“I’d better go,” I tell him. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“You don’t have to go,” he says.
“I do, Luke. I don’t really want to be here. It’s difficult for me to be in the home you shared with Liza. I shouldn’t have come. I should have just telephoned.”
He reaches out a hand to stop me. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”
It’s no good; I can’t hold it in any longer. “Someone told me that you started dating her two months before we broke up. Is that right?”
He stares at me. Then he drops his gaze to the floor. That very act answers my question.
“I fell in love with her, that’s all,” he says.
“Goodbye, Luke.” I walk to the front door and go out.
“What was this all about, anyway?” he calls after me. But I’m in tears and can’t answer. I run to my car, make sure Merlin’s in, get in myself, and drive away.
Fighting against emotion, I try to concentrate on the details I’ve found out. There are still a few gaps I want to fill in before I contact Imogen. I need to speak to someone older who might have known what happened between Henry Billingham and Katherine Paxton. And there’s one person I know who’s a fount of information in this town.
I pull over, take out my mobile, and call Beatrix. I know she’ll probably be in her art studio. Sure enough, when she answers the phone, I hear music playing in the background. I can almost see her, dressed in a white smock, a palette in her hand, smearing coloured paint across a canvas while she sings.
“Gwen!” she says. “What a lovely surprise!”
“I’m so sorry to interrupt you while you’re working…”
“Not at all. What can I do for you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ve just been to see Luke.”
“Oh dear. Why?”
“I needed to ask him some questions about Liza. I found out something interesting, and I needed to clarify a few details. And I thought you might be able to fill in the blanks.”
“I’ll certainly try. Fire away.”
I look at the rain pattering on the windscreen and watch it run down the glass. “It’s about Henry Billingham. Did you know him?”
“I did. Nice fellow. A kind, gentle man. It was very sad when he passed away last year.”
“I understand he was once married to Katherine Paxton.”
“Yes, that’s right. About twenty-five years ago. They divorced when Mary was thirteen or fourteen.”
That would be around the time he won the fishing competition, when the photo was taken of him with a little blonde girl.
“Do you know why he and Katherine divorced?” I ask. “Was it because he had an affair?”
“That’s right,” Beatrix says. “It was a real scandal at the time. Apparently, he was seeing someone from Wells. A much younger woman. Katherine found out and locked him out of the house. Made a real scene—threw all his clothes out of the window, broke all his fishing rods. When he tried to talk to her she just screamed, and in the end the neighbours called the police. Mary witnessed it all, apparently. It must have been very hard for her.”
“Yes, she’s had a hard time, especially with Katherine’s cancer.”
“Katherine’s what?”
“Cancer,” I explain. “I spoke to Mary just before Mum died. She told me that Katherine had been diagnosed with breast cancer and didn’t have long to live.”
“I saw Katherine two days ago,” Beatrix says. “She was talking about going on a trip to Canada in September. She seemed fine to me.”
I’m so taken aback, words elude me. Katherine’s not ill? So, what about the book I saw in Mary’s bag?
And then I get it. Oh…
Beatrix goes quiet for a moment. “What’s all this about?”
“Just trying to sort out a few things,” I say. “I’m sorry to be mysterious, but I need to speak to Immi first.”
“Of course, dear.”
“I have to go, but I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Yes, that would be lovely. Take care of yourself.”
“I will. Bye.” I hang up, put the car in gear, and continue driving.
By the time I get to the town centre, it’s pouring down. I drive to the police station and park in the car park out the back, so I don’t have far to walk. Bringing Merlin with me, and with the scrapbook tucked under my arm, I run across the tarmac to the main building and go inside.
The foyer is quiet, and the police officer sitting behind the desk is working on her computer. When I approach, she looks up and smiles. “Hello. Can I help?”
“I wondered if I could see DCI Hobbs, please,” I ask.
“I’m afraid she’s busy at the moment,” she replies. “Can anyone else help?”
I hesitate. “I’m an old friend, and I have some very important information about a case she’s working on. Could you just check to see if she’ll see me?”
“Of course. Please have a seat.”
I give her my name, go over to the row of seats against the wall, and sit. I’ve never bothered Immi at work before. Merlin sits on my foot, apparently as nervous as I am. The police officer picks up her telephone and talks quietly for a while, then hangs up. “She’ll be right out,” she calls to me.
“Thank you.” My pulse is racing. I sit, heart racing, until the doors into the station open, and out comes Imogen.
She’s wearing a dark navy suit today, her hair in a tight bun, and she looks every inch a DCI. But when she approaches me, she smiles.
“Hey,” she says. “What’s up, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I moisten my lips.
“Claire said you had some information about the case,” Immi says.
“That’s right. I think I know who murdered Liza.”
She stares at me. “Oh. Okay. Well, in that case you’d better come in.”
“Shall I leave Merlin here?”
“No, he can come too. We like dogs here.” She ruffles his ears, and he licks her hand.
I follow her into the interior of the station, and we walk past a large open-plan room filled with desks and whiteboards that looks like a scene out of every cop show I’ve ever watched. She takes me right to the end of the corridor, through a door that has ‘DCI Imogen Hobbs’ stencilled on the front, and into her office.
She shuts the glass door behind me and gestures to the chair on the other side of her desk.
“This is weird,” I say.
“Very weird.” She sits in her chair and leans on her desk. “So… where do you want to start?”
Chapter Nineteen
I take a deep breath. “I went to see Luke this morning.”
“Oh?” She frowns in concern. “Did it go okay?”
“It was… difficult, but let’s not talk about that. I want to talk about Liza.”
“Okay.”
“Luke told me that Liza was adopted.”
Imogen nods slowly. “That’s right. He told me the same thing.”
“And on the morning she died, she received an email from the agency she’d engaged to discover her birth father. Luke didn’t see the email, but I’m guessing you’ve managed to download it from the server, or something.”
Imogen’s lips curve up in a little smile. “Maybe.”
“And I think it said that Liza’s father was a man called Henry Billingham.”
She nods slowly. “How did you figure it out?”
“Well, Henry was married to Katherine Paxton, and they had a daughter called Mary. Mary Paxton, who owns the florist.”
“That’s right.”
“When Mary was around fourteen years old, in 1995, Henry and Katherine divorced.”
“Yes.”
“This was because Katherine discovered that Henry was having an affair with a woman called Anne, who came from Wells.”
Imogen leans forward on the desk. “I see.”
“Anne was a lot younger than he was. I think Henry first met her maybe five years be
fore, around 1990. He fell in love with her, and she got pregnant. And obviously, they called their daughter a derivative of Elizabeth—Liza.”
“Why ‘obviously’?” Imogen asks.
“Think about it, Immi. Their names. Katherine and Henry. Their daughter Mary. Henry was a history buff and head of the Local History Society. He would know that Henry the Eighth’s first wife was Katherine of Aragon, and their daughter was Mary.”
Imogen’s eyes widen. “Of course, Bloody Mary. And his second wife…”
“Was Anne Boleyn. I imagine Henry thought it was rather funny that he married Katherine and then fell in love with Anne. And who was Anne Boleyn’s daughter?”
“Queen Elizabeth the First,” Immi says. “Liza.”
“Yes. That’s why he had the Tudor rose pendant made for Anne. Look at this photo.” I show Imogen the cover of the scrapbook that explains it holds photos of the fishing competition winners and turn to the page showing the winner in 1994. “See the little girl holding Henry’s hand? She’s blonde, about three years old—the same age we would have been then, and she’s wearing the Tudor rose pendant. It’s got to be Liza.”
Imogen’s jaw drops. “Oh wow. You’re right.”
“Immi, I think that the day she died, after reading that email from the agency, Liza confronted Mary Paxton with the truth. I think Mary hated the fact that Anne broke up her parents’ marriage, so the seeds for her resentment toward Liza were already sown. We may never know what happened between them, but we do know that at the end of the day, Mary came looking for Liza. I saw her waiting out by the Abbey in the dark. She must have seen her go into my café, then come out again and go into the library. She followed her in there and killed her.”
“So you think Mary’s the witch who cast the astrological binding spell?”
“I’m certain of it, for three reasons. Firstly, like the way I do magic with my cooking, I think she does her magic through her flowers. I think she curses the blooms sometimes. And I think you already suspected her, and that’s why you bought that bouquet and gave it to me—to see if I sensed any magic on it.”
She has the grace to look ashamed. “That’s partly true. I did want to get you something for Ostara, and I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I’m so sorry.”
I wave a hand. “I don’t care. The thing is—you were right. I was very sick when we got back from the hospital, and when I went into the kitchen, the flowers had all died, and all the fruit in the bowl had rotted. I got rid of it all and felt much better, but I knew someone had cursed me.”
Imogen has gone pale. “Oh no, I feel terrible. I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s all right, Immi. It’s a good thing—it means we’re on the right track. The second reason I’m certain Mary did it is because six months ago, she came into the café and she had a book in her bag. It was called Understanding Cancer. Naturally, I assumed she or someone close to her had the disease, and when I asked her if she wanted to discuss it, she told me her mother had breast cancer and didn’t have long to live. But today Beatrix told me that Katherine’s planning a holiday to Canada in September, and that she seemed fine. And then I remembered the hospital.”
“Baby Cassie?”
“Cassie’s mum, Rachel. Christian said he’d introduced her to Liza when they were in a restaurant one evening, both celebrating their birthdays. And Rachel’s birthday was July the eighteenth. The astrological star sign of Cancer. I think Mary knew that Liza was a Cancer, and she was researching the sign for the astrology binding spell. I think the tears I saw were of anger, not of pain over her mother. Right back then, she was planning to kill Liza, and she wanted to chain her to this plane, so she didn’t go to heaven with Henry.”
Imogen sits back in her chair. Her face is full of admiration. “That’s all so amazing,” she admits. “But I can’t use that in court, Gwen. I need something solid to be able to convict her.”
“That’s where point three comes in. You know Christian said he knocked over the vase when he returned from getting his laptop from his car?”
“Yes…”
“Well, I remembered that when I came into the library to return Liza’s money purse, I put my umbrella in the stand by the table, and there was a vase of roses on it.”
“Roses?”
“Yes. They must have come from Mary’s florist shop, and I bet if you test the vase for fingerprints, you’ll discover Mary’s on there.”
She taps her pen on the table. “That places her at the scene. It doesn’t prove she committed the murder.”
I frown. “Then what about the fishing line?”
“What about it?”
“Maybe Mary knew about the photo in this scrapbook, and she used the fishing line on purpose, as a symbol.” An image flares suddenly in my mind the way I thought about the roses earlier, maybe prompted by the ginseng cookies. “You need to search her shop,” I tell Imogen. “There’s something in there that will tie her to the case. I don’t know what… sorry.” I finish lamely, unsure.
Imogen smiles, playing with her pen as she surveys me. “I’ll definitely look into that. I think you’re right; I think she did do it.”
“Is it possible for a woman to strangle someone?” I ask. “It’s the only thing bothering me. I wouldn’t have thought we were strong enough.”
“Oh, it’s definitely possible. We think she used one of the library desks for leverage as it has cuts in the top, maybe standing behind it and using her weight to pull on the line. I stole a coffee cup from the florist when Mary’s back was turned. I’m hoping DNA from the cup matches that from blood spots we found at the scene which came from where the fishing line cut into her fingers. She wore gloves the next day when we saw her with Christian, remember? While I’m waiting for the results, I’ll apply for a search warrant for the florists.”
I sit back, relieved, and slide my hands into my pockets. My fingers close around the ruby ring. It’s warm in my hand, the stone hot in its socket. As Imogen scribbles on a notepad, I close my eyes and think of Arthur.
And that’s when another image pops into my mind—the bouquet of flowers that Imogen bought me from Mary’s shop. Peonies, roses, tulips, freesias…
“Roses,” I tell her.
She looks up and raises her eyebrows. “What?”
“In Mary’s florist shop. You need to find a pot of roses. There’s something buried at the bottom.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, sorry.”
“Okay.” She writes it down. “I’ll check it out.”
I blow out a long breath. “Well, I suppose I should get going. You’ll let me know how you get on?”
“Of course.”
We stand, and she comes around the desk. “Gwen, I truly am sorry about the curse on the flowers. I thought you might be able to pick something up from them—I really didn’t think it would make you ill.”
“It’s okay.” I give her a hug. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Are you going home now?” she asks as she walks me out of the office.
“No, I’m going back to the café to help them tidy up. Then I need to go to the Adventure and sort out Sir Boss.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
I realize she doesn’t know what happened this morning. “Matthew Hopkins complained to the Health and Safety Department at the Council about the fact that Sir Boss’s sword nearly fell on him, and he’s managed to get Sir Boss taken away.”
She stops walking and stares at me. “Oh no!”
I smile. “It’s okay. I’m going to talk to someone at the Council. And he’s not gone far—he’s only in the interactive museum part of the Adventure.”
She looks around her, then leans forward and whispers conspiratorially, “Did you pick up the ring?”
“I did.” I slide a hand into my jeans pocket and retrieve it. She takes it from me and turns it over in her hands.
“So he’s in here, right now?” she asks, peering a
t the stone.
“I’m not quite sure how it works—whether he’s there all the time and can hear us, or if he only becomes conscious when he’s near the suit of armour. But yes, this is the ruby. And tonight, I’ll find out if it’s worked.”
“Good luck!” She gives me back the ruby and hugs me again. “Take care of yourself.” She ruffles Merlin’s fur. “You too, boyo.”
I blow her a kiss, and Merlin and I leave the police station and go back to the car.
I feel relieved that I’ve managed to get it all off my chest. It’s in Imogen’s hands now. I don’t know if I helped much in the end, but maybe I gave her something she can work with.
The rain blows against the window as I drive back to the café. It’s mid-afternoon, dark and a little blustery; I’ll be glad when the clocks go forward next weekend. But inside the café it’s light and warm, and I go inside with pleasure. I take Merlin through to the break room, and he curls up in his bed, where he’ll stay for a few hours, sleeping soundly. Then I return to the kitchens and get to work.
The hours pass quickly as I make muffins and coffees, deliver them to customers, and then begin to clear up for the day. As six o’clock draws near, Delia and I wipe down the tables, and then after she’s gone, I sweep the floor and wipe over the counter.
It’s weird being here without Sir Boss by the door. I haven’t had time today, but tomorrow I’ll ring the Council and see if I can speak to someone about getting permission to have him returned. In the meantime, though, it’s time to see if I can bring Arthur to life.
I turn off the lights, and Merlin and I go out into the dark evening. I lock the café, then walk the short distance to the entrance to the Adventure. Briefly, I stop and remove my earrings, slipping them into my jacket pocket, then I continue. The doors are locked, but I tap on the window, and Helen, who’s just finishing up, comes over with a smile and lets me in.
“So sorry,” I tell her, “but I’ve lost one of my earrings.” I bring out one of the pair I was wearing from my pocket and show her. “It looks like this—I don’t suppose it’s been handed in?”
One Dark and Stormy Knight Page 13