The Murder at Skellin Cottage

by Amy Cross

  “If you'll let me explain -”

  “Just leave me alone. Just go away and don't bug me again. If I ever hear from you, if you ever so much as set foot in my hotel or call me or email me ever again, then I really will start telling people about you.” She took a step back, clearly flustered. “Maybe if you'd been honest from the start, I'd have been able to see past all of this. But you've been lying your ass off ever since we met, and that's what hurts the most. But now I know. I know everything about you, and you make me sick.”

  With that, she made her way up the steps, before glancing back at Deborah.

  “Oh, and your book stinks. Maybe try a career change. Or better still, do the right thing and turn yourself in. You're sure as hell no writer.”

  She headed inside, leaving a shocked and horrified Deborah standing alone on the street. For a moment she seemed too stunned to move, too stunned to even react, but finally she looked around at the passersby and checked to see whether anyone seemed to have overheard the argument.

  After a moment, she turned and hurried away, threading her way through the crowd.

  ***

  “Thank you for staying with us,” the receptionist said with a smile as she handed the receipt and card to Lucas. “I hope we'll see you again soon.”

  Turning and heading toward the door, Lucas was about to go outside when he spotted Susannah coming the other way.

  “Nice place you've got here,” he told her. “Better than any of those big hotel chains.”

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Work calls, and I've got a long drive. But thank you again for the hospitality.”

  “Oh, it's our pleasure,” Susannah replied as he stepped past her, heading through the main door. “I was just telling my friend Alice how we pride ourselves on offering a warm welcome to guests.”

  At the mention of that name, Lucas froze for a moment, before turning back to her.

  Susannah watched his face carefully, and it wasn't difficult to see that she'd caught his attention.

  “She's a funny one,” she continued. “My friend Alice, I mean. Always has an opinion about everything. Every time I talk to her, Alice gives me new ideas about the hotel. I honestly don't know where I'd be without Alice. It's hard to believe she hasn't lived here all her life. She only showed up a while back, but we've become good friends since. Thick as thieves, you might say.”

  She waited, as Lucas seemed poised on the verge of asking her a question.

  “Good old Alice,” she added finally. “I don't know what I'd do without her.”

  “Does she work here?” he asked, his voice sounding a little tight and nervous.

  “Who, Alice?”

  She hesitated for a moment, before realizing that perhaps she didn't want to go too far. After all, Lucas seemed like a nice guy, and she figured she shouldn't cause him any trouble.

  “Well,” she continued, “I was just talking to her outside, not two minutes ago, and -”

  Before she could finish, he hurried out to the top of the steps. Following, Susannah saw that he was looking both ways along the street, as if he was searching for some sign of the mysterious, elusive Alice.

  “I'm sure she's long gone,” she told him, leaning against the wall. “Why? Do you like that name?”

  He turned to her.

  “What's her surname?” he asked.

  “Well, I...”

  She paused again, realizing that although she now understood the truth, she didn't want to cause trouble. Not for Lucas, anyway.

  “Smith,” she said finally.

  “Smith?”

  “Just Smith.”

  Seeing the concern in his eyes, she told herself that perhaps this wasn't the moment to start stirring things. Besides, she'd only wanted a little extra confirmation of her suspicions, and now she figured she should just let him leave.

  “Anyway,” she continued, forcing a smile, “that's enough about me. I hope you have a pleasant drive home.”

  “Yes, I...”

  He hesitated, before nodding.

  “I think I should get going,” he added, before mumbling something else under his breath as he hurried away toward the parking lot.

  “Probably for the best,” Susannah muttered, watching until he disappeared around the corner. “The snake's out of your life. You don't want to let her back in.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Today

  “Come on, where are you?” Jo muttered to herself, as she tested another floorboard in the cottage's main bedroom. “There are only so many places to hide a laptop.”

  She'd been up for a couple of hours by now, having woken as soon as the first light of morning sun streamed through the windows. So far, she'd discovered no sign of any other hiding places, but after finding the stash of money a couple of nights earlier she already knew that Deborah had been somewhat sneaky. The police had gone over the place, of course, but they hadn't found the cash and Jo figured they could easily have missed a whole lot more.

  All of which meant that the laptop might still be stowed away somewhere.

  A short while later, a little after 9am, she heard the sound of a car turning into the gravel driveway outside the front of the cottage. Peering out from the bedroom window, she spotted a familiar silver Mercedes, although she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing until the door opened and Detective Inspector Sam Bartleby climbed out. She watched as he struggled to find a mud-free path to the front door, and as he tried jumping over one particularly large puddle only to land in another and splash the legs of his trousers.

  A faint, unintended smile crossed her lips, although she caught it quickly.

  “What do you want?” she muttered. “Why -”

  Before she could finish, she heard him banging on the front door. She briefly considered pretending to be out, only to spot her own car in the driveway and realize the game was up. Besides, she knew the door was unlocked, and she also knew that Sam wasn't the kind of guy to stand on ceremony. Sure enough, a moment later she heard the front door creaking open.

  “Jo?” Sam called out. “Jo, come on, I know you're here.”

  Sighing, she turned and headed out of the bedroom and then down the stairs, finally meeting Sam in the hallway.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, rubbing his arms for warmth, “it's cold in this place. Haven't you got any central heating?”

  “I'm fine here. What do you want?”

  “I'm freezing my balls off just standing here!”

  “Nice trousers.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, before looking down at the blotches of mud that stretched almost to the knee of his right leg.

  “It is just mud out there, right?” he continued after a moment, turning to her. “Please, Jo, tell me that brown stuff in the yard is just mud.”

  “I thought we agreed yesterday that you wouldn't bother me.”

  “I don't think we agreed any such thing.”

  “I'm trying to get some work done. This isn't an active investigation for you, not in any meaningful sense, but -”

  “It wasn't an active investigation yesterday,” he replied, interrupting her, “but it is as of a little before 7am this morning. I though I'd better be the one to come out and tell you personally, Jo.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “There's been another murder,” he continued. “A body was found in the car park behind the town's hotel this morning. That body has just been formally identified as Susannah Marriott.”

  ***

  “Jack Byron is going to be here in about twenty minutes,” Sam explained as he raised the police cordon so that he and Jo could enter the hotel's parking lot. “You can't be here then. He'll go ballistic.”

  “Isn't ballistic his natural state most of the time?” Jo asked.

  “I shouldn't be letting you anywhere near the crime scene,” he continued, flashing his badge at an officer and leading Jo toward the spot where several white-suited SOCA investigators were working.

  “
Then why are you?”

  “Because if Jack Byron's running the police case, we're gonna need all the help we can get.”

  Stepping around a group of forensic workers, Jo stopped as soon as she saw Susannah's body on the ground. Still wearing the same clothes from her previous night's trip to Lord Chesleford's manor house, the dead woman was slumped on her side with several bloody red rips in the fabric on the back of her coat, clearly indicating that she'd been attacked and stabbed from behind. Her eyes, meanwhile, were open and staring toward the steps that led up to the hotel's kitchen entrance, while her left hand was resting at a slightly odd angle, as if she'd been reaching for something as she died. Her mouth was slightly open, and there were bloody cuts on her chin.

  “Morning, Sam,” Doctor Carter, the forensic examiner, said as he got to his feet. “I think we're looking at around -”

  He froze suddenly as soon as he spotted Jo.

  “She's with me,” Sam told him.

  “Of course she is,” Doctor Carter continued with a friendly but concerned smile. “Long time, no see. How are you doing, Joanna?”

  “I'm fine,” she replied. “Do you have a time of death?”

  “I'd say around three or four in the morning.”

  “Just after I dropped her off,” Jo whispered.

  “As you can probably see for yourselves,” Doctor Carter added, turning to look back down at the body, “she was killed by a series of knife wounds. She appears to have been stabbed six times in the back, all around the same spot quite low down. Then there's one additional wound on her chest, piercing her heart, although I think it's likely she'd have already been very close to death by that point.” He stepped over the body and crouched next to her head, pointing at the cuts on her chin. “I think she was dragged a short way across the car park. Face down. That would account for these, and also for the grit in her nostrils and eyes.”

  “So she was killed somewhere else and dumped here?” Sam asked.

  “I think she was killed close by, and then for some reason she was moved over here to the door.”

  “To get her out of the way,” Jo muttered.

  Sam turned to her. “How do you mean?”

  “If someone was waiting for her to come back,” she continued, turning and looking along the side of the building and then pointing at a low wall near one of the kitchen windows, where several workers were already peering out at the grizzly scene, “then that might have been a good spot. It's also one of the few areas in the car park where the cameras don't seem to have any coverage.”

  Sam looked up at the various cameras and quickly realized that she was right. Besides, some of the cameras were in such a bad state, it was hard to believe that they still functioned.

  “So the killer waited for her to walk past,” Jo explained, “and then came up behind her.”

  “Stabbing someone in the back is pretty cowardly,” Sam pointed out.

  “Stabbing someone in the anything is cowardly,” Jo replied. “Six times is a lot, especially lower down on the back. Maybe this is someone who didn't really know what they were doing and wanted to make sure. Unlike with Deborah Dean.” She paused for a moment, before looking back down at the body. “And then, wanting to make absolutely certain she was dead, the killer rolled her onto her back and stabbed her one more time in the chest, aiming for the heart. Then he or she dragged her closer to the building so she'd be a little more out of sight.”

  “One of the kitchen workers found her,” Doctor Carter explained.

  “What's up with her hand?” Jo asked, stepping around the body and crouching down to take a closer look at Susannah's outstretched left hand.

  “Reaching for something, maybe?” Sam suggested with a shrug.

  “Or holding something,” Jo muttered. “Holding something tight. The killer might have had to force her fingers open to get to it after she was dead.”

  “Possibly,” Doctor Carter said. “I can check for any kind of residue on the palm and let you know.” He hesitated, before turning to Sam. “Well, I can let you know. I mean, isn't Jo...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Jo's just helping me out with something,” Sam replied.

  “Something you'd prefer Byron doesn't find out about?”

  “Got it in one. Don't mention that she was here.”

  “I don't think this was exactly a professional hit,” Jo said, getting to her feet again. “I think this was someone who didn't want to do it, but who felt he had no choice. Or she. Someone who wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.”

  “I'll have a full autopsy report by the end of the day,” Doctor Carter told Sam. “I'll make sure a copy gets to your desk, too. From there, it's really none of my business where else it ends up.”

  He glanced briefly toward Jo.

  Sam nodded. “Appreciated.”

  “Looks like her purse and keys are still here,” Jo pointed out, peering at the edge of Susannah's open coat pocket. “We can rule out a simple mugging or a robbery. And judging by the state of her clothing, I'm guessing there won't be any sign of a sexual assault.”

  “The knife wounds look to have gone in at an angle,” Doctor Carter added. “Just slightly, but enough to suggest that the killer was a little taller than her.”

  “This can't be a coincidence,” Jo muttered, staring back down at the body.

  “Heads up,” Doctor Carter whispered suddenly, nudging her arm. “Byron at nine o'clock.”

  “And we're outta here,” Sam said, grabbing Jo's arm and leading her toward the hotel's back door.

  “Wait!” she hissed, trying to pull back toward the body. “I need to -”

  “Keep walking!” he said firmly, forcing her up the steps and into the kitchen area, before glancing back outside just in time to see the portly figure of Detective Inspector Jack Byron arriving at the scene. “Well there's a surprise,” he added under his breath. “He seems to be in something of a bad mood.”

  “I was with Susannah Marriot last night,” Jo said.

  Sam turned to her.

  “She showed up at Lord Chesleford's house,” she continued, watching through the window as Byron knelt next to the body. “She was drunk, she wanted to see Lord Chesleford's son Phillip. The pair of them were an item back in the day, before Phillip's accident.”

  “That's the kid who's a vegetable now, yeah?”

  “He suffered a significant head injury,” she replied. “He didn't seem to recognize Susannah. Eventually I persuaded her to leave with me, and I drove her into town. I tried asking her about Deborah Dean, but she immediately clammed up and insisted on getting out of the car. I pulled over a few hundred meters away and out she got, storming off into the night. Whoever killed her must have been waiting.” She paused for a moment. “If I'd just driven her straight to the hotel's front door, she might still be alive.”

  “You can't blame yourself.”

  “This is connected to Deborah Dean's death.”

  “We don't know that for sure.”

  “I think Susannah knew the truth about Deborah. Or part of it, at least. That's why she didn't go to the funeral, and it's why she didn't want to talk about her. But Deborah was stabbed once, in a very clinical and targeted manner, whereas Susannah was stabbed multiple times. Why the difference?”

  “Deborah called Susannah on the night she died,” Sam replied. “It seems she wanted to go over and talk, but Susannah wasn't having any of it.”

  “I need to know Deborah's real name,” Jo continued.

  He shook his head.

  “Sam, I'm going to find it out eventually anyway!”

  “I can't give you any operational information from the case,” he said with a sigh. “I could lose my job. I'm sorry, Jo, but that's just the way it is.” He paused for a moment. “I can't share any details from the Deborah Dean or Alice Pritchard investigations. Not a sausage.”

  “Alice Pritchard?”

  A faint smile crossed his lips.

  “Whoop
s,” he said, before glancing out the window and seeing that Jack Byron was already taking charge, barking orders at Doctor Carter and generally making a racket. “I should get out there. God, I wish I didn't have to listen to that gasbag going on and on again. He could bore for England.”

  “So Deborah Dean was originally named Alice Pritchard?” Jo continued. “Who was she running from?”

  Sam turned to her. “Us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was running from us. From the police.”

  “She had a record?”

  “It was a little more than that.”

  “She was on the run?”

  “You can figure the rest out yourself.” He turned to go back outside, before stopping and glancing back at her. “Oh, and by the way... In the extremely unlikely event that a copy of an autopsy report happens to end up getting posted through the front door of Skellin Cottage, I hope you know that you mustn't look at it. Not even a peek. You must simply burn it and pretend it was never there.”

  “Got it,” Jo replied, and now it was her turn to allow a faint smile. “Thank you.”

  “I've missed you,” he added.

  She hesitated for a moment. “I -”

  “Where's Sam Bartleby?” Byron roared from the car park. “Somebody find that lazy bastard and bring him here right now!”

  “Seems I'm wanted,” Sam said, patting Jo's shoulder before turning and heading outside.

  Looking out the window for a moment, Jo watched as Sam began discussing the case with Byron and Doctor Carter. She'd been involved in such discussions many times during her time on the force, but this was the first time she'd watched from afar. There was a part of her that desperately wanted to go back out there and ask a thousand more questions, but she knew full well that Jack Byron would toss her out immediately, and that she could end up getting Sam into trouble too.