Where There’s A Will

by Coles, Linda

  Will thought about the rule for a moment. It sounded plausible.

  “A forced move,” he said.

  “Kind of, yes. You touched, so you move, or in this case, you force my hand to do what I did.”

  “The first message said ‘your move’, so they were perhaps waiting for somebody to do something? If that’s the case, we just have to figure out what and who that someone is.”

  “Got it in one,” said Birdie. “I assume the police will have come to the same conclusion, put the connection together. It appears obvious.”

  “So, what’s our next move, then?”

  “Well, I’d say from what you you’ve told me this morning you’ve got access to eyes and ears on the streets that these people live in, and that gives you an advantage. Heavens, you’ve lived their lives, Will. You know how these people operate, who they trust, how they survive.”

  Will sat thoughtful for a moment and then asked, “Do you think there will be more deaths?”

  “How can we possibly know?” said Birdie.

  “There were two in quick succession, both with messages.”

  “Then someone obviously didn’t respond to the first message in time,” Birdie added. She leaned forward again, into Will’s space, and asked, “Do you know something you’re not telling me?”

  Will met her stare. “What makes you think that?”

  “I’m just reading you, and I think you’re holding something back, keeping somebody’s confidence perhaps, and from what my gut is telling me, I suspect it is that other character, the one that had a lucky escape, your friend Jonesy.” She sat back again and waited.

  She was, of course, correct.

  “I didn’t want to say anything, he’s taken me into his confidence and I’ve already broken it with Rochelle. Not that he told me much to be fair.”

  “Well, out with it. One more knowing won’t hurt,” urged Birdie sitting forward again.

  A couple of beats passed before Will gave in. “Okay. He wonders if there were two people that night. The one that smacked him a couple of times and then another that placed a cloth over his mouth and nose before he down he went. He thought it might have been a woman.”

  “He feels embarrassed going to the police, is that it? Really? Hell, some of the world’s most notorious criminals are women, I should know. The lad shouldn’t be so soft, silly bugger, and I’m surprised at you, Will Peters.” Birdie shook her head at him. “Now, back to that cloth. Might it have been chloroform?”

  “It would explain the drowsy part.”

  A notification flashed up on Birdie’s phone, and Will watched as she picked it up and read it, her red lips smiling slightly as she pressed to open and read the message fully. He waited, not wishing to pry, but intrigued as to what was amusing her. He watched while she tapped a response and then looked up at him.

  “It’s Cynthia,” she said, “did her husband in with rat poison.”

  “How could I forget. When are you meeting?” asked Will.

  “She’s suggested tomorrow. What’s your diary like, fancy a drive up?”

  Will knew exactly what his diary was like. He didn’t have any regular customers the following day, so it was all casual pickups, and since he hadn’t got any graves to dig for the rest of the week, he knew his diary was clear.

  “What time do you want to go,” he asked, “morning?”

  “How long is it to Leicester, would you say? An hour?”

  “About that, yes. You just pick a time.”

  “Excellent,” she said, and he watched while she tapped a message, her red lips grinning as she concentrated. She put the phone down. “We’re on. We leave here at nine o’clock and we’ll be there for morning coffee,” she said triumphantly. “It’ll be fun to see her again. I wonder what she’s doing with herself. I wonder if she’s remarried,” she said slyly. “Hell, I wonder if he knows her past! What a hoot!”

  Thirty-Five

  Once Will had delivered Birdie back to her house, he hadn’t much else planned for the rest of the day except for Stanley Kipper at 2 pm. The rest would be casual pickups, as tomorrow would have been had Birdie not organised a chunk of his time. He didn’t mind, he liked spending time with her, and since she was paying it didn’t matter whether it was a casual pickup or a delightful regular. He made himself comfortable in a town-centre parking space, ready for anyone that needed a lift. He rested his head back, closed his eyes and thought about Bowie and his injuries before his thoughts drifted to why the abductors had decided to let Jonesy go. Didn’t he fit the mould? He had to assume the cases were connected.

  His phone pinged, someone needed him. He looked at the address and started the engine before navigating the lunchtime traffic around the town centre. A minute or two later, he pulled up outside the appropriate house and waited while a young woman made her way down the very short front path to the pavement. She was pushing a buggy, a young child sitting comfortably inside. He noticed she had a small bunch of flowers in her hands, and he wondered who lay in Towcester Road Cemetery that she was going to visit. Knowing where she was going but not knowing how close she was to the deceased made conversation a little difficult. Normally he’d be bright and chirpy, ask about her day, general chitchat, but she looked in no mood for conversation with a stranger. Will respected her need for privacy and stayed quiet. Maybe on another occasion. They drove in silence for the relatively short journey to the same cemetery where Jonesy had been dropped and pulled up out the front. Will retrieved the buggy from the boot then waited while she placed the child in it and set off with her flowers. At least it was sunny, if a little overcast, but no rain on the horizon would make standing at someone’s graveside a little more bearable.

  When she was finally out of sight, he locked the car up and made his own way into the cemetery, walking slowly to stretch his legs more than anything. He’d be ready when she wanted to leave, but in the meantime he ambled along through the mixture of headstones and plaques in the sacred ground. A small gathering over to his left told him a committal was in progress, one of his colleagues responsible for digging the grave today. He’d seen the hearse parked up nearby, with the same undertakers as at the exhumation and Will tried not to smile. A woman and a burly man, both dressed in funeral black, waited in the wings. The man he instantly recognised from him landing in the dirt by his digger. Was she the woman he’d noticed that night too? Not wanting to pry, Will headed back towards the entrance again.

  Jonesy had described the place where he’d finally woken up that morning – just to the right and not far from the gate, he’d said. There was little point carrying someone further into a cemetery when you could dump them not far from the front wall. Will made his way over to the spot, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to be able to see. The grass was newly mown and there were no signs of a struggle, no plants bending over where they’d been snapped by someone’s foot, nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever. It was all nice and neat, there was nothing to suggest anyone had lain there overnight. Will looked around at the headstones. Many had stood proud for years, and nobody had been added to the space for a good long while. The whole area was nicely tended to, either by the sexton or by the dead’s visitors. Small, neat bunches of flowers sat at a handful of graves. In the distance he could see his fare was slowly making her way back towards the entrance herself. Not everyone stayed at the cemetery for long – a quick tidy or replacement of flowers, a few words and it was often time to leave. It appeared the young woman was the same. Will was about to head back to his car ready when something in the grass caught his eye and he bent down for a closer look.

  It was a marker pen – a blue one.

  Thirty-Six

  Thinking of the messages written on the two bodies, Will wondered about the blue marker pen in front of him. Could it be the one used? Was Jonesy the next intended, and had he had a lucky escape? He took his phone from his pocket and photographed the pen where it lay, incorporating the nearest headstone for location. He needed
to get it into his pocket without touching it; there could be valuable prints if it was anything to do with the murders. Since he never carried a handkerchief, he took his jacket off and gently used the edge of the cloth to pick the pen up then wrapped it within the fabric itself, hoping he didn’t smudge anything. It could well be evidence left by the killer. Of course it could be a random blue pen tossed into the grass, it was hardly a sinister item, it wasn’t like finding a bloodied knife or some such, and there could be a million simple explanations as to why it lay where it did. He wondered if the police had even been over the area where Jonesy had been found, but why would they really? Was Jonesy’s experience even connected to the other two cases? Whatever the reason, the pen was safely wrapped up and he’d take it in. They could get lucky.

  Will could see the young woman returning, and not wishing to intrude on any possible grief, not wanting to witness any tears that may be lingering in her eyes, he stayed by the car ready to receive the buggy for the boot. Her eyes averted, she gratefully thanked him and slipped inside on the rear seat.

  “Straight home, please,” the woman’s voice said over his shoulder. “Thank you for waiting, it makes things a little easier, particularly with the little one,” she said and stroked the boy’s fringe on his forehead lightly – not that it was in his eyes, but more of an affectionate move by his mother. Will glanced across at the passenger seat and its tiny cargo and debated dropping the pen off with DI Mason and experiencing her wrath for a third time in one day. If she was still mad with him from earlier, hopefully this would appease her if there was any value in it.

  A few short minutes later and parked outside the terraced house once again, he watched the young woman push the empty buggy up the short path, a toddler waddling very slowly at her side, hand held tightly in his mum’s.

  His latest passenger delivered safely home, he figured he’d got just enough time to drop the pen with DI Mason before going on to pick Stanley up and observe his choice of reading material for the orthopaedic patients that afternoon. He hoped for their sake it was time for a western and not more Labour Party politics, though what was on the menu depended on Stanley’s mood.

  Will made his way back across to Newport Pagnell Road in the hope that Rochelle had forgiven him and was in a better mood. Maybe he should have brought her lunch? Maybe she’d still be down at the hospital receiving treatment, or maybe she wasn’t even in the building and he would give it to somebody else. That could be the best option. He entered through the front door and approached an officer.

  “I’m afraid DI Mason is away from the building,” he said.

  “In that case is DC Flint available? He’s part of the same investigation,” added Will.

  “I’ll see if I can find him. Can I ask what it’s regarding?”

  “I’ve just found something I think both of them will be interested in, perhaps a piece of evidence. It was in the grass at Towcester Road Cemetery. I’ve not touched it,” Will said, offering his wrapped jacket. “It’s a blue marker pen.”

  The officer stared at the jacket as Will carefully unfolded it, revealing the pen in all its glory. It looked like any old pen from anyone’s desk. Will proffered it to him and said, “It may be part of the case that they’re working on. I spotted it by a grave only a few minutes ago.” Will could tell by the look on the man’s face he had no clue about the particular case, but that didn’t surprise him. There could be several on the go that the task force was working on.

  “I’ll get an evidence bag in the meantime,” he said and wandered off, leaving Will holding his jacket and pen. A moment later, the officer returned and placed the pen into the bag, sealed it and wrote something on it that Will couldn’t decipher.

  “Is DC Flint coming to take it?” Will asked.

  “I’ll just take this through to him now it’s in a bag. Has he got your details?”

  “He has, but please tell him Will found it at Towcester Cemetery. It’s to do with Jonesy and or the recent deaths, he’ll know.”

  “Righto, no doubt he’ll be in touch if he needs anything else.”

  Will knew it was the end of the conversation, his time to leave. A quick glance at the clock on the wall said he needed to get over to Stanley’s place quick smart or risk the old man’s displeasure at him being late. He was getting tired of being told off, by anyone.

  Thirty-Seven

  Will needn’t have worried because by the time he pulled up outside Stanley’s house at the Crescent, he had two minutes to spare. After letting himself out of his car, he headed towards Stanley’s front door in case the man needed help getting down the path. Why he didn’t use some sort of walking frame, Will would never know, but the man was independent and preferred to go at his own pace, he wasn’t ever in much of a rush. And who was Will to stop him? He was halfway up the path, and through the overgrown jungle that you could call the front garden, when the door opened and Stanley appeared. Will instinctively looked down to see if it was a good day or not and noted actual shoes for a change. It boded well. Instinctively, he raised his gaze to look at what was in Stanley’s hands, but he couldn’t see the titles of the books he held. Raising his gaze further, he met Stanley’s eyes and broke into a smile. He hoped the elderly man would return one.

  “Afternoon, Stanley,” he said brightly. “How are you today?”

  “Not bad,” said Stanley somewhat gruffly, but Will knew ‘not bad’ was positive for him.

  “Do you need a hand or are you flying solo this afternoon?”

  “Bugger off, Will,” he said. “I don’t need any help. I’m quite stable on my own, just slow.” Will suppressed a smile and watched, standing back slightly as Stanley made his way at a snail’s pace towards the waiting vehicle. It was then he noticed Stanley had left the front door wide open. “Should I close the door for you?” Will called.

  “What?”

  “The front door, Stanley. It’s wide open. Have you got your keys with you if I close it?”

  “Of course I’ve got my keys, you idiot.” The old man must have caught himself and what he’d just said because in a much softer tone he said, “Yes, thank you, you can close the door.” Will watched as the man turned away and resumed his snail’s pace, and wondered what he himself would be like when he reached his eighties. Would he be just as gruff? Were they all destined to be grumpy old men once they became octogenarian?

  Will didn’t need to hurry to catch the man up, several steps did it, and he walked slowly just behind him until they reached the car, where he opened the rear passenger door for him. Stanley grunted and groaned as he made himself comfortable, placing his handful of books alongside him on the seat. It was then that Will finally got to see the content. More Labour Party politics, more Michael Foot, though a different book from last time. There was no sign of a western, but there was something else peeking out that he couldn’t quite see the title of.

  “So, what’s today’s reading material, Stanley?” he asked, getting in behind the wheel.

  “I thought I’d educate a bit more,” he said.

  “Just the Michael Foot, then?”

  “Yes, and for a bit of colour I’ve brought a Jeffrey Archer. He was a Labour supporter, you know.”

  Will knew that was most definitely not the case, the old man was confused. “I thought Jeffrey Archer was a Conservative MP, Stanley.” Will knew from experience it was best to say there was a possibility of him being wrong to save an argument, even when he was one hundred per cent correct. Archer had later become a peer of the realm before going to prison for perjury and was most definitely not a Labour supporter.

  “You’re wrong, Will,” said Stanley. “He certainly writes like one.”

  Will tried to imagine what a Labour novelist wrote like.

  “You must mean one of his characters is a Labour supporter, do you think? What have you been reading?”

  “The Clifton Chronicles,” said Stanley. Will had read the first couple of books in the series, and yes, there was a lot o
f politics between the covers. He tried to be tactful with his correction.

  “Jeffrey Archer was indeed a Conservative member of Parliament, Stanley, though some of his characters in the Chronicles were absolutely Labour. I’ve read them.”

  They drove in silence for a mile or two before Stanley spoke again. He must have been considering Will’s information.

  “Well, it’s a good book anyway, and it talks about Labour so I’ll stick with it, though if Archer himself isn’t Labour, maybe I should reconsider.”

  “I think your patients this afternoon would much prefer the made-up tales of Sebastian Clifton to the real-life drama of Michael Foot.” Will tried to catch the man’s eye and smile, but Stanley wasn’t for letting him. Silence reigned for another minute or two.

  “Anyway,” Stanley said, in an attempt to change the subject, “my daughter popped over yesterday afternoon and we went out. She drove us up to the country park. You know, where the woods used to be.”

  “You mean Hunsbury Hill?” said Will. “There are still plenty of trees up there these days, though you are right about ‘used to be’. Anyway, what did you do up there?” With recent events at Hunsbury Hill Park, the words were fast becoming regular vocabulary.

  “We went for a drive. Bought me an ice cream, she did. I don’t get to see Janice very often, she’s always too busy. But you’ll never guess what I saw while I was there?”

  Will glanced at the older man through his rear-view mirror and waited to see what Stanley knew. A beat of excitement hit his veins. Had he seen something to do with the case? The bodies?

  “What was that?”

  “That mayor of ours,” he said. “Sat on a bench in broad daylight, swigging wine from a bottle. Can you believe it?”

  “The mayor? Are you sure?”