‘That’s it,’ Stella said. ‘I was terrified. I already knew someone was coming after me, but this time – in my lady’s chamber? I don’t want to go home but I know you’re too busy to help, what with the arrangements for your wedding.’
The old, familiar wave of self-reproach swept over Max. Stella had asked him for help with her stalker, he hadn’t taken it seriously enough, and the stalker had ramped up the threat level.
‘Did the email ask for anything? Any sort of blackmail? Did it say, pay up or I’ll tell people about your past?’
Stella raised a chilly eyebrow. ‘There is nothing to be ashamed of in my past.’
Ivor arrived back at that moment. ‘Well, you’re looking a bit more chipper,’ he told Stella, clapping a pair of large, meaty hands together. ‘We’ll soon have you out of here. Let’s forget about the hotel, go home and get a few friends round. Have a bit of a party. That’ll cheer you up.’
If Max were to speak like that to Libby, she’d have something to say, but Stella giggled like a teenager, forgetting she’d said she was too scared to go home. ‘I’ve been silly, haven’t I?’
‘You certainly have. You need to lighten up. Don’t take life so seriously.’
The man handled Stella with ease. She seemed besotted with him. When Max said he’d leave the two of them alone, she hardly glanced his way.
As he left, Max spoke to the sister in charge of the ward. ‘We take every suicide attempt very seriously,’ she said. ‘Her partner, Mr Wrighton, is arranging for her to see a psychiatrist privately, so she’s going to be discharged later today. As you can see, we’re rushed off our feet in here, and we need her bed.’
Max drove back to Exham, longing to discuss the whole mess with Libby, and wondering how he could possibly keep Stella safe. He hadn’t taken to Ivor Wrighton one little bit.
‘What if Ivor’s the stalker?’ Libby was plying Max with tea and cake, the dogs curled at his feet, as though in sympathy.
‘I’ve been wondering about that, but it doesn’t make sense. He seems keen to make Stella happy. He came to Bristol as soon as he heard she was in hospital, and he’s planning to take her home and look after her. She seems pleased as punch at the idea. He’s almost half her age, rippling with muscles, apparently rich and covered in bling, so I suppose he offers everything she needs.’
Libby said, ‘It sounds to me as though they’re playing games with each other. You’re well out of it, Max. Don’t let it get to you.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Why’s he so keen to be with an older woman?’ Libby asked.
Max shrugged. ‘Toy boys and cougars – it’s not uncommon, these days.’
‘Unless he’s after her money?’
‘He seems to have plenty of his own, judging by the bling on his wrist. I shall dig around in his background a little, but meanwhile, we need to rethink these emails. They make less sense every time I think about them. Sometimes, fraud and phishing emails are just random. The criminal gets hold of passwords, from lists for sale on the black web. They’re easy to find if you know where to look, and not even expensive. Then, the perpetrator sends out emails, telling the recipients he’s hacked their machines and can see everything they’re getting up to. It’s usually about porn sites, but that doesn’t work if the recipient’s a woman.’
‘Unless they have photos online they wouldn’t want anyone to see.’
‘Naked, you mean?’
‘Or worse.’
Max tapped a teaspoon on the table as he thought. ‘These emails are targeted in a more personal way than that, though. Whoever’s sending them seems to know a good deal about their victims. Annabel’s seen as a bit of a threat to other women, and Mandy has a Little Red Riding Hood cloak. Then, there’s Carys Evans’ bad reputation.’
‘And that’s where it gets serious.’ Libby was frowning. ‘Carys was killed, which puts a whole different light on this. She’s the only person who’s died so far, but we have to take the threats seriously. Everyone who received one of the nursery rhyme emails needs to take care.’
‘But the stalker can’t be planning to kill them all at once. There are at least five that we know of, including myself and Ollie, that old mate of mine from school, and probably a few more. Not everyone will tell, especially if the rhyme hits home too hard. And don’t forget, Carys’ email arrived after she’d already died.’
Libby had been holding her breath. She let it out in a long sigh. ‘So, the next victim could be anyone. We have hardly any clues at all, except those Facebook friends of Stella’s. Between us, we’ve talked to everyone who’s admitted to receiving the emails and none of them has admitted to knowing any reason why they’ve been targeted. In fact, they’re all reluctant to take them seriously. Even Gladys thinks they’re just a bad joke. She reckons Carys had a fight with one of her men friends, who lost his temper.’
Max said, ‘No, that’s not how it happened. There’s no evidence of a struggle, according to Morrison. He thinks someone crept up on Carys and bopped her on the head deliberately, out of the blue.’
‘Which makes it cold-blooded. A contract killing? But why? Who had anything to gain, except Gladys, and I can’t believe she either did it herself or paid someone else, just to get her hands on a hundred thousand pounds.’
Max said, ‘We need to step up on this. I’ve printed out the photos of the men who seem most likely to be Stella’s stalker. We can show them to everyone who’s had a nursery rhyme, and see if they recognise them.’
Libby said, ‘What was your rhyme? Anything that made sense?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Baa Baa Black sheep. I think I can guess what it means – a reference to my family – my old family.’
Libby ran through the rhyme. ‘One for the master, one for the dame, and one for the little boy who lives down the lane. You’re the master, and Joe’s the little boy, which, I suppose, makes Stella the dame.’
‘That’s what I thought. I haven’t mentioned it to her, by the way.’
‘But it means you may be under threat as well. Who have you upset recently?’
Max burst out laughing. ‘There are plenty of business frauds who hate me, because of the work I’ve done, but they’re unlikely to know much about me personally.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right. I assume you don’t have an enemy amongst Stella’s friends?’
‘Not that I can think of, unless it’s the wife of someone she had an affair with, and I really don’t see how I can take the blame for that.’
20
Break In
Libby spent the rest of Monday in the bakery. She took photocopies of Stella’s suspicious friends’ images and showed them to Exham residents. Mandy roared with laughter. ‘These old geezers? Never seen any of them. This one’s fit, though.’ She pointed to the photo of Ivor that Max had included.
‘You’d better not let Max hear you say that. Ivor is his ex-wife’s squeeze.’
‘Her toy boy? Good for her. But don’t tell Steve I said so. He’s furious to be going back to London while all this is kicking off. He wanted to stick around and help discover the secret Nursery Rhyme Stalker. By the way, I was thinking about my rhyme.’
‘Little Red Riding Hood.’
‘Exactly. I wondered who it might be – you know, the wolf that eats the granny.’
‘Who’s the granny, for that matter? I don’t think the stalker worries too much about the detail in the rhymes. They’re designed to shock. He or she is playing games with us all.’
Angela arrived, carrying a new, fat briefcase.
Mandy crowed, ‘Look at you, all business-like. I bet the contractors working on the new café tremble when they see you coming.’
‘I do hope so,’ Angela said. ‘Otherwise the work will never get done. They’re geniuses at inventing reasons for delays. They rang this morning to say they’ve received the wrong kind of paint, so they can’t do any work today. Last week, it was chipboard that was too thick, and tiles that were the wrong sh
ade. I swear, it would be easier to fix the place ourselves.’
Libby spread egg mayonnaise on a row of baps. ‘You’re loving every moment of it, so stop pretending. Did Owen give you the briefcase?’
Angela blushed, but there was no time to talk further, as the lunchtime rush began.
No one recognised the men in the photographs, and no one had received any new suspicious emails, or any other kind of threat.
‘Just the usual Monday,’ Libby said to Mandy. ‘It’s almost dull.’
Freddy from the estate agents pricked up his ears. He’d become a regular customer, and Libby suspected he had set his sights on Mandy.
‘You haven’t heard, then?’ he said.
‘Heard what?’ Mandy was feigning boredom.
‘About Gladys. Someone broke into her shop last night. Wrecked the place, and left a note as well.’
Angela, Libby and Mandy shared astonished stares. ‘We hadn’t heard anything. What did the note say?’
‘It said, “Unless you want the same as your sister, you’d better send £100,000 to… and some email address.” What are you doing?’
Libby had grabbed her phone and was already talking to Max.
The flower shop was wrecked. Libby and Mandy stood outside the yellow police tape and watched the white-clad scenes of crime officers moving around just inside the gaping front door, searching for fingerprints and other evidence.
Gladys stood nearby, talking to DC Gemma Humberstone as PC Tim Green approached Libby.
‘Er, Mrs Forest,’ he muttered, looking at the ground. How was he ever going to manage as a police officer? ‘Gemma – er – wondered if you’d come and talk to Ms Evans. She’s very upset.’
Mandy whispered, ‘You’d better fill us in later, Mrs F,’ as, reluctantly, she returned to the bakery.
Libby, Gemma and Gladys perched on stools in the empty café.
Gladys held a crumpled tissue in one hand. ‘Well, I never,’ she repeated at intervals. ‘Who would have thought they’d attack my poor little shop.’
‘They?’ Gemma asked. ‘Do you know who “they” might be?’
‘No idea,’ Gladys twisted it the tissue into a damp pellet.
Gemma added, ‘Why don’t you tell us everything you know, and we’ll take it from there.’
‘Well,’ Gladys scrubbed at her eyes, then pushed one of the tissues into her sleeve, ‘I suppose it might be something to do with Carys. You see, she came to stay last year, and that’s when all this seems to have begun.’
‘Go on,’ Gemma prompted.
‘Carys took up with someone when she was here. A chap from Weston. Not one of her old boyfriends, another one.’
Gemma’s eyes opened wide.
Libby said, ‘Gladys’ sister had rather a… a colourful background.’
Gladys nodded. ‘Three husbands and plenty who never got that far. I reckon, one of them had the hump, hit Carys on the head and came to my shop to find something.’
‘What would they have been looking for?’
‘Money, I suppose.’ Gladys looked about ready to cry again.
Libby said, ‘You told me about your legacy from your sister. Don’t you think it odd that this note is demanding the same sum of money as your inheritance?’
Gladys heaved a deep sigh and raised her hands as if in defeat. ‘I suppose I ought to tell you. You see, Maurice, my nephew, that’s Carys’ son, he’s been a bit of a chancer all his life. Only just on the right side of the law, and he stepped over that line once or twice. But Carys said he’d changed his ways. Changed his name as well, she said, when he came out of prison a while back. To be honest, I was surprised she didn’t leave her money to him.
‘Now, I’ve been away this weekend – I went on Friday to see the solicitor in Bath, and I stayed with a friend of mine for the weekend. First thing this morning, I went to the market for flowers, same as I always do on a Monday morning, loaded up the van and drove back to Exham. Well, I couldn’t believe it when I found the state of my little shop. The lock on the front door broken, and inside, smashed vases everywhere. I could have kicked myself – I’d forgotten to turn on the burglar alarm when I left – I was still in a bit of a state about Carys, to be honest.’
As she tried to blow her nose on the damp remains of her tissue, Libby held out a new one.
Gladys went on, ‘I reckon young Maurice came looking for money from me, on account of Carys not leaving him any, and when he couldn’t find me, he trashed my lovely shop.’
As she talked, her Welsh accent became so pronounced that Libby and Gemma looked at each other in confusion.
Gemma said, ‘Let me get this straight. You think Carys’ son, Maurice, came looking for money, and destroyed your shop out of spite and to get you to hand over the money he thought should be his?’
‘What other reason could there be?’
Libby asked, ‘How about the note; the demand for money? Does it ask you to pay it in to a bank, or leave it anywhere?’
‘We’ve collected that as evidence,’ Gemma said. ‘We can find out if the perpetrator left any DNA or fingerprints.’
‘Will it be possible to track down the address for the payments or is it one of these anonymous IP destinations, like the one used for the nursery rhyme emails?’
Gemma said, ‘We’ll get one of our computer geniuses to track it, but the note asks for a Bitcoin payment and my guess is it will be almost impossible to track down the payments.’
21
Ivor
Max spent Tuesday morning with the dogs, walking them gently in the fields. He let Bear set the pace and was watching him closely, relieved to see him moving more freely, when Libby called with news of the break-in.
‘Gemma’s on the case, trying to track down the email address, but she doesn’t hold out much hope.’
‘We need to look more closely at Carys’ son, Maurice. I’m sure Morrison’s team will get on to it, but I might be quicker.’
‘And it’s just the kind of job you like, chasing clues through the internet.’
‘Exactly.’
Max turned for home as a burst of winter sunshine bathed the fields in a golden glow, matching his happier mood. With his usual, comfortable relationship with Libby restored, Stella in Ivor’s charge, and Bear set for a few more happy, active years, life was getting back on track. If he and Libby could solve the riddle of the Nursery Rhymer, the path to their wedding would seem almost smooth.
The phone rang. Stella. His sunny mood evaporated.
His finger hovered in the air. Could he just decline the call, block her number and refuse to have anything else to do with her?
Of course, he couldn’t.
He answered the call. ‘Stella?’
She babbled, hysterical. ‘Max. Max, you’ve got to help.’ He could hardly hear a word through her sobs.
‘Take a deep breath,’ he said. ‘Try to stay calm. Whatever’s wrong, we’ll sort it out.’
She wailed, ‘But we can’t. It’s Ivor.’
‘Have you quarrelled?’
‘No, no, you don’t understand. He’s dead.’
‘He’s what?’
‘Dead, Max.’
‘But he was going to drive you home,’ Max said, idiotically. He gathered his thoughts. ‘What happened? Did he have a heart attack?’
‘No. Max, I need you. He’s been killed. Please come back. I’m at the hotel.’
‘I’m on my way.’
When Max arrived at the hotel, Stella had left a message at the desk, and a wide-eyed hotel receptionist directed Max to her room.
She was sitting on a chair beside her bed, wearing a dressing gown, accompanied by a female police officer. Her face was almost free of make-up, apart from messy mascara trails under her eyes, from crying.
The police officer stirred milk into a cup as Max entered. ‘Mr Ramshore?’
Stella managed to put on a show for the officer. ‘My darling Max,’ she cried. ‘Thank you so much for rushing here to loo
k after me. I don’t know what I would do without you.’
The police officer eyed the pair of them, her expression faintly cynical.
‘Family liaison officer?’ Max queried.
The officer nodded. ‘PC Franks,’ she said.
‘I’m grateful to you,’ he said. ‘For looking after my ex-wife.’ He turned to Stella. ‘Tell me what happened.’
She wailed, ‘I really don’t know. I came out of hospital late yesterday – they made me hang about for hours and hours.’ Catching the police officer’s glance at Max, she continued more calmly, ‘Still, they’re very busy, even at weekends. Ivor said I wasn’t fit for the drive to Surrey, and we should stay here for a few days. I was pleased because that gave me a chance to see Joe again. And you, of course.’ She smiled at PC Franks. ‘Max and I have had our ups and downs, but we’re always there for each other, when it matters.’
Max ignored the untruth as she went on, between sniffs, ‘Then, Ivor had a text on his phone. Or, maybe it was two. I’m not sure. Anyway, he said he had some business to attend to and he wanted to get me some chocolates. He thought I needed cheering up after – you know – my little illness.’
Max wondered how much Stella had revealed of her half-hearted suicide attempt.
‘But he didn’t come back. I tried his phone after a while, but he didn’t answer, and I waited for hours, until at last I – er – I had a small drink, and I was so tired I must have fallen asleep.’
Max frowned. He hated the thought of Stella drinking herself into a stupor, especially so soon after hospital treatment.
‘The first thing I heard this morning was this terrible hammering on my hotel door, and it was the police, coming to tell me the – the dreadful news about Ivor. They found him in the woods.’
Max stiffened. ‘The woods? You don’t mean…’
‘Leigh Woods, where you and I met.’
Genuine tears welled in her eyes. Max gave her his handkerchief. While she mopped her face he spoke to the police officer.
Murder at the Gorge (The Exham-on-Sea Murder Mysteries) Page 12
