Murder in the Orchard: A totally gripping cozy mystery novel (A Melissa Craig Mystery Book 6)

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘Yes,’ she replied quietly. ‘I know. I’ll be careful.’

  ‘I must be getting back to the station. Thanks for the tea.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  When he had gone, she went outside. After a cool and blustery morning, the wind had dropped, the clouds had dispersed and the air was warm and still. There was no one about except a couple of uniformed policemen guarding an area of the orchard sealed off by blue and white plastic tape. Remembering what she had seen there, she averted her gaze and went round to the front of the house, where she stood for a while to enjoy the brown, green and gold patchwork of fields and woodland. Presently, she sat down on one of the benches placed on either side of the entrance, leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, enjoying the sun on her face and the comforting warmth of the stone on her back. She could hear the high-pitched calls of swallows and house martins as they circled overhead in their ceaseless search for insects, packing their tiny bodies with the food they needed to sustain them on their flight back to Africa. Bees buzzed among the flowers; from the distance came the rhythmic clank of a harvester. All was seemingly peace and order, yet beneath the gentle harmony of the season ran a discordant undertow of hatred and vengeance that, only a few hours ago, had claimed the life of a man.

  In her novels, Melissa regularly wrote of dark secrets and hidden suffering ruthlessly brought to the surface by the fallout from a single, apparently unrelated, act of violence. Today she had seen the harsh reality; today she had learned of human pain which should have remained locked away: Verity grieving over the death of her child and Peggy for the children she could never bear; Ben ruining a promising career by seeking in drink relief from the anguish of bereavement. Then there was the mysterious Kate, still to be identified. Why had George Ballard suggested there might be some link between her death and the haiku messages? It was time to find the answer to that question. She got up and went into the house.

  As she entered the hall she almost collided with Sadie, who had a bundle of letters in one hand and a shapeless bag, apparently made out of sacking, dangling from a shoulder. ‘Oops!’ she said, dodging aside. ‘Got to hurry to catch the post.’ She scuttled out of the door and disappeared; a few seconds later, through one of the mullioned windows facing the drive, Melissa saw her on a bicycle, pedalling at a dangerous pace towards the gate. A long-case clock in the hall struck five.

  Melissa went to the counter and looked into the general office. Peggy was there alone, pushing papers into folders. When she saw Melissa she said, ‘Is there something you want?’

  ‘Actually, I wondered if I could have a private word.’

  Peggy regarded her warily. ‘What about?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t want you to think I’m poking my nose into your late employer’s affairs,’ Melissa began. ‘I wouldn’t be doing this, only before he died, he asked me if I’d try to find out who had been sending those poems. He was very worried about them, you know, even though he pretended not to be. He showed some to the police, but they refused to take him seriously.’

  ‘I know,’ said Peggy curtly. ‘Verity told us this afternoon. They’re taking them seriously now all right.’

  ‘I imagine they’ve been questioning all of you.’

  ‘They have. We couldn’t tell them anything. We don’t know anything. No one saw the messages being planted. Some of the early ones came by post, but we never kept the envelopes. It’s a total mystery.’

  ‘Have you any theories of your own?’

  Peggy appeared startled. ‘Me? What makes you say that?’

  ‘The day I arrived, I heard you discussing the messages with your colleague, Mr … I didn’t get his name.’

  ‘George Ballard. What of it?’

  ‘You mentioned a girl called Kate, who worked here some time ago.’

  Peggy nodded. ‘That’s right. About eighteen months ago. She was only here for a few weeks.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’

  Peggy lowered her eyes and fiddled with the papers on her desk. ‘She … didn’t get on very well with Stewart.’

  ‘Did she leave of her own accord?’

  ‘Not exactly. She was on a month’s trial and she wasn’t really up to the job, so Stewart said he couldn’t take her on permanently.’

  ‘Was she very upset?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose she might have been. No one likes to be sacked, but it happens, doesn’t it?’ Peggy pushed a sheaf of papers into a folder and disappeared into what had been Haughan’s office.

  Melissa had a strong impression that this was her way of ending the conversation; it was an impression that was confirmed by Peggy’s expression on finding her still there when she returned.

  Melissa affected not to notice the latent hostility. ‘Do you know if Kate got another job after leaving here?’ she asked.

  There was a long pause before Peggy said, with evident reluctance, ‘She couldn’t have done. She went into hospital.’

  ‘What was wrong with her?’

  ‘She had some sort of breakdown.’

  ‘Because Haughan had sacked her?’

  ‘No … at least …’ Peggy was looking more unhappy by the minute. She clasped and unclasped her hands, picked up files and put them down again.

  ‘At least what?’ Melissa persisted. ‘Peggy, you must tell me. You might know something that could lead us to Stewart’s killer.’

  ‘You think so?’ At these words, Peggy’s manner changed completely. It was as if a bottle of effervescent liquid had been uncorked; the words rushed out like foam. ‘She’d already had treatment for a breakdown following the death of her boyfriend in a car crash, but nobody here knew that, nobody understood the effect it would have on her, losing her job like that. The doctors didn’t realise how bad she was either, they thought she was responding to treatment. Then one night she wandered out of the building and disappeared. They found her body the next morning.’ Peggy covered her eyes. ‘I … we … felt dreadful.’

  ‘Are you saying that nobody here knew anything at all about her history?’

  As suddenly as the barrier had lifted, it fell again. ‘Not at first,’ Peggy muttered.

  ‘But the accident must have been reported in the press.’

  ‘Pam remembered something.’ The words came out in a series of spasmodic jerks. ‘She got concerned … at the way Stewart … I mean, at the way Kate reacted … when he snapped at her. It was just his way … we tried to explain … he was like that with all of us at times.’

  ‘Did anyone tell Stewart what she’d been through?’

  Peggy nodded miserably. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I did. I asked him to be a bit more gentle with her.’

  ‘And what was his reaction?’ As if I couldn’t guess, Melissa added to herself.

  ‘He said she had to go at the end of her trial period. It wasn’t his fault if she couldn’t stand the pace,’ Peggy went on desperately, almost as if she were pleading his case. ‘He had a business to run, he couldn’t afford passengers …’

  For a moment, Melissa thought she was going to burst into tears. She waited for a moment to give her a chance to control herself, then said gently, ‘You’ve worked for him for a long time, haven’t you?’

  Peggy nodded. ‘I was his secretary in London, before he started the Learning Centre. We – he and Verity and I – built it up together.’

  ‘Is Verity going to carry on with the business?’

  ‘She says so. We’re all going to do our best to help her make a go of it.’

  ‘I hope you’re successful.’ Melissa was on the point of leaving, then remembered that there was something else she wanted to know. ‘That girl, Kate – what was her surname?’

  ‘It was quite unusual … it began with a D. Dunmow, that was it. Kate Dunmow.’

  Sixteen

  Kate Dunmow. Now she remembered the case. The discovery of the body. The sensational reports, picking over the bones of the earlier tragedy that had caused her breakdown. Allegations
that she had been discharged from hospital too soon, left to fend for herself before she was fit. Her readmission when she was unable to cope. Merciless criticism of the hospital authorities for inadequate supervision. How, the media vociferously demanded, could it happen that a patient in their care was able to wander off into the bitter, numbing cold of a January night and not be missed until it was too late? A representative of the hospital staff blamed lack of resources; a local MP demanded a public enquiry.

  Kate Dunmow, in a state of acute depression after losing her job at Uphanger Learning Centre, had taken her own life. Some eighteen months later, the man who had sacked her had been murdered, after receiving threatening messages written in the form of haiku poems. Into Melissa’s hands had come a book on haiku belonging to a man whose name was also Dunmow. Working at Uphanger was a man who was thought by the police to have given an assumed name, who was believed to be having an affair with the victim’s wife, who in turn appeared to have enjoyed little in the way of love or respect from her late husband, who was a man for whom no one, apart from his secretary, had anything good to say … the progression went on and on, like a grim parody of a nursery jingle.

  There had been a telephone number as well as an address inside the back cover of The Joys of Haiku. Melissa hurried back to her room, found it, returned to the house and tapped out the number on the instrument in the hall. There was a short spell of ringing tone, then a click as an answering machine the other end was switched on. ‘This is Maurice Dunmow,’ said a voice that sounded familiar. ‘I’m sorry I can’t take your call at present. Please leave a message, or during office hours you might catch me on …’ There followed a Cheltenham number, which Melissa repeated in her head as she replaced the receiver. It was almost half-past five; the office was probably closed, but it was worth a try.

  ‘Good afternoon, Fletcher and Crispin,’ said a tartly impatient female voice at the end of the wire.

  ‘Is Mr Maurice Dunmow there, please?’

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘He won’t know my name. I have a book that he lent to a friend of mine and she asked me to return it. He’s not answering his home number and I wondered if …’

  ‘Mr Dunmow is on sick leave,’ interrupted the voice.

  ‘Do you know when he’s expected back?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Plainly, Fletcher and Crispin did not bother to train their employees in the art of public relations, thought Melissa as she mechanically thanked the woman and hung up.

  It wasn’t certain that she had recognised the recorded voice. She would never be able to swear to it. On its own, it meant nothing. Taken with the other bits of circumstantial evidence – and that was all they were, at the very most, circumstantial – it might be significant, but otherwise … How many innocent people had been suspected, charged, even convicted, on circumstantial evidence? In her head, she could still hear the voices of Verity Haughan and Martin Morris, hoarse with fear as they discussed their predicament: ‘I didn’t kill him. I swear it,’ and ‘They’ll say I had a motive … think it’s some sort of conspiracy’. On the one hand, an emotionally battered wife; on the other, a man out to avenge the death of a relative. An unholy liaison between the two? The tabloids would have a field day.

  Melissa left the booth in a mood of deep depression. At the same moment Peggy emerged from the office and, without a glance in her direction, left through the front door. A stillness fell over the wide hall, emphasised rather than broken by the sonorous ticking of the long-case clock. Melissa went across to the counter. The room behind it was empty, the desks cleared, the typewriters and other office machines shrouded in their plastic covers. The light filtering through the mullioned and leaded windows was grey and oppressive.

  During the past half-hour, clouds had built up over the sinking sun. An air of gloom hung over the place; as Melissa stepped outside, the first drops of rain made dark splotches on the gravel. She hurried round the house towards the guest wing, noticed the light in Ben’s room and without stopping to think, tapped on the window.

  He held a glass of red wine in one hand as he opened the door. From the flush on his face, she guessed it was not his first.

  ‘Ah, Madame Sherlock Holmes! Or should I say, Miz Sherlock …?’

  ‘Just say Melissa,’ she interrupted him. She was not in the mood for anti-feminist jokes of the weaker sort.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am!’ He stood to attention, transferred the glass into his left hand and gave a soldierly salute. ‘Have a drink!’

  ‘It’s a bit early, but I think I will – thanks.’

  ‘You’ll have to use my tooth glass – it’s quite clean.’ He vanished into the bathroom and returned with a small tumbler. ‘So what’s eating you?’ he asked, as he poured from a bottle of supermarket claret.

  ‘Who says anything’s eating me?’ She took a mouthful from the drink he handed her, then another. It made her feel a little better, but not much.

  ‘Don’t dissimulate, woman,’ said Ben as he topped up his own glass. ‘You look as if you put your shirt on a nag that ran backwards.’

  Melissa smiled ruefully. ‘In a way, I suppose I have.’

  ‘Tell Uncle Ben.’

  Briefly, she did so. As soon as she mentioned the name ‘Dunmow’, he snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it, you’ve got it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now I remember where I met the chap who calls himself Martin Morris. He was visiting his sister in a psychiatric hospital at the time I was doing a feature on treating mentally ill patients in the community. He was just leaving – off to take part in some Territorial Army exercise, as I recall – so we only exchanged a few words.’

  ‘He’s in the Territorials?’ said Melissa. Her heart was sinking fast. ‘Do they learn …?’ She broke off, remembering Harris’s injunction not to reveal the precise cause of Haughan’s death.

  Ben had shrewdly read her thoughts. ‘Commando tactics? They don’t get trained to SAS standards, if that’s what you mean, but an experienced TA officer would have picked up enough to sneak up on someone and render them unconscious with a well-aimed blow to the head.’

  Chesterton’s words ran through her head: I bring you naught for your comfort. Already, she could see Martin – or Maurice, as she must now think of him – sitting in the dock, with Verity beside him as an accessory.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about this? Have you actually spoken to him?’ she asked, dismally aware that she was clutching at a paper straw.

  Ben gave a short laugh. ‘Haven’t had a chance, have I? He’s not been around all afternoon. Maybe he remembers me and is keeping out of my way.’ He gulped the last of his wine, smacking his lips. ‘Reckoned without the Strickland RAM, didn’t he?’

  ‘You could be mistaken. It must have been a fair while ago.’

  ‘Soon after the accident to the girl’s boyfriend, I imagine. It was the trauma that caused her first breakdown. About two years ago – I can soon check.’

  Melissa paced about the small room, sipping her wine and thinking aloud. ‘Kate Dunmow came to work here about eighteen months ago, so she’d been having treatment during the six months before that. At some time after leaving the hospital, she found this job. She couldn’t stand Haughan’s bullying, he gave her the sack, and within less than four weeks she was back in hospital. Two weeks after that, she killed herself.’

  ‘And big brother blames her nasty boss for not showing a little more consideration and understanding. He must have been brooding, plotting revenge ever since.’ Ben went to replenish their drinks, found the bottle empty and dumped it on the floor. ‘Bugger. Have to open another.’

  ‘Not for me,’ she said hastily.

  ‘Ooh, a one-glass drinker, eh?’ he taunted.

  ‘Before dinner, yes. Besides, I want to keep a clear head. I want to think.’

  ‘Not much thinking to be done, is there? A series of anonymous messages, low-key at first but unmistakably – with hindsight – referring to Kate Dunmow’s death. The pressure st
eps up, probably after brother Maurice gets his job here and can watch the effect for himself. Then the final phase, thinly veiled threats before he moves in for the kill.’ Ben contemplated his drink, nodding his head as the pieces of puzzle slotted together. ‘Looks as if our friend Deadpan Harris is on the right track after all, doesn’t it? Are we going to tell him, or let him find out for himself?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell him,’ said Melissa miserably. ‘It’s all circumstantial, there’s nothing to prove that Maurice Dunmow killed Haughan.’

  ‘You’re kidding yourself, m’dear. He did it all right. Where’s that sodding corkscrew?’ Ben rummaged among the chaos of his filing system. ‘Ah, got it!’ He sat down with a bottle on the floor between his feet and set about opening it. ‘Think I might tell Harris,’ he said ruminatively. ‘Be fun to shoot the old bugger’s fox, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘This isn’t my idea of fun,’ she replied shortly. His lack of sensitivity grated, to say the least, although she supposed that any journalist would be bound to develop a thick skin in time. Besides, he too had had his share of personal tragedy. She watched him as, having peeled off the foil cap, he prepared to tackle the cork. ‘Why don’t you leave that till later?’ she suggested. ‘It’s time to think about getting ready for dinner.’

  He looked up quickly and for a moment she thought he was going to make a sharp retort. To her surprise, he put both corkscrew and bottle aside and stood up. ‘You’re right,’ he said, his voice unexpectedly gentle. ‘And try not to worry too much about Dunmow. With a good lawyer, he’ll get away with a fairly lenient sentence.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Can’t be sure, but when the jury learn what kind of animal Haughan was …’ Ben’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment. He swayed a little and put an arm round Melissa’s shoulders – to steady himself, she suspected, rather than out of sympathetic concern. ‘Don’t you go losing any sleep over it.’

  ‘What about Verity?’

  For a moment, Ben looked nonplussed, as if he had barely considered the widow’s possible role in the affair. Then he said confidently, ‘She’ll be okay – so long as the prosecution don’t call Mrs Lucas as a witness,’ he added, with an exaggerated air of mystery.