The Magpie (Rufus Stone Detective Stories Book 3)

by K. J. Frost

  “She’s innocent, you know,” he persists. “No matter what you say, I won’t believe it. She’s always loved Amy – probably more than my wife ever did.” I’m not going to argue that his wife has shown no affection for their daughter, but as to Miss Sutton ‘loving’ the child? That’s more than arguable. He looks up at me. “She’s innocent, I tell you.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I’d like to have a look at the baby’s pram, please?”

  “The pram?”

  “Yes. Can you tell me where it’s kept?”

  His brow creases and he points towards the back of the house. “In the boot room,” he says. “Behind the kitchen.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  I leave him standing there, looking bewildered, and go down the dimly lit hallway, opening the door to the kitchen, and letting myself in. Mrs Slater is standing by the sink, with Lois beside her, their heads close together. When they look up and notice me, they stop talking.

  “I’m looking for the baby’s pram,” I say.

  “Oh, it’s through here,” Mrs Slater replies helpfully, and comes across, opening a half-glazed door which leads out into a small lobby area, that’s filled with coats, boots and shoes, and the pram, which is up against the far wall.

  There’s no window out here, and just a small pane of glass in the door to the rear garden, so it’s very dark; too dark for my purposes anyway, and I turn to face the cook. “Is there a light?” I ask.

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “In that case, can I bring the pram into the kitchen?”

  She nods her head and then glances down at my arm. “Let me do it,” she says and bustles forward, kicking off the brake and pulling the pram backwards into the kitchen.

  I stand beside it and lean over, lifting the blanket and the sheet beneath, running my hand around the edge of the mattress.

  “That comes out,” Mrs Slater explains. “Would you like me to do it for you?”

  I smile at her. “That would be very helpful, thank you.”

  She reaches in and lifts the mattress, along with the bedding, and then gasps, “Oh, dear God,” staggering backwards and dropping everything to the floor.

  I move quickly, taking Mrs Slater by the arm and sitting her down in the nearest chair. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t touch anything,” I warn, glancing from her to Lois. Then I go out into the hallway and along to the bottom of the stairs, noting that Mr Sanderson is nowhere to be seen now.

  “Thompson!” I call, raising my voice and he appears within a moment, leaning over the banister rail on the landing above. “Can you come down here?”

  He runs down the stairs. “What?” he says, looking into my face. “What’s happened?”

  “Come with me.” I lead him into the kitchen, where Lois is now comforting Mrs Slater, who has a handkerchief clasped to her nose. “This way,” I mutter and together we walk over and look down into the base of the pram, at the wooden stake, its tip etched with a slight red staining, and the small pair of white cotton knickers.

  I lean on the edge of the pram, trying hard to control my rage, and the contents of my stomach, then feel a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll deal with this.” Thompson’s voice is quiet in my ear.

  “Thank you.” I turn to him, his face pale. “Are you sure?”

  He nods. “You go and tell the parents.”

  I wonder for a moment which one of us has drawn the short straw, before I stand upright again. “Are you alright, Mrs Slater?” I ask, speaking a little louder.

  She looks up at me, but doesn’t respond. “I’ll look after her,” Lois says.

  “Wait for me in the hall,” I remark to Thompson as I turn and leave the room, going back out into the darkened hallway and along to the drawing room. I’m about to enter, when I have second thoughts and knock, just once, waiting until I hear Mr Sanderson bid me to ‘come in’, before I push the door open and go inside.

  He’s standing by the fireplace, looking tense, and turns as soon as he sees me, raising his eyebrows, with a smug expression on his face, as though he expects me to admit I was wrong about the nanny all along, and that he was right. Before he has the chance to say anything, I start to speak.

  “Is your wife here?” I ask.

  “No. She went out just before you arrived.” He sighs. “I imagine she’s with David.” He sounds resigned to the situation, as though he no longer cares. “She didn’t say that was where she was going, obviously, but judging from her eagerness to get out of the house, her appearance, and the expression on her face, I don’t think I’ll be proved wrong in my assumption.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to pass on the information I’m about to tell you.”

  “Oh yes?” Again, he sounds rather complacent and I have to admit to no small sense of satisfaction that I’m about to knock the wind from his sails.

  “We’ve found what we were looking for.” His jaw drops and he reaches for the arm of the sofa, plonking himself down onto the seat.

  “W—What have you found?” he stammers.

  “The wooden stake that was used to penetrate your daughter, and her underwear.” I can see no point in beating about the bush.

  “Where?” he asks. “Where did you find them?”

  “In the baby’s pram. Miss Sutton must have hidden them there.”

  He looks up at me. “But anyone could have put them there. The pram is kept in the boot room. The door is unlocked during the day.”

  “You’re clutching at straws, Mr Sanderson. Your nanny is guilty. We both know it.”

  He shakes his head, slowly to start with, and then with increasing speed. “But she can’t be. She can’t. It’s not possible.” He stares up at me. “That would mean I—” He stops speaking abruptly, covering his face with his hands.

  “You what?” I ask, even though I know what he’s about to say. Except in reality he doesn’t say a word. Instead his shoulders start to shake and he throws his head back and howls, his face a picture of contorted agony. “You slept with her, didn’t you?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. “Didn’t you?”

  Eventually he calms enough to nod his head. “What have I done?” he whimpers. “Oh God, what have I done?”

  “When did this happen?”

  He looks up at me. “The first time was the night before last,” he murmurs and pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, using it to wipe his face as he calms down.

  “The first time?”

  He nods. “I’d been worrying over what you’d said… about the young man she’d been visiting on the day Amy disappeared. I wanted to speak to her about it, just to make sure she doesn’t really have a boyfriend.” He pauses and looks down at his hands. “We spoke on the landng, so as not to wake the baby, and she told me again that she’d just gone in for tea with him, and then explained that she couldn’t possibly have a boyfriend…”

  “Because of your rule?” I suggest.

  “No.” He shakes his head. “She said it was because she was in love with me.”

  I sigh and stare down at him. “And you believed her?”

  He shrugs. “Why not?”

  “And I suppose one thing led to another, did it?”

  “Yes,” he whispers. “She kissed me, and I kissed her back… and the next thing I knew we were in her room and we were—”

  “And the second time?” I interrupt, because I have no desire to hear the details. “Or has it happened more than twice in the last couple of days?”

  “No… just the twice. It was last night. She came down and saw me in my study, about half an hour before dinner.”

  “You had sex in your study?” I can’t hide my surprise.

  “No. Of course not. She couldn’t leave Eve for that long, and my wife could have walked in on us.” He huffs out a breath. “Elizabeth… Miss Sutton asked if I’d go and see her in the nursery after dinner. She made it clear what she had in mind.”

  “I’m sure she did.”

  “I went to her immediately after we’d fin
ished eating. We were still upstairs together when you arrived. Lois almost found us together… I had to hide behind the nursery door when she knocked.” He at least has the decency to blush.

  “Can I get this straight?” I ask, taking a couple of steps closer. “You’re saying, you didn’t go to Miss Sutton’s room? You had sexual relations with your nanny, in your baby’s nursery, while your baby was present, and your wife was downstairs?”

  “We meant to go to Elizabeth’s room, but we got carried away… and the baby was asleep,” he says, attempting to justify himself.

  “Oh, well that’s alright then.” I look away for a moment, my revulsion threatening to overwhelm me. “I’ll be leaving now,” I say, turning back to him.

  “What will happen?” he asks.

  “We’ll be charging Miss Sutton with the murder of your daughter.”

  He gulps and takes a deep breath. “Will she hang?”

  “I have no idea. That’s for a jury to decide.”

  I turn and make my way to the door. “Inspector?” he calls and I stop, looking back at him. He cuts a pathetic figure perched on the edge of the sofa, his handkerchief clasped between his hands. “Does my wife need to find out about this? About Miss Sutton and I?”

  “I would suggest you tell her. I think it’s quite likely it will come out during the course of the trial.”

  “But… but I’ll be ruined,” he murmurs.

  “Then perhaps you should have thought about that beforehand.”

  I can’t stand to look at him any longer, and open the door, stepping out. Thompson is waiting in the hallway and, I lead us both to the front door, and outside into the fresh air.

  The interview room looks less sinister somehow in the daytime, not that the windows are very large, or afford much light, but the starkness of the single lightbulb in the middle of the room does make it a more haunting space at night. Wells has been replaced by Constable Beresford; a less formidable sight, but a sufficient caution against any attempt to cause trouble.

  Miss Sutton looks exhausted, presumably from lack of sleep. Her make-up hasn’t worn well, her lipstick faded, her eyes lined with black from her smudged mascara. She still stares across the table at me though, defiant as ever.

  “Miss Sutton,” I say quietly as put down the file in front of me. She doesn’t reply. “Are you planning on staying silent again?” There’s still no response and I nod my head. “Very well. In that case, perhaps I should talk, and you should listen?” She stares at me, tilting her head, but I continue, “We obtained a search warrant earlier today, and went to your place of employment.” Her eyes widen this time, but she still says nothing. “And when we looked in the baby’s pram, we found the following items…”

  As I finish speaking, Thompson lifts the wooden peg, and the white knickers up onto the table. They’ve been tagged, but removed from the evidence bags, so she can see them clearly.

  “These items have already been examined,” I point out. “And although we’re awaiting the results, I think we all know that the blood on the end of this piece of wood will have come from Amy… from where you used it to penetrate her body, after you killed her.”

  “I didn’t kill her,” she says, sitting forward, her clenched fists hammering on the table, the outrage in her eyes and voice clear for all to see and hear.

  “Then what happened?”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you care to explain that statement?”

  “Certainly.” She sounds very sure of herself all of a sudden. “Where would you like me to begin?”

  “Let’s start with your fictional account of the time you spent with Mr Curtis at his flat on the day Amy disappeared, shall we?”

  “Fictional?” Her eyes widen. “What do you mean ‘fictional’?”

  “We both know you didn’t accidentally run into Mr Curtis, and neither did you go there for tea. Did you? You went there for sex.”

  “No I didn’t,” she folds her arms across her chest, sitting back in her chair. “Ask Daniel. He’ll tell you.”

  “Mr Sanderson? How can he confirm anything about your visit to Mr Curtis?” I ask. “He wasn’t there with you. All he can tell me is what you’ve told him, and being as you were having sexual relations with him as well, his testimony could hardly be called reliable.”

  “But…” she flusters. “But…”

  “But nothing, Miss Sutton. I know you thought that, by seducing Mr Sanderson, he would support you and back up your story, but that’s not going to work, I’m afraid. The only chance you have now is to tell us the truth.”

  She looks down at the table for a full minute, before raising her face again. When she does, I can see all the fight has gone out of her. “It really was an accident,” she mumbles.

  I turn to Beresford. “Can you get us some tea?” I ask and he nods, leaving the room, as I turn back to Miss Sutton. “Tell me what happened. Don’t leave anything out… and don’t lie to me.”

  She nods her head and takes a deep breath, and then she starts talking.

  *****

  Thompson clinks his pint glass against mine and takes a long drink. I sip at my beer and put the glass down on the bar again. The Dog and Duck is busy tonight, mainly with our fellow officers, many of whom are celebrating the fact that this awful case has finally been brought to a successful conclusion.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to get to the end of a case,” he says quietly.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “And at least she confessed, in the end,” he adds. “Although I was surprised she admitted to sending the ransom note.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I honestly thought that was the work of a chancer. I didn’t believe it really had anything to do with the case.”

  “Well, I suppose we have to accept her explanation; she did it to put us off the scent, just like she gave us the false description of the man, who never even existed. The ransom money had nothing to do with it.”

  “I suppose we should be thankful it was her – at least we don’t have to waste any more time looking for the supposed hoaxer; and I’m almost comforted to know there wasn’t a stranger out there, prepared to hold up the search, and jeopardise the little girl’s life for the sake of a couple of hundred pounds… it was all Miss Sutton, and her games.”

  “Yes,” I muse. “I’d like to say that has restored my faith in humanity. But I’d be lying.”

  He takes another drink. “Try and put it behind you, Rufus,” he suggests. “You’ve got so much to look forward to. We both have; between your wedding, and Julia and I having another baby… we’ve both got a lot to be grateful for.”

  I smile across at him. I know he’s right. I really do. I just can’t get rid of the foul taste in my mouth, and I have a feeling it’ll be a while before I do.

  “Go and see Amelie,” he says, interrupting my train of thought. “Talk it through with her.”

  “I should probably go home first.”

  He shakes his head. “Amelie’s going to be your wife in about five weeks’ time. She’s going to have to get used to how this feels… that sometimes we just need to let it all out.” He has a point. “Come on,” he says, “I’ll take you.” He finishes his pint, and I take another few sips of mine, and we wish everyone else a good evening, and go back to the station, where he opens the car door and waits for me to get in.

  “Thanks for your help on this one,” I say quietly, with one foot inside the car.

  “I think you’ll find it was mainly down to you,” he remarks. “I found it harder than usual – much harder. You were right about that.”

  “You seem surprised.” I say, my lips twitching upwards.

  He smiles. “That you were right? Of course I’m surprised. It doesn’t happen very often…”

  “Oh, be quiet and drive me home.” I get into the car and make myself comfortable as he closes the door and come
s around the other side, getting in beside me.

  “No. I’ll drive you to Amelie’s, and then I’ll pop over the road and tell your mother where you are, so she doesn’t worry. You need to see your fiancée.”

  I turn to him. “I’m not going to argue with you there.”

  “Well, that makes a change…”

  The door to Amelie’s house opens to my knock, and she throws herself into my arms, taking my breath away. I manage to catch hold of her, pulling her close as she nestles into me, and I walk her backwards, indoors, and kick the door closed behind me, savouring the feeling of her body against mine. I don’t think I’ve ever needed anything as much as I need this and I bask in the warmth, the softness, the allure of her.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmurs and turns on the light, flicking the switch on the wall beside us.

  “For that?” I marvel. “You’re sorry for that?”

  She smiles, shaking her head. “No. I’m sorry for the telephone call, yesterday.”

  “Why?” I still don’t understand the need for an apology, any more than I did last night.

  “Because I was being silly, and childish… and jealous.” She lowers her eyes. “You only telephoned to let me know you weren’t going to be home in time to see me, which was very kind of you, considering how much work you’ve got to do at the moment, and I turned it into a three-act drama.”

  I smile. “No, you didn’t.”

  “I was tired,” she reasons, as though I haven’t spoken. “And I was missing you, and trying not to let it show… which I think I failed at rather miserably.”

  I place my hand on her cheek and raise her face to mine. “You don’t have to hide your feelings from me, darling.”

  “I know, but it doesn’t help you if I’m constantly telling you how much I miss you, does it? You need me to be stronger than that.”

  I frown at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, as your wife, I’m not much use to you, if all I do is think about myself, am I?”

  “You don’t. I know that. I know you think about me, just as I think about you. Constantly. And as for missing me… well, I rather like the fact that you do. Because I miss you too.”