The Water Witch Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Four Book Paranormal Cozy Mystery Anthology (Sam Short Boxed Sets 1)

by Sam Short

  “Why?” said Willow.

  “Something happened there,” said Brian. “I don’t know what it was, she wouldn’t tell me. It was a long time ago though, and she kept touching the back of her head when she spoke about it — you need to notice these things when you’re in a position of trust like I am. Sometimes the actions of a client speak louder than their words.”

  “The old head wound,” said Willow.

  “Nineteen-eighty-seven,” said Gladys.

  “What?” said Brian.

  Gladys filled her son in on the day’s events, being sure to mention that Mavis had loved her car, and that Barney was in her pocket.

  Brian listened carefully until Gladys had finished, and then closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ve always liked the idea of a dove loft,” he said, “but not with a nice car on the property. Unless it was garaged of course. Those birds could shit for Britain. You’d be forever washing it, and that’s not good for the paintwork.”

  “Indeed,” said Gladys, “they’re dirty buggers. Flying rats.”

  “That’s pigeons,” noted Brian. “Not doves. Doves are the bird of peace.”

  Willow leaned forward. “Let me just bring this… conversation back on track,” she said, tapping her foot on the floor in the annoying way which Gladys knew showed her impatience with a situation. “So all you can tell us, Uncle Brian, is that something happened to Ethel in the chapel a long time ago. Something that made her anxious about going back there?”

  Brian nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Oh! And that she needed the money of course. Money is often a reason for murder. That could be relevant.”

  “Did she say why she needed the money?” said Willow.

  “No,” said Brian. “She just said her circumstances had changed. She said she’d been used to receiving a payment each month, but it had dried up. I think she was quite poor. She said she could only just afford my fee, but I didn’t pry — as long as a client can afford to pay me — I can’t afford to care about their financial situation. I need to eat too.”

  “You have to be like that,” said Gladys. “You’re running a business, son, not a charity! People will take advantage of you if you let them, and you’ve got such a lovely big heart — they’d walk all over you.”

  Willow sighed. She really was a rude young lady — with all the eye rolling and emphasised breathing. “So we’re done here?” she said.

  “Have some patience, dear,” said Gladys. “It’s good for your health.” She looked at her son. “Is there anything else you can think of, Brian? Anything else she may have said?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s such a shame though isn’t it? Ethel was a very religious woman. She told me that the chapel had been her rock until the incident which stopped her from going there again. What a terrible thing — to be killed in the place that once gave you so much comfort. It would be like me being murdered in The Pink Pamper — Men’s Hair Salon and Eatery. What an awful, awful thought.”

  The smell of cooking greeted Gladys and Willow as they approached The Water Witch, and Rosie ran across the grass to greet them, weaving in and out of their legs.

  Inside the boat, Susie was helping Penny prepare a lamb stew, and Gladys gave her a kiss on the cheek as she squeezed past her in the narrow galley kitchen. She liked Susie. She was a respectful young lady with good morals and an honest job.

  “I hear you cast a spell on the whole of the Wickford police force and their computer systems,” said Susie. “And you’ve taken it upon yourself to hide the fact that a woman is dead, just so you can stop a murder investigation from messing up your wedding plans. Have you gone senile? What were you thinking?”

  Gladys smiled. She loved Susie’s banter. She gave the cheeky girl a playful elbow nudge in her ribs, and laughed as Susie dropped the salt shaker she was holding. “Be sure to throw some over your shoulder,” Gladys said. “It’s bad luck otherwise.”

  Susie muttered something under her breath.

  “What was that?” said Gladys, certain the girl had cursed. There was banter, and there was disrespect. Gladys would take none of the latter.

  “I said ‘I need some luck.’”

  “Oh,” said Gladys. “Well throw a double helping over your shoulder.”

  “Sit down, Granny,” said Penny. “Let’s eat. Susie has something to tell you, too. About the incident Inspector Jameson referred to in nineteen-eighty-seven.”

  With her interest piqued and her belly rumbling, Gladys sat down and reached for a hunk of buttered bread as Penny placed a plate on the table. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was, and if she didn’t eat before seven o’clock in the evening she wouldn’t stay regular, and nobody could be expected to solve a murder without their bowels in tip-top condition. “What can you tell us?” she said, as Susie put the pot of stew in the centre of the table and sat down.

  Susie filled a bowl with stew and passed it to Gladys. Gladys raised an eyebrow, but decided to say nothing. Susie wasn’t to know that she wasn’t the biggest fan of mushrooms being chopped in half. It was lazy — if she couldn’t be bothered to chop the mushrooms into easily swallowed cubes, then what must her underwear drawer look like? A tangled mess, most likely.

  “Susie looked the incident up on the internet,” said Penny.

  “If it’s not in the police records it’s hardly likely to be on the internet… is it?” said Willow.

  Susie smiled. “Not anywhere you could find it,” she said, “but as a journalist I’m privy to some private forums. One of them is used by a lot of retired journalists with too much time on their hands. Anyway, I posted a question when Penny told me what had happened.”

  “And?” said Gladys, using her spoon to break a mushroom apart. Maybe Susie would get the message through visual imagery.

  “I got a reply,” said Susie. “From a man who was a reporter in Wickford until nineteen-eighty-eight, but get this… he was sent to jail…” she smiled, “…for refusing to stop trying to find out what had happened in a certain chapel in a certain year.”

  Gladys frowned. “What chapel, and what year? Wait! I bet it was my chapel! And I bet it was nineteen-eighty-seven!” The looks the three girls gave her told her all she needed to know. “I’m right, aren’t I? Tell me I’m right!”

  “Erm… yes,” said Susie. “But I just practically told yo—”

  “Bingo!” said Gladys. “I knew I could be a detective. Go on, Susie, what did he tell you?”

  She coughed, and Gladys hoped a mushroom was lodged in her wind-pipe. Maybe she’d only learn the hard way.

  Susie took a sip of lemon water. “He said that in July of nineteen-Eighty-Seven, he was fishing on the canal, near the chapel. He owned a small rowing boat, and was anchored just off the pier.”

  “Is that relevant?” said Gladys. “If not, get to the meat and potatoes of the story. Leave out the massive mushrooms.”

  “Huh?” said Susie. “Erm… anyway, he heard a commotion. Lots of shouting and engine noise. That sort of thing. Of course the chapel was in use in those days, but it was early in the morning, on a Wednesday. There shouldn’t have been that many people there.”

  “Engines?” said Willow. “But cars can’t get down to the chapel. There’s only a footpath.”

  “All part of what happened,” said Susie. “They filled the road in a week after the incident and turned it into a footpath. The chapel was closed down too. It was privately owned, and was never used again.”

  “A Cover-up!” said Gladys.

  Susie nodded. “The reporter went ashore,” she said. “There was an ambulance and three police cars outside the chapel. Somebody was being put in the ambulance with two medics working on them, and a man was being put in the back of a police car. In handcuffs.”

  “What had happened?” said Willow.

  “That’s where it took a turn down conspiracy lane,” said Susie. “The reporter was approached by a policeman and told to leave the area immediately or he’d be arrested. He argued, but he co
uld tell the police were serious, so he left, thinking he’d come back later and find out what had happened.”

  “And?” said Gladys. “Did he go back?”

  “That’s when it got really sinister. That night, three plain-clothed police officers turned up at his house. The policeman who’d turned him away from the chapel must have recognised him.”

  “What did they want?” said Willow.

  “To silence him,” said Susie. “They began nicely, by telling him a mystery benefactor was prepared to pay him a sum of money every month if he never mentioned the incident again, but when he refused, they became threatening. They showed him a warrant for his arrest, signed by a judge, and told him that if he ever went near the chapel again, or mentioned the incident to anybody, he’d be arrested and sent to jail. They told him he’d bypass court and a trial, and be locked away for a long time.”

  “What did he do?” said Gladys.

  “Although it wasn’t that long ago,” said Susie. “Times were different, and the reporter knew the police could get away with it. He did what they asked, he kept quiet, and nothing was mentioned about the incident. No reports in any newspapers, no talk in town — nothing, it was like it had never happened. He wouldn’t accept any money though. He said it would make him complicit in whatever crime had been committed. He said he was convinced that whoever was being put in the back of the ambulance had died, and that the police were covering up a murder. He wanted no part in it.”

  “An honest man,” said Gladys. “But why did he get sent to jail?”

  “He became curious again,” said Susie. “A year later. He went back to the chapel, but found nothing. No sign that anything had ever happened there. So he started asking questions in Covenhill hospital. It was the biggest hospital in the area and he assumed the person in the ambulance would have been taken there.”

  “And?” said Gladys.

  “Nothing. Nobody knew anything — or they wouldn’t say anything, but two days later he was visited by two more police-officers. They arrested him on a bogus drug dealing charge. The judge believed all the evidence, and he went down for two years. When he got out he moved to London and put it all behind him, until a few years later. When he received a mystery phone-call.”

  Gladys swallowed a piece of lamb. Mushrooms aside, the stew was good, but Susie’s story was better. “A call from who?” she said.

  “A man who said he’d been a police officer in Wickford at the time of the incident,” explained Susie. “The call was quick. The caller told the reporter that the evidence he needed was in storage beneath Wickford police station. A secret file, he said, locked away and not in any official records. The reporter thought about trying to find out more, but prison had been hard on him, he didn’t want to go through it again, so he got on with his life. He tried to forget about the whole thing… until he saw my post on the forum today.”

  “This is getting too serious,’ said Penny. “We should reverse all the spells you’ve cast, Granny, and let the police deal with it. It’s out of our league.”

  Gladys wiped her mouth on a paper towel, happy that she had something more important than the size of mushrooms to ponder over. “Nonsense,” she said. “We need that police file, and we need to go to Ethel’s house. Brian told Willow and me that Ethel had suddenly become poor when a monthly payment had dried up — didn’t that reporter get offered a monthly sum of money to keep his mouth shut? Coincidence? Maybe, but I’d take fate over coincidence on any day of the week. I want to find out more about Ethel, and I want that police file, so somebody get me my evening sherry, I suggest we all have an early night — it’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.”

  Chapter Nine

  “There are no old files in the basement anymore,” said Barney. “They were moved last year when we had the refurb, and lots of them were shredded. The ones that survived are in Covenhill police station, under lock and key, only accessible to detectives investigating cold cases and historical crimes. I don’t have security clearance. You’ve got no chance of finding it… if it even exists at all.”

  “Are you doubting Susie’s source?” said Gladys. “Do you want to find out who murdered Ethel Boyd?”

  Barney tried the door. It was locked. “I’m here, aren’t I? About to break into a dead woman’s home with my girlfriend and her grandmother — I’d say I want to find out who murdered her, wouldn’t you?”

  “Ignore her,” said Penny, pushing past Barney. “She’s cranky because an owl kept her awake last night. She’s not used to sleeping on the canal.”

  “Blasted thing,” said Gladys. “Hooting at all hours of the night. Anyone would think it was trying to disturb my sleep.”

  Penny touched the door and said a few words. The lock clicked, and she turned the brass knob. “There, it’s open,” she said.

  Gladys wished she had somebody who looked at her with such loving admiration when she used magic. When she cast a spell, all she received was complaints and hissy fits, but Barney was staring at Penny as if she’d made herself invisible, not cast a simple lock opening spell.

  “Amazing,” murmured Barney. “You’re an amazing witch, Penny. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” said Penny, pushing the door open and blushing.

  “Just get inside,” said Gladys. “It’s secluded here, but we don’t want to risk being seen.”

  Ethel’s little house was tucked away from the road, hidden by a tall leylandii hedge that Gladys imagined would be a bitch to keep under control. Norman had once planted three of the trees in their back garden, but Gladys had scorched them to the ground with a fire spell after they had grown too quickly and blocked the view of her daughter’s cottage on the hill on the other side of the valley. Gladys’s binoculars were powerful, but even they couldn’t see what Maggie was up to through an evergreen hedge.

  Barney’s police car was parked behind the hedge, hidden from the road, and Gladys doubted very much that anyone would bother them. She followed Barney and Penny into the house and closed and locked the door behind her.

  “What are we looking for?” said Penny, gazing around the hallway.

  Gladys had liked Ethel, but she didn’t think much of her taste in decor. The hallway would have benefited from an antique oak telephone stand, instead of the modern flat packed one which stood in a corner, and wooden flooring took the warmth out of a room, in her opinion. “Bank statements,’”said Gladys, staring at a picture.

  Describing it as a picture was too kind — it looked as if the artist had painted it while in the cruel grip of a fit. “I want to find out what those monthly payments were, but I’m beginning to think Ethel was more modern than her age let on. I bet she does all that fancy online banking.”

  Barney handed them both a pair of latex gloves. “Put these on,” he instructed, “and remind me to wipe the door on the way out. We don’t want to take more risks than we have to. If we can’t find out who killed Ethel, the forensic guys will be all over this place as soon as the murder comes to light.”

  “Oh, we’ll find out,’ said Gladys, slipping the gloves over her fingers. “Of that, I have no doubt. Now, take a room each. I’ll start upstairs.”

  Gladys took the steps quickly for a woman of… her age, and dipped into the first bedroom she saw. It was a small room, probably a guest room, and she found nothing of interest in the one piece of furniture which stood against the wall.

  The next room was bigger, and was filled with the lived in smell which told Gladys she was standing in a dead woman’s bedroom. Photographs dotted the surface of a chest of drawers, and Gladys picked one up, handling it carefully, her gloves protecting the ornate metal frame from smudges and fingerprints.

  The photo showed Ethel and another woman standing together on a beach, both of them smiling, and their hair windswept. Ethel had kind eyes, and her friend looked happy to be in her company.

  “I will find out who killed you, Ethel,” said Gladys to the empty room. “And if you are watching me fr
om somewhere, you’ll know I’m not as cruel as I make out.” A tear warmed her cheek, and she smiled. “It’s hard being a strong matriarch to a family of mad witches, Ethel, but rest assured that most of it’s for show, and I care deeply about finding your killer. I know you won’t be at my wedding in body, but I’m sure you’ll be there in spirit, and you will be most welcome. Mavis is a good organ player, but you’d have been my first choice, Ethel. I hope you know that.”

  “Who are you talking to, Granny?”

  Gladys put the picture down and wiped her eyes. “Just an empty room, dear,” she said, turning to face her granddaughter. “Have you and Barney found anything?”

  “Just this,” said Penny, holding out a computer tablet. “There’s not much furniture to search downstairs, it seems Ethel was a minimalist. Barney’s just tidying away some paperwork we emptied out of a drawer. What about you? Have you found anything?”

  Gladys shook her head. “Not yet, but I haven’t checked this chest of drawers yet.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Penny.

  Between them they checked the drawers in less than a minute, and apart from a pair of knickers which Gladys considered to be very risqué for a woman of Ethel’s age, there was nothing of interest to be found.

  As Penny closed the bottom drawer, the sound of a car engine drew their attention. “Who’s that?” said Penny, peering through the window. “It’s pulled up outside, next to Barney’s car.”

  Gladys watched as the car door opened. “It’s that Inspector Jameson! What in heavens is he doing here?”

  “Hide!” shouted Barney from downstairs. “My boss is here! I’ll try and cover for us, but I don’t know what the hell he’s doing here. No one knows we’re here apart from Susie and Willow, and no one knows Ethel is dead!”

  Susie and Willow had stayed behind — Susie trying to find out more information about the mysterious incident from three decades ago, and Willow accepting an order of crystals and cast iron cauldrons in The Spell Weavers. Gladys very much doubted that either of them would have told anybody that Barney and two witches were breaking into a house. Inspector Jameson must have found out by other means.