The Murder at Skellin Cottage

by Amy Cross

  “She had a problem,” he continued, touching the side of his head. “That's the only way I can describe it. One terrible flaw that she could never beat.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “Tell me,” Jo said finally.

  “I was almost finished with my studies,” he continued, “and suddenly Alice wanted to take me out to dinner. She swore that this time she'd been saving money from a job she'd taken in another corner shop, and I forced myself to believe her. I thought it was my duty as a loyal husband to keep from getting too suspicious. The truth is, I had my doubts, but I knew that those doubts could destroy my marriage so I pushed them from my mind. I took pride in believing that she'd never do anything like that again, that she'd learned her lesson. And everything seemed perfect. I was about to qualify as a doctor, and we'd be able to get everything we'd worked for. I was already planning how to support Deborah so that she could continue to work on her book. We were so close to everything we'd been working toward.”

  He hesitated.

  “And then... I'll never forget walking around the corner and seeing another police car outside our flat.”

  “She'd stolen money again?”

  He nodded.

  “From the shop where she worked?”

  Another nod.

  “She would have been given a custodial sentence the second time,” Jo pointed out. “She had form.”

  “She was a good person,” he replied, with fresh tears in his eyes. “I know that must seem difficult to believe, but she was pure and good in almost every way. She just had this one flaw, which was the belief that she could take a short-cut to success. Both times, when she stole money, she was convinced that she was about to make it big, that she'd be able to pay it back before anyone noticed. The second time it happened, she was sobbing in our bedroom, telling me that she knew she'd let me down. She'd sent out hundreds of query letters to publishers and agents, desperately trying to get an advance for her work so she could fix things, but she'd run out of town. Even then, she was convinced she still had a chance.”

  He sat in silence for a moment, before wiping his eyes.

  “So you left her?” Jo asked.

  “Of course not!”

  “I'm sorry. So...”

  “I still loved her,” he continued, “and I was prepared to stand by her, no matter what. But the morning before she was due back in court, before she was due to be sentenced, I woke up and she was gone from our bed. There was a note downstairs, telling me that she loved me but that she knew she was destroying my life. And then a little while later I found out that she'd stolen some other money from a different shop as well. As far as the police could tell, she must have had around £10,000 in cash when she ran away. They searched for her, of course, but she'd vanished. I searched too, but she'd gone to ground and there was just no sign of her until...”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I came to Chelmsbury six months ago,” he continued, “to see a friend. A colleague, really. And on the first night, I was in the off-license and I saw this woman. I told myself I had to be wrong, that there was no way I could have stumbled upon her after all these years. She looked a little different, but at the same time her eyes...” Again, he paused. “I didn't dare say anything. I still thought I had to be wrong. I followed her outside, but I lost sight of her in the dark street and I never saw her again. I stuck around for a couple more days, and then I left. But on the morning I checked out, I spoke to the woman who owned the hotel.”

  “Susannah Marriot?”

  He nodded.

  “And what did she say?” Jo asked.

  “She mentioned a friend of hers named Alice. I remember she said the name over and over, like she was trying to watch for my reaction.”

  “So she knew,” Jo whispered.

  “When I asked what she meant, she clammed up,” he continued. “I told myself it was a coincidence, and I left. I keep thinking that things could have been different if I'd stayed and dug some more, but I couldn't believe it was her. So I left, and then a few weeks later I saw a news report about the death of a woman named Deborah Dean in the area. They showed a photo and...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “You knew it was Alice?”

  “I told myself it couldn't be. That's why I didn't go to the police. They came to me, eventually. They told me they'd made a DNA match to a sample from Alice's arrest record, and that she'd had been living under the name Deborah Dean. I didn't know what to tell them, so I simply listened and they went away. I found it hard to believe the whole thing was true. Deep down, I told myself that Alice was smarter than that, that she'd never let something so awful happen to her. And then finally, last week, I decided to come back and try to find out as much as possible about her life here at Chelmsbury. Maybe it's dumb, but I just want to know what she was doing. How she was living. Whether she was okay. And who killed her.”

  “In her final days,” Jo replied, “she thought that someone was following her.”

  “It wasn't me.”

  “Did you ever go out to Skellin Cottage?”

  “Not yet. I was planning to, but I've still not worked up the courage. I've been trying to go to her grave, too, but... I just can't. God, I'm such a bloody coward!”

  “So the only time you saw her in Chelmsbury was in the off-license?”

  “And even then, I wasn't sure it was Alice. I mean, I don't think I was sure. To be honest, I don't know anymore. And the police still haven't caught her killer.”

  Jo nodded.

  “And another woman is dead, isn't she? The owner of this hotel. You don't think that has anything to do with what happened to Alice, do you?”

  “Susannah Marriot and Alice were friends for a while,” Jo told him. “They had a falling out, but I think there might be a connection between their deaths. Also, Alice was dating a local man and -”

  Stopping suddenly, she realized she might have said too much. She could see the flicker of pain in Lucas's eyes, although he quickly looked down at his hands.

  “I'm sorry,” she continued, “I...”

  “It's okay. She had to have a life after she left me. I hope she was happy, I hope...”

  His voice trailed off, and for a moment he seemed too overcome to say anything.

  “I just wish,” he continued finally, his voice trembling as he fought back tears, “that I'd been able to see her one more time. I still loved her. I would have tried to get her to come home, to make her realize that I was ready to stand by her no matter what, to promise that I'd wait for her if she had to go to jail. And if she didn't want any of that, then at least I could have let her know that I still knew she was a good person. That I didn't hate her or regret anything between us. I just hope that when she died, she knew that I still loved her. Do you think she did?”

  He paused again, and this time the tears couldn't be stopped. Putting his head in his hands, he leaned forward and let his shoulders shake slightly. A broken man.

  Jo sat and watched him for a moment, not knowing what to say.

  “You have to find the bastard who did this,” Lucas sneered finally, turning to her.

  “I'm -”

  “Don't tell me you're working on it!” he said firmly. “The police used to say that. I used to call them every single day, hoping they'd have finally made a breakthrough, but all they ever said was that they were working on it. At one point, they even seemed to have a suspect, but then the case went cold. Alice wasn't perfect, she had a massive flaw that ruined our chance of a happy life together, but that doesn't mean she deserved to die. Someone murdered her, and that person is still out there somewhere. She -”

  Before he could finish, his phone briefly buzzed and he glanced at the screen.

  “Is there anyone you can think of,” Jo said as he checked the message, “who might have come looking for Alice? Maybe someone from her old life, someone who could have tracked her down? If she stole money from several separate places, it's not impossi
ble that someone decided to come after her for revenge.”

  “Actually,” Lucas replied, scrolling down a webpage, “it looks like you can save your breath. I have an alert set up in case any news comes in about Alice's case, and something just made the headlines.”

  “What is it?” Jo asked, just as her own phone buzzed and she saw that she'd received a message from Sam.

  “They've made an arrest,” Lucas said, tilting his screen so she could see the BBC headline. “A local man named Harry Morgan has been charged with the murders of Alice Pritchard, or Deborah Dean as she was known around here, and of Susannah Marriott. Maybe this nightmare is finally at an end. They've caught the bastard!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Six months ago

  “Think, damn you!” Deborah hissed, reaching for her purse but then freezing, as if all her thoughts had collided and left her momentarily unable to even function. “This isn't going to work. This is a mess.”

  Taking a step back, she sat on the arm of the sofa and tried to figure out exactly what she was supposed to do next. She knew she had to leave, that Skellin Cottage suddenly felt extremely vulnerable and exposed. She understood that the encounter with Lucas had been some kind of fevered waking nightmare, but this this realization didn't exactly make her feel any more at ease. After all, she'd felt for a while now as if she was on the brink of madness, and now she was starting to hallucinate.

  She'd run before.

  She'd been scared before.

  She'd never doubted her sanity before.

  Finally, grabbing her phone, she brought up Harry's number and tried to call him.

  “Come on,” she muttered under her breath, “please pick up. Please, you have to. Please, Harry, please...”

  A moment later, the call was cut. She tried again, with the same result, and she quickly realized that he probably didn't want to talk to her. For that, she figured, she couldn't blame him one iota.

  Frantically searching for Susannah's contact details, she tried her number too, only to once again have no luck. Mumbling under her breath, she tried Harry one more time before letting out a gasp of frustration as she threw her phone across the kitchen and put her head in her hands.

  “You can do this,” she whispered finally. “You've run before, you can do it again. You can go somewhere else, somewhere new, and this time you can finish your book. That's all that matters. It's the only thing. And then you can publish it, and then Lucas will read it and understand, and maybe...”

  She paused, before looking over at the coffee table. Her eyes were full of tears, but now a fresh idea was forming in her mind. No matter how bad things got, fresh ideas always came. Those ideas could be useful when she was writing, when she needed to get her characters out of a jam, but they could be dangerous in real life.

  “I just need to -”

  Before she could finish, she heard a banging sound outside. She looked toward the dark window, but all she saw was the sparkle of rain drops. A moment later, however, she heard another bump, as if someone had just slammed a car door shut. Stumbling across the kitchen, she turned the light off and froze, staring out at the dark yard but not seeing anyone.

  “Please don't be him,” she stammered, “please, anyone but him...”

  She waited, and after a few seconds she began to tell herself that she'd imagined the bump. She focused on the fact that her nerves were playing havoc with her thoughts, and she took slow, deep breaths as she began to calm herself just a little.

  “There's no-one there,” she said out loud, trying to give herself a little extra courage. “There's -”

  Suddenly someone banged on the front door, and she saw a hand outside in the rain. Immediately ducking down out of view, she held her breath and waited.

  “Deborah?” a familiar voice called out. “My dear, are you quite alright?”

  She stayed completely still, hoping that Lord Chesleford would just go away.

  “Who's in there?” he shouted. “I saw someone through the window as I arrived. I'll call the police if I have to!”

  Filled with panic, she stumbled to her feet and raced across the room, quickly turning the key and pulling the door open just in time to see that Lord Chesleford was tapping at his cellphone.

  “Oh, it is you,” he said with a faint smile, putting the phone away. “You had me worried there for a moment, I was thinking I'd have to call the police and report an intruder.”

  “Don't do that!” she stammered. “I mean, it's me. It's just me. I'm fine.”

  He peered past her, into the pitch black kitchen.

  “Is the power out?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Why are you in there with no lights on?”

  “Oh, I...”

  She paused, trying to think of an excuse.

  “I was sleeping,” she told him finally, “and then I got up to fetch a glass of water and I guess I just didn't bother with the light-switch.”

  “Being economical, eh?” he replied with a grin. “Very commendable. To be honest, I was just passing and I thought I'd pop by and see how you're doing, even though it's a little late. I tried phoning you earlier, but you didn't pick up.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, absolutely not. I just... Well, I suppose I missed our little chats. That's all, really.”

  “You were here yesterday,” she pointed out.

  “Was I?” He hesitated, as if he hadn't quite realized. “Well, sometimes it can feel like much longer, when one is all alone. It's such a cold and rainy night, and I only have Phillip for company up at the house, and I suppose one starts to get lonely, doesn't one?” He hesitated, eyeing her cautiously, before holding up a bottle of wine. “And then sometimes one realizes that one knows someone else who might be lonely, and one realizes that two lonely people...”

  He paused, watching her closely, before reaching out and placing a hand on the side of her arm.

  “Whatever is the matter?”

  “Did you see anyone else out there?” she asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Stepping past him, she stood in the doorway and looked out at the rain-lashed yard. For a moment, every shadow seemed to twitch and turn, as if dark figures were simply deciding when and where they'd appear. They were in her mind already, straining at the edges, and she felt certain that at any second they'd start to appear in real life.

  “Perhaps I should stay a while,” Lord Chesleford continued cautiously. “My dear, I hope you won't mind if I say that you don't seem quite yourself this evening. Do you know what would help? A couple of glasses of wine!”

  “I feel him watching me,” she whispered.

  “I'm sorry?”

  “Maybe it was my mind's way of warning me. Maybe my subconscious mind knows that he's out there somewhere, that he's coming. I can't ignore that. I can't ignore my own mind.”

  “What do -”

  “You should go!” she added, turning to him. “Please. I don't need... I'm fine.”

  “But -”

  “I'd like to be left alone now.”

  Stepping back past him, she turned and waited for him to leave the cottage.

  “I would prefer to stay for at least a short while,” he told her cautiously. “I can't pretend to understand precisely what's wrong here, but are you scared of someone?”

  She shook her head.

  “I can protect you, you know,” he continued. “I know you probably think of me as some dreadfully old, infirm fool, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve and I might be more use in a sticky situation than you realize. If someone is threatening you, Deborah, you must let me stay and look after you. Even in these supposedly enlightened times, I'm still a man and you are still a woman.”

  “Please, just leave me alone.”

  She grabbed the door, ready to swing it shut, but Lord Chesleford was still standing in the way.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Who's what?”

  “Who are you s
o very scared of?”

  “No-one.”

  “I see it in your eyes, my dear.”

  “You're wrong. You're imagining things. Please, it's late and I'm very tired, I just want to get to bed.”

  “But -”

  “Please!” She began to push the door shut, only for it to bump against the side of his shoe. “I'm absolutely fine,” she continued, struggling to keep her voice from trembling. “All I need is a good night's sleep.”

  He hesitated, before taking a step back.

  “Well,” he said finally, “I'm not one to impose when I'm not wanted. I still think you should let me stay, even if it's just for a few hours. I can tell that something has scared you, my dear, and I desperately want you to let me protect you. You might end up seeing me in a new light.”

  “Thank you, but I'm fine.”

  With that, she shut the door and waited for him to leave. He remained on the other side for a moment, barely visible through the rain drops that ran down the glass, and then finally he turned and walked away. Deborah remained at the door, watching until she saw his car leaving, and then she hurried to her phone and tried Harry's number again. When that didn't work, she tried Susannah, and then she grabbed her car keys from the counter.

  Glancing at her from the sofa, Merriwig let out a casual meow.

  “I'll be back soon,” she stammered. “I'm going to work this out. I'll figure out a plan.”

  Hurrying into the yard, she headed straight for her car and started the engine. By the time she drove out onto the dark country lane, she'd already changed her mind a couple of times, and finally she began to drive away from town, heading toward Harry's farm. Her hands were trembling on the wheel and she was still desperately trying to think of something, anything, she could do to make everything alright again. One moment she was resolved to stay in the area, the next she felt she had no choice but to leave, and the next she felt certain that Lucas was following her. She went back and forth between the various ideas until finally she reached Harry's farmhouse and took a right turn into the driveway. By this point, she was more convinced than ever that Lucas was nearby.