An Invitation to Murder: An amateur sleuth murder mystery (A Mary Blake Mystery Book 1)

by AG Barnett

  Steve’s fists clenched by his side as his face turned crimson.

  “No, I didn’t bloody well kill her. Did you?”

  Flintock laughed. “Course not! Anyway, I’m not the one being questioned by the police for a whole bloody hour, am I?”

  Steve pushed Emily aside and marched across the room towards him, but Mary jumped up and dashed across, heading him off halfway.

  “Come on, Steve, just ignore him. Why don’t we get some fresh air and have a talk?”

  He was breathing quickly, his face straining with anger, but he nodded and turned back towards the hallway. Mary followed him, but when Emily started along with them, she paused.

  “Can I just have a word with Steve on his own, Emily?” she said softly. “Maybe I can find out why things have cooled between you?”

  “Oh, OK,” Emily answered in her meek, high voice.

  Mary smiled at her before moving out into the hallway. She glanced to her right and saw Corrigan was standing outside the main front doors with a constable, looking out across the grounds with his back to her.

  “Why don’t we go up to the roof terrace?” she said, taking Steve’s arm and leading him towards the staircase before he could protest.

  Mary realised, though, that he wouldn’t have protested even if she had given him the chance. His expression had returned to the glazed blankness that he seemed to have worn all morning. It was as though he had checked out of the world around him and was locked inside the one in his head.

  As they walked along the corridor and passed Melanie’s room, she glanced in and saw two people dressed in the familiar white overalls of the crime scene profession packing away the last of their equipment. The constable who was standing at the door watched them pass through a narrowed eye but said nothing. Steve Benz, Mary noticed, kept his eyes forward.

  They stepped out onto the terrace, still littered with beakers of half-drunk mulled cider dotted around the heavy iron furniture and the plug-in cider barrel, which remained on the floor with its small red light glowing on top.

  “Oh blimey, we left this thing running all night!” she said, leaning over it and pulling the plug from the extension cord that was coiled next to it. Mary paused, frowning at the wound length of cable. Her hands reached out and touched the yellow dust that seemed to be all over it. She looked across the roof to the edge where the small yellow stone wall ran around the perimeter.

  There was a scraping of iron on paving slab behind her and she turned to see Steve slumped in a chair, his head in his hands. She realised, with some shock, that he was crying.

  “What is it, Steve?” she said, taking a seat next to him and putting her arm around his shoulders. “Was there something going on between you and Melanie?”

  The thought had seemed ridiculous when Emily had said it earlier, but now, looking at the tears rolling down his slightly rounded cheeks, it didn’t seem so far-fetched.

  “I just don’t understand,” he said, wiping his eyes and looking up to the sky where the clouds were thickening across the darkening sky as evening approached. “How can she be dead?”

  Mary resisted the urge to say, “because someone hit her over the head,” at the risk of sounding callous. Instead, she pumped for, “I didn’t know you knew Melanie?”

  “I didn’t,” he said bitterly. “That’s the whole bloody problem!”

  “I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.”

  He took a deep breath and turned to her.

  “She was my daughter.”

  “What?!”

  “I only found out a week or so ago. I’d had a brief thing with her mother and never saw her again. I had no idea she was pregnant. Melanie pieced it together from a friend of her mother’s, apparently.”

  “Bloody hell,” Mary said breathlessly.

  “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to feel,” Steve continued. “I know she was my daughter, but I didn’t know the woman. She was angry with me, but I had no idea she had even existed! Now it’s all too late. She’s gone and there’s no time for me to put any of it right.”

  “Is her mother still around?”

  “No, she died a couple of years ago. I didn’t really know her, just a weekend fling years ago. That’s why Melanie started asking about her father.” He choked back more tears. “About me.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “No,” he said, turning to her with urgency in his eyes. “And I don’t want anyone to, all right?”

  “Why not?”

  “I just need to deal with it on my own, and I don’t need bloody Flintock sneering at me anymore.”

  “The police though?”

  “I’ve told them, had to. They found the note Melanie had written to me and thought she was blackmailing me or something.”

  “Was she?”

  “No, she bloody wasn’t!”

  “OK, OK. I was just checking. And what about Emily?”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Melanie didn’t like her, she wanted me to stop seeing her.”

  Mary shook her head but said nothing. Again, Melanie messing with people’s lives. What was it to her that a father she had only known about for five minutes would be seeing someone? No, she had told Steve to stop seeing Emily out of spite, and because she could. Mary wondered if Melanie had even felt any anger towards Steve for not being there when she was younger, or was it all just an excuse to control people, to have the power over them she obviously craved?

  “Did Freddie know?”

  “I don’t think so,” Steve said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think she was very serious about him—she pretty much said as much to me.”

  He turned to her, his eyes wet with tears.

  “Did Flintock kill her?”

  “Why, do you think he might have done?” Mary asked.

  “Oh, come on, you’ve met the man. I’d say he’s capable of anything if there’s money in it for him.”

  “Well, I think it was someone in the house,” Mary said, her face serious. “I don’t think anyone could have got in through that window, and whoever it was left a note in my room.”

  “A note?”

  “It was a piece ripped from the script of the murder mystery game. I can’t imagine anyone from outside would have known to use that.”

  “Then it has to be Flintock,” Steve said grimly.

  “Or Freddie,” Mary said, wanting to see his reaction. “He was in love with Melanie, but I don’t think the feeling was mutual.”

  Steve frowned.

  “And then there’s Emily,” she continued.

  “Emily?!” he said, jerking upright in shock. “Surely you don’t think she could have had anything to do with this?!”

  “She thought there was something going on between you and Melanie. She didn’t know she was your daughter, she could have acted out of jealousy.”

  “Not Emily,” Steve said firmly. “She couldn’t have,” he said, shaking his head before sighing and rubbing his face as though trying to remove the skin. “You know Melanie got my show cancelled?”

  “Yes, Flintock told me.”

  “She was so full of spite, so full of anger. That was my fault, my fault for not being there for her.”

  “You can’t blame yourself, you didn’t even know about her.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I was her father, and I wasn’t there.” He jumped up suddenly. “I need to be alone for a bit, I’m going to my room.”

  Mary was about to protest but stopped herself. She watched him go and looked up at the wide sky and followed the faint contrails of a plane high overhead, a lighter streak on the dark background of cloud. Melanie had left a trail everywhere she had gone, but hers had been one of pain and destruction.

  Cancelling Steve’s show, blaming him for not being there for her, taunting and bullying his new girlfriend Emily, playing with Freddie’s emotions and antagonising Flintock. What had it all been for? Where had it got her? Her head bashed in
on the floor of a musty old bedroom.

  Mary got up, stretched, and walked over to the small wall that ran along the front of the house, being careful not to lean on the crumbling yellow stone as Dot had done. She looked down across the grounds to her right where the lake wallowed at the bottom of the slope, its waters an oily green. Her gaze ran along its shore to the folly and she frowned, the words of her father’s message to Pea running through her mind.

  You’ll find answers under a fool’s bottom.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She turned and hurried back across the roof to the doorway that led into the house. She bounded down the spiral staircase as she had done so many times as a child and stepped out onto the landing where movement up ahead made her slow. She watched the constable she had seen earlier leading the two crime scene operatives down the large staircase. She slowed as she reached the door to Melanie’s room and glanced through the narrow gap where it hung open.

  There was no one there.

  Without thinking, she stepped inside and pulled the door half closed again behind her. She stepped forward and then froze as she saw the dark stain of blood in the middle of the floor. She was suddenly glad of not having had anything to eat yet today, or she might well have had to see it again.

  She tore her gaze away from the stain and looked around the room. There was a sideboard with a mirror and chair, a double bed and bedside tables. None of the furniture seemed likely to have been the cause of the head injury, and Corrigan had said the crime scene team had ruled it out in any case.

  She noticed a suitcase in the corner of the room; its lid lay open and she could see several dresses folded neatly inside. Melanie had come prepared.

  She went into the bathroom and poked around but found nothing other than a few beauty products laid out by the sink. Her heart fell a little at the comparison to the huge range of products she used in the daily battle against her own aging skin. All Melanie had done was thrown some eye shadow and lipstick on and she had looked fantastic. Mary had to trowel on creams and potions these days, just to be able to pass for forty-five.

  She stepped back out into the bedroom feeling disappointed. There seemed to be nothing else to discover from the room. She had no idea what she had expected, but it was more than this. Of course, it was silly to think that the police would have overlooked anything that she could spot, but, still, she had wanted it to happen.

  She stepped to the still open window and looked down the sheer wall to the grass below. She was still sure that no one could have climbed up to it. She began to pull her head back into the room when she noticed the outside windowsill had a fine layer of yellow dust across it.

  “This is still a crime scene, Miss Blake,” Corrigan’s voice came from behind her. She jumped as she spun around.

  “Bloody hell! You frightened the life out of me!”

  “I think that’s what happens when you get caught sneaking around in a room where a murder has been committed,” the inspector answered.

  “I was just having a quick look, to see if I could see anything odd.”

  “You mean something we missed?”

  Mary felt her cheeks reddening. “Well, I don’t know how efficient the Tanbury police are. Deal with many murders, do you?”

  “More than you’d think,” Corrigan replied, sighing. “We cover the whole north of Addervale and you’d be surprised how many of these quaint little villages have their secrets.”

  Mary again thought of her father and his strange words to Pea. Yes, she was well aware that people had secrets.

  “Well, I’ll just leave you to it,” she said, moving towards the door. He reached out and gently put his hand on her arm. She stopped stiffly, as though someone had passed an electric current through her.

  “Have you found anything more that you’d like to tell me about your fellow guests?” he asked.

  “No, nothing important,” she answered, trying to ignore how close he suddenly seemed to be to her and how it was making her pulse quicken.

  “I’d rather you told me everything and let me be the judge of what’s important and what isn’t,” he answered. “Has anyone threatened you?”

  “No,” Mary answered, slightly taken back by the question.

  “This isn’t a game, Miss Blake. Someone is trying to frame you for murder, and I don’t know what their next move might be. Be careful.”

  “Thank you,” Mary said, pulling her arm away, “but I’m quite capable of looking after myself.”

  She left the room without looking back and moved quickly towards the staircase. Why was this man getting under her skin so much?

  She looked down into the hall as she descended and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was empty. She didn’t want anyone to follow her, not even Pea. She’d feel like an idiot if she were wrong.

  As she reached the front door it opened in front of her to reveal the rounded figure of Hetty Wainthropp.

  “Hetty!”

  “Mary dear! Are you OK?!” the little woman shrieked, dropping her basket and grabbing Mary in a tight hug.

  “I’m fine,” she answered, trying to breathe. “So, they finally let you in?”

  “Yes, bloody nightmare it is out there. As soon as those press people realised I knew you and Percy, they wouldn’t leave me alone! Asking me all sorts of questions they were, but I didn’t tell them nothing,” she finished proudly, grinning as she picked up her basket again. “I’ve brought all sorts to cook up, I’ll get going right away.”

  “Great, thank you, Hetty.”

  The small woman nodded and moved off towards the kitchen at the back of the hallway and paused. “I don’t believe what they’re saying about you, Mary, don’t you worry about that.”

  “Oh,” Mary said, unsure of what else to say, “thank you.” She knew the press would be hot on the idea that she was responsible for Melanie’s death, but worrying about it wouldn’t help.

  She stepped out into the grounds and was relieved to see that Corrigan was no longer around. She moved quickly to the right and began heading across the wide expanse of grass towards the folly.

  How had she not thought of it as soon as Pea had mentioned it? How had he not realised? It was so obvious! But she wanted to be sure, she had to go and look for herself. She reached the small stone building and stepped inside.

  The word “folly” means foolishness, and follies were built in country houses around England as a whimsical, indulgent act of the upper classes for centuries. “Under a fool’s bottom” had to mean under the stone bench that ran along the back wall.

  She got down on her knees and peered underneath the space, her hand reaching out and feeling along the large, solid slabs of stone that formed the floor.

  There was nothing there but the rough grooves between the stones, no gap, and no secret panel. She was about to give up when a crack in the wall made her pause.

  She reached out and pushed her fingers into the gap and felt the stone to the left of the crack move. She dug her fingers in further and the stone slid out onto the floor.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and turned on the torch function, shining its white light into the hole that now appeared under the bench. At the back was a small piece of faded paper. She felt her pulse race as she reached in and pulled the scrap from its hiding place.

  “Mary Blake?” a voice came from behind. She spun around, holding the note behind her back in her right hand.

  A man was standing before her, his hand stretched out in front of him holding a small, silver Dictaphone.

  “Do you have any comment on the fact that you are the number-one suspect in the murder of Melanie Shaw?”

  “No, I bloody don’t!” Mary said, standing upright quickly and advancing on the man.

  He was a young, scrawny-looking man with an eager face that gazed at her expectantly.

  Mary glanced at the Dictaphone and decided against saying anything further. Instead, she attempted to move past him. He moved to let her pass but went
the same way as Mary and they collided. Instinctively she held her hands up in front of her and the scrap of paper fluttered to the ground on impact.

  He reacted first, bending quickly and picking it up before she had recovered her balance. She watched his eyes scan the sheet quickly before handing it back to her.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, putting the Dictaphone away.

  Over his shoulder, Mary saw two police constables running towards them across the grass.

  “Not as sorry as you’re going to be when those police officers get here,” she said smoothly.

  He turned, saw them and laughed.

  “I look forward to seeing you again, Miss Blake!” he called as he turned and ran off along the shore of the lake, the officers veering to run after him.

  Mary turned away from them and headed back to the hall, clutching the scrap of paper tightly in her hand as she waited for her heart to stop thumping as though it would burst from her chest.

  She entered the hall to find Corrigan standing towards the back wall by the entrance to the kitchen. Ignoring him, she hurried towards the stairs and ran up them. She didn’t want to read whatever was on this paper in front of anybody, not even Pea. She would show him later.

  She continued making her way upwards until she found herself on the roof terrace where, for a moment, she looked up at the now ink-black sky, taking deep breaths of the cool air as she tried to compose herself.

  Mary walked to the seating area and perched on the edge of a hard iron chair before looking down at the note she had squeezed into her fist.

  It was handwritten, and she recognised her mother’s writing at once, causing a lump of emotion to rise in her throat.

  For the sake of the family, our baby we hide,

  And though she is gone, you will find her inside

  One day, time will come to bring her back home

  And in order to do so, you will need a tome

  And although this book is no longer a tree,

  Still but for woods, her you can’t see

  In Crickwood you’ll find, by a babbling brook,

  Using your glasses, in 100 look.