Murder Always Barks Twice

by Jennifer Hawkins

  “Yes, I remember them too,” Emma told her. “And I just found the other one up in the office, between the window seat cushions.”

  “If she was wearing them when she died, that wouldn’t be so strange,” said Genny reluctantly.

  Helen wasn’t listening to her. She closed the bits of tissue over the earring, as if she didn’t want to look at it anymore and handed it back to Emma. “You think it means something else, don’t you, Emma?”

  Emma nodded, but she found it surprisingly hard to speak. Oliver lay down beside her and put his front paws over her shoes to let her know he was there for her.

  “I know you don’t really know me, Helen, and I know you haven’t got any reason to trust what I’m about to say, but I think Marcie’s body was moved.”

  “Are you serious?” said Genny.

  “You can’t possibly . . .” said Helen at the same time. “Why would anybody do that?”

  Emma didn’t answer. Neither did Genny.

  But Helen didn’t really need an answer, not, at least, after the words had time to settle in. Her face creased with consternation and anger. “You think someone tried to hide the fact that Marcie killed herself?”

  “Helen, I think Marcie was murdered.”

  29

  Helen staggered, as if Emma’s words knocked against her with physical force. “You can’t mean it.”

  “I’m sorry,” breathed Emma. “I should have—”

  Genny cut her off. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s take a ride.” She faced Helen. “Emma’s considering buying the Mini here. You can tell us what you think.”

  Helen hesitated, but she also glanced over her shoulder at the house. “Yes, all right. Let’s do that.”

  Helen climbed into the back seat and let Emma boost Oliver in with her. Oliver, recognizing Helen’s distress, snuggled up close. Helen wrapped her arms around him and held on as if it was for dear life.

  Maybe it was.

  Emma backed and turned the Mini with exaggerated caution. She drove around the corner of the house, across the front courtyard, down the long drive and through the gates. She kept on driving, slowly and steadily until they turned onto the main road. As soon as the hedges pulled back enough to make a decent shoulder, Emma eased the Mini over and switched off the engine. She sat there, both hands on the wheel, staring out the windscreen.

  “I’d like to get out,” said Helen.”

  “Oh, yes, right.” Genny opened the door and got out onto the shoulder, followed by Helen, and of course Oliver. Emma got out too. Helen walked up the road a few paces, so she was standing in the shadow of the earthen berm with its tangle of bracken drooping overhead.

  A battered lorry rattled down the road, slowed and stopped.

  “Everything all right, ladies?” called the rumpled, stubbled driver.

  “Yes, thanks!” answered Genny. “No worries!”

  He nodded and waved and drove on.

  “All right,” said Helen. Her voice was taut and her features were drawn. The ride had frizzled her hair and now the summer breeze whipped it into a shifting, ragged halo. “Emma, I need you to tell me exactly why you think my sister-in-law was murdered.”

  Oliver was nosing the ground by the hedge. Emma’s already jangled nerves were not made any better by how close the road, and its traffic were to her back.

  Another car stopped, this one a boxy, blue import. “All right, ladies? Need anything? Oh, hullo, Genny!”

  “Hullo, Tom!” Genny waved. “We’re fine. Thanks! Say hi to Mary for me!”

  “Will do!” Tom drove off.

  “Better make it quick, Emma, or somebody’s going to tell Brian you crashed his Mini into a hedge,” said Genny.

  “Right.” Emma squared her shoulders. Oliver trotted back to her side, every part of him on the alert, just in case. “I know how this is about to sound,” she told Helen. “But it was my dog who knew. And yours.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oliver was upset by something in the office, and again by the garage. So was Dash. The last time I saw Oliver get that agitated was last year when we found Victoria Roberts, and she was dead.”

  “You mean, you think he smelled something?”

  “I think he smelled blood in both places. And we found one earring in each place as well.” She took a deep breath. “And the day Marcie died, Caite Hope-Johnston was in her office.”

  “Caite? What was she doing there?”

  “I don’t know,” said Emma. “But she was using Marcie’s computer.”

  Helen said nothing. She paced back to the car. She didn’t even look at Emma, or Genny. She put one hand on the hood. Emma suddenly remembered Caite standing in the rain, absorbing the news that Marcie was dead.

  Oliver trotted over to Helen. He sat back on his haunches and stretched himself up. Helen rubbed his head, but didn’t look down.

  At last she turned around. Oliver dropped back down onto all fours. He also bonked her in the calf, trying to herd her back to Emma and Genny.

  “Oliver,” said Emma sternly.

  Oliver ducked his head. “Sorry, Emma.”

  Emma picked him up and deposited him in the car. Oliver huffed and grumbled. But he also turned around three times and curled up onto the seat. Emma patted his head.

  She felt, rather than saw Helen move closer to her. When Emma turned around, she was face-to-face with the other woman. Helen had flushed red, and she held herself so tightly, Emma felt sure something was about to break.

  “How sure are you about this?” she demanded, her voice low and rasping. “About Marcie being murdered?”

  “I’m not sure at all,” Emma told her. “But we do have a whole bunch of very strange circumstances.”

  “You can’t honestly think Caite had anything to do with it?”

  “I don’t know anything for sure,” said Emma. “But you have to admit, you wouldn’t sneak into a house where someone just died on a whim.”

  “No, you’re certainly right about that.” The breeze pushed a broad swatch of hair across Helen’s eyes. She brushed it back impatiently.

  “I also had a very strange conversation with Bert in the pub,” said Emma. “It was before the autopsy report came out. He wanted to make very sure I knew that Marcie had killed herself, and when I asked if it could have been something else, he immediately assumed I was talking about murder. Why would he make that jump? Why not think it might be an accident?”

  “Yeah, that’s something that’s really been bothering me too,” said Genny. “Why would Bert, or anybody, want to push the idea of a suicide over an accident? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Actually, that’s the one thing that does make sense.” Helen smirked. “You see, the Cochrane family is rather famously accident-prone.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Emma.

  Helen raised her eyebrows and cocked her head in mock surprise. “Richard Cochrane, Frank and co.’s father, was the second son,” she recited, as if repeating a lesson she’d learned as a schoolgirl. “His older brother, Stewart, died in a boating accident. Went out on a rough sea after having had too much to drink,” she added. “So Richard and his wife, Evelyn, inherited the grange. They moved in right after probate was settled, and very shortly after that, they had their four children. The current generation—Marcie, Bert, Gus and Frank. Then, when Richard and Evelyn died in a car accident, Marcie inherited.”

  “Now, Marcie’s dead and the grange changes hands yet again,” murmured Emma.

  Helen nodded. “If this gets called an accident . . . well, people might start thinking how that makes three accidents in a row that changed who owns Truscott Grange.”

  “Which does start looking a little odd, if you stop to think about it,” said Genny.

  Emma thought about the argument she’d overheard. And if we sit here arguing like
idiots, someone is going to think something’s really wrong in this family, Bert had said. And they’ll start asking awkward questions.

  “But if it’s suicide . . .” began Genny.

  “Then it’s a different story,” Emma finished. “Anybody who wants to can say it was Marcie’s own fault, because she had problems and didn’t tell the family.” She’d already seen how Bert was not above blaming the victim.

  “Yes.” Helen plucked a leaf off the nearest bit of bracken and twirled it restlessly by the stem. After a moment, she pitched it away. “What a god-awful mess! What on earth am I going to tell Daphne?”

  Emma steeled her nerves. She walked around so she was facing Helen. “I know you didn’t ask for this, and it’s not fair that you’re the one who has to deal with it, but this is where you are. So there’s really only one question.” She put her hand on Helen’s shoulder. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Helen snapped, but then she shook her head. “I suppose I ought to talk to Frank. Tell him about the other earring. Get him to go to the police with me.” She shoved her hair back from her forehead. She looked like someone who had seen her world break once before, and now had to watch all those cracks opening up again. “He’s been different lately. He says he’s looking for a new start of some kind between us and he might just mean it this time. Life is full of surprises.” She paused. “Unless Frank is in on it. But we don’t even know what it is, do we? I mean, we think Bert’s covering something up, at least Daphne does. But we don’t know what that something is. But if the body was moved . . .” She swallowed. “If Marcie was killed, it could have been any one of them, couldn’t it?” She stopped again. “It even could have been me.”

  Emma saw the exact moment Helen thought, Or Daphne.

  “And let’s not leave out Hyphenated Caite,” said Genny quickly.

  “Oh, lord, yes, let’s not,” said Helen bitterly. “So you’re the one with experience in these things, Emma. What should we be doing?”

  Emma rubbed Oliver’s ears and tried to think. But nothing came to her.

  “Well, I think it’s pretty obvious,” announced Genny. “The first thing to do is make sure the festival happens.”

  30

  Helen’s face went absolutely blank. “You can’t be serious, Genny.”

  But as soon as Genny said it, Emma felt like her brain had been kicked into high gear. “Actually, that might be a good idea, at least it is if we can’t shift the police round to the idea that Marcie was murdered. Working on the festival gives us an excuse to talk to people and to keep looking around.”

  “Yes, yes!” Oliver put his front paws on the window frame. “An excellent idea! A noble corgi warrior can always find what’s missing!”

  Oliver might tend to overestimate his own abilities, but this time, Emma had to admit he might be right. Look at what he’s found out already.

  Plus, Genny could be there, and Pearl, as well as Daphne and Helen. They could be working together to search that enormous house, to see if there was anything more to be found.

  It could work.

  Despite the warmth of the day, Helen wrapped her arms around herself. “Poor Marcie. She would have hated this.” Her voice trembled. Emma wished she’d thought to put extra tissues in her bag. “She spent so much time trying to make things go smoothly for everybody.”

  “What was Marcie like?” Emma asked curiously. “I only met her a couple of times.”

  Helen smiled, distant and fond. “She was quiet, but she had a wicked sense of humor once you got to know her. She went out of her way to make me comfortable whenever she was around. We had a shared love of old mysteries and soppy romances. She was a wonderful listener. When things started to go bad with Frank, she was one of the few people I could really talk to. Before or after the divorce.”

  “You stayed close?”

  “Best mates, really. Frank liked to think Daphne and I kept coming to stay because somewhere deep down I wanted to keep us together as a family, but it was really to see Marcie. We’d talk two or three times a week, no matter where we were, and of course we’re always here for festival weekend. It’s a lot of fun, really.”

  “Are you a du Maurier fan?”

  “Me?” Helen shuddered. “No. She’s much too dark for me. Give me Dorothy Sayers any day.”

  “I’d been wondering, because of your daughter’s name.”

  “Daphne? Oh, yes, that was Marcie’s idea actually. I’d planned to name our daughter Marcia, for her aunt. Frank was okay with it, because it was a family name. But Marcie nixed the idea.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “She said our girl should have a name that would promise a chance at a future.”

  Genny whistled softly. “I hadn’t ever heard that bit. That’s . . . I’m not sure what that is.”

  “I’ve never been sure either, honestly. But I know Marcie deserved better than she got.” Helen’s expression tightened. “And she does now. Can one of you loan me a phone?”

  “Sure.” Genny reached over the side of the car and pulled her mobile out of her bag and handed it to Helen. Helen frowned, and her mouth moved silently for a moment. Then, she punched some buttons. Another car passed, and slowed.

  “All right?” called the driver, a tiny, dark woman with bright, white hair. “Oh, hullo, Genny!”

  “Hullo, Mrs. Singh! Yes, everything’s fine, thanks.” Genny smiled and exchanged thumbs-ups.

  Helen was holding the phone to her ear. “Hello, Caite? Yes. Helen Dalgliesh.”

  Emma raised her eyebrows, and both she and Genny turned to face Helen.

  “No, everything’s fine . . . well, yes. But I know you’ve been wanting to hear from us, and the family has decided that the festival should go forward. What?” She pressed two fingers against her ear. “Sorry, I’m out in the garden. Yes . . . yes. That is everybody’s decision. We think it’d be the most appropriate send-off for Marcie. I know there’s not a lot of time, so I’d like to help out, if I can. I’ve got all Marcie’s notes and so on—at least, I know where she kept them.” Helen paused, listening. “Yes. Wonderful. Then we can count on seeing you tomorrow? Good. We’ll expect you and the board then. And we’ll have Angelique and her people there as well . . . Yes. I do. Good. Thank you.” She said goodbye and she hung up, and handed Genny’s phone back.

  “There. Done.”

  “What will you do if any of the brothers object?” It was strange how quickly Emma had come to think of them as a collective, like bricks in a wall. She resisted the urge to start humming Pink Floyd tunes.

  “I can handle them,” said Helen. “But I’d better get started on it.”

  “Do you want us to drive you back?” asked Genny.

  “It’s not really all that far, I’ll walk. You should get going before the other half of Trevena comes by.”

  She turned away, but Emma stopped her.

  “Helen?”

  “Yes?” She looked back over her shoulder.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Helen straightened up. For the first time that morning, Emma could see the confident woman who knew her own worth and her own strength. “You know, I am. Maybe if it was just me, it’d be another story. But this is about Marcie, and Daphne.”

  Emma nodded. I understand that.

  They said goodbye. Helen started walking up the road, back toward the grange and all its secrets.

  Emma and Genny climbed back into the Mini. Oliver scrambled up into Emma’s lap. Emma wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on top of his.

  “Hey!” Genny put her hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Are you all right? Do you want me to drive?”

  “No, I’m okay.” Emma wiped at her face, embarrassed to realize that her eyes were watering. Oliver twisted around and licked at her chin.

  “I’m right here, Emma.”<
br />
  “You sure you’re okay?” said Genny. “Because I’m not so sure I am. Anyway, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get Brian his car back before he sends out a search party. Then, we all go home and get over the shakes, which I know you’re going to have, because I’m getting them now. Then, I’ll call Pearl and Angelique.”

  “What am I going to be doing while you’re calling them?”

  “Calling DCI Brent,” said Genny. “You’re going to have to eventually. Might as well be now.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Emma rubbed Oliver’s back. “I just wish we had something more to show her than one earring.” Because I do not fancy explaining how it was a couple of dogs who worked out that the body got moved.

  “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “Yes, Mum.” Emma boosted Oliver across to Genny’s lap and started up the engine. With exaggerated care, she checked the mirrors and pulled back out onto the road. Oliver barked happily and opened his mouth to laugh at the passing scenery.

  “So,” said Genny as they rounded the first bend. “What do you think really happened?”

  That was an excellent question. “I don’t know,” Emma admitted. “There’s just too many pieces. The only thing I’m sure about is that somebody moved Marcie’s body. I mean, we’ve got the earrings—”

  “And the bad!” yipped Oliver.

  “In two different places. “Plus Oli . . . that is, Oliver was acting like he’d smelled something wrong in the kitchen, and when I looked at what he was fussing over, I thought I saw signs that somebody had used bleach to clean the floor.”

  “Bleach?” said Genny, incredulous. “That’s a wooden floor in that kitchen. You can’t use bleach, it leaves a dark stain.”

  “Erm. Right. Exactly. That’s what I thought. But you do use bleach . . .”

  “If you want to obliterate bloodstains,” Genny finished for her. “You’re talking to a woman who dismembers fresh fish on a daily basis. I could write you a book on cleaning products. Also hand soaps.”