by Sarah Kelly
“Good idea.” India linked her arm in his and they set out walking down the corridor.
But as they walked along, the sound of the buzzing only got louder.
“That sounds awful,” India said, screwing up her face.
“I’ll just go in and check it out,” said Xavier. “If something’s wrong we really should let Laurence know about it.”
“That’s true.”
India waited out in the corridor as Xavier pushed the door open and went inside.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s a freezer. How weird.”
“A freezer?” India darted in the room behind him and folded her arms, looking the large chest freezer over. “Who the heck would put a freezer in here? How random.”
Xavier’s eyes brightened with mischief. “Maybe it’s Laurence’s secret stash of ice cream.”
“Haha,” India said, rolling her eyes. “We wish.”
But she kind of held out hope as Xavier lifted the lid. She could have done with some ice cream. But as soon as Xavier opened it he slammed it down. He turned to India, his eyes wide with alarm. “Not ice cream.”
India’s heart started beating faster. “Xavier, what in the heck is in there?”
“We need to call the police,” he said, pacing the room back and forth. “Right now. India, where’s your cell?”
“It’s downstairs.” She felt a strong urge to go over and open the freezer herself, but fear froze her to the spot. “Xavier, tell me what’s in there.”
“You don’t even want to know, In.”
India knew she’d squeeze it out of him eventually, but didn’t have the patience to wait. Her curiosity won out over her fear and she marched across the wooden floorboards to fling open the freezer door.
“No!” Xavier said.
India nearly collapsed when she saw what the freezer contained. Her knees buckled under her and the only ounce of strength she could muster was used to slam it decisively shut.
She had seen the dead body of Felicia Drummond-Coe.
CHAPTER 4
“Good God,” Laurence kept saying as he sipped his tea at the rustic kitchen table. “Good God.”
India had been stuffing herself with the lemon poppyseed muffins and English muffins Mrs Rowan had prepared that morning, so they could taste the difference between the English and American styles. It all tasted like nothing to India since they’d made their gruesome discovery, and she put back mouthful after mouthful down her throat without taking so much as a hint of flavor.
“Eh, what happened?” a voice at the back door said. India, Xavier and Laurence turned to the door, which was swung open revealing the herb garden, to see Liam strolling in looking like he hadn’t a care in the world. He wore scruffy clothing flecked with mud and his black boots were whitening with dust. He stamped them on the mat. “I saw people moving about upstairs.”
Laurence stared deep into his cup of tea, and whenever he tried to speak only a little gurgling sound came out.
Xavier blew out a long stream of air. “Brace yourself, buddy, it’s not good news.”
“We found Felicia’s body,” India said.
Liam’s legs buckled under him and he fell against the doorframe. Xavier and India bolted to their feet, ready to dash over to help him, but he righted himself quickly. “I’m all right, I’m all right,” he kept saying over and over, all the color drained out of his face. He leant against the stone arch that separated the entrance from the rest of the kitchen, and swore heavily. “But… I just don’t… how? Dead? I thought…”
“Yes,” Laurence said, suddenly passionate as he got to his feet. He accidentally knocked his tea over but didn’t even notice as he began to pace the kitchen. “Yes, we all thought she’d run off with my money. But now she’s dead. Who would want to kill her? Who?”
His question almost echoed around the kitchen, and nobody answered. The only obvious answer, of course, was Laurence himself, given that she’d stolen his money, and no one wanted to say it.
“Me, that’s who,” Laurence said, sinking down onto a side chair, his head in his hands and his voice trembling. “That’s what everyone’s going to think. That I caught her stealing the money and killed her, then sent you all on this wild goose chase to cover my tracks. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.” His breaths were getting shorter and more gasping with every second.
Xavier got up and hurried to his side. “Take a deep breath, Laurence. You’re going to have a panic attack. Seriously.”
Laurence just about managed a long shaky breath, though it didn’t sound very deep. “I’m going to go to prison,” he said quite evenly, then his voice cracked as he said, “and this wonderful place will be sold off and bulldozed for a development of soulless new builds. And it will never get the chance to nurture all those young artists.”
“Not so fast,” India said. “Don’t give up already. If you’re innocent, the truth will out. It must.”
Laurence looked up at her with panic in his eyes. “You don’t know much about life, do you? The bad guys always win, and the good guys always lose. I’ll be carted off to prison and no one will give it a second’s thought.”
“Not if we’ve got anything to do with it,” Xavier said. “We’ll stay and investigate the murder. We’ll find the killer.”
Laurence shook his head. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. The truth is I can’t afford your fees. I had only dipped into the roofing fund to hire you as I thought you might be able to track down the £20,000. As for now, I don’t know what will happen to it, if we ever manage to find it. Maybe she sent it back to America.”
India frowned. “Laurence, how do you know it was actually her?”
“Well, other than the accountant and me, she is… was the only one with access to the accounts,” he said. “And like I told you, I’m sure Geoffrey didn’t do it.”
Xavier patted Laurence on the shoulder in a brotherly sort of way. “We’re going to see him this afternoon, anyways, if we can track him down. Just to talk.”
Laurence’s eyes scanned across the room. “Oh, look, I knocked my cup of tea over.” He got up, picked up a tea towel and began to mop it up. “Look, folks, as much as I want you guys here, I can’t ask you to. Like I said, I really can’t spare another penny if I have any chance of making this school happen. But then if I go to prison I suppose it won’t be of much use to anyone, will it?”
“We’ll stay on for free,” India said. “You’ve already made payment to us and it’s the least we can do to help clear your name and find out the truth.”
Laurence held the tea towel at arm’s length as he rushed to the sink and it dripped over the kitchen floor. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“But you didn’t ask, did you?” Xavier said. “We offered.”
Liam had been silent and pale for a long time. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You don’t know the place, not like the police. You’ll have to find out stuff about here that everyone else knew ages ago. I’d leave it up to the cops if I was you.”
India’s tastebuds seemed to be coming back again and she could taste the zing of lemon on her tongue as she chewed on a piece of muffin. Her blood even seemed to zip around her body more quickly. “We’ve done it plenty of times before,” she said. “To some extent you might be right. But it’s also good to have an outsider’s pair of eyes. Because sometimes the killer can be the most liked person in the town. And no one from the town itself would ever have suspected them.”
Liam shrugged and turned to leave. “Well, I’m just a gardener. I’m staying out of it.”
India watched him leave and exchanged a frown with Xavier. “Liam?” she called out.
He turned with eyebrows raised, impatience clear in his face.
“You’ll be around the next couple of days?” India asked. “To help us out? Answer some questions?”
“What, am I a sodding suspect now?” he said snappishly. “This isn’t CSI Miami, you know.”
X
avier put on his stern cop voice. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Only ‘cause you’ll think I’m the bleeding killer if I say no. I tell you, I’ve got no reason to want to kill Felicia. She was all right. I don’t have defend myself to you anyway.” Then he turned and shut the door a little too roughly on his way out.
Laurence looked at them apologetically. “I’m sure he didn’t do it, to be fair. He’s just a bit short tempered. I think it’s the weed all these young people smoke these days. Skunk, or stoat or something, they call it. Makes them rather crabby.”
“Oh right.” Xavier took his seat back at the table and they were silent for a while. “So do you have any idea who could have done it?”
Laurence opened his mouth to answer when a policeman appeared at the doorway leading into the corridor. “That’s exactly the question I need the answer to,” he said, his chest puffed out. He had a shock of black hair under his hat and his uniform was just a bit too tight. India wasn’t in the habit of judging people quickly, but he had quite a disagreeable face, with a haughty, arrogant cast. She didn’t like it when his beady blue eyes focused on her and looked her up and down. He looked like the kind of man who was too proud to listen to anyone else. Certainly not someone they could collaborate with on the investigation. Still, she wanted to keep an open mind.
“Who have we here then?” the policeman asked.
Laurence stood, his eyes looking so devoid of energy and joy they reminded India of death itself. “Barry, this is Xavier and India, investigators from Florida.”
“Ooh, wee,” the policeman said, looking them over with a malicious relish. “Bit young to be proper investigators, aren’t we?” Xavier opened his mouth to respond, but the policeman was already speaking again. “Anyhow, I’m not down at the pub thrashing you at darts like usual, Laurence, so I’m Constable Middleton, if you please.” He then strode over to the kitchen table and took a seat with as much ease as if he owned the place. “It doesn’t look good for you, Laurence. Everyone knows the story about your niece stealing your money. Then she turns up in a room no one ever goes in, in a freezer. Looks almost like an open and shut case, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but it isn’t,” Laurence said firmly, seeming to gain some strength in front of the cop. “Because I didn’t do it.”
The cop rolled his eyes and tapped a beat on the table with his fingers. “Try telling the courts that.”
“But if Laurence did it, why would he hide her in the freezer?” Xavier said. “Surely it would be obvious that she would be found eventually. I’m sure Mrs Rowan goes in those old rooms occasionally. She would have found it and the jig would have been up.”
“I agree,” India said. “Whoever did this wanted the body to be found. Maybe they wanted everyone to believe it was Laurence.”
Constable Middleton had been listening on with a patronizing smile. “My, my, my,” he said with a chuckle. “Aren’t we quite the Sherlock and Watson? Ooh, he’s being framed! Duh-duh-duh!”
India was about to swallow her anger and laugh along, if only to keep a line of communication open. Surely they could help each other somehow, or at least not be hostile to each other, but Constable Middleton didn’t seem to ever leave much time for anyone to interject his monologues.
“What I’ve learned,” he said with haughty arrogance, “in my thirty years on the police force – probably since before either of you were born, I might add – is that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is probably a duck. We all like to go looking for hidden meanings and secrets, but most of the time in life what you see is what you get.” He got up again. “And it looks like this young woman stole the money from Laurence, then he found out, then he killed her and wasn’t clever enough to get rid of the body properly.”
“No!” Laurence shouted. “It’s not like that at all.”
Constable Middleton smiled nastily and spoke so casually it was almost an insult. “We’ll see how it all pans out, but that’s my guess. I can see the headline now. Local aristocrat Lord Drummond-Coe charged with the murder of his thieving American niece. Haha.”
Xavier looked quite angry by then. “I used to be a cop, sir, and I find your attitude highly unprofessional. Everything you’re saying is total conjecture. Without a single piece of evidence, as far as we can see.”
“Aha,” Constable Middleton said, turning to leave. “As far as you can see. You shouldn’t assume, young man, that you are the person with the most information. Good day to you all.” He then strolled out of the kitchen with his head high.
“No, no, no,” Xavier said, shaking his head. “That’s just… awful.”
Laurence had curled into a ball on the chair, drawing his knees up to his chin. He peeked out with terrified eyes, putting India in mind of a little innocent boy, terrified of the dark or a spider or an imaginary villain. But this situation was all too real.
She felt a pang of empathy for him in her chest. “We’re not going to let you down, Laurence. We’re going to stay and investigate free of charge. Don’t worry. There isn’t a case we haven’t gotten to the bottom of yet. With some help.” She flashed her eyes toward Xavier and they both knew she was talking about the Magic. In their daily lives it mostly took a back seat, used for silly little things like conjuring a chocolate bar when they were too lazy to walk to the store, or designing new outfits and creating them with a single thought. But when it came to crimes and murders, the Magic came back in full force, at the forefront of their lives. It was both thrilling and daunting to jump back in the deep again, where life was so intense and reality was so bright and vivid it was almost blinding. It was like standing on top of a cliff, ready to jump into the sea far below. They knew they would survive, but adrenaline pumped and their heart rates quickened and a feeling of half-joy half-panic swallowed them up.
Xavier nodded and she knew they had an understanding. “You can’t rely on that guy to investigate this fairly, anyone can see that.”
Laurence took a deep breath, then stood and walked over to the table, looking as if a new strength had been pumped into him. He picked up a lemon and poppyseed muffin and nodded with determination. “You’re right. In the past, I would have buried my head in the sand and locked myself in my studio getting lost in my art until the police came to cart me away. But it’s not just me I have to think about now. It’s those students. And if I take this lying down, they might not get their chance.” He turned to them, his eyes bright. “Thank you ever so for staying on. Somehow I will repay you one day.”
CHAPTER 5
“Ah look, there it is,” India said, pointing to a rather large cottage nestled between two enormous rose bushes as they walked up the street. The thatched roof, stone masonry and antiquated wooden shutters gave it a gorgeously homely feel. “Gardeners Cottage,” India read from the wooden signpost out front.
Quite appropriately, a man in a light shirt and trousers was bent over in one of the numerous flower beds. As they came closer they saw he was attending to some weeding, pulling out tiny little green nuisance plants and tossing them into a small pile on the gravel driveway.
Xavier cleared his throat, then said, “Good afternoon, sir.”
The man started then looked up at them from where he crouched, his face flushing red and his bald spot shining in the spring sun. His moustache curved with the anger in his lips as he said, “You ought not to creep up on people. It’s very impolite.”
“We didn’t mean to creep,” India explained. “I suppose with the street being newly paved footsteps just aren’t all that loud.”
He straightened up and said impatiently, “What can I do for you?”
“Are you the gardener here?” Xavier asked. “We’re looking for—”
“I most certainly am not,” the man snapped. “I am the owner of this house.” He nodded over to the executive Audi car in the driveway. “I suppose you think the gardener comes to work in that?”
“We are look
ing for Geoffrey Forsythe,” India said. “Are we in the right place?”
“Why?”
India was beginning to feel impatient with rude, arrogant men. “We’re looking into the murder of Felicia Drummond-Coe at the request of Lord Drummond-Coe,” she said firmly. “We believe it might have been related to the missing money and we want to speak to Geoffrey Forsythe about it.”
“There’s no murder,” the man scoffed, crouching back down and pulling out weeds with renewed vigor, perhaps anger. “What on earth are you talking about? She’s gone back to Florida. Don’t tell me Laurence is having a funny turn again.”
Again? India made a mental note to find out about that later.
“Her body was found today, sir,” Xavier said. “In Aston Paddox Hall.”
The man’s hands paused between a weed and the pile. Then he got up, evidently trying not to look at all shocked. “I see,” he said. “Well, I suppose you can come in.”
He led them to the side of the house, which opened onto a lawn stretching out in all directions. It was immaculately kept. A couple of patio doors were open and he banged his feet on the mat that rested in front of them before stepping inside. Good house guests, India and Xavier followed suit.
The room they’d entered was an office, and a complete mess. The polished mahogany desk barely had a clear space on it, for all the piles of paper and folders and random knickknacks. Teetering book stacks around the room reminded India of home, where her parents were such voracious readers on all sorts of nonfiction subjects that every corner and hallway of their home was stuffed with reading material. “Lifelong learning,” her father always called it.
But the office did not look dirty, despite it being full to the brim with paperwork. In fact, the mahogany – which was everywhere, from the doors to the picture frames bearing paintings of the English countryside to the office chairs – looked freshly polished.
“I am Geoffrey Forsythe,” the man said testily, “in case you hadn’t deduced that yet.” He sat back behind his imposing desk and waved imperiously for them to do the same on the chairs in front, despite the fact they were both stacked with files. “Just put them on the table.”