Cherringham--Murder by Moonlight

by Neil Richards

  “Yes, you did. For which,” his smile broadened, “thank you. I should have some answers very soon.”

  “Tonight?”

  Then a nod. “Could be. And if I do, you will be among the first to know.”

  Jack thought the small grey-haired piano player was about to rocket off the piano bench, straight into the rafters of the rehearsal room.

  A clap sounded as Reed summoned the troops.

  And Jack thought: My work is done here. Now it’s up to Martha, and the three suspects.

  If he was placing a bet, he knew which horse he would back for the role of perpetrator.

  One more card to play, and the players — guilty or not — should be set in motion.

  Roger Reed seemed even more petulant than usual during the rehearsal and, in a way, Jack could understand his frustration since the group didn’t sound one whit better despite their many hours of practice.

  Still, they should be good enough for dishing out holiday cheer out in the chilly square, as Cherringham came alive with Christmas lights.

  Kinda looking forward to that.

  “I do not know what else I can do, people. All this practice and guidance and you still sound like …”

  “Oh, stuff it, Roger!” one of the younger men said, and the chorus laughed.

  Reed shook his head, as if searching for a come-back to the catcall. But instead …

  “Just do get some rest the day of. Please?” Then surprisingly, he seemed to turn sincere. “We have all worked hard. Let’s put on a jolly good show for the village!”

  And at that, the chorus, which had been laughing, applauded their beleaguered director, who even allowed a smile to appear on his face as the army of singers dispersed to the back, heading to the ever-present treats.

  Time to move fast.

  Bit of synchronization needed here, Jack knew.

  He hurried over to Pete Bull.

  “Pete.”

  At Jack’s voice, Pete turned away from Beth Travers.

  These two an item? he wondered. Pete wore a ring, Beth seemed on her own. But Jack had picked up a vibe from her.

  “Jack?”

  Beth turned to talk to someone else.

  “How about we get that pint you mentioned,” Jack said, “and skip the tea?”

  Pete smiled, clearly pleased at the thought of a friendly one down at the local.

  But Jack had sensed something else up with Pete, which is why he decided to take him up on his twice-offered pint.

  “Sure. Let’s grab our coats and hit the Ploughman’s,” he said.

  “I’d rather the Angel — if you don’t mind, that is?” said Jack. “And I’m buying!”

  Pete shrugged. A free pint was a free pint, it seemed, wherever you drank it.

  And Jack followed him to the cloakroom, and down the wide stairs to the street below.

  “The same,” Jack said to the bartender putting down Bull’s lager on a well-worn coaster.

  From this vantage point, Jack could see the Village Hall entrance through the old pub window and so would be able to see when the choristers finished their abstemious refreshments.

  The barmaid put down another tall beer with a foamy head.

  Both men said nothing for a moment, enjoying that first icy sip.

  “Damn,” Jack said. “That’s good.”

  “All that singing,” Bull said. He grinned. “Enough to give a bloke a real thirst.”

  “You bet.”

  Jack forced himself to let the silence hang in the air. Only after he and Sarah had explored the cottage, did he flash on the fact that maybe somewhere he had missed a beat.

  Pete had wanted to speak to him and though it might just have been a bit of male camaraderie he was looking for, it might be that he had something to say.

  Jack hoped that standing here, at the far end of the bar, away from anyone’s earshot, he’d find out.

  “So, you know all our fellow singers pretty well?”

  Bull’s smile faded. He nodded, “I grew up in this village. So, I know them, they know me. Raised some hell in my teens.”

  “Didn’t we all.”

  Jack took a breath. Still no sign of anyone leaving the hall. But it wouldn’t be long, and then whatever chance he had with Bull would shut.

  “You knew Kirsty?”

  A nod. “Not well. Nice woman …”

  “Attractive, too.”

  “Yes, I mean, fair enough. But me being married and all, I didn’t …”

  Jack leaned a bit closer. “But we never stop looking, eh Pete?”

  A small smile. “Too right, I guess.”

  “And her dying like that. Kind of …”

  Jack acted as though he was reaching for a word.

  “Strange.”

  Another nod from Bull, who now looked around the pub. Getting late, just a few regulars lingering over their last pints of the evening.

  Bull nodded. “You see, that’s it. I mean, I wanted to tell you earlier, knowing you were looking into things. Her death and all. I mean, you are a big NYC detective.”

  “Former,” Jack said. “People have a hard time grasping that.”

  “Still, you and Sarah. Everyone kinda knows what you two are up to. Asking questions. And …”

  Bull stopped. Jack held his tongue. With an instinct born of decades, he felt the man was about to tell him something important.

  “You see, there’s this thing I need to tell you. About that night, about the biscuits.”

  And Jack let Bull reveal the truth.

  16. A Little Drive in the Country

  Bull had finished, answering Jack’s follow-up questions with clear eyes.

  No other secrets there, Jack thought.

  Then he looked up, and suddenly the twin doors of the Village Hall flew open, and the Rotary chorus spilled out into the street.

  They’re on the move, Jack thought.

  He turned back to Pete Bull, who, despite Jack’s reassurances, still wore a sheepish expression.

  “Thank you for coming forward, Pete, for telling me this.”

  “I would have done so before, Jack. Just, well you know how that Rotary lot can be. So fussy about their bloody snacks.”

  Jack grinned. “I do indeed.”

  Jack put on his coat, leaving half a pint unfinished. Bull looked right at him.

  “You think it’s something?”

  Jack answered, keeping one eye on the people milling out of the building. Every second was important now, and — he had to admit — it could all still amount to nothing.

  But what Bull had revealed fell completely into line with what Jack thought had happened the night that Kirsty died.

  “Could be, Pete. Either way, thanks for telling me. And for the beer.” Then: “We’ll do it again sometime … when I don’t have to dash.”

  Bull nodded, and Jack left from the side door of the Angel, out to the square where his Sprite awaited.

  Jack took the East Charlton road out of the village. It wasn’t a road he knew well — but he did know that it looped round behind the little group of cottages where Kirsty had lived.

  He wished he could kill his lights but English roads were deadly enough for him without that added factor.

  He might be spotted, but then anyone would assume he was making his way back to The Grey Goose, albeit the long way round.

  He slowed as he came to a turn-off before turning quickly left onto an even narrower lane — a Roman road Sarah once had told him, amazing him with the fact that this straight road dated back to the Roman invaders.

  Now he slowed even more. He didn’t want to have that comical moment where he was driving up to the gathering of cottages, just as someone else was arriving there from the other direction, parking.

  If someone was going to Kirsty’s, best let them arrive first.

  Damn, this is fun, Jack thought.

  He stopped his sports car well away from the cottage and killed the engine. Nearby, the quaint cottages glowed with
warm lights and the flickering of big flat-screen TVs.

  He couldn’t quite see Kirsty’s cottage — but he knew he couldn’t risk getting any closer.

  So, he hauled himself out of the driver’s seat, banging his knee — again! — on the steering wheel.

  Maybe I need more practical wheels, he thought. Though I do love the Sprite.

  Now, as he made his way on foot, slowly around a curve to the cottage, the whole thing feeling so different from this afternoon’s daylight exploration, he saw a car.

  A red Ford Fiesta, parked well away from Kirsty’s cottage.

  Staying in the shadows, he walked over to it and took a look inside. A GPS on the dash, a coat in the back, a box in the passenger seat.

  Could be the car of one of the nearby cottage dwellers.

  Or maybe a night visitor? It wouldn’t be hard to check.

  After all, he had told Martha that he and Sarah had made a “discovery”, knowing she’d get the news out quickly.

  Jack could easily imagine her going up to each of her prime suspects …

  You know, he’s found something.

  And they’d be all ears at the news that the detective had made a discovery.

  But one of those pair of ears would also feel alarm. Danger. That slow twisting in their gut that some bit of evidence had popped up in the cottage.

  Jack took another step.

  He heard a rattle.

  Then he saw someone standing at Kirsty’s front door. This was no break in; the man standing there had a key.

  And how does one get a key? Jack thought. Usually when someone gives us one.

  He watched the man enter the dark cottage and pull the door behind him. Jack waited — but none of the cottage lights went on.

  This wasn’t an estate agent viewing.

  Jack moved silently through the cottage kitchen in the darkness. There was no moon outside, and it was almost pitch black. From the room above came a scrabbling sound and muttering. Flickers of light illuminated the stairwell — whoever was up there had a torch.

  Jack was aware he had no weapon — apart from surprise.

  He crept to the stairs and slowly, step by step, mounted them.

  Half-way up — and then a loud creak from beneath his foot. He stopped, waited, breathing as quietly as he could, hand leaning on the wall for support. The noise up above him stopped too — the reflected light from the torch not moving …

  Whoever was up there had heard the sound.

  Then the light moved on and the scrabbling started again.

  Jack picked up his foot and carried on moving. He reached the top of the stairs and peered round the wall of the tiny cottage landing. The intruder was in Kirsty’s bedroom: through the half-open door, giant shadows flitted around the room and across the ceiling.

  Jack moved toward the bedroom door and took a deep breath, readying himself.

  Then he pushed open the door with one hand and reached around to flick on the bedroom light switch with the other.

  The light was blinding for a second.

  “Aagh!” came a loud male voice from inside the bedroom.

  Jack’s eyes adjusted. Just a couple of yards away stood Thomas Hilloc, holding a torch in one hand and an empty waste bin in the other. On the bed next to him was a pile of EpiPen boxes, some of them torn open.

  Thomas’s face was frozen, his mouth open in surprise.

  “Hi Thomas,” said Jack cheerfully. “Just popped in to do a little cleaning?”

  But Thomas reacted fast.

  He swung the bin at the light which hung from the ceiling above. The bulb smashed and in the sudden darkness he hurled himself at Jack and the doorway.

  Jack grabbed at his flying body, but Thomas had got past him, and was now stumbling, half-falling noisily down the stairs.

  Jack followed, angry at himself for letting Thomas go. He hit the bottom of the stairs hard and crashed through the sitting room knocking furniture flying. He reached the door out of the house just as it swung back, hitting him hard on the chest.

  He stopped and leaned against the doorframe.

  Jeez I’m out of practice. Or maybe I’m just too damned old …

  He pulled himself upright and headed out of the house then slid on the icy path and fell against the garden fence. He looked up — and there in the lane was Thomas, already in his car — the red Fiesta — trying to get it started.

  Jack reached the gate just as the Fiesta flew past, lights still off, heading up the lane the way Jack had come.

  Jack ran to his Sprite, jumped in without catching his hip for once and flicked the key in the ignition. Amazingly, the old sports car started first time. Slamming it into gear he swung the wheel and did the fastest three-point turn he’d ever attempted in one of these tiny English lanes.

  Lights on, he hit the gas and roared away down the icy lane in pursuit of the hangdog bookseller.

  Jack stopped at the edge of the road, put his hazard lights on and turned off the engine.

  The pursuit had lasted no more than a minute, he thought, though every terrifying second of it reminded him of why he’d retired early from the NYPD. The little Sprite had easily caught up with Hilloc’s getaway Fiesta, but on the icy corners Jack had struggled to keep control, with the tail end twitching and jumping treacherously.

  Fortunately the bookseller had clearly never graduated beyond using his little car for picking up stock so Jack’s full police pursuit skills from the old days hadn’t really been called for.

  Hilloc had headed up the frosty lane towards East Charlton for half a mile, then hit the double bends at the crown of the hill. The Fiesta had made it round the first one — but totally misjudged the second: where the road went right, the little family car chose to go straight ahead …

  … through a wooden gate, into a ditch, flipping completely over, and then sliding across a field for thirty yards on its roof where it came to a halt.

  In the lights of the Sprite, Jack walked across the white-frosted grass towards the beached car. It creaked and cracked and steamed — but the engine was off and there was no smell of gas.

  So no immediate danger, he thought.

  From inside the car came a low groaning. Jack approached the driver’s side and squatted down.

  Thomas Hilloc hung suspended from his seat-belt, upside down in his seat, the remnants of the deflated airbag around him.

  “God,” he said, looking at Jack through the smashed side window. “What a mess. What a bloody mess.”

  “Why did you run?” said Jack.

  “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” said the bookseller. “Isn’t that what … killers always do?”

  “So you’re the killer then, Thomas?”

  “Yes.”

  “And just to be clear here — you know, got to do it by the book — we are talking about Kirsty Kimball?”

  “Yes,” nodded Thomas. “I killed her.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean — why?”

  “Well, I’m guessing you and she were having some kind of affair?”

  “It wasn’t an affair. We were in love, damn it!” said Thomas.

  Jack could hear real outrage in the man’s voice.

  “So why did you kill her?”

  “Because … Because she wanted me to leave Emma. And … and I said I couldn’t, so she said she’d tell everyone, so I … well, I killed her.”

  “I see,” said Jack. “That simple, huh?”

  “Yes, it was,” said Thomas. “And here we are. You’ve got your man, as they say. And the game’s over for me.”

  “Sure looks like it.”

  “So get me out of this bloody thing will you?”

  “You’re going to have to come through the window.”

  “God almighty.”

  Together they managed to release the belt and Thomas tumbled free. Jack reached in and pulled his shoulders through the broken door window. Eventually he was standing brushing glass and debris from his
clothes.

  “You hurt?” said Jack.

  “Just bruises really.”

  “Think you can walk?”

  Thomas shrugged and, with Jack supporting him, they shuffled to the Sprite, parked out on the lane.

  “Where are we going?” said Thomas, now sounding quite miserable. “To the police station?”

  “No,” said Jack, opening the passenger door and helping Thomas slide his legs in. “Not yet.”

  He slammed the door and went round to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  They would go to the police station eventually.

  But right now, Jack had another destination in mind.

  17. Cotswold Crunch

  Sarah shivered and backed closer into the dark doorway of The Knick Knack. Kirsty’s shop now had a “To Let” sign above the window: soon, thought Sarah, someone else will open a gift shop here and Kirsty will be forgotten by all but a few …

  Across the alley the lights were off in The Bookworm, though upstairs in the little flat she saw the shadow of someone moving past the window, up and about even though it was late.

  A car drew up and parked on the main road at the end of the alley. She knew it was Jack — the little Sprite had its own particular lumpy growl. And sure enough, his unmistakeable silhouette appeared in the alleyway.

  But there was someone else with him, and in spite of the darkness Sarah could see the two figures were not only unusually close but Jack had his hand clasped on the other man’s upper arm.

  Tightly clasped.

  “Hi, Sarah,” said Jack softly as they approached. She moved across the alley towards The Bookworm to greet him.

  “Good timing, Jack — I was getting a little chilly.”

  A bar of light from the upstairs flat now lit the face of Jack’s companion.

  Thomas Hilloc! But what had happened to him?

  Sarah could see that Hilloc’s jacket was torn and covered in dirt. His hair had fragments of what looked like broken glass in it and dried blood smeared one cheek.

  And his face, though she would not have believed it possible, looked even more resigned to Fate than ever.

  “Got your key?” said Jack to Thomas.

  Thomas fumbled in his trouser pockets then shook his head apologetically.