The first thing I heard was Heathcliff gasp, a sound so utterly out of character it made my stomach tighten in fear. As Morrie emerged on the landing, he swore. Heathcliff turned and waved at me to go back up the stairs.
“It’s not for you to see,” he growled.
“Don’t be so old-fashioned. I’ve seen drunk guys passed out on the floor before—” I peered around Heathcliff’s bulk, and my stomach plunged into my knees.
In front of the Sociology shelf, a lump of clothing spread across the floor. A hand stuck out at an angle, clutching a bloodied Birkin bag. Two pale legs jutted out from the hem of a pink dress covered with a pattern of revolvers.
Not a pile of clothing. A body. A body wearing a very familiar Marcus Ribald dress.
Ashley lay face down on the brown shop carpet. A knife stuck out of her back, a trickle of blood dribbling across her bright-pink dress and across the rug.
Someone… someone stabbed Ashley.
Chapter Ten
Bile rose in my throat. “Ashley?”
This is some kind of joke. Any second now she’s going to leap up and yank the prop knife out of her back and tell me I’m a silly bitch for falling for her practical joke. And then we’ll hug and be friends again.
Ashley didn’t move. Morrie stepped over her, bending down to examine the knife. He pressed two fingers to her throat, and shook his head.
Heathcliff gathered me in his arms, his smoky, peaty scent invading my nostrils. “She’s gone,” he whispered.
No no no no.
It can’t be true. Ashley can’t be dead.
“I’ll call the brass.” Morrie slid his phone out of his pocket.
“I’ll finish the tea,” Quoth said, slipping back upstairs.
Heathcliff shuffled me back onto the landing, placing himself between me and Ashley’s body. “I just saw her today,” I whispered into his stiff coat. Warmth radiated from his arms through my whole body, but it couldn’t dislodge the ice stabbing into my heart. The scent of old leather and rich ink wafted from his clothes, mingling with his spicy, peaty scent – the comforting smell of books baked into his essence.
Ashley’s dead.
Not just dead. Murdered. That knife didn’t get there by accident. While I was upstairs spilling my guts to Heathcliff and Morrie and Quoth, she was down here getting stabbed.
But who would want Ashley dead? And why? And why would they do it here?
Morrie slid his phone back into his pocket. “The police are on their way. We don’t have much time. Mina, we have to—”
“Don’t ask her,” Heathcliff warned him. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Sorry, mate. It’s so much neater if we get Mina to agree.” Morrie tugged on the hem of his waistcoat.
“Agree to what? My best friend is dead.” Panic crept across my chest.
“Ex-best friend,” Morrie reminded me. “Mina, we have to talk to you about something, and it can’t wait. The police are going to ask you about finding the body. You can’t tell them Quoth was down here first.”
“Huh?” His words took too long to penetrate the fog in my mind. “Why not?”
“Because… because Quoth isn’t supposed to be here. The person who discovers the body is always a suspect. If the police know he found the body, they will look too deep into his background, and they’ll take him away to a very bad situation.”
“You mean jail. Is Quoth a criminal?” I bet he’s a creepy stalker, I thought but didn’t say.
“No, I do not mean jail,” Morrie said. He reached up and stroked my hair. With Heathcliff’s huge arms around me and Morrie touching my face, my focus wavered, my mind slipping further from reality. “Quoth’s never so much as collected a speeding ticket, nevermind broken any useful law. This situation is complicated, and he won’t want to burden you with his story right after you’ve just had this shock. But if the police knew he was here at all, it would be bad for him, for all of us.”
“You want me to lie to the police to protect this guy?” A horrible thought occurred to me. “But he was downstairs alone at the same time as Ashley. He could have done this to her.”
“He wasn’t alone, and he didn’t do this,” Morrie said. “I know that for a fact.”
“As do I,” said Heathcliff.
“How, how?”
“Gorgeous, we don’t have time to give you the full story. I promise that whatever happens, we’ll lend our considerable resources to protect you. And as soon as we can we’ll tell you everything. Right now, all I need for you to do is trust me. Can you do that?”
“Ashley is dead and you’re asking me to lie to the police. No, of course I can’t bloody trust you!”
“Only to protect an innocent person who absolutely did not commit this crime. But if they know he was first to see the body they will focus on him instead of going after the real killer.”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me to do this.”
“I can’t either,” Heathcliff growled. “Mina should speak the truth. We’ll figure out a way to help Quoth. We always do.”
“I’m not forcing Mina to do this,” Morrie said. “It’s her decision. But it would be infinitely easier if she left Quoth out of it. If she felt bad afterward, she could always go to the police and change her story, say the shock affected her and made her forget certain details.”
“You’ve accounted for my eventual betrayal?” I didn’t know whether to be impressed or offended.
“All you need to tell the police is exactly what you saw – that we all heard a noise, and you came down the stairs after us and saw the body on the floor, already dead. Just leave out the part about Quoth coming down first.”
“Where will Quoth be in this story?”
“Nowhere. Quoth doesn’t ‘technically’ live here. So just don’t mention him.”
“But he’s upstairs getting the tea!”
Morrie shook his head. “No, he’s not.”
I broke from Heathcliff’s grasp and raced upstairs, tripping on the second step and pitching forward, nearly chipping another tooth on the doorknob. I caught myself and fumbled through the living room to the tiny kitchen at the rear of the flat. Unlike the living room, it fit the vernacular of typical bachelor flat – a mess of unwashed dishes and empty takeout containers in various stages of decomposition. Wind whipped the curtains from the open back window.
I lifted the kettle off the stove. It was ice cold. Quoth was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Eleven
“Are you okay to answer a few questions now, ma’am?” The young sergeant asked, her eyes eager.
I sat in Heathcliff’s chair in the main room of the shop. A cup of tea sat undrunk on the desk in front of me. Nevermore Bookshop was now officially a crime scene. Police officers filled the tiny space, combing the staircase, hallway, and garden for clues while the SOCO team worked upstairs, first zipping Ashley’s body into a white bag and removing her to wherever they took bodies, then taping off the Sociology shelves and dusting and dabbing and tweezing every tiny scrap of physical evidence. Heathcliff flanked my left side, a strong, warm hand resting on my shoulder. His presence was all that kept the bile rising in my throat.
“Yeah, sure.” I tied my unruly hair up into a bun, then let it down again. I folded my hands in my lap, then unfolded them. I dabbed at my eyes, but they were dry. I didn’t know what a person was supposed to do when their ex-best friend was murdered.
“You were the one who found the victim?”
“No. I mean, not really.” I pointed to the tall figure standing across the room speaking with another police officer. His eyes met mine, eyebrows raised in pleading. My stomach churned. I screwed up my eyes. I can’t believe I’m doing this. “I was behind Morrie and Heathcliff. We heard a noise and ran downstairs and we found her lying on the ground, and the knife…”
And Quoth, Quoth was there first. He found the body and then he fled. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t make them fall out. Maybe it was He
athcliff’s hand on my shoulder, or Morrie’s smile, or the wave of exhaustion washing over me. My cheeks burned with heat. Any moment now, Sergeant Wilson would call me out on my lie and throw me in jail…
Instead, she patted my hand. “Please, take your time. I know it was a horrible thing to see. I understand you knew the victim?”
“Yes. Her name was Ashley Greer. Her mum lives up on Donahue Road. We’ve been friends since we were fifteen, and we lived together in New York City for the last four years.” I pulled at a loose thread on my skirt. “Actually, we used to be friends. Ashley and I had a falling out recently and we haven’t talked in a few weeks. I didn’t know she was back in town until she showed up at the shop.”
Sergeant Wilson scribbled furiously. “You used to be friends?”
“Yeah. Back in New York City, we were both working for the same fashion designer. Ashley got competitive over a job we were both up for. She told the designer something about me – a secret I told her in confidence – so the designer would choose her instead.”
“What did she say about you?”
My throat closed.
“It’s not important. It’s not relevant to the investigation,” Heathcliff snapped.
“I’ll decide what’s relevant.” But I shook my head and the sergeant didn’t press. Instead, she turned back through her pages of notes. “You saw Ashley in the shop this evening?”
“No, earlier today. She came into the bookshop this afternoon, and stayed for an hour or so.” I flicked my head toward the staircase, and a pang of nausea clenched my gut. “She spent most of her time in the Sociology section. She even came back after she changed her outfit.”
“Why did she change her outfit?”
I explained how the shop’s raven had left a present on her shoulder. “She must’ve been looking for something in particular, but she never asked for help. We only spoke for a few moments.”
Sergeant Wilson added several notes on her pad. “You speak as if her behavior was strange.”
“Ashley’s not a sociology buff. In fact, she’s not really into books or learning at all. This is the last place I’d expect to see her.”
“Do you think she came here to talk to you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so. She seemed surprised to see me.”
“And where would you expect to see her around the village, if not in the bookshop?”
In a dark cave, sharpening her claws. “I don’t know. At home with her mum, at the pub, or heading down to London for shopping or a gig. Ashley never liked Argleton much. It’s not her scene.”
“So you have no idea what made her return to the bookshop this evening?”
I shook my head. “The bookshop wasn’t even open. The door would normally be locked. It was only open because Morrie left it unlocked for my visit. We’re building a website for the shop.”
“So you didn’t invite her back to the bookshop?”
I shook my head “No.”
“And you have no idea what she was doing downstairs after hours?”
“I already said that! There weren’t even any lights on. Qu— Morrie turned them on when he came down the stairs.”
“Ashley wasn’t looking for you? Perhaps she wanted to discuss what you were fighting about.”
“I doubt it. As far as Ashley was concerned, she hadn’t done anything wrong. I was the one being over-dramatic. Why are you asking me about my fight with Ashley? That’s not going to help you find her killer.”
“One more thing.” Sergeant Wilson held up a plastic bag containing a plain ring – a small diamond on a narrow gold band. “This ring was found in the victim’s pocket. Do you recognise it?”
I shook my head. “Ashley would never be caught dead in something like that. It’s not even close to her style.”
Sergeant Wilson snapped her pad shut and stood up. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mina. That’s all we need for now. However, we may ask you to come down to the station for further questioning, so don’t leave the county, got it?”
“Hey, guv?” one of the officers called out. “I found something.”
I watched the sergeant walk away, my mind reeling. Further questioning? Don’t leave the county?
Are they making me a suspect?
The uniformed officer crouched beside the wingback chair under the window. He held up a book. Bright illustrated cats danced across the dust jacket. The homeless man’s book. “I found this shoved under that chair,” he said. “There’s a bit of a stink over here, too, like a cat puked up.”
“That’s the book the homeless man was reading earlier,” I said. “But it shouldn’t be under the chair. I put it away on the shelf.”
“Homeless man?” Wilson narrowed her eyes at me. “You didn’t mention this.”
“His name is Earl,” Heathcliff called out. “Long beard, tatty coat. I let him come in sometimes when the shop’s quiet an’ read.”
“That’ll be Earl Larson, then?” The officer asked. Heathcliff nodded. “We’re aware of him. I’ve done him a few times for loitering ‘n causing a disturbance down the pub, but he’s a good sort. Mostly harmless.”
“He was in earlier today,” I said. “He sat in that chair reading for about an hour. But I swear I put that book away.” Wilson made a gesture to the officer, who slid a paper evidence envelope from the open packet on the table and inserted the book inside. Tonight I’d learned that evidence bags should always be paper, not clear plastic like they were on TV.
“If the door was open, maybe he came back. He might’ve wanted shelter from the storm.”
“That’s what we thought when we heard the noise. There was a thump, and the sound of the door slamming.”
She turned to Heathcliff. “You said there was money missing from the till?”
I glanced at Heathcliff in surprise. He nodded. “Aye, about a hundred quid.”
Wilson added the evidence bag to her stack of papers, and made a note on her pad. “Thank you for this information. We’ll need to have a word with Mr. Larson. Any other unusual activity in the shop over the last few days, Mina?”
“I’ve only worked here two days,” I said.
“Oh, I see.” She scribbled something else down. The knot of panic in my chest tightened. Why is she so interested in everything I say? “Mr. Earnshaw, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary in or around the shop recently?”
“Nothing unusual,” Heathcliff said. Wilson dismissed me to question him, and I went to stand with Moriarty on the landing. He’d finished chatting to the Chief Inspector, and was watching the SOCO team work through the evidence with a rapt expression on his face.
“Why do you look so happy? Ashley was just murdered.”
“Murder fascinates me.” Morrie’s arm slid around my shoulders, pulling me tight against him. I sank into the warmth of his body and his lavender and vanilla scent. “I’ve already read every book in the True Crime section. In another life, I might’ve been a detective. It’s fascinating seeing a crime scene unfolding in real life. So how’s the number one suspect?”
“You mean me?”
“Of course you. Couldn’t you tell from all those questions Sergeant Jenny Wilson was asking you?”
“How am I the number one suspect?”
“It’s elementary.” Morrie grinned, ticking off points on his fingers. “You had a falling out with the victim. You saw her earlier today, so you knew she was in town. She was killed in your workplace, at night, while you were upstairs. You were one of the first people to find the body.”
Bloody hell. When he put it like that… “But I was hanging out with you guys the whole time. You’re my alibis.”
“Yes, and no.”
“What do you mean, and no?”
“I’ve just overheard Sergeant Wilson asking Heathcliff about his personal life. If she doesn’t know his reputation as the resident village Bernard Black, she’ll find out soon enough. My own reputation precedes me as well. She may believe we’d be inclined to
protect you because we’re lonely bachelors and you’re the first pretty girl who tolerates our eccentricities. It does look pretty suspicious you got this job two days ago without any bookshop experience, and now your old friend turns up dead.”
“But I’m only a suspect because I’m lying to protect Quoth.” I slid out from under his arm. “This is all your fault. I never should have lied.”
“You can go and tell Wilson about Quoth if it’s really important to you,” Morrie grinned. “Of course, if you tell her you lied about that detail, you’ll look even more guilty.”
“I can’t believe you did this to me,” I hissed. “I might be in serious trouble because I lied. You never told me I’d be making myself into a suspect. I thought you were my friend.”
“We’re whatever you want us to be, gorgeous.” Morrie held out his hand. “I made you a promise. We all did – we’ll protect you. We take our promises seriously. We’re going to find out who did this and get you off the hook for this murder.”
“And just how are you going to do that?” I folded my arms across my chest.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m very clever. Quoth can be resourceful. And Heathcliff is terrifying, especially if someone he cares about is in trouble.”
“Heathcliff doesn’t care about me. He’s barely known me three days, and he doesn’t even seem to like me that much.”
“If you say so.” Morrie waved at someone. “Between the four of us, we will make sure the real killer is punished for what he’s done. Hey, there’s Jo.”
“Hey Morrie!” A woman on the other side of the police tape swiped a blonde lock off her face and made a shooing motion at me. “Don’t lean over the tape like that. We can’t risk you contaminating the scene.”
“Right.” I leaned back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Mina’s lying,” Morrie said.
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