by Anita Waller
‘He sounds lovely. Do you have a picture?’
There was a deathly silence. Both Kat and Keeley knew if she saw a picture of Henry it would be so obvious to her who his father was. That fact had been the reason Kat had pushed Keeley into joining them for a drink, rather than going to Keeley’s house – photographs were everywhere.
‘Not with me, no,’ Keeley said.
‘Oh, that’s a shame. Maybe I’ll see him in the flesh one day. I’d like that.’
‘Of course,’ Keeley said. ‘It would be a pleasure to introduce you to him.’
Kat and Pam left Keeley to walk around the corner to her home, and then drove back to Buxton where Pam had made arrangements to meet with Carl Heaton for her visit to the bank.
Kat went inside with Pam. The older woman was clearly buzzing from her morning’s activities, and had relived every moment on the journey home. Keeley had handed over her phone number, pleased that the word phone hadn’t triggered a request to look at a picture of Henry in her phone pictures.
Pam had every intention of ringing Keeley that evening and thanking her for her company, and for her knowledge of her son’s life that she had chosen to share with her.
Deciding that a suit of some sort would be more in keeping for a trip to the bank, Pam disappeared upstairs to change, asking Kat if she wouldn’t mind waiting to let in the DS, as he was due to arrive.
Kat opened the door just a minute later, to be faced with a tall craggy man with light brown hair and eyes that lit up in surprise.
‘Well, Mrs Bird, you’ve changed,’ he said with a laugh.
‘Kat Rowe,’ she said, ‘I’ve been out with Pam all morning. We’ve been to Hope. To the churchyard. To a coffee shop.’ She was aware she was babbling inanely.
‘Kat Rowe of Connection?’
‘Yes. Or Kat Rowe of Leon Rowe fame.’
Heaton smiled, laughter lines etched into the sides of his eyes. ‘I prefer Kat Rowe of Connection. My current boss speaks very highly of you. She didn’t say you’re beautiful though. I call that not passing on enough information.’
She blushed, and felt a silly giggle begin to erupt; she changed it to a cough. ‘Thank you, kind sir. A proper Prince Charming. Would you like to come in?’
‘Indeed I would. Is Mrs Bird okay?’
‘She’s fine. We’ve had a lovely morning, and I don’t doubt I’ll be doing a return trip to the same place with her. She’s very sensibly said that she doesn’t want to drive until the drugs she has to take have stabilised.’
Kat led him into the lounge and a minute later heard the bedroom door close.
Pam joined them, and noticed the tinge of red in Kat’s cheeks. Either she’d been out in the sun too long, or her handsome escort had clearly seen Kat’s charms and flirted with her. Pam decided that was a result.
The journey to the bank didn’t take long, but Pam noticed Carl managed to mention Kat three times on the journey. Maybe a little bit of matchmaking might be in order, she decided. A friend had done that for her and William and they’d had a lovely life as a result.
She didn’t have to matchmake. It seemed Carl Heaton was perfectly capable of doing it himself.
‘You have Kat’s mobile number?’ he asked, as he left her.
Pam handed him her mobile phone. ‘It’s under R for Rowe,’ she said with a smile.
All three of them were sitting reading. No laptops were in sight, although Mouse was feeling a bit edgy that Tessa hadn’t rung to say they’d tracked the parcel delivery. She might just have to confess to having located it herself.
There was a slight ping, and Kat put down her book. She leaned across to the coffee table and picked up her phone, expecting it to be from her mother, saying her usual goodnight and sending a kiss to Martha. It wasn’t.
She didn’t recognise the number but once again her cheeks turned red.
It was lovely to meet you earlier and I meant every word I said. You’re a beautiful lady. Will you do me a massive favour and go for a coffee with me one day? Please don’t say no! Carl x
There wasn’t even a momentary hesitation.
Yes! Kat x
‘Your mum?’ Doris asked, lifting her head out of her book.
‘Isn’t it always,’ Kat answered. ‘She has to send her kiss for Martha every night.’
There was a second ping.
This Friday, 1pm, Village Green café in Eyam? x
The red that was fading in her cheeks came back in force.
Yes, don’t be late! x
A third ping.
As if… x
‘Nanny has sent three kisses tonight, then.’ Doris spoke without even lifting her head from her book, and Kat’s cheeks burnt like a forest fire.
33
‘Hi, Beth. DI Marsden here.’
Beth recognised that Tessa was being professional and formal. She responded in kind, assuming someone was with her.
‘DI Marsden. How can I help you?’
‘Are you in the office?’
‘We will be in ten minutes.’
‘Good, I’m coming over. See you soon.’
Kat was strapping Martha into the baby seat, and looked up in query.
‘Tessa’s coming to the office. Let’s wait and see if she’s got the info she needs on the parcel delivery before we are forced into telling her we’ve got it,’ Mouse said.
Kat shook her head, hiding her smile. One day Mouse would be in serious trouble for her hacking skills, she felt sure. ‘Okay, I’m ready to roll. See you down there.’
Kat had decided to take her own car; a cancellation at the registry office had given her the chance to register Martha’s birth at half past three. Having her own transport meant not troubling the two women who, she felt, constantly supported her.
The journey down into the centre of the village took very little time, and Kat placed Martha’s car seat on the floor while she raised the shutters and unlocked the door. She grabbed her tiny daughter and moved swiftly inside to get to the alarm before it woke up the whole of Derbyshire. Martha watched her mummy for a minute or so, then closed her eyes.
‘Sleepyhead,’ Kat said, and bent down to kiss her. She carried her through to her own office, set up the baby monitor, then gently closed the door.
Seconds later her co-workers appeared, and she pointed to her room before they asked the question.
Coffee was switched on in Mouse’s room, and Mouse placed her briefcase under her desk, with the printout showing the date and time of delivery of Alice’s parcel safely secured inside it.
Kat was placing a plate of biscuits on the desk when Marsden arrived.
‘Smells heavenly,’ Tessa commented. ‘Coffee at work always tastes burnt. It’s why most of our prisoners confess to anything, rather than have to endure more coffee.’
They sat around the desk, and eventually the talk turned to Alice Small. ‘We’re bringing her in this afternoon for a little chat.’
‘You’ve tracked the delivery?’ Mouse held her breath.
‘We have. It was delivered the day before Judy was killed, but you probably knew that.’ She looked at Mouse, daring her to deny it. Mouse simply shrugged, but relief washed over her.
Kat jumped in, saving Mouse from having to respond. ‘So Alice has no alibi for that morning?’
‘Not unless she can come up with someone who can place her in Bradwell for that entire three-hour period. Let’s not forget that by car she’s only five minutes away from the Carpenter house, and she’s an accomplished runner, so could probably head across the fields in pretty much the same time. As it stands, she started her daily run around ten. Judy was dead by then, she died sometime between Keeley hearing her shout around seven, and you finding the body around ten.’
Kat felt sick. She found it impossible to see Alice Small as a murderer, and although she was around five feet eight inches despite her surname, Kat wasn’t convinced Alice would have the strength to stun Judy with a blow to the head, and then proceed to butcher her
.
‘Do you think Alice murdered her?’ Doris asked the question knowing it would come from the girls if she didn’t.
There was a long thoughtful silence, then Tessa spoke. ‘Honestly? I have no idea. The evidence says yes; she has no alibi and she lied about the parcel delivery, but is that slip up attributable to her age? She’s over eighty, and memory lapses are common in older people, no matter how fit they are.’
Mouse grinned at the woman who was morphing into a friend. ‘So you’ve gone off the idea of a murderous Grace Earle?’
‘Huh. Not likely. The more I interview her, the more I dislike her. She’s obnoxious.’
‘You’ve never once said it could be a man,’ Kat said thoughtfully. ‘Is there a reason for that? There are men in that row of houses, all of whom could have gone through that loft space and down into Judy’s house. The two signatories were men. The chap who’s in Bournemouth – does he have an alibi that will bear scrutiny? Surely stabbing is more a male method for murder?’
‘Not really. I bet it’s fifty–fifty. It’s nearly always planned in advance though. The thought has to be there, so that the knife can be in the murderer’s possession, and I’m pretty sure Judy’s was planned. We haven’t found either the knife or whatever was used to hit her on the head. And we also don’t know how the killer got into the house.’
Mouse responded quickly. ‘The back door was open when we arrived.’
‘With the loft access, the back door could just be a diversion to make it look as though the approach was through the back garden. This open-plan attic is what’s made this investigation so convoluted. Why would you leave six houses with shared loft space? It doesn’t make sense. And I’m pretty sure it’s a fire hazard. That untenanted one, the one that’s going to be rented to the chap from Bournemouth, hasn’t even got a fitted loft access. Whoever lived there would have used a ladder to store stuff up there. It’s the only one we haven’t checked out inside, partly because there’s nobody in it, and partly because we haven’t got a key for it yet. We’re meeting the estate agent there tomorrow morning. I don’t expect to get anything from going inside, but it’s something else ticked off the to-do list.’
Mouse responded with a laugh. ‘Think these houses are pretty old. They didn’t have building regs and suchlike.’
The bell above the shop door pinged, and Doris stood to see who had arrived. ‘Hannah! You here for your boss?’
‘Yep. I’m going with her to take Mrs Small to the station. One of the lads has just dropped me off. It did occur to me that we spend more time investigating cases in your neck of the woods than we do in Chesterfield, so it would be a good idea to move our station here.’
Tessa walked out of Mouse’s office, having heard Hannah’s chatter, and five minutes later they had headed for Bradwell to collect Alice.
Kat felt sick. Could Alice possibly be the cold-blooded killer Tessa was leading them to believe? She moved to the large shop window and separated the blind slats, watching as Tessa’s car disappeared up the hill heading in the general direction of the pretty village where Alice lived. Kat felt so tempted to ring Alice and warn her, but knew they would lose Tessa’s trust immediately.
‘This can’t be right,’ she murmured under her breath.
Doris stepped up behind her and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Keep the faith, Kat. If Alice is innocent, it will be proved.’ There was a moment of hesitation. ‘If she’s innocent.’
Kat walked out of the registry office with a huge smile on her face and a birth certificate for Martha in her hand. She had taken her marriage certificate and Leon’s death certificate, and in the end there had been no problem in registering the baby as Martha Rowe, whose daddy was Leon Rowe.
She walked back to the car, hugged her daughter as if she never wanted to let her go, and drove home to Eyam. The text sent to her mother had informed that Martha was now officially a legal member of the family, and she had sent a photo of the birth certificate.
Arriving home, she was surprised to see her dad’s car on the drive, squeezed in the middle of Mouse’s Range Rover, and Doris’s much smaller Golf.
She opened the front door, and was greeted by cheers and clapping. Enid took Martha from her and removed her jacket. She handed a large box to Kat.
‘This is your christening gown, Kat. We’d be honoured if you used it, but don’t feel you have to if you’ve seen something else.’
Kat opened the box and gasped. Inside was a long lacy creation, with tiny matching shoes. ‘It’s perfect,’ she whispered, and felt tears prickle her eyes. ‘Perfect.’
Mouse received a text just before seven, and she too felt she could smile again.
Alice back home.
She breathed a sigh of relief, and passed the news on to Doris and Kat.‘Should I ring Tessa? I think she felt it was cut and dried, but if Alice is back home…’
‘Leave it for tonight. It’s been a long day, not only for us but also for her. She’s probably gone home to her microwave meal,’ Doris added.
Alice felt angry. She felt dirty. They had kept her in that pokey little room for hours, to no avail. They asked her for an alibi, she once again provided one, and they said the parcel had been delivered the day before.
She denied it, eventually admitting that her brain wasn’t as active as it had once been, and she might have got the wrong day. If that was the case, then she was sorry for misleading them. When every day was the same, it was easy to make mistakes, and if that meant she didn’t have an alibi, then so be it. She wasn’t a murderer, her trust was in the Lord, and she could do no more to help them.
The result was a return to her home, but with instructions to not leave the area. They would probably want to speak with her again. Hannah went in with her, concerned that the ordeal had been considerable for someone of her age. She didn’t want the elderly lady collapsing or something… She was quite surprised when Alice dismissed her immediately, saying she wanted to get the sounds and the smell of the station out of her system and she was going in the shower.
Alice stepped into the cascading stream of hot water and scrubbed at her skin until it felt raw. She dried herself, then wrapped her slender ageing body in the fluffy white towel. Running a comb through her thinning grey hair, she stared at the face reflected in the mirror. Lined, but still a healthy colour helped by her daily run in all weathers, she gave a small smile. ‘Thank you, Lord,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you.’
And Kat received a text.
Three more sleeps x
She didn’t respond, merely smiled. Happily.
34
Wednesday morning brought rain. The trees looked miserable, the army of visitors who descended on Eyam every day looked miserable, tables outside tearooms and cafés were unoccupied, and the whole village had an air of grumpiness.
Kat had disappeared to church to book in Martha’s christening and to take a prayer meeting; she felt happy to be easing back into the role she had cherished and relished for so many years. Her prayer for Leon brought tears; she knew tears would have been shed in Canada too, and Martha’s other grandparents got a special mention. She lit a candle for her husband, and one for his parents. One day she would tell them how much she had loved him.
An hour later she was back in Connection, ringing her mother to check that Martha was okay.
‘Of course she is. Your dad is teaching her to count.’
‘She’s maybe a bit young.’
‘Not according to your dad. Now get back to work and stop worrying. Just book Martha in on an accountancy course in case your dad gets one to ten wrong.’
Kat disconnected, a smile on her face. She was so lucky to have such amazing back-up for her daughter while she pursued her church and Connection careers.
Rain or no rain, life was good.
Hope didn’t miss out on the rain either. Marsden and Hannah sat in the car, waiting for the estate agent to show up with a key. He arrived on a bike. Dripping water everywhere, he unlocked the
front door and ushered them in.
‘Maybe I should have brought the car this morning,’ he said.
‘Maybe you should.’ Marsden smiled. She bent down and picked up the four letters lying on the floor. All appeared to be junk. Three were addressed to Mr John Cannon, all wanting him to buy insurance policies, and one was addressed to Mrs A Small. That one wanted Alice to have a credit card.
‘Mr John Cannon?’ Tessa asked the estate agent.
‘The last tenant. He left about three months ago.’
‘Mrs Small?’
‘She was sort of the tenant before Mr Cannon. Peppercorn tenant. The owner was her nephew. She left a couple of years ago, bought a house in Bradwell, I believe. Oh…’ his brain clicked into gear, ‘but you’ll probably know that, won’t you, in view of what’s gone on here.’
Marsden simply shook her head. Why hadn’t she known this? She asked Hannah to check everywhere downstairs, told the red-faced man to wait in the hall, and she headed upstairs.
She stood below the loft hatch and carefully inspected it. Nothing looked… off. The smaller bedroom was empty, and the bigger double bedroom was almost empty; it did have a ladder in the large built-in wardrobe.
She took out her phone. ‘Send a SOCO team. I need a ladder, a loft hatch and anything else necessary checking for fingerprints and blood traces.’
She headed downstairs. The estate agent was sitting on the bottom tread, waiting for them.
‘We’re going to be a while,’ Marsden said, ‘and I have to ask you now to go outside.’
‘It’s raining. How long will you be?’
‘Depends how long it takes them to get a team together, then they have to get here from Chesterfield, then do the job…’