at me and her face creased. A single tear tracked down her cheek. “Said. I meant, Gerald said.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever get used to it. He was so alive, you see. I never knew anyone so full of life as Gerald was.” She stared at me in puzzled horror. “Why would anyone do such a terrible thing?”
I noticed that she didn’t say who, but why. I waited.
“We were getting married. That’s why she killed him.”
The line came out of nowhere and I was so shocked I asked her to repeat herself, thinking perhaps I hadn’t heard correctly. She said, “It’s true. We weren’t going to the pictures at all today. We were going to get married, quietly, at the registry office, so Mary couldn’t stop us. She saw him, this morning. And he told her. That’s why she killed him.”
“You mean your sister Mary?” I wanted to be absolutely certain she was accusing her sister.
“Oh yes. Such betrayal. It must have been her, it’s the only thing that makes sense. I’ve been thinking and thinking. She must have seen him downtown this morning and he told her of our plans. Who else would want Gerald Pettigrew dead?”
I wished that Ian or another properly trained investigator were here with me. I felt that I must be very, very careful in how I asked questions and how I listened to the answers. This woman was gripped with terrible despair and grief and I wasn’t entirely certain that it hadn’t temporarily disordered her mind. “Did you speak to Gerald this morning?”
“No. He didn’t want to see or speak to me until he picked me up. He said it would be bad luck.” She wiped another tear away. “Oh, how I wish I’d spoken to him, one last time.”
“Did Mary tell you she saw Gerald this morning?”
She stared at me like I was stupid. “She’d hardly tell me she’d seen him this morning, if she was going to murder him, now would she?”
I tried again. “Did someone see them together and tell you?”
“No, no, nothing like that. But Mary told you herself she did the shopping this morning and then stopped for coffee. The only place we stop for coffee when we do our shopping is Pistachios on Broad Street. That’s where Gerald goes, you see. Every morning when he’s not with me he gets his paper and a coffee and croissant. I believe they met up with each other, no doubt a chance meeting. And Gerald, lovely man that he was, must have told her our plans and invited her to the wedding.”
She took a sip of her tea and the cup rattled when she placed the cup back on the saucer. “He knew how much I wanted her to be my bridesmaid—that sounds too ridiculous at our age, but she was the person I wanted to stand up for me. But she’s been so unpleasant to Gerald, we decided not to tell her, knowing she’d try and talk me out of marrying him. But I believe he met her and told her of our plans. Why else would she kill him?”
I thought for a moment. “But you two are more than sisters. You’re best friends and business partners, do you really think your sister would murder the man you loved?”
She wiped at another tear. I had given her my only packet of tissues so I found some of Gran’s lace edged linen napkins in a bureau drawer and put a stack of them on the table. Florence helped herself with a muttered thank you. She said, “There’s a side to Mary you don’t know. There’s a side to Mary no one sees. Oh she’s lovely and charming in the tea shop, when the customers are there, but she can be very nasty. She split us up, you know. All those years ago.”
I did know, because Mary had told me, but I was very surprised that Florence knew. “Did Mary tell you that?”
She blew her nose on the napkin. “Not until I forced her to. It was Gerald who told me. He was very reluctant, but he felt it was only right I know. He didn’t want to have any secrets from the woman he was going to marry.”
I thought to myself he had another reason for his confession. At least, if Mary was right about him, he did. The trouble was, as I was beginning to see, the two sisters had very different versions of the events, and it wasn’t easy to sort out whose was the correct one. Certainly, Gerald was dead, had been strangled, presumably in the kitchen of the tea shop, where he’d been found. Which did suggested it was an inside job. I didn’t want to think of Mary as a murderer. But I was beginning to wonder if she might be one.
There were too many stories about the past. That was the trouble. All these grim, dark deeds had taken place half a century ago. Had Gerald really had another woman and another family, or had Mary made up that story to discredit him in my eyes? Perhaps even then she’d been planning to do away with him and wanted to blacken his character.
Proof. That’s what was lacking here, proof. All I had was stories, old stories at that.
“What did Gerald tell you that Mary did all those years ago?”
“She threatened him with exposure. She found out, you see, about his top secret assignment and she threatened to tell the Russians.”
I felt my eyes widen. “The Russians?”
She looked at me as though I were a particularly dim student in history class. “It was the Cold War. Gerald was on a top-secret mission. He could have been killed.”
“And you confronted your sister with this? Did she admit what she’d threatened?”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Of course not. She made up some story about Gerald having another woman. As if I wouldn’t know if the man I loved was seeing another woman. It was pitiful. I never knew until that moment how jealous she was. Gerald kept telling me she was but I didn’t believe it. I wish I had believed him. I wish I’d run away with him as he kept asking me to. But I didn’t see why we should. This is my home, half of that business is mine and half the property. No. I was determined to stay and fight for what was mine.” She buried her face in one of the linen napkins. “And now I’ve lost Gerald. The man who meant more to me than anything. I don’t know how I’ll go on. We had such plans, you see. We were going to travel all over the world. He wanted me to see all the places he’d been.”
“That would have been wonderful. But you can still travel.”
“I’ve hardly traveled anywhere, you see. There was always the tea shop. We were so busy. Mary and I got away a few times and had a week’s holiday, but I’ve never seen the world. Now I suppose I never will.”
She finished her tea and then lifted the cat off her lap and stood. “Well, I’d better go down and see that nice young detective. I don’t relish what I have to do, but I’m afraid, if you’ll excuse me, I have to turn my sister in for murder.”
CHAPTER 20
I didn’t know what to do. Nyx and I stared at each o
ther for a moment. The cat seemed to be saying, “Stop her.”
If Florence went to the police and accused her own sister of murder, Mary and Florence would never get their relationship back.
While I was dithering, a knock sounded on my outside door. When I went to answer it, I found Mary Watt on the other side of the door and with her a man she introduced as Dr. Finlayson. She said, “I won’t come in. How is she?”
How on earth did I answer that? “She’s still very upset.” And left it at that.
She nodded. Then she reached out and put a hand on my arm. “I hope you didn’t take any notice of all her crazy talk earlier. She didn’t mean all those cruel things she was saying to me.” Then she looked at me as though trying to convince both of us and said, “I’m sure she didn’t.”
I nodded. “Don’t worry, we’ll look after her.”
“Thank you, dear. I must get back.”
When I took the doctor into the sitting room, Florence looked surprised. “I heard a man’s voice, and I thought it was that nice detective. Dr. Finlayson? What are you doing here?”
Dr. Finlayson was on the older side though he was probably two decades younger than his patient. Still, he spoke to her in a fatherly manner. “I heard about your trouble, Florence, and I’m very sorry. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, Dr. Finlayson, it’s been so dreadful.”
The doctor sat beside her and took her hand and, being neither relative or a member of the medical profession, I decided the best thing for me to do was to make myself scarce. Also, I was bit worried that my grandmother might not have got the message and decide to pay me a visit and the last thing poor Miss Watt needed was to be confronted by a woman she knew to be dead.
I slipped downstairs and through the connecting door into the shop. To my surprise, Katie was still there, although Ian had left. My new assistant was tidying up. She had the duster in her hand and a polishing cloth in the other. “Katie, you didn’t have to stay so late.”
“That’s all right. I thought the shop could do with tidying and besides,” she made a face. “I don’t want to be home alone. Not with murderers about. Jim is rehearsing. He’s been there all day, and he just called to tell me they’re staying on tonight to smooth out some technical difficulties. Lighting, I think.”
I fetched the broom and swept up the floor. “It’s unnerving, that’s for sure.” I didn’t know how much she’d heard about the second murder so I stuck to platitudes. In truth I was a bit nervous, too.
She paused in her dusting and was looking intently at one of the knitted pieces hanging on the wall. One Sylvia had created. “This is one of the most beautiful, and intricate, pieces of knitting I’ve ever seen in my life. Whoever did it must have knitted their entire life to get this good.”
In fact, Sylvia had spent the better part of a century perfecting her craft. “It is beautiful, isn’t it? I’ve discovered that displaying finished pieces really inspires our regular customers to up their game.”
She and her duster moved on and so did her train of thought. Her next comment was, “It’s awful about that poor old man getting killed next door. I mean the second old man.”
“Terrible.” I recalled now that when Ian had questioned her about Gerald Pettigrew she had looked blank.
I said, “Did you really not know Gerald Pettigrew?”
“Well, I saw him often enough, and I knew he was Miss Watt’s boyfriend but I never knew his name. Friendly bloke, though, and liked to have a laugh. He had an eye to the ladies, too.”
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“Oh, it was all harmless fun, but he liked to flirt. Old, young, pretty or plain, he didn’t mind. He toned down a bit when either of the Miss Watts was about, but there was nothing in it. As I said, it was harmless fun.”
Katie said, “DI Chisholm wanted to know if I had ever seen the old boy before coming to England. Seems he spent some time in Australia. Well, bully for him, so do lots of people. He’ll have to do better than that if he wants to connect me with the old boy’s murder.”
“Do you think he was trying to?”
She stopped dusting and turned to look at me. I could see the troubled frown. “Seems like I’d be an easy scapegoat. Not from here, don’t have a family, who’d complain if I got done for it? The local cops look like heroes and I spend the rest of my life in jail.”
It was an absurd idea but I could see that she was nervous. “I’d care. You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had. If anybody tries to arrest you they better have a damn good case. Don’t worry. The police won’t arrest anyone if they don’t have good cause. And you’re not friendless.”
She looked pleased, but then her mouth turned down. “I appreciate the support but you’re not exactly a pillar of the community yourself. You’re only about my age and you’re an outsider, too. No offence, but I’ll need more friends than you if they decide to point the finger at me.”
I wanted to tell her that I could call on the resources of any number of creatures who had lots of time, lots of history, and underground networks that stretched around the world. I’d back my vampire network against Interpol any day. I couldn’t tell her that so I said, “Try not to worry. Hopefully they’ll catch the real killer and we can all sleep at night.”
“He definitely thinks I’m the prime suspect, you know. He wanted to know if we had a key for next door.”
“Did you?”
She nodded, a worried frown creasing her forehead. “We went in early, you see. Jim to start baking and me to set up. But we gave it back when they closed the tea shop.”
I began to see why she was feeling so nervous. Very few people would have had access to the tea shop kitchen when the entire place was closed and locked up.
But Katie had no motive.
Miss Mary Watt on the other hand had a great deal of motive. I wondered if she had told the detectives what she knew of Gerald Pettigrew’s past. I hoped she had because it was the right thing to do. However, if she’d murdered him, she’d be putting a noose around her own neck. It put me in an awkward position because she had confided in me. If she hadn’t told the police what she knew, did I have an obligation to tell them?
I did not relish the idea of being a snitch but neither did I relish the idea that a murderess might get away with her crime. Especially if she’d killed the colonel as well.
Did anything connect the two men? Clearly I needed to call on my network.
There was a tap on the door and we both jumped, before she peeked out the window. “It’s Jim. See you tomorrow, then, if I haven’t been arrested.”
The back of my neck had chilled a couple of times in the last half hour so I knew that one or more vampires had attempted to come into my shop. I’d left the lock on the trapdoor. While it wouldn’t stop them if they were determined to come up, they all seemed to respect that if that door was locked it wasn’t safe.
Florence Watt was still upstairs but I didn’t want to bother her if she was still with the doctor. Given the circumstances, I knew she wouldn’t want to sleep in her own home, not when her lover had been murdered there and she suspected her own sister. Part of me wanted to offer her my spare room, but might Miss Mary Watt interpret that as me taking sides in their dispute?
I badly needed my grandmother’s advice. She was always good at questions of social etiquette.
I went into my back room and quickly unlocked the trapdoor and went down the stairs into the tunnel. As many times as I did this, it always took me a moment to adjust to the slightly dank air and the damp chill. Rafe had assured me there were no rats in the tunnel but I walked quickly anyway. I rapped on the door, which was opened immediately, almost as if they had been waiting for me.
It was Sylvia who opened it, looking glamorous as usual, this time in a red and silver knit dress that showed off her admirable figure. She said, “Lucy. What on earth is going on above stairs?”
I smiled at her quaint terminology. As though we were in the servants’ quarter
s of a large country house. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
“Well, you’d better come in and tell us all about it. Your grandmother’s been most anxious.”
I nodded and entered the room. Gran was sitting in the corner at the computer and turned to look at me, with an expression of horror. “I’ve just been searching for news on the dark net.”
Of course, vampires embraced technology, and had probably invented the dark net. If not, they certainly took advantage of its secret underground networks. “What dreadful news. Poor Miss Watt. Poor both of them. How are they taking it?”
I hadn’t come in bursting with news and expecting to astonish them all, but I was slightly deflated to arrive and find they already knew about the drama. “Both the Miss Watts are taking it very hard. Do you know who the latest victim was?”
“No. That information hasn’t been released, not in official circles or unofficial ones. Who was it?”
At least I could tell them that. “It was Gerald Pettigrew. The man that Miss Florence Watt was planning to marry this very afternoon.”
“Oh poor, dear, Florence. I wish I could go up and tell her how sorry I am. I hope you said what was proper for both of us.”
“Of course I did. In fact, I think she’s still upstairs. Her doctor’s with her. Dr. Finlayson.”