“So, tell me this theory. You know I love a bit of island gossip.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. Dan was not your usual IT geek. Rather than being shy or retired, he was vivacious and lived for knowing all the juicy details of anything that was going on.
“Do you remember Gregory Albright? Lives in the big country house?”
“Oh, you mean the landed gentry?” Dan pushed his shoulders back, crossed one leg over the other and sipped at his wine like he was the queen sipping tea. “Yeah, I remember him. Well, to be precise, I remember the house better. But you don’t think it’s him, do you?”
“Mmm-hmm. Like I said, it's far-fetched, but it's my current theory."
“Ooh, scandalous. We love a bit of scandal. Go on, tell me more.”
“Well, on the day Melissa was killed, I went to see her. Gregory was just leaving her property in a foul mood, driving away and kicking up dirt. When I asked her what was going on, she told me that he had wanted to buy her campsite, but she had said no.”
“Hmm…so you reckon it was for money. I mean, I can see that land could be worth a fortune if it was built on.”
“Exactly. And when I started digging into Gregory, I discovered he's in business with this other guy. They built some holiday accommodation in Liverpool, and there was a stink about it. You know the sort of thing, accusations of paying people off, dodgy dealings—”
“Ooh, now this is getting exciting. This is right up my street.”
“No, Dan. Don’t even think about it.”
“What?”
“You know what!” I laughed.
“I can just do a bit of digging. Some of it will be legal.”
“And the other bits?”
“Well, okay, not entirely.”
“I’m trying to solve a crime, not commit one.”
"No one ever needs to know, promise. Come on, you know me. I've got myself covered. No one will ever know. And I might find something to help you. You were friends with Melissa. She would want you to find out what happened…”
I sighed. I knew there was no stopping him, and if I was honest, I was intrigued. Something told me Gregory was not all he pretended to be. “Okay, but it stays between you and me.”
“Course. So, what about the second murder? Any theories on that?”
“That’s why I need to go to the library tomorrow.”
“Okay, I'll let you get away with being cagey for now, but tomorrow you have to tell all. I’m going to crack on and look into our Gregory now. I bought you some of those bath bombs you like if you want to head for a soak?”
“You are the best friend ever!”
“I know. Now, shoo and let me get on.”
Bath bombs with natural oils were one of the few luxuries I allowed myself. But it wasn’t something you could pick up on the island. Sometimes I would order them from the mainland, but Dan would often send them to me. I suspected that he also enjoyed them and bought them for himself, but I let him pretend. A lay back and let the hot water and scents envelop me, lulling me into a relaxed state, something I hadn’t felt for weeks. I didn’t realise how much the murders had been playing on my mind.
“Cara! You gotta come and look at this.” Dan’s voice shocked me awake. I must have drifted off, and judging by the water's temperature, it was for more than five minutes.
“Hold on,” I called back before climbing out and wrapping a towel around me. I wandered into the guest bedroom, which also served as Dan's office. I never could work out why so many monitors were needed. Staring at one was more than enough for me.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Gregory Albright is up to his neck in it. I take it that Alan Rainer was the business partner you were on about?”
“Yes, his name kept popping up.”
“Well, these two seem to constantly be moving money around via offshore accounts. It would take weeks to follow it and work out exactly what was going on. But I did find a significant payment from an offshore account to Bill Peters, The Nord Isles lead councillor.”
“What?”
“Oh, there’s more. Check this out.”
Pete was showing me some kind of planning documents that meant nothing to me. "I don't understand. What is it?"
“These are plans submitted for a holiday park in North Wales by a new company, AA Holdings. I think you can guess who’s on the board of directors.”
“Gregory and Alan?”
“Exactly. But planning permission was rejected. My bet is they’ve been looking for a new location.”
“A holiday park? How can he want to put a holiday park on our island? It would ruin it. I can’t believe it.”
“I don’t know, maybe he owes Alan Rainer? Or he's under pressure from someone? But if Gregory wants to buy that campsite, I'm pretty sure he intends to build a holiday park on it. The fact he was in a bad mood about it suggests he was desperate for it to happen.”
“You know you’ve left me with more questions?”
“Of course! What are you going to do?”
“Nothing, yet. Tomorrow’s trip to the library could be the final piece of the puzzle.”
Chapter 16
Libraries are a special place for me. Inside they hold thousands upon thousands of stories. There are adventures and travels to be had on every shelf. Over the years, I had often sought the inner sanctuary of a library. It was a place I could hide away and lose myself in other worlds.
Manchester Central Library was no different. Like Liverpool’s, it was housed in an old building with beautiful wood-panelled reading rooms and secret spaces that held books from the past. But both also had a splash of the modern with recent innovations. As I walked through the stone pillars propping up the façade, I stepped into an open, airy space. I marvelled at the modern architecture at its middle that lifted the eye to the sky many floors above.
Usually, I wander amongst the shelves, peruse the ancient texts on display and sit in the reading room with a book. But instead, I headed for the archive section. A woman named Catherine got me set up on the machine with the microfiche. She was just what you expected from a librarian working in the archives section. Her brown hair was flecked with greys and pulled back into a low bun. She wore glasses that clearly didn't fit well as she kept pushing them back up her nose. Despite being familiar with microfiche already, she insisted on running through the exacting instructions, and I could smell the morning coffee on her breath. Catherine had a quiet demeanour, but somehow you knew she fiercely protected the rules of this place.
While many records were available online, the adoption register was only available to view at a few libraries. It wouldn’t give me the details that would totally confirm my suspicions, but it would give me enough to order the adoption certificate.
I knew Melissa’s baby was born in June 1994. That would mean that he could appear on the adoption register in either quarter three or four of that year. There were thousands of entries that I would need to scroll through, and of course, it would be fruitless if I was looking for his name. But instead, I was looking for the name Peter Langley. The connection between Melissa and Pete had been bugging me all week. I'd gone over all kinds of scenarios, but the one that stuck with me, the one that kept coming up, was that Pete was Melissa’s biological son. He was the right age and had been adopted. It would also explain why he turned up on the island.
My neck ached from stooping over, and my eyes stung from scanning through names. I took a moment to pause and pulled my neck to one side and then the other, stretching it out. Looking around, I noticed that the room was beginning to fill up. As someone who loved stories and research, I couldn’t help creating tales about what each of the people here was doing. There was the woman in her fifties on another microfiche reader. I imagined she was searching the local newspaper archives for details on a relative she found while researching her family tree. He spent time in jail, and now she wanted all the gory details.
Then there was the man in a
suit looking very serious. In front of him were a couple of old texts, and he was wearing the white gloves they give you to protect old books. He was slowly turning the pages and scribbling furiously. I guessed that he was researching for his masters in some kind of vain attempt to prove himself intelligent and worthy of attention. This kind of people watching was another one of those things I loved to do. Sit quietly somewhere and make up stories of the people going by. It always struck me how unhappy many people looked.
Eyes rested and muscles stretched, I returned to my microfiche and smiled to myself as I thought about what stories others might make up about me. I was pretty sure no one would guess that I was investigating a modern-day murder. That was far too outlandish. But the truth of life often was unbelievable.
And then there it was. The entry I was looking for - Peter Langley, born in 1994. The dates matched, and I started feeling more confident in my far-fetched theory. I scribbled down the index number, jumped down off my stall and logged on to one of the computers. With the details I now had, I could order the adoption certificate and discover the truth. It would take a few days to arrive in the post, but I was now in touching distance of finding out what happened.
An hour later, I was letting myself back into Dan’s flat.
“Well?” he said as he tapped the sofa next to him.
I accepted the invitation and sat down, hugging one of the cushions to my stomach. "The bit that's confused everyone is how Melissa and Pete are connected."
“Uh-huh.”
"Well, at Melissa's funeral, I discovered that she had a child in secret back in 1994. She went to stay with a friend in Liverpool, gave birth to a baby boy and then returned to the island with nobody the wiser.”
“Oh, wow. That’s quite a discovery.”
“Sure was. But I also finally got to interview Pete a few days before he was murdered and discovered he was adopted.”
“Right…”
“Today, I ordered his adoption certificate. He was also born in 1994. I know it’s a long shot, but my gut’s telling me Pete is Melissa’s child.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s all that much of a long shot. It’s quite the coincidence that a woman on Bwytheney gives a child up in 1994, and then a man who's been adopted that year moves onto the island. I mean, what are the chances of that?"
“Thanks.”
“What for?”
“For reassuring me that I’m not going mad, ha. We’ll know more once the certificate arrives next week.”
“So, what does this have to do with land-grabbing, Mr Albright?"
“Well, if he killed Melissa, it was because she doesn't have any family to take over the campsite. It would be put up for sale. But suppose he found out that there was a son, and he was back on the island. I mean, I know adopted children don't inherit stuff from their birth parents, but as Pete was on Bwytheney, maybe he was scared Melissa had left it to him, in which case it probably wouldn't go up for sale. If that was Pete, then he would have taken over running it.”
"It makes sense, I suppose. Although he must be really desperate for that land. Do we know anything about the will or what’s happening to the campsite? I mean, would he really kill someone on the off chance that they MIGHT be in the will? Sorry…I’m just thinking aloud.”
“Her child was in her will. I don’t know the details, but her friend Pam is dealing with it all. That’s who she stayed with when she had the baby.”
“Okay, but who owns the campsite now?”
“I don’t know. Pam just said she was sorting stuff out there.”
“You mean she’s there now? Staying at the campsite?”
“Yes…no…no, he wouldn’t?”
Chapter 17
I scrambled in my bag to find my phone. The screen was again full of notifications from the blog. Was it too late? Had something already happened? I rang the number of the campsite, but it clicked over to answer the phone. I tried again and again. Still, no one picked up. I had no choice but to leave a message, “Pam, this is Cara. I know this sounds totally crazy, but I think you’re in danger. You need to get out of there and go to mine. There’s a key underneath the pot inside the garden shed. I’ll explain tomorrow. Please keep safe.”
“You left a message?”
“What else was I going to do? Oh wow, look at all these notifications.” I scrolled through them on my phone screen. “Looks like they’ve kicked off on my blog again.” I opened my laptop, and the screen lit up. Under the new blog post, there was a bunch of new comments.
“You have comments on approval, right?” said Dan.
“You can do that?”
“Jeez, Cara. Yes. Okay, now this is spooky…”
Peering over my shoulder, Dan was also reading the comments left by someone calling themselves WakeUpNordIsles2021.
“The two murder victims were related.”
“Nord Isle Living – it’s down to you to investigate. I tipped off the police, and they've done nothing.”
“You need to find out what happened in 1994.”
“Find the person who did this.”
“It’s time for the truth to come out.”
These comments were interspersed with the usual retorts from trolls suggesting everyone on the islands were related. Usually, I would have deleted the lot, putting WakeUpNordIsles2021 down as a crank too. However, with the research I was doing, it only strengthened my theory and proved that others knew the truth.
“Give me that,” said Dan. He walked off towards the guest bedroom and his computers, muttering something about IP addresses and other things I didn't understand.
I followed him and flopped onto the bed, and lay back. “This is total madness.”
Dan didn't reply. Instead, he just kept tapping away on his computer, looking back and forth to my blog. I lay there in silence, trying to empty my mind.
“WakeUpNordIsles2021 is someone on Bwytheney. The other comments come from all over the UK. But that one is definitely someone who is on the island as we speak.”
“But why would the killer want to draw attention to the fact Pete and Melissa are related? It’s more likely that they’ll get caught. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think it’s the killer. But someone clearly knows more than they’re letting on. It still smacks of someone unloading a guilty conscience, though, trying to put all the responsibility on you. Oh, and I’ve set blog comments, so they have to be approved. That way, you choose what goes live, okay?"
“Okay, thanks. I need to get the first boat back tomorrow. Let's just hope I don't arrive back to another murder.”
The next morning, I awoke early and stretched. Dan drove me back to the port in Liverpool, so I could get on the first available ferry back to Bwytheney. As we said goodbye, he embraced me and squeezed a little tighter than usual. He whispered in my ear, “Please take care, Cara.”
I pulled away and gave him a weak smile, "I will, I promise. And once this is over, you need to come and visit."
“Yeah, sure. We can hit all the clubs and tear the place up with our moves.” He winked and watched me walk onto the ferry.
I grabbed a seat and picked up a discarded newspaper next to me. It was The Nord Chronicle, the island’s local paper. I cast my eyes upwards for a moment, begging that there wasn't another murder during my brief absence. Unfolding the paper, I saw there were no reports of further deaths. However, there was a small story on the front page about Pete. The autopsy had now been completed, and the time of death had been placed at around an hour or two before I found him. Those “what ifs” started up in my mind again. The cause of death was found to be arsenic poisoning. But police now believed that the cake was delivered to his house earlier in the day and were appealing for witnesses who had seen anyone near the Fisherman Cottages that day.
I already knew that Gregory had lied about the night Melissa died. Now, while I waited for the adoption certificate to arrive, I had to find out where Gregory Albright had been the day Pete was k
illed. It wouldn’t be easy because the last thing I wanted to do was raise suspicions. Did he have the chance to get hold of one of Emma’s cupcakes after the celebration of life ceremony? Was his car seen driving about the island? Did anyone spot him near those cottages?
As the boat cut its way through the waters, I sat back and closed my eyes. Something else was forming in my mind. It was feeling so crowded in there, though, that I pushed it back down. I knew it would resurface again soon. But it would have to wait until I could lay it all out and try and piece it together. Right now, I was feeling too exhausted.
It felt like it was only a few minutes later that the boat was pulling into Bwytheney’s harbour, and I was disembarking. As I made my way towards Islethorpe and its High Street, I felt as if I was holding my breath, waiting for someone to announce another murder. But there was a calmness. The sun was high in the sky, and the smell of roast dinner wafted in the air. It was just before I turned into Caz’s street to collect Shadow that I saw him. Gregory Albright was boldly heading in my direction.
"Hi, Cara, not seen you for a bit. Been away?”
“Oh, I visited a friend in Manchester.”
“Nice, I trust you had a good time?”
“Yes, thanks. What are you up to on this fine Sunday?” As I spoke, I found my eyes scanning over his appearance, trying to spot something out of place. A spot of blood. A pulled thread. A sense of guilt. He didn't look like a man who could have killed two people and who was perhaps planning a third attack.
“Where else would I be headed on a Sunday? It’s crib club at the village hall. You really should give it a go.”
“I’ll pass, thanks, not really my thing.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Sure. I’ve got to go. Shadow’s waiting for me.”
“Of course, see you later.”
And like that, he was gone, leaving my carefully planned theory threatening to fall.
Murder On Bwytheney Page 6