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

  ‘Are you and Saul an item?’ Siv asked, not sure what had prompted the question.

  Diane turned back from the door, blushing. ‘Goodness, no! What makes you think that?’

  ‘I wondered, that’s all. You speak well of each other, and proximity at work has been known to spark attraction.’

  ‘But I’m more than twenty years older than Saul.’

  ‘I don’t see why that would stop you being in a relationship,’ Siv said.

  ‘It’s a professional friendship, Inspector. I’ve not had children. Perhaps Saul is the son I might have had if life had been different. I enjoy seeing him achieve his potential, spreading his wings.’

  When she’d gone, they exchanged glances.

  ‘Is the collection box something or nothing, do you think?’ Ali unscrewed the top of a water bottle and took a gulp.

  ‘Who can tell? I’ll get Patrick to follow it up. It may be totally unrelated, but we’ll see.’

  Siv’s mind had shifted to Henry Kilgore, to location and ‘grave parties’. An idea sparked. What if Warren’s killer had thought it would be neat to dispose of Kilgore somewhere in the cemetery too? She leaped up and threw her coat on. ‘Let’s walk over to the older part of the cemetery. I haven’t been there yet.’

  They met Toby Foxwell as they left Bere Lodge.

  ‘I’m glad your colleagues have finished here, and we can get back to work,’ he said. ‘We’ve had to field lots of phone calls from concerned families. At least now we can tell them we’re business as usual again.’

  ‘We’ve appreciated your cooperation,’ Siv told him.

  ‘Have you found anything? The sooner the public are told the police have someone in custody, the safer everyone here will be.’

  God, this man is irritating.

  ‘Early days,’ Ali said. ‘But there’s no suggestion there’s a killer roaming the crematorium. Mustn’t keep you.’

  ‘I’m not sure you should have put that idea into his head,’ Siv said as they walked away. ‘No need to add to public anxiety.’

  ‘Well . . . I get fed up with bureaucrats like him expecting us to work miracles.’

  Siv frowned at him and phoned Steve Wooton for an update.

  ‘Steve says his team didn’t go in the old part of the cemetery,’ she told Ali. ‘It’s a large area, and given the foul weather and the wheelbarrow evidence, they focused on the grounds between the chapels, the garden of remembrance and Bluebell Copse. They’re going through Mallow Cottage now and he’ll contact us later.’

  Ali had lit up. His cigarette smoke lingered in the still, cold air. He stooped to retie one of his shoelaces, the cigarette hanging precariously from his lips. He muttered, ‘Why exactly are we going to the cemetery?’

  Siv shivered and stamped her feet. ‘Both Warren and Kilgore are linked to this place. If what they got up to here is the reason for what’s happened to them, it seems to me that Kilgore might have ended up in the same setting. It’s worth visiting the area where Smeaton says he caught them.’

  ‘Sounds a bit far-fetched to me.’

  ‘We’ll look anyway,’ she said firmly.

  They walked on, past new, clearly lettered headstones that stood sentinel to well-tended graves bearing flowers and garlands. Some were adorned with candles, angels, grave blankets and wind chimes. One was hung with a bird feeder. Others were edged with pebbles and shells. Signs of Christmas still lingered in holly wreaths, cards and tiny artificial trees with winking lights, shiny baubles and strands of tinsel. A sleigh pulled by reindeer and filled with tiny presents covered the grass on one.

  The world was sombre grey; the sky, the stone and marble slabs all fused in shadow. Nature had joined the dead in sleep. The greens of grass and foliage were dull, lifeless. Siv veered onto a side path and stood in front of a grave. The simple oval headstone was in black marble with silver lettering.

  GREGORY DRUMMOND

  1946–2015

  Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

  (Isaac Newton)

  ‘My dad’s grave,’ she told Ali. ‘Newton was his hero.’ She’d considered adding, Thanks for the cocoa, when she’d had it made, and wished she had now. Watching her father make cocoa in a saucepan, taking his time while he told her about Newton’s theories, had been a balm in her unsettled youth.

  She turned on her heel and strode back to the main path. Ali respectfully made no comment. The path climbed slightly, and as they traced back through the years, the headstones became stained and marked, the lettering fading.

  A notice stood at the entrance to the Victorian section.

  PUBLIC WARNING. This part of the cemetery is fascinating but more than 150 years old. Some of the graves are deteriorating. Please take care when walking here. Do not touch the headstones or statuary. We appreciate your interest but please stay on the paths and look, don’t touch.

  Soon, all the graves became more elaborate and ornate. Headstones tilted and were covered with dark ivy, moss and lichen. Celtic crosses and angels abounded. The paths grew narrower and were lined with tall, ancient yews that blocked the light.

  ‘The Victorians liked their symbols,’ Ali said, admiring two clasped stone hands above the epitaph, Never Parted, in Life or in Death.

  Siv was gazing up at an imposing, cracked urn set on top of a damaged granite obelisk. It tilted as if it might topple at any moment, and she moved away, not wanting an ignominious end. They paused to read a mildewed scroll on the grave of Norton Mobbs and were only just able to make out the faint script.

  Remember Me as Thou Pass By

  As Thou Art Now

  So Once Was I.

  As I Am Now

  So Thou Wilt Be

  Prepare Thy Way

  To Follow Me

  ‘OK, Norton, don’t rub it in,’ Ali said.

  They wandered on, up and down the paths and along the graves, dwarfed by massive, cold statuary and the brooding trees. Acorns and pinecones were scattered among the leaves. An occasional clump of tiny purple violets provided the only colour. Siv kept hoping to spot a sign that someone had been here recently, but no one had come this way for a while.

  ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘A mort safe!’ She stepped from the path and bent to examine the broken and rusting iron cage that lay over a pair of graves covered in thistles.

  ‘What’s a mort safe?’

  ‘They were put over graves to prevent disturbance. Some people were terrified of grave robbers stealing bodies for anatomy schools.’

  Ali backed away and grumbled. ‘This place does my head in. Talk about creepy! If we’re expecting to find Kilgore’s body, I can’t see anything more recent than 1880 so far.’

  ‘We’ll keep going, anyway. Apparently, there are catacombs along the top boundary,’ Siv told him. ‘Come on, the exercise will do you good.’

  ‘Not when I’m likely to end up with pneumonia. I’ve an awful headache today as it is.’

  He had his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. She guessed he was nervous. He’d told her last Halloween that he believed in ghosts and a spirit world, and in the dim winter light and chill wind, it was enough to give even the least sensitive of souls the heebie-jeebies. This dreary, dim burial ground would be firing his imagination.

  As they moved back through the decades and came to the 1860s, several family vaults were set in a row. They were stern, grim structures, a little sunken. One had Doric columns engraved with lyres, another, two huge grimy angels with outstretched wings.

  ‘These were the Victorian upper-middle classes,’ Siv said, resting her hand on the foot of a wailing woman dressed in Roman robes, a hand to her distressed face. Ali grimaced. Siv grinned. ‘Let’s check them out.’

  They walked around the vaults, their feet snagging on the uneven ground. Ali swore as he tripped on a broken branch, but there was no sign of recent tampering or disturbance. There was a dead pigeon, piles of leaf mould, ragwort, nettles and snares
of dense brambles and ivy, but no unburied body. All was truly extinct, dank and still.

  At the boundary, they saw the catacombs, guarded by tall, ornate doors. These were flanked by two Grecian-style columns, topped by coping stones and huge carved eagles. A hefty padlock secured them, and when Siv examined it, it was firm and undamaged.

  ‘According to the brochure, there are five hundred coffins down there. It was a prestigious resting place and expensive, so only the very wealthy could afford the option.’

  ‘I’d rather spend my money on living,’ Ali said.

  She peered through narrow vents in the door but could see only steps leading down and caught a whiff of chill, sour air. She was disappointed. She folded her arms and sighed.

  Ali shrugged and lit another Gitane. ‘It was a gamble, guv.’

  ‘Yes. Just shows you can’t always trust a gut feeling.’

  ‘Aye, right enough. Tricky things, guts. I should know.’ He tapped his protruding middle. ‘Buy you a wee coffee? I just need the loo first. Would anyone mind if I nip behind a gravestone?’

  ‘I won’t, and I doubt you’ll shock the dead. But be quick, we need to press on, trawl through all our info about Kilgore again. The bloody man must be around here somewhere.’

  When Ali reappeared, they walked back at a fast pace to the car. Steve rang as Siv switched on the engine, his voice high and excited.

  ‘Guv, you’d better get to Mallow Cottage. We’ve found a body. It’s Henry Kilgore.’

  Chapter 14

  Steve was standing at the side gate to the garden of the small, detached cottage, waiting for them. He bristled as Siv walked towards him.

  ‘I’ve got quite a few things to show you, DI Drummond,’ he said with a little smirk. ‘But first I wanted to clarify that uniforms searched this place when Kilgore was reported missing?’

  ‘Yes, of course they did, on Tuesday night.’ Siv was curious as to what he was getting at. There was always something with Steve.

  ‘Well, if he was dead by then, heads should roll. First of all, there are tyre marks from Warren’s Vauxhall Corsa outside here on the verge. So, it was parked against the hedge but moved into the turning to the field before Tuesday night. Now, come and see Kilgore with a knife wound in the neck,’ he said leading them towards the cottage. ‘This gate isn’t kept locked, by the way.’ He was pumped up, almost yelling in his excitement.

  Siv and Ali looked at each other in dismay, before following the crime scene manager up the crazy paving towards the cottage. They paused at the door to don protective gear, then he led them across a decked area to a summerhouse at the bottom of the modest garden.

  ‘There’s a gap of about forty-six centimetres between this structure and the wall behind it.’ Steve handed Siv a powerful torch. ‘After you.’

  She went first, shining the beam in. The space at the back of the summerhouse was littered with debris and soil. A thick, woody clematis obscured the wall behind it and trailed over the summerhouse roof, forming a dark cave. Some of the leaves had torn and scattered over Henry Kilgore. He was wedged sideways, his head lower than the rest of his body but Siv could see a gash, caked with dried blood, at the side of his neck. His blue trainers pointed towards them. His socks were patterned with polar bears. Siv stepped aside for Ali.

  ‘I got a pair of socks like that for Christmas,’ he commented.

  ‘Very pertinent to the inquiry,’ Steve remarked acidly, while herding them back towards the house.

  ‘Now, just up here on the patio at the back of the cottage, there’s a metal table and four chairs. Two of them have been set out at angles to the table, the other two are stacked. I checked with Ms Kilgore, and when she was here tidying up after the last guests, she stacked all four chairs together. Though we haven’t fingerprinted them yet, it appears that our victim was having a nice little chat with someone. We’re sifting through the cottage room by room and fingerprinting. There was no forced entry and the key is in the key safe. You can check if you want, but there’s no evidence of a struggle in there.’

  The cottage was a two-up, two-down with a shower room off the kitchen. It was neat and well maintained in the same basic style as Driftwood. It wouldn’t have taken uniform long to search it. There was no sign of anyone else having been inside the cottage since Imelda Kilgore had last cleaned it. Siv and Ali left the team to it.

  ‘The nearest houses to this are about half a mile away in both directions along this road,’ Ali said. ‘Doubtful that anyone will have seen anything.’

  ‘Tell Patrick to get uniforms knocking, anyway. And not the idiots who might have missed a bloody dead body.’

  Although the timing wasn’t confirmed, Siv was fuming. She drove back through the drizzling rain to Imelda Kilgore’s faster than she should, while Ali called Patrick.

  ‘Uniform will be broke to the bone if they missed the body,’ he said glumly.

  ‘I’m guessing that means embarrassed. Ashamed, more like.’ Ali shot Siv a sympathetic glance. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said impatiently, ‘they must have missed it. I can’t see our killer keeping Kilgore’s body somewhere else. Given that Warren’s car was initially parked outside Mallow Cottage, he and Kilgore must have gone there, and that’s where they were murdered.

  ‘This has caused us a huge delay, and Mortimer will be on the warpath. However, the way Kilgore’s body was hidden away like that suggests he wasn’t Warren’s killer,’ she concluded grimly. ‘We’re looking for another suspect.’

  * * *

  They could hear a vacuum cleaner when they rang Ms Kilgore’s doorbell. She flung open the door, her cheeks flushed pink. She stared at them both while peeling off her rubber gloves. Her face dropped when they didn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s not good news, is it?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. We’ve found Henry’s body. Let’s sit down, Ms Kilgore,’ Siv said.

  They sat in a spacious living room decorated in various shades of blue, with many photos of Henry scattered about. Siv explained where he had been found. She informed his mother that it appeared he’d been stabbed, then steeled herself for the inevitable questions.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Imelda said slowly. ‘The police searched all my properties. You organised it. They got keys from me.’

  ‘That’s true. We don’t know yet when Henry’s body was hidden there. The side gate wasn’t left locked, so it might have happened after the search. If he was there before Tuesday night, then something went badly wrong and I can only apologise.’

  Imelda blushed bright scarlet. ‘Apologise! An apology hardly covers it! I’ve spent days worrying and wondering where my son was and I could have been spared the anguish! All those people tramping along the coast and looking around rocks and scrub could have been saved the effort. All pointless. My poor Henry, lying there in the cold and dark—’

  Ali asked if he could use the bathroom. Siv frowned. This was hardly the moment. Imelda gestured impatiently at the hallway and he vanished.

  Siv said, as reassuringly as she could, ‘We will enquire into what happened when Mallow Cottage was searched, I guarantee that.’

  Imelda’s breath came fast, her heavy frame trembling. ‘Oh yes, you bloody will! I’ve been traipsing around the streets with that lacklustre Saffie, looking in pubs and down alleyways, searching around the harbour and Larch Dell, that rubbish-strewn area that calls itself a park. I can guarantee you, you haven’t heard the last of this from me.’

  Siv had seen grief affect people this way before, erupting in anger, lashing at the world. She took a deep breath. ‘Of course, I understand. In the meantime, did Henry have a key to the cottage?’

  ‘No, but he might have had the number for the key safe. I keep a list in the kitchen drawer. My God, was he murdered in the cottage?’

  ‘We can’t say yet where he died. Did Henry use Mallow Cottage or any of your other properties when he was at school?’

  ‘Of course not. They’re businesses, kept for rental guests or the occ
asional use of family and friends, such as Driftwood at the moment.’

  ‘Ms Kilgore, did you ever have the impression that Henry still carried a flame for Viv Carpenter?’

  Imelda tutted. ‘Of course he didn’t. That relationship was over years ago. What are you trying to suggest now?’

  ‘Just a line of enquiry. Also, we’ve been told that Eugene and Henry took drugs when they were school friends. Were you aware of that?’

  The woman blanched. ‘No! I mean, I could believe it of Eugene, but not of Henry. I never witnessed any sign of drug use. He was always a fit and healthy young man. He was on the fencing team, for goodness’ sake. No, no, you must have been misinformed.’

  There was no point in tormenting her with stories of parties in the cemetery.

  Siv asked, ‘Do you want me to call anyone to be with you? I could wait until Saffie or Viv get here.’

  ‘I’d rather be alone.’

  It was time to go. Siv got up as Ali come back into the room. ‘Again, we are so sorry for your loss. A family liaison officer will call you later. We’ll be in touch as soon as we have any updates, Ms Kilgore.’

  ‘When can I see my son?’

  ‘We’ll be in touch to arrange that with you.’

  As they got in the car, Siv looked askance at Ali. ‘What was with your bathroom timing? Not helpful. Thanks for leaving me with the fallout.’

  ‘Aye, sorry about that. Just couldn’t wait.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. He looked away.

  ‘We’ll assume that the same person killed Warren and Kilgore,’ she said. ‘As yet, we have no motive, but murders are often close to home. I can’t see Saffie heaving two bodies around. Imelda could, or Viv and Damian, working as a team. But I can’t imagine Imelda killing her own darling son, and even if Henry had been coming on to Viv, it’s hardly a strong enough motive for murder.’