(It’s mud. Dirt and water. There’s nothing to miss.)
‘There’s always something to miss,’ Oliver said, rubbing his hands together, then on his jeans to remove the last of the smudges from his skin.
‘Who are you talking to?’
Oliver’s heart gave a frightened thud as he whirled around. The head of an old woman perched on the top of the fence leading to next door. For a horrifying moment Oliver thought he was seeing a ghost. Then the woman stepped up onto something and a neck and torso came into view. He was so relieved he failed to hear her repeat the question.
‘I’m going to call the police,’ the woman said, promptly pulling a cell phone into view. She fumbled over the screen, then gave him a look of disgust. ‘You don’t know how to unlock these things do you?’
Oliver approached the fence slowly and saw she was trying to enter an unlock pattern onto the touch screen. She’d obviously tried a few times as a message informed her she was currently locked out.
‘You’ve got to enter the pattern exactly, otherwise it doesn’t work.’
‘Brilliant. I’m old, not stupid. I know that much. My granddaughter set this up for me and I can’t remember what the pattern is.’
Up close, Oliver could see the woman was possibly in her eighties, or older, or younger. He was hopeless at guessing ages. She was definitely older than his mother had been when she passed away two years ago. Maybe. Her grey hair was messily pulled back in a ponytail and a hearing aid was tucked discretely behind her left ear.
(For someone so in touch with his feelings, ye’re rubbish with women. She’s not a day over seventy-eight.)
‘You could call the police, but I’m here on behalf of George McMurry and his family. I’m trying to prove that George is innocent of… the crime.’ He baulked at using the word murder in front of the woman in case it offended her.
‘You mean offing Ashley?’ She laughed at Oliver’s expression. ‘Son, I spent thirty years working a farm. I know more about killing then you ever will.’
(I like her.)
‘I’m Oliver.’
She considered him for a moment, then thrust her hand out. ‘Jessie Feilding.’
It was like shaking a leather glove with bones.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Oliver said, holding his hand out of sight so he could wiggle his fingers to try and restore feeling.
‘So you think the boy didn’t do it?’ Jessie’s face was a mass of wrinkles that rippled when she talked.
‘No.’
‘Is that fact or opinion?’
‘If it was fact I wouldn’t be poking around in his back yard,’ Oliver replied.
Jessie snorted. ‘True. What I mean is, do you think he didn’t do it because you don’t want him to have done it or because you have evidence that says he didn’t do it?’
Oliver reran the sentence a few times before it made complete sense. ‘No real evidence, but some strong indications.’
The old woman laughed, revealing crooked teeth. The bottom two were stained yellow. From a lifetime of smoking, Oliver guessed. When she coughed he caught a strong smell of nicotine.
‘Strong indications. I like that. And I liked the girl. She used to bring me freshly made bread every Sunday. In exchange for some of my eggs.’ She gestured and Oliver leaned over the fence to see a small chicken run with three chickens pecking away at the grass.
‘You can’t take the farm out of the girl, not entirely anyway. We used to talk a bit. She was never in a hurry.’
‘What about George?’
Jessie sniffed. ‘Never talked to him. Well, not more than a hello. He was always in bed hungover, or still out from the night before when she used to come over.’
‘Did they seem happy?’
‘Can’t say about him, but she was always happy,’ Jessie replied, scratching the loose skin on her neck. ‘One of those people I guess. She had lots of plans for the future.’
‘For when she left university?’
‘And sooner. She was a student, so money was always tight. When I saw her last week, she was excited about a new business idea. One she reckoned was going to make her some decent money.’
‘Do you know what the business was?’ Oliver asked.
Jessie shook her head. ‘She was working out the details.’
(Ask her about that politician fellow.)
‘Did Ashley ever mention Matthew Darcy?’
‘That politician fellow?’ Jessie replied with a surprised look. ‘She never said his name, not in my house. Can’t stand him myself. Too smug. Too full of himself. Things were different when I was a girl. Politicians were people like us. You’d find them in the fields working next to the people they were representing. That Matthew Darcy looks like the only thing he’s ever used a shovel for was his own manure.’
What rot. Politicians have always been nasty, self-serving, wastes of society.
The old woman was staring at him with a hint of a smile and Oliver dutifully laughed. She nodded in satisfaction.
‘What about the night she died? Did you hear anything?’
She tapped the hearing aid. ‘This goes off at ten o’clock. The only thing that wakes me up during the night is my bladder and that didn’t hear a thing.’
‘What about in the days before? Did you see anyone hanging around that shouldn’t be there?’
Jessie’s face registered her contempt at the silly question. ‘I live opposite the zoo. There are always people coming and going. If I sat down to note every stranger hanging around, I’d have no time for anything else.’
‘Good point. Although someone as sharp as you would surely notice someone who was repeatedly here,’ Oliver tried for flattery.
‘Careful, boy. I spent my life around animal manure and I recognise the smell anywhere.’
(Ha, she’s got yer number.)
He adopted an expression he hoped said, Sorry, but could you please answer the question anyway.
‘No one that I remember,’ Jessie admitted. ‘But if I’d known it could mean identifying a murderer, I would have paid more attention.’
‘Well, thank you for your time,’ Oliver said, and turned to leave.
‘For what it’s worth. I don’t think the boy did it either.’
He couldn’t resist. ‘Is that fact or opinion?’
‘Just a strong indication,’ she responded with a twinkle in her eye.
Oliver inclined his head to acknowledge he’d lost the verbal joust, and she laughed, ejecting another blast of stale tobacco in his direction.
(She was a waste of time.)
They were back in the car. Oliver sighed and tapped the steering wheel in frustration. ‘Is there any particular reason you dislike women so much?
(Who says I don’t like women?)
‘You do. Every time you open your mouth — or whatever the ghost equivalent is.’
(Aye, ye’re way off track.)
‘Then what’s with all the comments?’ Oliver asked as he started the car.
(I don’t know what ye mean. That’s just the way I talk.)
‘Well, it’s kind of annoying.’
(Tough. I lived for seventy-eight years, and have been dead for another fifty-nine. If ye’re expecting me to change, stop expecting.)
‘You don’t need to change. Just don’t go on about it.’
There was a long silence. Long enough for a warm feeling of satisfaction to spread through Oliver’s chest.
(Ye want me to shut up, find out who snuffed Ashley, get George off with the coppers, and I’ll shut up forever.)
To make his point, Angus spent the next fifteen minutes singing an increasingly vulgar series of drinking songs, which might have been mildly amusing if his voice hadn’t sounded like gravel spinning in a clothes drier.
As Angus began to run out of steam, Oliver had an idea. Turning the car around, he headed back into the city.
Five minutes later he parked outside the McMurry house and climbed the slippery steps.
When Louise opened the door her face lit up with hope, only for it to fall again when she read the expression on his face.
‘I need to talk to George.’
She stepped aside and closed the door behind him, then ushered him into the dining room. She disappeared and returned a few minutes later with her son. George rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, then dropped into a chair. Louise sat next to him.
‘What have you found out?’ Louise asked.
‘George, did Ashley know Matthew Darcy?’ Oliver asked.
Louise seemed surprised, but George’s eyes flicked to his mother, then away again.
‘Why would Ashley know him?’ asked Louise.
‘That’s why I’m asking.’
‘She never mentioned him.’ Louise turned to her son who was picking at the corner of his nose with his thumb. ‘George?’
‘She’d suddenly become interested in watching the news, especially politics,’ George reluctantly said.
‘How suddenly?’ Oliver said.
‘A week before she died.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘I figured it was something to do with school.’
‘What does this have to do with her death?’ Louise asked.
‘Probably nothing, but any change in behaviour could be important.’
Louise laughed. ‘You can’t possibly think the Deputy Prime Minister has anything to do with Ashley’s murder.’
Oliver smiled back. ‘Of course not. Like I said, I’m trying to understand any changes in her routine. I hear Ashley was starting a new business venture. Do you know what it was, George?’
The boy’s face crinkled in a laugh. ‘That. She thought she could make money by setting up a beauty spa and selling treatments cheap to all the uni students.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Oliver said in exasperation.
‘Because I didn’t think it mattered,’ George replied. His look of confusion was mirrored on his mother’s face.
‘Of course it matters. It explains how she died.’
FOURTEEN
What?’ Louise’s eyes widened in shock and even George sat up straight in his chair.
(What a load of rubbish.)
‘Well, it explains why she was in a bath tub full of mud when she died. Mud baths are a beauty spa treatment.’
(And how would ye know that?)
‘I had one once.’
(Aye, of course ye did. So did I.)
The next words caught in Oliver’s throat.
(Only I called it falling in a ditch.)
‘My guess is…’ Oliver pressed on with the sound of laughter echoing in his head, ‘…that she was trying out the process before offering it to customers.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ Louise said.
‘How does that change things?’ George asked.
‘Quite a lot,’ Oliver told him. ‘We were working on the basis that the killer brought the mud with them, or made the mud using dirt from the garden. But if Ashley filled the bath with mud herself, then it changes how we think about the murderer.’
Surprise and shock showed on both their faces, and Oliver felt bad that he wasn’t finished.
‘It also means the police will look at George a lot closer, as it could easily have been a crime of passion.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ George protested.
‘Okay,’ Oliver replied with a raised hand. ‘I never said you did, and until those words actually come out of my mouth let’s assume I think you’re innocent, so you don’t need to keep saying it. I’m just telling you what the police will think.’
‘You’re supposed to be making this better, not worse,’ Louise said with a flash of anger in her eyes.
‘I’m not making it anything. I’m telling you how the police are likely to view the facts when they find them.’
Louise slumped back in her chair, fire fading, while George’s lips trembled, like he was about to start crying.
(Are ye happy now?)
‘Don’t start’, Oliver snapped.
The others stared at him and he hurriedly continued. ‘Don’t start thinking this is a bad thing. We want the facts to come to light, because the quicker they do, the quicker we can find the real killer.’
George straightened up and gave a big sniff. Louise automatically reached out and pushed a box of tissues closer to him.
‘Could I trouble you for a glass of water?’ Oliver asked her.
Louise gave her son an exasperated look, then left the room.
‘Okay,’ Oliver said, leaning forward and placing his hands flat on the table. ‘You’ve got twenty seconds to tell me how Ashley knew Matthew Darcy.’
George glanced over at the closed door, then shrugged. ‘She was researching him. She didn’t tell me why, but she was finding out everything she could about him.’
‘For school?’
‘I told you, she didn’t say. But I don’t think it was for school. I mostly knew what she was working on for her classes and this seemed to be something different.’
Before Oliver could press further, the door opened and Louise entered with a half-full glass of water.
‘What were you two discussing?’ she asked.
‘School,’ George replied quickly.
Oliver took a sip of water. I wonder why he doesn’t want his mother to know about Ashley’s interest in Matthew Darcy?
(We’ll never find out with her hovering like a mother hen.)
He made a note to ask George later.
‘Thank you for the water, Louise. I’d better be going.’
After saying his goodbyes at the front door, Oliver navigated his way down the stairs of death to the car.
Before he started the engine, Oliver called Amanda and updated her.
‘What was that you said about it being unlikely the murderer just had a bath full of mud waiting?’
‘In my defence, the odds were against Ashley filling the tub herself,’ Oliver said.
‘How do you even make a mud bath? I mean aside from taking a bath and adding mud,’ Amanda asked.
‘I’d say that’s essentially it, but I don’t think it’s a case of chucking in a whole lot of dirt from the garden and adding hot water. There’ll be something about needing the right nutrients.’
‘That’s very metrosexual of you, Oliver.’
(What the hell is a metrosexual?)
Never mind.
‘Of course, we can’t rule out the killer and the mud being related. If she got the mud from somewhere, or help from someone filling the tub, we’re back where we started.’
Oliver felt his satisfaction at making an important breakthrough deflate like a balloon with a slow leak.
(What’s the problem? If ye get knocked down…)
You get up again?
(No, ye come up swinging.)
‘You’re probably right. I’ll keep following up on the mud thing. Have you managed to find out anything?’
He hoped she missed the slight unintentional bite to his words.
‘As a matter of fact, your calling was good timing. We’ve got an appointment in thirty minutes.’
‘Who with?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Deborah Darcy.’
‘That’s not his wife’s name’
‘No, but it is his mother’s.’
FIFTEEN
‘What the hell are we doing here?’
Oliver and Amanda stood outside the main gates of a retirement village nestled into the hilly suburb of Roseneath. It was the sort of establishment where everyone had their own one-bedroom cottage, and tiny garden. A shared dining room and recreation hall gave the place the feel of a five-star hotel. It cost about the same, according to the website Oliver quickly studied while waiting for Amanda to meet him.
‘Gathering information,’ she replied. ‘We can’t approach his direct family. However, Deborah Darcy is close enough to know things, but far enough to not know about Violet Tumbleton.’
‘Yet you think she wi
ll know about Ashley Trent’s interest in her son?’
Amanda smiled at him. ‘Okay, it’s a long shot, but you’d be amazed at the information mothers know about their kids.’
They started down the path towards the cottages.
As they walked towards the front door of number twelve, Amanda slipped her arm through Oliver’s. Startled by the sudden intimacy he almost pulled free but stopped himself. The last time she’d done something like this it was to perpetuate a cover story.
She leaned in. ‘By the way, my name is Glenda, and you’re my husband, Andrew.’
What?
‘Of course I am,’ Oliver muttered, as his new wife knocked lightly on the door.
The woman who opened the door was nothing like Oliver expected. She was dressed in Nike sports gear, from shoes, to tracksuit, right up to the purple headband keeping her black hair away from her face. She looked like she was about to head out for a game of basketball. One that she intended to win.
‘You must be Glenda and Andrew. Come on in.’
(How many names does this lass have?)
Glenda could be her real name for all I know.
They followed Deborah inside. To the left through a half open sliding door, Oliver spied two rooms, one bed and the other bath. The space they were in was a large open plan room, with a small kitchenette running along the back wall. A tiny dining table with two chairs was pushed against one wall, while two recliner chairs pointed towards the front window. A large screen television hung to the right of the window.
‘As you can see, I’m not equipped for more than one guest at a time,’ Deborah gestured to the space.
‘What about when the family comes to visit?’ Oliver asked.
‘Do you two have kids?’ Deborah ignored his question.
‘A boy and a girl,’ Amanda lied smoothly. ‘Gosh, how old are they now, honey?’ she turned to Oliver.
‘Eight and almost seven.’
Deborah smiled. ‘They’re great at that age, especially for grandparents. It’s fun letting them do all the things their parents won’t allow. You must find that with their grandparents.’
‘Their great grandmother is the worst,’ Oliver said, with a sideways glance at Amanda. Her grandmother had raised her from an early age and he suspected when Amanda was eight she was being taught the finer points of con artistry.
Ghostly Hitchhiker Box Set Page 32