‘Have you had any other thoughts since the burglary? Is there anything that you may have forgotten to tell the police last time?’ Mac asked more in hope than expectation.
The builder shook his head.
‘What about you Mrs. Wells?’
He noticed that she glanced at her husband first before saying, ‘Sorry dearie, I can’t think of anything.’
Mac wondered if there might be something that she wasn’t saying. He ran through the names of the other people who had been broken into and asked them if any of them were familiar.
Another shake of the head from the both of them.
‘Please just have one more think. Anything, no matter how small or inconsequential, might be important.’
There was silence but Mac noticed the builder’s wife glancing at her husband almost as though asking permission. The husband shook his head again.
‘No, sorry dearie,’ Mrs. Wells then said for the both of them.
He left it at that although he made a mental note to talk to Mrs. Wells again at some point without her husband being around. He had to walk around the builder’s van on his way out.
He rang Miss Pratt’s number but, when he got no answer, he tried Mr. Pegram instead. His wife answered and said that her husband should be back just before six. Mac said he’d call by a little earlier so he could interview her first.
The Pegram’s house was just another council house on a big estate. It had three bedrooms and Mr. Pegram lived there with his wife, two young daughters and his mother-in-law. Before ringing the bell Mac had a look around the back.
An entryway ran along the back of the house and a six foot wooden fence separated the Pegram’s back garden from it. However even Mac wouldn’t have needed a ladder. There was a concrete hydrant marker post that was around three feet tall. Mac grabbed the top of the fence and stood on top of the post. There was a large plastic composter and an overturned plastic box right by the fence. It would have been easy to drop over the fence onto the top of the composter and then down onto the box.
Mac went around the front and rang the bell.
Mrs. Angie Pegram was in her mid-thirties and seemed to be dressed in some sort of pyjamas. She led him into the kitchen and lit up a cigarette from the gas ring of the cooker.
‘It said in the report that you’d left the back door open. Is that right?’ Mac asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Yeah, we don’t always remember to lock it, do we? I mean it’s alright round here so why would we?’
‘It also said that you only had an Easter egg stolen?’
‘Yeah, really strange that. It’s not as if we don’t have anything worth nicking.’
‘Mind if I have a look around?’
‘Help yourself.’
The house was cluttered and a bit chaotic but clean enough. The one room that was pristine and freshly decorated was their daughters’ bedroom. It was very pink and all the toys were tidied away and the bunk beds freshly made up.
Back downstairs he looked around the living room and he noticed a large tablet on the coffee table. It was new and of quite an expensive make.
‘Do you always leave this here?’
‘Yeah Robbie uses it for the football mostly but it comes in handy when we want to take a photo. We keep all our photos on there too. It’s much nicer looking at them on the telly rather than in an album.’
It was a strange burglar that would go past something so expensive and so portable to steal an Easter egg.
The sound of the front door opening announced the arrival of Mr. Pegram. He was in his late thirties, muscular but with a bit of a pot belly. His brown hair was nearly white with plaster dust. Mac showed him his warrant card.
‘Surprised you lot would want to come back again. It was only an egg, probably just those kids from down the road winding us up. Little sods they are.’
‘What made you report it then?’ Mac asked.
‘I didn’t, it was her mom that did that. She got all upset because she’d bought it especially for my daughter Beccy. She’s a big Peppa Pig fan. Personally I wouldn’t have bothered.’
‘By the way where is your mother?’ Mac asked Mrs. Pegram.
‘She’s picking up the kids from school and then she’s taking them to my aunt for a couple of hours. They love going there, Auntie Ellen always makes a big fuss of them.’
Neither of the Pegrams could add anything else to the little Mac had already learnt. He ran through the list of names of the other victims again but all he received was blank looks.
Back in the car he dialled Miss Pratt’s number and this time got an answer. She was going out in an hour so Mac drove straight to Radwell.
The house was a pre-war semi-detached and quite unusually for the area made of blue brick. A young cheerful looking brunette opened the door to him.
‘Miss Alicia Pratt?’ Mac asked while showing her his warrant card.
‘Please call me Al. Come in.’
The first thing he noticed was the alarm box on the wall just down the hallway. It had been repaired.
The house was strange inside. The décor was modern, bright pastel colours, but the furniture was quite old, though all in good repair. There were some unopened boxes stacked in a corner of the living room.
‘Have you been here long?’ Mac asked.
‘No, only a few months. I’ve still got a lot of work to do on the house.’
She curled up on a beanbag while Mac sat on an old brown Chesterfield sofa.
‘Is this about the Toblerone?’ she asked with a grin on her face.
‘It was a bit more than that though, wasn’t it? The burglar forced a door open and then disabled your alarm. I noticed they’ve fixed it now though.’
‘Yes the insurance company fixed that and the back door the day afterwards.’
She looked so happy that he really didn’t want to put ideas in her head but he had to ask.
‘Doesn’t it make you a bit nervous knowing someone has been in here while you were sleeping?’
She gave this some thought and then gave him a broad grin.
‘I suppose it should but if I’m honest no. I’ve always felt safe in this house. Until last September I was living in student digs, five of us in a small house. I had people in my room all the time whether I wanted them there or not.’ She looked around her. ‘This is all mine, all this space. I can shut the door behind me and keep the world out. It’s bliss. Anyway he only stole a Toblerone, he could have made off with a lot more if he’d wanted to. The flat screen TV’s brand new and my laptop’s worth quite a bit, it was right there on the table. Strange sort of burglar he must be.’
Mac couldn’t have agreed more.
‘What did you study?’ Mac asked.
‘History. I got a first and now I’m working in a bank,’ she replied with a shrug and a wry smile.
‘I take it that this house was left to you?’
‘Yes my gran died last year and she wanted me to have it. She knew how much I loved this house. As a kid my mom worked so she used to leave me here a lot and my gran and granddad were great. They were lots of fun to be with.’
She stood up and gestured for Mac to follow her. On the mantel piece over the fire there were a number of framed photos.
‘Here,’ she said handing him one.
‘That’s gran and granddad on their wedding day.’
The photo was black and white and showed a young couple in a formal pose. The man didn’t look oldenough to be in an army uniform. The girl was in a white dress with a veil and a small posy of flowers. She looked quite nervous. He could tell from the hairstyles and clothes that it must have been taken sometime in the forties.
‘Did he fight in the Second World War then?’ Mac asked, somewhat puzzled at how old he’d be.
‘No he just missed it. He was conscripted in 1947 when that photo was taken. He was only eighteen at the time. He did a couple of years abroad but thankfully no-one shot at him much during th
at time.’
She put the photo back on the mantelpiece.
‘I like keeping their photo here. This is still their house as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Mind if I have a quick look around?’
She didn’t.
He had a look at the back door first. It was a new UPVC security door with multiple locking points and hinge bolts.
‘What type of door was here before?’ he asked.
‘A wooden one, the same as all the others.’
Although the wooden doors were quite sturdy they’d be far easier to open that the one newly fitted. He counted the paces to the alarm box. It was only ten steps away but even so that meant that the thief would have had somewhat less than thirty seconds to disarm the alarm. He wondered if the thief might have already known where it was.
‘Did you have any strangers call just before the break in?’
‘No, not that I can think of, just friends and family.’
‘Did anyone try to sell you something at the door or perhaps a repairman called? Has anything like that happened recently?’
She gave it some thought.
‘Well I did get some deliveries around that time but they were all for the garden so no-one came inside as far as I can remember.’
Once again he ran through the list of names and he saw her hesitate when he said Wells.
‘Well I used to know a Virginia Wells at school. We used to be friends, until I went to university that is. I’ll have to remember to look her up on Facebook and see how she’s doing.’
It felt like clutching at straws but Mac would check it out anyway.
He thanked her for her help and gave her his number. Again he’d learnt next to nothing except that it once again confirmed that he was dealing with a real professional.
He sat in the car and rang Mr. Wells who confirmed that there was no-one named Virginia in his family.
He looked at his watch. It was now nearly seven, somewhat later than he’d thought it would be. He rang his friend Tim who was already occupying table thirteen in the Magnets and told him he’d be there shortly. He only had Mrs. Foskett to go.
‘You’re here about the chocolate buttons? Really I’d have thought the police would have better things to do. Come in then.’
Mac followed the white haired Mrs. Foskett inside. The house was an old labourer’s cottage built in 1911, so the plaque outside informed him. The furniture inside looked nearly as old. It was all neat and tidy but the thing that immediately hit Mac was the smell of baking that was wafting in from the kitchen. It made his mouth water.
‘Fairy cakes for the grandchildren,’ she explained. ‘They love my fairy cakes, especially when I let them ice them themselves.’
‘Mind if I have a look?’
She followed him into the kitchen. It was very warm inside and he noticed that the window was open a little. She noticed him looking at it.
‘I’d been baking that afternoon too and that’s probably why the window was left open. I must have forgotten to shut it properly.’
‘And you’re sure they only took a bag of chocolate buttons?’ Mac asked.
‘Yes that’s all. I might not have noticed but the window was wide open when I came down in the morning. I checked and that was all that had gone. The memory’s not always so good but I knew I had them because I’d only bought them the afternoon before and I still had the receipt. I checked because I thought why would anyone break into a house just to steal a bag of chocolate buttons? Mind you I haven’t got much else worth stealing anyway to be honest, not on a widow’s pension.’
‘What made you report the burglary then?’
‘Oh I didn’t. I told my daughter and she insisted on reporting it to the police. Probably just some kid having a bit of fun, waste of time in my opinion.’
He went back into the living room. It was a little cluttered especially with photo frames which covered the whole top of a large sideboard and just about every other flat surface in the room. He glanced at them, families at the seaside, dressed to the nines for weddings, babies, kids in the back garden, birthdays, Christmas. Most were colour but a few, including a man in uniform, were in black and white. A family’s history at a glance, Mac thought.
He ran through the list of names but all he got was a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head.
She was the last one he had to interview and he left none the wiser. After all the questions he didn’t know much more than he had before he’d started. As he drove back to Letchworth he couldn’t help feeling more than a little frustrated.
Oh well, he thought, a few pints and a chat with Tim should cure that.
Chapter Four
Saturday - Eight days before Easter
Mac woke having slept through the night for the first time in ages. The deep tiredness he’d been feeling behind his eyes had gone. He looked at the clock, it had just gone eight. He smiled. He’d just had over nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. Being on a case was obviously doing him some good.
He sat up and then carefully stood up. He smiled. The pain wasn’t too bad. He thought today might be a good day. Then he heard the banging from next door. He looked out as long scaffolding tubes were being dropped noisily on the ground by a large man in a hard hat.
The neighbours had warned him that they were having the builders in over the weekend to do their roof but he’d forgotten. He had planned to do some work at home but he decided to give up and drive into town. The up side of the situation was that he could now treat himself to a full English breakfast at the Magnets before he started work.
Tim was going to be away until the evening. He’d apparently sold quite a lot recently so he needed to replenish his stock. He was scouring some markets in Essex for bargain antique furniture so Mac decided to go to the quiet of his office for the day and examine the case files once again. He was also hoping that it might take his mind off the Villa who were playing in a local derby later in the day and going for a club record, most losses in row.
He also hadn’t checked his post for a while. He wasn’t totally surprised to find that there wasn’t any. Getting his detective business going was slower going than he could have possibly imagined.
As he waited for his laptop to fire up he sipped at his coffee and thought. So what do a plasterer, two retired people, a bank worker and a builder have in common? Their ages were all different and they’d apparently never heard of each other. They were spread over a three mile area and there appeared to be no coherent pattern. Yet Mac knew that there must be a connection between the five properties but he was at a total loss to know what that might be. He buckled down and started re-reading the case files.
It was just after eleven when he noticed a shadow darken the pane of glass in the door. He had a visitor.
He heard a tentative knock on the door.
‘Come in.’
A young woman came in and seated herself.
She had chestnut brown hair and was dressed in a short jacket, with a pastel blue blouse and a long skirt. The clothes were modern but still looked curiously old-fashionedin some way. Of course he’d recognised her as soon as she walked in. She was the young woman he’d seen crying through the pub window a few days before.
Mac could see that she was very nervous and uneasy.
‘I wasn’t sure that you’d be in, it being Saturday and all,’ she said as she sat down.
‘How can I help?’ Mac asked, already intrigued.
‘My name is Catherine, Mrs. Catherine Lynn.’
She offered her hand which Mac shook.
‘I have a problem, an unusual one I guess. I must admit that I didn’t know who to turn to about it and then I saw your website. I wasn’t aware that Letchworth had its very own detective.’
‘Like most people it would seem,’ Mac replied.
‘Anyway my father died recently, somewhat unexpectedly, and we need to access his safe. We’re fairly certain that there’s…something in there.’
The hesit
ation struck Mac.
‘It would help if you could tell me who the ‘we’ is and what the ‘something’ might be,’ he suggested.
She looked up to the ceiling and then stood up and took a few paces up and down before sitting down again.
‘I take it that everything I say here will be treated in the strictest confidence?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely.’
‘You promise to tell no-one outside of this room of what we’re about to discuss?’ she insisted.
‘I promise.’
Mac wondered if she was going to make him swear on a bible but she seemed satisfied with his promise.
‘Okay, the family solicitor and I suspect that my younger sister had been stealing from my father before he died. Indeed stealing quite substantial sums and other things as well. We know that there should be some evidence of this but we’ve looked everywhere and found nothing. I think that it must be in the safe. I’d like you to open it for me if you can. Can you?’
‘I’m no safe cracker,’ Mac said, ‘but I’ve known a few in my time. I could try contacting one of them I suppose.’
‘I would be eternally grateful to you if you could.’
‘Why didn’t your father leave the code to open the safe?’ Mac asked.
‘He did but when we tried it didn’t work. My younger sister also knew the code which is perhaps the reason my father changed it.’
‘So your father might have been aware of what your sister was up to?’
‘Maybe, for a short time at least,’ she replied. ‘He suffered from vascular dementia Mr. Maguire. I must admit that towards the end he didn’t know who or where he was most of the time but he did have some lucid days.’
‘And you think that during one of these lucid days he placed some evidence of your sister’s activities in the safe and then changed the code?’
‘Yes, we think it’s possible. My sister was away in New York the week before he died. He could have done it then.’
Mac gave this some thought.
‘When did you find out about your sister?’
‘The solicitor told me about his suspicions last Thursday. I must admit that it really upset me. I had absolutely no idea that anything like that was going on.’
The Weeping Women (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 3) Page 3