by Joyce Cato
‘Well, they wanted to know everything I did or said that day too,’ Monica commiserated. ‘So you’re not alone there. I dare say it was the same for all of us.’
Paul grunted. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s over, I can tell you that.’
He wasn’t the only one.
In her bedroom, Julie Dix sat with the debris of her chest of drawers scattered all around her, and the stark truth staring her in the face. Her last love letter from Sean was missing. And there were only three possibilities. The first was that Sean had come up to the flat and taken it back himself, terrified that the police might find them out.
The second, even scarier thought was that the police had found it, and did in fact, now suspect Sean, or herself, or both of them, acting in collusion in Margaret’s murder.
Or thirdly, and by far the most likely, her mother had discovered the passionate note.
With a sigh, Julie put her clothes back and then walked wearily to the window. Ever since it had happened, Sean had been ignoring her. If only things hadn’t gone so wrong! They’d be lying on a beach in Spain now, safe and happy and free.
It made her ashamed now to think that she’d once thought that Sean could possibly be the man of her dreams. He was weak. Just like most men, he was spineless when it came to dealing with the reality of things. If she had it to do all over again, things would have been different, that’s for sure, she thought savagely.
Pauline heard a door open below her, and quickly walked down the stairs, peering over the railings. She was just in time to see the top of John’s head appear.
‘John,’ she called, skipping quickly down the stairs to catch up. ‘Have you heard?’ she said breathlessly, coming to a halt just above him. ‘About the bloodstains?’ She gave a sudden start, and lowering her voice to a whisper, looked around. ‘What was that?’
‘What?’ John asked, patently baffled.
‘I thought I heard a door … never mind. It was right on this second landing where they found them, you know,’ she said and cast a look over her shoulder towards the dark corner. ‘Right over there.’
John shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘Oh, well, I’m sure it’s all cleaned up now,’ he said as heartily as he could, but Pauline wasn’t to be denied her drama.
‘I dare say, but they were gory enough Saturday afternoon,’ she declared firmly. ‘You know, I thought I noticed something dark in that corner on my way up to get the fruit salad,’ she said. ‘But I never went to investigate.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said feebly, thinking how funny it was that, after the event, everyone seemed to suddenly remember things. A bit like the way everyone remembered feeling ‘something wasn’t quite right’ only after something had gone wrong. ‘Well, I must be off. I’ve left Monica to the mercy of the rhododendrons, and I can’t leave her there all day.’ He turned, jogged a few steps down, then reluctantly turned and looked up again. Pauline hadn’t moved.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked her softly.
Pauline nodded. ‘Yes, fine,’ she said absently. But she was shivering. Again John went down a few more steps, then once more stopped and looked up. He’d been about to tell her that she should be careful, and that going around saying things about what she’d seen on the day of the murder could be dangerous. But Pauline was gone.
He continued down to his own flat, looking worried.
Maurice was driven back to the vicarage after more questioning, feeling both embarrassed and elated. He got out of the police car and watched it go, then, sensing movement out of his peripheral vision, turned to watch Monica Noble step out from the bushes.
‘Hello, Maurice,’ she said gently. ‘You look whacked. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’ she offered kindly.
Maurice brushed an imaginary fleck from the sleeve of his jacket and smiled handsomely.
‘Thank you, but I think a bath and then a stiff gin and tonic are more in order,’ he said. ‘These policemen of ours are thorough fellows, but everything’s been cleared up now,’ he added firmly and loudly, having just spotted Paul over Monica’s shoulder. The younger man was studiously ignoring him by pulling out some particularly stubborn roots.
‘That’s good news,’ Monica said. For all his bluster, she could sense the poor man was a jumble of nerves. ‘Paul and I were just saying how gruelling it is to keep answering questions all the time.’
‘It certainly is. But at least I’ve had my turn,’ Maurice said, and added a shade spitefully, ‘I wonder who’ll be next?’ And with that rather unnerving statement, he headed for the back door and disappeared inside.
‘Poor man,’ she said softly. ‘He looked shattered.’
Paul sighed. ‘I hope he doesn’t run into Pauline,’ he muttered darkly. ‘She’ll probably demand to know why they let him out.’
Monica couldn’t help but grin.
John sat at his drawing board, staring at a piece of blank paper. In all the years he’d worked as a cartoonist, he’d never cut a deadline so fine. He sighed and began to draw a swarm of bees looping around a no entry sign, hoping that he could think up a good punch-line for them later.
Walking in the meadow, Carol-Ann followed the bend of the river as it meandered towards Ford Street. The area here was overgrown, prone to flooding in the winter, but alive with wildlife. She’d passed several groups of policemen on her way out, and their concentrated industry had aroused a sense of excitement and adventure in her, which had set her off exploring. Several stinging nettle rashes, two gnat bites and a pair of sweaty armpits later, she was beginning to wish she’d never bothered.
She stopped willingly at the riverbank and looked down at the pretty water crow’s foot flowering in the middle of the water, then looked out across the village. Slowly, she followed the river edge, but had only gone a few yards when she noticed how the bank had fallen in at one spot. And just below the overhanging bank there was a wedge of mud that hung out only a few inches above the water. And there, right there in the middle of it, was a small pile of ashes.
Carol-Ann stared it them for quite a while, thinking what a strange place it was to light a bonfire, and then realized that this might be what all those policemen were looking for. She began to grin.
‘Yes!’ she hissed, giving a clenched fist salute of victory.
Pauline watched Monica and Paul from her top floor flat. If she hadn’t thought it would be so obvious, she’d change into a pair of snazzy dungarees and go down and offer to help. But she feared Monica Noble’s knowing eyes. And since Paul had flown off the handle at her about that wimp Maurice, she’d have to be cool and aloof at all times from now on. Just until she was sure he’d forgiven her. Men didn’t like to be chased too hard, but she’d have him in the end.
Pauline always got what she wanted.
Still in the incident room, Jason was thinking of calling it a day when they informed him of the find near the river. It was quite a trek out, but the scenery was breath-taking. Beyond the river was a flat meadow, full of peacefully grazing cattle, and rolling hills headed up towards the main road and towards the dark patch of trees that was called Chandlers Spinney. Some rare ragged robins grew near the river, bright pink in the sun, as well as one or two suspiciously interesting orchids. But his mind very quickly turned back to the job in hand when he suddenly spotted the svelte, blonde-haired form of Carol-Ann Clancy, hovering by a knot of constables.
‘What’s she doing here?’ he said abruptly to Jim, who shook his head.
‘I’ll find out.’ The sergeant beckoned over one of the constables, had a quick, whispered conversation, then relayed the news to his boss before they got to within earshot of the others. ‘Apparently it was Miss Clancy who found the ashes and called the uniforms over, sir.’
Jason groaned. ‘Great. That’s just what I need. A teenager playing Miss Marple.’
Jim grinned.
‘Hello, Jason,’ Carol-Ann said cheerfully as he walked up beside her. Jason winced, but wasn’t about to ask how she’
d discovered his first name. ‘Miss Clancy. You’ve been busy, it seems?’ he said mildly.
Carol-Ann grinned. ‘Just thought I’d help out,’ she said modestly.
‘Thank you,’ Jason said dryly. ‘But I’d be grateful if you would return home now, Miss Clancy, and wait for me. I’ll need to ask you some questions later.’
Carol-Ann heaved a massive sigh and sulkily strode off. Jason watched her go, then walked carefully to the bank and looked down.
‘A good spot for it,’ he noted laconically. ‘If we’d had any rain at all, the mud would have disintegrated and the whole lot would have collapsed back into the river before we even knew it was there.’
‘It might have done so anyway, sir,’ Jim, more of a countryman than his superior, pointed out the very dry conditions that had sent cracks running all around the edge of the bank.
‘I reckon the killer must have laid on his belly and set the fire at arm’s length to avoid crumbling this lot in then and there. You have to admire him, in a way.’ As Jason had always said, this killer was clever enough to try and think of everything.
‘We’ll have to be careful then,’ Jason mused. ‘Cauldicott,’ he beckoned over a uniformed PC, ‘get your wellies on and get in the water. I don’t want anyone setting foot on the bank anywhere near those ashes until forensics have bagged them up.’
An hour later, Jim watched as Jason carefully used a pencil to sift through the find. The ashes were now carefully strewn at a safer distance from the river on black plastic bags, and Jason grunted as his pencil hit something solid. He carefully extracted it even though he knew that, after a fire, fingerprints were probably out of the question. With gloved hands he held up a small, round, scorched button.
‘Definitely the remains of clothes then, sir,’ Jim said flatly.
‘Yes.’ Jason put the misshapen bit of plastic into an evidence bag. ‘Get it back to the lab, Jim. I want to know what kind of button that is.’
‘Sir.’
Jason rose and looked towards the vicarage.
‘Meanwhile,’ he said, without enthusiasm, ‘I’d better find out just how Miss Carol-Ann Clancy came to lead us right to it.’
Joan Dix, confronted by her daughter, admitted to burning the letter.
‘Mother, how could you?’ Julie asked, but more in hopelessness than in genuine rage. She was beginning to wonder whether her mother might not have the right attitude towards men after all. ‘They were mine! And they were private! What gives you the right—’
And, for the first time ever, Joan raised her hand to her daughter and slapped her – hard. The sound ricocheted around the room like a bullet, and a livid red handprint sprang up on Julie’s shocked white face. Her wide-open eyes stared back at a woman she couldn’t ever remember seeing before. For Joan’s face was as hard as iron. Her eyes glittered, not with love, or pride, or pleading, but with bitter anger.
‘You stupid fool,’ Joan hissed. ‘Don’t you know what I’ve done for you?’
Julie blinked. ‘Mum?’ she said tentatively.
Joan ran a hand through her hair and began to pace.
‘We’ve got to think what’s the best thing to do now,’ she said, walking agitatedly to and fro. ‘Should we go or should we stay?’
Julie shook her head and sank back onto the sofa. As she watched her mother pacing the floor, a sudden look of comprehension flickered across her pretty face.
‘Oh, Mum!’ she said hopelessly. ‘Oh, Mum!’ Then, a little while later, ‘I’m so sorry.’
And she burst into bitter, ugly tears. For once, Joan simply let her cry and made no move to comfort her. She had some hard thinking to do.
Monica hovered nervously by the sofa as Carol-Ann, who looked about as much in need of protection as a Rottweiler, swung her legs casually from the end of the sofa and watched Chief Inspector Jason Dury through guileless blue eyes.
‘I just wanted to have a look around,’ she said, for about the seventh time. ‘I saw all the policemen crawling about over the grounds and knew they must be looking for something, so I thought that I’d have a look too.’
Monica bit her lip, and glanced at Jason, trying to read from his expression just how convincing he found this explanation. To her mother, who knew her well, it was just the sort of thing Carol-Ann would do. But did it make her look even more suspicious in the eyes of the police? Was he wondering, behind those oh-so-enigmatic pale blue eyes of his, if Carol-Ann wasn’t being just a shade too helpful. If she might be playing games with him? Damn it, she wished she knew.
‘I was getting a bit bored, though, to be honest,’ Carol-Ann admitted now. ‘And was about to give it up and come in for some ice cream, when I just saw it. It looked like a weird place to have a fire, so I yelled to one of your policemen to come and have a look.’ She gave a shrug. ‘And that was that.’
Jason thought that that was probably just how it had been. Sheer dumb luck.
To Monica, it all sounded pitifully lame and phoney. And her heart sank as she became more and more convinced that her daughter was probably now number one on Jason’s suspect list.
Jason sighed, caught Monica’s eye, and gave a shrug of his own.
‘All right, I think that’s all for now,’ he said wearily. ‘It’s getting late, and was time I headed for home. I’m tired,’ Jason admitted suddenly.
And he looked it too, Monica thought sympathetically, with his fair hair flopping limply across his forehead, and deep lines running from his nose to his lips. He smiled and left, and Monica watched him go, gnawing on her bottom lip. For a second there, she’d felt like going over to him and rubbing his aching back. She blinked and shook her head to clear it. First things first.
How on earth was she going to persuade Jason that Carol-Ann was just an innocent bystander in all this? That she wouldn’t steal, especially another woman’s diamond earrings, and that she certainly wouldn’t murder anyone and that finding the bonfire site the killer had used had just been sheer bad luck on her part?
She looked down at her daughter and discovered that Carol-Ann was watching Jason’s disappearing figure like a thoughtful hawk.
‘You know, Mother,’ Carol-Ann said dreamily, ‘he’s really quite dishy.’
Monica groaned.
It was less painful than tearing her hair out.
The next morning, Len Biggs was back, having got permission from both his boss and the police to lead his workforce into battle in flat 12. Monica had no idea they were there until she looked up out of her kitchen window, and saw a man carrying two huge tins of paint walk past.
And the sight of him suddenly sparked a chord in her memory. She’d totally forgotten to tell Jason about what Len had said a couple of days ago!
She quickly finished the quiche she’d been making and popped it in the oven, then made her way up to the top floor. As she stepped off the last stair and looked around, the sound of a radio playing wafted out of an open door. She walked over and asked a vacant-looking youth for Mr Biggs, who blinked and said that the boss was in the toilet.
Monica waited patiently nearly ten minutes before she realized that he meant Len was decorating the premises, not actually using them. Laughing at herself, Monica at last found the foreman, busily grouting tiles.
‘Hello, Len,’ she said from the open doorway, making him jump.
From his kneeling position, he quickly swivelled around, his face creasing into a smile.
‘Oh, hello there, missus. Cup of tea time?’ he asked hopefully.
Monica grinned. ‘Anytime, Len. You know where my kitchen is.’ And that reminded her, her quiche wouldn’t do to be left too long. ‘Len, I wanted to know if you’d asked around.’ And, as he continued to look at her blankly, prompted gently, ‘you know, about the tarpaulins still being up in the flat.’
Len shot her a quick, assessing look. ‘Yeah, I did. I was right, we did take them down, right after lunch on Friday. And nobody admits to putting ’em back up again.’ Slowly he laid his platter of grey gro
uting down and rubbed his hands nervously along the legs of his overalls. ‘Is something up, then?’ he asked diffidently.
Monica looked at his open, honest face, and sighed. ‘Yes, Len, I think there might be. I’ll have to tell this to Chief Inspector Dury. He’ll probably be up here to talk to you all again. Sorry about that.’
Len sighed fatalistically. ‘Oh well, I suppose you have to expect it,’ he replied philosophically. Then he shot another quick look at her. ‘And how’re you all coping? You and the rev are OK? You look a bit peaky.’
Monica could have kissed him. ‘Thanks, Len, I’m fine.’
Jason Dury was feeling anything but fine. It was day five of the murder inquiry, and although evidence was dribbling in, it didn’t seem to be leading them anywhere. Their most promising suspects seemed to be slipping through the net, and new leads were beckoning. His superiors were already beginning to pile on the pressure for a result, and they had nothing concrete on either the husband, or the blackmail victim to link them to the crime.
He looked up as a timid tap came on the door, and when Monica looked in, he felt his spirits lift. She was wearing a white wrap-around skirt and dark green blouse that clung to her in all the right places. Her dark curls gleamed in the sunlight.
‘Come on in, we won’t bite,’ he said softly. For once the incident room was unusually empty.
‘I forgot to tell you something yesterday. No, Monday,’ Monica began nervously. ‘It was something that Len said, in passing. Len Biggs, the decorator here.’
As she began to explain, Jim Greer left his desk and came up to stand beside her and listen in. Jason’s face slowly darkened as she spoke, and when she’d finished, her voice was little more than an apologetic whisper. But Jason wasn’t angry with her, so much as he with himself for having missed it.
‘I think we’d better go and have a word with Mr Biggs,’ he said flatly. Jim, too, felt like kicking himself. He’d been present when they’d interviewed the decorator, and he hadn’t picked up on this tarpaulin business either.