On the other hand, if she found information that traced back to the real killer, perhaps Brian Masters wouldn’t be averse to her sneaking around at all.
Cheered by the thought, Holly boldly walked into his bedroom, crossing straight to his bedside table. The notebook wasn’t there.
Thinking it may have been her clumsiness, placing it too close to the edge, Holly ducked her head down and searched under the table, then under the bed.
Nothing. The notebook wasn’t gone by accident. Someone had taken it away deliberately.
Holly frowned as she thought of the person most likely to do that. Humphrey had keys to this place, had been inside it just a week before. Why on earth would he want that notebook? As far as Holly could see, it wasn’t for keeping track of accounts at all. There would be no other legitimate use for the accountant to take it away.
Running downstairs again, Holly pulled out her phone. The answer to her question must surely lie inside these pictures. If only she could work out the other symbols, she might understand its worth.
Mittens was still occupied with his bowl, so Holly sat one room away, staring at the photographs. She went through to the kitchen to fetch some scrap paper, picking it up out of a memo cube by the phone.
The card hands she knew, so Holly quickly reproduced one page of those with their real symbols. The values to the side she also wrote out, adding a dollar sign after a short moment of consideration. She couldn’t imagine another use for the figures apart from that.
There was just one more symbol on each page to decipher. A pyramid. A shield. A tube with lines across. A house.
After staring for a few minutes, Holly decided that the pyramid wasn’t that at all. There was a wavy line a third of the way down from the top. A snowy mountain? That seemed a better bet. It also looked vaguely familiar.
Heading back to the kitchen, Holly searched in the cabinets under the phone, trying to find a yellow pages. When she came up empty-handed, she moved through to the dining room, then the lounge. She finally struck gold in the woodpile next to the log burner. It wasn’t this years’ version—that must still be tucked in away elsewhere in the house—but it wouldn’t matter for her purposes.
Holly flicked through the business pages, not reading the listings but letting her eyes relax and scan the pages for signs and logos instead. When she found the entry she’d been looking for, Holly could have kicked herself.
Alice’s café. She remembered the symbol from the badge that the woman always wore. The bakery shop looked straight over to that same business logo on the sign above it every single day. Why Holly hadn’t recognized it straight away, she didn’t know.
After writing Alice’s name down next to the symbol, Holly stared at the remaining assortment with fresh eyes. Occupations. Businesses. If one was Alice’s then who did the others represent?
The shield. Not a shield after all, but a badge. Holly felt her heart sink into her stomach as her mind pulled that one together. The dexterity with shuffling cards—the computer monitor always clearing to show a poker game.
Holly wrote in the name PC Dale Raggorn next to the badge.
Two down, two to go.
The tube with intersecting lines could be piping, or it could be money. A bank manager? A financier? Holly shook her head and let it go. The last symbol was a house. That one she also realized she knew. Real estate. The picture had been drawn in with more care because it referred to the man doing the drawing.
Brian Masters.
And if Mr. Masters was the link here, then the financier must go to Humphrey. The same person who was trusted with Brian Masters’ house keys was the final name in the game.
Alice. Dale. Humphrey. Brian.
The money next to the cards against Brian’s name was on the right and on the other three were to the left. Holly didn’t remember much from her economics class at high school before Excel took over the world. She could remember one thing, though.
Credits on the right. Debits on the left. Alice, Dale, and Humphrey all owed Brian Masters money.
A lot of money.
This late at night, it felt wrong to be out alone. Even though the two restaurants next to the bakery were still in full swing—serving a lot more alcohol than meals judging by the volume—the dark night felt oppressive. Clouds overhead blocked the usual clear view of the stars, and the moon had faded away to a tiny sliver.
The light from the restaurants shone brightly out the front, onto the courtyard and the street, but when Holly ducked around to the back of the bakery, it was a different story. With the afterglow of brightness hanging in her vision, she navigated the keys into the lock by touch only. The tip juddered around several times before finally slotting home.
It was only once indoors that Holly remembered her flashlight. Doh! She flicked the beam on, not wanting to turn the main lights on in case revelers tried to enter, seeking a late night snack. The ledger was on the bench, right where she’d left it. Holly stepped forward, about to pick it up, when she heard a key turning in the front door.
Who on earth could that be?
Holly switched off the flashlight and ducked in behind the side oven, peeking around the edge to keep an eye on the door.
It couldn’t be Crystal. Had she passed on the keys to Ben next door at some point? Given he watched over the premises for them so often, it made some sense.
Still, there was no reason for anybody to be in here this late at night.
Each breath sounded loud in the still bakery. Holly switched to breathing in and out through her nose. While waiting, she turned the flashlight around in her hand. If she had to strike out at an intruder with it, they’d now get the end, heavy with batteries.
Cabinets were opened and closed. Holly even heard the sound of the serving tray door sliding across.
A cupcake thief? They were about to get a nasty surprise if they were. Holly stood up and tiptoed closer, raising the makeshift weapon up, ready to strike. Just as she reached the door, her hip bumped against the counter. Whoever was in the shop, turned and ran for the door.
Holly yelled and gave chase, but in the darkness, she didn’t see the low drawer pulled out to its full length. Her foot snagged under it, and she went sprawling. The flashlight flew out of her hand, the bulb breaking on impact. Her chin hit the floor and snapped her mouth closed so quickly that she bit a chunk of the inside of one cheek.
With the air driven from her lungs, Holly lay on the floor for a couple of seconds, before the urge to give chase reasserted itself. She got to her feet, limping where the drawer had snagged against her lower leg. By the time she got to the door, whoever had been inside the bakery was gone.
Chapter Twenty
“I told you,” Holly said, losing patience. “I didn’t see who it was. Whoever it was had a set of keys and they didn’t have any business being here at this time of night.”
“We’ll check with Crystal to see who else might have a set,” PC Raggorn said. “But if you surprised whoever it was by storming around from out the back, they might have run away just because you scared the living daylights out of them.”
“They were in my shop, rifling through my drawers after ten o’clock at night.” The words were difficult to get out, Holly’s teeth were gritted together so hard. “If they had genuine business here, they would have turned on the light!”
“You didn’t.”
Dale looked so cheerful saying the words that Holly could have strangled him.
“I own the shop. I don’t have to turn on the lights.”
“Well, once Crystal gives us a list of names, I’m sure we’ll rapidly chase down the culprit.” Dale snorted. “It’s probably your accountant or that weird guy who looks after the shop some days. They’ll be at home, trembling with fear after their close encounter.”
“They should tremble with fear,” Holly muttered, then she frowned. “Why would Humphrey have a key?”
“I don’t know that he does,” Dale said and sighed. “It was just
a suggestion. I don’t know whether he does or not.”
Holly waved her hand at him impatiently. “That’s not what I’m saying. He’s an accountant. Why would he need the key to this place at all?”
“Because he runs the real estate portion of Brian Masters’ business.” Dale frowned at her. “You should know that, surely. He comes around at least once a month to do a formal inspection and make sure that no damage has occurred.”
“Once a month?” Holly was flabbergasted.
“What? Isn’t that the way they do things back in the city?”
“It’s not the way they do things anywhere, far as I know.”
The PC shrugged and put his notebook away in his chest pocket. Holly wanted to ask him something else, but she was scared to. To hold him there a minute longer, she inquired about progress on the car accident instead.
“Nothing new has happened since you asked me a couple of hours ago,” Dale said with a grin. “Look, I know you’re worried about your sister, and it looks like you’ve bruised the heck out of your shin, but try not to worry. By this time tomorrow, you’ll have a reasonable explanation.”
He turned to go, and Holly took a deep breath, summoning her courage. “How much money did you owe Brian Masters?”
Dale stopped in his tracks, turning back to her with a wary expression on his face. “What do you mean?”
In for a penny…
“I have some notes that show that you, Humphrey, and Alice all owed Brian Masters a significant amount of money. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.”
A thunderstorm started up behind Dale’s brow, sweeping across his face in a gathering force. “I don’t owe Brian Masters anything,” he said slowly, pausing for emphasis between every word.
A pulse started to beat high up in Holly’s throat. She swallowed, the action stuck halfway through with the dryness of her mouth and the tightening of her muscles.
“Who ran us off the road, Dale?” Holly paused for a second, seeing his eyes flick from side to side with the change in tack. “Or should I say, who ran YOU off the road? You see, I don’t think that whoever did that even knew I was in the car.”
“Don’t be silly. You were sitting right beside me in the passenger seat. Or are you suggesting our attacker was blind, too?”
“I’d bent down,” Holly said, thinking back to ensure she had her memory of that day in the right order. She frowned in concentration. “I leaned forward to pick up that silly daisy chain. It was just out of reach of my fingertips, and I had to keep reaching out, getting lower and lower. I would have been out of sight.”
Dale’s face cleared as he came to a decision. “If you want to make some kind of accusation toward me, or report a fact you think relevant to Brian Masters’ attempted murder case, then you should come down to the station and file a formal report. Do you want to do that?”
Holly did. She desperately wanted to do that and have someone smarter and more experienced in these things pull her random string of facts together. But what evidence could be shown?
Some photographs that Holly shouldn’t have, from a notebook that had gone missing. Arbitrary conclusions she’d drawn about symbols that could perhaps be explained another way.
“Go home, Holly.” Dale’s voice was kind. That she’d laid out her accusation and he still treated her nicely, told Holly that she must be headed down the wrong track.
She wanted to cry. Even more, she wanted someone to fold her into their arms and hug her, telling her that everything would be all right. Even if it wouldn’t, for a moment Holly was prepared to suspend her disbelief just so she could have a moment of calm.
There was no one to do that, though. Holly’s husband had quit that job. This man in front of her might once have applied for the position, but not now. Holly wiped a tired tear away with one finger.
“Go home.”
Yes. That sounded like a perfect place to be.
It didn’t take long for Holly to realize that the figures recorded in the ledger, and those found in the regular accounts provided by Humphrey were completely different things. She stared at the differences, comparing them to the amounts that he owed Masters, judging by the notebook photos.
Even with the total he seemed to be filtering out of their business under the guise of expenses that Holly suspected weren’t true, the numbers didn’t add up. Not to anywhere near enough.
Time to put in a call to her friends.
Even though it was now after eleven at night, Meggie answered her call. The initial panic of someone fearful that a call that late could only be bad tidings, faded into relief that it wasn’t anything like that. As Holly explained herself more thoroughly, it transformed again, into doubt.
“I’ve had Humphrey doing my accounts since I first opened,” Meggie insisted. “If he were fiddling the books, then I wouldn’t have just gone downhill in the last few years.”
“Can I come over and show you?” Holly pleaded. “I know it’s late, and I’m sorry. I just want to try to piece this together by tomorrow.”
“Why? Surely, it’s not going to make any difference if we both get a good night’s sleep instead?’
All the suspicions and fears coalesced inside Holly until she could barely breathe. The stranger listening in the driveway on her first night in town. Humphrey looking through Mr. Masters office with a flashlight. Being driven off the road and the paralyzing terror that entailed. All leading up to tonight, when her sister was arrested, and the café had an unwelcome intruder. Something that had made the attending policeman laugh.
“I want to get this sorted before they ship Crystal down to Christchurch for her first hearing,” Holly said. “They’ll be leaving early tomorrow. If this leads where I think it might, I want to present that evidence to them before then.”
“Where on earth do you think it’s leading?” Meggie sighed. “Don’t bother to answer that. If it’s important to you that we do this now, then, of course, you should come on over.”
“Thank you.”
Holly could have cried with relief. She skipped out of the house, locking the door behind her. Crystal may think this township was safe, but to Holly’s eyes, it now held danger at every turn.
“Come in.” Meggie welcomed Holly with a hug and led her through to the living room. “I’ve just made a pot of coffee to keep us awake.”
“Thank you.”
After pouring them both a cup, Meggie handed over a binder to Holly. “These are the receipts that I keep on hand and the register of takings. If you get started on those, I’ll put up the link on the computer where Humphrey files my accounts.”
With the two of them working, the job was far more manageable. Holly read out the receipts and till balances at the end of every day, and Meggie checked them off the filed accounts list. It didn’t take long to spot imbalances. An expense submitted that was double what it should have been for new stock. A repair bill for upgrades to the premises that Meggie swore blind hadn’t been performed.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Meggie said. “Humphrey does the accounts for a lot of folks in town, and they’re not reporting losses like we are. I still can’t help but think that we’re missing something and all this is just sour grapes talking.”
“Numbers don’t lie,” Holly stated, but Meggie just laughed at that one.
“Over the years, I’ve found that numbers can do just about anything that you want them to. Remember lies, damned lies, and statistics? That’s all numbers mean to me. Besides”—Meggie paused to take a sip of her coffee—“none of this helps out Crystal. Even if our businesses should be turning a profit, that doesn’t take the peanuts out of the cake.”
“I know.” Holly pulled her hair back from her face, frowning in disgust at all the paperwork in front of her. “It just seems like everything must be connected. Unless Hanmer has turned into a hotbed of thieves and murderers while I’ve been away, then it seems too coincidental for all of this to be going on and for there not to be a common thread.”<
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“I suppose the next logical step is just to ask,” Meggie said. When Holly turned to her in confusion, she shrugged. “Isn’t it? Humphrey either has a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, or he doesn’t. Either way, we’re not going to find it just by looking in there.”
She pointed at the computer and Holly nodded. “I suppose we should drop by in the morning and ask him some pointed questions.”
Meggie laughed and finished off the cup of coffee she’d been working on. “Morning be darned. If he’s been stealing my money from under my nose, while I’m paying him a pretty penny to do it, then he’s on call to answer my questions twenty-four seven.” She checked her watch. “Besides, it’s already after midnight, so that’s morning in my book. Let’s go and ask him now!”
Chapter Twenty-One
When the two women arrived at Humphrey's house, he was loading a suitcase into the back of his car.
“Where are you going?” Meggie demanded.
At their unexpected appearance and the question, Humphrey blinked. His brain seemed to slowly turn over behind his thick spectacles. “I’m going back to Christchurch to visit Brian,” he said at last. “What are you doing here? It’s too late for a business call.”
“Not this business call,” Meggie said, stepping close and waggling before his face. “We’ve been looking through the accounts you’ve filed for us in the past few years. It’s raised a lot of questions.”
“Questions that can’t wait until I get back?” Humphrey asked, a tight smile flitting across his lips.
“That’s right, buster. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, and if you don’t give us the answers right now, then you’ll be explaining it from the other side of a police cell.”
Humphrey looked back at his house, no doubt securely locked up, then to his car before finally turning back to Meggie and Holly. At the expressions of determination on their faces, his shoulders slumped. “Fine. Come inside. I need to get away shortly, though, so keep it quick.”
Cupcakes and Conspiracies Page 13