Murder Is a Must

by Marty Wingate

  “Yes.” That seemed ages ago. I gazed down at the detritus that now covered my desktop. It would be under several layers by now.

  “When I left this morning, you said something about the Queen Anne desk.”

  “Did I? Oh, yes, for the exhibition.” So far, nothing made any sense to me, but I would go with it regardless.

  “Lady Fowling’s. I was thinking we might use it.”

  “Queen Anne desk,” he repeated. “Look at your list.”

  “Hang on.” I put him on speaker, set the phone down, and searched through notes on the Society’s newsletter, printed out articles on curation, a recipe or two I wanted to save, until . . . “Got it!”

  “What did you write?” Val asked. “Read it exactly as you wrote it.”

  “About the desk? Well, it makes no sense when I read it that way, it’s just my own shorthand, but here goes. ‘LF—space—QAD—space—cellar.’”

  “QAD. Now, look at Lady Fowling’s phrases. What does the first one say?”

  Another search. With more urgency, I pushed papers left and right, littering the floor. “Here!” I slapped my hand on the page. “The first one is ‘Quiet Anticipation Despite.’ Despite what?”

  “First letters—QAD. What does that stand for?”

  “Queen Anne desk?” I could manage little more than a whisper. “Queen Anne desk? Is that where it is?”

  “Bingo.”

  “My God!” I’d found my voice, but it came out an octave higher than normal. “She did leave a clue, she—”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I’m finished here. We’ll have time to look at it before my afternoon class.”

  “You’re brilliant!” I shouted.

  “You’re the one that wrote it down that way,” Val said. “See you soon.”

  When he rang off, I stared at my phone, absorbing it all. I must phone Mum and tell her she’d been on the right track all along. But then, three texts popped in.

  From Clara.

  Feeling unwell. May I take the morning off? See you after lunch.

  From Detective Sergeant Hopgood.

  Berryfield’s Bristol day: TKB Events

  From Bess.

  Am in Bath. Will stop by soon. Thx

  Thoughts of bounding to the cellar, locating Lady Fowling’s Queen Anne desk, and ransacking its every nook and cranny flew out of my mind. Although I had a fleeting thought for Clara’s health, I skipped over Sergeant Hopgood’s report entirely, because the third message sent a shot of adrenaline through my system, and for one second, I did not know whether to flee or stand my ground. Bess, here, soon.

  The front door buzzed.

  Bess here now.

  I opened the door to the formerly put-together twin, looking as if she had begun to unravel. She wore denims close to being in shreds and worn trainers, a patchwork cardigan over a roll-neck sweater, and a heavy coat, unbuttoned. She stuck her bare hands in her coat pockets, drew them out, and stuck them back in again as she said, “Hello. This is a bad time, isn’t it? You’re at work.”

  I caught one of her hands as it came out of a pocket and pulled her over the threshold. “This is a pleasant surprise, Bess—I’m delighted to see you. It’s not a bad time at all.”

  On closer inspection, I saw an empty look to her eyes and the suggestion of dark circles.

  “Why don’t you take your coat off? We’ll go upstairs to my flat, shall we? Would you like a coffee?”

  With these bits of pretense and a gentle tug on the collar of her coat, I got her out of it and up one set of stairs. She stopped on the library landing and gazed at Lady Fowling.

  “Is this the woman who started the Society? Such a lifelike portrait. I didn’t notice it last week. She’s lovely.”

  “Lady Georgiana Fowling,” I said. Hadn’t I told her this already? But no, that had been Becky. “She was a kind and intelligent woman who loved people and books. I never met her—she died four years ago—but I feel as if I knew her. I’ll tell you a secret”—a badly kept secret, but nonetheless—“I talk to her sometimes.”

  Bess turned hollow eyes on me. “Does she answer?”

  “I imagine that she does, but actually, I believe I answer for her. Come on.” I took her hand.

  We made it into my flat, where I set her free while I switched on the kettle and got out the coffee. When I brought the tray to the front room, Bess whirled round from the window.

  “Do you like living in Bath?” she asked.

  “I do, yes—I’ve been here for ten years or so. It certainly feels like home.”

  “I’ve lived here my entire life. Until I went to uni and moved to Cheltenham.”

  “Then it’ll always be home, won’t it?” I asked.

  A brief turbulence crossed Bess’s face. I looked away to pour our coffees and offer shortbread. She sat on the sofa, stirred milk into her cup, and said, “I’ve never read any Agatha Christie, but I’ve seen a few stories on television.”

  “I’d never read any, either, not until a few months ago,” I said, leaning toward her and dropping my voice into a conspiratorial murmur, “but I try to keep that under my hat.”

  Bess smiled. We fell into chatting about the Golden Age of Mystery, books in general, and more specifically, her dad and his teaching.

  “He loves it—you can tell, can’t you?” she asked. “He writes, too. He even had a book published ages ago. Not long before Mum died. Did you know?”

  “Yes, he told me, although I’ve never seen it.”

  “He says that no copies exist. I’m not sure I believe him.” She took a shortbread finger and turned it over and over in her hand. “I’m glad he told you about it.”

  That was a hurdle cleared, wasn’t it? Still, another subject lurked in the room like a silent guest, waiting to be introduced.

  Bess rose and went back to the window, but instead of the Bath skyline view, she looked down at her nails and picked at a cuticle. “Can you be sad to leave a place and excited to go to a new place at the same time?”

  Careful now, Hayley, don’t startle her. “Life is full of mixed emotions.”

  “I’m sorry about how I acted last week.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “You and Dad—”

  I held my breath.

  “You and Dad look really happy together. And I’m glad of that, I really am. It’s only I feel as if I’ll be missing things.” Her voice broke and she coughed. “And then there’s Becky. She’s like a sausage dog nipping at me from all sides because she suspects something. I haven’t even told her yet.”

  “Are you leaving?”

  Bess looked up. Her eyes swam. “New York.”

  Tears cascaded down her cheeks as her face crumpled. I jumped up and took her in my arms, which precipitated wailing. I let her go, cooing a bit—“it’s all right, there you are,” that sort of thing—and when the storm had subsided, I offered a box of tissues, and we went back to the sofa and our coffee.

  “I’ve been offered a job as a booking agent for a theater company.” She hiccuped a last sob and blew her nose. “I’m good at what I do. With a company, it isn’t all dates and times, I’m often everyone’s agony aunt. Plus, you have to know a lot about so many things— the technical side of the show, the cast, the crew. It’s a great deal of coordination. The next thing to being a producer, actually. In an assistant sort of way. This is a bigger company than Cheltenham, and so it’s an advancement.”

  Far too much effort had gone into that explanation. “Is there some other reason for New York besides the job?”

  “Adam.” She smiled when she said his name, and dropped her head. “He’s not only an actor, he’s one of the founding directors of the new company. He’s American, but he’s been working with us in Cheltenham.”

  “You’re moving to New York with him?”

&nbs
p; “We’ve known each other for a year!”

  “And you’ve been afraid to tell your dad?”

  Tears threatened. “I don’t want him to think I’m deserting him—it wouldn’t be fair.”

  “You’re a young woman with a wonderful future, Bess. Your dad will miss you, but he would never deny you a chance to live your own life.” I prayed that Dinah would never, ever meet and fall in love with an American. Or Canadian or Australian or . . .

  “He also works in IT, and he’s got a job in New York doing that. To help tide us over, you know.”

  “New York’s rather an expensive place to live, isn’t it?” I ventured.

  “Yes, but I’ve worked it out—I’ve always been good with budgets.”

  I should ask her to work up one for my personal finances.

  “And you and Dad can come to visit!” Bess said brightly. I’m sure she’d worked up a good few ways to convince her dad the whole thing would be a success.

  “That sounds wonderful—”

  I heard the front door buzz.

  “Bess, that’s your dad.” She clutched my arm, and my cup and saucer rattled. “He doesn’t know you’re here—he’s come about the exhibition—but don’t you think this is the perfect time to tell him? Don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” she said, drying her face with the back of her hand and sniffing loudly. “I’ll do it.”

  “Right, dash into the loo and splash some water on your face. I’ll bring him up.” I moved to the door, but paused for a moment. “And listen—when you tell him about Adam, why don’t you lead with the news that he has an IT job in New York. After he gets used to it, you can tell him he’s an actor.”

  I hurried down the stairs, catching Mrs. Woolgar coming out of her office.

  “It’s all right—I’ll get it.”

  The secretary retreated with a nod.

  When I yanked the door open, Val jumped.

  “Hiya,” I said. “Come in.”

  “Have you found it?” he asked, shedding his coat and giving me a quick kiss.

  “Found it?” Wait, now I remembered—Queen Anne desk, Murder Must Advertise. I’d moved that off center stage, and it took me a moment to come back to it. “Oh, no, I haven’t had the chance. Look—” I put my hands on his shoulders. “Bess is here.”

  The excited spark in his eyes vanished, to be replaced with a cloud of worry. He glanced round the entry and up the stairs. “Is she? Why?”

  “Well, I asked her to stop by, didn’t I?” I said with great cheer. “She’s in my flat and wants to have a chat with you. C’mon.”

  I took his hand and gave a tug, and he followed me up one staircase, and as we turned to go up the next one, he pulled me to a stop.

  “Is she all right?” he asked.

  “She’s fine.”

  “Are you two . . .”

  “We’re fine.” I got him going again, and we arrived at the second-floor landing. The door of my flat stood ajar. “I’ll leave you to it,” I said quietly. “Take as long as you need. I have a couple of things to see to, including looking in at the Charlotte. Let’s go down to the cellar later. I’ll text you.”

  I had great sympathy for his look of sheer panic—his face had drained of color and his green eyes had faded to hazel. I took his face in my hands and said, “Stiff upper lip. And don’t worry—she isn’t pregnant.” I gave him a little push.

  He slipped in the door. I waited for just a moment, and then left them to themselves. I gave Lady Fowling a nod as I went past and descended to the ground floor, where I would hear nothing from my flat, even Val’s anguished cries. Good Georgian construction, you know.

  I went to my office and instituted a search for my mobile, patting all the loose papers on my desk and finally spotting it on the seat of the wingback chair, where I had dropped it as I ran out to answer the door. You see how easy it is to lose a phone, Hayley. Is that what had happened to Clara’s? Covered over by a stack of papers and tossed into the recycling bin or inadvertently dropped through the slot in a postbox? I’d seen a phone someone had left charging at an outlet on a train platform—poor sod when he discovered it missing. I didn’t know if police considered Clara’s phone evidence, but if they did so, had they tried tracking it down?

  Thinking about Clara, I called up my messages, reread hers, and sent a reply.

  Feeling better? Do you need anything?

  I took another look at the text from Detective Sergeant Hopgood—Zeno had spent his day in Bristol at TKB Events. I couldn’t remember why I’d asked. Just being a nosey parker, I suppose.

  I went to the entry, pulled on my coat, and looked in on the secretary. “Mrs. Woolgar, I’m off to check on Clara—she’s feeling a bit peaky—and then to the Charlotte. But I’ll be back here in the afternoon, because I want to go down to the cellar.”

  “You won’t lock yourself in, will you?”

  Will I never live that down?

  * * *

  * * *

  Clara didn’t answer when I pushed the button for Oona’s flat. I waited a couple of minutes and tried again. I sent another text and then turned to go. Perhaps I would find her already at work at the Charlotte, and if so, I would impress upon her the need to answer a text when I sent one, because otherwise, I would worry needlessly. An image crept into my mind of her lifeless body, sodden, at the edge of the weir. With a quick breath, I banished the thought, but it left a residual echo, and before I crossed the Pulteney Bridge on my way to the Charlotte, I made sure to walk down the steps by the Boater pub and scan the riverbank. If she was unwell, perhaps I should contact her nana in Shepton Mallet.

  The Charlotte lay quiet apart from a smattering of visitors in the Druid exhibition. I didn’t see Tommy King-Barnes, Naomi wasn’t at her desk, and Oona’s office was empty, signaling to me that Zeno must be working on some fresh idea. I disliked it out of hand.

  I chastised myself for my bad attitude. Surely, Zeno could come up with a reasonably interesting suggestion that would not leap the bounds of decency and common sense while at the same time would catch people’s interest and show Lady Fowling in the light she deserved?

  No Clara and no sign she’d been there recently. I glanced down at the desk—as much in need of a tidying as mine had been. I put a forefinger on the top layer of papers and slid them round, looking for something of use. Oona had not been a good artist, but she had come up with brilliant ideas. Zeno, on the other hand, lacked inspiration but was good with pencil and paper. Here, he’d sketched an overflowing bookshelf with the last volume held in place by a knife stuck through its cover. Hmm. Another, he’d drawn what looked like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag with vials and bottles peeking out, some of them with a skull-and-crossbones warning.

  Creepy, but not bad, although I couldn’t quite see what the actual display would be about. I must remind him that the subject of the exhibition was the life of a fascinating woman, not murder methods.

  My eyes went to the flip chart, safely tucked away behind the desk. I thought of that rendering he’d done of the spiral staircase. An enormous mistake on his part—it still beggared belief that he would suggest such a thing after Oona’s death. But perhaps he’d drawn larger versions of other ideas. Perhaps one of them held an iota of possibility as an entry display. I pulled the chart out and sat down, propping it against the desk.

  The first page showed only a few pencil lines, but there was no mistaking the shape that wrapped round and round like a loose spring. The spiral staircase. The horizontal line at the top might’ve been the landing. But he’d scratched this attempt out with a large X. The next page looked almost the same, but a few more details had been added. It was that way page after page—the risers and treads on the next, the handrail after that until, at last, a figure appeared on the landing with a doorway behind. Still mostly suggestion, but I felt sure it was Oona. I could make out the bun
on the top of her head.

  The background had been shaded heavily with dense, horizontal pencil scratchings, creating a harsh, shadowy effect, and so I almost missed the second figure that lurked behind Oona in the office doorway. A person with indistinguishable features and a face thrown into darkness by the brim of a shapeless hat.

  I heard the clanging of footsteps on the stairs, and my heart thumped in my chest. I leapt up, grabbing the flip chart before it slipped to the floor as Clara walked in.

  “Oh, Clara,” I said, sinking back into the chair. “How are you feeling?”

  She didn’t unbutton her coat, she didn’t put down her bag, she didn’t move. “It’s a very odd thing,” she said, her brows drawing up into a peak. “But my phone’s turned up.”

  “Your lost phone? Well, good. That’s good. Isn’t that good?” Because I’ve got to say, it didn’t look as if she were reporting happy news. “Where was it?”

  “In my bag.”

  She paused to great effect. I’d seen inside Clara’s bag—it was quite organized and bare of the ever-increasing number of bits and bobs that take up too much room in my own.

  “But you’d looked in your bag.”

  “I looked in my bag. The police looked in my bag. I turned it out again and again that day. And yet this morning, it was where it should’ve been all along.”

  “Are you saying it was taken out and put back?”

  “What else could it be? I didn’t do it! I can swear to that—will they ask me to swear to it? Because I will.”

  “You mean the police? I’m sure they’d appreciate knowing it has returned,” I said, as if the phone had taken it into its head to go on holiday and now felt rested enough to get back to work. “You’re certain it is your old phone?”

  Clara got out the phone and held it so that I could see the thin edge. “It’s etched with my name.”

  “Well, I suppose that settles it. Do you want me to ring the old number, just to make sure?”