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

by Merryn Allingham

  ‘Is it as bad as that?’

  Flora nodded. ‘I’ve been trying to send out the few invoices I do have,’ she lied, feeling bad and hoping another white lie wouldn’t count, ‘but my typewriter has gone on strike. Somehow the carriage has got stuck. I won’t get the engineer to come for at least a week. I suppose you don’t know of a typewriter going spare?’

  Alice looked concerned. ‘I wouldn’t have the need for one. Let me think… Kate has an old machine at the back of the café. I’m sure it still works. Maybe you could borrow that?’

  ‘I don’t want to bother Kate, not at the moment.’ It was a possibility, but only once she’d searched the hotel. ‘Perhaps at the Priory?’ she prompted.

  Her friend thought again. ‘Mr Elliot has one in his office but I doubt he’d be too happy lending it. And Polly has one behind reception, though it’s very well used. There’s usually someone bangin’ away on it.’

  ‘Never mind, it was just a thought. It doesn’t look as professional, but I’ll have to handwrite them. Now, tell me how you found Kate this morning,’ she said, eager to change the conversation.

  ‘Copin’, I s’pose you’d say. The funeral is frettin’ her, and you can’t blame the lass. It’s a difficult day when it’s for one you love. That Mitchell’s no help either. He should be by her side, but instead he’s gone off somewhere, goodness knows where.’

  ‘Gone off?’

  ‘Katie hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him for three days now. Drunk would be my guess, though not on Cyril’s account. There was no love lost between them. Still, Bernard Mitchell never needed an excuse to get drunk.’

  The news that Kate’s husband had disappeared set Flora’s mind turning. It was three days ago that she’d seen him on Fern Hill.

  ‘What about the van? Is that missing, too?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘He must have dumped it back at the café before he took off. If he’s drinkin’, he won’t want to be bothered with a van.’

  So… after she’d met Mitchell, she thought, he’d changed the tyre and gone on to do whatever he’d planned. That must have taken him some time. She’d spent at least an hour with Kate when she’d got back to Abbeymead and there’d been no sign of him returning. What had he been engaged in that morning? And was that the reason he was missing now? Or had it been her threat to tell Vernon Elliot he was a wife-beater? She couldn’t think it.

  ‘I’d best be off now,’ her friend said. ‘Oh, one more thing, though.’

  Alice hadn’t finished delivering surprises, her next words causing Flora to gape at her visitor open-mouthed.

  ‘Polly Dakers is leavin’. Gave in her notice yesterday! She’s goin’ to London, would you believe. Goin’ to be a model.’

  ‘But…’ Flora stuttered, ‘she needed photographs, money.’

  ‘So I understand. But she’s a lucky girl. Her uncle Ted is payin’.’

  Hadn’t Polly said her uncle had given her five pounds towards her portfolio, but couldn’t afford to finance the whole thing? Had Uncle Ted sold an heirloom? Come into an unexpected inheritance? Or had Polly discovered an unknown source of wealth? If so, it put a whole new complexion on treasure trove and the legend. Monday’s visit to Hove was going to be more important than Flora had thought.

  She had always suspected the girl knew more than she’d admitted. If Kevin Anderson had taken her into his confidence, told her what he’d discovered, she could have been clever enough to work out the rest. It was perfectly possible. Flora was pretty sure there was a shrewd mind behind the beautiful face. If Polly was financing her new career from digging up a secret hoard, it meant she was likely to be Kevin’s killer. Once she had wheedled the secret out of him, he would most definitely be in her way.

  ‘Polly’s holdin’ a goodbye party,’ Alice was saying. ‘She asked me to invite you. Said you were very encouraging when she talked to you about her future.’

  Flora was about to refuse, when she had second thoughts. As a bona fide guest, she would have a golden opportunity to wander the Priory, as long as she was discreet. She wouldn’t have to depend on Jack and his unwillingness to be involved. It would be ironic if, at the girl’s own party, she found evidence that Polly Dakers was a murderess.

  ‘She’s havin’ the do on Wednesday,’ Alice went on. ‘It didn’t seem respectful to have it any earlier, not with Cyril being buried on Tuesday. You will come, I hope.’ Her friend sounded anxious.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Flora said.

  It was a date she would definitely keep.

  Eighteen

  It was Sunday morning and Flora was restless. For the last two hours, she had swept and polished the cottage and a roast lunch was in the oven with Alice Jenner’s fruit crumble to follow. Away from the bookshop, she should be relaxing, but her mind was bursting with the news of Mitchell and Polly Dakers. News she desperately needed to pass on. She’d been tempted to call at Overlay House and confront Jack in his study, even at one point putting on her walking shoes, but, in the end, she talked herself out of it. He wouldn’t be happy to have his work interrupted and she shouldn’t get too close. Theirs was a professional alliance, not a personal friendship.

  She liked him, though. He could be annoying when he pulled age and did the ‘I know better than you routine’, but she liked him a lot. And, grudgingly, she had to admit she found him attractive. The lanky figure, those startling grey eyes, the fedora – she had fallen in love with the fedora. But this wasn’t the right time for personal emotions. She heard herself give a small sigh. Was there ever a right time? She’d had boyfriends – she was twenty-five and it would have been strange if she hadn’t – but, except for one, they had been fleeting presences. Violet had been the single, solid pillar around whom she’d built her life.

  The one exception had been Richard Frant. She’d met him in her second year of college. He’d been a history student, not a budding librarian, but a party thrown by a friend of a friend had them collecting drinks together from the makeshift bar. They’d hit it off immediately, Flora feeling that at last she’d met a kindred spirit. Neither had siblings and both had been a little over-protected, Flora by her aunt and Richard by his parents living close by in Bristol. Both of them longed to travel, to experience new countries and cultures and enjoy a few adventures before the serious business of life began. All through their last year at college they had planned, deciding on routes, how they were to travel, what tickets they’d need, what visas, and crucially how much money. Flora had worked three shifts a week in a local bar to save for the trip, while Richard was being funded at least partly by his parents. Flora couldn’t ask Violet – even then, the bookshop trod a fine line between success and insolvency.

  It had been a hectic year. Evenings spent in the student bar were no more, impromptu visits to the cinema were rare, and any chance of a crazy weekend at the seaside, decided on the spur of the moment, was forgotten. For months, Flora was too busy pouring drinks in the evening to be around to chat, to exchange gossip, to help a roommate decide on a dress, a hairstyle. One by one, the friends she’d made had faded from her life. But it hadn’t mattered. She had her sights set on the journey ahead and on spending every hour of it with Richard.

  It was in the final term of Flora’s last year at college that Violet began to feel unwell. At first, it hadn’t seemed serious, but as the days and weeks passed, Flora became concerned. She’d asked Richard if they could postpone the trip until her aunt was feeling better and he had seemed happy to do it.

  Lying on the bed one hot afternoon in late June, he’d twirled the long strands of her hair round his fingers – it had hung below her shoulders then – and kissed her firmly on the mouth. ‘Flora, my lovely Flora, how could I ever go without you?’

  Yet he had. Only two weeks later.

  The first she’d known about it was a postcard from Dieppe. That Saturday, he hadn’t turned up at their usual place, a park the other side of town, but she hadn’t worried unduly. Sometimes the cycle shop where Richard
had a casual job called him in to do extra hours and he wasn’t always able to let her know. She’d even thought of walking along to the shop that day, but then decided on a lap of the park and going home. Twenty-four hours later, the postcard arrived. Richard had started without her.

  It wasn’t just the trip she’d lost, her dream of travelling destroyed, the hours of planning, of working, rendered futile. It was far worse. She’d lost trust and felt utterly betrayed. She had believed Richard loved her, that they would share a future, their travelling merely the start of a long journey together. He had smashed her self-confidence into tiny pieces and it had taken months, years, to come close to mending the damage. Flora had vowed then that she would never, ever, allow a man to make her that vulnerable again.

  Her aunt, already quite ill, had asked after Richard whom she’d always liked. Flora wasn’t to mind her being a bit croaky, Violet had said, she must invite Richard to stay with them during the long summer. Unwilling to upset her aunt when her health was so precarious, Flora was forced to invent a story to cover Richard’s absence, while hugging the pain wordlessly to herself.

  Luckily, she hadn’t needed to concoct an excuse for the ruined journey – she’d barely mentioned the possibility of travelling abroad. Her aunt already ticked off the days until Flora came home on vacation. For Violet, to lose her niece for a whole year would have been difficult, and Flora had wanted to introduce her plans gradually. Even after Richard’s abrupt departure, some small part of her clung to the hope that when Violet recovered – her aunt was such a stalwart, she must recover – she would still get to travel. On her own and not so ambitiously, but travel nevertheless.

  Her aunt’s illness, though, had continued, becoming more and more serious, until finally Violet received a diagnosis of inoperable cancer. For nearly three years, Flora had cared for the person who was dearest to her. Those years had passed in a daze, with no time ever to think, some days not even time to change her clothes or brush her hair, helping Violet stay on at the All’s Well while running between cottage and bookshop: shopping, cleaning, serving customers, organising medicine, doing the hundred small things that had to be done for an invalid.

  It had been a sad time, but Flora had never regretted it. She had been with Violet throughout the unequal battle and, when it was over, had felt so exhausted, so wrung out by sorrow and fatigue, that the idea of a journey had taken a long time to reappear, and then only to be dismissed as an impossibility.

  She wondered if Jack had seen much of the world. She imagined he had, but she knew so little about him.

  On Monday morning, Flora was at the bus stop well before nine, a raincoat draped across her arm. The weather in October had been unusually fine, but with a new month the sun had disappeared and dark clouds were threatening. When Jack quietly appeared at her shoulder – he really did move like a cat – she saw he’d come prepared for a downpour as well. The belted gabardine could have earned him a place in a Raymond Chandler novel.

  She grinned at the thought. ‘Philip Marlowe, I presume?’

  He studiously ignored her joke, saying, ‘It would rain, wouldn’t it, on the day we’re off to the coast?’

  The bus arrived later than scheduled but in time to save them from a drenching, the first drops of rain beginning to fall as they climbed aboard. At any other time, Flora would have savoured the trip through the lush countryside and later, beside a sea that today was the colour of gun metal. This morning, though, she had news to impart and spent the best part of the forty-minute journey recounting what Alice had told her of the missing Bernard Mitchell and a newly enriched Polly Dakers.

  ‘Enough money for a portfolio of very expensive photographs. What do you make of that?’ she finished triumphantly.

  ‘Her uncle might have scraped the money together,’ Jack remarked mildly.

  ‘It’s only a week ago that I spoke to her. She had no hope then of money from anyone, including Uncle Ted. If there’s been an inheritance he didn’t know about, it wouldn’t be sorted out that quickly, and how else could he have got money?’

  ‘Borrowed it?’

  ‘He’s a painter and decorator. Alice told me. He’d be mad to go into that kind of debt.’

  ‘Perhaps, but if he’s fond of the girl?’

  ‘You’re being deliberately awkward, Jack. It’s as though you always have to dismiss my theories.’

  ‘That’s not true, but what you’re suggesting makes no sense. Think about it for a moment. The girl suddenly has money to pay for photographs. You think she must have got it by wheedling sufficient information out of Kevin Anderson, then finding the buried treasure. Say, for argument’s sake, Polly did get information from him, what does she do with it? Whatever it might be, she’s done it in just one week – you made the point yourself. Does she buy a spade and go out to dig? Unlikely.’

  ‘She could,’ Flora said stubbornly. ‘If she knew where to look. She’s young and strong enough… Don’t we need to get off here?’

  He gave a quick glance around. ‘You’re right. We’re in Hove already.’

  Together, they scrambled off the bus and onto the promenade, Jack still intent on his argument.

  ‘I can’t see Polly Dakers setting out with a spade and a map, but let’s say for one unlikely moment that she does and that she uncovers this problematic treasure, it won’t easily be pocketed, whatever form it takes. We’re talking about stuff buried in Tudor times. If she discovers coins, they’re not legal tender and can’t be spent. The only thing she can do is report her find, wait weeks for it to be declared treasure, and then have to offer it for sale to a museum, its value determined by an independent body. Much the same applies to jewellery. If she tried to sell any items herself, she’d discover that no reputable jeweller would touch them. Given the timescale, Polly couldn’t have obtained money in the way you suggest. Uncle Ted coming up with the goods is a much better option.’

  ‘I still find it suspicious.’ Flora wasn’t going to give up completely, and looked stonily ahead.

  Gradually, though, the beauty of sea and sky had her swallow her annoyance. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘over there. The clouds have cleared and there’s a streak of sunlight. Doesn’t it look wonderful?’

  It was low tide and a narrow beam of light had cut a swathe of gold through the greying surf, the tips of waves shimmering as though lit by a hundred small lights, a glittering pathway to the open beach.

  Jack shielded his eyes against the shaft of brightness. ‘I think you can see France, if you look closely. Just on the horizon.’ He pointed to a smudge Flora could barely make out. ‘That would be Dieppe.’

  How strange the name should reoccur so soon after she’d been thinking of it. ‘Have you visited the town?’

  ‘Several times. There’s an excellent ferry service from Newhaven. The Channel can be a bit choppy, but it’s worth a few hours’ discomfort. It lands you well into France. You haven’t been to Dieppe?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘No, not yet.’ She made herself sound sprightly. ‘One day, I will, and from there, I’ll keep on travelling.’

  ‘You have plans! Where will you go?’ He turned an amused face to her.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet. Paris maybe. Or Rome. Somewhere that isn’t Abbeymead.’

  ‘Once you get to Dieppe, you’ll have the whole of Europe to choose from. We need to cross here.’ He’d swivelled round, his back to the sea. ‘If we walk inland for a few streets, we should hit Hove library. It’s one of the first buildings in Church Road.’

  ‘I haven’t been there either.’

  ‘Then you’re in for a treat!’

  At first sight, the Renaissance-style building with its balustrade and classical cupola seemed out of place, as though by accident it had found its way to the wrong shore. The original façade must have been golden stone – there were still a few patches visible – but it had greyed badly over the years, and the pillars on either side of the entrance loomed heavy and forbidding. Flora wasn’t sure why Jack
liked the building so much.

  ‘See.’ Jack pointed to the top of the pillars. ‘The knowledge of the world is contained within, that’s the library’s message – one cherub holding a book, and the other a globe.’

  Refusing to be daunted, Flora walked through the dark wood doors. Inside, she found a transformation. Tall, oval-shaped windows had been fitted into every wall and beneath them, a row of round windows – like portholes, she thought, perfectly in keeping with a seaside library. Even more light streamed from the central cupola, the overall effect one of airiness and space.

  ‘The reference library is pretty comprehensive. It’s been open for fifty years,’ Jack told her. ‘We can look for ourselves or ask an assistant for help. What do you think?’

  ‘You’ve forgotten I was a librarian,’ she retorted. ‘Let’s see what we can turn up.’

  They turned up three hefty volumes of Sussex history and one that recounted a hundred myths and fairy tales from southern England.

  ‘Shall we take two apiece?’ Jack asked, moving the books to one of the long-polished tables.

  She nodded. ‘Have you remembered your glasses this time?’

  ‘Naturally.’ He drew from his pocket a pair of black-framed spectacles. ‘Sorry, not tortoiseshell, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Very fetching, though,’ she said approvingly, as he settled them on the bridge of his nose.

  It took them much longer than they’d wanted, or expected, to plough their way through the four volumes.

  ‘Did nobody ever index in the past?’ Flora asked crossly.

  ‘I’m not sure they would have been much use.’ Jack had won the single volume that boasted one. ‘I still need to go through this book page by page, in case I’ve missed something that’s not indexed where I think it should have been.’

  Library users came and went, the chairs at other tables filled and emptied, but on they went, silently turning the pages. At last, Flora slammed shut her second book. She looked at her watch.