by AG Barnett
“Anyway, I’ve realised that the note you found in my room wasn’t really a note.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was printed, right? Well, who could have the time to print it between me apparently murdering Melanie and you searching the rooms? And in any case, if someone had left it for me they would put it somewhere more obvious than under my pillow.”
“You could have hidden it there?” Corrigan said, his eyes twinkling with amusement again.
“I think you can give me a little more credit than that, Inspector. I would have burnt it or flushed it down the toilet or something, not kept it under my pillow like it was a love note from an admirer.”
His eyes darted away for hers for an instant and he shuffled on his feet before looking back at her.
“So, what exactly has this got to do with a game?”
“The murder mystery game,” Mary said triumphantly. “I was the murderer in the game, I bet the text is from the scripts we were all given.”
“And have you gone to find your script for last night to check?” Corrigan asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, no.” Mary folded her arms, annoyed that she hadn’t thought of this before running upstairs and causing a scene. “But I can go and ask Pea where they are!” she said, already turning to go.
Something tugged at her mind and she stopped and turned back to where Corrigan was waiting with an expectant expression.
“Hold on,” she said slowly. “Even if it was from the script, how on earth did that part get torn out and left under my pillow?”
Corrigan smiled and nodded. “Now you’re asking the right questions,” he said. “And while you’re thinking along those lines, you might want to think about who underlined the sentence saying you were the killer in red biro.”
Chapter Thirteen
“The scripts?” Pea said in confusion.
Mary, Inspector Corrigan and the uniformed officer who had searched Mary’s room were standing in front of him.
“Yes, where did you put them after we’d finished last night?”
“Um, in the library, I think. Why?”
“Come on,” Mary said to Corrigan, turning and heading back to the hallway.
“The rest of the guests can remain here,” he said to a constable by the door, and the officer gently led Dot and Pea back into the living room.
As they had descended the stairs in search of the scripts from the murder mystery evening, Mary’s mood had swung violently.
Her initial feelings of fear and concern at being a suspect in the murder of Melanie Shaw had given way to furious anger. Somebody else had murdered Melanie, and not only that, they had then tried to implicate her. There was no other explanation for the small scrap of the script that claimed her to be the killer finding its way under her pillow. The fact that someone had taken the time to underline the fact by hand just seemed like a further insult.
What had really sent her into a determined rage, though, was the knowledge that it had to have been someone in the house. No intruder would have known about the murder mystery scripts, nor would they have known, in the dead of night, that Mary’s room was next to Melanie’s and would provide a perfect prime suspect.
She opened the library door and stepped into the large space. Tall windows ran along the right-hand wall, spilling light across the threadbare carpet, but not reaching the tall shelves of books that lined the other three walls. She headed for a round, leather-topped table which was positioned next to an armchair under the nearest window, its surface covered with a stack of paper.
“Don’t touch anything!” Corrigan called from behind, and she pulled back from the table as though flames had licked her fingers. He moved alongside her in the small space and peered down at the scripts. “I’ll get crime scene to go over them,” he said grimly. “But it looks like your theory was right.”
He pointed to the far corner of the pile where a script lay upside down with its final page torn across the bottom.
He turned to her and folded his arms, a frown deepening across his brow.
“I am concerned, Miss Blake, that somebody is attempting to frame you for the murder of Melanie Shaw.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” Mary said, folding her arms to match his.
He looked down at her from the two or three inches in height he had over her. His broad shoulders seemed to fill Mary’s vision in what felt like the suddenly small space of the study. She felt a prickle of heat rising up the back of her neck.
He glanced towards the door back into the hall which was still half open, the back of the uniformed officer outside just visible, before returning his gaze to her, his voice low.
“It doesn’t make sense that someone planted that scrap of script under your pillow to implicate you. Why wouldn’t they just come to us and tell us what they know? Having said that, you would be the obvious suspect, and a desperate mind doesn’t make rational decisions. The real problem is that that means the killer is almost certainly in the house. One of the people staying here last night killed Melanie Shaw, and now they want you to pay for it.”
“We need to question them all again,” Mary said firmly.
“We?” Corrigan smiled.
“Look, I’m the one who’s being framed here, I think I have a right to find out by whom.”
He took a deep breath and to Mary’s surprise, nodded.
“You do,” he said softly. “And I will find out for you. In the meantime, I think you’re best served staying with the other guests. I need you to let me know anything that might help us, anything you hear from the others, anything that might have some bearing on the case.”
“You mean work from the inside for you?” Mary caught the excitement in her own voice too late and saw his expression grow hard and stern.
“No, I just mean that if you hear anything, it would be in your best interests to inform me immediately. If someone took the time to tear this section of the script out and place it under your pillow after they had committed the murder, then who knows what they might do next to frame you?”
Mary bit her lip and looked to her right at the scripts strewn across the desk and thought about the secret meeting of her two friends Dot and Pea.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Corrigan asked, perhaps sensing that something was on her mind.
“No,” she said firmly, turning back to him.
“Right, well I’ll have a uniform with the group at all times from now on, and outside your door tonight if it comes to that.”
“We’re staying here tonight?”
“If I bring all of you lot back to the station with half the country’s press on my tail the chief inspector will have me on a desk filling out forms for the rest of my life. We’ve decided to keep you all here until we can get further along in the case. Come on.” He nodded towards the door, and Mary moved towards it and then stopped.
“What did you find in Steve Benz’s room?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Corrigan said, with a look of exacerbation.
“But it was a note, wasn’t it? Like the one in my room?”
“No, not like the one in your room,” he said flatly. “Please escort Miss Blake into the living room, Constable.”
The officer nodded and led a scowling Mary across the hall and back into the large room where the rest of the guests were still present.
Freddie Hale was still slumped in an armchair he had dragged in front of the French doors to the grounds. Although most of him wasn’t visible, she spotted a renewed and large glass of whiskey in his hand, which stuck out to one side. Emily Hanchurch and Dave Flintock were still sitting on the sofas in front of the television, though Flintock’s attention was firmly on his phone, which he hammered away at with both thumbs.
Dot and Pea rushed over to her from the bar where they had been sitting on stools.
“Well? What’s going on?” Pea asked. His narrow, pinched face was alive with excitement. Dot’s square jaw and deli
cate features, however, remained impassive.
“I need to talk to you both,” Mary said quietly. “Let’s go back to the bar, I could do with a drink.”
The three of them headed back, Mary positioning herself on the far side in order to give herself a view of the room where she could spot any of the others approaching. Emily was watching them, as though she wanted to ask if Mary had any news on Steve Benz’s fate, but seemed too timid to make an approach.
She watched as Dot made her a gin and tonic in the same methodical, mechanical and careful way that she did everything. Pea watched her from across the bar expectantly, like a puppy waiting for his owner to throw him a treat.
How could these two be keeping things from her? And if they could have secrets like that, could one of them have decided to frame her? But what possible motive would they have? She was being silly. Rattled by the events of the weekend, she was starting to see things that weren’t there. She just needed to ask them outright.
“What’s going on between you two?” she asked as Dot slid over her drink.
She watched their reactions. Pea jolted upright, his mouth opening in surprise as he turned to Dot for assistance.
“What do you mean?” Dot asked, her chin rising defiantly.
“I mean, what were you two meeting about secretly on the night Melanie was killed?”
“Oh, bloody hell,” Pea said in a hoarse voice.
“Did you tell the police?” Dot asked quickly.
“No, I did not bloody well tell the police,” Mary snapped. “That’s not really the important question here though is it, Dot? The question is, what are you two not telling me?”
Dot sighed and looked down at the drink in front of her. Mary turned to Pea.
“It’s Dad,” he said softly.
“What’s happened?” Mary said, sitting upright. “Is he OK?”
“He’s fine,” Pea answered, “well, no change.”
Mary nodded and relaxed again.
“Then what about him?”
“I went to visit him last week and there was a short time when he appeared lucid.”
Mary felt a wave of guilt. She hadn’t visited in months, she couldn’t bear to see her father changed, diminished. The bright intellect and humour dulled and fogged by confusion and fear.
“He said there’s something that we should know, something about Mum.”
Mary frowned in confusion.
“Mum? What do you mean?”
“Look, Mary. I didn’t want to get into all this while you were…” He hesitated and glanced across to Dot.
“He means while you were wallowing, Mary,” Dot said in her no-nonsense manner.
“Don’t let him drag you into his protective older brother act,” Mary snapped. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I was talking to Dad about the problems on the estate,” Pea said with a sigh. “The repair costs just keep spiralling and there just seems to always be something new that needs fixing or updating,”
“Yes, I know,” Mary said impatiently, “can we just skip to the part about Mum?”
“Well, I was telling him all this and he suddenly looked me straight in the eye and said I needed to get to the family secret.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve no idea, I asked him and he just laughed and said, ‘Don’t you remember? Not all stories are fiction, you know.’ And then he said that Mum was a cunning devil, and that she’d made sure it had stayed safe for us.”
“And he didn’t say what this family secret might be?”
“No, he just said it would solve all our problems.” He shrugged. “And then something about the answers being here at Blancham.” He reached out and took her hands in his. “Who knows how much of this is in reality and how much is in his fantasy world, but I haven’t seen him as clear on anything for a long time, Mary.”
“So, whatever this secret is, Mum knew about it,” Mary said, thinking hard. “But what on earth could it be that could solve all of our problems?”
Pea and Dot both looked at their drinks simultaneously.
Mary eyed them suspiciously. Why hadn’t they told her this? So, her father had said something about a family secret; in his condition that could mean anything.
“What is it you two aren’t telling me?” she said flatly.
Pea looked up at her, glanced at Dot and then sighed. “Dad said something about a baby.”
“A baby?”
Pea nodded and shrugged.
“What baby?”
“We don’t know, Mary, it could be anything.”
“A family secret…” Mary said in a whisper. The three of them fell silent as they all contemplated the obvious conclusion. Could there really be a “secret baby” in the family?
“Maybe it’s a secret Hollywood contract for you, Mary.” Pea grinned sheepishly, trying to break the ice. She pulled one hand away from hers and slapped him on the wrist.
“Less of the cheek and more thinking about how we could find out who,” she hesitated, “or what this is all about,” she said, watching Pea rub the back of his wrist, wincing in pain.
“How can we find out?” Mary asked. “There must be someone else who knows about it,”
“I’ve looked into it a bit. Most of the people from Mum and Dad’s circle are dead.”
Mary looked down at the wooden surface of the bar in front of her. Soon her father would be gone too. At eighty-four, he had lived a full life, but the reality was that it had ended ten years earlier when her mother had died. He had become quiet, introverted. Hiding away in his study for days on end and shutting out the world until, eventually, his mind had begun to decay along with his spirit.
Mary frowned as something jarred her from these nostalgic thoughts.
“Wait, what was that you were saying about a ‘fool’s bum’ or something? The other night when you were having your secret meeting.”
Pea sighed. “Dad said something about the answer being here at Blancham and then he said you’d find it under a fool’s bottom.”
There was a fraction of silence before Mary burst into laughter. She found her father’s words even more ridiculous as they jolted her from her sombre, questioning mood.
“Yes, he might have regressed a bit by that point,” Pea said, smiling. “Look, Mary. When this is all over, we’ll investigate this together, get to the bottom of it, OK?” He reached out and took her hand. “It’s probably nothing.”
“OK,” Mary said, squeezing his hand in return, “but I’m not someone that you both need to protect,” she said to both of them sternly.
They both nodded, Pea with a sheepish grin and Dot with pursed lips which suggested she wasn’t sure she believed her.
Mary knew now why they hadn’t told her. They had seen her wallowing in her flat, soaked in gin and thought she was in a delicate mental state. Probably correctly, Mary thought. For the first time she realised how much the loss of the show had affected her, and she shuddered.
“Mary,” Dave Flintock said in a voice like treacle.
He had risen from the sofa and was moving towards them with his palms facing outwards, a smile on his piggy face. “You and I should talk, we could use this publicity. The press is all over you as some crazed revenge killer, it’s just perfect! There’s never been a better time to get your career back on track!”
Mary felt the anger and frustration from today rise inside her. This small, toad-like man didn’t care about Melanie; he didn’t care about anyone. He only cared about himself.
Melanie’s senseless death, her father, sitting in a room with his once-fine mind turned to mush, a baby mentioned and a family secret, and here was Flintock trying to take advantage, trying to use her.
She got up from her stool, moved around the bar and punched him square on the nose.
Chapter Fourteen
Mary was standing in the small bathroom and staring at herself in the mirror. She felt and looked old. Dark rings circled her eyes, which contrasted ag
ainst her pale and washed-out skin. Her dark hair, which was normally styled up at the back allowing loose ringlets down either side of her face, was currently just a straight, hanging mess.
She looked down at her knuckles as the cold water from the tap poured over them. She had broken the skin on one, but it was the dull ache that throbbed throughout her entire hand that hurt more. It would be bruised for a while. Flintock’s head must be made of granite, which, now she thought of it, could explain a few things. Having already been hit once that day, his nose had exploded in crimson. Pea was almost certainly going to have to get new carpets in the living room.
There had been some kerfuffle as the uniformed officer had run across from the doorway to restrain her, but then couldn’t quite bring himself to do it when she was swearing like a trooper and clutching her fist.
She had beat a hasty retreat to the small bathroom of the main hall and was now considering staying there for the rest of the day. She wasn’t sure she could face that room again, with those petulant and self-absorbed people along with her two friends who, even if it was because they were concerned about her well-being, had lied to her.
Mary sighed and closed her eyes. With her right big toe still aching like crazy from stubbing it on the stone earlier, she was fast becoming the walking wounded.
She blinked in surprise as she realised that she was crying. Crying for Melanie, crying because of the betrayal, and even crying for the sister she was sure she had lost.
She stifled her sobs as she heard a voice from outside.
“Yes, sir, I realise that,” the voice said, and she recognised the dulcet tones of Inspector Corrigan.
“The press is being kept at the main gate for now, but we’ve already caught two trying to sneak onto the grounds. We’re a bit stretched for men if we’re being honest, sir.”
Mary crept over to the door that separated her from the hall and gently pressed her ear against it.
“Yes, I am considering her as a suspect, sir,” Corrigan continued, causing Mary to catch her breath. “We found the note I told you about in her room implying she was the killer, but we think it may have been planted there in order to throw suspicion on her.”