Still Death (A Lexie Wyatt murder mystery Book 1)

by Shauna Bickley

23

  Back at home, Lexie couldn’t settle to any cleaning or the work for Veronica. She hadn’t said much to Veronica at Miriam’s, but how could the woman do such a thing?

  Lexie sat down and pushed the breakfast toast crumbs around the table. She’d searched for information about Miriam and asked her father because she wanted to help, and because she was nosy, but she would never have done it to write a scandalous story. Surely she couldn’t be as bad as Veronica? However, it didn’t make her feel any better.

  She’d solved the mystery of Miriam but not in the way she wanted. The result was ultimately good, but if she hadn’t seen Veronica drive by, or if the police hadn’t arrived as quickly as they did everything could have been very different. She shivered remembering the wild look in Janice’s eyes and the knife she’d held against Miriam’s throat. How stupid not to realise Veronica would do anything for a story. Lexie thumped her forehead with the palm of her hand. She’d been so obsessed with solving the mystery, as if knowledge itself was sufficient, without realising the impact that knowledge could have on people. Her obsession with clearing Patrick’s name was the same, even though he was dead and didn’t have any family. Life wasn’t as simple as jigsaw pieces slotting neatly together.

  Lexie left the breakfast crumbs and went into the back garden. She sat in the garden chair and was reminded of Dominique’s visit. Goodness knows what Dominique had tried to tell her in that oblique way of hers. An enigma entwined in other puzzles.

  She really missed Evelyn. What she wanted more than anything was to walk up the lane and visit her and listen to some of her common-sense advice and good humour.

  She couldn’t sit still and wandered back inside. In her bedroom, she rummaged through the top drawer of her bedside table and found the box Evelyn had given her. Inside was the soft blue jewellery bag Evelyn had been holding that morning before Patrick came downstairs. Lexie had looked at the charm bracelet when she first brought it home. She didn’t want the girls to break it, so she had placed it at the back of the drawer.

  Lexie couldn’t imagine Evelyn wearing the bracelet. The weight of the thick, silver chain and the numerous charms made the bracelet heavy. Evelyn had been so fragile. She fingered some of the charms. Among them was a four-leaf clover, a wishing well, a heart and a winged unicorn.

  She turned to put it back in the jewellery bag but knocked the small box off the bed. The square of foam at the bottom fell onto the floor. Lexie bent to pick it up. There was a piece of white card taped to the underside of the foam. Lexie pulled the card off and stuck to the foam was a small key. On the side of the card facing the foam someone had written a number.

  Lexie frowned at the key. It must have been placed there on purpose. She studied the number. It could be nothing. Simply a piece of card selected to hide the key.

  Evelyn had been particularly intense the morning she’d handed over the bracelet. Lexie thought back to those few minutes. She was pretty certain the box was already there, Evelyn had just placed the bracelet in its jewellery bag on top of the foam. What had Evelyn said to her? Lexie screwed up her face in an effort to remember. Evelyn had definitely said what Patrick was doing was dangerous, but then she’d said that a couple of times. What had Evelyn specifically said about her? She pictured the scene and how Evelyn had pressed the box into her hands. Giving her the bracelet might not be the best thing, but it was important.

  The bracelet couldn’t be dangerous. Patrick and Evelyn must have been killed to ensure whatever was locked away remained hidden.

  Lexie chewed her bottom lip. She’d promised Nathan she wouldn’t do anything that would put them in danger. She strode out into the garden and through the gate; she always thought better on the move. The angle of the hill slowed her, and by the time the ground levelled out her heart rate was up, and not only due to the hill. She couldn’t hurt Nathan again, but could she ignore this? Evelyn had trusted her to do something.

  She reached the wall dividing their property from Miriam’s and turned to walk back down. The thought of Evelyn decided her. She’d try to discover what the key opened, and if she found out she’d give the contents to the police. It seemed like a reasonable compromise. She could live with that and she was sure Nathan would understand.

  She opened her hand and looked at the key. What did it open? A bank safety deposit box? It must be easier than that. A bank wouldn’t let her access it if she only had a key. Something that Patrick could do quickly and locally.

  Lexie hurried down the hill and into the house, picked up her bag and drove into Nettleford. There weren’t any empty parking spaces around the post office, but she found one in the next street. The post office boxes were in a locked area adjoining the main building. As she approached it, she slowed and followed a man who seemed to be headed for the private boxes. He punched the code on the security pad and actually held the door open for her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she muttered, her cheeks heating up. She pulled out the card and checked the number. Fortunately the man’s box was close to the door and he was too busy sorting through his mail to pay any attention to her.

  Lexie wandered along the length of the area checking the boxes on both sides, but the numbers didn’t relate to the number on the card. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Something easier than a post office box.

  She walked back to her car. As she sat in the driver’s seat, Ian walked along the other side of the road. She ducked down, pretending to look for something in her bag. She was sure he’d been at Evelyn’s the night of the fire and he’d been at the compound, but somehow she hadn’t expected to see him in Nettleford’s high street. She didn’t know if he’d seen her, or if he was following her. That was stupid. If he was following her, then he wasn’t doing a very good job. She watched him in the mirror until he turned a corner and disappeared.

  Lexie threw her bag onto the passenger seat and tapped her cheek. To get to Nettleford from London, Patrick must have caught the train or hired a car and driven, but then he would have to hide the car while he was at Evelyn’s. Either way, he’d arrived overnight, so that really knocked out her idea of the post office box. He could only have rented one during business hours and would have had to fill in paperwork and produce identification. The more obvious place would be a left-luggage locker.

  Lexie started the car and drove to the station. Nettleford had a good-sized station as plenty of people commuted to work. Before she got out of the car, Lexie looked around to make sure she couldn’t see Ian, or Connor or Sean. There actually wasn’t anyone in the car park. She hurried into the station and searched for the lockers. Finally, she found them in a dingy room at the end of the platform. Her heart rate speeded up when she realised the numbers were similar to hers. She checked the number on the card again, and found the locker she wanted behind the door. The key fitted snugly and opened the locker.

  Inside was a brown A4 envelope. Lexie didn’t even stop to open it. She’d seen enough films, and while it wasn’t dark, this area of the platform was unattended and scarily quiet at the moment. She shoved the envelope into her bag, thankful that due to carting around so much stuff for the girls she’d converted to a large tote bag. She zipped it securely and dashed back to her car. Once inside, she locked the doors and only then breathed a sigh of relief.

  She was too nervous to go back to Cherry Tree Cottage. There were no houses in close proximity. She could scream there and no one would hear her. The fact that she’d felt like screaming quite a lot since they’d moved wasn’t lost on her.

  She drove to Helen’s and sat outside the house, feeling like a leper. Helen might not be too thrilled when she heard what Lexie had to say. But it was done now.

  Movement caught her eye. Helen stood in the doorway of her house. When she knew she had Lexie’s attention, Helen indicated that Lexie should come in.

  Lexie got out of the car and locked it.

  ‘Why d’you look so guilty,’ asked Helen. ‘You don’t have to ring before you come round, you know.’

/>   Lexie tried a smile, but that was the last thing she felt like doing.

  ‘What’s up?’ Helen now looked concerned which made Lexie feel even worse.

  ‘I’ll come in and tell you.’

  While Helen made some green tea, Lexie told her about finding the key, and as she explained about the left-luggage locker, she pulled out the brown envelope and placed it on the kitchen bench top.

  ‘Are you going to open before taking it to the police? We can guess it’s not his birthday present list because of the effort he went to in hiding it, but we should know what we’re getting into here.’

  Lexie ripped open the envelope and pulled out a hardcover notebook. She turned to the first page and she and Helen read through Patrick’s notes.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Helen. ‘This is serious.’

  ‘He did make notes,’ muttered Lexie. ‘He just didn’t share them with anyone.’ She pointed to one of Patrick’s diary notations. ‘He didn’t completely trust me either, or maybe he was used to not telling the entire truth.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He told me he was in Germany, but according to his notes he was only there one day. This reads like an Eastern European holiday itinerary: Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria.’

  ‘And not just once either, look at the dates of the entries. He’s been working on this for a long time.’

  The two women looked at each other.

  ‘You realise what this is?’ said Helen.

  ‘Information that gets people killed.’

  Helen sat on the sofa, her forehead wrinkled as she contemplated the notebook. ‘We already guessed Caroline wasn’t killed because of something she’d seen.’

  ‘I don’t know why Patrick was so fixated on that.’

  ‘I think I can guess,’ said Helen. ‘From what you said, Evelyn pushed him into telling you the story he’d told her. And that’s all it was, a story. He probably made it up from a simple incident Caroline related during one of their conversations. Patrick didn’t tell Evelyn the truth because he wanted to protect her. He must have known Caroline’s death was because of his research.’

  Lexie sat on the couch next to Helen. ‘People trafficking. Smuggling women and selling them into prostitution. It’s awful. Patrick seems to have concentrated on the routes they took. There aren’t any names for this end, but the people involved probably didn’t know how much he’d found out.’

  Lexie skimmed through the notebook again. It was a little smaller than the A5 ones that used to litter her desk and live in her handbag and bedside table when she had a job. Fortunately Patrick’s notes were in legible handwriting, almost printed. There were only a few tiny doodles. He must have had a very tidy, compartmentalised way of thinking. All his notes were dated, presumably referring to meetings with contacts. The notes ended the day before Caroline was killed.

  ‘It’s a pity he didn’t make any notes about the guy who approached him at the airport.’

  ‘I still don’t understand everything,’ said Helen. ‘I guess Caroline was killed as a warning.’

  ‘Patrick had worked on these types of stories for long enough to know the people were dangerous. If he believed that no one knew about him and Caroline then he was proved wrong.’

  ‘I wonder why they didn’t kill Patrick that night,’ said Helen. ‘Framing him for Caroline’s death wouldn’t necessarily stop the story because of all the evidence he’d collected.’

  ‘They approached him at the airport so they must have assumed he had his notes with him. After they drugged him at the pub, they took him back to his flat. He said he woke up there.’ Lexie stopped, her brain working faster than she could articulate.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Patrick didn’t remember much, but his neighbour came up because of the noise. There were two guys in the flat with Patrick. They made out Patrick was drunk and had fallen over a coffee table.’

  ‘You mean they were beating him up, trying to get information.’

  ‘Yes. They left when the neighbour arrived.’

  ‘Then Patrick vanished and they had to change the plan and get him to go to Evelyn’s.’

  Lexie shuddered at the image of Patrick the morning she’d found him. She focussed on other thoughts. No wonder she’d been so confused about his story. Colleagues said he was honest and he worked alone. That was true right to the end. He wasn’t a murderer.

  Helen picked up the notebook. ‘If Patrick was trying to protect you, he didn’t know you well enough to realise you’d keep digging. I guess he must have put this in a locker at the airport before meeting that guy.’ She flicked through the final third of the notebook.

  ‘Hang on, what was that?’

  Helen turned the blank pages more slowly. On one page there were a couple of names lightly printed in pencil with boxes drawn around them.

  They looked like place names. Lexie didn’t recognise the first two, but she pointed to the one at the bottom of the page. C/Cheyney.

  ‘That’s too much of a coincidence.’ She wished she’d never found the key.

  ‘We need to do something with this now.’ Helen’s voice had a little catch to it.

  ‘If there’s a local involvement, perhaps giving it to the police here isn’t such a good idea.’

  They stared at each other. ‘What about your dad?’

  Lexie nodded. She pulled out her mobile but the call went straight to his voicemail. Oh, Dad, get off the phone. She didn’t want to be too open in a voice message. The newspapers said messages could be hacked and while she didn’t think her phone was tapped she was now beginning to feel conspiracy everywhere.

  ‘Dad, I’m sending you some stuff via your work. You’ll know what to do with it when you see it.’ She wished she could make him realise how important this was but didn’t know what else to say.

  She put her phone back in her pocket. ‘I’m worried about posting this. What if it gets lost? That would be typical of the mail system.’

  ‘We’ve got a scanner linked up to the computer. We can make a copy of Patrick’s notebook as a backup.’

  ‘And I’ve got a flash drive on my key ring. It was a freebie at a work conference.’

  They scanned each page of Patrick’s notes and saved the images onto Lexie’s USB.

  Helen managed a smile when she saw it. ‘You’d never guess what it is with all that bling on the holder.’

  ‘Yeah, the girls think they’re diamonds. I’m really sorry about involving you in this.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry about.’ Helen tapped the notebook. ‘There’s a problem with these notes. They’re detailed about the other end with names and routes, but very little about this end. We’re only guessing those words are place names because of Compton Cheyney.’

  ‘The whole thing’s unbelievable. I mean, I’ve read about people trafficking and the sex trade.’ Lexie stopped, thinking of what her mother had told her. ‘But reading Patrick’s notes. These people are inhuman.’

  The two women stood silently for a moment before Lexie stuffed the envelope back into her bag and used Helen’s computer to check she had all the scanned documents on the flash drive. She looked up and down the street before she left Helen’s and locked all the car doors as soon as she was inside.

  Her hands trembled on the steering wheel. An elderly man in an equally ancient car drove at half the speed limit for most of the journey, but he finally turned left and Lexie reached the main street. She breathed out in a relieved whoosh when she saw an empty parking space outside the Post Office. Before getting out of the car, she checked to see who was in the street. An old couple ambled along towards her and way down the road a group of girls giggled together looking at their phones. Part of her scoffed at being so melodramatic, but her hands still shook as she hitched her bag over her shoulder and she grasped it firmly.

  Lexie stood in the queue, anxious to send the documents on their way. Every time the doors swished open, she turned, expecting to see someone pushing th
eir way towards her. She imagined Sean or Ian or Connor pulling her out of the building. She’d initially suspected them because of Peter Webber and his paintings, but other than C/Cheyney in Patrick’s notebook, there was nothing to suggest they were involved. Ian was definitely the man who’d spoken to her at the fire, but that didn’t mean he’d started it. When she finally reached the counter she could hardly get the words out of her mouth.

  ‘I want to send this via some special delivery to make sure it gets there.’

  The woman explained the options and Lexie chose a signature delivery that she could track.

  She glanced at her watch. It was almost time to collect the children. So much had happened it was hard to believe it was still the same day; Dominique’s visit and oblique warning, the scenes at Miriam’s house, and now this. She met Helen at the school gates and told her the parcel was now on its way.

  Helen nodded. ‘I’m glad we’ve been able to do something, but I’m not sorry it’s out of our hands now.’

  Lexie agreed, but she was also aware of the flash drive on her key ring. She settled the children down with a snack then copied the file from the flash drive to her laptop.

  ‘Going overboard a bit, aren’t you?’ she muttered. But it would be awful if she lost the flash drive and the parcel went astray. She put a password on the file, although knowing how easily she’d been able to break into Peter’s files didn’t make her feel confident. At least she had another copy.

  She pulled a chair over to the airing cupboard and hid her laptop under a pile of linen. It was probably overkill and not useful for work, but she left it there anyway.

  When Nathan arrived home he was full of his day at work. They’d fulfilled their first order a day ahead of schedule and he’d also been interviewing people for some new roles. Ross wanted to move some of the work over from the older factory in London. Nathan was elated with the way things were going. He pulled her into his arms, gave her a big kiss, and danced around the kitchen much to the children’s delight.

  Lexie was thrilled for him, but her stomach was still tied in anxious knots and she was relieved when the girls clamoured for him to dance with them.