Cherringham--Murder by Moonlight Page 6

  And discover if Mr and Mrs Bookworm had anything to do with the death of Kirsty Kimball.

  Sarah smiled at Thomas Hilloc and placed her stack of faded crime classics on the counter. More than she’d intended to buy, but what she was really purchasing was the chance to move the conversation into darker waters …

  One by one he lifted the copies, flicked the flyleaf for the price and jotted it down on a notepad.

  “Margery Allingham. Dorothy L. Sayers. Gardner … Do you collect?”

  “No, I’m reading them for fun really. Thought they’d make a change from Dan Brown.”

  “Oh they will.”

  “Murder’s such an interesting subject.”

  She scrutinized Thomas’s dour, unmoving face for a tell, but there wasn’t even a flicker. This was going to be an expensive wrong turn. Red herring, whatever it was called!

  “Not so much for the victim, I suppose,” she said laughing.

  “No,” said Thomas. “Not so much.”

  Sarah was surprised to see Emma Hilloc suddenly appear behind Thomas — she must have been standing in the tiny kitchen at the back of the shop all this time.

  “Would you like them in a bag, Sarah?” she said, smiling.

  “Yes, if you wouldn’t mind. Didn’t bring one — I only came in for one book and look what’s happened!”

  “So easy to do,” said Emma, taking the books one by one and placing them in an old carrier bag.

  “I was just saying to your husband, how interesting murder is.”

  “Really?” said Emma briskly. “To be honest that’s Thomas’s department. I’m more biography and literary novels.”

  “That’s not quite true, dear …” said Thomas blinking behind his glasses.

  “Oh I think it is, dear. I don’t see you on weekends working your way through the Times Literary Supplement …”

  “That’s because I’m usually online trying to make us a little extra turnover, isn’t it …”

  “And here I thought what you were doing was buying stock that we can’t shift because …”

  Sarah watched as the two of them suddenly remembered she was still there, waiting — and the argument finished before it had really started.

  Sure to be continued, Sarah guessed.

  Emma was first to recover:

  “Dear me, what must you think of us! The Bickersons!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Sarah. “I know how stressful running a business can be.”

  “Never ends …” said Thomas as if to himself.

  Probably not just talking about the business there.

  Sarah saw her chance.

  “I suppose that’s why you both sing?”

  “Sing?” said Emma, frowning.

  “In the choir. The Christmas concert? Rotary?” said Sarah helpfully.

  “Ah yes,” said Emma. “You’re right.”

  “Gets rid of the stress, I’m sure,” continued Sarah.

  “It’s — an escape,” said Thomas.

  “Must have been such a shock then when Kirsty Kimball died.”

  Sarah felt as if she was suddenly playing one of those children’s games where everybody has to stop moving and stand perfectly still until the music starts up again.

  In this case there wasn’t going to be any music.

  But Emma Hilloc, eyes levelled straight at her, hands clutching a particularly good copy of a Georges Simenon, and Thomas Hilloc, pencil poised to note the price in his little book — both appeared to be waiting for some kind of instruction to rejoin the living.

  Sarah too, in surprise, stood immobile. Then she broke the spell:

  “Do you think it’s possible somebody deliberately laced Kirsty’s biscuits with peanut to kill her?”

  Emma and Thomas didn’t move an inch.

  “And if they did — how did they manage to do it? In the village hall of all places!”

  Sarah noticed Thomas’s eyes flicker — was that a sideways glance at his wife?

  “And most important of all — why? Why kill her?”

  Sarah had hoped for some kind of reaction, but she hadn’t been expecting this, the two of them frozen statues. And for a second she had the dreadful thought:

  They don’t have anything to do with this. They’re Kirsty’s friends. She wasn’t murdered by them. I’ve just hurt them very deeply. I must be crazy …

  Then she put on her biggest, most innocent smile.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “There I go again! You read crime stories and you just see crime everywhere!”

  Emma was the first to recover.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Sarah carried on her gauche act and now leaned in conspiratorially.

  “That is, though, what some people are saying in the village about her death. There’s the most terrible gossip going round.”

  “Is there?” said Thomas, looking baffled.

  “’Fraid so. But wait — she had the shop just round the corner, didn’t she? You must have known her! Oh God! What nonsense have I been saying!”

  “No,” said Emma quickly.

  Too quickly?

  “We rarely saw her,” said Thomas. “Chatted to her in the choir, I suppose.”

  “But nothing more,” added Emma, the statue now coming to life and reacting quickly.

  Thomas looked down at his notepad.

  “Er, that’ll be twenty-five pounds.”

  Sarah pulled out her purse and handed over the money. Emma passed the plastic bag of books over the counter to her without a word.

  Then she nodded and headed to the door where she turned:

  “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that …”

  “It’s not a problem,” said Emma blankly. “Enjoy the books.”

  Sarah went out into the alley, shutting the door behind her.

  She shut her eyes for a second. Either she had stumbled upon something that might have to do with solving the murder of Kirsty Kimball, or she had just been appallingly insensitive and thoughtless.

  And she had a terrible feeling it was the latter.

  Her phone rang. She checked the display — it was Daniel.

  “Hi love,” she said. “Everything okay?”

  Daniel’s voice was tearful and Sarah was on instant alert. She pressed into the doorway of a shop, out of the wind, so she could hear.

  “No Mum,” he said. “I’m home — and Chloe’s weird. She’s breathing funny, coughing up stuff. What should I …”

  “Daniel — don’t worry! I’m on my way …”

  Sarah was running to her car even before she’d put the phone away in her pocket, her coat flying, her shoes skidding on the slippery pavement …

  12. Sweat the Small Stuff

  Jack reached for the phone, but Daniel beat him to it.

  “Mum!” he said. “What’s happening? How’s Chloe? Is she all right?”

  Jack watched as Daniel moved round Sarah’s little sitting room with the phone pressed to his ear, not stopping in any one place, hopping from foot to foot, leaning on the table, against the wall, then sitting cross-legged on the floor before ending up sprawled by the radiator.

  As soon as Sarah had called him earlier in the afternoon, telling him that she was rushing Chloe to the hospital in Oxford, he had raced over to help. Daniel had been scared, but Jack had managed to calm him down.

  Soon as they give her some antibiotics Dan, she’ll be fine. These kind of things they blow up fast and they go just as fast …

  He believed what he was saying — heck he’d been through this with his own daughter — but in the back of your mind was always that thought — what if it’s really serious?

  But Sarah had texted him a “don’t worry, she’s going to be fine, talk later” and now here she was checking in.

  It wasn’t quite what he’d had planned for his evening — but Sarah just didn’t have any other options.

  Her parents were in London, and not back till late evening, and the usual back-ups for once
couldn’t help. Which was why NYC cop here had suddenly turned babysitter …

  More for company and reassurance than anything else.

  Truth was, he and Daniel had had a pretty good time. The kid was distracted, but he’d eaten Jack’s chilli pasta, done some homework and then tried to teach him how to play soccer on a console.

  It had taken Jack five minutes just to work out which team he was controlling.

  Then the two of them had talked for a while — about school, crime, murder, the FBI, kidnapping, extortion …

  And now Sarah had called.

  “All right Mum, see you tomorrow,” said Daniel. “Yep, I will. No, I won’t. Love you! Night night!”

  Daniel handed the phone over to him.

  “She’s going to be fine — just like you said. And Granny’s coming over in half an hour to take over.”

  “That’s good Daniel — now, why don’t you finish that washing up and I’ll talk to your Mum?”

  Daniel high-fived him — and headed for the kitchen, already totally eased of the burden of his sister’s dramatic illness.

  Jack lifted the phone:

  “Hi Sarah, you okay?”

  And Sarah gave him a run-down on how Chloe was now sedated, calm and would soon be over her bronchial attack — followed by a heads-up on her shopping trip at the bookshop.

  “The quiet booksellers. So you think they’re hiding something?” he said.

  “To be honest, Jack — they were just weird. I can’t see either of them doing it alone. I can’t see them doing it together. And I can’t see a motive.”

  “Hmm. Well Simon Rochester certainly had a motive. And I wouldn’t give him a character reference. But I just didn’t feel that he had it in him. He likes his creature comforts too much. What about Roger the Dodger?”

  “Yuk. Slippery. Hiding something. But is it relevant? Do bank-managers kill their customers?”

  “Ha, I’m sure there’s plenty that have been killed by their customers!”

  “So where are we?” said Sarah, sounding frustrated.

  “Kinda nowhere, I think,” said Jack. “We got some suspects — but we don’t have a motive. And we don’t have an M.O.”

  “You still think we even have a murder?”

  “Good question. Sometimes, an accident is an accident. But in this case, if it smells of fish …” said Jack.

  “And swims like a fish …” said Sarah.

  “It is a fish!” said Daniel standing behind Jack and listening to the end of the conversation.

  “You heard your son,” said Jack. “And he’s now the local expert on the FBI, I can tell you.”

  “Put him back on, Jack,” said Sarah. “And let’s talk tomorrow, huh? I should be back in the morning. They’ll keep Chloe in for the night I think.”

  “Look after yourself Sarah — and love to Chloe,” said Jack handing the phone back to Daniel.

  Family life.

  Even when it was downs more than ups — he missed it.

  Jack took a careful look round the galley to check everything was good to go: Caesar Salad tossed, red wine breathing, rib-eye at room temperature, griddle heating nicely …

  He slid the tray of French-fries into the oven (the one ready-made invention he heartily approved of), picked up his martini and the little bowl of big green olives, and went through to the saloon of the Grey Goose and sat back on the Chesterfield.

  Boy he was hungry …

  Eleven o’clock was late to be eating, but the handover with Sarah’s parents was later than expected and it had been ten before he’d got back to his barge, moored on the river upstream from Cherringham Bridge.

  By the time he’d taken Riley for his walk along the river bank the evening had almost gone.

  But still plenty of time to think through the case. And this time of night, with the river quiet and the boat to himself, Jack often did his best thinking.

  He sipped the martini and put his feet up on the coffee table. Somewhere across the river in the meadows an owl hooted.

  On the sofa next to him lay the package that had come in the post that morning. He knew what it was, and he felt no great urgency in opening it. But, as his captain used to say to him back at the precinct when he first came out of uniform — sweat the details Brennan, the answer’s always in the details …

  He opened the package and took out a box from inside: two EpiPens in their plastic sleeves, easily ordered online with no fuss and just a quick form to fill out.

  He laid them carefully on the table.

  They were just like the dummy pen which Sarah had shown him — different make but identical design. Big deal. What was he going to learn here?

  He flipped the plastic lid on one of the pen holders and took the pen out. They all looked exactly the same, he thought.

  Then — an idea.

  He got up and went back into the galley. In the fridge was a second steak for the weekend — a big fat one.

  Not much difference between rump steak and human being, I guess.

  He took the steak out, grabbed the kitchen knife and cut a square inch of the thick meat.

  Should use a bigger piece, but that’s one helluva good steak to waste on an experiment …

  He grabbed a tea-towel and went back to the sofa, folding the cloth once and placing it over the steak. Then, following the instructions on the box, he gripped the EpiPen and jabbed it — through the tea-towel — into the steak.

  Short of hiring a forensic scientist — this was about as close as you could get to replicating the desperate, urgent life-saving action that Kirsty Kimball had undergone that dark night down the lane.

  Except her life hadn’t been saved.

  Jack removed the EpiPen and laid it on the table. He looked at the tea-towel –there wasn’t any indication that the needle had gone through. But the small square of meat was wet with the liquid drug.

  The experiment had worked — but in truth what had it shown him?

  He sat back, sipped his martini. Ate an olive. So he’d sweated the small stuff. Job done.

  Time to get that steak cooking …

  He picked up the used EpiPen, put it back in the plastic sleeve and tried to put the cap on.

  But it wouldn’t go back.

  Funny …

  He checked he wasn’t putting it on upside down. No. He looked harder — and realized that the pens were designed so that once they’d been used, they wouldn’t go back in the sleeve and the top wouldn’t go on.

  Cleverly designed — so that nobody could ever pick up a used pen by mistake and carry it round with them. If they tried to, the pen would just fall out of the holder.

  So how could Kirsty Kimball possibly have carried around a used pen in her handbag by mistake?

  It wasn’t possible.

  Unless someone had tampered with an already used pen, broken off the end, placed it in its sleeve — and then put the cap on again.

  A murder weapon as efficient as a loaded gun.

  But harder, so much harder to detect.

  All the killer had to do was swap the sabotaged pen for a genuine one after the victim had died.

  And that meant a cool head, premeditation — and a lot of careful planning.

  And probably a deep and simmering hatred of the victim.

  This was a murder.

  He knew what he and Sarah had to do next.

  With another sip of his chilly martini, the clouds had cleared.

  13. Home Sweet Home

  Jack had parked the Sprite farther down the road, well away from Kirsty’s cottage.

  He looked at his watch.

  Little after eleven o’clock and no Sarah.

  Maybe a problem with Chloe? But she would have texted him, and the last message he got from her was sent a few hours ago, just after sunrise.

  I’ll meet you there.

  Then he heard the rumble of her Rav-4, curving around the narrow road. The little cluster of cottages quiet, no one out and about. The wind cold, raw
— as damp as it was chilly.

  He watched Sarah pull up behind him. Prying eyes could easily push aside a curtain and look out at the two of them.

  Or could even call the local constable and report suspicious behaviour.

  After all, what they were planning to do was completely illegal.

  Sarah got out, smiling, but Jack could see that her eyes looked sunken, hollow.

  Jack well knew what a long night standing watch with your child in hospital could be like.

  Not much sleep, a lot of dark thoughts.

  “How are things?”

  Sarah’s smiled dimmed a bit. “Good. I mean no school for Chloe, least for a bit. The grandparents fully engaged now, making soup, fluffing pillows. They adore her.”

  “Who wouldn’t? And you?”

  The smile back. “Beat. This parent thing … it’s hard.”

  “I know. But in the end, worth every bit of worry and concern. Especially with the two you got.”

  “Thanks for that Jack. And for last night.”

  “Anytime.”

  She looked down the road. One cottage to the right, then another, farther to the edge of the cluster.

  Kirsty’s place, off to itself.

  “So — we’re going to do this?”

  “I think we have to. I doubt the police would just let us in.”

  “Amazing discovery you made last night.”

  “Old school detective work. Try things out.”

  “Exit plan? Should something happen.”

  Then it was Jack’s turn to smile. “Not sure I have one. Let’s hope that everyone at home is watching TV or sleeping in. Would have done this at night, but that would for sure raise alarms.” He took a breath. “All set?”

  A nod, and then the two of them started walking up the road to Kirsty’s cottage.

  They decided to avoid the front door and went looking for an entrance round the back. There was no back door, but on the right side, facing the lane was an entrance that led into the kitchen.

  Through the window Jack saw boots and umbrellas piled just inside.

  He looked at the lock.

  “Can you do it?” Sarah said.

  “Think so. Sure.” He looked up. “No alarm system. Least that I can see.”

  “Usually they’d have one of those warning stickers.”