Murder on the Commons (A Davies & West Mystery Book 4)

by Will North

  “What’s that meant to be?” she asked.

  “Rattlesnake stew.”

  She slugged his arm. “You always say that!”

  “Ah, but one day it will be, if the price at the butcher’s is right, and how will you know? What would it taste like? Chicken? Fish? Steak?”

  “It would taste like rattlesnake, Daddy, and be yucky!”

  “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, then!”

  The ever-serious Kaitlin had pulled out the books from her school backpack and was already working on homework at the kitchen table. “It’s cold out,” she said, ignoring her sister. “Can we have tea? And biscuits?”

  “Of course, love.” He switched on the kettle and pulled a new packet of McVities dark chocolate-topped, wholemeal biscuits from the cabinet above the sink. They were Megan’s favorite and he’d had to put them up there out of her reach.

  He was thinking of the stone farmhouse to the south, near Cadgwith Cove, on the Lizard Peninsula, where he’d grown up. It had a fireplace in its big country kitchen. When he came home from school, his mum always had the coal fire burning in the hearth and hot chocolate waiting. The modest bungalow he and his wife had bought years ago had suited them, and the girls as they came along, but a part of him still longed for a stone cottage, surrounded by open fields, rather than the cluster of nearly identical bungalows on his suburban cul-de-sac. He wanted a place where his girls could run free, as he had. One day, perhaps. He sent them upstairs to finish their schoolwork and thought very soon Kaitlin would want her own room. There was the guest room his mother-in-law used, but now Morgan slept there. Most of the time. A decision would have to be made soon.

  He’d put sliced up carrots, onion, celery, and cubed parsnip to the thickening chicken stew and was adding a splash of white wine, when Morgan came through the kitchen from the garage.

  “Hey, save some of that for me!”

  He laughed. “Find a glass, I’m busy.” He whisked flour and baking powder together in a mixing bowl and added a little melted butter and milk to make a soft dough. She looked into the bowl.

  “What’s this glutinous mess supposed to be?”

  He ignored her and sprinkled chopped parsley, dried thyme, and salt on top and kept folding for a few moments before putting a damp tea towel over the bowl to let the mixture rest.

  “That ‘mess’ will be herby dumplings for the chicken stew.”

  “Dumplings? I thought they were Chinese.”

  “Originally, yes, but your English history is sorely lacking. The word itself originated in Norfolk in the sixteen hundreds. They made them to stretch meals when meat was in short supply. But growing up as you did in remote Wales, you likely got little English history at school.”

  “We learned a lot about English subjugation…”

  “Yes, well, can you fetch me another wine glass? I shouldn’t waste this nice Pinot Grigio in the stew.”

  He sat at the table and she joined him. He kissed her hand.

  “Welcome home. The girls were asking after you. Where have you been?”

  “Did you see that, Kaitlin?” a little voice cried. “He kissed her hand.”

  They’d heard the adults talking and had stolen downstairs.

  ‘Big deal,” Kaitlin mumbled as they came into the kitchen. “What are you making for dinner, Daddy?”

  Calum rose. “Chicken and dumplings and thank you for the reminder. I need to drop in the dumplings.”

  “What are they?” Megan said.

  Morgan held up a cautioning hand. “Don’t ask, you’ll get an entire history lesson.”

  Nonetheless, the girls huddled around Calum as he dropped small rounded balls of dough into the broth in the wide black stew pot.

  “Are they biscuits?” Megan asked, pointing to the pot as he put on the lid to let the stew simmer.

  “Smart girl! But they will be steamed, rather than baked.”

  Megan looked unconvinced.

  Morgan’s mobile buzzed. She rose and fished around for it in the coat she’d hung by the back door.

  “It’s the boss,” she said as she read the text message. “Interesting…”

  Calum set the kitchen timer for fifteen minutes. “What’s interesting?”

  “Dunleavy’s people found a spot of blood on the passenger seat of O’Dare’s plane. He’s having it analyzed.” She sat down and refilled her glass.

  “Hang on. My people went over his Land Rover with a fine-tooth comb. Drugs residue, yes. Blood, no. But in the plane?”

  “Well, if Jan’s memory is correct, O’Dare wasn’t wounded during the Davidstow shootings. Given the bullet your people found, you believe he shot Lugg in the hanger, right?”

  “Wait!” Kaitlin stood and slapped the table. “Your bad guy had a plane? I can’t believe this! I told you weeks ago: The Boy Who Fell From the Sky!”

  Morgan and Calum just stared at her. Then, Calum grabbed his eldest and danced her around the kitchen. “You were right! You were right!” he sang as they twirled.

  He released her and they both sat, giggling. Megan had no idea what was going on.

  “So he kills Lugg,” Calum said to the still-speechless Morgan, “bundles him into the plane, takes off over Bodmin Moor, puts the plane into a sharp right bank and just tips the poor bugger out the door, dropping him straight into Rough Tor Mire, never to be seen again—except, ironically, by his lover, Jan Cuthbertson. Case closed!”

  “Maybe,” Morgan cautioned, raising a hand. “I don’t want to spoil the party, but we have no idea yet that this spot of blood is Lugg’s.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith!”

  “Is dinner ready?” Megan asked.

  Epilogue

  “JESUS BLOODY CHRIST!” Crawley bellowed. “I won’t accept it!” He paced around the incident room waving his arms in frustration. Penwarren had scheduled an MCIT meeting the day after Dunleavy called to say that, after more than a week of fruitlessly searching for him, O’Dare had been exposed by one of his own people. He hadn’t gone far. An anonymous caller led the Garda to Bantry House, a somewhat down-at-heels stately home doing bed and breakfast, less than a mile from the Bantry Bay aerodrome. He’d surrendered willingly. Dunleavy was of the opinion that the New IRA were not pleased that O’Dare had blown a very lucrative operation. Exposing him to the Garda was more humane punishment than their usual methods.

  “There’s only one problem,” Dunleavy had said. “We can’t extradite him to you anytime soon. Because of Brexit.”

  “It’s simply unacceptable!” Crawley ranted when told this. “How the hell are we going to stop international crimes like this?!”

  Penwarren was amused by the we. “Perhaps you should bring that up with the Prime Minister, Malcolm.”

  “You’re telling me we have no way to extradite O’Dare?”

  Adam had his laptop open. “Not quickly, at least, sir,” he said, peering at the screen. “When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, we were no longer a part of the accelerated European Arrest Warrant provisions of membership. The Brexit vote ended that immediately.”

  “That’s idiotic.”

  “O’Dare can still be extradited under the terms of an old 1957 treaty. But it’s more likely to take years, not months.”

  Crawley, as if exhausted, sank into a chair. “This is all wrong.”

  “I’m just wondering, boss. Did you vote in favor of Brexit?”

  ‘That’s irrelevant, Penwarren, and very nearly insubordinate.”

  “Just curious,” Penwarren said, grinning. “Would you care to continue with the full briefing?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. How much worse can it get?”

  “Calum?” Penwarren said.

  “We have the blood stain DNA results from Superintendent Dunleavy. It’s definitely Lugg’s.”

  “And you’re telling me we don’t have a murder case against O’Dare?”

  “We have only Ms. Cuthbertson’s word about what happened,” Penwarren reminde
d him. “And she was, of course, his lover. I doubt the CPS would mount a prosecution for murder on the basis of her testimony. She’s compromised.”

  “A man is killed, then dumped out of a plane into that god-forsaken moor, and we have no case?”

  “Manslaughter, perhaps, Malcolm. But we definitely have him on international drugs trafficking. Dunleavy is pursuing conviction in the Republic. After that, we’ll have our chance.”

  “When, dammit?”

  Penwarren shrugged. “Terry, you spoke to Liverpool?” he said turning to her.

  “Yes sir. Waggoner’s gone. Retired. No replacement as yet and no apparent connection to O’Dare to implicate him or jeopardize his pension. There was a party and everything. Meanwhile, Doherty’s simply vanished. Dunleavy believes he’s gone to ground somewhere in Ireland. He’s got plenty of friends there. The Garda checked the manifests of all flights to Dublin from Manchester the day after O’Dare fled. Doherty’s name wasn’t on any of them. Dunleavy is certain he had more than one passport and identity.”

  “Waggoner? Doherty?” Crawley sputtered. “Who?”

  Penwarren raised a hand. “For now, Malcolm, I can only say that Merseyside led us to O’Dare’s operation. It will all be in my formal report.”

  “And what about these Cuthbertson shootings?”

  “Randall Cuthbertson, the shooter, died of natural causes last week in hospital,” Penwarren answered. “Rapid onset Alzheimer’s disease ‘disturbed the balance of his mind,’ as they say. He didn’t know what he was doing when he fired his rifle. Now, the disease has killed him. His daughter is at home recuperating. She’s effectively under house arrest for now because of her brief involvement with O’Dare. The CPS will have to decide when and whether they want to question her, but we have her sworn statement. Her mother, Beverly, who was more seriously wounded by her husband, is about to be discharged from the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. The Davidstow shooting case is closed.”

  “They are your relatives, I believe?”

  “By divorce, Malcolm, just by divorce. That will have no effect if, and when, we move forward. I shall recuse myself. You have my word.”

  Morgan had thus far been silent, leaning back in her chair, as if watching a stage performance. Now she pitched forward and, like the deus ex machina in a Greek play, said, “I think we are all missing a great opportunity here, Superintendent. I imagine you’ll want to call a press conference. Let’s look at the facts. You’ve shut down a major drugs operation here in Cornwall and can also talk about how this international collaboration with the Irish succeeded, despite Brexit barriers.” She threw a glance at Penwarren, who nodded. “You’ve shown that criminals will still be hunted down and prosecuted, no matter where they try to hide. You and your team have proved that, in this excellent example.” She smiled.

  Crawley frowned. He had no idea whether Davies was putting him on or not, but he had to admit this was a very good approach to announcing the resolution of a complicated case, O’Dare or no O’Dare. He could also blame the Brexit barrier for why he’d not been able to get O’Dare promptly extradited. The national media would eat that up, as yet another unforeseen and dangerous circumstance of the nation’s decision to withdraw from the European Union.

  CRAWLEY WAS RIGHT. Within an hour of his hurriedly arranged press conference at Exeter headquarters the next afternoon, the national BBC and ITV news stations were all over the Brexit angle. The newspapers trumpeted Brexit Foils Cornwall Murder Case the next morning. Detective Chief Superintendent Malcolm Crawley of the Devon and Cornwall Police was held up as a spokesman for Brexit’s risks to national security.

  Within days, the government reacted.

  Deputy Assistant Police Commissioner Richard Martins, who was leading national police preparations to cope with the loss of key crime-fighting measures because of the Brexit vote, said, “Brexit has damaged police powers to detain foreign suspects and leaves British fugitives in Europe beyond the law.”

  The Prime Minister countered in a televised statement: “Measures are being undertaken to resolve this concern.”

  No one, most especially the national media, believed him.

  BEVERLY CUTHBERTSON, STILL groggy from painkillers, came home that same day. Penwarren sat beside her bed through two more days, dozing in the chair.

  In the dark, that second night, she turned and suggested he join her.

  Acknowledgments

  Bodmin Moor is an eighty square mile, poorly drained, heath-clad plateau in central Cornwall. Granite summits, called “tors,” punch through the moor’s undulating skin like the exposed bones of some prehistoric beast. Until now, I’ve driven across the moor many times, but never tarried. Littered with Stone Age sites, it is bleak and oddly forbidding. You may recall that it features in Daphne du Maurier’s 1936 dark classic novel, The Jamaica Inn.

  Rough Tor, (pronounced router), is the second highest of the tors and from its roughly 1,300-foot summit you can see all the way to Land’s End, Cornwall’s southern tip.

  For guidance about the moor, I thank James Gossip, senior archaeologist at the Historic Environments Service of the Cornwall Council, as well as Louella and Robin Hanbury-Tenison of Cabilla Manor, to whom this book is dedicated. I should also thank the UK’s Ordnance Survey for a map of the moor that makes it very clear where not to walk because of the dangerous mires.

  On matters of police procedure, I thank, once again, my dear friend Martin South, former chief of the Devon and Cornwall Police Scene of the Crime Office (SOCO). A query sent in an afternoon is answered the next morning in marvelous detail. And for the details of autopsy procedure, I thank Dr. Amanda Jeffers, forensic pathologist for Devon and Cornwall.

  For all their generous help, it doesn’t mean I’ve got everything right. Moreover, I may have adjusted some facts to suit the story, though these instances are rare. As always, however, I must say that if there are errors, they are mine alone. I trust that my friends, for these advisors have become my friends, will forgive me.

  Here in the United States, I extend my deep appreciation to Northstar Editions’ persistent project manager, imaginative marketing manager, and patient editor, Stephanie Konat, and to talented cover designer Laura Hidalgo. An author could not ask for more responsive and enthusiastic partners.

  Finally, I thank early readers Yvonne Price, Barbara Frost, Kate Pflaumer, Kathy Boone Reel, and Lawrence Rosenfeld. Thank you all for your sharp eyes and thoughtful comments.

  Will North

  March, 2021

  Also by Will North

  The Long Walk Home

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  Forty-five year old Fiona Edwards answers her Welsh farmhouse door to a tall, middle-aged man shouldering a hulking backpack—he is unshaven, sweat-soaked and arrestingly handsome. What neither of them knows is that their lives are about to change forever.

  Water, Stone, Heart

  (Romantic Suspense)

  Nicola and Andrew have each come to the Cornish village of Boscastle to escape their troubled pasts. When they meet, they’re bristly and sarcastic—yet are attracted to each other. What neither of them knows is that a ferocious storm is brewing, one that could destroy them, and the entire village. And that storm is about to hit.

  Seasons’ End

  (Contemporary Romance)

  Every summer, three families spend “the season” on an island in Puget Sound. But when local vet Colin Ryan finds Martha “Pete” Petersen’s body in the road on the last day of the season, he uncovers a series of betrayals that will alter their histories forever.

  Harm None

  (British Murder Mystery/Davies & West Series: Book 1)

  When an American archaeological team discovers the skeletal remains of a missing child, British Detectives Davies and West unearth a growing list of suspects. Just as they close in on their prime suspect, another child goes missing.

  Too Clever By Half

  (British Murder Mystery/Davies & West Series: Book 2)

  Th
e naked, maimed body found bobbing in the English Channel presents a vexing puzzle to Detectives Davies and West. Post-mortem confirms the body's wounds were inflicted by torture, but without a name or a crime scene, Davies and West are stymied. Unraveling this mystery of betrayal, deep secrets, and revenge will test their skills as never before.

  Trevega House

  (British Murder Mystery/Davies & West Series: Book 3)

  Three years after surviving a catastrophic flood (Water, Stone, Heart), twelve-year old Lee Trelissick has settled into a safer life with her adoptive parents. But before long, preternaturally wise Lee announces “Someone wants to do us harm. Someone evil.” She's right. Can Detectives Davies and West protect the girl and stop the killer before it's too late?

  For news about Will's books, special offers and speaking events, go to: www.willnorthnovelist.com.