Guests and Guilt

by Diana Xarissa

  “Maybe they will, but so what? Mark will still have to investigate what you tell him, and if it is true, he suddenly has a very solid motive for all three of Stephanie’s friends. If you won’t tell him, I will.”

  James frowned. “Let me think about it.”

  “No, I won’t let you think about it. You’re being stupid and I won’t let you get yourself killed because of it. I’m going to talk to Mark right now.” Fenella stood up, ignoring James’s plea for her to wait. At the door, she turned back to look at him. “You know I’m right,” she said softly.

  He stared at her for a minute and then nodded slowly. Fenella opened the door and looked up and down the corridor. Mark was leaning on the wall, sipping a cup of coffee. He straightened up and crossed to her.

  “James is ready to tell you the whole story,” she said, “and it’s quite the story.”

  Mark sat and typed notes into his phone as James told him all about the previous evening.

  “You genuinely think that you were being chased by this vehicle?” he asked when James was finished.

  “I’m positive. It was terrifying.”

  Mark nodded. “And can you think of any reason why anyone would want to kill you?” he asked.

  “At the pub the other night, Stephanie told her friends that she didn’t have any secrets from me,” James replied. “I think her friends realized that she’d told me about the time they’d killed a man.”

  Fenella gave Mark a lot of credit. He blinked a few times, but otherwise he didn’t really react to James’s words. After a moment, he nodded. “Tell me the story that Stephanie told you, please.”

  Now that James had told the story once, it seemed to flow more easily for him. He told Mark everything that he’d told Fenella earlier.

  “So in spite of telling her friends that she didn’t keep any secrets from you, she never told you who was driving the car or what exactly happened to this Arthur Beck?” he checked when James was finished.

  “No, she didn’t,” he agreed.

  “That’s unfortunate. If there’s any truth to the story, I would think the driver of the car would have had the best motive for killing Stephanie,” Mark said thoughtfully.

  “Unless one of the others actually killed him some other way,” Fenella said softly. “If he was able to talk to Stephanie about his family and his life, then it sounds as if he wasn’t all that badly injured. I can’t help but wonder how he died.” She shivered as a few gruesome possibilities flashed through her mind.

  “Yes, that may be the key to working out what happened to her,” Mark agreed. “Assuming any of this is true, of course.”

  “I can’t believe Arthur’s wife didn’t file a missing person report when he didn’t come home,” Fenella said.

  “Unless he made her and his child up,” James suggested. “If I woke up, badly injured and clearly being held a prisoner somewhere, I would probably tell my captors that I had a wife and a baby at home. Anything to make them feel sorry for me and let me go.”

  “I’ll have to hope that Arthur Beck didn’t have much of an imagination, then,” Mark said. “Did Stephanie tell you anything else about her life on the island that you think could have led to her murder?” he asked James.

  “Not really. She didn’t talk much about her past really, except once in a while, when she’d had a few drinks. She had a lot more stories about her life in California than her life here, but they were all more ordinary stories, about drinking too much and sleeping with famous people. I can’t believe anyone would have followed her here from California, anyway.”

  Mark stared at his phone for several minutes, swiping along what looked like a very long page of notes, and then nodded and stood up. “I’m going to leave a constable here to keep visitors out. Your sister can come and go as she pleases, but no one else.”

  James nodded. “I don’t want to see anyone else anyway.”

  “The doctor has said that you’ll be able to go home tomorrow unless your condition changes. Where will you be going?”

  “He can stay in my apartment. Shelly can move home or to a hotel for a few days, until James is feeling better and is ready to go back to the borrowed house,” Fenella said.

  Mark nodded. “I think that would probably be for the best,” he said.

  “I can look after myself,” James protested.

  “Yeah, look what a good job you’ve done thus far,” Fenella snapped.

  James glared at her. “It’s hardly my fault that someone is trying to kill me,” he retorted.

  “They wouldn’t be trying to kill you if you’d told Mark everything yesterday,” Fenella replied.

  “Yesterday I still thought Stephanie had been making everything up,” James said.

  Mark held up his hand. “You can argue with one another after I’ve gone,” he said. “I’ll tell you one thing before I go, though. I expected James to come up with some story to suggest that he was being targeted by the killer. I even expected him to find a way to implicate the three women from the pub evening in his story. I didn’t expect him to come up with anything quite this shocking, however.”

  “It’s true,” Fenella said softly.

  Mark shrugged. “It just may be. I’ve just been sent a copy of Stephanie’s will. She left everything she had to Andrew Beck, only son of Arthur Beck, formerly of Liverpool.”

  Fenella felt her jaw drop. “Arthur’s son,” she whispered.

  “I really hope Arthur wasn’t just making him up,” James said.

  “So do I,” Mark told him. “I’m going to want to talk to you again. I’d really like to know where to look for that house, for one thing, but before that I have three women that I need to speak to rather urgently. First I will be looking for a missing person report, though.”

  He turned and left the room as Fenella sat back in her chair and looked at her brother. “She and her friends killed a man,” she said in a low voice.

  “It’s starting to look that way,” James said. “Of course, the other three will all deny it. I hope Inspector Hammersmith can find some evidence to support my story.”

  “He already has,” Fenella reminded him.”

  “Yeah, but not enough,” James sighed. “It’s difficult, as I don’t really believe the story myself. Teenaged girls don’t just kill a man, hide the body, and then carry on with life as if nothing has happened, do they?”

  “I certainly hope not. We should let Mark worry about that, though. You need to worry about getting better.”

  “I feel better now that I’ve talked to Mark. Although I hate to admit it, you were right, baby sister.”

  “Ha, remember that later, when you’re staying in my apartment and we’re making each other crazy.”

  James grinned. “I’ll deny I ever said it.”

  “You will, too, won’t you?”

  “Pardon me, but Mr. Woods has had enough visitors for now,” the frowning nurse in the doorway said. “He has a serious head injury. He needs rest and peace and quiet.”

  Fenella nodded and got to her feet. “I should get out of the way, then,” she said. She gave James an awkward hug. “Do you want me to come back later today?” she asked.

  The nurse shook her head. “Leave him to us for the rest of today. The doctor will be around shortly to check him over and then we’ll have tests to run. Come back in the morning, around ten, and he may be ready to go home.”

  Fenella looked at James, who shrugged. “She’s the boss,” he said. “You’d better listen to her.”

  The nurse gave him a half-smile. “Remember that later,” she told him.

  Fenella followed the woman back to the nurses’ station. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked.

  “He seems to be recovering well,” the woman replied. “Head injuries are always worrying, but I’ve seen quite a few in my day and he seems to be progressing nicely. If the doctor lets him go home tomorrow, I would suggest that he should be fine. You shouldn’t worry overly much if the doctor keeps him for a while
longer though, either. Sometimes, especially with our older patients, that’s the safest option.”

  Fenella nodded and then headed for the elevators. The nurse hadn’t actually told her anything, but she still felt better about her brother’s condition. When she got outside, she suddenly realized that she didn’t have her car. Mark had promised to get her home safely, but he was long gone. She sighed as she headed for the nearby taxi rank. Before she got there, she dug around in her handbag. She had exactly three pounds and eight pence on her. That wasn’t going to pay for a taxi.

  “Shelly? It’s me. I’ve just left James and discovered that Mark has abandoned me, and I don’t have enough money with me for a taxi anywhere.”

  Shelly laughed. “I’ll be there in five minutes,” she promised.

  Fenella checked her wallet again while she waited. She always kept an emergency twenty-pound note tucked behind her credit card. It wasn’t there. She must have used it and forgotten to replace it, she decided.

  “Thank you so much,” she told Shelly as she settled into the passenger seat of her friend’s car.

  “You’re very welcome. I’m glad I could help. How is James?”

  “He’s recovering,” she replied, “but wait until you hear what happened and why.” She told Shelly the entire story. “You mustn’t tell anyone any of this, though,” she concluded. “Not until the investigation is complete.”

  “I’m too shocked to say anything to anyone,” Shelly told her. “What did those girls do to that poor man?”

  “I’m really hoping that Stephanie made the whole story up,” Fenella told her. “Even though the story does move James way down the list of possible suspects.”

  Back at Fenella’s apartment, Shelly helped her put together a quick lunch. “And now I’ll move back into my own flat,” she said as they loaded up the dishwasher. “It might even be nice for you to have James here.”

  “James is coming here?” Mona asked.

  Fenella sighed. Once Shelly was gone, she was going to have to repeat the entire story to Mona, who’d only just appeared.

  Smokey put up a token protest as Shelly picked her up to take her home. “Aww, she doesn’t want to leave Katie,” Shelly said.

  “She’s welcome to stay for as long as she likes,” Fenella said.

  Shelly grabbed her suitcase and headed for the door. Before she’d reached it, Smokey was standing in front of it.

  “And now she’s ready to leave Katie,” Fenella laughed. She helped Shelly carry the cat’s bowls next door and then pushed the door shut behind her friend. The apartment suddenly felt incredibly empty.

  “What is going on?” Mona demanded. The words were only just out of her mouth when the phone rang.

  “What is going on?” Daniel demanded.

  Fenella sat down on the nearest couch and burst into tears.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Daniel said quickly.

  “It isn’t your fault,” Fenella told him, sniffling loudly. “It’s all just been rather overwhelming.”

  “Yes, that’s what Mark said, as well,” he replied. “I’d appreciate it if you’d simply start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

  “Everything?” Fenella asked.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  She did mind, a great deal, really, but she was also eager to talk to Daniel. She had great faith in his abilities as an investigator and she’d sleep better knowing that he was helping Mark with the case.

  “It all started when my brother decided to pay me a visit,” she began.

  Halfway through her recital, she stopped to get herself a cold drink. By the time she was done talking, she’d finished it and opened another. Mona sat and listened to the whole conversation with her eyes closed. As Fenella concluded telling Daniel everything that James had told Mark about Arthur Beck, Mona sat up.

  “How exactly do you keep getting yourself mixed up in these things?” Daniel asked when Fenella was done.

  “It isn’t my fault,” Fenella replied, feeling as if she might cry again.

  “Yes, I know that it isn’t your fault, but you do seem to find yourself in the middle of the strangest of things,” he replied. “Mark rang me when Stephanie died, when he still thought it was just an accident, so I didn’t ring you. I thought you’d probably appreciate not having to repeat the same story all over again. When he rang me this afternoon, though, I knew I’d have to ring you. Are you okay?”

  “Me? I’m fine,” Fenella said automatically.

  “Yes, I’m sure you are, but how are you really?”

  Fenella took a deep breath and tried to think. “I’m worried about James, badly shaken by the story that Stephanie told him, and terrified that it might actually be true.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “But how are you?” she asked. “How is the course going?”

  “I’m doing okay, better than you are, anyway. The course continues to be challenging, but interesting. I’ve learned a great deal. I don’t think any of it will be helpful to your current circumstances, but you never know.”

  “I really hope this is the last murder I’m ever involved in,” Fenella said, “and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if there weren’t any more murders on the island for the rest of your career, either.”

  “It would be a terrible waste of all of my new training, but I wouldn’t complain,” Daniel told her. “How are all of our mutual friends? Shelly? Peter?”

  “Shelly is doing well. She was staying with me for a few days, but she’s gone home now. James is going to be staying here once he gets out of the hospital.”

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “I don’t have much choice, but anyway, I want him here. I’d worry about him too much if he were back at the house.”

  “How did you find the house he was staying in, by the way?”

  “Oh, it’s one that Mona used to own,” Fenella replied, flushing. “She had a lot of properties all over the island, it seems.”

  “So now you have a lot of properties all over the island?”

  “Yeah, something like that,”

  “I see. Which reminds me. How is Donald?”

  “He’s in New York. His daughter was in a car accident. Apparently she’s recovering, but slowly.”

  “I didn’t realize. I’ve missed quite a lot while I’ve been away, haven’t I?”

  “I suppose so. It will be nice to have you home.”

  Mona made a face at her as the words escaped Fenella’s lips. Fenella frowned at herself. Mark had said that Daniel was involved with someone. She shouldn’t have been saying such things.

  “Well, I’ll be back on the island in a few days. I’m bringing some of my new friends back with me, though. I’m not going to be back at work for another week or more. Mark has everything in hand. I’m sure of that.”

  “That’s good to know,” Fenella replied.

  “You probably should know that he found a missing person report for an Arthur Beck,” he added. “It was filed in Liverpool. If a copy was sent to the island, it’s probably been lost for years.”

  “So he really did disappear?”

  “He did, but his wife thought he was still in the Liverpool area. Mark said that the report read as if the pair had been having problems. The wife didn’t seem too worried about the man, really. His parents seem to have been the driving force behind having him officially listed as missing.”

  “And he was never found?”

  “The case is still open in Liverpool, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t found. Sometimes people turn up years later and no one thinks to notify the police that they’ve returned or been found or whatever. Mark is checking that next.”

  “Did Arthur and his wife have a son?” Fenella had to ask.

  “They did. A little boy called Andrew. Mark is trying to track him down, as well.”

  Fenella sighed. “I was really hoping that the whole story was made up.”

  “It may not all be true,” Daniel
said. “But it seems as if some parts of it are, anyway.”

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope for that Stephanie made up the rest of the story,” Fenella said.

  “Daniel? Are you finished yet?” a female voice called from somewhere.

  Fenella frowned. “It sounds as if you need to go,” she said quickly.

  “I’m meeting some of the other students for a drink,” he told her. “I should probably go.”

  Fenella put the phone down and looked at Mona. “It’s been a terrible day and it’s only three o’clock. It’s too early to start drinking, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, rather,” Mona said. “So let’s talk about the suspects.”

  11

  Fenella sighed. “You aren’t going to be happy until we do, are you?”

  “I’m always happy, darling. But I do think that your friend Inspector Hammersmith is going to need a little bit of help with this case. Whoever killed Stephanie must have been very clever about it.”

  “Clever or lucky,” Fenella suggested. “Anyway, we don’t have any idea who the suspects are, aside from the three women who were at the pub. Maybe Stephanie left the pub with someone else or something.”

  “We mustn’t waste our time worrying about remote possibilities. Let’s talk about Stephanie’s friends. Together, they murdered a man. Maybe they worked together to kill Stephanie as well.”

  “If they did, they’ll be able to tell Mark whatever they like about what happened after James and I left the pub.”

  “True, so we must work out what really did happen.”

  “How can we do that?”

  “You must go and talk to the three women, of course.”

  “First of all, I’m not going to stick my nose into a police investigation. Secondly, I don’t even know where to find the women.”

  “What do they do for work?”

  Fenella shrugged. “They may have said, but I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “James must have a memorial service for Stephanie. That would give you a chance to talk to them, and it would be a nice thing to do, as well.”