The Dead Squirrel (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 2)

by Patrick C Walsh

  He’d come back one evening to find his wife really upset. She’d had a visit from a friend of hers who lived a few streets away. This friend had shown up at their house before with black eyes and bruised arms, always she said after walking into several doors. His wife had advised her friend numerous times to leave her husband but she said she couldn’t, she was too scared of him.

  This last visit she’d admitted that her husband had now started on their son. He’d beaten the child black and blue with his belt because he’d wet the bed. Her son was five years old.

  His wife had cried as she told him this and he comforted her. Five years old. That alone decided him. He told his wife it would be alright and not to worry, it would all work out for the best. He didn’t tell her about his friend though, the one who can cure all earthly ills.

  When he researched further everything he discovered only served to confirm his original feelings. The man was a drunk, a lout, a slug with no redeeming features. No-one had a good word to say about him but they would never say this to his face. He was a big man, a mean man with a very uncertain temper.

  He worked in a garage and, when not there, spent all his time in the pub. He’d found what the slug’s favourite drink was and made his plans. He reminded himself to keep it simple as always.

  It was no co-incidence that late one evening he was sitting on a wall on the route that the slug took when he finally decided to go home from the pub. Beside him was an unopened bottle of beer. The slug swayed around the corner and came to a stop when he saw the bottle. He could see the slug’s desire for the contents of the bottle in his eyes.

  The slug made an attempt to smile but it came out as a sneer. He attempted some small talk but it soon led to his real purpose.

  ‘Are you going to drink that?’ he asked pointing to the bottle.

  He shrugged and said he wasn’t sure. He said he’d never tried that beer before.

  The slug told him that he wouldn’t like it and that he’d be more than happy to take it off his hands. He tried to protest when the slug snatched the bottle.

  The slug glared menacingly at him and said, ‘I said you wouldn’t like it. Don’t you believe me pal?’

  The emphasis on the ‘pal’ assured him that he anything but that. He meekly assented to the slug taking the bottle away. A few yards down the road the slug knocked the cap off on a wall and took a big swig. He could hear the slug laughing as he walked away.

  ‘You’ve got no insides pal, no guts,’ the slug shouted back at him.

  He smiled. His guts were fine and would be staying right where they were. As for the slug’s, well…he figured they’d keep the worms happy for some considerable time.

  Chapter Eleven

  Besides the old Land Rover there were two police cars, a forensics van and an ambulance in the driveway. There was still plenty of room left for Leigh to park the car in. Just as Mac was getting out another car pulled up and Andy Reid and Toni Woodgate got out.

  ‘We were the other side of Stotfold when we heard,’ Andy explained. ‘Looks like forensics have beaten us to it. Come on let’s see what they’ve found.’

  They followed Andy up a wide staircase. Mac held on tight to the bannister and went up slowly, looking down at his feet. Leigh slowed down when she noticed he was lagging behind.

  ‘I think they went in there,’ Leigh said, pointing to a door when they finally reached the landing.

  Two men in plastic coveralls hovered around a bed while a third stood talking to Andy and Toni.

  Andy turned around.

  ‘Mac, this is Bob Yeardley.’

  ‘Yes, we met at Molly Etherington’s,’ Mac replied.

  ‘We’d only just finished up there when we got the call for this one. Saved us some petrol I suppose,’ Bob said.

  ‘Was it a poisoning?’ Mac asked.

  ‘That’s what we think,’ Bob replied. ‘However, I wouldn’t get too excited as I doubt it was thallium that was used, although we’ll do the full tox screen just in case.’

  At this point one of the forensics men moved and Mac could see Olivia’s body. She was fully clothed and lying on her left side. The pillow was stained with vomit. Mac had seen this sight many times before.

  ‘What do you think she took?’ Mac asked.

  In his younger days barbiturates had been the drug of choice but they were hard to get these days.

  ‘Anti-depressants mostly. There was an empty bottle next to the bed as well as two empty packets of paracetamol and one of co-proxamol plus a nearly empty bottle of vodka.’

  ‘So she was serious about killing herself then,’ Mac commented.

  ‘Any chance of this not being suicide?’ Andy asked.

  ‘Well she did have some bruising to the face. Looks like someone hit her a few times,’ Bob replied. ‘Still probably suicide though, there was a note.’

  Bob led them into the bathroom. On a large mirror over the hand basin the words ‘I hope you’re happy now!!!’ were scrawled in black. The marker pen was still in the basin.

  ‘Her writing?’ Andy asked.

  ‘We found a diary in one of the drawers and yes, the writing looks the same. We’ll need to get that properly verified of course.’

  ‘The diary, did it explain why she might want to have killed herself?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Possibly, do you know anything about a computer? She wrote something about if her husband hadn’t been such a miser and bought her a new computer when she asked, all this might have been avoided. As it was written yesterday I’m assuming she’s referring to her suicide.’

  ‘I need to make a call,’ Andy said.

  He turned and walked out onto the landing.

  Mac remembered the last time he’d seen Olivia Parker and the worried expression she’d had on her face after he’d told her how indestructible hard drives could be. It was Mac’s guess that Andy was talking to the computer specialist right now to see what he’d found on the computer.

  ‘Who found her?’ Mac asked.

  ‘The cleaner,’ Bob replied. ‘I think she’s downstairs if you want to talk to her.’

  Andy returned and Mac could tell from the surprised expression on his face that he’d been told something that he hadn’t been expecting.

  ‘You’ll never guess!’ Andy said excitedly. ‘Remember those encrypted files that computer forensics found on the hard drive? Well they broke the encryption and they turned out to be very interesting, interesting enough that they sent them straight on to the Financial Intelligence Unit. Too sensitive for us ordinary plods to get a look at, although they did give me an idea of what it was all about.’

  ‘And?’ Mac couldn’t help saying.

  He was really intrigued as to what could have been on the computer.

  ‘Bribes,’ Andy stated.

  ‘Bribes?’ Mac replied, none the wiser. ‘I thought that the FIU were more interested in terrorism and money laundering.’

  ‘Mr. Parker has a business that sells weapons for military jets, apparently he specialises in air launched missiles and torpedoes. The files that were encrypted related to large sums of money paid to Middle Eastern middle-men, bribes for military contracts. Some of these middle-men are also well known supporters of terrorism.’

  ‘So the bribes may well have gone straight into the terrorist’s coffers. What have the FIU done?’

  ‘They’ve alerted the airports and ports to look out for George Parker. They know he entered the country yesterday morning and, as far as they know, he hasn’t left yet. I still can’t understand how Mr. Parker would ever allow his wife to use a computer that had such damning evidence on it. And why did she say in her diary that it was all her husband’s fault for not buying her a new computer?’

  ‘I have an idea about that,’ Mac said, ‘but I think we’d be better off speaking to someone who might know for sure. Shall we have a word with the cleaner first?’

  They found her in the kitchen, a small Indian woman with an apron on. She sat at a table, wide-eyed
and cradling a mug of tea in her hands.

  ‘I believe that you found Mrs. Parker?’ Andy asked.

  She nodded glumly.

  ‘Yes, I knew she was in because of the car. When I saw her I thought at first she might have had a headache and that’s why she was in bed during the day. She used to get migraines sometimes. Then I saw the vomit and…’

  She started shaking and took a sip of the tea to calm herself down.

  ‘Have you any idea why she might have wanted to kill herself?’

  ‘She had a big row with her husband yesterday. They were upstairs but I could hear it down here.’

  ‘What was it about?’ Mac asked.

  ‘I’m not sure, I could hear their voices but not the words. He was really angry, she was sort of pleading with him. Then he left slamming the door behind him.’

  ‘Do you know if Mr. Parker hit his wife?’ Andy asked.

  She nodded glumly again.

  ‘After I heard them fighting she came down and one side of her face was all red and puffing up.’

  As she couldn’t add anything else Andy thanked her and took her name and address.

  Outside Andy asked, ‘So who is this person who might know?’

  ‘The last Musketeer.’

  Penny Bathurst answered the door herself this time and from the looks on Andy and Mac’s faces she could tell that something serious had happened.

  ‘Oh God, it’s not Olivia, is it?’ she asked.

  Andy nodded.

  Penny burst into tears and turned away from the door. Mac and Andy followed her in.

  In between the sobs they could hear saying in a low voice, ‘I should have done something.’

  Mac found a bell on the table and rang it. A few seconds later the maid appeared. Mac asked her to bring a cup of tea for her employer and some tissues.

  Penny cradled the cup while she drank, its warmth against the palms of her hands was soothing in itself. Mac had learnt to never underestimate the comfort that a simple cup of tea could bring. When she finished she placed the cup carefully on the table and looked at the two men.

  ‘She’s killed herself, hasn’t she?’

  Both Mac and Andy nodded.

  ‘I just knew something would happen, I just knew. I offered to stay the night to keep her company but she wouldn’t hear of it. She told me she was feeling better, that she was alright. I shouldn’t have believed her, should I?’ Penny said as she dabbed a tissue at her eyes and then blew her nose.

  ‘Tell us,’ Andy asked gently.

  ‘I got a call from Olivia yesterday afternoon and begging me to come around immediately. Her husband had come home on one of his rare visits. It had been on her mind so much that she told him about the laptop almost as soon as he’d come in the door. He went absolutely ballistic, hit her several times and then picked up his bags and left. He told her that she’d never see him again. Unfortunately for Olivia she was still very much in love with him, even though he was such a total bastard.’

  ‘Why do you call him that?’ Mac asked.

  He wanted to know more about this George Parker.

  ‘When he was younger he was a very good looking man, still is I suppose. Anyway he swept Olivia off her feet. He was attentive and charming, not just to her but to all her family as well. Everyone loved George. It was a lovely wedding too and we were all so jealous of Olivia. That jealousy didn’t last long though. It became crystal clear within a couple of months that it was her money he’d been interested in, not her. He used it to start his business up and then she started seeing less and less of him. He gave her an allowance, can you believe that? Two hundred pounds a week. She’d been worth millions when she married him and yet there she was, always asking Catherine and myself for loans so she could pay the cleaner or get petrol. She never blamed him though. She still loved him which I suppose was the real problem.’

  ‘Can we go back a bit,’ Andy asked. ‘The computer, how did Olivia come by it?’

  ‘Well last year George came back on a flying visit and while he was here he bought himself a flashy new laptop. Olivia was getting by with one that was really on its way out so she asked him if she could have his old one. He told her that she’d just have to make the one she had last a bit longer as his computer was being picked up by someone the next day. He’d left Olivia strict instructions that when the man arrived she was to hand him the computer which he’d packed in a box…’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Mac interrupted, ‘she switched computers and sent her old one off instead. I take it that the computer was being sent off to have its memory wiped?’

  ‘Yes, she thought she’d get one over on him and anyway she said she could delete everything herself and wondered why George would need to pay someone to do it.’

  ‘Not exactly an IT expert, was she?’ Andy commented.

  ‘Unfortunately for her, no,’ Penny replied. ‘She told me the whole story after you visited her Mr. Maguire. She thought you might have been joking when you said that you might be able to get all the information off a hard drive even after what she’d done to it. We asked an expert and he told her that you were right. I’ve never seen her look so worried.’

  ‘What else did she say yesterday?’ Mac prompted.

  ‘Not much, apart from telling me that I was a real friend and that she now realised that mine and Catherine’s friendship had been the most important thing in her life. She’d never said anything like that before and I must admit it worried me. However she seemed to calm down, in fact she was almost icily calm when I left her. I guess that’s because she’d already made her decision, hadn’t she? I went around there first thing this morning but no-one answered the door. Now I know why, she was already dead.’

  Penny burst into tears again.

  ‘Is there anyone we can call?’ Andy asked.

  Penny shook her head and gave them a desolate look.

  ‘I’ve been married twice and found out too late that they were both like George. The only people I’ve ever been really close to, the only people who really cared about me, well they’re both dead now.’

  Andy and Mac were both quiet as they got back into the car. Mac had a thought.

  ‘Can we stop by the library? I’ll only be a moment.’

  Mac disappeared for a minute and came back accompanied by a flustered and concerned looking Anne Holding.

  ‘Okay if we drop Anne here at Penny Bathurst’s?’

  Andy was more than happy to oblige. They then returned to Olivia Parker’s house and met up with Toni and Leigh. As it was now well past five o’clock they agreed that it might be best to go back to the station and go over what they’d found to date.

  Andy had spent the day visiting members of the Society who’d had run-ins in the past with Catherine Gascoigne. However no-one was crowing about her death and, like Anne, they all seemed to be more shocked than anything else.

  Mac told of his meetings with Kay Mathers and Diane Caversham. Andy seemed to be particularly interested in Diane.

  ‘Looks like she’s got a motive and, with her living so close to Catherine Gascoigne, probably the opportunity too. But as for the means?’

  ‘Yes that’s the sticking point, isn’t it? Where could she, or anyone, have gotten thallium from?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Worth doing some checking on her though,’ Andy said.

  ‘Absolutely, she also mentioned a Ginny Hocking, an ex-member with a grudge apparently. After a few drinks a couple of weeks ago she said that she wanted to murder Catherine Gascoigne and discussed how she’d do it. One of them was poison, at least that’s what Diane says.’

  ‘Not something you’re likely to do if you’re serious about murdering someone though, is it? I’ll check her out tomorrow anyway. I’ve seen her name on my list.’

  ‘Here’s her phone number.’

  Mac gave Andy the sheet of paper Diane had given him.

  Andy looked at Mac for a few seconds and then said, ‘Come on, Mac tell me, I’ve seen that expression before. H
ave you got any suspicions about Diane Caversham?’

  ‘I’m just wondering why Diane told me about Ginny Hocking. I can’t get rid of the feeling that she’s trying to deflect attention away from herself for some reason, that’s all.’

  ‘Okay, if you concentrate on Diane Caversham tomorrow and I’ll go and see this Ginny Hocking. They’re the nearest thing to suspects that we have at the moment. Best knock off for the day, see you all back here at nine tomorrow.’

  Andy walked with Mac to the door.

  ‘Get some rest Mac,’ he said. ‘You look really tired.’

  Mac had been hoping it wasn’t so noticeable.

  ‘Don’t worry I’ve already texted Tim and told him the pub’s off for tonight. Straight to bed for me once I’ve had a bite to eat.’

  Toni caught up with them.

  ‘Mac, this came for you.’

  She handed Mac a large thick brown envelope. Mac guessed that it was Philippa Hatch’s file. He’d read it later.

  Leigh dropped him home. He found he didn’t have the appetite or the strength to make anything to eat. The pain was definitely getting the upper hand. He changed his patch and took two little blue pills that he knew would knock him out for a minimum of twelve hours.

  Sleep mercifully came quickly.

  Chapter Twelve

  Wednesday

  He waded through a sea of dreams and images as he made his way back towards full consciousness. He turned on the light and glanced at the clock. It was nearly seven o’clock. Although somewhat groggy he was aware of having had a good night’s sleep and was more than grateful for it. He sat up and then stood up expecting the worst. He smiled when he only felt the normal pain levels.

  His stomach was rumbling as he shaved and he realised that he was absolutely ravenous. He remembered that he hadn’t eaten the evening before and the thought of a Full English breakfast was irresistible. The Magnets opened at eight and he decided he was going to order the biggest breakfast they had.

  As he had some time he went to the cemetery first and told Nora all about the case. Telling her helped him put everything in some sort of order in his head as it always did. His stomach rumbled loudly and he heard her say ‘Oh go and get yourself something to eat you eejit.’ When she called him an ‘eejit’ it was always said softly and with a smile. He smiled, said good-bye and headed off to the Magnets.