Detectives Merry & Neal Books 1-3

by JANICE FROST

  Ava had listened to the story unfold, sitting in the interview room with DSI George Lowe. From time to time in the course of the long hours spent questioning Angie, Ava glanced up at the two-way mirror in the room. She knew Neal was standing there, riveted by every word of the proceedings. She half-expected to see his angry fist come splintering through the painted glass at any moment.

  “Caitlin was my best friend. We were closer than sisters,” Angie had begun. “We were connected on a level that transcended the physical. Each of us understood what the other was thinking, feeling.”

  “Whose idea was it to kill your classmate, Melanie Ingalls?” Lowe asked.

  Angie, after a whispered exchange with her legal representative, refused to answer. That was past history and she knew she could not be judged on it here.

  It wasn’t that Ava didn’t believe any of it was true. It was difficult to get her head round the possibility that a delusion could be spread from person to person like an infection, but she accepted the wisdom of those more expert about psychiatry than she was. After all, whole ideologies had thrived on shared beliefs, sometimes with tragic results. History was peppered with examples of people who were prepared to kill or die for what could be interpreted by others as mere delusions. Still, Ava was reluctant to believe that Angie and Caitlin had ever been caught up in a common fantasy.

  They were two people who should never have met. That’s what the judge had said in her summing up in their original trial. That had been twelve years ago. Ava could not help but wonder at the opportunities now open to people who ‘should never have met,’ courtesy of the Internet.

  Turning to the present day, George Lowe had asked, “Why did you kill Gray Mitchell?”

  “Gray Mitchell was evil,” Angie said. She held Lowe’s gaze, as if trying to mesmerise him into accepting that this was what she truly believed. “I didn’t see it at first, but Caitlin convinced me. He was planning on killing us. We had to act.”

  “I don’t buy that,” Ava said. “I think that this time around — maybe last time too, if you ask me, it was an act of evil, plain and simple. The only delusion you and Caitlin shared was that you could get away with murder.”

  Angie shrugged. Prove it, she seemed to say.

  Ava had spoken with Carrie Howard’s ex-husband again. He had been doing some detective work himself and discovered that the travelling theatre company that Gray Mitchell had belonged to had performed Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ at the girls’ school back in 2001, the same year they had killed Melanie Ingalls.

  “One of you thought Gray Mitchell might remember you and reveal your true identities, didn’t you?” Ava leaned forward as if trying to stare into Angie Dent’s mind. “Was it at the party at his and Warrior’s house? Maybe he came up to one of you and asked if he had met you before? The thought of being discovered made you physically sick, didn’t it? Caitlin had to take you home and together you devised a plan to kill him.”

  Angie scarcely flinched, but Ava felt that she was right.

  George Lowe felt it too. He said, “We know that you knew that Gray Mitchell was counselling Nathan Elliot about his sexuality. We showed Nathan your picture and he confirmed that he’d met you once when he was with Gray, and Gray had introduced you. You and Caitlin used that knowledge to lure Gray Mitchell to his death with that desperate text, which you knew he’d assume was from Nathan.”

  Angie’s bland stare left them both frustrated. Ava could almost feel Neal’s tension bleeding through the two-way mirror.

  “Why did you kill Caitlin? The other killings make a kind of sense, but why would you kill her?” Ava asked.

  At first, it seemed that she was not going to answer. Then, with an apologetic look at her legal adviser, Angie shrugged and said, “She was supposed to be my friend.”

  * * *

  “I can understand why they killed poor Gray, but I don’t get why Angie would kill Caitlin,” Maxine Brand said, shaking her head. Ava looked around the small gathering of people in the Brand’s homely kitchen. Laurence Brand was present, still recovering from his near-fatal stabbing. And Marcus Collins who now occupied the Brands’ spare room. Also, Helen Alder, Vincent Bone and Leon Warrior. They were all sitting around the Brands’ kitchen table as though assembled for a social gathering. At Maxine’s question, all eyes turned to Ava.

  “Love turned to hate,” Ava answered. “Angie spent seven years in a psychiatric unit because Caitlin’s wealthy parents bought their daughter’s freedom with a fancy lawyer who was able to persuade the judge that the girls suffered from a shared psychosis. They believed Melanie Ingalls was possessed by the devil, allegedly. Unknown to Angie, Caitlin had been carefully tutored to paint Angie as the dominant personality, the one who had communicated her delusion to Caitlin, a susceptible and naïve middle-class girl.”

  “So was it a true folie à deux or not?” Laurence Brand asked.

  Ava shrugged. “Maybe first time around there was an element of that in it. As to who influenced whom, I don’t think we’ll ever know. My money would be on Caitlin, but I’m inclined to believe they fed each other’s fantasies. It’s now suspected that Caitlin had a hand in her family’s drowning. It’s likely she hated her parents for separating her from Angie.”

  “She seemed so . . . normal,” Helen Alder commented. “Caitlin, I mean — and Angie too. Just two ordinary young women. Who would think they had such an extraordinary secret in their past, or such a capacity for evil.” She looked around the table.

  Most heads were nodding. Ava thought she caught Maxine and Laurence exchange a knowing look.

  Perhaps the couple understood more than the others how fluid the definition of ‘normal’ could be.

  “She loved her work and she was good at it,” Vincent Bone said. “She created beautiful stained-glass designs of her own.” He shook his head.

  Ava remembered the conversation she had had with him in the stonemason’s workshop, about the grotesques and gargoyles, how to the medieval mind their ugliness represented evil. Evil was ugly, she thought, just not on the outside.

  “I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused,” Laurence Brand said.

  Ava smiled. “No harm done.”

  “I don’t know how to feel about Gray’s murder,” Leon Warrior said, with self-pity in his voice. He had been silent until that moment. “He was going to leave me, you know. Go back to the States. I wish I’d had the time . . .”

  No one turned to him with sympathetic murmurings. They still counted Leon as a friend, one of their close-knit little social circle — what remained of it — but their compassion was diminished by their loyalty to Gray Mitchell’s memory.

  “How is DI Neal?” Maxine asked.

  “He blames himself for what happened to Maggie.” She had not seen her boss for a couple of days. At their last meeting, she had tried again to convince him that he wasn’t to blame, but he had retreated behind a wall of self-recrimination and was not yet ready to dislodge a single brick. She hoped it was not a permanent structure.

  Ava thanked the Brands for inviting her to their gathering. Maxine saw her to the door. The biting cold outside was a stark reminder that they were still in the grip of a particularly bitter winter. Ava pulled her woolly hat out, the owl one that she knew Neal thought slightly ridiculous. She tugged it over her ears and walked down the street. According to the weather forecast, there was more snow to come. It would wrap the city in its cold beauty again, hiding whatever ugliness lay beneath.

  THE END

  Book 3: HER HUSBAND’S SECRET

  A gripping crime thriller full of twists

  JANICE FROST

  First published 2016

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The s
pelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this.

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  ©Janice Frost

  THERE IS A GLOSSARY OF BRITISH TERMS IN THE BACK

  Chapter 1

  Midnight. Zak Darby lay awake, wondering if his mother was asleep yet. She had come upstairs at half past ten, early for her. As soon as he heard her footsteps on the stairs, he’d closed his eyes and turned quickly on his side facing away from the bedroom door. She always checked on him before she went to bed. He heard his bedroom door brushing over the carpet. Should he pretend to snore? It might convince her he was asleep, but what if it sounded fake? He didn’t snore. He lay, and breathed as evenly as he could when his mother kissed the top of his head and whispered goodnight. He must have drifted off for a little while after that for he dreamed that he heard the sound of her tinkling laughter and some other noises, strange and animal-like, coming from her bedroom. But when he started awake soon afterwards, the house was still and quiet.

  Zak had to fight the urge to jump up straight away. He lay unmoving and alert, listening out for the slightest sound. The cottage was old and there were often noises — creaks and bangs and scratchings — that he knew were not ghosts but just the normal sounds an old house makes. The waiting was torture. Finally, at ten past midnight Zak kicked his duvet aside and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was already fully clothed. He retrieved a bag from under his bed, a small backpack that he’d packed earlier for his night-time excursion. It contained a torch, a pair of gloves and his mobile phone.

  He crept along the landing to the stairs. The second to last stair creaked in two places and he trod carefully and sighed with relief when he reached the bottom without making the slightest sound. He put on his coat and wellies. Any sound now would bring his mum to the top of the stairs in a heartbeat.

  Belle, the family’s honey-coloured Labrador, cocked an ear at Zak when he entered the kitchen. Fortunately, Belle only barked at unfamiliar sounds, and although Zak creeping into the kitchen after midnight was not a common occurrence, Belle took it in her stride. Even so, the sound of her toenails tip-tapping on the ceramic floor tiles as she padded across to greet him seemed to ricochet around the room.

  He reached for her lead and signalled to her to be quiet. Fortunately, Belle wasn’t the sort of dog who made a fuss and after enduring some obligatory tail-wagging and hand-licking, Zak was able to lead her out of the kitchen, through the utility room and then outside into the garden without much commotion.

  At the garden gate, Zak hesitated. The wrought-iron structure seemed to represent a psychological as well as a physical barrier and once through, there would be no going back.

  “It’s freezing,” Zak said, his teeth chattering. He looked down at Belle, who yawned. The moon was full and bright enough to read by. Zak turned off his torch, gently lifted the latch on the gate and pushed it open halfway — any further and it would squeak. Belle was first through, the lead tangling around her legs as she charged ahead of Zak.

  They walked a little way and Zak told Belle to “sit.” He looked around. Frost glistened on the tops of the hedgerows and the moonlight cast eerie shadows across the lane from the overhanging trees. Suddenly Belle growled. Zak jumped, then shushed her. “It’s only Rowan, silly.”

  A girl appeared through a gap in the hedgerow and grinned at Zak.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been here for ages. I can’t feel my feet anymore,” Zak said.

  “Liar. I saw you and Belle coming out of your garden a minute ago.”

  “Well, it seemed like ages.”

  “My dad was still up with my baby brother when I left. I sneaked out the side door.”

  “Yeah, well, Holly’s covering for you, isn’t she?” said Zak.

  “She didn’t want to. She wanted to come. I’ve had to give her a whole week’s pocket money to keep her quiet.”

  “Let’s just go, or we won’t have time,” Zak said, exasperated. Rowan was in his class at school. She lived in the house nearest to his and their mothers were friends. They were friends too. Lately Zak’s feelings about Rowan had started to change, to become more complicated somehow. She felt it too, he was sure, but tonight none of that mattered. Tonight they were just simple friends again, out on an adventure.

  At the end of the lane they passed through a kissing gate and entered a field that adjoined a dark wood. They followed the perimeter of the field for a bit and then veered off to the right. Another gate, another field and they arrived at their destination, the site of a ruined eleventh century abbey on the edge of the Stainholme lime wood. A life-sized monk carved out of wood stood at the entrance, welcoming them. Someone had hung a little bag of dog poo from the fingers of the monk’s hand. Belle strained on her lead and sniffed at it before Zak tugged her sharply away. “What now?” he said.

  “Now we wait.” Rowan pushed Zak into the field and they tramped over the rime-hardened ground towards a craggy stone structure. It was all that remained of the monastery that had dominated the landscape almost a millennium ago. There was a jagged stone tower, three or four crumbling arched walls and some mounds of earth, sites of buildings lost long ago. It was a lonely spot. Zak had been here many times, but never at night. “We can hide in the trees over there and still have a perfect view of the ruin,” he said, pointing at the wood fringing the field.

  “Can you hide from a ghost?” Rowan asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’ll feel safer if we’re not right out in the open. Anyway, you know it’s not the kind of ghost that harms people. It just sort of floats between the arches.”

  They were talking about the White Monk, so-called because of the white robes worn by his order. He was reputed to haunt the abbey ruins. Zak’s class had gone on a ghost tour in Stromford a few weeks ago and when he’d heard that they lived near the ruins of Stainholme Abbey the tour guide had told them about the White Monk. Of course they had heard the legend many times before. An eleventh century abbot had been accused of practising Satanism and as punishment he had been bricked up alive in the walls of the abbey. At night, especially when the moon was full, his ghostly spirit could be seen drifting among the abbey ruins.

  The tour guide, whom their teacher claimed had once been a famous actor, told the story so vividly and with such theatricality that Zak immediately decided to see the White Monk for himself. He planned to catch him on film and send it to one of those ghost-hunting programmes on the telly. He enlisted Rowan as his accomplice.

  “He was a devil-worshipper. You don’t know if his ghost will harm you or not — just cos it hasn’t so far doesn’t mean it won’t go for us if it finds out we’re spying on it,” Rowan reasoned. So they headed for the trees, pulling Belle along in their wake.

  “We probably shouldn’t talk. It might hear us and be put off,” Zak said. “Let’s just stand here and watch.” He glanced nervously into the wood behind them. It looked dark and full of hidden dangers. He’d sooner be seen by the ghost than go in there, even with his torch.

  They had not anticipated the sheer tedium of waiting in the cold and dark with nothing to do but stare at a single fragment of wall. Excitement soon gave way to boredom. After what seemed an interminable amount of time — in reality only about twenty minutes — Zak broke the silence with an explosive fart. Rowan shushed him immediately, and then creased in silent laughter, which set Zak off too and for several minutes they held their hands to their mouths to stifle the noise.

  “There’s no chance of it coming out now,” whispered Rowan at last. “You’ve contaminated the area.”

  “It’s only methane gas — it’ll think we’re cows.” More stifled laughter.

  Another ten minutes went by.

  “We can’t stay much longer,” said Zak at last. “We’ll get hypothermia. Maybe we sho
uld call it a night.” His hands were tingling with cold and he hadn’t been able to feel his toes since ten minutes after he’d left the cottage.

  They stared at the ruin. It certainly looked spooky. Frosty moonlight shone through the single intact stone archway of what had once been the abbey’s nave. The lower part of the wall was black. In the wood at their backs, tree branches stirred, night creatures rustled in the stiffened undergrowth and from somewhere far off came the sound of a fox yipping. Suddenly, an owl hooted overhead. Zak and Rowan started and Belle growled.

  Then they heard a different sort of noise, one that was more familiar. The purring sound of a car engine was followed soon afterwards by the yellow glow of dipped headlights.

  “What is it? A tractor?” Rowan asked.

  “No, it’s a car. It’s stopping. It must have come down the track from the road.”

  Belle growled again, her body alert. Zak and Rowan exchanged puzzled glances. Zak gripped Belle’s collar and shushed her. They watched from the treeline. They heard the unmistakable sound of a car boot being slammed shut and then a figure loomed into view. He stood quite still and looked around him. Then he disappeared and emerged from behind the car a couple of moments later, making grunting sounds and straining under the weight of something heavy and cumbersome. Belle’s hackles rose and she stiffened. Zak sank to his knees beside her and whispered to her to be quiet.

  “He’s pulling something along,” Rowan muttered. “D’you think he could be a poacher?”

  “Shh,” Zak answered. They watched as the man hauled his burden across the ground.

  Zak and Rowan looked at each other, saucer-eyed. Zak whispered, “That’s a dead body he’s dragging, I’m sure of it.” His voice quivered. “He’s brought it here to bury it in the woods.”

  “We have to get away from here. If he sees us he’ll kill us too, to keep us quiet.” A frightened pause. “What if Belle starts barking?”