Detectives Merry & Neal Books 1-3

by JANICE FROST

  She arrived at the café early and made her way to a secluded table with a mug of coffee and a pain au chocolat. She saw Gabe striding along the pavement dressed in a long dark coat, the tails billowing out, revealing a flash of burgundy lining with every step. He was looking straight ahead. It did not seem to occur to him to look in the window. He caught sight of her, signalled a ‘hello,’ and proceeded to the counter to buy a drink before sliding into the seat opposite her.

  “Glad you could make it,” he said. Laura inclined her head. “I’m sorry I left the party so abruptly the other night but I noticed David Pine watching us and I didn’t want him to make a scene.”

  Laura wrapped her hands around her mug and hugged it to her chest. “Why would he make a scene?”

  Gabe ignored the question. “Did he say anything to you after I left?” Laura touched the bruise on her arm where David had gripped it so tightly.

  “He asked what we were talking about.” She noticed a flicker of alarm cross Gabe’s face and reassured him. “I didn’t tell him anything. I pretended to be tipsy.”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as strange, him wanting to know?”

  “Not really. You made it plain that there was no love lost between you. If anything, he was probably looking out for me. I don’t know. I’m not sure why I’ve come here, really. I told you I don’t believe my husband or my friends had anything to do with your girlfriend’s disappearance. You aren’t going to convince me otherwise.”

  “I’d like to try,” Gabe said softly.

  Laura felt a flash of anger. “You’re full of crap, and I don’t have to sit here and listen to it.”

  “That’s true, you don’t. If the past is sacred and immutable for you, then just go and carry on as before.”

  “The past isn’t just fixed for me, Mr North, it’s fixed for everyone.”

  “Only if you shut off your mind to different interpretations of it.”

  “Full of crap,” Laura reiterated. Her shoulders ached with tension. Her hands trembled as she returned her mug to the table. The coffee was too strong, too bitter and she hadn’t really wanted it after the hot chocolate.

  Whatever she had just told Gabe North, she understood that she badly needed to re-examine the past ten years.

  “Wherever they were the night Steph disappeared, your husband and friends were not at their flat as they claimed to the police,” Gabe said.

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I know because I was there that evening.”

  “I thought you said you were babysitting Steph’s daughter?”

  “I . . . left her for a couple of hours. She was asleep. I didn’t think any harm could come to her.” Gabe looked ashamed. “I was young and stupid and I’m not proud of it.”

  “So there’s a gap big enough to drive a lorry through in your alibi for the night Steph disappeared? And you’re accusing my husband and friends of something unthinkable, when from where I’m sitting it could just as easily have been you? That’s bloody laughable!” Her voice was becoming shrill and Gabe looked alarmed. “What’s wrong? Scared somebody’ll hear me and start asking questions?”

  “Calm down, Laura.” When he spoke her name she stared at him, her anger subsiding. “Hear me out at least, then do what you think best.”

  “What were you doing at David and Ewan’s flat when they weren’t there?”

  “I broke in.”

  This was so unexpected it had to be true. “Why would you do that?”

  “Again, it’s not something I’m proud of. I thought Steph was sleeping with Ewan and I wanted to catch them at it. I suppose I was jealous.”

  “That’s pathetic and sad.”

  “I totally agree. But it does prove — to me at any rate — that all three of them lied about their whereabouts that night.”

  “But you couldn’t tell the police that because then you’d be destroying your own alibi.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why should I believe you? I mean why are you so intent on bringing all this up now? I get that Steph was your girlfriend and that you don’t know what became of her, but why now?”

  “I’ve never stopped wondering what happened to Steph. But eventually, for my own peace of mind, I had to let it go. I probably wouldn’t have brought it all up again if it hadn’t been for . . .” Gabe seemed to check himself. His gaze was turned towards the baristas busy behind the counter with their noisy, hissing machines.

  “Hadn’t been for what?” Laura prompted. She was becoming impatient.

  “Steph’s daughter, Tess. She tracked me down a few weeks ago. She remembered me as the man who used to babysit for her and tell her stories. She remembered my name even though she was only a child when her mother disappeared.”

  Laura gasped. “Wait. Was this before or after Ewan’s death?”

  “Before. She didn’t know your husband, or the Pines. The timing was coincidental. She begged me to help her find out the truth about what happened to her mother. I refused at first, but . . . well, I suppose I felt a certain responsibility.” Laura eyed Gabe with distrust. “I know. It’s all a bit of a mess. And I know it seems oddly coincidental Ewan’s turning up here just after Tess contacted me, but it is what it is.”

  Laura leaned towards him. “Did Tess make contact with Ewan? Did she lure him down here? So that she could get her revenge . . . or kill him?”

  Gabe seemed genuinely surprised. “That’s not . . . No! And she didn’t ask me to kill him either.”

  Laura’s head reeled. She again had the suspicion that the people around her all seemed to know something she didn’t. Ten years ago they had left her out, and she was still excluded now.

  Another, more disturbing thought worried away at the back of her mind. Ewan had talked openly about all of his sexual partners, and assured her that none of them had meant anything. When they’d taken up their relationship again, they’d even joked with each other about their affairs. But not once had Ewan ever mentioned Steph.

  Gabe North was looking at her, frowning, and Laura realised that she had been silent for some time.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

  Laura shook her head.

  “How well did you know your husband, Mrs Cameron?”

  “I . . . I knew him as well as I knew myself. We grew up together. Don’t shake your head like that. You’re going to say people change or that no one ever truly knows another person . . .”

  Suddenly she could take no more. She excused herself and went to the Ladies. She sat down in a cubicle, shaking with frustration and anger. Fuck their fucking arrangement. Fuck the three years they had spent apart. Could a person change utterly in that amount of time? The truth was, Laura knew very little about Ewan’s time in Stromford. She hadn’t been part of that life.

  Laura became aware that she was sobbing uncontrollably. A voice outside the cubicle said, “Mrs Cameron? Is that you? Are you all right? A Mr North asked me to check on you. He said you looked unwell when you left him.”

  “Tell him to go to hell!” Laura said. “Tell him to leave me alone!” Inside her head there was another voice. Tell him I don’t want to look any deeper. Damn him and his questions and insinuations.

  A pause. “Mrs Cameron? Are you all right?”

  Laura laughed hysterically. “Do I sound all right?”

  “Should I call someone?”

  Laura realised that the do-gooder outside wasn’t going to give up easily. With a sigh, she unlocked the door and stepped out. “Thank you for your concern,” she said. The woman peered at her through rimless glasses, her eyes avid with ill-disguised curiosity. “I’m all right now.” Before the woman could question her, Laura barged past her back into the coffee shop. She saw Gabe North seated where she’d left him, fingers to his mouth. Biting his nails down to the quick, no doubt. He made to stand as Laura strode over to him. Did he think that she was going to walk right past his table and storm out of the café? Laura threw herself into the chair
opposite him.

  “The truth is, Mr North, I haven’t been completely honest with myself and that’s a hard thing to admit.” Gabe North looked surprised. “Ewan was different after our three years apart. Of course he was. I was too. People do a lot of growing up at that stage in their life.”

  “How was he different?”

  “Well, for one thing he was anxious for us to be married as soon as possible. I was surprised because I’d felt us drifting apart and I was ready to be let off the commitment hook. When we met in the Easter holidays during his last term at Stromford, I had suspected he was too. Then all of a sudden he was back in Edinburgh and desperate to pick up where we’d left off.”

  Gabe looked flushed. “Security. He needed to feel safe again. To convince himself that he was still the person he thought he was. Being accepted and loved by you was proof that he could be good. He was adrift morally and you were an anchor. Marriage stopped him having to confront the enormity of what he’d done. In some ways it could be viewed as—”

  “What, his punishment? His chance for atonement?” His insinuations were hurtful and unsettling. Laura was reminded yet again of Rhona speaking about atonement. “You mean he’d fucked up and marrying me was his chance for redemption? Marriage to me would be shit but not as shit as admitting to his crime — whatever that was — and going to prison!” Heads turned in their direction and Laura realised that she was shouting. She glared around angrily. One of the faces belonged to the ‘do-gooder’ from the Ladies.

  “That’s not what I said. Come on, let’s get out of here.” In a loud voice, Gabe addressed the gawpers. “Show’s over, folks.”

  Outside, Laura allowed Gabe to steer her down some steep steps leading to the river. A narrowboat scythed through the water, leaving swans and ducks bobbing behind it. Laura felt exhausted. She leaned over the railing, wishing she could jump over and land on the narrowboat’s deck and just follow the river wherever it took her. She had spent the last ten years of her life floundering in the wake of Ewan’s moods, why not let herself be borne away by a gentler current?

  After a few moments, Gabe said, “I’m sorry. I got carried away and I upset you. I keep forgetting that Ewan Cameron was your husband. I can’t just land my suspicions on you and expect you to embrace them wholeheartedly. All I ask is that you spend some time looking back on the past ten years. Try and reflect on your time with Ewan and see things the way I do.”

  Laura felt exhausted. “Sure. Revise my marriage, my life, practically all of the past ten years, just like that. That’s a big ask. What if I don’t like this new version? What if it shows me that for all those years I was living a lie? How am I supposed to come to terms with a thing like that?”

  “You’ll find a way. The truth is cathartic. You didn’t need to meet me again, but something made you contact me. You’re already halfway there.”

  “How do you even know she’s dead? I mean, they never found a body, right?”

  “She wouldn’t have abandoned Tess.”

  “Oh,” said Laura. “No, I suppose not.”

  “The police were hopeless. When they couldn’t pin her disappearance on me they just gave up. Lack of evidence, they said. The case went cold.”

  “The detectives looking into Ewan’s death seem competent enough,” Laura said, picturing the brooding inspector and his effortlessly beautiful sergeant. “Maybe I should speak with them about Steph. Not because I think my husband and my friends were involved. The opposite, in fact. To prove to you that I’m right. I’m sorry for Steph’s daughter. It must be heart-breaking for her not to know what happened to her mother.” Gabe looked alarmed at her suggestion, Laura noticed. “What is it? Are you afraid of what else they might discover? If I tell them you left Tess alone for a couple of hours? You say you went to David and Ewan’s flat, but how can you prove it?”

  “I was afraid to tell the truth about that back then, but I’m not now. I’d go and confess this minute if I thought it would do any good, but it won’t. The police will only waste more time focusing on me instead of investigating what they need to.”

  “I don’t see how I can help you, Gabe,” she said.

  “There must be something you can uncover while you are staying with the Pines. You knew Rhona well once, didn’t you? Maybe you can make her talk to you.”

  Again, that certainty, persisting in the face of all Laura’s denials, that Ewan and her friends were involved in Steph’s disappearance.

  Laura sighed. “I’ll see what I can find out. Brace yourself for disappointment, Gabe.” Turning from him, she gazed across the river to the busy market square where lunchtime shoppers were darting to and fro. If she were back home in Edinburgh, she too would be preoccupied with work and all those mundane tasks that make for an unexamined life. Laura had long suspected that her busy life was a way to distract her from her relationship with Ewan. She had allowed the years to tick by unscrutinised, unfelt. She had never asked herself if she was happy.

  Standing by the side of the river with Gabe North, she felt a familiar emotion, loneliness. It had been her constant, sometimes her only companion throughout most of her marriage to Ewan.

  “I have to get back to work. Can I expect to hear from you again?”

  “Maybe,” Laura answered, her eyes on the stretch of river no longer furrowed by the retreating narrowboat. She was aware of Gabe North nodding soberly, and of the sound of his feet on the steps, but she kept her eyes on the water, marvelling at how the swans were content to glide on its now calm surface, the narrowboat’s turbulence already forgotten.

  Chapter 11

  Ava’s dislike of Reg Saunders didn’t spring simply from the fact that he was old school in his attitudes. She could forgive the fact that he was more interested in her body than her mind. After all, she’d come across plenty of women who shared that very view of men. No, her dislike of him sprang from nothing more rational than a prickly feeling that she felt whenever she was in his company. It came down to the fact that she simply didn’t trust him. And in Ava’s book, trust was everything when it came to relationships, in her work and her personal life.

  She wasn’t in the best of moods, therefore, when she approached Saunders for an update on the theft of chemicals from Ridgeway Farm on the night Ewan Cameron met his untimely end. His smile was lascivious when she greeted him with a reluctant, “Good morning.”

  “At least pretend you mean it, Blondie,” Saunders said, just managing to keep his eyes on her face. “If you’re after info on the Ridgeway theft, I don’t have a lot for you. Josh Martin, the owner, might as well have advertised his stock of chemicals in the Courier and invited thieves to help themselves.”

  “His security was a bit lax then, was it?” Ava said.

  “Try non-existent. He kept his supplies of pesticides and fertilisers in an outbuilding out of view of the farmhouse. No security lighting, alarms or cameras. He did have a padlock on the door but the windows were unsecured. The thieves entered via one of them. Didn’t even need to smash the glass.”

  “Any evidence left on site? Footprints? Discarded materials?” Ava asked hopefully.

  Saunders shook his head. “Nada. We do know they drove across a couple of fields to access the farm. Left tracks behind but they used a transit van, common make, no identifiable features. They knew what they were doing all right. Magpie Farm is a couple of miles west of Ridgeway but Gordon Perkins has state of the art security. No one in their right mind would target his stores over the Martins’.”

  “How much did they get away with?”

  “Five grand’s worth of chemicals, but Martin also had ten grand’s worth of tools and equipment stored in the same outbuilding. They took the lot.”

  “I’m assuming there were no identification markings on any of it?”

  Saunders merely gave her a look.

  “So. Ewan Cameron. Do you think there’s a connection? Or was it just coincidence that he died the same night? Murder’s a big step up from theft.”


  Saunders pursed his lips and gave a non-committal grunt. “Not if you’re desperate or if you don’t give a shit about the value of a human life. If the thieves weren’t local opportunists, the alternative would be an organised gang of some sort, and Stromford’s got its share of low-life scumbags.” Ava suspected that he was alluding to the recent influx of Eastern European migrants to Stromford, to whom any rise in criminal activity was routinely attributed, justifiably or otherwise. She was aware of Saunders waiting for her to comment, but she let his remark go unchallenged. Like most bigots, he was careful not to express his views outright. Nowadays people like him made use of suggestion and innuendo.

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope that there were any witnesses?” she said.

  “Way too much. Unless you count a couple of nags in the paddock behind the outbuildings.”

  “Cameron’s car was found close to Ridgeway Farm — practically on the doorstep. If he’d witnessed something, the thieves could easily have killed him and dumped his body a distance up the road at the abbey ruin, but why would they bother? It would have taken them out of their way. Why not just leave him in the car?”