The Bookshop Murder: An absolutely gripping cozy mystery (A Flora Steele Mystery Book 1)

by Merryn Allingham

  The Bookshop Murder

  An absolutely gripping cozy mystery

  Merryn Allingham

  Books by Merryn Allingham

  The Bookshop Murder

  Contents

  Abbeymead

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Hear More from Merryn

  Books by Merryn Allingham

  A Letter from Merryn

  Abbeymead

  Sussex, 1955

  One

  Locking the shop door carefully behind her, Flora heaved the last parcel of books into the basket. Betty wasn’t the most beautiful of bikes but she was functional, her wide wicker tray already filled to overflowing. Time for the Friday evening chore they both hated. It was Aunt Violet who had begun a regular delivery slot from the All’s Well bookshop several years ago. A community service, she’d told her niece. Some of the old dears find it difficult to carry even one book home from the village. The problem was that the number of old dears had increased rapidly and there was barely a week now that Flora wasn’t packing the bike to its maximum and labouring her way through Abbeymead and its surrounding lanes.

  Today shouldn’t be too onerous, though – three village addresses and only one a mile or so beyond. Just as well, she thought, looking up at the autumn sky. In the last hour or so, puffs of white cotton had given way to a darkening bank of cloud. She would need to be swift.

  Cycling to her first call, she found the village green deserted. It was that time of day when, school and work finished, people had only just arrived home and the evening had not yet begun. She stopped at one of the cottages lining the green. Thatched-roofed and rose-covered, it was everyone’s rural dream, though the reality was less idyllic as Flora knew from her own experience of draughty windows and leaking pipes.

  Leaning Betty against the low stone wall, she looked up to see Elsie waving to her from the window. The pensioner was among All’s Well’s best customers, having an unquenchable thirst for the most gruesome crime stories Flora could find. A brief chat and Flora was back on her bicycle and posting the vicar’s latest improving tome through the vicarage letter box, then on to the postmistress to deliver a large parcel of children’s books – Dilys regularly entertained a swarm of nieces and nephews – only to be kept talking on the doorstep for far too long. One more call, Flora thought, disentangling herself from her garrulous customer.

  Miss Lancaster lived at the top of a very steep hill, but even so, Flora reckoned she should be home for supper by seven. And what a supper! Alice Jenner, the cook at the Priory Hotel, had called this morning on her way to work and left Flora one of her famous pies. Steak and kidney – a sheer delight! Meat had come off ration only last year and still felt a wicked indulgence. Flora could almost smell that pie as she puffed her way up the last few yards to Miss Lancaster’s neo-Gothic pile.

  It was then that it happened. One minute she was straining every calf muscle to make it to the driveway and the next a blast of wind, or so it seemed, had knocked her off the bike and deposited her at the side of the road. The autumn leaves made a comfortable enough bed, but Betty was spreadeagled across her chest and she was finding it difficult to breathe. Pulling herself from under the bike’s dead weight, she glimpsed the rear of a red sports car disappearing past Miss Lancaster’s wrought-iron gates and on around the bend towards the Priory, the driver’s cloud of fair hair blowing wildly in the wind.

  Flora struggled to her feet, heaving the cycle upright and fixing the basket back in place, then wearily pushing Betty through the gates and up to the gloomy front door. That sports car, she thought, had to be from the hotel. Alice Jenner had been telling her only this morning how many new ideas the owner, Vernon Elliot, had introduced, in the hope of enticing more customers to book. According to Alice, a complimentary drive in a brand-new Aston Martin was on offer, but only for guests who reserved the most expensive suites. They might have money, Flora fumed, but they certainly didn’t have manners. As Miss Lancaster’s wintry face appeared in the doorway, she pasted on a bright smile.

  It was all very different when Lord Edward Templeton was alive, she reflected, freewheeling down the hill, her long hair streaming behind, a banner of resistance. In the viscount’s day, villagers had been free to walk in his fields and woods and welcome to call at the Priory. Every year, even during the war, his rolling parkland had been used for the summer fayre with special teas laid on in the rose garden and, at the very beginning of the conflict, the house had thrown open its doors to welcome dozens of evacuees, children from those parts of London considered most in danger – Silvertown, Stepney, Bethnal Green. As a child herself at the time, she had welcomed new playmates. Now, though, there were fences everywhere and notices that barked at people not to park here, not to enter there. These days the village, unless it chose to eat a very expensive meal in the Priory restaurant, never went near the place.

  But Lord Templeton was gone and so was dear Aunt Violet. And so, Flora thought sadly, was her chance of escape. Her chance to leave the narrow life of Abbeymead and walk out into the world beyond.

  The memorial clock opposite the All’s Well was already striking nine when Flora pedalled furiously along the village high street the next morning, feeling for her shop keys as she rode. She was going to be late opening up. Aunt Violet had always insisted they were in the shop and ready to serve by ten minutes to nine every day, no matter that their first customer invariably walked through the door at least an hour later.

  Her aunt’s rules might sometimes irk, but Flora tried to keep them still. Violet Steele had been everything to her – mother, father, friend and confidante. But for Violet’s intervention, an orphanage would have been Flora’s childhood home, her parents dying together in an horrific road accident. Her aunt had nurtured the small child, loved and encouraged her, watching with pride as Flora grew to adulthood and became her closest companion. Six months ago, when Violet had been forced to bow out of her niece’s life for good, she had placed all she possessed – a small cottage on the outskirts of Abbeymead and her beloved bookshop – into Flora’s hands.

  Flora had worked in the shop for as long as she could remember: first as a little girl making more mess than helping, then later in school days earning money as a Saturday job and, later still, home in the holidays from library school, working happily alongside her aunt. She had always meant to do something else, use her qualifications to travel, settle in a larger town perhaps, but then Violet had become sick and needed constant care. In the end, her aunt’s decline had been swift and it had to be Flora who had stepped up. Was still stepping up.

  She propped Betty against the wall’s weathered red brick and took a deep breath. Opening the white-painted shop door, she allowed the familiar smell of books
to wash over her – the sweet, musky warmth that she loved. Her first chores were always to check the till and dust at least two of the bookshelves. Then she could make a cup of tea. She would have plenty of time – the village had appeared half asleep as she’d pedalled through.

  But in that Flora was wrong. She had barely hung up the pink swing jacket for which she’d saved so hard, and opened the cash register, when the shop bell rang and an unknown man walked through the door. Flora’s eyes widened. Unknown men were rare in Abbeymead. This one was tall, lanky she’d say, his clothes hanging loose, seeming to have grown alongside him. He was wearing a strange hat, too. She’d seen something similar in her neighbour’s magazine. A fedora, that’s what it was called. She’d loved the name, it had such a ring about it, conjuring up colour and sun and everything exotic.

  There wasn’t much exotic about this man, though, and she felt slightly cheated.

  ‘Miss Steele?’ He raised his hat as he approached the counter. ‘I’m here for books.’

  ‘As you see.’ Flora waved a hand at the book-lined walls surrounding them.

  ‘No, I meant books that I’ve ordered.’ He fixed her with an enquiring look. His eyes, she noticed, were an astonishing light grey.

  ‘I think they should be here by now,’ he prompted. ‘There’s a boy, Charlie – he usually collects my orders – but annoyingly he’s caught the mumps and I need the books now. Urgently. Research,’ he finished, as way of explanation.

  Flora knew the boy he’d mentioned. Charlie Teague did all kinds of odd jobs around the village to earn money and she’d seen him in the bookshop several times, but it was Aunt Violet who had always dealt with him.

  ‘I’ll certainly look. If the books have arrived, they’ll be downstairs. Could I have your name?’

  ‘Carrington. Jack Carrington. They’ll be marked for J.A. Carrington.’ He said the words as though he were uncomfortable with them and she wondered why. It seemed a perfectly good name.

  ‘I’ll just pop down and get them, Mr Carrington, but do have a look around while you’re here. You may find something else you’d like.’

  Anything, she thought, to keep the shop going. For years, they had struggled to make a profit and constantly teetered on the verge of financial disaster. The war might have ended ten years before, but the make-do-and-mend culture of wartime continued, and few people had surplus money to spend. Books were a luxury, but Mr Carrington looked a good bet, a serial reader. The All’s Well liked serial readers.

  It took her some time to locate the right pile, packages of books being scattered haphazardly around the cellar. The building was old – parts of it from the fifteenth century, she’d been told – and its walls twisted and turned in dizzying fashion, often ending in a dead end. Storing goods in any kind of order was almost impossible. Above the cellar, the shop floor was similarly higgledy-piggledy and there had been a few times when Aunt Violet had had to ride to the rescue, discovering a customer in one of its hidden nooks, unable to find their way back to the front door.

  J.A. Carrington, Flora read. A small pile of books had come but not the full order, it seemed. Every customer was given a label, and the books they’d ordered placed beneath as they arrived. Once the order was complete, Flora would telephone the customer and ask them to call, praying hard it wouldn’t prove to be a Betty trip. Mr Carrington was different, though. It was Charlie Teague who delivered the man’s order to the shop and called a week later to see if the books had arrived. When she’d mentioned to Violet how odd the arrangement seemed, her aunt had smiled. Each to his own, she’d said. He’s probably a man who doesn’t like to mix much.

  Flora collected Mr Carrington’s three volumes, hoping he’d be satisfied with half of what he’d expected. One, she saw, was on rare poisons, another a history of state executions, and this one with the blood-red jacket was a catalogue of evil-looking Turkish scimitars. What was this man up to?

  Flora looked over her shoulder, thinking for a moment she’d heard a footstep on the stairs, and then scolded herself for her silliness. Quite clearly, these were reference books. But for what? J.A. Carrington – of course. She should have known, she had an entire half shelf of his books displayed a few yards from the till. Jack Carrington. Crime writer. Determined recluse – according to the village. Or for the less generous among them, the local oddball. It was Charlie’s sickness and desperation for his books that had finally winkled the man out into the open. Flora supposed she should feel proud. She must be one of the few villagers who had ever seen him, despite the fact that he’d rented Overlay House at least five years ago.

  Quickly, she found a small box in which to pack the books, taping the lid securely, and heaving the parcel back up the stairs. It was surprisingly heavy. When she emerged onto the shop floor, though, it was to find that Jack Carrington had disappeared. She toppled the box onto the counter and was wondering if she should go and look for him – mindful of the building’s quirks – when, suddenly, he was at her shoulder. She hadn’t heard a thing. He might be lanky and wear a battered fedora, but he moved like a cat.

  ‘Miss Steele, I think you should come.’

  ‘Come where?’

  His expression was grave and she saw the grey of his eyes had become dark. Like a winter sea.

  ‘I ventured to the rear of the shop, where the wall turns sharply inwards,’ he said over his shoulder, already walking back the way he’d come. ‘There’s a kind of small alcove there, diamond-shaped.’

  ‘I know it,’ she murmured, trying to keep up with his long strides as they threaded a winding path through the shop.

  ‘I was surprised, I must say.’

  ‘But why…?’ she began.

  They had almost reached the end of the shop and her voice faded away. There was a body sprawled across the wooden floor, a young man by the look of his unlined face. His head had toppled the line of books on one of the lower shelves and, at the other end, his suede boots had toppled another. But it was his hair that fixated Flora, spread like an arc of sunshine across the polished floorboards.

  A familiar cloud of bright, fair hair.

  Two

  Flora gave the crumpled figure another swift glance. ‘Is he dead?’ she asked faintly.

  Kneeling beside the body, Jack held two fingers against the man’s neck. ‘Quite dead, I’m afraid.’

  She pushed her long hair back from her face, as though this might help her think more clearly. ‘But how on earth did he die here?’

  ‘He was looking for a book?’

  Jack Carrington was poker-faced and she was unsure whether or not he was joking. If he was, it was in poor taste.

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said coldly. ‘You were the first person to walk through the door this morning, apart from me, and he certainly wasn’t here last night when I left, alive or dead.’

  ‘How extraordinary.’ Jack got to his feet again. ‘So what do you think?’ He was looking at her as though she had the answer to some magic riddle.

  ‘What do I think?’ she demanded. ‘That he shouldn’t be here, whoever he is. That’s what I think.’

  Flora’s nerves were beginning to fray. She felt sorry for the young man, naturally she did, even though he’d behaved so boorishly last night, but a dead body was the last thing the All’s Well needed.

  ‘You don’t know him then?’

  ‘I don’t, though I have seen him before,’ she admitted. ‘Yesterday evening. I’m certain it’s him – I recognise his hair. He nearly ran me down. I think he must be a guest at the Priory.’

  ‘The Priory?’ He sounded puzzled.

  ‘It’s a hotel.’ Dear God, she thought, this man must never leave his house.

  ‘You’re talking of Lord Templeton’s family home? It’s the only priory I know of around here.’

  This was an interesting development, a reclusive man who spoke to nobody, but knew the local aristocrat. Though it did nothing to solve her current problem, Flora couldn’t resist asking, ‘So you were acquainted w
ith Lord Templeton?’

  ‘Acquainted is the right word.’ Jack gave her an enigmatic smile. ‘But as for this poor chap… there’s a wallet poking out of his trouser pocket. That might tell us his name.’ He pointed to a square of brown leather, the tip of which was just visible.

  ‘We should phone the police but not touch anything,’ Flora said firmly. ‘I thought you were a crime writer. Even I know that.’

  She wondered if she should be more suspicious. Aunt Violet had been happy to have Jack Carrington as a customer, despite his interesting choice of books, but Flora had never met him before this morning. And he’d been the one to find the body. Yet, somehow she trusted him.

  ‘The police can eliminate my fingerprints easily enough, and wouldn’t you like to know who ran you down? It might give us a clue why he’s turned up here.’ Jack bent over and deftly slid the wallet out onto the floor. Opening it, he said. ‘Kevin Anderson, that’s his name. Mean anything?’

  ‘Should it? If he was a guest at the Priory, I wouldn’t know him.’

  ‘Apparently, he’s an Australian. Unusual. But I guess the tan rather gives that away. What was he doing here, do you think? Abbeymead is a delightful village, but would you come ten thousand miles to visit?’

  Flora thought quickly. ‘You might if you’d once owned the Priory or knew someone who had.’