The Magpie (Rufus Stone Detective Stories Book 3)

by K. J. Frost

  He stares up at me. “Depressed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you thinking about the Sanderson woman?” He stops walking and puts down his briefcase.

  “Yes. She’s very disinterested, disconnected from what’s happening around her.”

  “Well, I’m no expert, but I’d say the death of her daughter might give her grounds to be both of those things… and more.”

  “That’s fine, but I’m not sure she was that happy before Amy’s death. From what the cook said, she only started to come out of her shell when she started having an affair…”

  He scratches his head and sighs. “Again, this isn’t my field, but doing something dangerous or out of character, like having an affair, or committing a minor crime – such as shoplifting, or something – can be considered typical behaviour of someone with a personality disorder… if that’s the way you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking. Not yet.”

  “Then maybe you need to speak to someone who knows more about this than I do?” he suggests.

  “I’d love to.”

  “I have to get to this meeting,” he says, glancing at his watch again, “but I’ll telephone your office later with the name of a colleague of mine. He’s a psychologist. He’ll be able to help you.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He bends to pick up his briefcase and plants his hat on his head. “Don’t thank me,” he says. “Just catch whoever did this. It’s a nasty one.”

  Does he think I don’t know that?

  It’s just after lunch when Doctor Wyatt calls with the name of the psychologist – Matthew Tennant – and his telephone number. I make a point of thanking him again, and then get Thompson to call Tennant and arrange an appointment for us tomorrow morning. While he’s doing that, I go back through the witness statements from the people who live in the houses overlooking the park where Amy’s body was found.

  “I think we need to go and speak to the neighbours again,” I remark as Thompson comes back into my office.

  “What neighbours?”

  “The ones whose houses overlook the entrance to the park,” I explain, pushing the file across my desk towards him.

  “Why?” He leans over and examines the pages in front of him, then looks up at me.

  I point at the top sheet. “Because up until now we haven’t been able to be specific, or accurate about what we’ve been looking for, other than it might have been something unusual.”

  “And we’re now interested – or possibly interested – in a woman, with a young child?” he says, nodding his head.

  “Or a woman behaving strangely – assuming she’d already dumped the body.”

  “You want to go now?” he asks.

  “No time like the present. And it’s not like we’ve got a great deal else to do, is it?” I walk around my desk and over to the pegs behind the door, where my coat and hat are hanging. “You spoke to Matthew Tennant, I take it?”

  “I spoke to his secretary,” he replies. “A very prim sounding Miss Butler. She’s arranged an appointment for us at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” He smiles at me. “Mr Tennant can spare us half an hour. No more.”

  “Can he now?”

  “Evidently.”

  He helps me with my coat, because I’m feeling rather tired and it’s a struggle to pull it on over my shoulders, and we go through the main office, where he picks up his own hat and coat on the way out.

  It’s even colder outside, the wind having picked up, the grey clouds scudding across the sky, and we waste no time getting into the shelter of the car.

  “I wish I could be at home now, with a whisky, and my feet up by the fire,” Thompson says. “Preferably with Julia on my lap.”

  “Which of those do you wish for the most? The fire, the whisky, or Julia?”

  “Julia, of course.” He smiles across at me. “And don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way about Amelie, because I know you do.”

  I hold up my hand. “I wasn’t going to deny it.” Just the thought of sitting by the fire with Amelie in my arms is enough to bring a smile to my face.

  “Oh, you really have got it bad, haven’t you?” he says, grinning now, as he shakes his head and starts the engine.

  “Stop talking and drive, Sergeant.”

  The middle-aged couple at the first house in the row of five Victorian terraced properties, let us into their hallway ‘to keep the heat in’. When questioned, the woman looks worried, but says they didn’t see anyone at all last Tuesday. Her husband continues, telling us that, at the time in question, they were having lunch in the kitchen at the back of the property, and then they had a cup of tea and listened to the wireless for a while, before he went and mended a puncture on his bicycle and she got on with the housework, all of which kept them at the rear of their property. I thank them for their help and we leave, closing the wrought iron gate behind us at the end of their short, narrow pathway.

  “Do you think they’re all going to be like that?” Thompson asks as we walk along to the next house.

  “Well, it was lunchtime. I suppose it makes sense that they’d have been occupied. But it’s worth a try.”

  Our knock is answered by an older woman, who stands, leaning against the door frame, evidently not so concerned about whether or not the heat escapes from her home.

  “I didn’t get back from the shops until probably about half past one,” she says, in answer to my question, nodding her head. “And then I had my lunch in the kitchen and read the newspaper for half an hour or so.”

  “And after that?”

  “I did the ironing,” she replies. “I always do it on Tuesday afternoons. Washing on Mondays, ironing on Tuesdays… I like to listen to the wireless while I do it, but I remember there was some awful folk music on. I didn’t enjoy it at all.”

  “Well, thank you very much for your time.”

  I touch the brim of my hat and she smiles, then turns and goes back inside, after a quick glance up at the sky.

  At the next house, we’re greeted by an elderly gentleman, who tells us rather grumpily that he’s already spoken to the police and – in any case – he wasn’t in last Tuesday; he was at the hospital. I apologise for wasting his time and he slams the door in our faces.

  “How polite,” Thompson murmurs and I start to wonder if this was a waste of our time too.

  “I remember you,” says the lady at the fourth house the moment she opens the door and focuses on me. “You’re that policeman… the one who was at the park the other day.”

  I recognise her now. “And you were the lady with the green scarf,” I reply and she gives me a smile, which I return. Without her head wear I can see that she has greying brown hair, worn in tight curls around her face.

  “Come in out of the cold,” she says, stepping to one side as both Thompson and I remove our hats, and she ushers us into the house. “Go on through to the lounge.” She nods towards the door on the right of the hallway. “The fire’s lit in there.”

  I glance at Thompson and smile. At least he’s getting one of his wishes. We enter a small, but neat living room, rather overcrowded with furniture, but comfortable nonetheless, and the lady follows behind us.

  “Take a seat,” she offers, and we sit on the sofa, leaving her with the chair nearest to the fire, which she takes, sitting forward and looking at us. “How can I help?” she asks.

  “I know you’ve been interviewed already,” I reply, “but we just need to ask one further question…”

  “Oh yes? What’s that?”

  “Last Tuesday, the day Amy Sanderson went missing… did you notice a woman in the park opposite.” I nod in the direction of the window, and the green space on the other side of the road.

  “A woman?” She seems surprised.

  “Yes.”

  She frowns, although I’m not sure whether that’s because she’s confused by my question and it’s implications – not that the public are yet aware of what wa
s done to Amy – or whether she’s just thinking.

  “I didn’t see anyone much at all,” she replies eventually.

  “What were you doing?” I ask.

  “Oh, just the housework.” She smiles again. “You know, dusting and such like. I try to keep busy since my Albert died…” Her eyes stray to a photograph on the mantlepiece and I follow her line of sight, noticing a picture of a rather portly man with dark hair, glasses and a pipe hanging from his mouth. “The time can drag,” she murmurs.

  “I’m sure it can,” I reply, because I can’t think what else to say, and she turns to me, smiling again.

  “I was in and out of here,” she says, thinking again, “but I don’t remember…” She pauses again. “Except…”

  “Except what?”

  “There was the woman with the pram.”

  My skin tingles. “The woman with the pram?” I repeat.

  “Yes.” She speaks slowly, as though trying to remember. “The thing is, I can’t recall if that was Tuesday, or Wednesday.”

  “Do you remember what you were doing when you saw her?”

  “Dusting the ornaments on the windowsill,” she replies promptly. “She came out of the park with the pram, and turned left, and she just caught my eye as I was replacing that china cat on the end there.” She points to the trinket in question, a small white cat, sitting upright, and painted – rather incongruously – with pink roses.

  “And do you remember whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday when you dusted the ornaments?”

  She stares at me. “Tuesday,” she replies and then adds, “I think.”

  I sigh and decide to persevere. “Did she have another child with her?”

  “No.” She shakes her head with certainty.

  “And can you describe her?”

  Again she pauses, then says, “She was quite tall, probably three or four inches taller than me. She wore a dark coat and hat… navy blue, I’d say, but they could have been black.”

  “Her hair?” I ask.

  “Well, I couldn’t see it very well, because it was under her hat, and she had her head down, looking into the pram at the time, and I only looked at her for a second or two.”

  I nod my head. It’s almost nothing to go on. She could have been anyone. A young mother out with her infant. A nanny with her charge… or she could have been Elizabeth Sutton. In which case, what was she doing at this park, when she’s maintained all along that she took the children to the one just down the road from her employers’ house?

  “We may need to speak to you again,” I remark, getting to my feet, followed by Thompson. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask your name?”

  She smiles up at me, standing herself now. “Irene Nichols,” she says.

  “Well, thank you very much for your assistance, Mrs Nichols. I’m Detective Inspector Stone.” I realise I haven’t introduced myself either. “If you should think of anything else, can you contact me at the police station in Kingston?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes, of course.”

  She shows us back to the front door, which she opens, to a howling gale. “Looks like snow,” I comment.

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “Still, we’ve just got one more call, and then I think we’ll head for home.” We step out onto the pathway.

  “Oh, are you going next door?” She points to her left, to the last house in the block.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because he’s not there,” she says. “He’s gone to stay with his daughter and her family in St. Albans until after Christmas.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “I doubt he’d have seen anything anyway,” she adds. “He’s usually pottering about in his back garden most of the time. It’s his pride and joy.”

  “Right… well, thank you again.” We bid her farewell and make our way back to the car in silence.

  Only when we’re sat inside, in the relative warm, does Thompson turn to me.

  “Could it be her?” he says.

  “It could be. Or it could be another nanny, or mother.”

  “Do you want to go and question her?”

  “No. Not yet.” I lean back in the seat but turn my face to him. “It’s not enough. If we go and question her now, she can just deny it and say it wasn’t her – and we can’t prove it was. Let’s face it, Mrs Nichols is hardly a reliable witness, considering she can’t even be sure what day it was. But if it was Miss Sutton, asking the question now would just put her on the alert. She’d have the chance to escape while we’re still floundering around gathering evidence.”

  “You have a point.”

  “So, we need to flounder around and gather our evidence, while keeping her in the dark… just in case it was her.”

  “Do you think it was?” he asks.

  “I have absolutely no idea. I’ve made no secret of the fact that, in my heart at least, I’ve always preferred her as a suspect over the mother, but maybe we’ll learn something from Matthew Tennant tomorrow that’ll change my viewpoint.”

  “Hmm… and maybe we won’t.”

  Thompson drops me off at home just before six-thirty, and I let myself in through the garden gate, having already decided during the journey from Kingston to Molesey, that I’m not going to tell my mother, my aunts, or Amelie about the fact that we’re now looking for a woman in connection with Amy Sanderson’s death – or that we think the woman concerned may be either her mother, or her nanny. Part of my reasoning for this is that I don’t want to shock them, or worry them, but I have to confess that I’m also feeling rather sickened about the whole case and would rather just spend the evening with my family, and concentrate on the future, and my marriage to Amelie. That thought reminds me that it’s less than twenty-four hours since we became engaged – although it feels like a lot longer than that – and although a few hours spent discussing wedding finery still doesn’t appeal, a few hours spent with Amelie is just what the doctor ordered.

  I open the front door, to be greeted by the sight of my beautiful fiancée, standing near the foot of the stairs, removing her coat and handing it to my mother.

  “Hello.” Amelie turns to greet me, with a smile on her face as I take off my hat and deposit it on the hall table. “I only arrived a few minutes ago. We were just saying how cold it is.”

  I smile back. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? I was just thinking about you,” I reply, going over to her.

  “You were?” She looks up into my eyes, both of us now completely oblivious to my mother, who I think is still standing just a few feet away.

  “Of course.”

  I lean down and cup Amelie’s face in my hand, my thumb brushing her soft cheek as I kiss her, pressing my lips to hers, and holding them there. It’s only when my mother lets out a fake cough that I pull back and turn to her.

  “You can’t complain, Mother.” I look down at her as I shrug off my coat and reach behind Amelie to put it over the end of the stairs. “We’re engaged now.” I put my arm around Amelie’s shoulders with an air of defiance, and she nestles into me.

  Mother can barely suppress her chuckle and turns away, putting Amelie’s coat into the cupboard beside the door before coming back for mine. Once she’s hooked them both up, Mother turns back, coming over to stand right in front of us.

  “Are we ready?” she says, squaring her shoulders.

  “What for… the execution?” I mock.

  She slaps me on the chest. “The wedding planning,” she replies, as though she thinks I might have forgotten.

  “Lead on,” I say, with an air of resignation and she rolls her eyes and links arms with Amelie, pulling her away from me towards the living room. “I didn’t say you could take my fiancée away,” I call after them.

  “Then you’d better come and join in,” my mother replies over her shoulder, and I follow behind.

  Inside the living room, the fire is roaring and Aunt Dotty is sitting in her usual seat, right next to it, in the corner of the sofa. Issa is sat in a chair,
with a drink in hand and they both stand as we enter the room.

  “My dear girl,” Dotty says, coming over and embracing Amelie, who looks at me and raises her eyebrows, a little overwhelmed by the attention, I think. “We’re so thrilled for you.”

  “Thank you,” Amelie mumbles and I move closer to her, feeling rather protective.

  Issa steps forward now, although she doesn’t hug Amelie. Instead, she stands in front of her, clutching her shoulders and kissing her on both cheeks, before stepping back slightly. “Can we see the ring on you?” she says.

  “On me?” Amelie queries, while holding out her left hand for examination. She looks sideways up at me as my aunts hold her hand and ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ about how beautiful the ring looks – which it does. “D—Did Rufus show it to you before he gave it to me then?” Amelie asks and there’s just a hint of disappointment in her voice.

  “No,” my mother explains from behind Issa and Dotty, who stand to one side to let Mother take their place, as Amelie turns to her. “No, my dear, it was nothing like that. I’m sure if Rufus had bought the ring, he’d have kept it to himself until he’d given it to you. That would have only been right and proper.”

  “If he’d bought the ring?” Amelie repeats, turning to look at me again. “You didn’t buy it?”

  “No, and I didn’t steal it either.” I smile down at her and she attempts a smile back, although she still looks rather doubtful. “It was my grandmother’s.”

  She tilts her head and sighs, and then smiles properly. “Your grandmother’s?”

  “Yes, on my father’s side.”

  “Did your father leave it to you?” she asks.

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Alan… my husband… Rufus’ father, gave me the ring, after his own mother died,” my mother says and Amelie turns to face her again. “And we decided that if Rufus ever found the right woman, the woman he wanted to marry and spend his life with, I would pass it on to him.”

  “I see.” Amelie smiles, although I notice it doesn’t touch her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her, stepping around in front of her and placing a finger beneath her chin, raising her face to mine. Mother moves away, but I’m aware of all three of my female relations behind me, in close proximity, listening to our conversation. And I don’t care. I only care that something’s wrong with Amelie.