by Peter Boon
‘Yes, for God’s sake, yes, do you want me to draw a picture? Yes, he was having an affair with Cherry McDonald. I was the only one who knew about it. And…’
‘And what?’
‘Nothing, never mind.’
This woman was exhausting. ‘Gloria, what?’
She stayed quiet for what seemed like an eternity. ‘Damn you, Edward Crisp, I’ll say this to you off the record but I won’t say it to the police, do you hear? I’ll deny everything.’
‘Deny what?’
‘I want it to be my ex-husband, I really do. But I suppose,’ she let out a deep sigh. ‘I suppose it’s very unlikely that Claire is lying about him being with her the time of the murder.’ Even though she’d just accused Claire of this exact thing about a minute ago.
‘I’m just worried. I mean, the Reverend has been acting out of character for weeks, this whole affair is out of character. What if he did it, Edward? What if Reverend Flowers killed them both?’
21
‘I wonder if it is Reverend Flowers then? There are plenty of classic Agatha Christie mysteries where it is the obvious person, just with a few twists along the way.’
Noah, as usual forgetting we were in earshot of everyone, was enjoying the latest ‘plot twist’ that Gloria had confirmed the Reverend Flowers / Cherry affair and now suspected him. PC Wood had been called back to the crime scene so the two of us were supervising the suspects for a few minutes. As soon as he came back, I wanted to speak to everyone else in the room again in light of Cherry’s murder.
DI Appleby had confirmed that the police were getting closer to getting through to the village; the farmers’ tractors with fitted snow ploughs had arrived at the other end and were partway up the two miles of Chalk Gap Road from the A259, but it was a long process in the still falling deep snow.
Gloria was sitting in front of us looking worried. She was probably terrified of when Reverend Flowers arrived and would find out what she’d said.
Apparently, he’d confided in her only a few days ago, when he finally got round to having a moral crisis about it. He said he loved his wife dearly, knew he’d made a mistake, wanted to put an end to it and avoid a scandal without hurting Cherry’s feelings. I’d wondered about Gloria’s views on marital affairs, considering what happened to her and that it involved one of the same parties, but she just seemed to think Pedro was getting the karma he deserved. Even though she was now beginning to suspect the Reverend of the murders.
‘I always forget to whisper when the suspects are near, I’m sorry,’ Noah continued, still not even remotely whispering. ‘I still think we have more plot twists to come in this mystery. Hopefully the crime scene will give us some new information too. It’s very exciting though, isn’t it? Us all trapped in the snowstorm and a killer on the loose. The murders might not be over yet.’
‘Don’t say that, darling,’ Mum called out from across the room, not even pretending to not be listening. ‘That’s what I’m worried about. It seems a bit odd, doesn’t it, that we’re all stranded in the snow and suddenly the killings start. All women too. What if this affair thing is just a big coincidence and it’s one of those serial killers? I’m staying in a big group from now on.’
Claire shot Mum a look as her and Kimmy comforted Pedro, who looked distraught. ‘My Cherry, murdered by a serial killer? No, no, no, please don’t say that… it’s not possible!’
‘I’m sorry, love, of course she hasn’t, I’m so sorry.’ Mum, for once, looked embarrassed and apologetic; I think she forgot Pedro was there. ‘It’s just terrifying to think that there’s murder in our lovely little village again, but this time double murder, and it’s nice people too! I just can’t get used to the idea that it’s someone we know doing this, I do hope it’s a stranger.’
‘It won’t be a stranger, it will be someone you know,’ Everest Brown spoke out for the first time. I looked over at him and he was leaning back on his chair, arms behind his head and one leg crossed over the other.
‘You don’t know that,’ Mum replied. ‘Look at you sitting over there, too cool for school in your beanie hat and your fancy knitwear. You’re only saying that ‘cos you’re a stranger to the village yourself! Maybe it’s you.’
‘Mum, that’s enough,’ I said, with as much authority as I could manage.
‘That’s alright,’ he said. ‘The rest of you all know each other very well, it’s natural that people will suspect me. I've been expecting it. But actually, I’m not a stranger. I have family here in the village.’
‘No you haven’t!’ Mum retorted straight away. ‘You’re staying in the B&B. And anyway if you had family, we’d know them. Who are they then?’
‘I, erm, I can’t say,’ he said weakly, sitting up and uncrossing his legs. He turned his head away to signify his involvement in the conversation was over. I also noticed a look between Kimmy and Claire and wondered how much they knew about their guest.
‘That’s who you should be looking at next, Edward, if you ask me,’ Mum whispered to me, only doing a slightly better job of it than Noah, though I’m not sure why she’d bothered to whisper when she’d just said as much to Everest’s face.
I was glad to have the distraction of PC Wood returning. I could see he was carrying something in a transparent plastic bag and looked flustered, so I walked towards the door and away from everyone so we could speak more confidentially. But I needn’t have bothered as he called out to me from the doorway as he waved the bag around. ‘Got a little something for you from the crime scene, mate!’ Was I the only one present with any common sense today?
‘Oh yes, how exciting!’ Noah exclaimed. ‘What is it?’
‘Cherry McDonald’s mobile phone,’ he replied just as loudly before I could stop him. In front of all the suspects too; I couldn’t believe a PC could be so incompetent.
‘Ssshh, both of you!’ I hissed. ‘PC Wood, stay there, let’s talk in the foyer please.’
‘Oh okay, mate, no worries,’ he replied in his usual jolly way, not even realising the problem.
Noah came to follow but I nodded my head for him to stay in the main hall with the others. He looked disappointed but nodded back.
‘A couple of messages from Appleby, mate,’ Wood said as soon as we set foot in the foyer; he was no quieter but at least we were in a different room. ‘First, he said to tell you they’re further along Chalk Gap Road now and are hoping to be here in an hour or so, though it’s still not guaranteed. Next, he told me to give you Cherry’s mobile phone. The Doctor and I found it in her pocket. He wants you to look at it. But he’s not sure if he’s supposed to, and he doesn’t want to get fired, so keep it quiet.’
This situation was getting worse. Now I was looking at evidence from the crime scene that I wasn’t supposed to handle, and the police might or might not get through in the next hour, while we had two bodies now and a killer on the loose who might or might not be in the same building as me that moment.
‘Are you okay, mate?’ Wood asked. ‘You look a little stressed. I know what you’re going through, we’re doing a lot, aren’t we? I’ve never been so involved in a crime scene before. It’s scary but quite exciting at the same time. This is what I signed up for. I finally feel like a real copper and not just the village policeman dealing with stolen bikes.’
In that moment, PC Wood reminded me a little of Noah. He was still fairly young – he couldn’t have been older than 23 or 24 – and had a definite naivety about him, but I could tell that he wanted to be a good policeman and that one day he would be.
‘You’re doing really well,’ I reassured him. ‘I’ll make sure I tell DI Appleby when he gets here. You should be really proud of yourself.’
‘Thanks mate, I appreciate that,’ he said warmly as he shook my hand with his overly strong handshake again.
We returned to the hall to find Claire and Kimmy coming straight over to me. ‘Can we speak to you please, Edward?’ Claire asked.
I agreed and took them to the little
room I’d spoken to Gloria in earlier. ‘Is everything alright, have you remembered something else?’ I asked as we sat down. I noticed straight away how nervous Kimmy looked.
‘We wanted your advice really, Edward,’ Claire started, with her hand over Kimmy’s. ‘If there’s something involving one of us that might get found out by the police later, do you think it’s better if we tell you now so we can explain it properly?’
I remembered my fear earlier about not wanting one of these two lovely ladies to be the killer. ‘Yes of course, what is it?’
‘Okay, Kimmy, that’s my bit,’ Claire said to her wife, still keeping hold of her hand. ‘You’re up.’
Kimmy took a deep breath and I felt her nerves strongly. ‘I… I couldn’t help but overhear that they found Cherry’s phone. The thing is, there might be something on there that might incriminate me.’
22
‘I don’t know where to start,’ Kimmy mumbled nervously.
‘Just tell him what happened, it will be fine,’ Claire coaxed her gently.
‘I needed to borrow money,’ Kimmy said. ‘I’d got Claire lots of lovely things for Christmas, and some bits and pieces to spruce up the B&B. I know I shouldn’t spend what I can’t afford, I just wanted to have a nice Christmas and -’
‘… and she got a bit carried away,’ Claire finished for her.
‘Oh don’t, I feel awful,’ Kimmy whined. ‘I should have told you, I should have come to you.’
‘But you didn’t, it’s okay. Just tell him,’ Claire said. She still had her usual gentle tone in her voice but she sounded firm.
‘Okay, sorry. Anyway, I got myself into some trouble with payday loans. It’s so easy to get approved for them, and you just think you have plenty of time to pay them back. But when you can’t and they start adding interest, oh, it was just all such a mess!’ I could tell she was getting herself into a state. ‘’I’m sorry, Claire, I messed everything up!’
‘It’s okay,’ Claire repeated, clasping Kimmy’s hand a little tighter now. It was embarrassing for all three of us for to have to them air their dirty laundry like this. ‘Edward doesn’t need to know all that, let’s just focus on the Cherry part.’
‘I didn’t know what to do. I know I should have gone straight to Claire but I wanted to sort it without worrying her. I tried to think of who out of our friends might be able to help me out. I didn’t want to ask the Flowers as I thought they might think it was a sin getting into debt like that.’ I glanced at Claire and could see she was doing her best to remain supportive and not get annoyed. I liked Kimmy from the time I’d spent with her that day, but I could see she was a quite silly woman, almost like a big grown-up child.
‘I know that Pedro doesn’t have any money of his own, we’re always comparing how bad our financial situations are. So I made the mistake of asking Gloria.’
‘That didn’t go well?’ I asked. I can’t imagine that it did.
‘No, she just said no outright. I don’t know if it’s because she couldn’t afford it or just didn’t want to. But I made the mistake of telling her the story while I was asking, and that Claire didn’t know. Every time we’ve been all together since, she makes little jibes about it in front of Claire, as if she’s going to tell her.’
‘We need to stop being friends with that woman,’ Claire said.
‘She can be nice sometimes,’ Kimmy replied weakly.
‘Kimmy, stop seeing the good in people like Gloria,’ Claire said. ‘I don’t know why you bother. Even today she conned you into helping her sell her stupid sweets.’
‘Anyway,’ Kimmy said, seemingly about to finally get to the point. ‘After that I remembered that Cherry had some money behind her. And she was always very nice to us, so I thought I’d give her a try. She was so kind and understanding, she said yes straightaway and listened to all my problems about it.’
‘How does this link to her phone then?’ I was keen for Kimmy to get to the point.
‘I thought I’d be able to pay her back in instalments, and she said there was no rush, but I couldn’t make the first month or the second. She was very nice about it and said we could sort it out, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve got myself into a bit more trouble and I’ve been talking to Cherry about it.’
‘Baby, don’t just tell him you were talking to her about it, you have to tell him the full story,’ Claire said. She still sounded pleasant enough but I noticed she’d moved her hand away.
‘Okay, so I asked her to borrow more money. But she said no. She wasn’t horrible about it but she said she thought it was best I tell Claire. But I got a bit defensive about it and it turned into a bit of an argument, I misunderstood and thought she was threatening to tell Claire herself. But when I read it back once I calmed down, she wasn’t. She was just trying to help.’
‘Read it back?’ I asked.
‘Yes, all of this in the last few days was by text message.’ Ah, this made sense – she was worried about the incriminating messages on Cherry’s phone.
‘Tell him the last part,’ Claire instructed.
‘I was just in such a mess, I said things to her I shouldn’t have, when I thought she was having a go at me. I told her she wasn’t getting a penny of her money and if she said anything to Claire she’d be sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’ Finally, she broke down and sobbed.
‘It’s okay, don’t get upset,’ I said, as kindly as I could in my embarrassment. ‘When were the last of these messages?’
Kimmy was still a sobbing mess so Claire answered for her. ‘Yesterday.’
‘And when did Kimmy tell you, Claire?’
‘Only just now,’ Claire replied. ‘She thought she better tell me the whole story because she thought she’d be a suspect for Cherry’s murder.’ Kimmy let out a loud wail.
This was interesting. Clearly, Kimmy had only confessed this (both to me and Claire) as she knew that the phone would reveal it anyway; it made me wonder what else the phone would tell us, and what other secrets this group of people had. This thought reminded me to use the opportunity to find out what I could while I had them here, particularly about Cherry; I didn’t know too much about her and apart from the grieving Pedro these two were my best hope.
‘Was Cherry a kind person, then?’ I asked.
‘Oh, she really was, she lent me the money straightaway and yes, she was always lovely whenever we met her,’ Kimmy blabbered.
Claire, who I knew by now was a little more astute, responded differently. ‘I bet you’re wondering how someone can be so nice when she’s had two affairs in just over a year?’
That was one of a number of things puzzling me about Cherry. ‘ I just want to get a picture of what she’s like, so I can help the police figure out who killed her.’
‘I think she was young and naïve, and genuinely loved Pedro,’ Claire continued. ‘I didn’t get it at first, especially with her age. I mean, it looked like the classic gold-digger story at first. Waitress in his restaurant has an affair with the owner twice her age, she must be after all of his money. But it wasn’t like that, she didn’t need his money, not that he had any.’
This was another puzzle. ‘Why was she working part-time as a waitress if she didn’t need the money?’
‘Independence. She wanted to live her own life away from her family. She’s been doing a Business degree at Brighton University and wanted to strike out on her own while she was studying. Apparently they used to bring her to Chalk Gap as a child and she fell in love with it, so she decided to move here.’
‘It’s quite sad really,’ Kimmy added. ‘From what we could tell, her family were rich but I’m not sure how happy a life she had with them. Her dad died when she was young and I think her Mum struggled after that. I think Cherry saw Pedro as a father figure.’
There were still pieces of this story missing though. ‘And then she found another father figure in the Reverend?’
‘I guess so, that’s what puzzled us too. We grew to like her and she seeme
d like a nice girl, but like I said, how can she be nice with these two affairs? Kimmy and I have talked about it a lot. But all these goings-ons in the last year or so – Pedro and Cherry, Reverend Flowers and Cherry, Gloria’s antics, now these two murders – we’re starting to think you never know your friends for real, only what they show you.’
That reminded me of something else. ‘Oh, Everest Brown is staying with you isn’t he? What do you know about him? Mum told me you only get a place on the winter market if you’re close with the Vicar, so who is he? He said out there that he has family in the village.’
The two exchanged a look again. ‘You’re so funny, Edward, you ask all the same questions we did,’ Kimmy said, having cheered up a little.
‘Yes, we’ve wondered about that a lot,’ Claire chipped in. ‘Reverend Flowers brought him to the village, he asked us if we could put him up at the B&B for the couple of months he was here for the market.’
‘ And he had Christmas day with the Flowers family,’ Kimmy said.
‘So we think his family must be the Flowers in some capacity, but we can’t work out why it’s all so secretive.’
And now Frances is dead, and we still don’t know his connection to them, I thought. While the Flowers family were on my mind, I remembered something else I wanted to ask. ‘Pedro told Jacob Flowers he was fired this morning, he worked at the restaurant?’
‘That’s right,’ Claire confirmed. ‘For the last year or two. His Dad wanted him to have a job outside of the family, and we don’t have enough for him to do here. He did quit for a while when the whole Pedro and Cherry thing first happened, I guess in solidarity with Gloria, but somehow they sorted it out between them that he went back.’
‘He likes working there and Pedro says he’s good at his job, so it was a good arrangement for everyone,’ Kimmy said.
I thanked them both, told Kimmy not to worry and led them back into the church hall. Before I rejoined PC Wood, I wanted a few minutes to think and process everything.