Death at Beacon Cottage
An absolutely addictive cozy mystery novel
Betty Rowlands
Books by Betty Rowlands
THE SUKEY REYNOLDS SERIES
Death at Hazel House
Death at Dearley Manor
Death at Beacon Cottage
Death at Burwell Farm
THE MELISSA CRAIG SERIES
Murder at Hawthorn Cottage
Murder in the Morning
Murder on the Clifftops
Murder at the Manor Hotel
Murder on a Winter Afternoon
Murder in the Orchard
Murder at Larkfield Barn
Murder in Langley Woods
Murder at Benbury Brook
Murder at the Old House
Murder in the Dining Room
Murder in a Country Garden
AVAILABLE IN AUDIO
Murder at Hawthorn Cottage (available in the UK and the US)
Murder in the Morning (available in the UK and the US)
Murder on the Clifftops (available in the UK and the US)
Murder at the Manor Hotel (available in the UK and the US)
Murder on a Winter Afternoon (available in the UK and the US)
Murder in the Orchard (available in the UK and the US)
Murder at Larkfield Barn (available in the UK and the US)
Murder in Langley Woods (available in the UK and the US)
Murder at Benbury Brook (available in the UK and the US)
Murder at the Old House (available in the UK and the US)
Murder in the Dining Room (available in the UK and the US)
Murder in a Country Garden (available in the UK and the US)
Contents
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Death at Burwell Farm
Hear More from Betty
Books by Betty Rowlands
A Letter from Betty
Death at Hazel House
Death at Dearley Manor
Murder at Hawthorn Cottage
Prologue
‘This one is going to be a doddle.’ Miguel Rodriguez – Roddy to his friends and ‘Lucky’ Roddy to a select few on account of the way his jobs always went like clockwork – filled the glasses of his two partners in crime from the bottle of Rioja at his elbow. It was not by any means the finest vintage his firm supplied as he was well aware that neither Morris nor Crowson had particularly well-trained palates. Still, it was decent enough for him to nose appreciatively before taking his first mouthful. ‘Salud!’ he exclaimed as he raised his glass and the others responded with ‘Cheers!’
Given the choice, they would both have preferred to be toasting the new enterprise in pints of lager, but Roddy’s expertise in all matters concerning wine and his contacts among wealthy wine-lovers had been the key to several highly successful jobs, so who were they to knock it? They drank it as Roddy had taught them, rolling it round their tongues and savouring – or pretending to savour – its smooth, subtle fruitiness.
‘So tell us the details, boss,’ said Crowson.
Morris, whose main functions were to act as lookout, give a hand where necessary in carrying the loot and drive the getaway car, squinted at the paper spread out on the polished table. ‘I see you’ve got a plan of the place,’ he said. ‘How d’you manage that?’
‘Just another bit of the Rodriguez luck,’ said Roddy. ‘The owner is having some work done on the building and this was lying on his desk while we wereco in his office discussing his order. He had a message the foreman wanted a word with him, so he went out telling his secretary to pour me another drink. Next thing he rang through asking for some bit of paper he needed, so off went Fiona, leaving me on my own for five minutes. Plenty of time to run it through his photocopier – and have a good look round.’ He held up his glass to the light, admiring the rich colour of the wine and smiling at the recollection.
There was hardly a woman of his acquaintance who was not completely bowled over by that smile. Slightly mysterious, as if prompted by some secret thought he was not prepared to share until the moment was right, it hinted at warm, passionate nights under a velvety Mediterranean sky, with guitars throbbing in the background. Coupled with his frank, open manner, his natural courtesy and impeccable background, it was also a valuable commercial asset. Customers and suppliers alike agreed that Miguel Rodriguez, proprietor of the highly reputable company of wine merchants that bore his name, was a man with whom it was a pleasure to do business.
Crowson and Morris, who were more likely to associate Mediterranean nights with lager-drinking contests than dreams of romance, were impervious to the Rodriguez charm. In private they referred to him as ‘that Spanish smart-arse’ whom they admired for his skills and organising ability but who, despite his having been born, brought up and educated in England, was nevertheless a foreigner and therefore not entirely to be trusted. They kept their eyes on him, observed his every movement and listened intently to every word as they waited for their instructions.
Roddy drained his glass and placed it on a coaster of beaten Spanish silver, handling it carefully with the slender, sensitive fingers whose speed and dexterity in other fields had proved their worth to the trio on more than one occasion. ‘Right, boys, time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Here’s how it goes. The owner’s off to Gleneagles tomorrow for a golfing holiday and the house will be empty except for the married couple – a Mr and Mrs Frampton – he employs to run it. There’s an external security system of floodlights controlled by sensors, but I’ve located a point where I can get right up to the house without setting them off. And guess what, that point is immediately below the office window, which is where the main control boxes for both the internal and external alarm systems are located. That’s my point of entry.’
‘Won’t it set off the alarm when you go in?’ asked Morris.
‘There’s a thirty-second time-lag to enable anyone entering legitimately to turn it off by entering a code.’
‘I guess that’ll be no problem for you, boss.’
Crowson spoke with justifiable confidence. Roddy’s ingenuity in circumventing even the most sophisticated of security systems had reduced a number of victims to despair at the thought of the money they had invested with so little success.
‘As it happens, it might have been tricky,’ Roddy admitted. ‘It’s a set-up I haven’t encountered before – but luck was with me again. There are control boxes beside the two main entrances, front and rear. The Framptons were in town shopping when we got to the house and of course they’d set the system before going out, but Fiona was with us and she opened up and keyed in the code while I was standing just behind her. I don’t suppose it entered either of their heads that I was making a note of it.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Morris, tossing off the last of his wine. ‘OK, so once you’re in, it’s up to us, right?’
‘Right. I’ve already shown you where to park your vehicle. Now, this room is where you head for.’ Roddy indicated th
eir target on the plan and reached for a second sheet of paper. ‘Here’s a list of the pieces I want and their precise location in the room. Nothing heavy, just be careful with the breakables and put the painting in a separate bag to protect it – it’s only tiny even though it’s worth a fortune. You should be in and out in three minutes at the outside. Oh, and don’t forget, the usual rules apply. No one gets hurt. The Framptons sleep some way away and there’s no reason they should hear a thing, but if you should be disturbed you know what to do.’ There had been no reason to repeat the order, but he never failed to do so. It was part of his credo that so long as no one got physically hurt, there was no harm done. All his victims could well afford to lose a few of their treasures. In fact, although he was well aware that the others were in it solely for the money and expected to be handsomely rewarded for their share in the enterprise, to him it was the excitement, the risk, the thrill of pulling it off that really counted.
The meeting broke up and Crowson and Morris slipped quietly out of the penthouse flat by its private entrance. Left alone, Roddy carefully removed all traces of their presence before reaching for the phone. The night was still young, and Pepita was waiting for his call.
One
‘This week has got to be one of the dullest on record,’ grumbled Mandy Parfitt, civilian Scene of Crime Officer based at Gloucester police station. ‘And today’s jobs are the dullest of all,’ she went on, flicking through a sheaf of reports. ‘Stolen car found abandoned, foiled break-in with nothing taken and a mower pinched from a garden shed. What’ve you got, Sukey?’
Susan Reynolds – Sukey to everyone except her ex-husband, Paul, who had refused to use the nickname on the grounds that it sounded childish – handed her colleague a mug of tea and sat down at an adjacent desk to check her own assignments for the morning. ‘Nothing wildly exciting,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Three cars broken into on the Ramsen estate during the night, radio and a laptop nicked from one, leather jacket from another, window smashed on the third but nothing taken. The villains were probably disturbed.’
‘Sounds like a Hodson job,’ Sukey remarked. ‘Which ones are currently out of the nick?’ The numerous members of the Hodson clan were depressingly familiar to police and magistrates alike.
‘Can’t be sure off-hand,’ said Mandy with a shrug. ‘I wonder if anyone got a good look at whoever did that lot.’
‘If they did, they’ll probably keep shtum. The Hodsons don’t take kindly to being fingered by their neighbours. Sometimes,’ Sukey added with a sigh, picking up her mug of tea, ‘I wonder why we bother with this sort of incident.’
‘That sounds like a pretty negative approach,’ said a new voice. The two SOCOs glanced up as Sergeant George Barnes entered the room. ‘Do I detect a hint of gloom in my section this sunny spring morning?’
‘Not gloom, just frustration at the poor quality of today’s villains,’ Sukey explained. ‘We haven’t had a really challenging case for weeks.’
‘Well now, what do you fancy? A bit of aggravated burglary, armed robbery – or maybe a nice juicy murder like the “body in the sauna” case?’
‘Ugh, no, anything but that,’ said Sukey with a shudder. Although she had not actually discovered the victim, it had fallen to her lot to take his fingerprints and the experience had not been pleasant. Still, she could take satisfaction from having at the same time spotted a vital clue on the body.
‘How about a really spectacular robbery at a stately home?’ suggested Mandy. ‘Art treasures looted by an international gang, and we’re the ones who find the evidence that nails the villains and earns us the undying gratitude of the owner?’
‘And a fat reward that would enable us to retire in luxury,’ said Sukey with a sigh.
‘Well, dream on, but in the meantime you’ll have to make do with the best the local villains can offer,’ chuckled George. ‘On your way, troops.’
‘OK, Sarge.’ Feeling cheered by the nonsense, Sukey put down her empty mug on the scratched top of the wooden desk, reached for her notebook and began planning her itinerary. After all, it was Friday, she’d be finished by four o’clock and the weekend lay invitingly ahead. Her son Fergus would be spending it with his father and – unless there was a serious incident to interfere with their plans – DI Jim Castle was free as well. Excitement – at least of the criminal variety – wasn’t everything.
She decided to make the Ramsen estate, where three separate incidents had been reported, her first destination. At one time it had been regarded as a ‘sink’ estate plagued by drug pedlars, junkies and vandals, many of whom belonged to a large, universally feared and detested family whose adult males had never done an honest day’s work in their lives and whose violent and abusive women, children and aggressive dogs made their neighbours’ lives a misery. Threats of reprisals had for a long time discouraged any form of resistance until a particular act of vandalism, as a result of which a child was seriously hurt, made the residents decide that ‘enough was enough’. With the cooperation of the police they decided to defy their tormentors, set up a Neighbourhood Watch Committee and put together a dossier of incidents which eventually resulted in the culprits being evicted from their council home. Within weeks, the area had taken on a completely new aspect; broken fences were mended, front gardens tidied, and boarded-up windows repaired. Reported crime fell dramatically, but one fly in the ointment remained: the Hodsons, another large and anti-social family, most of whose members had criminal records and were much more difficult to tackle. None of them actually lived on the estate and in fact they were scattered around a number of districts. The older ones made their living in a variety of ways – few of them legal – and the younger ones amused themselves in their spare time with shoplifting, breaking into cars and stealing their contents or – for those with the necessary driving skills – joyriding. Ramsen residents had managed to foil them on several occasions and had recently enjoyed several Hodson-free months.
‘Guess we were getting a bit too complacent,’ admitted the owner of the first car Sukey examined. ‘I usually take out the radio at night, but I forgot it until I’d locked up—’
‘And you thought, “Let it go for one night”,’ Sukey sympathised as she brushed the door handle for fingerprints. ‘It happens so often.’
‘And I could kick myself for leaving the laptop,’ the man went on. ‘It was out of sight in the boot, but they found it just the same. D’you reckon there’s any chance of nabbing them?’
‘We might, if any of these prints turn out to be on our files – and if we can trace the stolen property back to whoever left them on the car.’ Sukey lifted a series of prints off the door and began work on the interior.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’ Having watched for a few minutes with his hands in his pockets, he turned away and went indoors.
There was no car outside the second address and a woman who answered Sukey’s knock informed her curtly that her husband needed it to get to work, he was a very busy man and if she wanted to examine the vehicle she would have to make an appointment. ‘Anyone would think they were doing us a favour, allowing us to try and find out who broke into their bloody car,’ Sukey grumbled as she made her report on the phone in her van. ‘I’ve left her our number and suggested that her husband call us if he wants us to pursue the matter.’
‘On our high horse, are we?’ The officer in the control room was obviously in teasing mode. ‘Don’t forget all you’ve been told about public relations.’
‘There are some members of the public who don’t deserve to have relations,’ Sukey retorted. ‘I’m on my way now to incident number three.’
‘OK. Keep in touch.’
The owner of the third car to be targeted the previous night was a stockily built, sandy-haired individual in his forties with a truculent manner and features that reminded Sukey of a pug-dog. ‘You took your time,’ he observed, scowling at the ID she held up. ‘I’m supposed to be at work in half an hour.’
‘I’m
sorry, Mr Blaine, I’ve had a couple of other jobs to attend to on this estate,’ Sukey explained, but the scowl merely deepened.
‘So I’m told,’ Blaine sneered. ‘If your lot were doing what they’re paid for, there’d be a lot less of this sort of thing.’
‘The police can’t be everywhere at once.’ Sukey managed to keep her voice even and her eyes on the damaged quarterlight.
‘So what are the public supposed to do – keep watch all night? I was told this was a quiet neighbourhood—’
‘It’s a great deal quieter than it was before the Neighbourhood Watch was set up, but nowhere’s completely crime-free these days, I’m afraid.’ Sukey walked round the vehicle, looking for other signs of damage. ‘It doesn’t look as if the villains managed to get into your car – do I understand you disturbed them?’
‘I’ve already said so. Don’t you people talk to each other? I happened to be awake, heard voices and got up to see what was going on. There were two of them, one had a brick in his hand so I opened the window and shouted at them to piss off… which they did, having used the brick to smash the window before they scarpered. Cheeky sods – one even looked up and gave me a V-sign.’
Sukey bent over the contents of her case to conceal a smile. She had already come to the conclusion that she was unlikely to find any useful evidence, but decided to leave the disgruntled victim no cause to complain that she had not done her job properly. She began dusting for prints round the door handle.
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