Murder Unexpected Read online

  Newton sighed. ‘He’s my son. And trust me, he’ll live to regret doing this. The money will be paid back into that safe in full by tonight.’

  ‘You promise you’ll deal with him?’ Keeley looked up at the man who was clearly distressed.

  ‘I do, and I also promise he’ll make a full apology to both of you for causing such heartache. Please leave me your address, he will be visiting you, alongside me.’

  Keeley hesitated for a moment, then pulled a small scrap of paper towards her. She scribbled down her address and stood. ‘Come on, Beth. Let’s leave Mr Newton to sort this. Thank you for replacing my money,’ she said.

  They were back in Connection before Mouse spoke again.

  ‘You sure about this?’

  Keeley nodded. ‘I am. I have a son, and one day somebody may have to forgive something he’s done. I certainly don’t think Newton’s son is going to get away with anything, do you?’

  Mouse laughed. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, that’s for sure. Did he give you the full amount?’

  Keeley took out the money she had dropped into her bag, and began to count it. She stopped at three hundred, still holding extra in her left hand. She carried on and finally looked up. ‘He’s given me five hundred. Five hundred, Beth! There’ll be no shortage of ice creams on this holiday.’

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Mouse joked, ‘I almost wish I was coming with you. Can you do me a favour and just fill out one of our contract forms? There’s no charge to you, of course, I haven’t really done anything, but I’m taking a course and we have to talk about a couple of real cases. I think this will be excellent for it. Don’t worry, I won’t use your name, but if I have to provide proof I actually did the work, then I’ll need the contract.’

  ‘Happy to oblige,’ Keeley said, and took the official-looking form. ‘It’s been an eventful trip out for us and Hoppy.’

  ‘Hoppy?’

  ‘He’s a toy rabbit. He belongs to Henry’s class, and they take it in turns to look after him for the week. We have to take him out and photograph him in different places. The idea was to bring him to Eyam, and snap him in the churchyard, by the plague cottages, that sort of thing, and to combine it with the trip to get our money. If I’d stayed local, none of this would have happened.’

  She shook her head almost in disbelief, and bent to sign the contract.

  ‘Thank you so much, Beth,’ Keeley said, as she pushed the contract back across the desk towards Mouse.

  Five minutes later, peace was restored, and both Doris and Mouse waved off their unexpected visitors.

  ‘That was easy to solve,’ Mouse said. ‘Let’s hope finding Pamela Farrar is just as easy. We got any water in the fridge? I’m really thirsty.’

  ‘There’s a couple of bottles. Help yourself. I’ll file this contract, and then we’ll have a chat about where we go next with the case that actually makes us money,’ Doris said with a laugh.

  She picked up the contract, photocopied it, and walked towards the filing cabinet. She took out a folder marked contracts, and inserted it alphabetically. The photocopy was placed into a newly opened file and it was only as she was closing it that she noticed the address.

  ‘Mouse, did Keeley say where she lived?’

  ‘No, I know it’s not Eyam, because they came here for a treat, but she didn’t say anything other than if she’d stayed local, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘Local is Hope. Her address is two, Journey Street, Hope.’

  ‘How odd that we’ve two cases both from the same village,’ Mouse said, trying desperately to open the sports top of the bottle of water, and not really listening to her nan.

  ‘Tom and Judy’s address is one, Journey Street.’

  Mouse put the bottle on her desk.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They live next door to each other. The other side of the road has no houses on it, it’s open land, hence the consecutive house numbers. What did she say about Henry? His daddy was dead?’

  ‘You don’t think…?’

  Doris shrugged. ‘You said Alice Small spoke about the marriage being on the point of collapse when he was diagnosed with cancer. I know it’s a longshot, but if that young man is Tom’s son, it opens up inheritance issues. And I tell you something else, when I saw Henry, it was like seeing someone I already knew. Look at the photograph we have of Tom Carpenter.’

  ‘We need to tell Kat. She’s our thinker.’

  Doris nodded. ‘Let’s go home.’

  The dog sniffed at the body lying half on the path and half in the stream. The blood had attracted him, and he walked around the man several times. He nudged him with his nose, but there was still no reaction. In the end the dog gave up and walked away.

  The squirrel high up in the tree watched the dog until it was far enough away to prove no threat, and then it scampered down the trunk and sat for a while on a root. He waited patiently.

  Mouse and Doris drove home, arriving at the same time as Kat. They helped her in with assorted bags and the baby, then sat for a moment around the kitchen table, watching the sleeping Martha in her car seat.

  ‘She’s been so good,’ Kat said. ‘I’ve had precious little to do with her; Mum and Dad are besotted.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Mouse said. ‘It will give you peace of mind when you’re ready for work again. We’ve had a strange afternoon. And when it was all over, it got stranger.’

  She laid out the contracts on the table, and Kat scrutinised them. ‘They’re next-door neighbours. Who’s Keeley Roy?’

  Mouse and Doris explained the circumstances of the afternoon and the final result, telling Kat they had only noticed the addresses once Keeley and Henry had set off for home.

  Kat digested their words. ‘You think this little boy is Tom’s child?’

  ‘We need to do some careful checking, but it kinda finished off the odd circumstances. I’m not sure how we find out, without asking Keeley, and maybe she won’t want to tell us. Why is the lawnmower in the middle of the lawn?’

  ‘What?’ Kat spun around and stared out of the kitchen window. She stood and walked to the door, unlocked it and went outside. ‘Mouse!’

  ‘Nan, watch Martha, will you?’

  Mouse followed Kat outside. On the patio table was a small plastic box and a flask – Danny’s refreshments. In the middle of the lawn was the lawnmower, and a garden fork was dumped in the middle of the roses.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Kat said. ‘Danny wouldn’t leave anything like this. You should have heard him tell me off for leaving earth on a trowel last year. I’m worried. I’m going down to the stream. What if he’s fallen and needs help…’ She walked over to the back of the garden, towards the trickling stream.

  She climbed down the incline carefully until she was standing on the well-worn path. Mouse followed her.

  Chapter 7

  They spotted the body at the same time.

  ‘No…’ Kat breathed, anguish in the one word.

  Mouse grabbed her from behind. ‘Don’t move,’ she whispered. ‘Think this through first. Why would Danny be down here? Why are the tools left out? What made him leave them to clamber down onto this path? Did he spot somebody here who shouldn’t have been? Leon? We can’t tackle this, Kat. I won’t let you go down there. Let’s run back to the house, get that panic button working.’

  Kat hesitated, every instinct telling her to go to Danny, but knew, even from that distance, that it was too late for her gentle friend.

  Her head slumped and she nodded. ‘Quickly, Mouse. We need someone here quickly, just in case…’

  Nan was standing at the kitchen window when she saw her girls hurtling up from the path into the garden, and knew something bad was happening. Their faces told the story, without having to use words.

  She opened the door, and watched as Kat hit the panic button.

  It was almost exactly a minute later when they heard the first sirens telling them that help was on its way. Mouse was at the fr
ont door as the first car pulled onto the drive, and she took the two officers straight through to the kitchen.

  She took over the telling of the story when it became obvious that Kat was faltering. The taller of the two officers moved to the back door first.

  ‘I’ll take a look,’ he said.

  ‘I’m with you,’ his colleague responded and they headed across the garden, lowering themselves carefully down onto the path.

  They reached the man, and Dave Irwin and Ray Charlton looked at each other. Dave bent down and checked for a pulse, knowing he was only doing it because it was regulations. ‘He’s gone,’ Dave confirmed. ‘And it is Danny McLoughlin. I’ve known him years. Play darts with him at times.’

  He spoke into his radio, organising an ambulance and CSI unit and requesting a call from DI Marsden.

  Within the hour a cordon had been thrown around Eyam, although privately Tessa Marsden thought it was a waste of time. The second Leon Rowe had shot Danny McLoughlin, he would have already been leaving the area. She had no doubt Rowe was to blame for the murderous act; the bullet would indubitably have come from a gun known to them.

  Marsden sat at the table with Kat, Mouse and Doris, and opened her notebook. ‘I’ll need you to make an official statement later, but talk me through this afternoon.’

  ‘There’s not much to talk through,’ Mouse said. ‘Kat and Martha left a couple of minutes earlier than us, just before twelve I guess.’

  ‘Kat?’

  Kat nodded. ‘That’s right. I knew Danny was coming to mow the lawn, so I took Martha out of the way because of the noise. It’s a fair size lawn and takes a while to cut. The two of us went to Mum and Dad’s place.’ As if in confirmation, Martha snuffled in her sleep, and Marsden smiled.

  ‘She’s certainly a beautiful baby, Kat. Do you think Leon knew she had been born?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. I suspect he came here to check close up that I was still heavily pregnant, and Danny must have seen him. I’ve been thinking about this, and it actually leads me to believe Leon saw Mouse and Nan arrive at the shop. I apologise if I’m teaching you to suck eggs, DI Marsden, but have you checked his closed down pharmacy lately? It’s directly opposite the shop, and if he’s hiding out there, he could have seen them arrive for work, and then come up here to spy on me. He could have been watching us for weeks, months even.’

  ‘It’s sealed off, has been since we closed him down.’

  ‘Sealed off with that?’

  Tessa felt embarrassed as she answered. ‘A padlock. And boards at the windows.’

  ‘A padlock?’ Doris stared at the police officer. ‘You’ve put our lives at risk by using a padlock?’

  Tessa picked up her radio. ‘I want a firearms unit to Eyam. Meet me in the village square. This is urgent.’

  She stood. ‘I’ll be back later to finish this conversation. I’m leaving two officers here with you, and use the buttons if you need to.’

  Marsden parked outside the supermarket and looked at the pharmacy, once a thriving village chemist’s shop. Its pharmacist was locked up for two years, the shortest of the sentences handed out to the members of Leon Rowe’s empire who were behind bars for many combined years. Brian King would never come out, and Marsden was beginning to think Leon Rowe would never go in. The man had a charmed life.

  All the shops in the square were on lockdown, with police officers inside with the customers. It was a briefly ironic thought that she hoped Leon Rowe hadn’t decided to buy himself a loaf of bread as the doors were locked, keeping him on the inside.

  She glanced across at Connection, pleased to have been kept informed of every stage of its development and equally pleased that it seemed to be growing in stature for the three women she had come to know and respect.

  The view in her mirror changed as a car pulled up behind her. Dave Irwin held up a hand in acknowledgement, and she returned the gesture.

  A minute later they were joined by the large firearms unit vehicle. She wound down her window and held out her warrant card.

  The lead officer from the van used the cover of the two cars to approach her, and asked if there had been any sightings.

  ‘No. That pharmacy is the focus of this exercise. The entry door is down the alley at the side of the shop. It’s obviously the back door, where deliveries are taken in. It has been sealed and a padlocked bar is in place.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. Stay in your cars, please.’

  He headed back to his vehicle, and silently his marksmen appeared on the pavement. She counted six, all heavily armed. She knew she would never get used to the sight of guns on British streets.

  They crept along the front of the boarded up shop, and five of them disappeared down the alleyway. One was positioned outside the front of the shop, his gun at the ready.

  She listened carefully. Silence. There should have been the noise involved with smashing open a heavy duty padlock, but there was nothing and instinctively she knew it meant that Leon Rowe had been inside the shop, possibly hiding there for some time.

  She wasn’t aware of how long she waited; the men reappeared and one headed towards her.

  ‘Sergeant Franks would like you to go in, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She turned and indicated to Dave Irwin to accompany her.

  They walked to the shop together. ‘Looks like he’s not here now, but I’ll lay odds on that he was,’ Dave said.

  ‘I suspect you’re right, Dave. They certainly didn’t have to smash off that padlock.’

  It was extremely dark inside, tiny chinks of light came through the boards, but she switched on her torch as they followed Sergeant Franks up the stairs.

  ‘This is the first floor,’ he said. ‘Still got some items stored in here, and some boxes of foodstuffs are opened, so I reckon he’s been using them to save having to go out for food. He’s definitely been staying here.’ He led them to a further set of steps, ones that had appeared from the loft hatch in the ceiling. ‘I’ll go up first, ma’am, it’s awkward getting out at the top.’

  Once they had been helped through, Tessa and Dave moved further into the attic room. There was a sleeping bag with a blanket thrown over it, and a further blanket rolled up and used as a pillow. Several candles stood on saucers, all burnt down to some degree.

  ‘We’ve thoroughly checked everywhere, ma’am, and he’s gone. I don’t believe he came back here after the shooting, if it was him who shot your victim, because the loft ladder you’ve just climbed up was folded away. If he was running, he wouldn’t have taken the time to do that. It’s an awkward procedure; it doesn’t quite fit correctly, which is why it was difficult for you to get off it when we came up here.’

  She nodded. ‘He would have taken his sleeping bag if he’d come back here. It’s going to be pretty cold at night without it.’ She stared around at the spartan conditions in the loft. It was a large space, and daylight showed through where a couple of slate pieces were missing. The small window in the roof looked directly onto the village square, and she realised it was perfectly positioned for him following the movements of the three women who had brought the wrath of the gods down on his head.

  ‘How are the mighty fallen,’ Tessa mused aloud, thinking of the beautiful home he had lost, and where his wife and daughter lived.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant Franks, for your help. Stand your men down for now and return to base. I’m sure when we do find Leon Rowe, we’ll probably need you again. I’ll get forensics up here, let them prove it’s Leon Rowe’s hideaway, and then I’m going on television. I want this man found, and I don’t want him walking into one of the many camping and hiking shops we have in the Peak District, to replace his sleeping bag. I shall be asking all of them to look out for him buying any camping equipment at all; he’s got to sleep somewhere.’

  Franks nodded. ‘Thank you, ma’am. I’ll leave it with you. Be careful going back down those stairs.’

  Marsden watched as they emptied the loft space of everything th
at was in it, and she quietly asked for results as speedily as possible. She needed proof legally that Rowe had been the occupant; in her heart she needed no proof. She knew it was him.

  Crime scene tape was once again wrapped around the building, the side door was re-padlocked, with promises of a sheet of metal covering the entire aperture being installed as soon as it was no longer going to be needed by forensics.

  Ray Charlton was standing outside the front of the shop, and all three of them walked back to their respective cars.

  ‘You two go back to the station, write up your reports and get off home. Tell everybody it’s a seven o’clock briefing tomorrow. I want everybody there for half past six on pain of death. We have to find this man.’

  ‘You’re going home, boss?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m going to try to get a two-minute slot on the late news that’s local for the Peak District and the Sheffield area. I need to alert shops. He’s going to need equipment replaced. Not on my watch, Leon Rowe, not on my watch. I’ll head back up and fill Kat Rowe in on what’s happened, but first I have to go see Danny McLoughlin’s family.’

  ‘Mrs McLoughlin?’ Tessa showed her warrant card. ‘My name is Tessa Marsden, and this is PC Hannah Granger.’

  Hannah had been with Kat, Mouse and Doris since they had arrived en masse at Kat’s house earlier, and would have preferred staying there to having to go to tell somebody their husband was dead. Kat, in her role as deacon of St Lawrence’s, wanted to accompany her, but Hannah had suggested it might be better to wait a day, let the news sink in with his family first.

  She had no idea which was the best one, but Kat looked ill. A two-day-old baby, and she was feeling she had to go back to work – not a good plan, Hannah decided.

  ‘Oh! Yes? You want something?’ Bibi McLoughlin stared at the two women in front of her, a bewildered expression on her face.

  ‘May we come in, please, Mrs McLoughlin?’ Tessa’s voice was gentle.