‘Don’t move!’ Judith shouted again.
Before Judith had time to react, Danny picked up Judith’s card table and threw it at her. She put up her arms to defend herself, but the table knocked her back onto the floor, the gun spinning from her hand.
Judith lay on the carpet, winded, pain shooting up her arms where she’d broken her fall, but she knew she had to get back to her feet, she had to get to the gun before Danny.
She dragged herself up onto one knee and looked for the gun, but it had gone. Where was it?
Danny was holding it in his hand and pointing it directly at her face.
Judith knew it was finally over for her. But she wouldn’t give Danny the satisfaction of seeing her fear, she was going to look her murderer square in the face.
It was because her eyes were open that she was able to see the roar of teeth and claws as a wild beast flew in through the broken window before landing on her paws and then bounding up in one leap and knocking Danny over.
Judith realised that the beast was Emma, and she’d pinned Danny to the floor!
‘Help!’ Danny screamed, the gun skittering across the parquet from his hand as Emma’s teeth grabbed hold of his wrist and then shook him, trying to break his arm.
Moments later, the door banged open and an exhausted Becks burst into the room. Taking in the scene, with Emma growling in Danny’s face, Judith off to one side, Becks saw that a Luger pistol was directly at her feet, so she picked it up.
Three drenched police officers entered right behind Becks, saw Danny on the floor and turned to Judith.
‘Is that your dog?’
‘No she bloody well isn’t,’ a stentorian voice called from the window.
They all turned and saw Suzie standing outside in the rain, duckweed in her hair.
‘That’s Iqbal’s dog,’ she said.
At the sound of Suzie’s voice, Emma let go of Danny, but kept growling at him as the police officers pulled him to his feet and roughly handcuffed him.
Judith suddenly felt woozy and leant against an armchair.
‘Are you okay?’ Becks said, going to Judith.
‘I will be in a minute.’
Becks looked over at the three police officers as they marched Danny out of the room.
‘Danny Curtis was the killer?’ Becks said, amazed.
‘One of three,’ Judith said.
Tanika wheezed into the room, out of breath.
‘Okay, that was too far to run,’ she said.
‘You ran here?’ Judith asked.
‘It’s a long story,’ Becks said, ‘but we had to. It took us ages to move a tree that was blocking the road.’
‘Only thanks to Becks’ quick thinking,’ Tanika added. ‘She got hold of a rope and her car to move it, but the tree wouldn’t budge. We were completely stuck. And then the most amazing thing happened. People started arriving, coming out of their houses, streaming over the bridge.’
‘They did?’ Judith asked. ‘Why?’
‘Becks had rung the church bell. And the whole town turned out in the rain to see if they could help. There must have been two hundred of us by the end, and between the people of Marlow and the car we finally got the tree moved just enough that we could scrape past.’
‘Amazing,’ Judith said. ‘And you should know, you have to arrest Elliot Howard and Andy Bishop for murder as well.’
Judith quickly explained to Tanika and Becks how the three men had carried out the murders for each other.
‘It’s how I knew Danny would try to kill me tonight,’ she said, concluding her story. ‘It’s how they always did things. For each murder, the least likely person would do the killing while the other two would make sure they had unbreakable alibis. So I knew my life was in danger the moment Elliot told me he wouldn’t be in Marlow tonight, even though it was a choir night. And Andy’s secretary confirmed he’d be away as well.’
‘I’ll make sure they’re arrested tonight,’ Tanika said.
‘Elliot’s at a football match in London somewhere, and Andy’s in Plymouth.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll pull them in.’
Judith and Tanika looked at each other for a moment. Judith could tell that Tanika was about to chastise her for trying to take on Danny on her own, but Tanika could also see that, for once, Judith wasn’t looking for a fight. In fact, the older woman just looked tired, and rueful, and suddenly both women realised they didn’t really have anything they needed to say to each other after all.
Tanika smiled.
‘You going to be okay?’
Judith smiled.
‘Yes,’ she said, simply. ‘Thank you for asking.’
Suzie clattered into the room and Becks and Judith gave a cheer as they went over to give her a hero’s welcome.
Tanika looked at the three women and couldn’t stop herself from grinning, especially when she saw Becks pick duckweed out of Suzie’s hair.
Tanika sighed in satisfaction to herself. It was over, finally over. Tomorrow night, she’d be able to read a bedtime story to her daughter. But that was tomorrow. For tonight, she had three men to charge with murder.
The three friends were too busy fussing over Suzie to notice Tanika leave.
‘How on earth did you get across the river?’ Judith asked Suzie.
‘I swam,’ Suzie said.
‘But you can’t swim,’ Becks said.
‘I gave it a bloody good go, but I’d agree with you. I can’t. So, one minute I was above the water, the next I was below, and then I felt these jaws tighten around the neck of my coat. Emma saved me,’ Suzie added, looking with wonder at Emma. ‘Once she’d pulled me to the riverbank, I sent her to save you, Judith.’
Becks and Judith were stunned. Suzie had tried to cross a river she couldn’t swim?
‘And did you really ring the church bell?’ Judith asked Becks.
Becks blushed.
‘And cut down one of the bell ropes, now you mention it.’
‘How?’ Suzie asked.
‘With a sword.’
‘What sword?’
‘You know what?’ Judith said, interrupting her friends. ‘I owe you both an apology. I was wrong to try and deal with Danny on my own. Not when I’ve got friends as resourceful and brave as you two. I won’t make that mistake again. I promise you.’
‘Thank you,’ Becks said, deeply touched.
‘Sorry,’ Suzie said, ‘I feel we’re missing the main point here. What sword?’
‘You know what, ladies?’ Judith said as she moved over to the drinks table and poured three generous measures of whisky into cut-glass tumblers. ‘Before we go any further, I suggest we have a small glass of Scotch. Or two. For purely medicinal reasons, of course.’
Judith returned with the drinks and handed them to her friends.
Becks raised her glass.
‘In that case, I think this calls for toast,’ she said.
‘Bollocks to that,’ Suzie said and downed her drink in one.
‘She’s got a point,’ Judith said, and downed her drink as well.
Becks smiled, happy for once to be teased by her friends, but she still took a moment to look about the room, noticing the upturned card table and the smashed glass of the window, and what improbably looked like an explosion of icing sugar that she could see in the middle of the parquet floor. Someone would need to run a hoover over that, she thought to herself. But that could all wait for later.
She turned back to her friends with a smile.
‘I think I agree with you,’ she said, and downed her drink in one.
Chapter 39
It was a few days later, the country was bathed in sunshine again, and Marlow was still abuzz with the news that Andy Bishop, Elliot Howard and Danny Curtis had been arrested and charged with murder, and that Judith Potts, a local dog walker called Suzie, and the vicar’s wife had somehow had a hand in their capture.
Judith had no idea the town was talking about her as she spent the day after her enco
unter with Danny in bed, eating toast with honey on, and even more toast, and staring out of the windows as red kites wheeled high in the summer sky. Her feelings of shock and fear were soon replaced with a deep sense of pride at what she and her friends had achieved, but she liked her bed too much to get up just yet, so she carried on dozing and mulling what had happened for the rest of the day. And the next for that matter.
On the third day, she rose from her bed and her first thoughts turned to her friends.
‘We need to celebrate,’ she said to Suzie, when she phoned her.
‘I’m always up for a celebration,’ Suzie said.
‘Then how about now? Are you free?’
It was Sunday morning, and Suzie was taking custody of a pair of black labs that evening, but she was free until then.
‘Can I bring Emma?’ she added.
‘Of course. She deserves to celebrate as much as the rest of us. How about you come to my house for half past eleven?’
‘I’ll be there. What are you planning?’
‘Just be here at half eleven,’ Judith said with a smile and hung up.
Next she rang Becks.
‘Hello?’ a breathless Becks said as she answered the phone.
Judith explained that she had a surprise, and she’d like Becks to come to her house for eleven thirty.
‘I’ll be there,’ Becks said. ‘Straight after church.’
‘That’s why I suggested we meet at eleven thirty.’
‘Although, now I remember, Colin and I are supposed to be holding a coffee morning straight after, back at the vicarage.’
‘With home-made biscuits all laid out on salvers, I imagine.’
‘You know me too well,’ Becks said with laugh while also knowing that Judith was wildly underestimating the work that went into a casual coffee morning.
‘In fact, I bet it’s all prepared already.’
Becks had taken the call in her kitchen and she looked at the porcelain platters of finger sandwiches, smoked salmon blinis, freshly peeled quails’ eggs, and home-made mini choux pastry eclairs, each plate entombed in layers of cling film.
‘I’ve maybe done a bit of the prep,’ Becks conceded.
‘So how about you do a bunk for once?’
There was a pause on the end of the line.
‘You know what?’ Becks said. ‘I think I will. I’m sure Colin will be fine without me. He can get the children to help.’
At eleven thirty, Suzie’s van arrived at Judith’s house and she and Emma got out. Becks had already arrived and was climbing out of her mud-spattered 4x4. Suzie could see that the tow bar at the back was still bent out of shape.
‘I’m down here!’ Judith called from the boathouse and Becks, Suzie and Emma walked down to the building to join their friend.
Once inside, they saw that Judith had put cushions in the punt, and there was a wicker picnic basket sitting on the back.
‘I’m not going out on the river again, am I?’ Suzie asked, horrified.
‘Don’t worry, I’m an expert sailor. You’ll be safe in my hands. Hop on board.’
Judith mentioned the name of a ramshackle riverside pub about half a mile away, and how she was planning to punt them there for an early lunch.
‘But on the way,’ Judith said, indicating the wicker basket, ‘I suggest we have a few treats. Let’s get going.’
As Suzie and Becks settled themselves in the punt with Emma sitting at the front, her pink tongue out, panting in pleasure, Judith took a bottle of champagne from the hamper, picked up a thin rope that was attached to the side of the punt and expertly tied a half-hitch knot around the neck.
‘What are you doing?’ Suzie asked.
‘We don’t want the champagne getting warm, do we?’
With a quick tug on the rope to check it was secure, Judith dropped the bottle in the river so it would drag behind them in the cooling water, picked up the punt pole, bent at the waist and pushed off, the front of the boat easing through the boathouse’s doors, the three women emerging into the morning sunshine.
‘Now this is the life!’ Suzie said as Judith kept the punt to the shallows on her side of the river.
‘Do you want a hand there?’ Becks asked.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m stronger than I look.’
Becks looked up at the woman standing proudly on the bow of the punt, her cape flung back from one of her shoulders so she could better use the pole. It made her look like a roguish Musketeer, Becks thought to herself with a smile.
‘You can say that again,’ Suzie said. ‘I can’t imagine many old-age pensioners who’d disarm a killer with a tin of travel sweets and a pencil.’
‘I merely distracted him long enough for Emma to attack. And she only did that because you risked your life crossing the river.’
‘Nonsense,’ Suzie said. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’
‘I don’t think that’s true at all,’ Becks said.
‘And as for you, Becks,’ Judith said, ‘I’d pay anything to see the church’s CCTV footage of you smashing the regimental display and running around with a sword.’
‘Everyone was looking at me like I was mad,’ Becks admitted. ‘But all I could think was that we had to get to you. Although, one thing still puzzles me. I don’t understand why the frame was stolen from Stefan’s painting.’
‘Ah yes,’ Judith said with a smile. ‘That was Elliot, as we presumed at the time. And he didn’t mean to steal the frame, or want to, for that matter.’
‘So why did he?’
‘Well, having used the first break-in to measure up and photograph the original painting, Elliot painted a copy, and the night I interrupted him in Stefan’s house, he was attempting to swap them. Of course he was. But the fact we found wood chips on the table by the chisel and hammer should have made us realise that he’d already managed to get the frame from the real Rothko by the time I arrived. So there he was with an original Rothko, an original frame, and a forged painting when I interrupted him and he threw his torch at me. He had a choice to make. Put the frameless forgery on the wall and run off with the real Rothko, or put the real Rothko back up on the wall even though it no longer had its frame on.’
‘I’d have put the forgery up and stolen the real thing,’ Suzie said. ‘Seeing as that’s what I’d broken in to do.’
‘But would you? Elliot had been caught in the middle of a burglary, he knew the police would be along soon enough. And whichever painting he put on the wall, he had to believe we’d work out that it was that particular painting he’d been tampering with.’
‘Which is exactly what happened,’ Becks said.
‘Precisely. So if he’d put his forgery on the wall, it would have been covered in his fingerprints and DNA, or had a hair or two from his glorious head of hair painted into the picture by mistake.’
‘Oh I get it,’ Suzie said, finally understanding. ‘The forgery would have led the police back to Elliot.’
‘So he had to put the real painting back. Which is also why he had to have his bonfire. He had to destroy his fake painting along with the real frame and all of his other practice attempts. But it also explains why he was at such a low ebb when Tanika spoke to him over the bonfire. He knew by that point that he’d killed a complete stranger solely so that he could get his father’s Rothko painting back in his hands, and he’d screwed the whole thing up. He’d carried out the murder, but he didn’t have the painting.’
‘And it was you who’d stopped him!’ Suzie said, delighted.
‘Not a bit of it. We all did it together. Now, we’re coming up to a bend in the river, so if I get the line right, we should be able to let the current take us around.’
As Judith said this, she changed the direction of the punt so it headed at ninety degrees from the riverbank. But as the forward momentum of the punt met the stronger current towards the centre of the river, its prow started to turn and Suzie and Becks realised that Judith had set the punt on a course that would al
low it to turn with the upcoming bend in the river.
‘You really know what you’re doing,’ Becks said.
‘Oh I wouldn’t say that,’ Judith said as she stowed the punt pole, got out three crystal flutes from her hamper and an unopened pack of strawberries from the local supermarket.
‘Sorry, I meant to prepare the strawberries.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Becks said. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Let me give you a knife and a plate.’
Judith unclipped a plate and knife from the leather straps inside the hamper and handed them over. She then fished the bottle of champagne out of the ice-cold water of the river and with an expert flick of the wrist, untied the rope one-handed.
‘No, this won’t do,’ Suzie said, undercutting the mood.
The other two women looked at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking directly at Judith. ‘But you told me you didn’t know anything about boats.’
‘What’s that?’ Judith asked, not quite following.
‘When I first met you, you said you didn’t know anything about boats. But when I was about to get on this punt this morning you told me I shouldn’t worry because you were an excellent sailor. Those were your exact words.’
‘What’s this?’ Becks asked.
‘You own a punt, for crying out loud. And know how to use the current to get around a bend in the river. And I can’t help noticing, you just untied that knot one-handed.’
‘Your point being?’ Judith said reasonably, but her smile had tightened.
‘That newspaper report we read said that a witness saw two people on your husband’s boat. That second person was you, wasn’t it? Look, we’re friends here, and God knows we’ve been through enough for me to know I can trust the two of you with my life. But put me out of my misery here. Two people went out into that storm that day, but only one of you came back. I’m right, aren’t I?’
Judith didn’t say anything, and nor did her countenance shift by even a millimetre. Her whole demeanour was a study in middle-class decorum.
‘That’s the real reason why you started collecting all those old newspapers,’ Suzie continued. ‘You had to be sure no one came forward with the truth of what happened that day, because you were on that boat. And maybe in the storm your husband fell overboard and you didn’t help him back up. Or maybe you pushed him, which is what my money’s on, knowing you. And I mean that as a compliment. You had an abusive and adulterous husband, so you killed him. And then, once he was in the water, you sailed back to shore, got onto land, and then released his boat to be blown back out to sea.’
The Marlow Murder Club Page 28