by Peter Boon
‘What would you like to know?’ he asked me.
I decided not to tell him that I already knew anything from Claire and Kimmy (who he was pretending not to be friends with, in any case), to see if his account matched theirs. ‘Just your story, from the beginning. Your relationship with Cherry, where Reverend Flowers fits in.’
‘I loved Cherry very much,’ he started as Alfie and I trudged either side of him, starting to clear away the snowfall in front of us. ‘I am very sorry for what I did to Gloria, but sometimes you fall in love and you can’t help it.’
‘What if that’s what happened with Cherry and Reverend Flowers?’ Alfie asked. I could tell he was playing devil’s advocate to make a point; he was cheated on by his ex before Dylan and hated any kind of infidelity.
‘What do you say?’ He stopped and turned to Alfie, clenching his fists. ‘That’s not the same, my friend. That’s not the same at all, don’t say that please.’
‘Okay, sorry,’ my brother replied, as I shot him a look which told him to be quiet.
‘Anyway, Cherry and I were perfect for each other. Perfect. She was so beautiful, and funny, and a kind person. We didn’t mean to hurt anyone but we fell in love.’ He smiled and I could tell he was reliving the memories, looking proud and sad at the same time. ‘Have you two ever seen her? She’s beautiful. I know every man in Chalk Gap is jealous, I bet you both are too. I bet she beats every woman either of you have ever known.’
Alfie and I exchanged a smirk over his shoulder. He was asking the wrong two people: an openly gay man and probably Chalk Gap’s least experienced and least eligible bachelor, neither of us had much history with women to compare. He tried to take his phone from his pocket to presumably show us a picture, but seemed to forget that we were fighting our way through severe snow fall; he gave up when his screen got covered in white slush for the fourth time.
‘Before the Reverend ruined all that, and took her away from me. It was his fault that I had to throw her out last night. We were happy and now she’s gone.’ It was interesting that he couldn’t see the parallels with his own infidelity just a year or so before, but even more interesting that he seemed to blame Reverend Flowers and not Cherry herself. It was as if she was a possession that had been taken away from him. I wondered if he decided to take Frances away in return, before I remembered his alibi from Claire. It would be interesting to see how he dealt with that part of his story, seeing as he wasn’t admitting to being friends with her and Kimmy.
‘I don’t want people to think badly of me,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘I know that Cherry and I caused very much hurt to Gloria. I’m sure many people think I am getting my just desserts back. But me and Gloria had been very unhappy for many years. I was wrong, I should have ended it sooner, but you met her this morning, Edward.’ He paused long enough for his words to hang in the snowy air. ‘She was a very difficult woman. It was not easy being married to her. But I did wrong and I’m sorry.’
I glanced at him next to me and considered him carefully, with his ridiculous haircut and glowing fake tan: he was the very definition of a male mid-life crisis. He seemed a pleasant enough man, and was thought of as kind and friendly by reputation in the village, but he had clearly lost his head and thought with the wrong body part.
‘How did you find out about the affair?’ I asked him next. His account of this was pretty much identical to the version from Kimmy and Claire, other than the way he framed the story continued to blame Reverend Flowers and not Cherry herself. But there was something I needed more information. ‘What happened last night when you kicked her out?’
‘I hope the Reverend isn’t around. I don’t want to see him,’ Pedro answered, instead of starting his story. We were almost at the pub as we climbed through the snow in the square. He glanced over at the church as he resumed speaking. ‘After I found out everything I did, I thought for a few days. But I couldn’t live with it any longer. Even though I loved Cherry, I couldn’t stay with a woman who was in another man’s bed.’
‘So you confronted her?’ my brother asked.
‘Yes, but not in an angry way. Not shouting and screaming. We sat down, I told her calmly what I knew and how disappointed I was. Then I told her it was over and I asked her to leave.’
‘Is that it?’ Alfie questioned, clearly getting into the drama of the situation. ‘Did she admit it, did she deny it? She didn’t just agree to leave?’
Pedro answered without looking at either of us. ‘Yes, she denied it, she kept denying it, but I knew it was true. We argued a little but I was trying not to get angry. Then she said she didn’t want to stay with someone who didn’t trust her. So she packed her things and left.’
I wanted to move on to what happened this morning, and asked about the incident on the square and what led up to it. Again, his story matched the one given by Claire; he’d got drunk after she left, woke up this morning and decided to confront Reverend Flowers. Once more it was interesting to see which of the two parties he’d took his anger out on.
‘So what happened after the incident with Reverend Flowers? Where did you go?’
We’d reached the pub now and we stood at the doorway as he made eye contact with me. ‘Edward, I suppose I should be honest.’
‘Please do.’
‘The snow was getting very deep already then and it was already difficult to get far. I got to the high street but I sat on a wall and thought about everything. I got very upset. Anyway, the part I wasn’t honest about is that I am still friends with Kimmy and Claire Atkinson. But please keep that to yourself as I don’t want to make trouble for them with Gloria.’
I nodded that I understood as he continued. ‘I need to tell you that to explain where I was. The wall I was sat on was just further down the street than the B&B. I went and knocked on the door, but when they didn’t answer I sat and waited on their doorstep. Soon Claire came back and let me in, and then I was with her for the next hour.’
Another part of the story that matched exactly, and if both parties were telling the truth, he couldn’t have killed Frances. ‘Anyway, I want to buy you a drink now,’ Pedro added, pointing towards the pub door.
‘I hate you, I hate you! You ruined everything!’ We looked to see Jacob Flowers across the square, at the foot of the West Chalk Cliff. I waited a second to see what would happen, anticipating him coming to attack again, but this time he stayed still. ‘I hope you’re happy now!’ He roared across the snow, with anger and upset in his voice.
‘The boy has just lost his mother,’ Pedro said quietly to us. ‘I’m not going to argue with him. Let’s go inside. Come on.’
‘Why don’t you go in with Alfie,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll make sure he’s alright.’ They nodded in agreement and went into the pub.
‘Coward!’ Jacob yelled across to the doorway where only I now stood. ‘Everything is ruined. Everything!’
You might know that I’m not always comfortable in these situations when emotions are high, but I’d like to think I was getting better. I called out to him. ‘It’s okay, Jacob, he’s gone. But you and I can have a chat if you like.’ I started to move slowly towards him through the thick white sheets in front of me.
‘Stay away, stay away! I don’t want to talk. It’s too late.’ And with that, he turned and started scrambling up the cliff path behind him. He was young and nimble, so seemed to move quite quickly, but the snow was deep and dangerous looking. He wasn’t safe and I didn’t know his intentions, and before I knew it I found myself going after him.
‘Stop, wait!’ I shouted as I scrambled through the snow partway up the cliff path. I was evidently a much less able climber than Jacob and had already fallen onto all fours, trying and failing to pick myself up.
‘Go away, leave me alone!’ He screamed from above me.
‘It’s not safe up here,’ I called back. ‘I just need to know you’re safe.’
‘For god’s sake, I’m fine!’ He shouted as he turned to face me. ‘I’m not going
to do anything, I just want you to leave me alone. You’re all so stupid.’
And with that, he turned in the direction of the Church and started to climb down in a completely different direction away from me and towards it. I watched him reach the bottom and saunter back across the Churchyard path into the Vicarage. He was safe.
But I wasn’t. I suddenly realised in a panic that I was partway up the snow-drenched cliff path in quite a precarious position. I took a breath, ignored the sudden panic I could feel inside, and tried to slowly climb back down to the ground. I started to shiver but didn’t know if this was through cold or nerves. I just tried to focus on remaining steady and moving one foot at a time to safety.
I felt a little more confident as I got a little closer to the square, so I started to speed up a little. But that proved to be a mistake. I lost my balance and tumbled to my left, off the main path, in a blur of snow, anxiety and panic.
I landed in a heap in a far corner of the square, behind the pub and out of view from the main square. And that’s when I saw the second body.
17
‘I don’t like this Edward, mate. I don’t like this one bit. Two murders now and we still can’t get through.’
If even DI Appleby was starting to panic, I couldn’t begin to process how I felt. Our snow day in Chalk Gap, which everyone had expected to be a magical winter wonderland, had turned into a twisted, ice-tinted horror show: with us all trapped in the village with the killer, who had now claimed two victims.
After spending the last few hours looking into Frances Flowers’ murder and making headway with more than half of the main suspects / witnesses (even if the headway being that all four people I’d spoken to had alibis for the timeframe of Frances’ death), I felt like we were back to square one. As I stood looking on while on video call to Appleby, PC Wood and Doctor Albright were once again liaising remotely with Appleby’s colleagues to confirm the death.
The victim was, perhaps unsurprisingly in hindsight, Cherry McDonald. When I’d fallen to the bottom of the cliff path, I saw something ominous sticking out of the snow near where I’d landed. It was her hand. I’d later wondered if she wasn’t quite dead when left under the snow and had managed to push her hand through, or if the killer had done it so she’d be eventually discovered by anyone that managed to stumble onto (quite literally in my case) that secluded corner under the cliff.
I’d moved just enough snow out of the way to identify who the person was by her face (though I didn’t know Cherry to speak to, I knew her by sight) but otherwise left everything exactly as it was so as not to disturb the body. What we didn’t know yet was when she was murdered or how long she’d been there; I was hoping the current remote work on the crime scene might shed some light, but again this was difficult without the proper professionals being able to access it.
However, one thing I did notice when I was trying to identify who it was: glowing red, tell-tale marks on her neck. It appeared that she’d been strangled.
This new murder certainly raised lots of new questions, despite all the questions about the original murder remaining unanswered. I say ‘new murder’: there was every possibility that Cherry was killed first, we just didn’t know. And this was something Appleby was becoming increasingly frustrated with.
‘What is going on, mate? One woman battered to death with a shovel. Another strangled to death and hidden in the snow. Their husbands in a big public confrontation this morning, one accusing the other of sleeping with his wife. Now both wives are dead. Not to mention one of these men is the local Vicar. Are the two murders connected? Which happened first? Were they even committed by the same person?’ He stopped and let out a deep sigh. I looked at the screen to see him rub his hand over his face in anger. ‘We don’t know the answer to any of these questions, because we can’t access the bloody crime scenes. We’ve got a junior constable, a local GP and a school librarian turned amateur detective trying to do the work for us. No offence, mate.’
His words stung as I sat in that cold, empty church hall. My old nemesis, anxiety, was already creeping up to say hello when I had one murder to solve without the police. Now that it was two, he’d not just said hello, he’d let himself into my house and was living there rent-free.
But then I remembered Dad’s words from earlier. I could do this. ‘Look, Appleby. You asked me to help because you couldn’t get through. You still can’t, so I’m the best you’ve got. Yes, I was expecting only one murder to investigate, and no, I don’t know what’s going on here but I’m going to find out. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.’
And then I breathed. I didn’t know where that came from, or even if I believed it myself. But Appleby seemed to.
‘You’re right, mate, I’m sorry. It’s just so annoying not being able to get involved. Update me on how it’s going with the Vicar’s wife, then we’ll work out a plan for this new development.’
New development – it sounded so clinical and impersonal, not that a young woman with her whole life ahead of her was lying dead in the snow. But I ignored his poor wording and gave him the highlights of my investigations so far: that Gloria was convinced it was Pedro, but he had an alibi (as did Gloria herself, along with Kimmy and Claire); Pedro and Cherry were actually married; the alleged affair between Cherry and Reverend Flowers seemed to be true; Flowers seemed to have a hold over his friendship group, so much so that Kimmy and Claire had to lie about being friends with Pedro; and Pedro told us he kicked Cherry out the night before, and as far as he knew she left the village.
Appleby listened to all of this carefully, but barely let me finish speaking before giving his view. ‘The affair definitely links these two murders, mate. They’re not separate incidents. I’d swear they’re done by the same person, even though the methods are different.’
‘They’re not that different though, are they?’ I’d been thinking about this for the last twenty minutes or since I’d found Cherry. ‘Hitting someone with a shovel that happened to be around, using only their bare hands to strangle someone. Both methods suggest a quick, unplanned, spare of the moment murder. Or are meant to create the impression of it.’
‘That’s a good point, actually,’ he conceded. ‘You think the Vicar then? I’d say either him or this Pedro, but he has an alibi for the Vicar’s wife. And if it was someone else who killed her - right at their back door, where they were arguing moments before - where did the Vicar go? It’s gotta be him.’
I’d of course considered this myself, but I wasn’t sure yet. It seemed a little obvious. ‘Why would Reverend Flowers kill both women, though? Even if he didn’t love Frances anymore, that probably means he loved Cherry.’ Of course I could think of several scenarios where the affair had turned sour, but I was playing devil’s advocate.
‘Mate, you don’t see this stuff all the time like I do,’ he said, as I tried not to get angry at his patronising tone. ‘You think the local Vicar wants a scandal like that? What if this Cherry girl was threatening to tell his wife, and he never planned on this being more than a bit on the side? Remember we don’t know how long Cherry’s been there, she could have come to him last night after Pedro kicked her out, and then he’s killed her to keep the affair quiet. Yeah, I bet that’s exactly what’s happened.’
Perhaps he was right. A Miss Marple quote came to mind, one that Noah often used: ‘I know that in crime novels it is always the most unlikely person. But I never find that rule applies in real life.’ Maybe it was true in this case, but I didn’t want to condemn the Vicar without knowing everything. I hadn’t even spoken to him yet, which was the next point I made to Appleby.
‘Yeah, that’s a fair point, mate. You need to make that a priority I’d say,’ he said, sounding a little less stressed and a little more confident. ‘And obviously keep an eye on the others, too. I mean it’s very convenient Pedro has an alibi. Do you think this lesbian couple are telling the truth?’
‘I don’t see any reason why not,’ I said. But it was something
that had occurred to me too; they’d admitted their friendship with Pedro, it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that Claire had given him a false alibi, even if she didn’t think he was the killer.
‘Like I said, mate, I don’t like this – these suspects wandering round freely while we can’t get through.’ I didn’t point out that they couldn’t wander very far. ‘This situation is so unprecedented, though – let me check out what we’re able to do, if I’m able to keep them all in one place with PC Wood watching them, once he’s finished up on the crime scene. We don’t want another murder.’
‘Who are we officially including in that list, then?’ I asked. ‘Obviously Flowers and Pedro, along with Gloria, Claire and Kimmy. But Jacob Flowers is still looming round angrily, and I still haven’t had chance to speak to Everest Brown yet either.’
‘Speak to him when you can, but I don’t think he’s important, mate. The son’s worth speaking to, though – might be able to tell you a bit more about his Dad’s behaviour. I’ll also get PC Wood to escort you back to the crime scene in the Vicarage backyard, see what you can find there. But let’s wait til they’ve confirmed the second death so you can look at both scenes at once.’
As I looked on at the crime scene, I saw PC Wood start to put tape around the area in question. Within seconds, I saw movement in the pub back window which overlooked the bottom of the cliff: Mum trying to get the latest gossip, no doubt. I rounded up the conversation with Appleby quickly, promising to update him later. There was someone I had to speak to quickly, before he found out from someone else. I had to go and tell Pedro Hernandez that his wife had been murdered.
18
‘Edward, Edward, what’s going on out there? Do we have a serial killer running round? And we’re trapped in the village with him? We’re all fearing for our safety in here. ‘
‘There’s been a second body, hasn’t there? Do we have two murders to investigate now?’