A Stranger's House

by Clare Chase

  ‘I spotted you out there.’ He nodded towards the window. ‘That was the tutor guy?’

  She nodded. ‘Paul Mathewson. I ran into him in town.’ There was a pause. ‘He, er, he wanted to talk about Emily. He was, well, he was just sympathising because of what we’ve all being going through.’ She turned and went upstairs.

  Sympathising, huh? It had looked like a bit more than that when he’d seen the expression on Mathewson’s face. Well, it wasn’t any of his business anyway.

  And Nate kept telling himself that for the next hour and a half as he caught up with some business admin at the kitchen table.

  I couldn’t bring myself to admit to Nate that I’d told Paul all about Luke. I was already seriously regretting my weakness on that score. No doubt Nate knew most of it already, thanks to Steph, but having to refer to it myself was another matter – plus he’d think it odd that I’d been washing my dirty linen in public. The fact was, Paul was a good listener and, because he was one step removed, I’d found it easier to unburden myself in his presence.

  I didn’t feel hungry at suppertime, so I excused myself, had a slice of toast and went up to my room. All I could think of was Daisy and her friends, and how it seemed I was now expected to talk some sense into Luke. What’s more, even though his letter of ‘apology’ hadn’t done the trick, I had at least believed him when he’d said he knew he’d made a mistake. But if what Daisy’s friend had said was true, he was still pestering her. Talk about hedging his bets. Either way, someone was lying. So once again, I lay there in the attic, sleepless. After an hour or so had slipped by, I decided to get up. I went and looked out of the velux that faced north. It gave me a good view of the Common, the river glinting in the light from the boathouses opposite, shadowy narrow boats lining the water’s edge. Badly lit cyclists flitted across the dark expanse like outsized bats, presumably on their way back from clubs or parties.

  I wanted to do something productive that would take my mind off Luke, so I set myself the task of finding out about the fourth woman on Damien Newbold’s bedroom wall: Elizabeth Edmunds.

  I went down to the study, intending to start with the only mention of her I’d come across in the house. But the address book had gone. Of course, the police must have taken it away the day after Damien’s death. After a moment, my mind managed to drag up the fact that she’d been based in Newmarket. And Newmarket was where Samson lived too, of course, and where Maggie and Damien had bumped into him at the races. Was that relevant? And then, all of a sudden, Maggie’s words came back to me: ‘Damien was in an exceptionally good mood, and he’d really dressed up for the occasion too’ – as though it was something out of the ordinary. Had it really been a coincidence that they’d met Samson there, or had Damien somehow known he was likely to see his brother? After all, he was local. Maggie had talked about Damien being especially affectionate and demonstrative, and not at all put out by the chance meeting. That was something to think about. Had he simply been pleased at the opportunity to rub Samson’s nose in his success with women? Even if he hadn’t engineered the meeting in advance, as soon as Damien spotted Samson in the crowds he might have seen his chance to make mischief.

  I needed to focus on Samson. From what I knew of him, he was probably the sort to make up to any woman that crossed his path. Perhaps Damien had guessed that leaving him alone with Maggie would create exactly the scene that had occurred, and had relished the idea of her turning him down flat. I got out my laptop, and sat at the study desk, shoving the stuff the police hadn’t removed to one side.

  At that moment, I heard a sound: a tiny creak outside in the hall. I held my breath, and stayed absolutely still. As I watched, the study door started to move, slowly and quietly on its hinges.

  And then Nate appeared. He was in jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt, as though he’d given up on the night as much as I had. He took in my face. Probably noticed my shoulders were so tensed they almost touched my ears. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I couldn’t sleep.’

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. ‘Same.’

  ‘What are you up to?’ He walked over to the desk, and I explained. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said, when I passed on my theory about Damien setting up a confrontation with his brother. ‘Seems to fit with his MO.’

  I nodded. ‘I was just about to Google Elizabeth Edmunds.’

  ‘Imagine you’ll get a lot of results.’

  He was right. Facebook and LinkedIn filled my page; it was going to be like looking for the proverbial needle. I didn’t think it would work, but I added ‘Newmarket’ into the search terms and tried again.

  ‘Good thought,’ Nate said, leaning over my shoulder. He was clearly caught up in the search. I had been too, but I couldn’t help being conscious of his nearness; I could feel the warmth of him. It took me a second to click on the first hit, which was for Newmarket Racecourses. I hoped he hadn’t registered the delay.

  The page told me Elizabeth Edmunds was part of the racecourse’s hospitality team. Her photograph beamed out of my computer screen.

  ‘I wonder how far back her affair with Damien Newbold went,’ Nate said. ‘It was clearly ongoing when he died, and he surely wouldn’t have had the painting done the moment he’d met her.’

  ‘Then again …’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. We can’t assume anything from such a screw-up. But assuming for a minute that I’m right, it suggests he must have already been involved with her when he took Maggie to the races.’

  ‘You’re right. And I agree that’s most likely. I wonder if Elizabeth Edmunds saw them together at Newmarket.’

  ‘Damien must have known it was a risk. Either he didn’t care what she thought, or he was keen to make her jealous.’

  ‘My guess is the latter.’ I explained what Tilly Blake had said about the painting of Maggie Cook Damien kept on his bedroom wall even when they were at the height of their affair. ‘He told her she shouldn’t object to a thing of beauty.’

  ‘God, he was a shit.’

  I looked at him. ‘No arguments there.’

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  I paused for a second.

  ‘Brandy?’

  ‘Go on then. Sounds good.’

  He was back from the kitchen in a couple of minutes.

  ‘Even if Elizabeth did see Damien and Maggie,’ I said, taking a fiery sip, ‘it obviously didn’t put her off letting him stay in her cottage, or indeed agreeing to visit him on the night he died.’ As the drink snaked its way down to my stomach, that led to another thought. ‘Unless she had a different reason for wanting him somewhere nice and accessible.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nate said. He’d drawn a second chair up to the study desk. ‘Just what was going through my mind too.’

  We looked again at the photograph of Elizabeth Edmunds, and I remembered her painting on Damien’s wall. I’d been thinking of her as the shy one. Could she have killed Damien?

  ‘You can’t always tell what a person’s capable of from their looks,’ Nate said. It was as though he’d read my mind.

  Nate hadn’t had the chance to share a case like this since he’d learnt his trade with Jack. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed it. And Ruby didn’t have a paunch and thinning grey hair, which was the icing on the cake. Shame she seemed to be rebounding with the tutor guy. Not that he could complain. There was no way he could approach her again. And anyway, it wouldn’t be safe.

  Suddenly, she turned to him. ‘Do you want me to let you in on my dark secret?’

  He was pretty sure she was keeping several. ‘Which one?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Come on through to the drawing room.’

  He followed her, and she crouched down by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, and heaved out some photo albums. ‘I thought these might help me to understand more of Damien Newbold’s background, once I realised the fourth nude on his wall was his mother.’

  They sat on Newbold’s spindly sofa, which was definitely not created for someone of
Nate’s size. He heard it creak ominously as he leant back and Ruby opened the first album.

  He could see why she’d become absorbed. She explained all the images in the context of what she’d found out online, blushing when she came to the albums she’d explored with the aid of a kitchen knife.

  ‘You’re thorough, I’ll give you that. Possibly not cut out for regular house-sitting work though. Clients hate it when you vandalise their belongings.’

  ‘How narrow-minded of them.’

  Nate shifted and the sofa creaked again, as though it was reminding him not to push his luck. He stood up. ‘Think I might be safer on the floor.’ It was a shame that Newbold, like most people, didn’t have more up-to-date photo albums. They might have told them something. As it was, the police had seized his computer, where he no doubt stored his jpg files. Then again, he might have kept backups somewhere the police hadn’t searched. Nate got up. ‘Just thought of something I might check.’

  ‘Okay.’ Ruby was still on the sofa, looking at one of the albums. She’d drawn her feet under her, and was leaning on a silk cushion, her dark hair fanned out against its lemon yellow.

  Nate spent some time looking through the drawers in the study, and checking on the shelves. Nothing doing. Then it occurred to him that Newbold could have put backup disks alongside the regular music cds, which were down in the basement. But he was empty-handed when he returned to the drawing room. He opened his mouth to explain what he’d been searching for, but then shut it again. Ruby had fallen asleep.

  I was confused when I woke up. Where the hell was I? Then gradually the memories of the evening gathered as I came to more fully. I was still on the sofa. The album I’d been looking at had been put on a side table, and I was covered with a blanket. The feeling of warmth intensified as I put those facts together. My empty brandy glass was next to the album. The drink had sent me off all right. I glanced at my watch. A quarter past two. Time to go to bed proper.

  I got up slowly and began to fold the blanket. It was then that an unfamiliar noise caught my attention. I moved towards the hallway, and stood there, listening. For half a second, I thought maybe Nate was still downstairs, but gut instinct told me the truth was less reassuring. There was a faint scraping, like a knife on a plate, but it was coming from the study. I kept absolutely still as I tried to make sense of what I was hearing. The sound went on, still very quiet, with the occasional squeak as though something was pushing and then slipping on a smooth surface.

  I felt my scalp prickle. I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t got my mobile with me, and panic made me slow.

  And then I realised something else was different.

  It was cooler. The air was shifting, drifting through the study door towards me. I knew what the sound had been now, and felt my legs wobble underneath me. Someone had been at work, easing out a pane of glass, ready to make their entrance.

  I moved forward on tiptoe, so that I could look across the hall. Ahead of me I could see enough to tell that the study curtains were drawn back. The beam of a torch swung over the room’s walls.

  I remembered reading an article in Saxwell’s neighbourhood watch magazine about approaching burglars when they’re in your house. The author had said it was crucial not to make them feel cornered. If you let them feel trapped they were likely to lash out. Heroics aside, I was quite keen not to be lashed out at. Of course, Nate was upstairs. I could try to sneak up there and warn him, but realistically, I was sure they’d hear me. If they just made a run for it that would be fine. But they might manage to grab the odd valuable item before they went. If I wanted to make myself useful in the role I’d been hired for, I needed to do something more immediate.

  As I tried to think I heard a faint gasp, then a soft thud as something weighty hit the floorboards. Someone had squeezed their way in.

  It was hardly heroics, but bluffing my way out of trouble seemed like the best approach.

  ‘I know you’re there,’ I called out. ‘And the police are on their way. I’m not coming in, but you might like to leave right now.’

  Surely the person holding the torch wouldn’t believe me. I sounded as phoney as hell. My voice had been shaking when I’d said the police were on their way. The intruders would probably come straight through to shut me up, and then get on with the job.

  But almost immediately someone swore. ‘Thought you said the ground floor was clear! I might have known.’ And then came a cracking sound – perhaps part of the window frame giving way as he exited more hastily than he’d come in.

  I ran through to the kitchen to try to get a look at them as they left. As the second one exited the back gate, I saw Nate hurtle out of the back door, and disappear in the same direction.

  After five minutes, he was back, shaking his head. ‘No good. They had a car waiting. I didn’t even get their number.’

  We went through to the study. It was a bit of a mess.

  ‘I don’t think they got anything,’ I said. ‘The thin guy had only just got inside when I called out.’

  Nate nodded. ‘You certainly achieved an instant response. I dashed down as soon as I heard you shout.’

  ‘You hadn’t gone to bed?’ He was still in his jeans.

  He grinned for a moment. ‘No. Just as well or I’d have been chasing them down the street in my boxers.’

  ‘I never thought they’d give up so easily.’

  ‘Opportunists perhaps, rather than professionals.’

  ‘Hell. Samson’s not going to like this.’

  He put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze, overriding the previous source of adrenaline. ‘Nonsense. Bottom line is, you stopped them in their tracks. Samson will be forever in your debt.’

  ‘Hmm. I think that’s almost more worrying than him being cross with me.’

  Nate smiled for a second. ‘Yes, I see your point.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Nate called a twenty-four hour glazier just after he’d contacted the police. The police arrived within minutes, and he took them to the kitchen. There were two officers who pummelled first Ruby, and then him, with questions, and a couple more who gathered evidence. They’d be conscious of a possible connection with the murder so he knew they’d take the break-in seriously.

  ‘Though any house thought to be empty following a death is a prime target,’ the younger officer said. She had blonde hair, pulled back into an untidy bun. ‘Any chancer who’s read the news recently or seen the flowers outside might take a punt on the place being unoccupied.’

  Ruby nodded, but Nate could see she was unconvinced. ‘I can’t help feeling it wasn’t like that,’ she said, her head in her hands, elbows on the table. ‘From what that man said, I got the impression they knew I’d been sleeping downstairs originally, and that the arrangement had changed.’

  ‘So you think they had inside information?’ the older officer said, scratching his scalp through thinning hair.

  ‘Maybe. I wondered whether Samson Newbold, who stands to inherit the house, might have let something slip by accident. That could be how they’d got wind of his security arrangements.’

  ‘Though they could have sized up the situation here just by keeping an eye on the place for a couple of days,’ the woman said. ‘Which lights get used after dark gives a lot away.’

  There was something in what she said, but still Ruby sighed.

  Once the entire police contingent had left Nate turned to her. She was still slumped in a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Go to bed. I’ll wait up for the glazier. It’ll probably be a bit noisy, but with any luck you’ll sleep through it; you look as though you might. You’re probably still in shock. Don’t forget you had to confront them when they were still on their way in.’

  She got to her feet, at last. ‘Okay, then. Thanks.’

  ‘You lie in and take no notice of me. I’ll have to call Samson about all this and I’m guessing he’ll want to come over and see what’s happened. If so, I’ll go and collect him and meet you back here.’
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  As she manoeuvred round the table she caught his eye. ‘Thanks for the blanket earlier. Sorry I conked out.’

  When I struggled back to consciousness the next morning, the first thing I did was check my mobile for the time. Bloody hell; eleven fifteen, and I had a text. Nate had written Didn’t want 2 wake u. Be back with Samson at 11:30. OK?

  I replied OK as I scrambled out from under the duvet and marched off to the bathroom. There was no time to prepare properly. I pulled on black jeans and a kingfisher blue T-shirt, which gave me a pallor any self-respecting Goth would have been proud of. Damn brandy and burglars, they clearly played havoc with one’s complexion. I was just trying to make some blusher look natural when I heard the front door open and close, and voices in the hall.

  I went to face the music. Samson’s focus was on the study door as he muttered a greeting. Behind him Nate met my gaze and rolled his eyes.

  We followed Samson through to the spot where one of the two men had managed to enter the house. ‘I spoke to DI Johnson this morning,’ he said. ‘The police say we’re very lucky the burglars didn’t manage to get anything at all.’

  ‘Well, I suppose the one who came inside only had a second’s opportunity,’ I said. ‘He’d barely had time to flick a torch over the contents when I shouted out. And there are fewer valuables in here than in the drawing room.’

  ‘Well, you’ve more than proved yourself,’ Samson said, his eyes running over me in that well-practised way, in spite of my reduced state. His gaze made my hands go clammy. ‘I gather you were on the scene first.’ He glanced sideways at Nate.

  ‘I just happened to be downstairs, because I couldn’t sleep,’ I said. ‘I’ll get us some coffee.’ I walked into the hall, but Nate followed me.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ As he passed me, he said, under his breath, ‘I’ll leave you to the love-in, Ms Flavour-of-the-month.’

  ‘Hmm. Thanks.’ I dragged myself back to the study.

  ‘So what did our burglars look like?’ Samson said.

  I shrugged. ‘I barely saw them.’ I explained what little I’d managed to glimpse from the kitchen window. ‘There was no chance of even judging their hair colour in that light.’