MURDER IN MALLOW COTTAGE an addictive crime thriller with a twist you won’t see coming (Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Book 3)

by GRETTA MULROONEY

  MURDER IN

  MALLOW COTTAGE

  An addictive crime thriller with a twist you won’t see coming

  GRETTA MULROONEY

  Detective Inspector Siv Drummond Book 3

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2021

  © Gretta Mulrooney 2021

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Gretta Mulrooney to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  Cover art by Dee Dee Book Covers

  ISBN: 978-1-78931-917-0

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  ALSO BY GRETTA MULROONEY

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  GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH USAGE FOR US READERS

  For the two Ds who graced my life

  Much missed

  Prologue

  Then

  They’d been having a terrific evening. One of the best ever, in fact. School had finished for the Easter holidays and they felt heady, uninhibited. It was a balmy, clear night and the prospect of a fortnight’s freedom lay ahead. They’d consumed beer, wine and gin, all liberated from their parents’ drinks cabinets, and when the excitement and alcohol overwhelmed them, they’d got up and danced to everything from Rihanna to Manic Street Preachers, spinning around and taking turns to neck from a bottle. They laughed, without knowing what they were laughing at, helping themselves to the pretty triangular pink, blue and yellow tablets like they were sweets.

  It was dark. She was dancing, arms waving above her head in the air. Her skirt had silver glitter around the hem and it sparkled in the lamplight. She looked at the boy who was whooping and urging her on. His bony chest was bare, and he shone a torch under his spade-shaped face as he rolled his eyes up and grimaced, trying to alarm her. He wasn’t kind to her, taking her for granted and teasing her. He could be cutting and sarcastic, but he was intriguing, unpredictable, and his anarchic anger called to her own deep-seated rage. He was the opposite of safe, but that must be what she wanted, as she was here with him. She thought briefly of another, gentler boy. A safe boy. She’d hurt his feelings, but it was all way beyond her control now.

  Her head throbbed and she was hot, giddy. So hot. She reached up to the floating moon. It looked cool, remote. One minute she was twirling, the next she was twitching, shaking violently. She slumped to the ground, burning up, covered in sweat. The others talked to her, but she couldn’t understand them. One of them poured water onto his shirt, using it to dab her forehead. When she went quiet, her eyes closed, body still, they shook her, called her name. No response.

  ‘Christ, she’s so hot! What’s happening?’

  ‘Dunno. Must be a bad reaction. I feel OK. You?’

  ‘Yeah. How many’d she take?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘What are we going to do? She’s unconscious.’

  ‘Don’t ask me. You bought the stuff and brought her here.’

  They squabbled, panicked. What if she didn’t wake up? They’d be in deep shit.

  There was that film they’d seen recently, with a situation similar to the one they were in. Why not copy it?

  They lifted her, carried her between them to the car. She was petite, light, her head dangling from her limp body. They drove fast towards the hospital, leaving her in a doorway just along the street, before stopping at a phone box to make an anonymous 999 call.

  Afterwards, they reassured each other that they’d done the right thing, that they’d done everything possible in the circumstances. It wasn’t their fault. It was just a terrible accident.

  Over time, they drifted apart, losing touch, relieved at the absence of contact. But through the years, they dreamed about her, waking in the small hours, their skin burning, on fire. Just like hers had been.

  Chapter 1

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  Now

  A chill woke Toby Foxwell just before his six o’clock alarm on that Tuesday morning. His wife had stolen most of the duvet and cocooned herself in it, her face rosy with warmth. His feet and nose were cold. They’d discussed having separate duvets on their queen-sized bed, but he was reluctant. Their marriage was sound, but Toby was superstitious, worrying that such a change could be the first step on a slippery slope to trouble. Cold limbs and a partner beside you were better than solitary warmth, and every successful marriage demanded sacrifices.

  He slid out of bed, so as not to disturb Annie, and peered through the window into the dark. The bare trees looked fragile and forbidding. The whump of the boiler kicking in was reassuring. There would be plenty of hot water when he returned home from his run.

  He put on the new tracksuit that Annie had bought him for Christmas, and did some stretches before leaving. Closing the front door gently behind him, he began his usual thirty-minute route along Greenlea Way, down Bere Hill, into Clifton Crescent, skirting the back of Berminster General and then up Pembroke Road back towards home. The air was glacial, invigorating, and it gave him a glow of health — something he couldn’t be more grateful for after last year’s cancer scare. Ten months ago, he’d been worried that he would end up in a coffin, ready for the furnace at Berminster Crematorium, rather than returning to his job as the manager there. After surgery for mouth cancer — he’d been a devoted smoker in his twenties — he’d made a good recovery and had adopted a fitness regime and plant-based diet. No dairy. His superstitious streak again. He’d told himself: If I heed the warning, exercise and take care of myself, the universe will repay me with good health.

  Back home, he showered and prepared a bowl of muesli with almond milk. While he ate, he checked the day’s schedule on his laptop. January was always a busy month at the crematorium. The grim reaper upped his work rate in the dark hours of winter. Many older people hung onto their final breath until after Christmas — some sort of last hurrah — and then turned up their toes. (Although Toby often thought in these terms and used them with Annie, at work he spoke respectfully and ca
me down hard on employees who joked about death.)

  There were two chapels at the crematorium, unimaginatively named East (consecrated, stained-glass windows) and West (unconsecrated, plain windows). Three funerals were booked in East today, and two in West. All the deceased were over seventy, except for the one o’clock in East, for a Lisa Flore, just twenty-six. That was a double slot, an hour. A young person’s funeral was hard on everyone, the usual comforting platitudes just not cutting it. The celebrant couldn’t refer to a full life. A life well lived.

  Toby took great pride in the service his team provided. He’d been appointed to his role two years before, with a brief to update and streamline the crematorium, and it was a success story. He was all too aware that some of the older, more entrenched staff resented his ‘new broom’ style, referring to him as ‘Slick Foxy’. A couple of them had been hanging around for far too long in Toby’s opinion, but Berminster Council was a conservative organisation. They didn’t want job losses or employment tribunals, leaving Toby with no choice but to alter the course and speed of the boat without rocking it. So, he cajoled when needed, ignored snarky comments and mutters about ‘change for the sake of it’ and ‘style over substance’, while pushing through his changes. And there had been many, all efficiently actioned. The chapel anterooms had been refurbished, the gardens rejuvenated. He’d worked on culturally sensitive ceremonies and had created a new vision statement which featured in the information pamphlet.

  We provide a peaceful space where you can pay respect to and commemorate your loved one. We offer personal choice, excellent care and dedication.

  Toby made sure these weren’t just pretty words, that this ethos was put into practice, today being one such example of this. He’d arranged to be available for Ms Flore’s funeral and had double-checked the readings and the music with the celebrant.

  Just after seven, he took Annie a cup of tea. She wasn’t a morning person and was slowly coming to.

  She muttered, ‘Weather?’

  ‘Bracing.’

  ‘Yuck. Been for your run?’

  ‘Yep.’

  She yawned. ‘Well done. Gold star.’

  Her skin was rosy and inviting, her golden hair tousled. For a moment, he wanted to slide back in beside her, but the dead were calling him.

  * * *

  Toby drove through the crematorium’s wide iron entrance gates topped with fleur-de-lis finials, and along the handsome larch and yew-lined avenue. The original cemetery was Grade II listed and dated from the Victorian era, the hundreds of years’ worth of graves discreetly screened from visitors by beech hedging. Completed in the 1860s, the site sat on a ridge above the River Bere. It was a rather grand affair for a small town, but Berminster had always been a prosperous place, based on big money from fishing in the mid-nineteenth century. The architecturally in-keeping crematorium had been added in 1949.

  Toby loved the buildings and impressive cemetery and gardens. Every day, he relished the drive down the avenue to the Gothic Revival chapels and Bere Lodge, the flint-built house that accommodated the staff offices and the council’s bereavement service. It couldn’t have been in greater contrast to where he’d started his career, further along the coast, in a modern, boxy, concrete monstrosity of a crematorium that offended the eyes. It had always reminded him of something Hitler or Stalin would have built.

  At the entrance to Bere Lodge, he keyed in the security code, then dropped off his bag and started the coffee machine brewing. He was always the first one in. ‘First in, last out’ was his mantra as a manager. Then, as was his habit, he went to open and check the chapels. He liked to see that the evening cleaners had left everything just so. The smallest of oversights could upset mourners: a rosary or order of service left behind, a discarded tissue on a parquet floor, a piece of chewing gum stuck to a chair, one dead blossom in a vase.

  Outside, the sun was just starting to rise, turning the sky a deep lavender. A solitary magpie hopped on the grass. ‘One for sorrow’, appropriately enough. The forecast was for a sunny, cold, dry day. Ideal for funerals. Families and friends wouldn’t linger in the chill, and the timetable should tick over nicely. It could get awkward when a service ran over and mourners were kept waiting outside. The staff offered refreshments if the delay started to drag on, and that affected Toby’s budgets.

  The large sandstone chapels had separate side entrances but were connected by an impressive central foyer with its own front-facing oak door. This was accessed by three broad steps and topped by a tower with a belfry. Some families liked the bell to ring at the beginning or the end of a funeral. Others disliked the sombre peals. Whenever he heard them, Toby recalled the Edgar Allan Poe poem he’d learned at school.

  Oh the bells, bells, bells!

  What a tale their terror tells

  Of Despair!

  The entrance foyer had been partitioned into two anterooms, one for each chapel. There were toilets in each, seating, a drinks machine and packs of biscuits. Toby had arranged the flow so that mourners entered via the foyer and exited through the chapel doors. The north-facing, steeply pitched roof of the building was dotted with moss. Clumps sometimes detached themselves, falling onto the steps below. Andy Smeaton, the caretaker, was scheduled to clean them off at the end of the month.

  As he approached the main entrance, Toby was startled to see a line of large yellow, red and green wreaths resting along the bottom step below the foyer door. His expert eye spotted calla lilies, orchids and cornus stems entwined with asparagus fern. The red centres of the lilies were the colour of fresh blood when it bubbled up from a cut. What on earth was going on? Perhaps a funeral director or a relative had placed them there, although he couldn’t imagine why — certainly, they shouldn’t have been left there overnight. He’d have to have words with the cleaners.

  Drawing nearer, he halted, stared, then clasped his gloved hands together, his brain not able to compute what he was seeing.

  The wreaths weren’t on the step, as he’d originally thought. They were balanced on top of a prone figure, almost covering it. Toby glimpsed a pale hand drooping downwards and a foot in a black ankle boot. He stepped closer. He could just see the crown of a head. The hair was fair, thinning into a bald patch. Confusion filled him. For a wild moment, he wondered if someone was playing an appalling practical joke.

  Toby took a breath and foolishly croaked, ‘Hello?’, half-expecting the figure to jump up at him. Nothing. He stared, mesmerised, before finally bending down to place a fingertip on the exposed skin. He yanked his hand back at the feel of the cold and rigid flesh.

  Toby had seen plenty of corpses in his time, but always in the lined, dignified confines of a coffin, suitably prepared, undergoing due process. He swallowed hard, this morning’s muesli at the back of his throat. He backed away from the steps, closing his eyes to the terrible sight before him, taking deep gulps of the invigorating air. It wouldn’t do for the manager to vomit up his breakfast outside the chapels.

  * * *

  Saffie took a couple of painkillers, swallowing them down with strong coffee. She could hear Damian snoring long and loudly just along the hallway. How on earth did Viv not wake up? She rubbed her temples. Last night had been a bit mad and her head felt like a brick. She didn’t usually drink, but she hadn’t wanted to be a party pooper, and Henry had kept ordering more red wine with the meal. This week by the sea with his friends meant a lot to him, so she’d joined in, knowing she’d pay for it today.

  And would Henry thank her for it? At the end of the night, he’d abandoned her — gone crawling back to his mum’s up the road, leaving Saffie with his mates at the chalet. She supposed he was still sprawled in his childhood bed, dead to the world. His mother kept his bedroom exactly as it had been before he left home. It encapsulated the world of a sporty, indulged, middle-class teenager: pictures of footballers and cricketers, trophies for fencing, a wide-screen TV fixed to the wall opposite his double bed, a maple study desk and chair and a huge poster of Natal
ie Portman, his Hollywood crush, in a low-cut jade dress. Saffie had been jealous when she’d seen the comfortable room — her parents had rented out her tiny bedroom on Airbnb as soon as she’d left home. Now, she pictured Henry clutching the pillow while Natalie smiled down on him. He had to wear a mouth guard when he was sleeping because he ground his teeth, but he wouldn’t have put it in last night. It was lying on the chest of drawers in their chalet bedroom. He might not emerge from his mother’s house until lunchtime. She could never sleep in. Her mother was a childminder and, over the years, Saffie had become used to the racket of marauding kids from seven in the morning.

  The tablets were starting to kick in and her headache was a little better. She swept up her long, blue-black hair in one hand, smoothed it down her back and put a slice of bread in the toaster. There was no clean cutlery in the drawer, so she opened the dishwasher in search of a knife. The chalet wasn’t well equipped — there were just four sets of cutlery and four cups, plates and bowls. But as Henry’s mother owned it and they weren’t paying anything for it, she could hardly comment. Otherwise, she’d have said something. No, that was fooling herself — she never complained. She prepared objections in her head, practised whole speeches, built up to delivering them, but never actually articulated them.

  A smear of ketchup from the dishwasher door clung to her finger. She wiped it off. The others didn’t bother to clear up. Viv and Damian were incredibly messy, dropping clutter everywhere they moved. They had a cleaner twice a week at home and seemed to expect that their chaos would mysteriously vanish here. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t wait to get back to London. Damian didn’t even flush the toilet sometimes, which was disgusting, and he always left the seat up. How did Viv tolerate it? Saffie resented picking up their soggy towels in the bathroom, removing their hairs from plugholes, wiping away toothpaste spatters and cleaning the work surfaces, but she did it to make her own life bearable. She couldn’t tolerate disorder of any kind — the very thought of it was enough to make her pulse flutter and her breathing quicken.