The Rhyme of the Magpie

by Marty Wingate

  “You all right?” he asked quietly. I nodded, and we went back to sifting through the notebooks.

  We came across a few other notes and cards. I was losing hope until, pressed under the bottom book of a stack, we uncovered a single page of heavy, ivory-colored linen paper folded into thirds and again in half. It was filled with a perfect, computer-generated font that looked like handwriting. We saw the greeting at the top of the page: “My dear Rupert Lanchester,” and exchanged looks. We sat close on the floor, our backs against the desk, and read:

  My dear Rupert Lanchester,

  It must be difficult to stay perched on that pedestal, day in and day out. Do you get dizzy from those lofty heights? Or do you enjoy your aspect, lording it over the rest of us below, deigning to descend to earth only to rescue some lowly worm and so increase your reputation. The great Rupert, friend to man, woman, and bird—no problem too big or too small but that he wants to help.

  Well, I’m telling you, your bloody help is no longer needed—in fact, your help has made my life a living hell. So let me return the favor. There will be no safe place for you. Look over your shoulder, Rupert. Expect the worst.

  With very deepest regards

  “Not a threat?” I said, my voice shaking. “Not a threat?” My heart thumped in my chest, and my mouth was dry. “He should’ve turned this over to the police the minute he’d read it. This is just like him. ‘Not to worry—I can sort it out.’ But this crazy person shouldn’t be sorted out—he should be locked away.”

  The paper crumpled on the edge as I clenched my fist. Michael put his hand on mine and I released the letter, breathing hard.

  “There are no specifics,” Michael said, rereading. “Look—it doesn’t mention Kersey or anyone’s death. It’s menacing, but vague.” He frowned as he studied the paper. “Has anything happened that could be traced back to this?”

  Me in my lockup, I thought. But if that was the rowdy boys, my brief incarceration could not be pinned on this letter writer. Reluctantly, I shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s meant only to harass and annoy Rupert. Cause him concern, throw him off his game. Someone wants to pester him like Mad Maddie did.”

  My heart rate slowed as I looked at the letter as Dad would. An undercurrent of envy ran through the words, without a doubt. It had soaked into the ink, permeating the crisp linen paper. The writer was eaten up with resentment for something good that Dad had done.

  —

  We heard two cars pull in and could see out the window to Basil Blandy and two low-level tech guys standing about the yard.

  “No producer or director?” I asked as I took Michael’s offer of a hand to get up off the floor.

  “I didn’t want to give Happer a sense of accomplishment.”

  This would be a manageable production meeting—those three had no power.

  I slipped the letter in my bag and went to open the door. We all exchanged greetings, mostly how-are-yous, but ginger-haired Basil reddened up when he saw me and said, “Remember those peregrine nest boxes you asked for, Julia—with space for cameras? I’ve got them almost finished.”

  “Good news, Basil,” I said. And only two years in the making. Basil, general dogsbody, never finished anything unless we constantly nipped at his heels, and I’d dropped the ball on the peregrine houses. It was only because we could order him around so easily that we kept Basil on.

  We made for the kitchen; the three settled on chairs at one end while I got busy at the sink, and Michael unpacked the biscuits. “Are you running the meeting, Julia?” Basil asked.

  “Certainly not,” I said, filling the kettle. “I’m here only to make the tea.”

  There was a snigger behind my back. “That’s what you always say.”

  “Is Rupert coming?” one of the tech guys asked.

  “No,” Michael said. “But Happer will be here—he wanted a general overview of what’s coming up for autumn. We can discuss concepts and brainstorm ideas.”

  “Oh great—Daffy” was the comment under the breath of one of them.

  “Will we be filming out here at the river?” Basil asked as the other two leaned forward. No doubt they had been discussing the murder as we drove up. “Because I want you to know that—”

  “No,” I cut in with a quick glance at Michael. “Don’t you remember the lineup for Lakenheath?”

  The four of them began a discussion about the latest wildlife recording software, as I turned to prepare the tea.

  “What-ho,” a voice called from the front door, and two seconds later into the kitchen he came—Colin Happer. He was short and solidly built, and when he took off his cap, he revealed his blond hair molded into a great crest. I swallowed a laugh. “Here’s my crew,” he boomed, spreading his arms to Basil and the other two. “Sedgwick,” he acknowledged Michael.

  “Hello, Colin,” I said from behind him. “How’ve you been?”

  He whirled round, slammed his shoulder into the door, and winced. “Julia?” He licked his thick lips and lost all color in his face. “I didn’t realize you were going to be here. I thought that…”

  “Oh, I have nothing to do here, Colin—I’m only helping Michael. Please,” I said, gesturing to the table, “just ignore me.”

  Daffy played musical chairs as he attempted to settle. First, he sat with his back to me, then switched to a stool that faced me, and finally stood with his back against the wall.

  Basil grabbed four custard cream biscuits off the plate, and the meeting began. Michael spoke in general terms about Rupert’s schedule, and I answered questions about catering and call times. Daffy kept his mouth shut unless he was inserting a biscuit.

  This was easy. The meeting had no purpose, and it sounded as if Michael was about to wrap it up when we heard a knock at the front door and steps in the hall.

  “Am I late?”

  Gavin Lecky stood in the kitchen doorway in full regalia—two-day growth of beard, kestrel earring, leather pants, and all.

  Chapter 16

  I broke the moment of dead silence from my corner of the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

  Gavin spun round, and I caught a flash of fear in his eyes. “Julia—what a pleasant surprise.” I noticed he fell short of his usual purring tone.

  “Why are you here, Gavin? Who told you about this meeting?”

  I saw his gaze flicker to Happer and back.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “I told you I’d take care of it,” Happer barked at Gavin.

  “Take care of what?” I asked.

  “It’s a production matter, Julia,” Happer cooed. “I don’t think it concerns you.”

  I glared at each of them. “Are you two working together?”

  Happer took a couple of large breaths and jumped in. “There are a few ideas that Lecky and I want to propose.” He popped a biscuit into his mouth and looked at me, chin in the air.

  So, that’s it—these misfits were trying to get Rupert out of the way. They were opportunistic and underhanded, and I knew at that moment either one of them—or both—could’ve written that letter to Rupert.

  “We believe that the scope of the series should widen…,” Happer said, but choked on his custard cream.

  “You believe you can get away with a fast one—that’s what you believe,” I said, advancing on Happer as the others scuttled to the far corner.

  He shrank against the wall and coughed. A spray of biscuit crumbs pelted my chest. “We have legitimate ideas,” he managed to squeeze out, “that should be given consideration for this program. It isn’t fair that Rupert won’t hear us out, and so we’ve come to voice our…”

  “You’re cowards who can’t face Rupert, and so you think you can go behind his back and oust him,” I shouted in his face. “Did it ever occur to you that if the BBC wanted you to host a program, they would’ve picked up on any one of your lame proposals? You think people are going to tune in to watch The Daffy and Gavin Show? A pondful of newts and you”—I pointed at G
avin, and he recoiled—“raving about your latest sighting of a short-toed eagle? Did you really see it, Gavin, or did you only imagine it?”

  “I’d say the meeting is finished,” Michael said to Basil and the two tech guys. They took the hint and left.

  Happer stood his ground, pulling himself up to his full five-foot-five. “I don’t see what power you have here—either of you.”

  “Written any letters of complaint lately?” I asked, standing with a clenched fist at my side. “Have you sunk so low that you would resort to threats to try to get your way, Daffy?”

  “Don’t call me that,” he whispered furiously.

  I gave Gavin a look over my shoulder. “You think Rupert would run scared just because of your intimidation?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gavin said in a low growl.

  “You were up here on Sunday, weren’t you, Gavin? We’ve mentioned that to the police, you know.” Must ring Flint and tell him. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? Surely if anyone looked a murderer, it was Gavin.

  “You go too far, Julia,” he said, his black eyes shining. He jerked his head toward the door. “Run along, Happer.” Daffy left in a hurry, but Gavin stayed behind. “The new assistant, is it?” he asked Michael, all his oily slyness returned. “I’d be careful if I were you, Sedgwick. Julia’s hard on her men—in more ways than one.”

  Fury choked me. I lunged at him, but Michael grabbed my arm. “Get out, Lecky,” he said.

  Gavin seemed about to reply, but a screeching kee-kee-kee came from his jacket—another rare-bird alert. He grabbed his phone and walked out.

  I shook all over, and couldn’t look Michael in the eye or keep myself from babbling. “What he said, it was just a…it was only the once. And it was ages ago. Right after my divorce, and I was going through a bad patch, and I don’t think that things like that should be thrown up in a person’s face just because—”

  “Julia,” Michael cut in. “You don’t have to explain.”

  I took a sharp breath. “No, of course I don’t. How stupid of me—it doesn’t matter.” Shut up, Julia, while you still have a shred of dignity left. “Tea?”

  —

  Michael acted as if I hadn’t just humiliated myself in front of him—it was quite a decent thing to do. He made a fresh pot of tea while I collected the others’ mugs. I sat at the table with the crank letter in front of me and pulled out my phone, idly checking email. Up popped an alert I’d set up for Rupert’s name; it had a link to a video.

  “What’s this?” I asked. Michael sat beside me with our tea. I clicked through, and the video began. The camera panned a small crowd standing inside against a large window. Someone was speaking; neither the sound nor the picture was sharp. The overlaid title read: “Rupert Lanchester Threatens Power to the People’s Kenneth Kersey.”

  The title sent a shock of fear through me, but as the two-minute video played, I sighed with relief. “It’s only a clip from a news conference,” I said to Michael. I could see Dad near to the front while Kersey read the company line—we care for the environment, we protect birds, blah, blah, blah.

  “That isn’t true,” I said. “They won’t even acknowledge scientific research into wind farms and where they should and should not be placed.” I frowned. “I don’t remember when this was—or where.”

  “October,” Michael said, with his eyes on my phone. “In Cambridge.”

  I squinted at the image on the screen. Through the window, I could see people walking by on the pavement and across the way a stone building with gargoyles on each side of the door. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  All at once, Dad’s voice rose above the murmuring. “We won’t put up with this—the people do have power, and we will speak. You must know you’ll pay for this in the end.” The video ended.

  So, not innocuous after all. “Dad’s not against wind farms—he’s never said that. He’s against ill-conceived projects that can have devastating effects on our land. But this”—I pointed to the screen on my camera—“this makes it look as if he has something against Kersey.”

  “It’s misleading,” Michael said, eyes still on my screen. “It’s been edited—did you see the cut? There’s a whole piece left out just so that Rupert sounds as if he’s threatening Kersey. It didn’t happen that way.”

  That was good news, except…this was months before I quit and Michael took my job. “Were you there?” I asked.

  Michael held my gaze for a moment, his eyes such a pale blue as to be almost colorless. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I was there.”

  I opened my mouth to ask why, and Michael’s phone rang.

  “Sedgwick,” he answered. He listened for a moment and cut his eyes at me. “Yes, sir,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He set the phone on the table and pressed “speaker,” but I’d already recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Dad!”

  I waited a second that seemed forever. “Jools?” I could hear his confusion. “What are you doing with Michael? Where are you?”

  My relief at hearing his voice outpaced my anger. “Dad, where are you? You must come back—the police want to talk to you about Kenneth Kersey.”

  “What do you know about Kersey?”

  Michael was shaking his head at me, but I plowed ahead. “Michael and I are the ones who found his body—right along the river near Marshy End.”

  “How did that happen? What were you doing there? Michael?”

  “Yes, sir,” Michael answered. “I’m here.”

  “I don’t want Julia involved in this—I don’t know how you’ve got yourselves mixed up in it, but keep her well away.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but you can’t order her to keep away—she isn’t a child. And she has her own ideas about what’s going on—she deserves to be heard.”

  “I am not ordering my daughter to do anything,” Rupert said sharply, and then muttered, “I know how futile that would be.”

  “Dad, we’ve found the letter here at Marshy End—in your stack of field notebooks. Michael brought me up here. After all, my car is missing, so I’d no way of driving up on my own.”

  A sheepish note crept into his voice. “Jools, I’m sorry I took your car without asking, but you know, I decided it wasn’t a good idea to go back to you again—I wasn’t sure you’d open your door to me. You said you rarely drove, and I intended to have it back before you needed it. That chain you had on your lockup was far too flimsy—it took nothing to break it. I’ve a sturdier replacement in the boot, and I’ll put it on first thing.”

  “And the letter? Do you know who wrote it?”

  He sighed. “It’s why I went away—I wanted to think it through and have a talk with everyone who might’ve had a complaint against me. I haven’t got far.”

  “Magpies, Dad.” I saw Michael raise his eyebrows. I know, I know—I was bouncing from subject to subject, but there was so much to ask him. “Why were you sending me a text about magpies?”

  “I thought you might remember it from when you were young.”

  “It was our counting rhyme.”

  “A counting rhyme for you and Bianca, but magpies were more than that to me. And now they’ve come back to haunt me.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said. “Dad, Sergeant Flint at Mildenhall—please talk with him so this can get cleared up. Then we can concentrate on the letter. All right?”

  “Will do, Jools. Please promise me you’ll leave this whole murder business to the police—I’ll take care of everything.”

  The last word broke off. “Dad? Are you there?”

  “Sorry, it’s this phone—almost out of power. It’s a pay-as-you-go, and came only barely charged. I’ve been nowhere to top it up. I’ll go home now and explain myself to Beryl, and after that, it’s straight to the police to see this Sergeant Flint. And tomorrow—may I take you to lunch?”

  My chin began to quiver. I nodded and said, “Yes, I�
��d like that.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll be very disappointed when I—”

  “Dad?”

  The silence of a dead battery. We both stared at Michael’s phone for a moment, until he asked, “Where is he that he wasn’t able to charge the phone?”

  “Has he seen the video? Who is it that he suspects wrote the letter? Does he know why Kersey was up here at Marshy End?” Those were only three of a head full of questions, and now I must wait for tomorrow to ask them.

  “But none of that matters, does it?” I asked, lightly tapping Michael’s chest with my fists and smiling. “He’s all right. That’s what matters—he’s fine. I didn’t want to let on,” I explained, “but I was worried.”

  “Were you? I had no idea.” He said it with a straight face, but I saw that spark in his eyes.

  I looked round the kitchen and heaved a great sigh. “I’m starving.”

  A grin remained on Michael’s face as he crossed his arms. “Right, will they do us toasties at the Wheaten Cairn?”

  Chapter 17

  I stuck the letter back in my bag as we left Marshy End. Michael nodded at it and asked, “Who’s your prime suspect?”

  “Colin Happer, Gavin Lecky, Oscar Woodcock, maybe Kersey himself.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “What do you think?”

  At the end of the drive, Michael looked both ways before pulling out. “And Fenwith?”

  “Fenny? No, they’re friends—he’s like family.”

  “Families don’t always get along.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him—could he be letting a tiny bit of personal information slip out? He gave me a glance and cocked his head slightly—denial, confession, I wasn’t sure.

  “Well, once Rupert talks to Flint and this murder is sorted, we can help him look into it.” I sighed. “Dad’s always so generous with his time, it leads people into imagining they’ve got this bond with him.”

  “And Kersey?”

  “Of course, it’s a terrible thing. But we can let the police continue with their investigation, don’t you think?” I put an index finger in the air. “Unless someone is trying to tie Rupert to the murder—just to make him look bad.”