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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Devon Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Juno Browne, self-proclaimed Domestic Goddess who can turn her hand to cleaning, dog walking or home help jobs, is feeling overworked and underpaid. Her elderly client, Maisie is demanding more of her time and staff absences at the Ashburton antiques shop she also owns are making business difficult. She is not the only one with problems, very serious problems however. Her friend Elizabeth is being blackmailed, and dear Ricky's errant nephew is on the run from criminals in London. Juno's attempts to help take her from an isolated manor house on Dartmoor to London's glittering theatreland. Can she avoid being fatally entangled in threads of deceit and murder?
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Death on Dartmoor Edge
STEPHANIE AUSTIN
4For all my theatre friends, on stage and off5
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
On the morning that all the trouble started, I decided to leave my van at home and go to Old Nick’s on foot. I’d just come back from walking the Tribe in the woods and had returned the five of them to their various homes, so it wasn’t as if I needed the exercise. But I wouldn’t be able to park. The little town of Ashburton was in chaos, thanks to the gas company’s decision to dig a big hole at the junction between East Street and North Street, thus severing the town’s main artery and making it impossible to drive from one end of town to the other. It also reduced the available on-street parking, put two bus stops out of action and obliged all drivers to puzzle out their own route to the town hall car park. Ashburton was never built for motor cars. But we needed new gas pipes, apparently.
I shrugged my coat tight around me as I walked, stuffing all my hair inside my hood. An icy wind was coming straight off Dartmoor. It might be March, yellow daffodils glowing in the window-boxes, but the sky was the colour of concrete and it was colder than 8February, or even January when Ashburton had been briefly visited by snow. March had come in like a lion, as the saying goes, and was still roaring. The idea that it might go out like a lamb seemed remote.
I stopped on North Street, gazing into the window of one of the many rival antique shops, lusting after the kind of items I could never afford to buy for Old Nick’s. I was twisting my neck around in an owl-like fashion, trying to read the price label of a mahogany console table, the wood polished to such a high gloss that it glowed, and the gleaming silver samovar sitting on the top of it, when a movement caught the corner of my eye. I turned, momentarily stunned, to see a chunky figure in grey sweats pounding the pavement towards me – Detective Constable Dean Collins, puffing and red in the face. Scowling, he flipped a palm upward in greeting. I got the impression I was someone he would rather not have met under the circumstances. I couldn’t help it, I laughed.
‘Don’t you start,’ he panted, pausing in front of me. ‘I’m getting enough grief from everyone at the station.’
‘I think it’s laudable,’ I told him, trying to look serious, ‘levels of fitness in the police force and all that.’ If anyone needed to improve his level of fitness, it was Dean. He’d been piling on the pounds recently.
‘Gemma’s been having a go at me about losing weight,’ he grumbled, ‘and so has the boss.’ He began doing that jog on the spot that runners do to prove they have bundles of energy left and they’re not just stopping for a rest.9
‘Does this mean my biscuit tin is off-limits?’ I enquired sunnily.
‘When we’re having one of our cosy chats about criminal matters, d’you mean?’ He grinned. ‘That depends on the level of police co-operation you might require, Miss Marple.’
He knows I hate him calling me that. I tried not to grind my teeth. ‘Well, as long as you’re still open to bribery.’ I patted him on the arm. ‘Keep up the good work.’
He muttered something rude under his breath and resumed punishing the pavement. I turned off down Shadow Lane, the stone walls of old buildings closing in around me, offering me shelter from the wind. It’s only possible to drive so far before the lane narrows to a pedestrian passageway, but I can usually park here without any problem. Today, several desperate drivers had wedged their vehicles between the gutter and the wall, probably the last free parking places to be found anywhere. I was glad I’d left Van Blanc at home.
As I picked my way between the parked cars, a green blob landed on the pavement beside me. I looked up. A family of jackdaws were in the gutter above me, flicking their beaks through lumps of moss in the hunt for insects and tiny worms. Unlike the rooks which roost on the church tower and take off at daybreak to look for food in the surrounding fields, jackdaws are stay-at-home types and like to gather on the town’s mossy rooftops. At this time of year, the pavements of Ashburton are spotted with little green lumps the 10jackdaws have tossed aside. I love to listen to their softly murmured conversations. They pair for life, I’ve heard.
Ahead of me I could see Old Nick’s, the shop that used to belong to a client of mine, Mr Nikolai, until he left it to me in his will. I re-named it in his honour because, despite the fact he was an evil old sod whose greed got the better of him and got him murdered, I still remembered him fondly. In his day, the shop was run-down, dark and shabby. Now, its fresh green paintwork picked out in gold, it looked bright and welcoming, enticing even, assuming anyone could be encouraged to stray down the narrow ginnel of Shadow Lane in the first place. I have a café-board propped optimistically at one end of it, pointing the way – Old Nick’s: Arts, Crafts, Books, Antiques and Collectibles. It worked, sometimes.
A man was staring in the window, shoulders hunched against the cold, peering intently through the glass, shading his eyes with one hand. Something about the way he was lurking started my antennae twitching. He glanced my way, saw me coming and hurried off up the lane. Great, I thought, my first potential customer of the day and I’ve scared him off.
Despite the freezing weather, an upstairs window in what would once have been Old Nick’s living room was flung wide open and an arm was waving about. The hand at the end of the arm was clutching a mobile phone, which could only mean that it belonged to Sophie Child, desperately seeking a signal.11
Sophie minded the shop for me in return for free working and selling space, an arrangement that suited us both, giving me time to attend to my other business, the one I was engaged on when I first met Old Nick– Juno Browne, Domestic Goddess – housework, gardening, shopping, dog-walking, etc. Since he was murdered, I’ve been able to add amateur sleuthing and accidental corpse finding to my CV. I’m not sure it’s a good look.
Sophie lived at home with her mum because she couldn’t afford to move out. She used to spend all day studiously hunched over her drawing board or at her easel, working on the current stunning wildlife painting or meticulously detailed study of the hedgerow. But her activities had changed in recent months. She’d begun to spend half her time on the phone talking to her new boyfriend, who was away studying in Wales. I watched that arm waving about at the upstairs window and sighed. She’d never get a signal up there and she knew it.
Because we could never get a decent signal, I told her that she was welcome to use the landline in the shop. But she ran me up such a horrific bill in the first month that it frightened us both and she stopped using it. Since then, she’s often missing for parts of the day, whispering sweet nothings into her phone on whatever corner or in whichever café she can find that will give her a decent signal. She is also missing at weekends when she takes trips to Wales that she can’t afford, or Seth comes down to see her and she wants the day off.12
It’s my own fault. I was the one who introduced Seth to Sophie. I’d met him at a talk about astrology, given by one of my cousin Cordelia’s old friends. I’m not that interested in the subject myself, but Cordelia, who’d helped to bring me up, and is now sadly no longer with us, was an astrologer by profession. Anyway, Seth had popped into the shop next day for a chat and that’s how the great romance got started.
I was happy for Sophie. No one looking at her shining eyes and glowing little face could not be happy for her, but her new-found love life was proving just a little inconvenient. Juggling the shop with my Domestic Goddess business was difficult enough as it was. Especially on a day like today when she could only stay for a couple of hours before she caught her train; and Pat, who minded the shop under the same arrangement as she did, couldn’t come in either. I’d been forced to put off the client whose house I should have been cleaning so I could mind the shop myself. I don’t like letting clients down; but I don’t like closing the shop either, especially on a day when it was usually open.
I waved at Sophie and she grinned weakly, embarrassed at being caught out and hastily slammed down the window. By the time I reached the shop door she was already downstairs, seated at her worktable as if she’d been there all the time.
‘Hi Juno,’ she called out breezily as I came in, closing the door behind me and shutting out the cold.
‘Hello.’ I stared down at her painting of a dormouse 13sleeping in its nest among the brambles. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Oh, fine,’ she responded, her long-lashed gaze flickering just for a moment.
I wasn’t sure it was fine. Her work, as always, was exquisite, each stem and leaf, each tiny claw and quivering whisker rendered in meticulous detail. But it wasn’t progressing very fast. And Sophie had a deadline. She had been commissioned to illustrate a book on the Devon hedgerow, to deliver a series of full colour paintings and drawings. It could be her big break. But she wouldn’t see a penny until she had delivered the complete package. And she was already spending the money on trips back and forth to Wales. Despite her happiness and excitement, I could sense a growing nervousness in her, the slightest falter in her confidence.
‘I didn’t think you were coming in today,’ she admitted.
‘I wasn’t, but Pat can’t make it. She’s taking in a lot of new waifs and strays.’
Sophie gave a nod of her neat, dark head and I caught myself running a hand through my own hair, a red tangle maddened by the wind. ‘What time’s your train?’
She pulled a face. ‘I’m going on the coach this time. It’s cheaper. I’ve got to change at Bristol.’ She brightened suddenly. ‘Seth is picking me up from Cardiff.’
‘You can go now if you want, Soph,’ I offered. She’d start to get twitchy about time soon.14
‘I don’t need to leave for another hour,’ she assured me. ‘Mum’s going to drop me off at the coach stop.’
But suddenly I wanted her to be gone, to be alone in the shop. I tried hard not to let it get to me, but sometimes her new-found love stabbed me with the memory of the love I’d lost. I hadn’t seen or heard from Daniel for months. He’d disappeared. The firm he used to work for wouldn’t talk to me. The only way that I knew he was still alive was that work had recommenced on the renovation of his aunt’s old farmhouse on Halsanger Common. I’d been up there a few times, watching the progress on replacing the roof, rebuilding the chimney, repointing old walls with lime mortar. But the caravan he had bought to live in while work was going on remained cold and empty. The builder told me that he still got his instructions from Mr Thorncroft via text, and the work was paid for; but that’s all he would tell me. I knew I shouldn’t keep returning there. It was like picking at a wound. If I didn’t leave it alone it would never heal. And it was my own fault. I was the one who told Daniel to go away.
‘Are you all right, Juno?’
I must have been silent for too long. Sophie was watching me with anxious eyes. I smiled at her, putting away dark thoughts. ‘Of course. But go on, I don’t want you to miss that bus. Thanks for opening up.’
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ she responded, trying to look reluctant to go.
‘I’ll cope.’15
She gave a delighted giggle and rinsed out her paintbrush. Then she stood up and threw her arms around me in a hug. ‘Thank you.’
I’m a lot taller than she is and she barely came up to my shoulder. ‘Get going,’ I told her. She shrugged on her coat, pulled a red beanie hat over that shiny dark hair, and headed for the door.
‘Got your inhaler?’ I yelled after her.
She stopped, checked her pocket and grinned. ‘You’re worse than my mum.’
‘I wonder why. Give my love to Seth,’ I added as she danced out of the door.
The shop bell jangled a farewell, then there was silence.
I looked around the shop, gazed for a moment at walls hung with Sophie’s paintings, and photos of Pat’s animals at Honeysuckle Farm waiting for new homes. She runs an animal sanctuary, along with her sister and brother-in-law. Today they were taking in animals from another shelter up on the moor, forced to close because the owner couldn’t afford to keep it running. They couldn’t afford to take in more animals either, but they were too good-hearted to refuse. Bouncer, looking for his forever home, I read under the picture of a Bull Terrier – good with children but needs a home with no other dogs. Or cats. I bet he does.
As customers were rare this early in the morning, I nipped upstairs to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and see if I could drag a comb through the tangled mass of my hair. While the kettle boiled, I gave in 16to the craving to look on my phone. No messages. Nothing from Daniel. I thumbed through some photos of him I’d taken last year. I’ve tried to delete them so many times, but just can’t bring myself to do it. Just as I can’t bear to burn his letters, addressed to Miss Browne with an e. My dear Miss B, he would always start. He stared back at me, lean, dark and hawkish, a quizzical look in his grey eyes, an ironic twist at the corner of his mouth. The second photo was different; all loving smiles. There was even a selfie of the two of us together, pulling idiotic faces. Just as the kettle came to a boil, I heard the jangle of the shop bell downstairs, pocketed my phone, and hurried down.
A man was standing in front of the counter, hands in the pockets of his jacket, staring around him uncertainly, the same man I’d seen peering in the window a little earlier. He was about fifty, I suppose, with greying sandy hair, parted low on one side, and large spectacles. He seemed nervous, his fingers jingling change in his pocket. If my antennae had started twitching when I’d seen him out in the street, at close quarters they started whirring like hornets’ wings. There was something about him that was just creepy.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked, trying not to stare at his comb-over.
‘Is Mrs Hunter in today?’
‘Mrs Hunter?’ I repeated, frowning. I didn’t know who he meant.
‘She works in here on certain days, I believe.’
‘I think you’ve got the wrong shop,’ I told him. 17‘There’s no Mrs Hunter working here.’
He smiled hesitantly, an uncertain gleam in his eyes, as if he was trying to work out whether I was lying to him. ‘There’s only Sophie and Pat,’ I went on. ‘Sometimes Elizabeth comes in. But none of them is called Hunter.’
He nodded in a smug way that made me feel I’d said too much.
‘Perhaps,’ he went on slyly, ‘she goes by another name.’
I got it then. It clicked. I knew who he was talking about. ‘I really can’t give out personal information about the people who work here,’ I said, adopting a brisker tone. ‘Do you mind telling me your name and what you want.’
‘I’m Colin.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Tell Mrs Hunter I called, will you?’
‘Colin?’ I repeated.
He nodded. ‘That’s right. Colin from Moorland View. She’ll know who you mean.’ He gave a knowing wink and left.
‘Shit,’ I muttered, reaching for the phone on the counter. Shit. Shit. Shit. I dialled Elizabeth’s number. I wished I hadn’t mentioned her name. In Ashburton, she’s known as Ms Knollys, Olly’s great-aunt. She is supposed to be his only remaining relative, and to have come from afar to look after the teenage boy when his great-grandmother died. Apart from Elizabeth herself, only Olly and I knew that was not her real identity. Her phone was engaged. Shit again.18
I realised that I’d never known her married name. If it wasn’t Hunter, then no harm had been done. Colin, whoever he was, was clearly barking up the wrong tree; or just plain barking. But if it was Hunter, then someone else knew her true identity. And that wasn’t good. She’d mentioned that she might pop into the shop later as she knew I was short-handed. I’d told her not to bother but now I hoped she would come. The phone rang, making me jump. I swept up the receiver.
‘Elizabeth?’
But the voice at the other end wasn’t hers. It was cracked with age and trembling with emotion. ‘Juno?’ it croaked.
‘Maisie?’ I wasn’t due to see her today. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I’m on the floor,’ she responded tearfully. ‘Can you come and help me?’
Maisie, aged ninety-seven, had fallen over.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘I don’t think so. But I can’t get up. Can you come?’
‘I’ll be there, Maisie,’ I assured her. ‘But it’ll take me a few minutes to get to you, so sit tight. Don’t worry, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ I put the phone down with a sigh. I’d have to shut the shop now. If only I’d driven here and not left the van at home. I grabbed my keys and locked up, flicking off the lights as I went. Should I ring an ambulance? With the road up, would that get to Maisie any quicker than I could? And if she wasn’t hurt, I could be diverting a crew from something more urgent. All this was reeling through my mind as 19I hurried up the street, dodging pedestrians and their dogs on the narrow pavement.
I thought about going straight to her place, and not bothering to fetch the van. But if she needed medical attention, we would want the transport.
I can’t have been many minutes fetching Van Blanc from outside my house and driving to Brook Cottage, but it felt like an age. I let myself in with Maisie’s spare key and was immediately challenged by a snarling Jacko, barrelling up the hall towards me.
‘It’s me, you stupid dog!’ I yelled before he could launch an attack on my ankles. I’ve walked him three times a week for years now but he still treats me like a burglar whenever I come through the door. Reassured by my dulcet tones, he backed off and went to stick his snout in his food bowl.
I could see Maisie’s thin legs sticking out from behind an armchair. She was sitting on the floor, her tiny body propped against the back of it. In her hand was a small greasy frying pan, while on the gas hob of the cooker in her tiny kitchenette, blue flames blazed away unhindered.
‘Hello, Juno,’ she called out cheerily as I reached out for the knob on the burner and turned it off. Luckily, she’d clung on to the frying pan as she fell, or the kitchen might have been on fire by now. The pan was empty, its contents almost certainly wolfed down and obligingly licked clean by Jacko.
‘What were you doing?’
‘I fancied a fried egg.’20
Maisie might be all smiles now but I could see the snail-trail of a tear on her raddled cheek. She’d knocked a table over in her fall. Fortunately, it was the one with the phone on it, which was how she’d been able to make the call. I righted the table and sat down on the floor next to her, removing the frying pan from her gnarled grasp and encasing her hand in mine.
‘How long had you been sitting here before you phoned?’ I asked.
‘Only a few minutes.’
A bit longer than that, I was willing to bet. I’ve been through this kind of thing with her before. At least it was warm in here. ‘You haven’t hurt yourself?’
She rubbed her knee. ‘My knee’s hurting a bit, but it’s nothing. I just can’t get up, that’s all.’
‘Let’s try, shall we?’ I stood up, manoeuvred myself into position, put my hands under her armpits, braced myself and hauled her to her feet. She weighed next to nothing, which, I suppose, was how she has managed to escape injury so far. Women much younger than her ninety-seven years have shattered their hip bones on impact with the floor. I checked her over for bruising, examined the suspect knee, made sure she could stand unaided, and fetched her walking frame, which, as so often on these occasions, wasn’t where it needed to be.
‘And how did you come to fall over?’ I asked. ‘You weren’t dizzy or anything?’
‘Oh, no,’ she answered evasively. ‘It was Jacko’s fault. He got under my feet.’
We both turned to look at him, sitting rooting in 21his groin. Jacko is in many ways a revolting little dog, smelly, greedy, disobedient and aggressive. But I doubt if he was the real culprit in this case. It was far more likely that Maisie had tripped over her own slippers, or simply had a wobble.
‘So, next question,’ I began. ‘Where is your pendant alarm?’
Her daughter, Our Janet, who lives up north, had set Maisie up with a home alarm system the last time she had visited, a pendant she could press if she got into trouble, which put her through to a call-centre. She should have been wearing it around her neck.
‘I forgot to put it on.’ She’s not a good liar. I could see the pendant discarded among the cushions on the sofa. The agency carer who came in every morning to help Maisie dress would certainly have made sure she was wearing it before she left. She’d taken it off herself, probably the moment Maria was out of the door.
‘I don’t like it,’ she admitted irritably, seeing the direction of my gaze. ‘And Jacko doesn’t like that thing.’ She gestured at the speaker mounted on the wall, a white box with a glowing green light signalling that it was switched on. When the pendant was activated, the reassuring voice of a call-centre operative should talk to her through that speaker and send help if necessary. ‘He starts barking when that voice comes out of it.’ Jacko was getting the blame for everything this morning. Maisie hunched a shoulder. ‘I don’t like using it.’
No, you’d rather call me, I thought.22
‘Juno,’ she went on, her voice wheedling, ‘we don’t need to tell Our Janet I fell over, do we?’
I sighed. It was Our Janet who paid my wages and once a week I phoned her to keep her informed of Maisie’s welfare.
‘She wants to put me in that place up north with a lot of old people. Northern old people,’ she finished in disgust.
That place was a comfortable care home where Maisie would be safe and near enough for her family members to visit. I sympathised with Janet’s desire to take care of her mother properly. But Maisie was determined not to leave Brook Cottage except in her coffin and I sympathised with that too.
‘I don’t want to go into a home,’ she went on, her face crumpling. ‘I don’t, I don’t!’ and she began to cry. ‘They won’t let me keep Jacko.’
I was horrified. Usually, whenever we have this conversation, Maisie is feisty and belligerent, not tearful. I put an arm around her thin shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Jacko, sensing perhaps that his future was at stake, waddled over and licked her hand.
‘You put me in a very awkward position,’ I told her. ‘I won’t say anything to Janet this time, but you’ve got to promise me you’ll wear this,’ I reached out for the pendant and,’ I added, stabbing with a finger at her walking frame, ‘you won’t go wandering about in here without it.’
‘I promise,’ she murmured, patting my arm with a veined hand.23
I hung the pendant around her neck. ‘I’m awarding you this gold medal for bad behaviour.’ She gave a watery chuckle. I made her a cup of tea and, after thoroughly scouring the pan, fried her the egg she’d fancied. That’s about the limit of my culinary skills. I left her sitting in her armchair watching the telly. I’d prepared sandwiches for her lunch. The ready meal for her supper was in the microwave, all she had to do was turn the dial. I’d phone her later to check up on her and Maria would be along in the evening to help her get into bed. Between us all, we kept her going. Ninety-seven, I muttered to myself as I let myself out of her cottage. How much longer could we keep on getting away with it?
CHAPTER TWO
When I got back to Old Nick’s, about an hour and a half after I’d locked it up, the shop seemed to have magically re-opened itself. The lights were on and the sign on the door was turned to Open. My first thought was that Pat had finished with her waifs and strays and come in after all, or, perish the thought, that Sophie had come back because she’d missed her bus. But as I let myself in, there was no sign of either of them. The place seemed deserted. I was just about to call out when a voice from the back room stopped me.
‘What exactly is it that you want?’ It was Elizabeth’s voice, precise as always, beautifully articulated, and at this moment, sounding quietly furious. It stopped me in my tracks.
‘Well, Mrs Hunter …’ the other voice belonged to Colin, the man who had been asking for her. ‘Or may I call you Elizabeth?’
‘You most certainly may not,’ came the clipped reply.
‘Oh?’ he sounded surprised. ‘I thought you might prefer it to being called Mrs Hunter around here.’25
‘Get to the point.’
‘You must understand my dilemma, Mrs Hunter,’ he went on, ‘what with the rise in the cost of living and everything …’
‘I understand you’re after money.’
‘Well, the two gentlemen who came to Moorland View enquiring after your whereabouts are most certainly after money, aren’t they? Quite a lot of it, from what I can gather. They’re offering me a very generous sum to discover those whereabouts, Mrs Hunter. And in order not to reveal the fact that I already know where you are, I feel a little renumeration is in order.’
‘This is blackmail.’
‘Nasty word, Mrs Hunter.’ Colin seemed determined to use her name with every breath. ‘After all, I’m only a humble care assistant, I don’t get paid much. And I would have thought, a mere half of what these gentlemen are offering me in order for me to stay silent, would be perfectly fair in the circumstances.’
I crept a few steps nearer to the door into the corridor and peered cautiously around the frame. I could see Colin in the back room, where I display my antiques and collectibles, standing in front of a pine dresser. I could see only the back of Elizabeth, her silver-blonde hair, as always, swept up into an immaculate chignon, her white blouse pressed.
‘What if I go straight to the police?’ she demanded.
I saw Colin smile. ‘What if you do, Mrs Hunter? I should think very carefully about the consequences of doing that if I were you. Living under an assumed name, 26sharing a house with a minor. What will the police think of that? And teenage boys are so vulnerable, aren’t they? Emotionally I mean. And I understand young Oliver is about to take his exams …’
‘You come anywhere near Olly and I will kill you,’ she promised in a fierce undertone. Colin laughed. He wouldn’t be laughing if he knew as much about Elizabeth as I did.
‘If you’re going to make threats,’ he retorted, ‘then you might like to consider Joan’s welfare. After all, some nights I’m the only care staff on duty at Moorland View. And I can’t be everywhere at once.’
‘Get out!’ Elizabeth came towards him, stepping into my line of sight. She picked up a native African club that was lying on a nearby table. It was made from ironwood and a blow on the head would certainly prove fatal. But Colin just laughed. Perhaps it was the price label tied around its neck that struck him as comical. He pointed at it as he backed away. Then he glanced in my direction and his smile vanished.
‘It seems we have an eavesdropper present, Mrs Hunter.’
‘You have a witness,’ I told him, walking down the corridor towards him. I glanced at Elizabeth. She was white-faced, her steely grey eyes blazing with fury, her mouth frozen in a tight line. ‘This is my shop,’ I told Colin. ‘And I want you out of it, right now.’ I stood aside to let him pass. ‘Go on, get out.’
He looked me up and down. ‘The famous Juno Browne,’ he gave a mocking chuckle. ‘No doubt 27about who you are, is there?’
I could feel my gorge rise as the odious little man passed close by me. He stank of cheap aftershave. ‘I’ll give you a little time to think about things, Mrs Hunter,’ he added generously. ‘I’m sure this has come as a bit of a shock.’
I didn’t look at him again as he let himself out. My eyes were on Elizabeth. We heard the bell jangle as he closed the door. She dropped the club with a groan and collapsed into the nearest chair. She was trembling, but with rage, not fear.
‘Elizabeth, what on earth … ?’
‘I knew they’d catch up with me one day.’ She gazed up at me and her usual steely resolve had left her eyes. She looked as if she were staring down the barrel of a gun. ‘Juno,’ she breathed in a long sigh. ‘I think it’s time I told you the truth.’
I closed the shop. This was more important. Elizabeth and I went upstairs to Old Nick’s kitchen where I made us a cup of tea. We would both have preferred something stronger but I don’t keep spirits on the premises.
‘You remember when we first met?’ she began.
‘Of course.’ After the death of her husband, George, who turned out to have been a secret gambler, Elizabeth had left her old life behind, surrendered the keys of her much-mortgaged house to the bank and gone on the road to escape his loan sharks. When I met her, she’d been living in her car with her cat. She’d also been carrying a pistol in her handbag.28
‘I didn’t tell you the whole truth,’ she went on, meeting my gaze squarely. ‘I told you I had no particular reason for coming here, to this part of Devon.’
I nodded. ‘You said you just liked the area.’
‘I lied. I did have a reason for wanting to be here.’ She paused a moment. ‘I have a sister, Joan, living in a care home in Bovey Tracey. She and her husband retired there some time ago, but shortly after they moved, he was diagnosed with cancer and he didn’t live out the year. They had no children. Joan used to be very active, very fit, swam at her local spa every morning. About seven years ago, while she was alone in the pool, she suffered a stroke. It was some time, perhaps half an hour, before anyone realised what had happened to her. By that time, a lot of damage had been done. Now Joan cannot walk or speak and doesn’t know who I am.’
‘That’s terrible.’ Words, as always, seemed inadequate. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She smiled sadly. ‘I’ve been visiting her at Moorland View for years. So, when I was forced to leave my home, I came to this area so that I could be close enough to still visit, but not so close that anyone could trace me through her. Of course, by this time, the staff already knew me by my married name, Hunter.’
I could see why she’d been attracted to Ashburton. Just a few miles from Bovey Tracey, she could visit her sister easily, but still retain distance, anonymity.
‘I thought I’d got away with it,’ she went on dryly, ‘until today. It seems that some of the people George 29owed money to aren’t prepared to let it go so easily.’
‘And they’ve managed to track you to your sister’s care home?’
‘It seems so.’
‘Do you know how?’
She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I suppose if they came up with some plausible reason for making enquiries, they might have learnt something from our old neighbours, from people who lived in the street where George and I lived. They all knew Joan and what had happened to her, long before I disappeared. I believe one of them still sends her a Christmas card.’
I have never heard Elizabeth complain, but leaving all her friends behind, slamming the door on the life she had known, must have been hard. ‘Anyway, whoever these two are, they’ve traced her to Moorland View and have been there enquiring about me, according to Colin. And they’ve offered him money if he can tell them where I am, so he’s made it his business to find out.’
‘Does anyone else there know where you live, apart from Colin?’
‘The home has my mobile number of course, in case they need to contact me in an emergency, but they don’t have an address. In any case, Mrs MacDonald, who runs the place, would never give out personal information of any kind. I’m certain I can rely on her discretion.’
‘So, how did Colin find out where you are?’
‘I can only assume he must have followed me back to Olly’s house. He seems to be well-informed. He must have been snooping around Ashburton, asking questions.’30
‘He’s been stalking you. Now he’s trying to blackmail you. Why don’t you go to the police?’
‘And tell them what? That I’ve been living under an assumed name …’
‘That’s not a crime.’
‘And that, although I claim to be his aunt,’ she went on, ‘I am not related to the underage boy whose house I’ve moved into? I’m not sure they’d consider me a suitable person to continue looking after him. And do I tell them that I’m on the run from my husband’s creditors? And by the way, George and I had some bank accounts set up in joint names, which means, legally, I probably am liable for his debts.’
It didn’t seem fair. She’d already lost everything she owned because of her husband’s gambling. ‘Did George owe a lot of money?’
She gave a rueful smile. ‘A horrific amount, and to some very unpleasant people.’
‘Does Olly know you’ve got a sister?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve told him as little about my past as possible. The less he knows, the better. I have to protect him.’ Her jaw tightened. ‘That’s all that matters. I have to protect Olly. And my sister.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m not giving any money to that bloody awful man. I can’t, I haven’t got it to give.’
‘How much is he asking for?’
‘Ten thousand pounds.’
‘What!’ I was gobsmacked. ‘So, if Colin is telling the truth, these men who came to your sister’s home are 31offering him twenty thousand just to find out where you are.’ I puffed out my cheeks. ‘Which means George must have owed them a lot.’
‘His debts ran just short of two hundred thousand, spread about among a number of these … creditors,’ Elizabeth said bitterly. ‘And those are just the debts I know about. Of course, most of that money owed is interest on the original loan and until it’s paid, that keeps on rising.’
‘Do you think Colin is telling the truth? He might have found out about George’s debts somehow and have invented these two loan sharks, just to frighten you into giving him money.’
Elizabeth was silent a moment, thoughtful. ‘I don’t see how he could have found out. Joan couldn’t have told him anything, poor darling.’
‘But when you go to visit her …’
‘I talk to her of course. Tell her all the latest news. Just because she can’t speak doesn’t mean she can’t hear. I don’t know whether or not she can understand me but it’s important to keep her stimulated. I tell her about Olly and his exams coming up … Oh God,’ she moaned. ‘That foul little man must have been eavesdropping, picking up clues.’
I was still thinking about the two loan sharks, the men Colin claimed to have spoken to. ‘I wonder if they’ve approached the owner of Moorland View.’
‘Mrs MacDonald?’
‘She’d be the obvious person to ask. And if they’d made enquiries among any of the other staff she’d know, 32surely, and she’d tell you someone had been asking for you. They must have left contact details of some sort.’
‘She hasn’t been in touch.’
‘You could go to her and complain. Tell her that Colin has turned up here and you think he’s been stalking you.’
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. ‘And lose him his job? He’d be even more in need of money then, not to mention nursing a grudge.’
‘That’s true,’ I admitted. ‘But if Mrs MacDonald knows nothing, then at least we can be reasonably sure that it’s only Colin we have to deal with.’
‘We?’
‘Well, it’s none of my business obviously, but …’
She reached across the table and took my hand. ‘I don’t want to drag you into this business, Juno. I don’t want to get you involved.’
‘I am involved,’ I told her. ‘If that creep thinks he can come into my shop, threatening my friends …’
She laughed, shaking her head. ‘You are priceless!’
I ignored this because I wasn’t quite sure what she meant. ‘If we could find a way of putting pressure on Colin,’ I carried on, ‘turn the tables on him somehow.’
Elizabeth was nodding, that steely glint of determination back in her eye. ‘Then I might not have to murder him after all,’ she said lightly.
I thought about this later, in bed. I’d been telling Bill about it but he wasn’t any help, just purred at the sound of my voice. He was curled up now, a furry black blob on the duvet. How much did I really know about 33Elizabeth? When I met her that evening in the town hall car park, she’d been homeless and on the run. She’d resisted all overtures of friendship until the night she’d saved me from an attacker by calmly pulling a pistol from her handbag and just as calmly, pulling the trigger. It had dampened his ardour somewhat and he’d run off howling, a bullet hole in his hand. She’s always claimed she was a music teacher before she retired, and I’m sure that at some point in her life, she was. She helps to coach Olly on the bassoon, accompanying his practice on the piano. But at the time she arrived, he was being bullied at school and she taught him some useful self-defence moves. I think that in the past she might have been in the military, whatever that means.
All I did know was that she was a force for good in Olly’s life. Somehow, he had slipped through the social services’ net. At fourteen, he’d been living alone in his great-grandmother’s house, so terrified of being taken into care that he’d kept the old woman’s death a secret. Elizabeth’s arrival had been a godsend. She’d moved in, taking on responsibility for Olly, pretending to be a family member. This had also solved the problem of her homelessness. And while it might not exactly have been a marriage made in heaven, she and Olly got along. And they had grown fond of each other, fond enough to carry on with the arrangement and to keep each other’s secrets.
Another person Elizabeth had grown fond of was Tom Carter, an old client of mine. She’d met him when she’d joined the church choir. Initially, they’d been 34held back from full-on romance by Tom’s need for a replacement hip. But since the operation, who knew? Whatever was going on, they were discreet about it. He was teaching Elizabeth fly-fishing. That was about as much as she’d admit to. Of course, none of us at Old Nick’s believe their romance hasn’t gone further. But I can’t help wondering just how much Tom knows about his new lady friend and her interesting past.
CHAPTER THREE
The next day was Saturday so I was in the shop anyway. I only work on Domestic Goddess jobs during the week, although I had called in on Maisie on my way in that morning. She was back on form, her usual cantankerous self; still not wearing her pendant alarm, I noticed.
‘You promised,’ I reminded her, slipping it around her neck. She scowled but didn’t argue. She was being taken out to lunch with the pensioners’ association so at least I didn’t have to worry about leaving her on her own. I wasn’t expecting Pat, still busy with her waifs and strays, and she didn’t usually come into the shop at weekends anyway. The only person I was expecting was Elizabeth.
She didn’t disappoint, slipping in through the shop door about half-way through the morning as I was busy unpacking a box of plate stands that I had ordered online. They came packed in a cardboard box, with a mile of heavy-duty sticky tape wound around it, like the wrappings on a mummified corpse. I was hunting in the counter drawer for my slicing tool, a cunning little 36blade concealed between two discs of plastic about the size of a fifty pence piece. The blade is pushed out by a little slider on the side. I don’t know if this object has a name. I call it my snipe. The whole device fits neatly into the palm of my hand and is one of my favourite objects. There’s something very satisfying about the way it slices through sticky tape. But then, I’m funny like that.
I abandoned my search for it when Elizabeth came in. Her concession to the weekend was to braid her hair in a complicated plait and wear jeans with a padded body warmer. She still managed to look effortlessly elegant and make me feel bedraggled, as if I’d just fallen out of bed. She grabbed the back of Sophie’s chair, wheeled it over to the counter and sat down opposite me, her face serious and intent.
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘I phoned Moorland View and spoke to Mrs MacDonald,’ she began. ‘I enquired after Joan, and asked if she’d had any visitors recently. Mrs MacDonald said she thought not, but she’d check amongst the staff. She rang me back a little while later.’
I sensed something significant was coming and leant forward over the counter. ‘And?’
‘It seems there was an incident involving Joan two weeks ago, and she’d only just learnt about it. She was very apologetic. Apparently, there was a junior member of staff on duty at reception at the time who hadn’t written a report about it because she was scared of getting into trouble. But it must have been worrying her because when Mrs Macdonald asked about Joan’s 37visitors, she burst into tears and confessed all.’
‘So, what had happened?’
‘It seems Joan did receive visitors, two men, who came to reception and asked to see her. They claimed to be cousins, even arrived with a bunch of flowers, and the receptionist let them in to her room.’
‘I take it they weren’t really cousins?’
‘No. Joan doesn’t have any. And they clearly didn’t know the seriousness of her condition because when the receptionist went by, she heard them asking her questions. “Where is she?” they kept repeating. “Tell us where she is.”’
‘They didn’t know that she couldn’t speak?’
‘Apparently not. When the receptionist looked into Joan’s room, she saw that they had dragged her to her feet and were shaking her. She was obviously distressed. The girl asked them to leave, threatening to phone the police. Eventually she was forced to call for a male member of staff to show them off the premises.’
‘Let me guess.’
Elizabeth nodded. ‘It was Colin. That must have been when they approached him.’
‘He’ll have some questions to answer when he goes back on duty.’
She shrugged. ‘He’ll say he didn’t report the incident because he was protecting the junior member of staff.’
‘But surely visitors to Moorland View have to sign in and out?’
‘They do. But when Mrs MacDonald checked the names in the visitors’ book, Joan had been visited by a 38Mr Smith and a Mr Jones.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Not exactly original. The receptionist described them as both well-dressed, wearing expensive suits and overcoats. They arrived in a brand-new Audi, she noticed. One was young, and quite good-looking apparently, the other was older and taller. He wore gold cuff-links, she remembered. They looked respectable and they were very polite. She had no reason to suspect they weren’t who they said they were. Except that what she should have done is to check Joan’s file to see who her permitted visitors are. Anyone not on that list should have been checked with Mrs MacDonald.’
‘Does Joan receive any genuine visitors?’ I asked.
‘Neighbours who knew her before she suffered her stroke used to come at first. But once they realised that she couldn’t recognise them anymore, they gradually gave up. You can’t really blame them,’ she added sadly, ‘it’s a long way for them to come.’
‘Have you visited Joan since this incident happened?’
‘Once.’ A frown puckered Elizabeth’s brow. ‘And you know, when I arrived, she squeezed my hand so tightly, it hurt. I realise now that perhaps she was trying to tell me something.’
‘Was Colin on duty on the day you visited?’
‘I only saw him once, in the car park, getting into his car as I was about to leave.’
‘So that could have been the day he followed you home.’
She fiddled pensively with a gold earring. ‘It could, yes.’39
‘It seems that Mr Smith and Mr Jones aren’t prepared to hang around Bovey Tracey waiting for you to appear.’
‘If they are George’s creditors, they will have come from London. Which is why, presumably, they’ve employed the services of Colin. It’s also possible that they don’t know what I look like. After all,’ she added with a wry smile, ‘we’ve never been introduced.’
‘I still can’t believe they’ve offered him twenty thousand pounds just to find you.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It’s more likely to be a fraction of that. He’s just trying to screw as much as he can out of me.’ She tapped the counter with a manicured fingernail. ‘And I suspect he still intends to collect from Messrs Smith and Jones, whatever I pay him.’
‘So, what next?’ I asked.
‘A visit to Moorland View tomorrow, I think, and a serious chat with Mrs MacDonald about tightening up security.’
‘Did she call the police about the incident?’
‘She called them as soon as she found out what happened, but it was already too long after the event. A police officer called this morning apparently, and the girl on reception was asked to try to identify the two men from photographs of suspected conmen – criminals who’ve been known to worm their way into care homes in order to steal – but with no success. She’s currently helping them put together two photofit pictures, which Mrs Macdonald assures me will be pinned up on the noticeboard in reception so that these men don’t gain entry a second time.’40
‘I wonder if Colin will be on duty when you visit tomorrow.’
‘I didn’t ask.’ She shrugged. ‘I won’t know that now until I get there.’
