Murder on the Heath: a suave murder mystery with a great twist

by Sabina Manea

  Lucia and Carliss waited until the coffin was lowered into the ground and the mourners were on the brink of dispersing. As they had been instructed, the people that were known to the police gathered into a separate group, waiting for the casual acquaintances to take their leave. It wasn’t long until they and the detectives were the only ones left. The inspector had questioned this composition when Lucia presented the idea – was it not a tad too theatrical, too staged? Would it do more harm than good? It was with a heavy heart that he put it to the Super, but to his surprise she rubber-stamped it with barely any questions asked. It showed how desperate she was to have the case done and dusted. And so they stood, numb from the December damp that permeated straight through their clothes, their hearts pounding in their chests, and one heart in particular pounding more than the others.

  ‘Thank you for staying behind today, on this very sad and solemn occasion,’ began DCI Carliss. Lucia was amused at how much like a pompous schoolmaster he was sounding. ‘My colleague, Lucia Steer, and I would like to speak to you.’ He paused for effect, scanning the audience. Their faces were pale but expressionless.

  Lucia stepped forward and fixed them with stony eyes. This was the chance to expose the truth – an outlandish approach, she admitted as much, but worth a shot.

  ‘I’m going to walk you through the events right from the beginning, so please bear with me if I’m repeating what you already know. On the morning of 21 November Alec Penney was found dead in his offices in Well Walk – in the kitchenette adjacent to his study, to be precise. You will have heard that his death was an unfortunate accident. He appeared to have been electrocuted by the coffee machine, which was widely known to be defective. A convenient piece of information, wouldn’t you say?’

  She stared pointedly at Elsa, determined to rev up the drama to the maximum. The ingenuity of the murder merited a suitably histrionic reveal. At the same time, Lucia wanted to purge the memory of Will as a living, breathing person out of her mind. Turning him into a character in a murder mystery somehow made him less real, as if she stood on the outside of the fishbowl looking in.

  ‘What are you saying?’ broke in Sally Rowlands, wiping a tear from her beautifully made-up cheek. ‘And why have you got us all standing here? I want to go home now and put this whole sorry thing behind us.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Sally.’

  Lucia had decided to dispense with formalities – they were for the inspector to keep to if he wished, but she didn’t feel bound by such conventions. He had given her free rein on this one, and she was certainly going to make the most of it.

  ‘As you’ll see shortly, it’s very important that you’re all here to listen.’ She lifted her gaze, turning to the others. ‘As I was saying, Alec Penney was electrocuted to death. But it wasn’t the coffee machine that killed him. It was a taser gun.’

  The gasps were in unison, as if pre-planned, and Elsa’s face was haunted.

  ‘So he was murdered then?’ she shouted hoarsely. ‘And you know who’s responsible, otherwise you wouldn’t have kept us all behind.’ The realisation washed over her. ‘Oh no. It’s one of us, isn’t it? That’s why we’re all here. One of us is a killer!’

  The mourners eyed up one another with shocked, suspicious expressions. The only person who had ever truly cared for Alec Penney had already spoken.

  ‘This whole case has been a riddle from start to finish,’ continued Lucia, seemingly absently stroking the shiny black ribbon in her hair.

  She was going to deliver the solution blow by careful blow, so as to really draw out the person who had been capable of ending the lives of two fellow human beings. For that, there could be no justification, either in law or morality, however heinous the transgression that was being avenged.

  ‘But, as with all riddles, the reason that we didn’t see the answer sooner is because we were looking at it all wrong. What you’ve got to remember is that there are two sides to every story.’

  ‘What the hell does that even mean?’ piped up Max Penney, shivering in the chilly air. He had managed to shave and dress himself in a sufficiently decent outfit, but his grey skin and hooded eyes bore witness to his mental condition.

  Lucia ignored the interruption.

  ‘It means that we looked at the wrong people. We looked at those that came in and out of the Connections Counselling offices from the outside. The CCTV surrounding the building was crystal-clear. Everyone who went in also left the same way – through the front door. Allow me to bore you with the timeline, otherwise what I’m going to say won’t make sense. Elsa had been on reception all day. Will left at five. Amanda arrived at ten past six, had a row with Alec, and left at six thirty-five. Roberta arrived at six forty-five, thought she spoke to Alec, though she didn’t see him, and left at seven. Max arrived at seven, rifled through Alec’s study, didn’t see Alec, and left at ten past seven. George arrived at twenty past seven, paced around outside Alec’s door, and left a few minutes later without setting eyes on Alec. Elsa said goodbye to Alec, though she didn’t hear or see him, and left at seven thirty.’

  ‘We know all this. Well, maybe not what Max was doing rifling in Alec’s study,’ interrupted Elsa. ‘Care to explain?’

  ‘It’s not relevant for today’s purposes,’ said DCI Carliss in a firm tone that precluded further questioning. He and Lucia had agreed it was only fair to protect Max Penney’s privacy.

  ‘And what do you mean, Roberta thought she spoke to Alec?’ said Jim Rowlands.

  ‘I’ll come to that in just a moment. So far, we saw only what we wanted to see, but who went back into the office?’

  ‘But nobody went back in. The CCTV shows that,’ replied Jim, looking even more confused.

  ‘Not using the front or back doors, they didn’t. Or even through a window. But someone did get back in. Isn’t that right, Will?’

  Lucia spoke slowly as she turned around and fixed her gaze on her target.

  Will stood very straight, immobile and impassive, his lips curled into a tiny, disdainful smile.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re on about.’

  ‘OK, we’ll do it the hard way, if that’s how you want to play it.’ At least this way she would have extracted full revenge for having had her instincts deceived. ‘Will here left at five via the front door. Maybe he drove home to get the taser, or maybe he’d hidden it somewhere safe in preparation. Either way, he headed to the Baptist church in Heath Street – I’m sure you all know where that is, only a few streets away – and there he opened a trap door in the vestry that leads down into a tunnel. The DCI and I have been down there, you see. The tunnel took him all the way back to Well Walk, and he emerged in Alec’s kitchenette, where the entrance to the tunnel is concealed under a floor tile. Will must have got there shortly before Amanda made her entrance. He stood on the steps down in the tunnel, waiting for the right moment to emerge. He’d made air holes so that he could breathe – it was all meticulously planned out.’

  ‘And how would I have known about the tunnel? It’s a pretty fantastical story, isn’t it? Like something out of a movie.’

  Will turned to the others with an angry grin, but they simply stared back unsympathetically.

  ‘Oh, easily enough. You’d spent plenty of time at Alec’s offices doing building work. You put that kitchen in. Of course, you knew what was under the tiles. You went in and followed the tunnel all the way to the church. That place is both open and empty most of the time, so it was a doddle sneaking in and out unnoticed,’ said Lucia as Will fell silent. ‘I think the late evening visitors to Alec’s study came as a surprise. You weren’t expecting anyone to turn up. You knew Elsa would be at her desk, in all likelihood working late, and that would allow you to carry out your plan uninterrupted. It was just as well you could stay hidden under the floor, but it was a high-risk strategy – you could be caught on the way out if Alec suddenly walked into the kitchen. You managed to emerge just after Amanda left – around six forty, I’d say, and grabbed your chan
ce then. You walked into the study, took Alec by surprise, tasered him for long enough to make sure he was gone, then dragged him into the kitchenette.’

  Lucia could see that Elsa was about to pipe up with a question, which she pre-empted.

  ‘We found a splinter on his shoe that matched the threshold between the study and the kitchenette. And we knew Alec must have been tasered because we found the holes from the barbs in his top and the corresponding marks on the skin, not to mention a barb on the floor that you missed when you were clearing up, Will.’

  ‘It was smart,’ said DCI Carliss. ‘You nearly had us fooled – it looked just like an accident. Even the post-mortem said so. Alec had already electrocuted himself on the coffee machine earlier in the day, so it wasn’t surprising that the defective item would soon be the end of him. Like everyone else, you also knew about Alec’s palpitations, Will, so the scene was perfectly set.’ He gestured to Lucia. ‘If it hadn’t been for eagle eyes here, we would have missed the signs of the taser altogether.’

  ‘As I said, it’s quite a story,’ replied Will Sherriff, his arms crossed aggressively on his chest.

  ‘Yes, it’s quite a feat, isn’t it? And you would have got away with it, were it not for a few slips. All you had left to do after you got Alec into the kitchen was to make your escape – except people kept arriving, didn’t they? Roberta was the worst – barging in and demanding to speak to Alec. You didn’t have a choice but pretend you were him, to get her off your back. That’s where you made a crucial error. You forgot that you sound near enough like Alec, except for the vowels. There’s no “r” in “bath” in the Midlands, and that’s what got Roberta thinking.’

  Will’s face contorted into a pained expression of admission.

  ‘Miss Steer – Lucia – are you saying Will killed Roberta too?’ uttered Elsa in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, because she knew there was something afoot. Will overheard her talking to DCI Carliss on the phone when she came back to the offices – no doubt to satisfy whatever niggling thought didn’t quite fit. It must have dawned on her that it wasn’t Alec that she spoke to on the evening of his death. She said something about “bath” on the phone to the inspector, and the penny must have dropped for Will that he’d been found out. Am I right so far?’

  Will gritted his teeth in resolute silence, but he definitely looked guiltier than he had at any point thus far.

  ‘After that, the rest was easier. Sure, Will had to wait until all the clamour had come to an end, but once George Coddington was gone, he made his way back into the tunnel and to Heath Street. We’ve checked the CCTV there, by the way, and there’s a dark figure wearing a hoodie coming out of the church just after eight o’clock. You must have scoped out that place once you knew that’s where the tunnel ended – found out the minister didn’t lock up till late. There wouldn’t be anything remarkable about a lone worshipper leaving at that hour of the evening.’

  ‘How did he kill Roberta Musgrave?’ The group turned simultaneously towards George Coddington, who had stood motionlessly, silently at the back, hands deep in his coat pockets.

  ‘He followed her home after he overheard her talking to DCI Carliss. Before we pieced it all together, the inspector and I,’ Lucia said, gesturing to her boss, ‘we thought the killer had been stalking her for a while to work out her routine. It turns out it was a lot more impulsive than that.’ Lucia faced Will again with renewed resolve. ‘You just hung around for long enough, hoping she’d come out, desperately racking your brains as to how you’d get rid of her before the morning, when she’d be down the station and blabbing to us. When she came out for a jog, it was a godsend, wasn’t it? All you had to do was drag her off the pavement when she came past. The knife attack was frenzied – five blows if I recall correctly. You really were at your wits’ end.’

  Lucia drew a breath as she finished her account. It had been a draining experience, painting the picture at length. As she spoke it out, the whole terrible affair seemed more detached from reality, as if she were telling a story that had no bearing on her life. Except that it had. In time she would forget Will, but tonight she knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.

  After barely a few seconds of stunned silence, a slow clap resonated across the Victorian theatre set that was the cemetery. Will, the responsible party, fixed her with sarcastic, menacing eyes.

  ‘Well done. What a work of fiction. Good luck proving that, love. You’re got an overactive imagination, that’s for sure.’ He dug his heels into the mushy leaves on the ground and turned to the others. ‘What possible reason would I have to kill a bloke I was working for? Why would I bite the hand that fed me? I barely knew the man.’

  ‘Ah, here’s where it took us a while to make sense of what was really going on. As I said before, there really are two sides to every story, except I hadn’t quite worked out what that meant until I revisited a message we found on Alec’s phone. DCI Carliss, would you mind reading it out, please?’

  The policeman stepped forward with his open notebook.

  ‘Sure. “I swear to you by my virginity xxxx”. It’s from someone saved on Alec’s phone as “J”. The quote’s from Shakespeare, and we’re pretty sure J stands for Juliet. Star-crossed lovers – very romantic, isn’t it? As if it were written by an impressionable young girl, wouldn’t you say, India?’

  The girl’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Err, what?’

  ‘Don’t play stupid with us. We’ve tracked down the phone number the message came from. You might have thought you were clever changing it when you got a new phone after your old one was nicked, but the phone company keeps records of all numbers it’s ever issued and to whom they belonged. So we know the message was from you.’

  ‘India, what the hell?’ Jim Rowlands was furious as he could see where the policeman was going with his insinuation. ‘He’s saying you were involved with Alec Penney. Your bloody counsellor. Is that true? And don’t you dare lie to me and your mother again!’

  India’s bottom lip quivered, and she burst into tears. Despite the wet and the cold, she sat down on the ground with her knees up to her chin, like the muddled child that she really was. She said nothing but nodded in acquiescence. At last, she spoke.

  ‘I loved Alec, and he loved me. I know it looked bad, him being older and all that, but he didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. I loved him,’ she repeated futilely.

  Elsa’s face hardened as she was dealt yet another blow.

  Will, on the other hand, suddenly came to life. His fists were balled up so tight that every single vein and sinew was visible, and he seethed with unconcealed fury.

  ‘That bastard. She’s fifteen, for crying out loud, not even legal. He groomed her.’ He could see Sally wincing at the crudeness of the suggestion. ‘He abused his position – he was a counsellor. He was supposed to help her, not bed her. He just couldn’t keep his hands to himself, the animal. Something had to be done. Someone had to stop him.’

  He paused, reluctant to go on, though he knew there was no turning back. The others watched him as if he were an actor on stage. He had nothing left to lose.

  ‘First time I got wind of it, he was sat on his phone and I was measuring up his study for a new floor. I couldn’t help seeing his screen, and it was a photo of her. You wouldn’t have wanted to see it,’ he turned to Jim, ‘or you would have done him in yourself. It was… compromising.’

  ‘But you had to have it confirmed, didn’t you, before you took any action?’ said Carliss. ‘That’s why you broke into the Rowlands’ house and dressed it up like a burglary. You needed to get hold of India’s phone and break into it to see if she was in contact with him.’

  ‘Yeah, you got that right,’ replied Will.

  ‘How did you know it was Will who broke in?’ asked Sally, her voice tinged with pity – and more than a touch of maternal guilt.

  ‘For one, it was odd that none of your jewellery was taken, Sally. A burglar would have jumped at the chance to get their
hands on stuff that expensive. But you couldn’t bring yourself to steal her precious belongings, could you? That would have been a step too far. I know how important those items are in Romany culture. Done my reading, you see. Then there was the business about the alarm and the CCTV being disabled – that suggested an inside job that a total stranger would have been unlikely to pull off,’ said Lucia.

  Will hung his head, a broken man.

  It had started to rain, a light but freezing drizzle, a perfectly fitting end to a tragic tale.

  Epilogue

  The street was decked in strings of fairy lights, and the mood was festive as the air smelled of frost and woodfire. Lucia walked briskly up to DCI Carliss’s front door and rang the bell.

  ‘Hi. Come in. Oh, you haven’t. A bottle of my favourite.’

  He smiled broadly as he took the well-chosen Bordeaux out of her hand. He had bought a new shirt and trousers for the occasion – a nicely cut striped number and some rather fashionable cords, too fashionable perhaps, but the nice girl in Selfridges had been very persuasive.

  Lucia noticed the change. He also smelled of something new – proper men’s cologne. Clearly an effort had been made, and it was for her benefit. A tingle ran down her spine as she walked in from the cold and peeled off her shapely coat, the one that had first been aired at the sad occasion of Alec Penney’s funeral. Although that had only been three days previously, it felt like another era, and she was glad that it was behind them. Under the coat she wore a long-sleeved bodysuit, snug as a ballerina’s leotard, paired with a pleated velvet miniskirt. On her feet there were glittery gold shoes that sparkled when they caught the light. She was comfortable in her own skin, as always.