The Magpie (Rufus Stone Detective Stories Book 3)

by K. J. Frost

  “I’ll talk to her.” It’s the best I can offer, although it occurs to me that, if he spent more time at home, and less time pandering to Abigail Foster and his own libido, Amelie might find it easier to accept the situation. As it is, he seems to put his mistress ahead of his family – and I know how much that hurts Amelie.

  He shakes my hand again. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and then takes a deep breath. “Now… being as we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t you join us for tea?”

  I shake my head. “I think it would be best if you and Amelie had an evening by yourselves.” The fact that I’m having to point that out to him really ought to tell him everything he needs to know about his relationship with his ward. “And besides, my aunts and my mother are expecting me.” They’re not. They’re quite used to me coming and going, but I wish he’d put Amelie first, just for once. I’m pretty sure if I’m there, he’ll find an excuse to sneak off – probably back to London.

  “I see,” he says. “Well, I’ll keep quiet about seeing you then, shall I?”

  “I think that would be best, yes.”

  He nods and smiles. “Congratulations,” he says, rather awkwardly.

  “She hasn’t said ‘yes’ yet,” I remind him.

  He smiles. “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that.”

  For a moment, I think about my mother and Aunt Dotty and I smile. “I’m trying not to,” I reply.

  Chapter Eight

  I don’t know what to say to you. Actually, I’m not even sure I know you – or that I want to know you.

  I understood that Amy had been murdered, but not that something so utterly disgusting and vile had been done to her. I found that out when the police came to see me. I don’t appreciate being suspected of such a monstrous act and I’m wondering now if perhaps we should stop seeing each other, being as I can only assume the suspicion came from you.

  How could you think such a thing? After everything we’ve said and done, it makes no sense to me at all. I thought you knew me better than that, but it seems not.

  I won’t be writing, or contacting you for a while. I need some time to think.

  D

  *****

  I’m fairly sure I woke up with a smile on my face this morning.

  I have the ring, and I have Gordon Templeton’s permission. All I need to do now is to find the time to propose. And unless anything drastic happens during the day, I may even be able to do that this evening. Fingers crossed.

  In the meantime, I have work to do, and I get out of bed, opening the curtains before Mother has even come into the room. It’s a grey day, rather suited to the first task in hand; taking Mr Sanderson to identify Amy’s body.

  I’m dreading it.

  Mr Sanderson stares down the small, pale body of his daughter. Only her face is uncovered, the rest of her body hidden by a blue sheet. Her hair is tidy and all traces of mud and blood have been removed. She looks like she’s sleeping, her eyes and mouth closed, her nose tipped slightly upward. It’s only the grey pallor of her skin and the blue tinge around her lips that give away the lifeless quality to her body. And then there’s that bruise on her cheek…

  Wyatt, who chose to be present himself, rather than leaving the task to a junior, stands to one side, having revealed the girl’s face, and we all look at her father. He holds himself together remarkably well and looks up at me after just a few moments.

  “It’s her,” he says, his voice barely audible, and I nod to Doctor Wyatt, who moves forward and covers the child again.

  “This way.” I usher Mr Sanderson from the room and he walks out through the double doors and into the corridor, where I release the breath I’ve unknowingly been holding for some time.

  “I don’t suppose you have a cigarette, do you?” he asks.

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t smoke.” Not anymore.

  “Here.” Wyatt steps forward and offers an opened packet of ‘Craven A’.

  Sanderson takes one between his shaking fingers, nodding his thanks, and places it between his lips, leaning forward for Wyatt to light it, using a match, which he blows out and drops to the floor.

  “Is that it?” Sanderson asks, looking back at me again.

  “Yes. We can take you home now.”

  He nods. “Thank you.”

  “Sergeant,” I say, turning to Thompson, “can you escort Mr Sanderson back to the car? I just need a word with the doctor.”

  Thompson inclines his head and steers Mr Sanderson back towards the main entrance as I turn to Wyatt.

  “How’s it going with the additional tests you wanted to do?”

  “Not as well as I’d hoped,” he replies. “But obviously I had to stop to prepare the body for this morning. I’ll carry on now, and hopefully report back to you later today, or tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you.” I turn to go, but then stop. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  He smiles, just slightly. “I don’t. I just always make sure I’ve got a packet on me, with some matches, when we’re doing things like this. It comes in useful I’ve found.”

  My smiles widens as I walk away. It’s nice to be surprised sometimes, especially in my job.

  The drive back to the Sanderson house is silent, but I think we all have a lot to think about. I know I’m contemplating the interview we’ve got to carry out with Douglas Coates once we get back to the station, but I dread to think what’s going through Mr Sanderson’s mind. I know I don’t envy him.

  When we get to the house, Lois is standing on the doorstep, seemingly watching for us and, as Thompson parks the car, she comes out, her hands clasped in front of her.

  “Thank goodness you’re here.” She addresses herself to both myself and Mr Sanderson. “We didn’t know what to do.”

  “What’s happened?” Sanderson asks.

  “It’s the mistress,” Lois replies.

  “What about her?” I take over the questioning, moving forward slightly.

  “She’s… well, she’s hysterical. The post came not long after you’d left,” she continues. “There were just two letters; one for the mistress and one for Miss Sutton. I left them on the hall table, and went to the kitchen to fetch the mistress’s breakfast and take it up to her. When I came back the letters were both gone, and I could hear the mistress upstairs…”

  “Doing what?” I ask.

  “Screaming.” She bites her bottom lip.

  Sanderson glances at me and, together, we walk into the house, with Thompson and Lois behind us.

  I can hear a wailing noise coming from upstairs, along with a loud thud, followed by another.

  “I think she’s throwing the furniture around,” Lois says. “I did knock, but she shouted at me to go away… I didn’t like to go in.”

  Sanderson nods. “Very well, Lois. You can go back to the kitchen.”

  She gives a slight curtsey and walks quickly to the back of the house. I half expect to be told our presence isn’t required, but instead Sanderson squares his shoulders and starts up the stairs. I hesitate and he turns. “I think you’d better come with me,” he says.

  I follow behind, with Thompson bringing up the rear and we climb to the first floor, going around the landing to the third door on the right. Sanderson knocks loudly, just once, but doesn’t wait for a reply, and pushes the door open.

  “Get out!” His wife’s voice rings out.

  “Good Lord.” Sanderson speaks at the same time and moves further into the room. Through the gap in the door, I can see that the bed is a mess, the sheets pulled off and thrown onto the floor, pillows scattered; all of the items on top of the chest of drawers have been swept to the floor, and the mirror in the centre is smashed, where something has been thrown at it, I presume.

  I pause on the threshold, waiting as Sanderson stares across the room at his wife. “What on earth have you done?” he says.

  “What have I done?” Her voice is shrill. “What have I done? I haven’t done anything.”

  “It doesn’t l
ook that way to me.” He sweeps his arm around in an arc, presumably to demonstrate the devastation of her bedroom.

  “You think this matters?” she cries, a sob racking through her, and she comes into view, her eyes swollen, her hair dishevelled, her arm and hand cut – presumably from the broken glass – and her nightgown torn, with a few drops of blood splattered across the front. “My life is over.”

  He moves forward, holding his hand out to her, showing perhaps more affection to his wife than we’ve seen since this whole sorry affair began. “It’s not,” he says. “It just feels that way because you’re grieving over Amy, that’s all. We will get over this; it’ll just take time…”

  She looks up at him, confusion filling her eyes. “You’re so stupid.” A smile crosses her lips, but it’s a hard, unpleasant expression. “This is nothing to do with Amy… or with you, for that matter; and stop pretending you care about me, or about us. You can’t take your eyes off the bloody nanny, and don’t try to deny it.”

  “I’m not going to. Why shouldn’t I look at the nanny?” he replies, dropping his hand and raising his voice. “At least I’m only looking. Unlike you and David.”

  There’s a moment’s silence, then Mrs Sanderson screams, “You have no right to talk about him.”

  “No right?” Sanderson shouts. “You’re my wife, in case you’ve forgotten, while you’ve been so busy with your lover.”

  “Wife? That’s a laugh. You didn’t want a wife. You wanted a trophy… Just get out, and stay out, Daniel.” He doesn’t move. “I said, get out!” She turns and sees me for the first time, standing in the doorway. Her face pales, and then she looks away and disappears back into the room, just as Mr Sanderson comes towards me, pulling the door closed behind him.

  “I—I think perhaps we should leave her to it,” he says, his face red with either anger or embarrassment, I’m not sure which. Probably a mixture of both.

  I don’t reply, and we’re just about to descend the stairs, when I hear footsteps on the floor above, coming down to our level. Looking up, I see Miss Sutton walking towards us, clutching some folded linen in her arms, her eyes awash with tears.

  “Elizabeth?” Mr Sanderson steps towards her, and she startles, only now aware of us, her eyes darting from him to me.

  “It’s nothing,” she sniffles, raising her hand and wiping it across her dampened cheek. “I––I just can’t stop thinking about Amy, that’s all.”

  “Oh… my poor girl.”

  He goes to embrace her, but then remembers he’s not alone and stops himself just in time, and Miss Sutton ducks past us and down the stairs to the ground floor. We wait a moment, none of us saying a word, and then follow. Only when we get to the bottom do I clear my throat and wait for him to look up before I speak. “We’ll be in touch when we have something to tell you.”

  He hesitates for a moment and then nods his head slowly, before opening the front door and letting us out into the damp December air.

  “Well, that little scene with his wife was embarrassing,” Thompson says once we’re both in the car with the doors firmly closed.

  “For them, or us?”

  “Both?”

  I shake my head slowly. “Well, I suppose at least there’ll be no more supposed secrets in that house. Not anymore.”

  “No. It’s all out in the open now.” He pauses, then adds. “Did you believe the nanny, when she said she’d been crying about Amy?”

  “There was no reason not to. But she did seem… I don’t know… distracted.”

  “Hmm… although I suppose that’s understandable.”

  “Possibly, but I still feel there’s something Miss Sutton isn’t telling us.” I turn to look at him as he starts the engine and reverses the car out of the driveway, to drive us back to Kingston.

  “You don’t have a very high opinion of her, do you?” he says.

  “Do you?” I counter.

  “No.”

  I smile. “Well, we can’t both be wrong.”

  “Good Lord no. It would be unheard of.”

  Prentice is waiting in the main office when we get back to the station.

  “Ah, there you are.” He smiles as we walk through the door.

  “You’re looking for me?” I take off my hat and shrug my coat from my shoulders, walking towards him.

  “Yes.”

  I nod towards my office and he follows, a folder tucked under his arm, his hands in his pockets. I hang up my hat and coat and turn to face him.

  “You’ve got something?”

  “Something and nothing,” he says mysteriously. “I’ve been through all the items that were brought in from the workman’s shed.” He opens the folder and looks down at the first page. “There was a lot of it.”

  “Any prints?” I ask, more in hope than expectation.

  “No. Well, nothing useful. I spent a good long while untangling all of that string – with some help from a couple of the uniform boys… Wells and Beresford,” he adds. “And we discovered that one of the wooden pegs is missing. I doubt it means anything, although I did get Wells to go back over there and check the site to see if he could find it.”

  “And?”

  “No luck.”

  “So we’ve got a missing wooden peg?” He nods his head. “What about the blood sample from the pavement?”

  “Nothing doing. There wasn’t enough of it, I’m afraid. It was little more than a vague staining.” He looks up at me. “Of course, it has rained quite hard in between the girl going missing and the blood being found, so that didn’t help.” He turns over the page in the file. “I’ve also been looking at this ransom note,” he says.

  “And?”

  “Well, there are no fingerprints, if that’s what you’re asking, but then I’d be surprised if there were.”

  I nod my head. “What do you think of the contents?”

  He looks up again, tilting his head to one side. “It’s all wrong. It reads like a letter, not a demand. Whoever did this was an amateur; probably someone who thought they could try and make some money after they’d heard the girl had gone missing, and then changed his or her mind once the body was found.”

  “It’s odd that they’ve gone to the trouble of phrasing each sentence correctly, isn’t it?”

  “Hmm… that’s what I mean about it being all wrong. It’s too formal; too well ordered. Generally speaking, in my experience, ransom notes are written more as a series of commands, not like a letter to your Aunt Floss.”

  “I don’t have an Aunt Floss.”

  He shakes his head. “No. You wouldn’t.”

  Snapping the file closed, he hands it over to me. “I’m sorry I don’t have more for you,” he says.

  “No. It’s more nothing and nothing, than something and nothing really, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” he muses, walking backwards towards my door. “But if I did all the work for you, you’d never be able to claim to be a genius, would you?”

  “Claim?” I reply. “What do you mean ‘claim’?” and I hear him chuckling as he walks through the main office.

  I sit down at my desk, laying out Prentice’s file, just as Adams knocks on the doorframe.

  “Come in.” I look up and he walks in, standing beside Thompson, who’s on the other side of my desk, about to sit down.

  “I just thought I’d let you know, Pearce and I have checked out all the other alibis,” he says.

  “And?”

  He nods. “They’re all fine.”

  “What about Albert Finch’s supposed wife?”

  “Clara Reeves?” he says.

  “Yes. Was she willing to back him up?”

  “She seemed to be. She was nervous, but I suppose some people are.”

  “She didn’t look like she’d been beaten?” I ask.

  “No, sir.” He shakes his head firmly.

  I sigh, rather annoyed. “Well, I suppose he could hit her where it doesn’t show. After the way he behaved in his interview yesterday, it wou
ldn’t surprise me. Still, there’s bound to be another time… there usually is with men like him.” I look up at Adams. “What’s happening now?”

  “Pearce is down with the custody sergeant, arranging to have them all released, as per your instructions, sir. Except Mr Coates, of course.”

  “Okay, Adams. Thank you.” He smiles. “And good work.” He nods his head and leaves the room, and I turn my attention back to the file.

  “Do you think the missing wooden peg means anything?” I ask Thompson as he sits down opposite me at last.

  He shrugs his shoulders. “I have absolutely no idea. I doubt it though. It’s just a small piece of wood. It could be anywhere – with lots of other small pieces of wood in the park.”

  I pick up the top piece of paper and read it. “Hmm, except they hadn’t actually used these string marker things yet, had they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, according to PC Miller, they use them as guides for when they’re digging trenches for potatoes, but my understanding is that all they’ve done so far is to clear the turf. They haven’t dug the trenches yet.”

  “So?” he reasons. “One of the pegs could have come loose when they were bringing the strings from their vehicle into the park, or even at the council offices – or wherever they picked it up from in the first place. It could be anywhere.”

  “I know.” I put down the piece of paper and close the file. “I’m clutching at straws.” I look across at him. “And I’m putting off interviewing Douglas Coates.”