Poinsettias and the Perfect Crime

by Ruby Loren

  I pushed open the door of the office without knocking. Fergus knocked a second later to offset my un-British level of rudeness.

  Gillian Wrexton was alone, reading a stack of papers that she hastily placed into a desk drawer when we entered. “What is it?” she asked, lowering her reading glasses.

  “We found the diamond,” Fergus said, getting to the good news part before I could.

  I took the muddy stone out and laid it on the desk in front of her. “And now we want to know the truth. The real truth this time.” I made sure I was looking Gillian straight in the eye when I said my next words. “What else was stolen from the safe?”

  16

  The Third Man

  Gillian reached out and touched the diamond gently with a finger, before drawing it back again.

  When she remained silent, I played my next card. “Your family has a military background, doesn’t it? Was it Bill’s grandfather who was a commander in the navy?”

  Gillian frowned and looked back down at the diamond. “That’s not true. Is there something you are accusing me of?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. We’re trying to help you. If you can’t disclose everything, then you may miss your chance to get back what was taken from that safe before it’s gone forever.”

  Gillian’s head snapped up. I had her full attention now.

  “What do you mean get it back? Surely it’s already gone for good?” It confirmed my suspicions that there had been something else - something more important than the diamond to somebody - taken from the safe.

  “Maybe not,” I said, thinking of the writing left in the fogged up glass. “This was supposed to be the perfect crime. By orchestrating it so that it would appear the person responsible was at the ball, our gaze was focused inwards. We all searched for a thief who was interested in stealing a priceless jewel and had committed a terrible act in the process. When I found the diamond, I finally started to understand, but if it weren’t for your husband’s last word, written on the jotter, I think we might have been in the dark forever. It was that writing that made me look for something else, some other explanation, so I kept my mind open. I think we might even have been supposed to find the diamond, far, far earlier. The murder was tragic, but finding the jewel would have been a sure sign that the thief panicked and abandoned their bounty before disappearing. Perhaps it would even turn our suspicious eyes back onto people who’d previously been dismissed. At a ball, who really knows where everyone is at any one time? And who can really remember exactly when they were speaking with a particular person, who might just turn out to be the killer?”

  “What’s your point?” Gillian said, giving the jewel a disapproving look.

  “I have some information I think you’ll be interested in, but I believe you have the rest of the knowledge that will bring this case to a close.”

  Fergus looked back and forth between us. “What she said,” he said, standing supportively behind me.

  Gillian raised her hands and sighed. “You know, I had hoped that the police would be busy enough keeping you both out of trouble to not notice the details. I gave our local force far too much credit. In the end, by asking you here, I crafted my own thorn in my side.”

  “She’s not guilty, is she?” Fergus hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

  I raised my eyebrows at Gillian. It was her turn to do some of the talking.

  “I did not kill my husband.” She hesitated before making her decision. “This cannot get out. I asked you to keep your investigation into the missing diamond quiet, but not five minutes later, it seems like it’s around the entire village! If it happens again… I won’t be the one you have to answer to,” she told us.

  I considered telling her that news of the diamond was well and truly out prior to her even mentioning that the jewel had been stolen, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to be splitting hairs. Not when there were vague, ominous threats being tossed around.

  “We promise to keep it quiet,” Fergus said, looking so excited he might burst.

  Gillian Wrexton didn’t look convinced, but she kept talking. “None of this was to do with poor Bill. Whoever’s behind this cowardly act murdered the wrong person.”

  “You’re the one who knows too much, not Bill,” I realised.

  She inclined her head. “And I’m the one who knows equally dangerous people who can make this right… if you’ll help me. You were right. There was something else in that safe, something more important and more valuable to the right people than a diamond. It was a folder full of some important things… irreplaceable evidence that has been kept safe by me for a very long time. I gave up my life for the contents of that dossier, and the thought that it’s on its way back to those who will use it for evil…” Her expression said it all. “This should have ended a long time ago.”

  Fergus looked at me. Is it enough? his expression asked.

  I turned back to Gillian and made my choice. “Something is happening tonight. I think it will take place at three ‘o’ clock in the morning.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The window writing. It was a date and the right angle… a time,” Fergus said, realising the truth. “But what makes you think it’s in the morning?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t all bad people do their sneaking around at night?” No one smiled. “The second angle, pointing upwards. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be an arrow to indicate a.m.”

  “I’ll contact my associates. They will sort all of this out. If it can be saved… if it really is being kept in someone’s possession and they haven’t handed it over… it would be like a miracle,” Gillian said, removing her reading glasses all together.

  “Will you tell us what it was all about afterwards?” Fergus asked.

  “If this works out favourably, you won’t want to know the truth. It will only put you in danger.” Gillian suddenly honed her gaze on me. “You must have an idea of who’s responsible?”

  “Can’t we just get them now?” Fergus added.

  I shook my head. “I believe I do, but this crime has been well-planned, and I think planned by outside forces. To jump the gun now would merely start the hunt for this dossier afresh. Don’t you want to catch the criminals red-handed?”

  Gillian looked thoughtful. “It is a good opportunity, if only to find out who it is this time…” She pursed her lips, probably remembering the company she was talking in front of. “We take no risks. If there are people coming to collect, I doubt we’ll be able to pin anything more than a caution for trespassing on them. These people are not stupid. They will have covered every eventuality.” Her eyes flashed. “But I have some surprises of my own.”

  “We want to help,” Fergus announced, casually volunteering us both for a position on the mission to catch someone who’d already killed once and their gang of friends who, by the sounds of what Gillian was saying, had probably done a whole lot worse.

  “You’d only get in the way. Those men I was talking to earlier are some serious people. To be perfectly honest, you probably don’t want them to notice you. Trust me, keeping you out of this is me doing you a favour.”

  “What if we’re a distraction? If you were to invite us over for dinner, or something like that, it could move the focus away from your associates watching the house both inside and outside. Instead, they’ll be watching to see if we’re going to do anything crazy - or if we even know! We’ll keep them thinking about the wrong thing,” I suggested.

  “I’ll run it past the team,” Gillian said. “I don’t suppose you’re going to let me know who it is I’m looking out for tonight?”

  I shook my head and kept the apology clear in my eyes. It was for the best.

  Gillian’s shoulders slumped a little. “Right,” she said, before picking up the phone. “I’ll sort this out and give you a call when I know the plan. And Diana…” She hesitated. “I hope you’re right about the dossier still being here. If you’re not… catching this pe
rson may be the cruelest thing we can do to them. My associates will never stop until they know everything.”

  “I hope they still have it, too,” was all I could think to say to that. I knew it was hardly a great comfort, but when you did bad things, there came a time when you had to pay the price for your actions.

  “Just one more thing,” Fergus said, stepping forwards to speak. “May I borrow this? I promise I’ll be careful not to lose it, and it won’t come to any harm. I just want to run some tests…”

  Gillian glanced down at the stone with clear displeasure. “Do whatever you like with it. It means nothing to me.”

  * * *

  It was late that night when we drove up to Wrexton Manor to attend the hastily planned private get-together we’d suggested Gillian throw. She’d called and explained that her associates believed the plan was a good one. Those coming to collect the stolen dossier would be worrying about the evening visitors, but hopefully not worried enough to believe their plans were known to us. Whilst there wasn’t much to be celebrating in the Wrexton household right now (the finding of the diamond was being kept quiet for now) if anyone asked, we were there to give Gillian a nice evening and a break from being alone.

  “We’re going to be at the heart of the action,” Fergus said right before we pulled up outside the house.

  “Remind me again why I couldn’t have stayed at home and worked on New Year’s Eve party greenery rings?” I muttered.

  “We did all this work and you’re really going to let some men in black get all of the credit? If we’re not here where the action is, I think we can watch our chance of finding out the real truth behind this whole thing vanish in the snow storm,” Fergus said when I killed the engine. The snow wasn’t all that bad. The roads had been passable, and it was a sprinkling that fell now, rather than a blizzard.

  “Truth vs. hot chocolate and party ring making… it’s a tough one.”

  “Stop being snarky,” Fergus said, opening the door to the car. “Aren’t you glad we’re doing this for Gillian?”

  “Did you think she’s holding up okay?” I asked, knowing that now we were keeping the topic Gillian-related. These criminals were good at what they did. If I were a good criminal, I’d definitely scout out the location of a handover hours before it was due to take place. We had no idea who could be watching and listening from the shadows.

  I hoped that Gillian’s ‘associates’ were just as good at staying hidden.

  The evening didn’t turn out to be as painful as I’d anticipated. For one, Cordelia had taken one look at me and then removed herself from the downstairs area. Gillian hadn’t bothered to go after her, or even respond to her cries of ‘Mum!’ when her daughter had sought a chance to ask her mother to kick us out. She’d probably merely been distracted by the promise of what was to come later in the evening, but I still savoured the moment. Even though she’d theoretically lost her fortune, Cordelia still didn’t seem to have learned that not everything in life came to you if you stomped your foot hard enough.

  To keep up appearances to anyone looking in through the large French doors that went from the kitchen to the vast darkness outside, we were eating and drinking the way anyone would at a normal friendly gathering. Fergus had brought a couple of board games that, once you got past the weirdness of Cops vs. Aliens, were actually really good fun. When I glanced at the kitchen clock, and discovered it was quarter to three already, I was surprised. My eyes met Gillian’s, but I returned my focus to rolling the twin set of dice that would decide the fate of my character. This was not our fight. It was all in capable hands. But that didn’t make the tension in the air any less palpable.

  When three ‘o’ clock rolled around, I knew all of us kept sneaking glances at the clock. While we kept lifting our glasses to pretend to drink and kept moving around the board, the conversation died. We were all waiting for the hammer to fall.

  What if I’m wrong? What if nothing is going to happen? I thought over and over again. My thoughts were disturbed by the loud report of a gunshot echoing across the grounds outside.

  Everything stopped. We all looked at one another, wondering if we should carry on as if nothing had happened, before realising that was insanity. The game was up. Whatever surprise had been planned, it would have been sprung by now.

  “Let’s go through to the main room. We’ll be able to hear what’s happening from in there. There also aren’t any windows leading out onto the grounds,” Gillian said, quite sensibly.

  I took a moment to observe her when we walked from the kitchen. I still didn’t feel that I knew Gillian Wrexton at all well, but I was certain that she wasn’t the person she liked to present herself as being at the annual ball. I’d first noticed her steel when her husband had died but I saw it again now when she was working with her mysterious ‘associates’. Gillian was not a housewife who’d married rich and led a life of leisure, she was a different animal entirely. But she’d played her part well. Well enough that her husband had been the one to die instead of her.

  The next part happened in an explosion of colour and sound. The doors that led to the outside, beyond the far side of the staircase, burst open.

  “We got them!” someone shouted, but I had no idea if we were hearing friend or foe, or if it was a ruse to get us to show ourselves.

  Fortunately, Gillian seemed to know. She stepped out into view. When nothing bad seemed to happen, we followed. “Who was shot?” she asked.

  “No one. It was just a warning to surrender,” someone replied.

  The men in black had multiplied. They were now a force of five men and five women. Only now, they were dressed in white - presumably to conceal themselves against the snow. Restrained between them were three figures, each wore a balaclava to conceal their identity. One of the women raised a hand to show an innocuous, but bulky, brown folder - presumably the dossier that everyone was so worried about.

  “I think it’s time we found out who we’re dealing with,” Gillian said, her voice hard as marble.

  “Yes Ma’am,” one of the men in white said, bobbing his head and leaving me with no doubt as to who outranked who in this situation.

  I didn’t recognised the first two men. Their faces were forgettable - bland masks of flesh paired with mouse-brown hair. It was probably precisely the reason they’d been chosen for this task. The ability to blend in was a criminal’s greatest asset.

  The third man was Harrison.

  17

  The Elephant in the Room

  “How could you?” Gillian said to him without a trace of surprise in her face. She’d surely done some working out of her own and had reached the same conclusion that I had.

  Harrison had been the one who’d let slip about the family’s naval history. He’d claimed that Cordelia’s great-grandfather was a commander in the navy, but it was only when I’d thought about it more carefully that I’d realised he hadn’t specified which side of the family… because he hadn’t known himself. His insistence on conversing with me at the ball had also been exceedingly odd. It was hardly flattering to me, but I now believed he’d probably wanted to create the memory of an alibi, right before he’d slipped off to murder his girlfriend’s father.

  He’d later been the one to write on the window, as he must have been instructed to do. He’d set the location out of convenience and the certainty that he wouldn’t be noticed. At the time, I’d been distracted by Samuel running away from the manor and had assumed he’d been the one who’d written the cryptic message, but Harrison had been right there the whole time.

  “What’s going on? Harrison?” Cordelia said, appearing at the top of the stairs and looking down at her boyfriend with and expression of horror and… something else. Defeat?

  “It’s fine, Cordelia. Everything is going to be fine,” Harrison said, nonsensically - given the situation.

  “You murdered my husband,” Gillian said to the guilty man, walking over to her daughter’s boyfriend and forcing him to look her in the
eye.

  “I had to. I had no choice,” he said back, his eyes darting desperately around the room.

  “We always have a choice,” Gillian said, looking sorry for a moment before straightening up again.

  “Your choice should have been bringing up a daughter who knew how to keep her mouth shut. You spend all these years hiding out here, and then she goes and blows your cover in no time at all,” one of the nondescript men spoke up.

  “What do you mean?” Gillian asked, her voice sharpening. But she already knew a piece of that answer already. Cordelia had always been her blindspot. I knew that much from personal experience. Cordelia had told Harrison, and who knows who else, everything they needed to know.

  “It’s not her fault! She was desperate. We both were,” Harrison cut in, looking furious. “We met when we were both in some serious money trouble. I had loan sharks coming to collect on some bad loans I’d taken to fund my business, which wasn’t making anything near the amount of money needed to make a dent in even the interest. I needed more time, but I was more likely to leave with broken legs. Cordelia was in a similar situation. She’d borrowed more than she had to make an investment that went bad. When they threatened her, she told them about the family diamond - a rock so big, it could pay them all off several thousand fold… and she could help them to get it.” He shook his head. “They didn’t believe her. Cordelia acted like some stuck-up rich kid, but rich kids don’t get into this amount of trouble. They have parents who make all of their problems go away.”

  “I never even knew,” Gillian muttered, turning pale for a second and shooting her daughter a horrified look.

  Cordelia remained pale and silent.

  “She wanted to make it right herself. I was able to understand that, being in the same place.”