‘You think they were in on this together? That’s why you have them both here?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure what I think. But when I went to their house this morning, Margaret had a note left out for the milk man. It was telling him to leave two litres instead of one, because she was planning on doing some baking.’
‘And let me guess – it looked eerily like the handwriting on the note left at the scene.’
He replied with a bleak nod, and led the way to the interrogation room.
≈
‘Aren’t you the reporter?’ Mossy frowned as I lifted a box filled with paper from a chair and sat down across from him. ‘What are you doing here?’
Dylan cleared his throat and sat down next to me. ‘Ash – Miss Smith – is a special consultant on this case.’
‘Oh.’ Mossy looked at me with interest. ‘What’s your area of expertise? Are you some kind of occultist?’
My eyes widened. ‘Why would you say that?’
Mossy shrugged. ‘I dunno. You’ve something a little bit witchy about you. Sort of reminds me of Heather, in a way.’ His voice cracked as he spoke Heather’s name. ‘She really was a witch, you know. Gave my auntie an ointment last year that cleared her varicose veins in a day.’
‘Miss Smith is not a witch,’ said Dylan. ‘And neither was Heather. There are no such things as witches. There are, however, plenty of people with bad intentions in their hearts. Mr Burke, would it surprise you to know that your gun was used in Rachel Loughnane’s murder?’
He stared at Dylan, swallowing. ‘My … my gun? But … but I haven’t used the thing in years.’
Dylan shrugged. ‘Someone used it. Last night. Where were you between the hours of eight and nine p.m.?’
Mossy looked thoughtful, and a little bit scared. ‘I … now let’s think a minute … after we got back from choir, I had my dinner. Margaret made a roast chicken and garlic potatoes. There was semolina pudding for afters. Then I had a cup of tea and fell asleep watching a car show – that would have been about eight or half eight, I suppose, seeing as I can’t remember much of the show. Then … then I woke up, and the telly had gone off, which would make it at least two hours later. I know because of the eco saver mode on the telly – it turns itself off if I don’t change the channel or mess about with the volume for two hours. Then … then Margaret popped her head in and asked if I fancied another cup of tea. So we had a cup of tea – and a couple of custard creams – and then we went off to bed.’
He looked at Dylan and me. ‘Why? Yis don’t think I had anything to do with Rachel’s murder, do you? I’d never have killed her. Heather loved Rachel and I–’
‘Loved Heather?’ Dylan finished, pushing the letter we’d found in Heather’s house across to him.
Mossy looked down at the letter, blinking back tears. ‘Yes. I loved Heather. But she wouldn’t hear of it. She said she wouldn’t have anything to do with a married man, never mind one who was married to her friend.’
‘In this letter you tell her you want to leave Margaret,’ I said softly.
He nodded, swallowing back tears. ‘I did. And Heather told me to cop onto meself, so she did. She never came to meet me at the church hall. As soon as she got the letter, she came straight to my tractor showroom. She told me in no uncertain terms that she would not be having a clandestine meeting with me at the church hall. She told me she’d never do that to Margaret, no matter how she felt about me.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘And before either of you ask, no – I did not kill her because she turned me down. I understood why she wouldn’t be with me, and I’d made my peace with it. I asked Margaret for a divorce anyway. She shouldn’t have to be with a man who doesn’t love her a hundred percent.’
He was right about that. No one should have to endure a relationship with a person who wasn’t all in. At that thought, Jared’s face came to mind. He could well be a womaniser, just enjoying the thrill of the chase. But the truth was, I wasn’t concerned with whether he had feelings for me or not, because I didn’t have feelings for him. Or at least not the kind of feelings that would lead anywhere real. I needed to be honest with him, and to do so as soon as possible.
‘You just told us you had a roast dinner together last night,’ Dylan pointed out. ‘I’m pretty sure if I told Aisling here that I wasn’t in love with her she wouldn’t be cooking me roast dinners.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I wouldn’t be that bothered, actually, seeing as we’re not a couple in the first place. But no – I definitely wouldn’t be cooking roast chicken and semolina pudding for a man who told me he wants a divorce.’
Mossy shrugged. ‘That’s Margaret for you. She said we should carry on as we are for a month, and if I still feel the same at the end of it, then we’ll end things. She’s been awful good about it – especially since I told her how I felt about Heather.’
Dylan glanced at me, before focusing all his attention on Mossy. ‘When did you tell her how you felt about Heather?’
Mossy looked thoughtful. ‘A few days ago, I suppose.’ He was halfway through his reply when his face suddenly fell. ‘No, no I do know the exact day. I told her the afternoon before Heather died.’ He gulped. ‘You don’t think … nah. Heather’s death was a suicide. Wasn’t it?’ He gave us both a desperate, questioning stare. ‘Wasn’t it?’
Neither of us replied. Instead, Dylan said, ‘So tell me, Mossy – is it normal for you to fall asleep at eight o’clock in the evening?’
15. Weird Kicks
After questioning Mossy, the detective led me to his office.
‘There’s a wizard working in the garda lab,’ he explained. ‘After much negotiation, he agreed to expedite things for us. He told me he’d email me as soon as he ran the Burkes’ fingerprints, so I want to check on that before we question Margaret.’
He rushed to his computer to check, while I looked around his office. There was a new photo on his desk, one that hadn’t been there the day before. It was of Darina and Dylan, standing on the deck at his lighthouse. He was gazing lovingly at her, while she was smiling at the camera.
He followed my eyes to the picture, and his face turned puce as he plucked it up and threw it in the bin. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘She’s decided that chucking them up on my walls at home isn’t getting her the reaction she wants, so now she’s decided to annoy me at work as well. Anyway. I’m not sure whether this is good news or bad news. Our man at the lab has just emailed me the results.’
‘Let me guess,’ I said, trying to ignore the fact that the photograph was flying out of the bin and landing back on the desk. ‘There’s a match on Margaret’s prints.’
‘That’s what the results say,’ he replied with a grunt, grabbing the picture of him and Darina and throwing it against the wall. ‘Her prints are on the rifle, and on the letter we found at the scene. This is way too neat, Ash. I don’t like it.’
‘No,’ I said as the photo picked itself up off the ground and flew back to the desk. ‘I don’t, either.’
≈
Someone at the garda station had done their best to make the cramped cell a little less intimidating. There was a table and a relatively comfortable chair in there, as well as some books and magazines.
‘Sorry about the cell, Margaret,’ said Dylan as he led me in. ‘It’s not every day we have two people in for questioning at once. It’s not every day we have one person in.’
She gave him a feeble smile. ‘That’s why I love Riddler’s Edge so much. I’ve always felt so safe here. No major crime. Well, until this.’ Her breath shuddered. ‘How could anyone do that to Rachel? It’s been tearing me apart.’ She stared at me, sweat beading on her brow. ‘Why are you here, Miss Smith?’
‘She’s … consulting,’ said Dylan. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you what her area of expertise is. It’s need to know.’ He pulled out the note we had found next to Rachel’s body and passed it to Margaret. ‘Does this look familiar to you?’
Margaret stared at the n
ote, blinking. ‘Oh dear,’ she said with a high-pitched whimper. ‘Oh my goodness. Well, I hope one of you knows a thing or two about psychiatry, because I think I may be going mad.’
I took a seat on the hard bed. ‘What do you mean?’
I watched her carefully while she wrung her hands together. And as I watched her, my stomach did a sickly somersault. The tips of her fingers were green, and glowing, and so was the palm of her hands. What was this?
‘I should have told you this the second I was brought in for questioning.’ She whispered as she spoke, but it was the loudest whisper I’d ever heard. There was something unhinged about the tone. ‘But … I dreamt about it. Before it even happened. Or maybe as it happened. I’m not really sure.’ She shivered and pulled her cardigan closer to her frame. ‘Last night I fell asleep after my semolina pudding, and I dreamt that I was with Rachel.’
She began to saw her jaw and stare down at her hands, pursing her lips tight together.
‘Margaret,’ Dylan said softly. ‘In these dreams, what were you doing?’
She shook her head, over and over and over, and then took her hands to her head and squeezed. ‘It was just a dream,’ she said. ‘I know it was just a dream. Because I couldn’t have shot Rachel. I wouldn’t have. And I know that the handwriting on the note you showed me looks like mine. But it couldn’t be. Could it?’
I patted her hand, doing my best not to gawp at the green glow. ‘Only you know the answer to that, Margaret. Was Rachel being nosey? Perhaps about your husband and Heather.’
She shook her head, pulling her hand away from me. ‘No! No! Well … yes. She was being nosey. She told me that if he was in love with Heather I should let him go. That was none of her business, Miss Smith. She’s never been married, so she should have kept her nose out of things that didn’t concern her. But I would never have killed her because of that. I loved her.’ She stared at me, her eyes glazed. ‘Unless … unless I managed to do it with my will alone. Maybe I sent my consciousness there, somehow, while I was dreaming. Miss Smith, I think … I think I might really be a witch.’
≈
I sat in Dylan’s neat office, across from him. He’d sent one of the officers off to get some lunch a little while earlier, and now we were eating sandwiches from Norman’s Shop. Mine was ninety percent egg with eleven percent cress again. His was a roast beef sandwich. Every now and then he took a surreptitious sip from a flask in his drawer.
‘You can drink your red smoothie in front of me, you know. I’m well aware that you’re a vampire.’
He shook his head, concentrating on his sandwich. ‘I’m not a vampire. I’m an unempowered witch who just happens to have contracted the dayturner virus. As soon as they find a cure, I’m taking it.’
I looked away from him. I wasn’t an expert in supernatural medicine, but I’d been reading up on the progress they were making with a cure. The closest they’d come so far was a potion that might treat the dayturning part of the problem. If it passed the testing phase (and it seemed like a very big if), then sure, Dylan and all the other dayturners would be able to take the potion. But afterwards … well, they might be able to go out at night without all of their coverings, but they’d still be vampires.
‘Let’s talk about Margaret,’ I said, finishing up my sandwich and opening a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. So much for the all-new healthy me. ‘What’s your next move?’
He looked about to reply, when yet another photograph appeared on his desk. Jeez, this woman did not give up easily. This one was of him with Darina in what looked like an incredibly fancy restaurant. He was down on one knee, holding a sparkling diamond ring in his hands.
‘Have you noticed that whenever these pictures reappear they’re always facing me?’ I pointed out. ‘What’s with that?’
He snatched the photo up and threw it in the bin. ‘That’s because Darina thinks I have a thing for you.’
I almost spat out my cola. ‘Hah! She should see the way you talk to me sometimes. She’d soon realise how far from the truth that is.’
‘How do I talk to you?’ he asked, blinking. ‘I mean, I know I was a bit rude at first but … I’m not that bad now, am I?’
I focused my eyes on my notepad. I’d been flicking through it the whole time we were in here, hoping that some note I’d jotted down over the last couple of days would suddenly jump out at me and give me the answer. Admittedly, I was no longer looking at it for inspiration – more as an excuse not to look at Dylan. No, he wasn’t that bad. In fact, I was beginning to feel that hum in the air once again. ‘I guess not. But let’s get back to Margaret. Are you going to charge her?’
He sighed. ‘I think I’m going to have to. I know you have your suspicions that this is something more, but I can only hold things off for so long. It’s clear she was the one who fired her husband’s rifle. And his semolina pudding was definitely dosed with sleeping pills, whereas there are no such drugs in her system. Which means she had more than enough time to slip out, kill Rachel, and return home in time for a cuppa and some custard creams. Plus there’s the note left next to Rachel’s body.’
I scrawled some random doodles on my pad, thinking it over. ‘But isn’t this all way too convenient, Dylan? Like, way way too convenient. It’s almost like someone is lining up every bit of evidence needed to put Margaret away. And what about Heather? I saw the same green glow at both scenes, but Margaret only dreamt about killing Rachel. She didn’t dream about killing Heather.’
He took a moment to slam yet another photograph into the bin – this one of him and Darina sitting on the beach and watching the sunset – before answering. ‘I wish I had an explanation for Heather, but I don’t. It’s going to be ruled a suicide – or possibly death by misadventure – unless we can come up with something to prove otherwise. And as for Rachel’s death … I’ll need to get a psychiatrist in to see Margaret, but it could all be explained by some sort of dissociative disorder. Part of Margaret wanted to murder Rachel, but part of her knew it was wrong. So she struck the memory from her brain, but left all the clues out for us to find. And now the truth is seeping its way back to her, in her dreams.’
I threw my empty can into the bin, watching as a stray drop of cola spilled onto Darina’s face. It did nothing to diminish her beauty. I could probably draw a moustache on there and she’d still look perfect.
‘Ash, I feel like I need to explain something to you. About those photos. They’re not exactly an accurate depiction of–’
I doodled a little bit more, still not looking at him. ‘You don’t need to explain anything to me.’
‘I know I don’t need to,’ he said. ‘But I want to. I feel like it doesn’t matter what I do, Ash. You still think I’m the moron who you met on the Riddler’s Express. But there’s an explanation for that. I–’
‘You’ve already told me,’ I interrupted. ‘You knew Arnold was going to wipe my memory and you were annoyed about him having brought me here, so you took it out on me because – oh yeah, you’re a real gentleman like that.’
He let out a mirthless laugh. ‘See? I knew you were annoyed with me.’
‘Aargh!’ I said, eloquently. ‘I didn’t mean to sound snarky, Dylan. It’s just that we’ve done nothing but snipe and snark at one another for weeks now. I’m not annoyed, honestly I’m not. But I really would feel more comfortable if we stopped talking about your ex and started talking about the murders.’ Not least, I didn’t add, because every time one of her photos appeared, it gave me the distinct impression that their relationship was very far from over.
‘We will, I promise. Just as soon as you let me get this off my chest. Because there’s so much more to this, Aisling. Darina–’
He broke off as yet another photo appeared. This one was of Darina and Dylan outside Three Witches Brew. But it wasn’t one of their happiest couple in the world photos. Given how they were both dressed, and the fact that I could just about see Jared’s Porsche peeking from the corner of the picture, I was pos
itive that this was a photo from the night before.
‘Darina what?’ I prompted, seeing the look of dread on his face.
He swallowed and placed the picture face down. ‘You know what? I can’t remember what I was going to say? Listen … I’m going to have to go and formally arrest Margaret. I know you’re still obsessed with this whole green glow thing, but you’re going to have to get over it. I mean, you’re not a proper witch, are you? And no one else can see any magical traces at the murder scenes.’ He stood up. ‘You’d better get off to work now. It’s going to look weird if you hang around this place any longer.’
I stayed seated, feeling confused. ‘But shouldn’t we talk about it a bit more? I mean, what about the green glow I told you I saw on Margaret’s hands?’
My voice trailed off as he strode across the floor and opened his door. ‘Thanks for all your help on this case, Miss Smith. I hope you have all you need to write your newspaper story.’
I stood up, blinking. ‘Miss Smith again? Wait …are you doing some sort of act here? You missed argumentative Aisling, and now you’re pretending to be a jerk so that I’ll argue with you and you can get your weird kicks?’
He looked straight at me, a cold look in his eyes. ‘Weird kicks? No, Miss Smith. I assure you, I get no kicks from your company – weird or otherwise. It’s just that I’ve suddenly realised how unprofessional this is. I shouldn’t be consulting with you. I shouldn’t be telling you anything at all about this case. All you’re doing is confusing matters. Imagining a supernatural connection when there is none. It will be resolved a lot quicker if you just butt out.’
I glared back at him. ‘You’re being weird, Dylan. Really weird. And if you actually think this case is as straightforward as it seems, then Margaret isn’t the one who needs a psychiatrist. You are.’
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