by Helen Cox
‘What about her?’ said Evie.
‘Ricci hasn’t said as much but given how quick she was to suspend Banks when this was just a burglary case, she might suspect foul play.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Kitt.
‘If we don’t catch up with Oakes soon, Ricci might start looking at Banks again. Might suspect her of shutting down Oakes and Buruk for good. If that happens, I can only hope she’s more forthcoming with Ricci than she was with me.’
‘She’s being evasive?’ said Kitt.
‘Banks wouldn’t tell me where she was last night when Donald went missing.’
Slowly, Evie looked over at Kitt and when she did she found her friend’s eyes were already on her.
‘What? What is it?’ asked Halloran. ‘Do you know something about all this that I don’t?’
It felt as though the temperature in the room was rising with every passing moment. ‘Charley didn’t tell you where she was last night because she was being discreet,’ she said, lowering her eyes to the carpet. ‘She was with me.’
‘You saw Banks last night?’ said Halloran.
‘Yes, she was at my house.’
‘All night?’
Evie paused. ‘Yes.’
‘I see.’
Evie raised her eyes to meet the inspector’s stare. He gave a gentle nod then, confirming that he did see, entirely.
‘Will it help if I make a statement?’ asked Evie.
‘We’re not there yet,’ said Halloran. ‘But if Ricci goes so far as to accuse Banks of anything, it will be good for her to know she can rely on your alibi.’
‘She can,’ said Evie.
‘Can’t CCTV footage shed some light on what happened to both Alim and Donald?’ asked Kitt. Evie wasn’t sure if Kitt was deliberately moving the conversation away from the exact nature of Charley’s visit, but either way she was relieved to not have to say any more about it just now.
‘We’ve got people checking through the footage from the hospital entrance and the traffic cameras at Bootham Bar,’ said Halloran.
‘You have? Has Ricci let you both continue working on this case?’ said Kitt.
Halloran nodded. ‘When the DNA was found in Banks’s garage, she made a personal appeal to Ricci. Convinced her somehow to allow us back on the case. She has an impeccable service record up until now, which might be why Ricci granted the request. Or it might be because the situation has escalated. Whatever the reason, we are now both allowed to investigate further.’
‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ said Kitt.
‘Possibly. We’re always short on resources so it might be that Ricci didn’t have much of a choice but to reinstate us. There is, however, another possibility.’
‘What’s that?’ said Kitt.
‘She might have let us back on the case purely to monitor us. There’s a chance she’s also got the anti-corruption unit on our backs.’
‘Neither of you have anything to hide though,’ said Kitt. ‘So, if that’s her game, she won’t find anything untoward.’
‘No, except perhaps my communications with you about the case,’ said Halloran. ‘I’ll be looking at disciplinary action if anyone finds out the things I’ve told you. The people at the top won’t care how helpful you’ve been. Or how discreet.’
‘I know you put a lot on the line when you share things with us,’ said Kitt, ‘but please don’t tell me you’re here to say that we have to stay away from the case. Not when someone I’ve known for almost all the time I’ve lived in York is missing.’
‘No, I’m not here to do that,’ said Halloran. ‘I tried that last time and it got me nowhere. I know even if I tell you to stay out of it, you’re going to investigate it anyway because you feel a personal involvement, and frankly I’ve never known anyone as curious as you.’
‘I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,’ Kitt said, her nose crinkling.
Halloran continued. ‘But I’m going to have to be really careful about what information I share with you and you are going to have to watch your step twice as much as you were before. If Ricci even gets a sniff of what you’re doing, it could be the end of my career, and Banks’s too.’
‘I have no desire to get you into any trouble at work,’ said Kitt. ‘But Donald’s disappearance is very concerning.’
‘Hmm,’ said Evie.
‘What?’ asked Kitt.
‘Shereen is reported to have had a blazing row with her husband about an affair and then a couple of days later, her husband goes missing,’ said Evie.
‘You’re not suggesting Shereen is behind Donald’s disappearance?’ said Kitt.
‘Why not?’
‘Besides the fact that I’ve known her for donkey’s years, she would have to overpower Donald. He’s not a big man but I’m not convinced she could lift him even if she did knock him out.’
‘But she wouldn’t be working alone. It’s in someone else’s interests to get Donald out of the picture,’ said Evie.
‘The person she’s having the affair with,’ said Kitt.
‘He could have helped her get rid of Donald, and that way she could keep all of the insurance money to herself and start a new life with her lover.’
‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles,’ said Kitt.
Evie frowned at Halloran but he just shook his head to indicate this meant nothing to him either. ‘What’s that, old chum?’ said Evie.
‘Classic Agatha Christie,’ said Kitt. ‘The murderers are two people having an affair. They kill the gentleman’s wife so they can be together but try and pin it on lots of other people so the evidence doesn’t point to them.’
‘Maybe Shereen and whoever she’s having an affair with are playing the same game?’ said Evie.
‘If that’s the case, you’re saying that Shereen is behind the disappearance of the books as well as the disappearance of her husband?’
‘It makes sense,’ said Evie. ‘She put all those years into the business with Donald but it never really made them enough money. She meets someone new and wants to start a new life with them but divorce is costly and the business isn’t worth carving up anyway.’
‘But then she realizes there is something in her possession that is worth a bit of money,’ said Kitt. ‘The first edition books that have never sold.’
‘She tries to convince Donald to put them into an auction but for some reason he resists,’ said Evie.
‘So instead she orchestrates a robbery for the insurance money without Donald’s knowledge,’ said Kitt.
‘He finds some clue, some piece of evidence that suggests she’s having an affair and perhaps that’s not all he suspects. Shereen realizes he knows too much and might go to the police with what he knows.’
‘So she begs her new lover to get rid of Donald so that they can enjoy the insurance money to themselves.’
‘An interesting story,’ said Halloran, with a vague smile. ‘But investigations are reliant on evidence and without a body, there’s no murder. At present, we’ve got to focus on the body we have got – Alim Buruk’s.’
‘So you’re discounting Shereen for now?’ said Kitt.
‘We don’t have any evidence of this alleged affair,’ said Halloran. ‘But alongside running down leads on any visitors Alim had, we can look into Shereen’s phone records. If she was having an affair with someone it’s very likely she sent them text messages or called them on a semi-regular basis.’
‘In the meantime,’ said Kitt, ‘we should maybe find out what other rumours – if any – are circulating about Donald and Shereen.’
‘How are you going to do that?’ asked Halloran.
‘Oh, I have my ways,’ Kitt said.
Eighteen
Evie yawned as the 59 bus pulled up to the stop on Piccadilly. It was nearing ten a.m., which was late enough in the day fo
r the morning frost to have melted off the pavements but was still earlier than she liked to rise when she wasn’t due into the salon until the afternoon.
Following the death of Alim and the disappearance of Donald, Kitt had swapped her morning shift at the library to an afternoon shift so that she and Evie could do a bit more digging around Shereen and Bootham Bar Books. Kitt’s plan to gather intel, however, hadn’t quite been what Evie was expecting.
‘Do you really think we’re going to crack the case by taking a ride on the 59?’ said Evie, as she fished some change out of her bag to pay the driver.
‘According to Ruby, there’s nothing going on in town that you can’t learn about on the 59 bus,’ said Kitt, stepping on and paying her fare. ‘Just please don’t tell Ruby that we’ve resorted to this, otherwise she’ll think there’s real hope that I’ll let her read my tarot cards one day.’
No sooner had these words left Kitt’s mouth than a familiar ‘’Ello, love,’ carried down the central aisle of the vehicle.
Evie and Kitt turned to see Ruby sitting in one of the window seats about halfway up the bus. Evie couldn’t help but smile but Kitt looked less than amused that they were going to have outside interference on their quest to find out more about Shereen. It would be impolite to sit away from Ruby when she was always so friendly but at the same time they didn’t want her to find out more about the Bootham Bar Books case than she should.
The bus rumbled to a start and Kitt walked briskly to a seat just behind the old woman in the hopes of winning the usual race against the driver and trying to sit down before he set off.
‘What brings you out in this direction?’ Ruby asked Kitt.
‘Oh, we just fancied a ride out,’ said Kitt. ‘It’s a bit cold for walking around and chatting today so we thought we’d hop on the bus and take in our beloved city that way.’
Evie looked at Ruby, unsure whether anyone would buy that story. So far, Kitt had been able to come up with smarter or more convincing excuses than that when they had been investigating things they perhaps shouldn’t be. Still, nobody’s mind can be sharp all the time.
‘Oh aye?’ said Ruby, with a note of suspicion in her voice. ‘Would have thought there were more scenic routes than the 59, like.’
‘Nonsense. Who doesn’t like . . .’ Kitt rubbed the steamy bus window with the sleeve of her winter coat and squinted through the glass, ‘the poetry of empty warehouses and the stark lines of that dilapidated pub.’
‘Ooh, and look, there’s that swanky new boxpark thing,’ Evie chimed in.
‘Yes, rather simplistic in design,’ said Kitt, ‘but it’s not without aesthetic appeal.’
Ruby stared at Kitt.
‘Oh all right,’ said the librarian. ‘We were looking for a bit of information.’
Ruby grinned. ‘You’ve come to the right place. Information about what?’
‘We heard a rumour that we’re hoping isn’t true.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I won’t be a person who spreads idle gossip,’ said Kitt. ‘But I will tell you who it concerns and if you know anything, perhaps you might tell us if you’ve heard anything yourself recently?’
‘All right, I’ll give it a go,’ said Ruby.
‘You know Bootham Bar Books?’
‘Aye, I’ve been in once or twice.’
‘Well, we’ve been hearing some unfortunate rumours about Shereen Oakes, who part owns the business with her husband. I’ve been a friend of Shereen’s for years and am hoping that the rumours are all wrong.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve not heard a thing about her.’
‘This was a fool’s plan,’ Kitt muttered under her breath to Evie.
‘It was your plan,’ Evie muttered back.
‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m not the only one on the bus, you know. ’Ere, Margaret!’ The old woman called to another lady sitting across from them on the other side of the aisle, wearing a brown floral headscarf and a green duffel coat.
‘What are you doing?’ Kitt hissed.
‘Do you want the truth or not?’ said Ruby.
Kitt looked across at Evie. Evie shrugged. It was too late to stop this now. They would just have to try to laugh it off as no big deal if it got out of hand.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Margaret, as though Ruby had interrupted something much more important than her sitting alone on a bus, staring into space.
‘Bootham Bar Books . . . heard anything?’
Margaret shook her head. ‘Not heard owt about it, should I have?’
‘No, no, never mind,’ said Ruby.
Evie watched as Kitt issued what could only be described as a sigh of relief but her reprieve was short as Ruby began calling up the bus behind her. A series of names, one after the other. Judy, Parveen, Lionel, Kenneth, Rita. With each one Kitt winced. Under any other circumstances, Evie would have found the situation highly entertaining. There was nothing much funnier than watching the somewhat strait-laced Kitt in an awkward situation. But given that it could backfire badly for Charley if their amateur investigation spun out of control, Evie wasn’t finding it so funny just now.
She was just about to open her mouth and suggest to Ruby that she had probably asked around enough when a white-haired man sitting a few seats in front of them turned around to look at Ruby. ‘Bootham Bar Books?’ he said. ‘There was a burglary there a few weeks back. Burglars took some expensive books.’
‘Everybody knows that, Dennis. That’s not news. What else is there?’ said Ruby, a little rudely to Evie’s mind, though Dennis didn’t seem fazed by her tone.
‘Not heard anything else about the burglary, but I was talking to June the other day and she says someone from that shop was seen in a bit of a compromising position a few weeks back.’
Evie and Kitt looked at each other. A compromising position . . . that was certainly a phrase you could use to describe a married woman having an affair.
Kitt cleared her throat, but kept her voice at a volume that only just allowed Dennis to hear what she was saying above the rumble of the bus engine. ‘Did she mention who it was from the shop?’
‘She didn’t know her name. Just described her as “that young slip of a thing from Bootham Bar Books”.’
Evie watched the frown form on Kitt’s face and was pretty sure she had one to match. Shereen really couldn’t be described in those terms. But there was someone else who could be . . .
‘Olivia!’ they cried in unison.
‘What kind of compromising position was she in, exactly?’ Kitt asked.
Dennis leant further over the back of his seat as he spoke. ‘She was sat in the corner of one of the pubs on the Wetherby road out of town with a man who looked old enough to be her father, and then some.’
Kitt raised her eyebrow. ‘Are you sure she wasn’t just actually spending some time with her father?’
‘From the way June told it, I wouldn’t be carrying on with my daughter the way he was carrying on with her,’ said Dennis.
‘Did June say what the man looked like?’ said Kitt.
‘Well it wasn’t June that saw her, it was her niece who’s a barmaid in the pub. But when she was passing a couple of times, collecting glasses and such, she said she overheard them talking about the bookshop quite a bit. To the point she thought the chap might be her boss.’
‘Olivia and Donald . . .’ Evie said, shaking her head.
Kitt pressed her lips together, and said in a quiet voice to make it difficult for Dennis to hear: ‘This is third-hand information, I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that can be counted on.’
‘But you didn’t think Shereen was the kind to be having an affair.’
‘I don’t, but . . .’
‘So isn’t it more likely, given what Olivia told us, that she is the one having an affair with Do
nald and is trying to throw us off the trail by pointing the finger at Shereen?’
‘I don’t know about more likely . . . but I admit we can’t discount the possibility,’ said Kitt.
‘What do you want to know all this for, anyway?’ said Dennis.
Casually as she could, Evie brought her hand up to her mouth so Dennis wouldn’t see her smiling. He had just dished out all that information and was only now thinking to check why she and Kitt were snooping around.
‘No reason in particular,’ Kitt lied, and Evie noticed a faint blush rising to her cheeks as she did so. ‘I was at the bookshop at the weekend and the staff there seemed a little bit unsettled. They’re my friends and I just want to do right by them.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Dennis. ‘But June’s niece isn’t the kind to make things up, just so you know.’
Kitt nodded. ‘I’m sure she’s very honest.’
‘It’s not so much that,’ said Dennis. ‘So much happens in that pub on the Wetherby road she doesn’t need to make things up. Plenty of real-life drama going on.’
‘I see,’ said Kitt, before pulling her phone out of her pocket. She looked at the screen and sighed.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s one of Grace’s cryptic emoji text messages. I get them whenever Michelle is lurking around our part of the library and she can’t speak on the phone. Tell me what on earth I’m supposed to make of this?’
Evie looked at the screen. There was a book emoji. Followed by a money bag emoji. Followed by a hammer emoji. Followed by an umbrella emoji. Followed by a smiley face emoji.
‘I think she’s trying to tell you she’s found the books on sale somewhere,’ said Evie.
‘What?’ Kitt said, looking again at the screen. ‘Oh yes, it does look that way now that you mention it. But what do the umbrella and the smiley face symbolize?’
‘Not sure about the umbrella, but I think the smiley face is just a sign that she’s happy about the discovery,’ said Evie.
