Murder by the Minster

by Helen Cox

  Eyeing Kitt, the officer strode to the back door, pulled it open, and looked both ways.

  ‘You can walk along down the path here to the end of the row; any stragglers still hanging about will probably still be gawking at the front door.’

  ‘Thank you, officer,’ Kitt said, keeping her tone as carefree and breezy as she could. ‘So sorry if I caused any trouble.’

  The officer didn’t respond, but watched on as Kitt stepped over the threshold. ‘Coming, Georgette?’ Kitt asked.

  ‘Er—’ Georgette looked between Kitt and the officer. ‘No . . . Just remembered . . . I’ve forgotten something upstairs.’

  ‘All right then,’ said the officer, closing the door without even a second’s delay, never mind a polite goodbye. Kitt could still see Georgette’s face, bordered in the glass squares cut into the top of the door frame. As she stared into the woman’s grey-green eyes, her breath quickened, but she had to act casual. The officer was also watching her through the window, so acting natural was a priority. Turning to her left and walking down the garden path indicated by the officer, Kitt felt her stomach tighten. Was Georgette lagging behind to tell the officer about the photographs she had taken? Or the things they had discussed? Kitt had a terrible feeling she had just made Evie’s situation a whole lot worse.

  Nine

  ‘Grace, what is it?’ Kitt said, without even looking up from the spreadsheet beaming out of her computer screen.

  ‘What? Nothing.’ Slowly, Grace turned to face her boss and cleared her throat, her brown eyes flinching as Kitt looked into them and caught them in a lie.

  Kitt crossed her arms over her chest, and continued to stare at her assistant. Her morning had been far from productive. She’d exchanged tens of text messages with Evie about her visit to Beth’s house. Her mother, Marjorie, had been on the phone twice already, unnerved that her daughter was walking around a city in which a murderer was on the loose. She’d received a voicemail from her sister, Rebecca, on a similar theme, and as if that wasn’t enough to slow the process of cataloguing the department’s latest book delivery, Grace was in a very distracting mood. More so than usual.

  ‘You haven’t got a lot to say for yourself this morning,’ Kitt pushed.

  ‘I asked you about the murder case,’ said Grace.

  ‘And just as well,’ said Kitt. ‘That article you read about it online this morning was absolute fabrication. But for the last half hour you’ve been hovering next to my desk and scuttling back and forth between the bookshelves without any discernible purpose.’

  ‘Just ’cause you can’t see it doesn’t mean I don’t have a purpose,’ Grace said with a shrug.

  Kitt tilted her head questioningly and raised both her eyebrows. ‘Quiet, fidgety, and defensive?’ Kitt said. ‘Now I know something’s up.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I should say,’ came Grace’s wavering response.

  Kitt leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs beneath the folds of her navy skirt. ‘For you, of all people, to be coy about it, it must be something worth talking about. You may as well be out with it. You can’t spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around whatever it is.’

  Grace leaned against the side of her desk, which stood just a foot away from Kitt’s. ‘Please, don’t be mad at me,’ she said.

  Kitt gave a dismissive wave. ‘When, in all the time you’ve worked with me, have I ever been mad at you?’

  ‘Well . . . you weren’t best pleased the day I impersonated you over the phone to Michelle,’ said Grace, her dark eyes sparkling.

  ‘That wasn’t anger . . .’ Kitt said with a smile, ‘it was frustration that after four months of working at my side you couldn’t do a better impression of me than that. It hasn’t improved either.’

  Grace smiled in return. But then her eyes sank into the blue mosaic tiling at her feet. ‘I just . . . I don’t want to upset you.’

  ‘Please. I’m a Boro lass. I’ve got a heart made of Teesside steel.’

  ‘Well,’ Grace said, flicking a strand of dark wavy hair out of her face, ‘I don’t want to be the Margaret Thatcher of your heart.’

  Kitt chuckled. ‘No mention of that particular prime minister in my presence, please. I’m not above starting a swear jar in her name.’

  Grace laughed along, but then cut herself off short and fell silent again.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about upsetting me,’ Kitt said in her gentlest tone. She had just one or two bigger issues going on than whatever mischief Grace had been up to this time, but the last thing she wanted was for her assistant to feel she couldn’t talk to her.

  ‘All right.’ Grace took a deep breath. ‘Just please know, I did this out of goodness.’

  ‘Did . . . what?’ asked Kitt.

  ‘Yesterday, Evie told me about a guy you once knew who sort of . . . disappeared.’

  So that was her assistant’s struggle. She felt guilty for talking behind Kitt’s back.

  ‘Evie told you about Theo?’ said Kitt, with a thin-lipped smile.

  ‘Yes,’ Grace replied. ‘About Theo, and how he disappeared.’

  ‘And why would I be mad at you about that?’ asked Kitt.

  Grace pushed her fingers together in an awkward steeple. ‘It’s not so much what Evie told me, but what I did with the information.’

  ‘What you . . . What do you mean?’ said Kitt, sitting up straighter in her chair.

  At the expression on Kitt’s face, Grace looked at the floor once more and began breathing in that overwrought style actors do on TV when their character is experiencing a moment of crisis. Each breath made a whistling noise as it was pushed out between her teeth. ‘Well, Evie didn’t tell me anything much about Theo to begin with. But after she mentioned him, and what happened, I couldn’t get it out of my head.’

  ‘OK . . . Grace, what have you done?’

  Grace’s eyes dredged themselves from the blue of the ceramic tiles so they could look at Kitt straight on. ‘If you could find Theo – if you could talk to him, and maybe get an explanation for what he did, would you want to?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Kitt said, her voice now sharpened by the rough edge of suspicion.

  ‘I— I emailed Evie and asked for his name and, you know . . .’

  ‘What?’ asked Kitt, and, when Grace stammered, yet again repeated, ‘What, what?’

  ‘Tracked him down last night after work. On Facebook.’

  Kitt sat still and quiet. Her eyes bulging as a wasp’s nest of disturbing possibilities swarmed in her mind.

  ‘Wh— what did you say to him?’ asked Kitt, taking her turn to stammer.

  ‘Nothing. Oh no, I haven’t made contact. I just found him. In case you wanted to find him. In case you wanted the truth, about why he acted that way. It’s just, something similar happened to one of my friends about a year ago now, and she’s still struggling to . . . let it go.’

  ‘You just looked him up on Facebook?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, don’t you think all this posturing is a bit OTT? It’s not like you invited him to York for a reconciliatory dinner date.’ Kitt paused then, eyeing her assistant. ‘You didn’t, did you?’

  ‘No, no, no. Of course not. It’s just . . . it seemed like a good idea when I did it, but then afterwards the more I thought about it, I thought you’d say it wasn’t my place.’

  ‘When have you ever worried about what is and isn’t your place around me?’

  ‘I— I just thought you might want . . . closure.’

  ‘Grace, I’m a librarian.’

  ‘I know that . . . librarians don’t like closure?’

  Kitt rolled her eyes up at Prometheus, who looked down on them both from the ceiling.

  ‘No. I mean, essentially, I’m a researcher by trade. If I�
�d wanted to find Theo, I mean, really wanted to find him, I could have. Facebook’s been around longer than you can remember. I have no desire to see Theo again.’

  And, Kitt admitted to herself, it was so much easier to pretend he didn’t exist. That he wasn’t out there, somewhere, living his life without her.

  ‘You’re not even a little bit curious?’ said Grace, sidling closer to Kitt’s desk.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s aged badly.’

  ‘Really?’ Kitt said, her response so quick it fell almost on top of Grace’s.

  ‘I mean, I don’t know what he used to look like when you knew him back in the day—’

  ‘Back in the . . . I realize that you imagine my youth to have been captured entirely in sepia photographs, but thirty-five isn’t that old, you know?’

  ‘I know, sorry,’ said Grace. ‘But I can’t believe for a second that his current hairline is the same as the one on the man you knew. Doesn’t look as though the ageing process has been kind.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Kitt pondered. The logical thing was to just let this subject drop, but curiosity had always been her mistress, and this instance was no exception. ‘Maybe you could send me his profile link. Just in case I change my mind.’

  Grace nodded and made to move back to her chair. Kitt caught her hand as she did so and squeezed it. ‘I’m not mad at you. Just so you know, I’m not even mad at him any more.’ As those last words left her mouth, Kitt wondered how true they were. Or whether they just seemed like the mature thing to say. At her age she was supposed to be beyond anger, wasn’t she? By now she was supposed to be in control.

  Grace squeezed Kitt’s hand in return. ‘Good. But if you want, I can be angry at him for you.’

  Kitt chuckled at this and shooed Grace back to her desk with her spare hand before turning back to her computer screen.

  Not a minute later, an email from Grace popped up in Kitt’s inbox. The subject line was a name that belonged in a past life.

  Theodore Dent.

  The last time she had seen his name, it was written in her own handwriting on a letter she was posting to his last known address. The hateful things she had written in that letter . . . She felt a smouldering in her chest just thinking about it.

  The link to his Facebook profile sat in the white box below. Kitt hovered the cursor over the incomprehensible string of letters, punctuation marks and numbers that looked to be in as much of a mess as she had been all those years ago when she realized there would be no goodbye between herself and the only man she’d ever loved with all her heart. The muscles in her shoulders braced for the impact of a simple click of the mouse.

  For a man who once didn’t want to be found, Theo wasn’t one for privacy settings. All of his pictures and comments were there on full view for anyone who might want to find them.

  Kitt clicked on Theo’s profile picture and it enlarged on the screen. He was standing shoulder-to-shoulder next to a brunette with a galaxy of freckles clustering in small her face. The pair were in a restaurant. They were smiling, but something about the smiles seemed strained, perhaps even forced. Or maybe that was just what Kitt wanted to see.

  One thing was not up for interpretation. Grace had been right about time not being kind to Theo. His hairline meandered backwards to the apex of his skull and, to hide the fact that it was receding, he had cut his brown hair very close to the head. Still, his eyes hadn’t altered. They were the same brown as decaying autumn leaves. Fitting, Kitt thought, for a man whose seasons could shift so abruptly.

  Kitt’s eyes drifted down Theo’s profile page to his location and job title. He had become a specialist in Anglo-Saxon history for the Airedale Museum, and he lived in Leeds. Her untouchable dream of a man had been working a thirty-minute train ride away all this time. Kitt winced at the sting of that thought. The people of Leeds and York were back and forth for day trips all the time. They could have crossed paths in the street or in the pub – at the York Christmas market buying gifts for loved ones. The possibility, and the fact it still existed, left Kitt feeling quite sick.

  The next thing her eyes focused on was his relationship status. ‘It’s complicated,’ it read, and the librarian couldn’t help but issue a wry smile at that. After all these years, Theo still hadn’t managed to commit to anyone or anything. From an outside perspective Kitt supposed that many might think the same was true of her. But in truth, she had committed to something else: herself and the truth of her own heart.

  She wasn’t willing to pretend or settle for somebody convenient because that might be easier for everyone around her to accept. She had vowed never again to trade her whole heart for half of somebody else’s, and it was an oath she intended to keep.

  Kitt looked again at Theo’s profile picture. She wasn’t imagining it. There was no depth to that smile, it was all surface. It was a stranger to the smile he used to give her when she kissed him without warning, or when he found one of the love notes she’d hidden in his trouser pocket. Together, they had tasted true love. Kitt was sure of it. The question was, why had Theo thrown that away?

  The phone on Kitt’s desk trilled.

  Sucking in a sharp breath, she pushed hard on the escape key. Theo’s face disappeared.

  ‘Grace, can you get that?’ Kitt said, glaring at the phone. ‘I can’t bear having to reassure my mother, for the third time this morning, that I haven’t been murdered yet.’

  With a smile, Grace picked up the receiver. ‘Vale of York University Library, Women’s Studies, Grace Edwards spea— oh, hi Evie. Yes, she’s here.’

  Grace handed the phone over to Kitt, but instead of going to sit back at her own desk, she perched on the edge of Kitt’s.

  ‘Evie?’ Kitt said into the receiver.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t talk sooner. I had to go back to work today and do all the appointments I couldn’t do yesterday,’ said Evie.

  ‘No need to apologize,’ said Kitt. ‘What did you think of my texts about the visit to Beth’s place?’

  ‘Georgette doesn’t seem to have been much help. You really think she’s going to tell the police you took those pictures?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kitt. ‘The way she was going on she almost sounded like she had a thing for Owen herself.’

  ‘Who knew he was such a ladies’ man?’ said Evie with a glum note in her voice.

  ‘Not I,’ said Kitt, and then, deciding it was prudent to move the conversation on, added, ‘did you get a chance to look at the photos I took too?’

  ‘Yeah, it looks as though they were mostly compiling bits and pieces from around the time Beth and Owen were together. The train tickets and what-have-you. Owen lived in Leeds when they were going out, and Owen complained more than once that Beth kept hold of one of his T-shirts. I’m guessing it’s the one in that bag.’

  ‘So nothing stood out as odd to you?’ said Kitt, testing half a theory that had been building at the back of her mind.

  ‘No, not really. Although . . . I don’t know why she would have key cards from the hotel at home.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Kitt, trying not to give away anything in her tone.

  ‘Yeah. I heard Beth mention once or twice that her boss at the hotel was a real stickler. She made out like he was always on her back about something.’ Evie paused at the other end of the line. ‘Maybe she’s started stealing key cards just to spite him?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Kitt. ‘But it seems a weird way to get back at your boss.’

  ‘That’s true, she’s mostly about staying out of his way, but why else would she have the key cards at home?’

  ‘Maybe she picked them up by accident? Easily done if you’re tired at the end of the day, and you pick them up with your keys and wallet and all that,’ mused Kitt.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Evie. ‘But then, why keep them? Wouldn’t you return them or throw them out if you didn’t wa
nt your boss to know?’

  ‘All right, hold on,’ said Kitt. ‘Grace, give me three good reasons why a receptionist might take home hotel key cards?’

  Grace frowned, thinking. ‘She . . . wants to invite her friends around to one of the rooms for a Sing Star marathon on Saturday night? Or there’s something about a room she doesn’t want anyone else to find out about – like maybe she broke something . . .’

  ‘Right . . . that’s two.’

  ‘Well, which hotel is it?’ asked Grace.

  ‘The White Horse Hotel.’

  ‘I don’t know, she likes horses, and the key cards have horses on them?’

  ‘Did you hear all that?’ Kitt said down the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ Evie said with a giggle.

  ‘Nothing particularly plausible to work with,’ said Kitt, as Grace’s face sagged in her peripheral vision. ‘But anyway, the police have the key cards bagged up as evidence now. I’m sure they’ll be asking Beth about them.’

  ‘Maybe . . . but how long will it take them to prioritize that particular piece of evidence?’

  ‘You think I should pass this not-to-be-missed information to Halloran and Banks direct?’

  ‘Do you want to talk to Halloran and Banks right now? Given they might be aware of the fact you were meddling with their crime scene?’ said Evie.

  ‘Not . . . particularly. All right, well, what are you suggesting? An anonymous phone call?’

  ‘I’m suggesting that the White Horse Hotel is just a short cab ride out of town.’

  ‘Oh, Evie,’ said Kitt. ‘Really, I . . .’

  ‘Come on, it’s not like this is the first time you have done a little snooping around.’

  Kitt’s mouth tightened. ‘If you are referring to the Seaton Carew incident, I told you, that was between us.’

  ‘What’s a Seaton Carew?’ Grace asked with a frown, but Kitt just held her hand up to signal she was concentrating on the call.

  ‘All right, all right. But what I’m asking you to do is nothing like the Georgette scenario,’ said Evie. ‘The guy she works with on the desk is a good friend of hers. Eli. Just find out if there’s an explanation for her taking the cards home. That’s all. If so, well then, we really haven’t got anything and we’ll have to leave it to the police.’