The Murder at Skellin Cottage Read online

  “It's great here,” she told him. “Really great.”

  “That's wonderful,” he said with a smile, before looking at the kettle as it finished boiling.

  For a moment, an awkward silence fell across the kitchen.

  “I'd invite you to have a coffee,” Deborah said suddenly, “but I'm afraid you caught me just as I was about to go out.”

  “I'd never dream of imposing,” he replied. “Another time, perhaps?”

  “Another time. Sorry, I've just been running around all morning and I still have to go into town.”

  “Shopping, eh?”

  “No, just...” She paused for a moment. “Yes. A spot of shopping.”

  “Groceries?”

  She nodded.

  “The refrigerator is big enough for your needs, I hope?” he asked. “I could always buy another and have it sent over.”

  “It's fine. Really. I just need to go into town and get some things to put in it.”

  “I'll speak to a man in town. See about getting a bigger one.”

  “There's no need.”

  “Oh, it's not a problem.”

  She opened the fridge door, letting him see the few items she kept around.

  “Space really isn't a problem,” she pointed out.

  “You know,” he replied, “you could have all of that delivered to the door. In fact, I could pick things up for you later today when I'm in town, and bring them right here. That way, you'd have plenty of time to work on your book.”

  “Thank you, but I need a few other things too.”

  “Nonsense, I'm happy to help! Just write a list and I'll collect it all for you.”

  “I need to pick up a prescription as well.”

  “Oh? What for?”

  She hesitated, as if for a moment she couldn't think of a reply.

  “Just some things,” she said finally. “You know... Things.”

  She waited for him to get the hint, but he in turn seemed to be waiting for her to elaborate.

  “Is that the time?” she asked, checking her watch. “Wow, I had no idea it was already half three. I hope you don't mind, but I think I should probably get going. I'm not sure when the chemist closes and -”

  “Five,” he said, interrupting her.

  “Is that right?”

  “I'm quite certain. It closes at five. You have lots of time.”

  Another pause, as silence fell between them again.

  “Perhaps I've kept you long enough,” Lord Chesleford said finally, forcing a smile as he took one final look around the kitchen. “I should get going anyway. I've still got rather a long way to walk home, and my knees aren't what they once were.”

  He waited, as if he was hoping she'd offer to give him a lift.

  “Well, quite,” he added, turning and heading back through to the hallway.

  Deborah followed him and saw to her relief that he was already stepping out into the yard. Still, she knew from experience that even the final stage of a Lord Chesleford visit could easily drag on for twenty minutes or more.

  “I'll bring the rent to you next month,” she told him. “There's really no need to pop by like this. I'm sure you're very busy.”

  “Oh, you'd be surprised how much time I have on my hands,” he replied, turning back to her. “Truth be told, I rather like getting out and about like this. One can get rather bored when one just spends all day in one's own home. Well, maybe that's not the case for you. You've got your work to keep you busy.”

  “Absolutely,” she said, already starting to swing the door shut. “Goodbye. See you next month.”

  “Feel free to drop by the house before then,” he told her.

  “I will.”

  “And I might come past again some time. I hope you won't mind if I drop in.”

  “Of course not. Have a nice walk home. Take care.”

  Without giving him a chance to restart the conversation, she shut the door and then froze, listening to make sure that he left. After a moment, hearing footsteps heading away, she peered out through the kitchen window and saw that sure enough Lord Chesleford was already out on the main road, heading down the hill that led toward town. Still worried that he might come back, however, she waited a couple more minutes until the old man was out of view, and then she looked down as she felt Merriwig brushing against her left leg.

  “I know,” Deborah said with a sigh. “I thought he'd never leave.”

  The cat meowed in agreement.

  After reaching down and briefly petting Merriwig, Deborah headed to the door and slid the bolt across, and then she made her way to the stairs and hurried to the bedroom. Stopping for a moment at the landing window, she looked out at the yard, just to make absolutely, doubly sure that Lord Chesleford was long gone, and then finally she pushed the bedroom door open.

  “He's got a crush on you,” Harry said, sitting up in bed with his bare chest exposed. “You realize that, right?”

  “He does not,” she replied, swinging the door shut. “He's just a lonely old man.”

  “A lonely old man with a thing for you,” Harry continued, reaching toward her and beckoning him to join her in the bed. “He's probably sick of being holed up in that big old manor house with only his retard son for company.”

  “Hey! Don't say things like that!”

  “It's true, isn't it? Come on, we're adults here, we don't have to be all PC about these things. Old Chesleford'd give anything to be right where I am now. Naked, in your bed, about to screw you into the mattress. Then again, at his age, maybe he doesn't have the stamina.”

  “You're being mean,” she pointed out, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I don't like that.”

  Leaning toward her, he moved the hair from her shoulder and kissed her bare neck.

  “I need to get on with my work,” she continued, flinching slightly. “Would you mind?”

  “How about one more round and then I'll leave.”

  “How about I get on with my work?” she asked, pulling away and turning to him. “I'm sorry, I just need to get on with this chapter.”

  He reached for her chest, but she carefully moved his hand away.

  “Same time tomorrow?” he asked.

  She swallowed hard.

  “Maybe at the weekend,” she said finally, with a cautious smile. “I can't be doing with too many distractions right now.”

  “Is that what you call it now?” He lifted the sheet and looked down at his bare crotch. “A distraction?”

  “Get dressed,” she muttered, standing and heading out of the room before stopping in the doorway and glancing back at him. “If you're quick, you can have a cup of tea before you leave. But only one. I really have to get on with my book.”

  “Still not gonna tell me what it's about?”

  She shook her head.

  “Is it about me?” he asked with a grin. “Is it about a handsome pig farmer who woos a successful writer and teaches her a few things in the sack?”

  “Get dressed, Harry,” she replied, finally stepping out onto the landing. “Your tea'll be getting cold.”

  Chapter Three

  Today

  “Harry Morgan?” Jo called out, knocking again on the door before hearing a scraping sound coming from around the side of the house. She hesitated for a moment, before heading over to take a look, and finally she realized someone was busy in one of the farmhouse's barns.

  Making her way over, she had to step around a large patch of scattered manure. The whole yard was a mess, with rusting old pieces of machinery having been left all over the place, and an old greenhouse stood a little way off with several broken windows. Even the barn itself looked as if it had seen better days, with a rusted corrugated roof and several holes in the walls.

  “Harry Morgan?” she called out again. “I'm sorry, I'm looking for someone named Harry Morgan.”

  A moment later, a muddied figure emerged from the barn, carrying a couple of dead ducks in his right hand and an old rake in his left.
r />   “You're just in time,” he said with a grin, holding the ducks up for her to see, as blood spattered down against the concrete floor. “I'm running low. Don't reckon I'll get any more in until next week. Even without my bloody phone, I'm getting swamped with buyers.” He hesitated for a moment, eyeing her up and down. “You're not here for a duck, are you?”

  ***

  “So what exactly have people told you about us?” Harry asked a short while later, as he finished drying his face in the kitchen. “Chelmsbury's full of gossip. If anything happens around these parts, you'll hear five different versions in the town square by midday.”

  “I know you and Deborah were friends,” Jo replied, leaning against the sideboard and watching as he filled the kettle. “I know you visited her at Skellin Cottage sometimes. I know the police found your fingerprints in several of the rooms. Including the bedrooms.”

  “Did you know I was a suspect for a while?”

  She watched as he set the kettle on to boil.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “I did know that.”

  “Prime suspect, I believe,” he continued, turning to her. “That Jack Byron fella had me in for questioning three times. Wanted to know exactly what I was doing, spending all that time over at the cottage. I think he thought he was in some kind of CSI thing. He kept prodding the table with his finger, like he was trying to be tough. It was all I can do not to laugh in his blinkin' face.”

  “And what -”

  “So let me get this straight,” he added, interrupting her. “You're not a cop?”

  “No.”

  “You're a private detective?”

  She nodded.

  “Someone hired you?”

  “Lord Martin Chesleford is paying me to look into Deborah Dean's murder.”

  “Lord -”

  He hesitated for a moment, as if the news was a genuine shock.

  “And private detectives still exist, do they?” he asked finally. “I mean, I thought they were some kind of American thing that died out after the Second World War.”

  “There are a few of us around.”

  “And how do you end up as a private detective, anyway?”

  “When did you last see Deborah Dean alive?”

  “I don't have to tell you anything, do I?” he replied, leaning back against the counter. “Not if you're not a cop.”

  “You can tell me to leave right now, and I'll leave.”

  He paused, eyeing her with a hint of suspicion.

  “I last saw her on the night she died,” he said after a moment. “I'm assuming you've read the police reports about it all?”

  “Not all of them. Where you at Skellin Cottage that night?”

  He shook his head. “She came over here.”

  “What time?”

  “About half one in the morning.”

  Taking out a black notebook, Jo jotted the information down.

  “How long was she here for?”

  “Just enough time for me to tell her to go away,” he replied. “I didn't open the door.”

  She glanced at him. “I thought she was your friend?”

  “She was,” he said, emphasizing the second word, “but things were bad between us.”

  “What happened?”

  “Just a disagreement.”

  “About?”

  “About nothing. About stupid things.”

  “But -”

  “A lover's tiff. There, are you happy?”

  She made another note.

  “So I turned her away,” he continued, as the kettle began to boil. “I'm not proud of it. If I'd known she was in trouble, I'd have let her in, of course I would. Instead, I told her to get out of here, and then I went back to bed. I was sick of the way things had been going between us. She was a woman who gave out very mixed messages. One minute she was pushing me away, the next she was begging me to go over. And yes, believe me, I've relived that moment over and over, thinking about how things might have been different if I'd just unlocked the door.”

  “So your relationship with Deborah was over by this point?”

  “It's complicated.”

  She waited for him to explain.

  “It's not relevant to what you're asking about,” he continued. “The night she came here, she was saying something about someone coming after her. She sounded scared.”

  “And you still didn't let her in?”

  “It wasn't the first time she'd done that. You didn't know Deborah, but she could get a little paranoid from time to time. She never wanted to talk about her life before she moved here, she always changed the subject and then she flat-out refused to discuss it if any of us pressed her on the matter. The one thing she couldn't hide, though, was her fear. There was something that scared her, as if she was terrified of someone from her past coming back and finding her. She never said what it was, or who it was, but there were times when she seemed convinced that someone was following her. That's what I thought was going on, anyway.”

  “Did you ever see anyone?”

  He shook his head.

  “Over time,” he said with a sigh, “I started thinking she was just being dramatic. She was a writer, right? I started assuming she was just a little paranoid. And then we had our little disagreement, and not long after she turned up here shouting about someone coming for her, and I just assumed she was trying to trick me into opening the door. I thought she was being a bit of a prima donna, to be honest. Or that she'd been on the wine.” He paused. “I guess I was wrong. I guess someone was after her.”

  “Did you tell the police about this?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you know what they learned about her earlier life?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you know where she was from?”

  Again, he shook his head.

  “Do you...” She paused. “Do you even know for sure that Deborah Dean was her real name?”

  “It was the name on all her bills. On her credit cards, too.”

  “That doesn't necessarily mean it's the name she was born with. I've had trouble tracking down any record of her life before she arrived in the area.”

  “I'm not stupid,” he replied. “I had plenty of questions, but she wasn't giving out any answers. There was one night when she'd had a few glasses of wine and she seemed like she might be about to tell me something, but then she clammed up. She was like that sometimes. We might have been seeing each other, but it wasn't the kind of arrangement where either of us ever really opened up. She kept her defenses in place.”

  “Did she have an accent?”

  “Not really. London maybe.”

  “Any tattoos or distinguishing marks?”

  “Well, she had a mole somewhere not a lot of people would've seen it,” he replied, “but I don't suppose that'll help you much.”

  “You'd be surprised,” she muttered, making a note regardless.

  “I had a photo of...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “A photo of what?”

  “Doesn't matter,” he replied. “Anyway, my phone got nicked a while back and the photos were all still on there.”

  “What kind of photos?”

  A faint smile crossed his lips. “The kind of photos a woman sends a guy if she wants to lure him to her place on a cold and stormy night. I'm sure you get the idea. Nothing too racy, but... Well, let's just say that they did the trick.” He sighed. “I ran over there like a little puppy.”

  “Did she ever talk to you about the future?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You were seeing her, weren't you?”

  He nodded.

  “And sleeping with her.”

  “Sometimes I even stayed over at Skellin Cottage. Old Chesleford wouldn't have liked that, if he'd known about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “He had the hots for her. Nothing serious, nothing dodgy, but it was pathetically obvious. Debbie never wanted to admit it, she always said I was wrong, but the
poor old sod was always showing up there, bugging her.”

  “She didn't like his attention?”

  “She tolerated him. I mean, he was her landlord.”

  “But you never discussed the future with her?” she asked. “You never talked about where your relationship was heading?”

  “I don't think she was the marrying type,” he replied. “Or the mothering type, either. That was the thing about Debbie. I always felt like she was one little fright away from packing up and running away. Every single time I went over to Skellin Cottage, it occurred to me that I might find she was gone. Judging by the way she was talking when she came here that last night, I think maybe she was on her way. Only, she was too late and whoever was after her managed to stop her before she could run. I think even the cops accepted that in the end. The killer wasn't anyone from round these parts. It was someone from her past. That's where you need to be doing your digging.”

  ***

  “Try every variation you can think of,” Jo said a short while later, as she stepped out of her car and looked across the town square. With her phone against one side of her face, she hesitated for a moment, watching as people wandered from shop to shop. “Maybe Dean was her mother's maiden name. Or her father's first name. If she changed her identity, she might not have chosen something completely random.”

  Feeling a couple of drops of cold rain, she looked up at the dull gray sky.

  “Or it might have been completely random,” she added. “Plucked out of thin air.”

  “It'll take me a while to run all these checks,” Kevin replied from the other end of the line. “I'm not supposed to be using police records to help you, you know. We've been given a warning about that.”

  “They'll never -”

  “I mean about you specifically,” he continued, lowering his voice a little as if he was worried about being overheard. “You-know-who sent a memo around last week, warning everyone that they'll be in deep shit if they're caught helping you with anything at all. I think he's onto you, Jo. He knows you're sniffing around and he doesn't like it.”

  “A woman has been murdered and -”

  “Relax,” he replied, interrupting her, “I'll do it, I'm just saying it might take a little longer. I'll call you if I come up with anything.”