‘I’ve heard that you’ve already spoken to Anne and the rest of our group so I knew you’d be getting around to me sooner or later.’
‘Well not quite everyone. We’re having some problems tracking down Peggy Corning. Do you have any idea where she lives?’
Zsuzsanna gave it some thought.
‘No I’m sorry I don’t but it can’t be far from here. I met her once as we were both walking to meet Anne at the library and she said it had taken her twenty minutes or so to walk there.’
‘Do you have her email address?’
‘Yes, I’ve got the emails of everyone in our group.’
‘Can you do me a favour then and email her. Ask her if she can ring this number.’
Mac gave her his mobile number. He waited while she did this.
‘So what can you tell us about Catherine Gascoigne?’ Mac asked.
‘Not much that you haven’t heard already I’d dare say. Catherine and I weren’t exactly close friends.’
‘I take it that you were once a member of the Society?’
‘Yes I was one of the founding members along with Catherine, Olivia and Penny.’
‘So you were friends with her once?’ Mac asked.
‘Not really, I was one of Penny’s friends. I never liked Catherine that much.’
‘So why did you leave?’
‘Why did anyone leave the Society? It was Catherine of course. She could be so single minded about things that she’d often run rough shod over anyone who disagreed with her. I stuck it out because I loved the books and the company but when Anne started her own group I was more than glad to ‘decamp to the enemy’ as Catherine once put it. Best thing I ever did.’
Mac gave this some thought.
‘I take it that you have chemistry labs in the school?’
‘We do,’ Szuzsanna confirmed, ‘but we don’t keep Thallium there if that’s what you’re thinking, far too toxic for our girls to mess about with.’
It was what Mac was thinking. He felt that he was getting nowhere so he decided to cut to the chase.
‘Mrs. Dixon did you kill Catherine Gascoigne?’
There was a moment of hesitation which really interested Mac.
‘No Mr. Maguire, it wasn’t me who killed her.’
‘But you’re not sorry she’s dead?’
‘No I’m not,’ she said with feeling, ‘but I’m far from alone in that from what I’ve heard.’
‘When did you find out that Catherine was dead?’
‘Not until Tuesday morning when I opened Anne’s email.’
‘When was the email sent?’
‘On Monday, I think, but it was my day off on Monday and I was working on something.’
‘So you don’t look at your emails when you’re working?’ Mac asked.
‘Oh no, far too much of a distraction. I turn off my phone too. I was doing some research into Jane’s early attempts at writing and how they might have had an effect on her later novels. I’d been at it all weekend and I’d printed off quite a lot of material. As I had Monday off and felt I was on to something I kept at it, going through everything and making notes.’
‘Have you anything else to add?’
‘I’m sorry but I’m sure that whatever I know about Catherine you’ll have heard several times before. As I’ve said we were far from being close.’
There was a question that Mac wanted to ask.
‘Your name, Zsuzsanna, that’s unusual. Where did your family originally come from?’
‘From Hungary Mr. Maguire. My family came over to England after the uprising in fifty six. Before I married my husband my name was Zsuzsanna Karoly.’
‘Is your husband still around?’
Her face told him he wasn’t.
‘No, he died four years ago.’
He thanked her and gave her his number in case she thought of anything else.
As they walked back along the echoing corridor Leigh asked, ‘So what do you think? Could she have done it?’
‘I’m not sure. I noticed some hesitation when I asked her that. The problem at the moment is the apparent lack of motive but I’m fairly sure that there’s something that she’s keeping to herself. I think we need to do a bit more digging on Mrs. Dixon.’
In the car park Mac noticed that the staff parking spaces had their names on little plates screwed to the wall. He looked for Mrs. Dixon’s. It was a dark blue Vauxhall and far from new. He looked at the driver’s side wheel and body work but found nothing suspicious.
‘Leigh, when we get back to the station can you ask if someone can call all the tyre repair centres in the area to see if anyone’s turned up with a damaged tyre or wheel on the driver’s side? If they went up the kerb at speed they must have done some damage.’
‘Sure. Are you thinking that it might have been a serious murder attempt after all?’
‘You never know. If it was an attempt at a hit and run murder then it looks like the driver lost their nerve at the last second. Perhaps poison was an easier way for them, who knows? Anyway it would be nice to rule that out one way or the other.’
As they drove towards the station Leigh said, ‘You asking her about when she knew that Catherine was dead. Why was that important?’
Mac frowned.
‘It’s that letter we found. Like the potential hit and run it bothers me.’
‘Do you think the murderer sent it?’
‘No that’s why I’d like to find out who did. It would at least rule out another suspect.’
Leigh gave Mac a puzzled look.
‘How come?’
‘It was definitely put in the letter box after Catherine had been found dead, sometime during the night I’d guess as it’s not something you’d want to be spotted delivering. Whoever killed Catherine knew she was dead as did Penny, Olivia and probably quite a few others by then but I’d bet that whoever was responsible for that letter didn’t.’
‘And Mrs. Dixon, with her phone off and not having checked her emails, definitely wouldn’t have known,’ Leigh said. ‘But, if it was her, wouldn’t she have noticed the police having been around and the crime scene tape across the door?’
‘Not necessarily. I’d bet that letter was literally put in the letter box in the middle of the night to minimise the chances of being seen. Drive slowly up towards the box, toss the letter in and quickly drive off. They probably wouldn’t have noticed anything as the house is well back from the road.’
Leigh gave it some thought as she drove back to the station.
There Andy revealed that he and Toni had turned up little of interest.
‘We’ve still got quite a few members to get through so we might as well keep going on that and hope something turns up,’ he said, looking a little dejected.
Mac was quiet for a moment.
‘Mind if I stay here and do some research? There’s something I want to check on.’
Andy was more than happy. If Mac had a lead he was all for him following it up. Andy gave Toni and Leigh a list each. He’d decided they’d be better splitting up to try and get through as many members as possible. Mac was surprised at Andy letting Leigh out on her own but then he had a sudden thought. It was a thought that might explain a lot.
He spent the next four hours glued to a computer screen. For three of those he found nothing but then he hit gold dust. He kept digging and found even more.
He was eventually interrupted by a young detective.
‘Andy said to give this to you Mr. Maguire if he wasn’t around. He said you might find it of interest.’
It was a list of car registrations that had recently had some work done on the driver’s side tyre or wheel. A registration leapt out of him. After all he’d seen it not that long ago.
Things were getting very interesting indeed.
Chapter Sixteen
Andy seemed to think that it was very interesting too. He was more than happy for Mac and Leigh to follow it up. He and Toni would carry on working through th
e still lengthy list of members.
Mac’s first call was on Anne. Unfortunately the library was closed so he had to find her home address. She lived in a nice semi-detached house just off Pixmore Way.
She smiled when she saw who was calling but when Mac started talking about Zsuzsanna he noticed that the smile quickly disappeared. She definitely knew something.
‘She’s been through a bit of a bad time. She lost her husband some years ago then a year later she got passed over as headmistress. They’d been promising her the position for ages and she’s worked so hard for that school. They needed someone younger they said, someone with more energy. Even if that was true I still wonder why they couldn’t they have said it a little less hurtfully.’
‘Tell me about the plagiarism.’
‘The plagiarism?’ Anne said with some surprise.
‘Catherine stole one of Zsuzsanna’s ideas, didn’t she?’
‘Yes but how did you find out?’ Anne asked. ‘I thought I was the only one she’d talked to about that.’
‘It wasn’t too hard. I looked at Catherine’s published works and, unlike all her earlier articles, one of the more recent papers was about something Jane had written when she was young. As I knew Zsuzsanna was an expert in that area and that Catherine had some previous when it came to plagiarism, it was easy to come to the conclusion that there might be something underhand going on.’
‘Well you’re spot on there. It wasn’t just me after all, it turns out that Catherine was a serial plagiarist. I find it strange though as she had some good ideas of her own. I never figured out why she needed to steal other people’s ideas too.’
‘What happened with Zsuzsanna Dixon?’
‘Well Zsuzsanna’s very clever and she works very hard at her research. As you said her speciality is Jane’s early writings. Jane wrote from quite a young age and Zsuzsanna was especially interested in the bits of writing she did when she was a teenager. A while ago she uncovered something, a link between an early character and Elizabeth Bennett. The earlier character was called Eliza too. Anyway she made the mistake of consulting Catherine to see what she thought. Catherine persuaded her that it was only a minor point and that perhaps she should research something more interesting. If only Zsuzsanna had a bit more confidence in her own abilities and had just published it anyway. Unfortunately though she didn’t, she did as Catherine suggested and dropped the whole line of research. Anyway the research proved so minor that some weeks later Catherine published a paper on it for the university.’
‘How did Zsuzsanna take it?’
‘She was very upset as you might guess. She might have been able to prove plagiarism too but she didn’t want any fuss so she quietly resigned from the Society. She’s kept any research she’s done to herself ever since.’
‘Did anything happen around three weeks ago that might have upset Zsuzsanna?’
Anne frowned.
‘Yes, Catherine won an award for that particular piece of ‘ground breaking’ research. It even made the local papers.’
Mac thought that this might make excellent grounds for murder, the award rubbing salt into an already open wound.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’
Anne’s frown deepened.
‘I was hoping she’d tell you herself. I like Zsuzsanna and I didn’t want to be the one who got her in trouble. Some think she’s a bit of a dry stick but there’s more to her than that and she’s been dealt such a bad hand recently. She’s not a murderer, Mr. Maguire, of that I’m certain.’
He thanked Anne. He stood on the pavement thinking for a moment. He looked at his watch. It was five thirty.
‘Have we got Mrs. Dixon’s home address?’
It proved to be a little grander than Anne’s semi. It was a large detached house near the Cloisters. The driveway was empty so Mac made no move to get out of the car.
‘We might still be able to catch her at the school,’ Leigh suggested.
Mac shook his head.
‘I’d sooner we waited for her here. If we’re seen talking to her twice in one day tongues will probably wag.’
‘And you’re worried about that?’ Leigh asked.
‘Well I know she looks like a good suspect but I’ve still got some doubts. I’d bet she was behind the wheel when Catherine had her near miss and there’s a good chance that she might also be behind the threatening letters but murder? If she really wanted to kill Catherine why not just run her over when she had the chance?’
A dark blue Vauxhall pulled into the driveway. Zsuzsanna had her key in the door when she spotted Mac and Leigh making their way towards her. He could tell from her expression that she knew that they knew.
‘Can we talk inside Mrs. Dixon?’ Mac asked.
Once they’d seated themselves Mac simply said, ‘Tell me everything and leave nothing out.’
Zsuzsanna’s lower lip trembled as a single tear ran down her face.
‘Oh God how did I end up here?’ She was shaking. ‘Not long ago I had a husband, job prospects and friends. Now I’ve got nothing.’
‘You’ve still got some friends,’ Mac stated.
‘Have I? I wonder how many I’ll have after this gets out? Hate is such a terrible thing Mr. Maguire. It was as though Catherine was responsible for everything bad that had happened to me which is really stupid, isn’t it? I never thought of myself as stupid before but recently I haven’t been so sure.’
‘Did you try to run Catherine down?’
She nodded.
‘I wanted to kill her so badly or at least I thought I did at the time. It was that bloody award, it was just the last straw somehow. I think it sent me quite mad for a while. I began watching her and I thought my best chance would be in the evening when she left the pub. So one night I waited outside in my car with the engine running and the lights switched off. When I saw her crossing the road I put my foot down and drove straight at her. Then she turned and looked at me as I came towards her. She was standing in a pool of light from a street lamp and I could clearly see her face. I could see fear there and, in that split second, I wondered what in God’s name was I doing? I swerved around her and drove on. It was like a bad dream, I still can’t quite believe it myself, that I would try and kill another human being. I was surprised that she didn’t report it to the police. I’ve been waiting ages for a knock on the door.’
‘She assumed it was just a drunk coming from the pub. What about the letters?’
‘I was mostly glad that I hadn’t killed her but I was a little bit disappointed in myself too if I’m honest. I forgot about killing her but I still felt the need to get back at her in some way and so I thought of the letters.’
‘How many did you send?’ Mac asked.
‘Three in all.’
‘You realise that the murder attempt and the letters make you an excellent suspect.’
Zsuzsanna sighed.
‘When I heard that she might have already been dead when I posted the last letter I’ll be honest and admit that I panicked a bit. But then no-one came to see me for a while and I hoped that somehow you’d forgotten about me.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’
‘I’m sorry no. I really have no idea who killed her.’
Mac stood up.
‘I’ll need you to come to the station and make a formal statement.’
‘I take it that I’m being arrested then? And so the whole mess will come out.’
She looked at Mac and Leigh despairingly.
‘I’m afraid that might well be the case. However it’s not up to the police, all we do is gather the evidence. The Crown Prosecution Service will decide whether to bring the matter to court or not.’
This didn’t cheer her up any.
Andy took her statement and a police car drove Zsuzsanna home.
‘So what do you think will happen to her?’ Mac asked.
‘Well the CPS will have a look but I’d almost bet that they won’t proceed with a
charge. They always go on about having enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of prosecution.’
‘But she’s admitted everything,’ Leigh said, looking puzzled.
‘Problem is that’s all we’ve got. If she gets a good defence lawyer and then retracts her statement we might be lucky to get her for dangerous driving. All in all I’ll bet that the CPS will decide that it’s more trouble than it’s worth. You’re sure that she didn’t kill Catherine though?’ Andy asked, looking at Mac.
‘She had her chance and she couldn’t bring herself to do it,’ Mac said. ‘No I don’t think it’s her.’
‘So another one who didn’t kill Catherine that we can cross off the list. Just another eighty or ninety to go,’ Andy said looking a bit down.
A few pints with Tim cheered Mac up. Yet it was all still on his mind when he went to bed that night. So much so that he forgot something very important.
Chapter Seventeen
Friday
The pain woke him up. It was dark so he turned on his reading lamp and glanced at the little alarm clock. It was only four o’clock. He sighed as he realised that he hadn’t put on a new pain patch before going to bed. He knew there’d be no sleep for him until he changed his Fentanyl patch and allowed at least a couple of hours for it to kick in. At least he had something he could do in the meantime to take his mind off his pain.
He made himself a pot of coffee, switched the radio on and found a classical music station. He then opened the file on Philippa Hatch.
He looked at the photos from the suicide scene first. She’d hung herself from a light fitting in the hallway of a house. She still had her ball gown on. He could tell that the house was old, at least Victorian, from the height of the ceiling and the decorative mouldings. Some close up shots showed that she’d simply looped a short length of electric cable around the bottom of the light fitting and then tied it around her neck. A kitchen chair lay on its side. Her feet were no more than a few inches off the floor. One shoe had fallen off and lay on its side. For some reason the shoe made it a much more poignant scene.
He’d seen quite a few suicides in his time, most of which had been by hanging. He’d seen a few failures too, where the light fittings hadn’t been able to take the weight. He’d noticed that the fittings in some of the older houses seemed to be more sturdy and that, plus the fact that she looked like she didn’t weigh much anyway, meant there would be no such reprieve for Miss Hatch.
The Dead Squirrel (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 2) Page 14