From Devon With Death

by Stephanie Austin

  Meredith smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It’s still on, then, the exhibition?’ I thought as Verbena had been helping to organise it, Meredith might have decided to call it off.

  ‘I thought about cancelling it, obviously,’ she responded, meeting my gaze, ‘but that didn’t really seem fair to Anthony and …’ she shook her head sadly, ‘it wouldn’t help Verbena.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Chloe agreed briskly. ‘Well, I think you’re jolly brave − both of you girls,’ she added, glancing at me. She knew nothing about Luke’s death and neither, I imagined, did Meredith. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone except Elizabeth. The news would get out soon enough without my help.

  Chloe then offered Meredith sherry, which she declined, saying she must be on her way and I showed her out.

  ‘I suppose it seems strange,’ she admitted to me, hovering at the door, ‘going around with these invitations so soon after …’ She cast me a sudden despairing look. ‘I couldn’t bear sitting in the gallery waiting for customers to come in. To be honest, I needed something to do.’

  ‘Something to focus on,’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘You understand.’ There was a rare moment of empathy between us and she surprised me by giving me a hug.

  Oh, I understood exactly.

  As it turned out, I didn’t need to go around Ashburton’s antique shops enquiring if they’d recently sold a print of Millais’ Ophelia. That part of the mystery was solved without any effort from me by a phone call from Vicky Smithson, a fellow antiques dealer based near Exeter. She’d heard about what she called ‘the dreadful goings-on in Ashburton’, and phoned to ask how I was. She and her husband Tom knew Verbena professionally and were shocked to learn of her murder. I didn’t really want to go into detail and Vicky is too polite to ask a lot of probing questions, so after assuring her I was fine, it looked as if our conversation might be at an end, and then she said, ‘Has Ian delivered the picture yet?’

  ‘Picture?’ I repeated, my antennae suddenly bristling. ‘What picture?’

  ‘The Pre-Raphaelite print.’

  ‘A Millais?’

  ‘Yes, Ophelia,’ she responded cheerfully. ‘One of the dealers at our place, Ian, promised to drop it into you next time he was calling in to Ashburton to see a dealer friend of his. That was weeks ago. Don’t tell me he’s forgotten and it’s still riding around in his van!’

  ‘Um … no, I did get it,’ I told her cautiously. ‘I didn’t realise it had come from you.’

  ‘Don’t you remember? We were at that auction in Exeter before Christmas and you’d bid for that very pretty Victorian print. And when we were packing away, Tom managed to step back on it …’

  ‘Oh, yes, he broke the glass!’ I remembered. I’d just been thankful he hadn’t cut himself.

  ‘He put his great foot right through it,’ Vicky continued, ‘and made a huge hole getting it out. The print was completely ruined.’

  I’d forgotten all about it. Tom was mortified and promised to send me another picture in exchange. I told him not to worry. It had only been worth a few pounds. I certainly didn’t expect him to replace it.

  ‘We couldn’t find anything similar,’ Vicky explained. ‘But we thought you’d like the Millais. Didn’t Ian explain it to you?’

  ‘I wasn’t in the shop at the time,’ I responded. ‘Ophelia’s arrival has been a bit of a mystery.’

  After laughing about how silly it all was, we said our goodbyes. At least there was one thing I could cross off Elizabeth’s list.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I phoned Inspector Ford first thing, to give him the information about where the picture had come from. I also phoned Pat. She tried bravely to pretend she was bearing up, but her voice was broken. She sounded worn out with weariness and grief. She promised to be back in the shop soon. I told her to take her time.

  Unfortunately, finding out where the picture had come from didn’t shed any light on any of the other questions on the list. If the killer didn’t send it, then the person who marked it with the red marker must have done so spontaneously on seeing it hanging on the shop wall, probably as a tasteless joke. But whoever had made the mark on the painting, Verbena’s killer must have seen it, must have known it was there. I couldn’t get away from the unpleasant fact that her killer was one of the people who came into the shop that Saturday. I told all this to Sally the Labrador as I walked the Tribe that morning. She plodded along beside me while the younger dogs raced on. She was a very attentive listener, and although she looked incredibly wise, the fur around her dark brown eyes flecked with owlish grey, she could offer no help on the situation.

  There was one item Elizabeth and I had deliberately left off the list, probably because we only knew one answer and didn’t like it. The question was: who had the opportunity to kill Verbena and to dump her body in the lake? The only answer was Daniel Thorncroft, the man who drove her home alone, the last person to see her alive. Elizabeth didn’t like the idea that he might be a killer, and despite the fact I found the man profoundly annoying, neither did I. He didn’t seem the violent type.

  And if he did kill her, what was his motive? Perhaps he was the one who wanted to go inside for a nightcap and Verbena the one who had refused. This could have led to an argument, a fight, a fatal accident. But if he’d killed her accidentally, why dump her body in the lake, why not just leave her in her house where it might be days before she was found? No, I was sure the killing must have been premeditated and putting her body in the lake was all part of the plan. And if Daniel Thorncroft had killed Verbena, did that mean he had also killed Jessie? Questions raced in my brain like trapped rats hunting for a way out. It was difficult to concentrate on anything.

  Chloe’s packing took me most of the day to get finished, ready to hand her over to Charles and his limousine on Friday morning.

  Ricky rang later, when I was back at the flat, to ask if I could give him and Morris a hand next day. He told me that the police had been searching the field on the far side of the lake. He inherited the field from his aunt along with Druid Lodge, but he has no use for it so he rents it out to a farmer who grazes sheep. The only separation between the field and the water is an old wire fence. It seems that the police found a strange track leading across the field from a gate in the lane to the fence at the water’s edge, as if something had been dragged over the grass. They also found tyre marks in the muddy lane by the gate. It seemed the killer must have parked there and dragged Verbena’s body across the field, somehow.

  They had taken casts of the tyre marks. I rang Dean Collins later, who told me the marks didn’t match the tyres on Luke’s pickup or any of the other vehicles at Honeysuckle Farm.

  I could have told you that, I thought, as I put the phone down on him.

  Much as I love her, I was relieved to see the back of Chloe Berkeley-Smythe. She had become increasingly agitated following Verbena’s death, convinced that for the last two nights someone had been prowling around her cottage, trying to get in. I think she’s been having nightmares.

  ‘Someone rang my doorbell last night at nine o’clock,’ she told me indignantly. ‘But as you know, I never open my door after dark.’

  ‘Didn’t you look out of your window to see who it was?’ I asked, as chauffeur Charles and I began manoeuvring her luggage out of her front door.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she shuddered. ‘Just think! I might find myself staring into the eyes of a killer! I kept my curtains tight shut.’

  When the last of her luggage was loaded into the limousine, she turned to give me a farewell hug. ‘Now, you will be careful, won’t you, Juno, dear? I wouldn’t like to come back from my trip and find something dreadful has happened to you.’

  I promised I’d take care and stood in the lane waving her goodbye until the limousine was out of sight and I could let out a sigh of relief. Dear Chloe, for whom peril on the sea in the form of storms, sickness, modern-day pirates, collisions with container ships, icebergs,
incidents in international waters, predatory con men cruising on the hunt for a rich widow, held no fears at all compared to the terror of staying in Ashburton.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘I don’t wish to sound callous,’ Morris began solemnly as he poured tea, later that afternoon, ‘but it is a great relief to me that poor Verbena wasn’t actually drowned in our lake. I’ve barely been able to look at that water since all this happened.’

  ‘You and me both,’ agreed Ricky, sucking pensively on his vaping device.

  We’d stopped for a break from hunting for costumes for Teahouse of the August Moon, a play with a large cast of Japanese villagers. It was taking a while to find costumes to fit them all. ‘It’s bad enough her body being deliberately put there. I’ve been thinking about getting the bleeding thing filled in.’

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t!’ I protested, ‘Not after all Luke’s hard work. It looks so beautiful now. You can see the original planting.’ It was a sad irony: the blossom was a pale mist of pink amongst the bare branches, early primroses and daffodils were in flower. Winter was turning into spring and Luke was not there to see it.

  ‘I don’t want it filled in,’ Morris added, shaking his head. ‘I’d hate that. But I don’t want it to be a sad place, either.’

  We sat in thoughtful silence for a minute or two. Then Ricky asked, ‘So, where are the police now, with their enquiries?’

  ‘God knows!’ I answered bitterly. ‘They seemed to think Luke fitted the profile of a killer, but so far they haven’t found any evidence to link him to Jessie’s death or Verbena’s. I think they got distracted by the murder of Dave Bryant. Arresting his killers was a major coup, apparently, and will help them break up a prison smuggling ring. But when it comes to Jessie and Verbena, I think they’re back to square one, frankly.’ Not, I had to admit, that they were talking to me. Other than the little information I had managed to squeeze out of Dean Collins, I was as much in the dark as Ricky and Morris.

  I told them about the phone call from Vicky clearing up the mystery of where Ophelia had come from − not that it helped much − and also about the questions on Elizabeth’s list.

  ‘It’s strange that none of us noticed somebody marking that picture.’ Ricky puffed out a cloud of vanilla-smelling smoke, obliging Morris and me to cough ostentatiously and wave our arms about. He ignored us and rolled his eyes. ‘There were enough of us there.’

  ‘But the shop was very busy,’ I added, ‘busiest day we’ve ever had.’

  Morris gave an agitated sigh and began polishing his specs on his jumper. ‘I can’t remember everyone who came in.’

  ‘Well, there was Digby of course,’ Ricky mused, ‘and Amanda.’ He grinned. ‘The only crime she committed was quoting all that Shakespeare − and waltzing out with our feather boa, which she still hasn’t paid for yet.’

  ‘That young idiot from the Dartmoor Gazette came in,’ I added, ‘trying to pretend he was a customer.’

  ‘And Meredith,’ Morris remembered, ‘with that man you danced with at the ball.’

  ‘Daniel Thorncroft,’ I told him. I hadn’t forgotten him either.

  Ricky shrugged. ‘There were dozens of people in and out. That’s the problem with these old shops that have got so many rooms, you can’t keep an eye on everyone all of the time. It’s a pity you don’t have security cameras installed. Some of the other antique shops do.’

  I made a face. ‘I’d hate that.’

  ‘Then it’s just a pity you didn’t notice the mark on the picture, my love, before you closed up.’

  Yes, I agreed, it was a pity.

  After all the trouble and strife it was a relief to enjoy a couple of days when nothing exciting or dreadful happened. I just got on with my Domestic Goddess duties while Sophie manned the shop. There was still no sign of Pat and she was being a real star, covering Pat’s shifts on top of her own so that I could catch up. I popped into Old Nick’s at the end of the day on Wednesday so that I could let her off early. The spring-like weather must have brought out the customers. In the last two days she’d sold an expensive Imari bowl for me and a solid-silver jam spoon, circa 1830, one of the lonely valuable items that I kept locked in my glass cabinet. Another customer had donated several boxes of paperback books they didn’t want. I was trying to build up a second-hand book department to fill empty shelves at the back of the shop and good-quality paperbacks were just what I needed, especially if they were free. Sophie had also made sales for Pat and sold two paintings herself, so all in all, we’d had a good couple of days. After she had gone, I closed up and sat for a while, actually counting cash. I could afford to pay one of the bills. Please God, I entreated, can we have another good day tomorrow?

  Of course, I should have gone home then. But I couldn’t help myself; I was longing to look through the donated books. They were all quite new and in good condition, as if they’d only been read once. I unpacked them, gave the covers a wipe over and then arranged them on the shelves in alphabetical order of author. I’m a stickler for alphabetical order. I think charity shops that fail to arrange their books in this way make it difficult for customers and don’t deserve to sell any. It’s probably just the pernickety Capricorn in me.

  I heard bell-ringing practice start up in St Andrew’s Church. It’s one of those things that, like the evening ritual of the circling rooks, makes me feel glad that Ashburton is my home. But the start of bell-ringing, which takes place every Wednesday, signalled that it must be seven o’clock. It was dark outside. In a few weeks the clocks would go forward an hour and it would be light at this time, but for now, night had descended on Shadow Lane.

  I took one last satisfying look at my gradually filling bookshelves, was about to turn out the lights, when I realised I’d left my bag in the storeroom. I nipped back, picked it up and flipped off the lights. Something strange happened then. There’s a small window high up in the storeroom that overlooks the alley that runs down the side of the shop. During the day it’s a convenient nip-through connecting Shadow Lane to Sun Street, but few people use it at night unless they’re prepared to risk blundering into wheelie bins in the dark. Just after I had plunged the room into blackness a light outside passed slowly over this window, a white glaring beam that shone across the glass from below. It could only be from someone standing in the alley with a torch. I watched, fascinated, as the beam went back and forth across the glass, and then around the frame, as if someone was searching to find out how the window opened. Unfortunately, from a burglar’s point of view, it was nailed shut. The only way in would be to make a noise and break the glass.

  The beam of light moved away, leaving the window a dim rectangle barely lighter than the surrounding walls. I slid across the hallway and flicked off the lights in the shop, just leaving the spotlights on in the windows. I was grateful I’d had the presence of mind to lock the shop door after Sophie had gone. As I slipped back into the hallway, barely able to make out the motionless figure of Mavis the shop mannequin in the darkness, there was a sudden rattling of the door that opened into the alley. It was kept bolted. We never came in that way, preferring to use the shop door. I crept up to the door, my heart thumping fast. The rattling came a second time. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Who is it? Who’s out there? What do you want?’ There was a moment’s silence then I heard footsteps hurrying away up the alley towards Sun Street, a bottle rolling across cobbles kicked by a hastily departing foot. I rammed back the bolts, my fingers fumbling for them in the dark, and rushed out into the alley.

  No sign of anyone. I ran up the alleyway, forced to weave my way between the bins. There was a pulse beating in my throat and my heart was racing. But by the time I reached the corner of Sun Street, my would-be intruder had gone. I looked up and down the street, but there were too many little lanes and ginnels leading off it for me to search. Whoever it was had slipped away. I walked slowly back to the shop, my heartbeat gradually returning to normal, bolted the alley door, then nervously checked all around th
e shop and flat above to make sure no one had slipped inside in my absence. Satisfied that everything was secure, I grabbed my bag and rooted for the keys, preparing to let myself out of the shop door. I crossed the shop in semi-darkness and stopped. A tall figure on the other side of the glass was staring in at the spotlit windows. I let out a shriek.

  The figure stepped back, waving his arms at me. It was Daniel Thorncroft.

  ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ he was yelling. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you!’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I shouted back, furious that he’d startled me.

  He pointed to a white carrier bag dangling from his wrist. ‘I was just fetching a takeaway for Lottie and me,’ he explained, giving a lopsided grin.

  I wrenched open the door. ‘That wasn’t you, was it?’ I demanded loudly. ‘Messing about in the alley just now with a torch?’

  His grin disappeared and he frowned, looking mystified. ‘Why would I be doing that?’

  ‘I think someone was trying to break in.’

  ‘Do you want me to go and check?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ve already done that. Whoever it was has gone.’

  ‘You should tell the police,’ he said seriously.

  Reluctantly I agreed with him, although the last thing I wanted to do was talk to them right now. ‘I’ll phone them when I get home … so, why were you were staring in the windows?’ I asked.

  ‘Uh … because it’s a shop?’ he ventured uncertainly. ‘Isn’t that why you leave shop windows lit at night, because you want people to look in?’

  I realised how hostile I had sounded and I should have apologised. But the man was so bloody infuriating. I was still cross with him for scaring me like that.

  ‘I’m sorry I frightened you.’ He seemed genuinely apologetic and I nodded an ungracious acceptance. ‘Listen,’ he went on, his tone more serious, ‘I was very sorry to hear about your friend, Luke. In the paper it said that his death was …’