Shadows and Sins (The Falconer Files Book 13)

by Andrea Frazer

  The inspector decided that they would tackle the shopkeeper first, as she was at the heart of the spider’s web of local gossip and events. Leaving Carmichael to speak to his wife on his own later, to avoid further contact with the infamous Mulligan, they entered the premises and found the owner looking full of beans behind the counter. What a shop! There was just about everything that a customer could want in there: from aniseed balls to brooms and gardening tools. It was an Aladdin’s cave that its owner could be rightly proud of, and she beamed at the two of them as they entered her shop.

  The business had been failing when Falconer had first met Rosemary Wilson, but she had installed a Lotto machine, persuaded a national bank to install a cash dispenser in the exterior wall of the premises, and started selling scratchcards and alcohol. The licence had been granted without fuss as the only other source of this vital commodity was from The Fisherman’s Flies. That wasn’t open all hours, as the little shop was, and now many more people were tempted inside to make urgent purchases instead of going to the cash machines in Market Darley and using the supermarket. Of course, they still didn’t do a large shop, but business had picked up sufficiently for her to feel comfortable about profits, now she was actually making some.

  ‘Hello there, young Davey. And what can I do for you today? Kerry keeping well? I haven’t seen the lads in for a while for their sweeties. I hope they haven’t been naughty.’

  ‘Hello, Rosemary,’ Carmichael greeted her.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Wilson. We’re just making enquiries about a young woman who used to live next door at number two. Her name was Annie Symons, and we believe that she may have moved away.’ Falconer was keeping the mood light as he didn’t want to give away too much information.

  ‘Was that who you found yesterday in the woods?’ asked the woman, her finger firmly on the village pulse.

  ‘Did you know her at all?’ countered Falconer, ignoring the question.

  ‘Haven’t seen her for about … let me see … about three years or more,’ replied Mrs Wilson. ‘Has she been murdered then?’

  ‘Did she come in here often?’ enquired Falconer, not at all seduced by the leading questions.

  ‘She used to pop in for bits and pieces – usually on her way to work. She did fill-in bar work at The Fisherman’s Flies for George and Paula.’ The named pair were the couple who ran the local pub and were very popular in the village; ex-Londoners, they had both been taken to Castle Farthing’s heart and were accepted as honorary locals.

  ‘Did she have a full-time job, or did she just do odd hours?’

  ‘She did hours at other local pubs if staff had let them down, but I don’t remember her having any other regular work. I don’t really know what she did with her time.’

  ‘Could you describe her to us?’ Falconer wanted a picture of what the victim looked like, and Carmichael hadn’t been married to Kerry when this woman seemed to have disappeared. He was still at home with his parents. He lived in a ramshackle extension at the back of the property that Falconer always thought of as ‘Carmichael Towers’; there not really being room for him in the main council house, not only due to the number of family members, but also because of his size.

  ‘She was a slight girl. She had, as I remember, short black hair and green eyes, just like a cat’s. I believe she had been married once, but was divorced, and she wasn’t a young girl, neither was she middle-aged. I’d suppose her to be in her early thirties.’

  ‘Is there someone in the property now?’

  ‘An elderly couple have been there for a few years now. Nice, regular customers, they are; always forgetting something when they go to the supermarket.’

  ‘Do you know of any relatives or friends?’ They’d have to find somebody to contact, wouldn’t they? But it seemed that this young woman had lived an isolated life, hardly ever going out, except to work and, although she had been married, had divorced and lost touch with her ex-husband.

  ‘If it’s any help to you, the owner of the cottage asked me to take in a few boxes of her things so that he could re-let it. I’ve got the stuff in my stockroom out back.’ This last was offered as if it would be of no interest to the two detectives, but Falconer seized it as a dog does a bone.

  ‘That’s marvellous, Mrs Wilson. Could you show us where they are?’

  As she led the way, she asked after Kerry and casually patted Carmichael on the back at the thought of the birth of the twins. ‘You know I’m always available for baby-sitting, don’t you, Davey boy?’

  The cardboard boxes were a little tattered by the passage of time, but they yielded a few photographs, a couple of which seemed to be recent, and could be used in an effort to find anyone who knew her. There was also, incongruously, a copy of the Carsfold Gazette, and Falconer couldn’t understand why it had been kept, unless it had just been shoved in there to get rid of it. It did help with when she had last been around, though, as it was dated early May 2009. Their next stop would be The Fisherman’s Flies, followed by visits to the other residents of Drovers Lane.

  George Covington was just pulling the heavy door bolts to open the pub for midday when they arrived, and he ushered them in, calling to his wife Paula that there were visitors from the police. She rushed out from the back room, patting her hair and rubbing together her lips to indicate that she had just given them another coat of coral-coloured lipstick.

  It was darker inside than it was outside due to the nature of the small windows and their tiny panes, but light from the real log fire twinkled on horse-brasses and copper warming pans, and made the old wood of the bar, polished within an inch of its life, glow in rich tones. Large baskets of logs were either side of the hearth, ready to be thrown on to replenish the blaze. This feature proved a magnet for customers, most of whom no longer had open fires in their homes, and were fascinated by the flames.

  The two detectives ignored this distraction and, instead, seated themselves on stools at the bar. The blaze might interfere with their concentration, so mesmerising was it, and they had the beguiling hit of dancing flames at Jasmine Cottage and in the house in Letsby Avenue to look forward to.

  ‘’Ello, gents. And what brings you here this drizzly, grey day? Trouble, is there? I’d ’eard that there ’ad been a body found in the woods, but the news ’asn’t got round yet about who it was. What’s the goss?’ Paula always got straight to the point, and didn’t fiddle-faddle around with social niceties.

  ‘Going for the jugular, as usual,’ commented Falconer.

  ‘I can’t be doin’ with all that goin’ round the ’ouses with all that nonsense about askin’ if folks ’ave ’ad a nice day, and ’ow are the budgies getting’ on. I want to know what’s ’appenin’ without no frilly bits.’

  ‘Paula, don’t be so rude,’ interjected her husband.

  ‘I’m not bein’ rude. I’m just askin’ the man to call a spade a spade,’ she replied, with a flounce of her newly permed hair.

  ‘We believe that you used to employ Annie Symons from Drovers Lane behind the bar as a relief worker.’

  ‘That’s right. Oh, it weren’t ’er who were found in the woods, was it?’ asked George, an expression of concern on his face.

  ‘It was indeed, and she seemed to have been there for some time. We’ve spoken to Mrs Wilson at the shop, and we wondered what you could tell us about Annie.’ Falconer could also get straight on to the matter at hand.

  ‘She were a good worker. Always glad to ’ave her fillin’ in, we was, and if she ’adn’t disappeared so suddenly, we’d ’ave offered her a full-time position. She got on very well with the punters, did Annie.’

  Falconer had a sudden vision of the dead woman surrounded by young men in straw boaters with long, wooden poles in their hands, which he had to shake his head to dismiss. ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Oh, that’s a question, that is. I’ll ’ave to take a look in me books to find that out, but I’ll do that later when you’ve told us what’s goin’ on. Paula, love, go
an’ ’ave a glance in the records and see when Annie last did a shift for us.’

  ‘You do it yourself, George Covington. I’m not goin’ out the back and missin’ all the fun,’ she replied with a rebellious look.

  ‘We don’t really know anything yet.’ Falconer decided to be very upfront, because he knew that this bar was a wonderful source of information, if he’d let it be. ‘She’d obviously been there for some time, so we’d like to pinpoint the last time she was seen alive.’

  ‘Paula, you go and make the gentlemen a cup of coffee, and I’ll chase up that date, then we can get down to business.’

  Soon, steaming cups in front of them and the date 17th May 2009 in Carmichael’s notebook, George unexpectedly volunteered a useful titbit of information. ‘She used to do fill-in work in Stoney Cross at The Inn on the Green – d’you know Tarquin and Peregrine?’

  Falconer remembered them well from an early case he and his sergeant had worked on; which coincided with the first time in his life that he had fallen in love. Today was really bringing up people from the past. Serena Lyddiard’s face suddenly flooded his consciousness, and he felt he could even smell her perfume. Reluctantly he pushed the image away from his mind and concentrated instead on the pair of landlords.

  Tarquin Radcliffe and Peregrine McKnight, who ran The Inn on the Green together, were built like rugby players but were, incongruously, rather camp. The landlord broke the short silence that had occurred by informing them, ‘I thought she’d gone orf to look after a sick relative, and Paula thought she’d packed orf to live in Australia with a cousin of hers but, looking back, she were an awkward girl who never seemed to visit anyone, and I can’t see her doin’ either of those things. What do you reckon, Paula?’

  ‘I don’t know about a sick relative, but I know she ’ad a cousin in Australia. That’s why I thought she must’ve gone there.’

  Oh no, thought Falconer, not Australia. They’d be at it for ever if they had to trace a mysterious relative on the other side of the world – one who probably didn’t even share the same surname, especially as the victim had been married and they’d no evidence that she’d reverted back to her maiden name.

  ‘Did you know anything about her life and what she did in her spare time?’ asked Falconer.

  ‘No,’ they said together, George picking up the promised narrative. ‘That’s what I meant about ’er being good with the punters. She never talked about ’erself, but drew out the customers, and got them to talk about themselves. You wouldn’t believe ’ow popular that made her. People so like talkin’ about themselves that they can entertain themselves all day doing just that, and Annie understood that.’

  She would have made a good detective, thought Falconer, trying to think of anything else he could ask. ‘Do you know of anywhere else she might have worked apart from the pub in Stoney Cross?’

  ‘Can’t say that I do,’ replied the publican, ‘although maybe Peregrine and Tarquin can be more forthcoming.’

  ‘We’ll nip over there after we’ve had a word with her old neighbours.’ With that, the two policemen made their exit.

  As it was now lunchtime, Carmichael phoned ahead to Kerry to ask her to shut Mulligan in the kitchen as they were coming over to eat their lunch – which Falconer would have to purchase first in the general store. He selected an unhealthy pork pie and a pre-packed salad from the refrigerated display and sighed as he crossed over to Jasmine Cottage. He’d been looking forward to lunch at home, as he had the remains of a salmon in the fridge which needed eating up, and that would have done him nicely as well as more healthily than the raised crust of the pie.

  As Kerry admitted them a baying of distress and deprivation sounded through the door to the kitchen, but she slipped through and let Mulligan out into the garden: a distraction that proved an adequate compensation for missing his most-beloved person in the body of the inspector.

  When she brought in tea, he asked her about Annie Symons. Had Kerry known her at all? Had they spent any time together? Had she planned to move away, or had she just disappeared? They could hardly not ask her anything, now that they were in the cottage, after all.

  ‘I didn’t know her very well,’ Kerry replied, easing her bulk into a chair with a sigh of relief at getting off her feet, and continued, ‘but we did have coffee together a couple of times before she went away – or rather, was murdered. How ghastly!’

  Falconer was momentarily distracted by an urgent clawing at his right trouser leg as Dipsy Daxie, who had not been ejected from the living space, tried to scale his calf to achieve a comfortable place on his lap. As the inspector looked horrified, the sergeant scooped him up and sat him on his own lap, just missing setting him down on his plate of sandwiches. Falconer considered that Carmichael was the only person he knew with upper legs long enough to accommodate a dachshund lying along their length, its head resting happily on his stomach.

  As he steadied his plate and checked its contents for paw prints, Kerry again spoke. ‘She seemed a quiet woman who had had an unhappy marriage. I did get her to open up a couple of times when I encouraged her over here for a cuppa – that was before I met my Davey, and I don’t think you two worked together then. It was before that dreadful old man next door got murdered; before we got the adjoining cottage and knocked through.

  ‘She didn’t have any children, and seemed to be quite happy with her own company, although I knew she occasionally went out on a date, just to dip her toe back into the water, so to speak – usually people she met when she was doing bar work and had had a chance to size them up.’

  ‘Can you remember any of them?’ asked Falconer, having to swallow a mouthful of his pork pie rather more quickly than was advisable, and coughing as a consequence. ‘Do excuse me. Went down the wrong way.’

  ‘Not offhand, but I could have a bit of a think about it. Do you think she could have been murdered by a man-friend then?’

  ‘Much too early to say, but we have to take every possibility into account.’

  ‘Of course. I don’t think she really had many friends, and not much family to speak of, except for a cousin in Australia.’ Falconer sighed inwardly. Was this blasted cousin the only person who was going to get a mention in the history of this woman’s life and sorry death?

  At this point, Carmichael scooped Dipsy Daxie on to the floor and suddenly sat down on the floor at Kerry’s feet, leaning forward to put the side of his head on her enormous stomach, causing the dog to scramble to waddle over to him, whining plaintively. Falconer had no idea what was going on, and felt a flush of embarrassment creep up his face. Clearing his throat, he bent to stroke the dachshund to cover his flustered state, and Kerry spoke to reassure him that her husband had not suddenly gone mad.

  ‘He’s taking the opportunity to feel the babies move. He says that this is the only time they’re going to get the opportunity to kick him in the head with his blessing.’

  Falconer felt a renewal of his discomfiture, wondering how Carmichael could be so relaxed about his wife’s state. Pregnancy was something about which he had always felt very uncomfortable, and would never have felt at ease enough to do this, even with a wife, had he had one. He envied the sergeant his easy-going outlook on life.

  Ignoring Carmichael as he struggled to his feet, giving Kerry’s bulge a final fondle with his right hand, Falconer said that, as he’d eaten his lunch, they ought to be off as they had to speak to the residents of Drover Lane, then go on to Stoney Cross to see the landlords of The Inn on the Green. Carmichael stuffed a whole sandwich into his mouth, having to insert the last of it with his thumbs, looking suddenly like a giant toad with an over-sized dragonfly, then tried to say something. Crumbs flew everywhere, much to Dipsy’s delight, and the dog chased them the way he would snow.

  ‘Wait until you’ve swallowed, man,’ advised Falconer with exasperation. He may not have had a lot of experience of young children, but he was learning a lot from being nanny to Carmichael.

  ‘I was going to as
k Kerry to think about Annie Symons and we’d have a talk tonight, to see if she remembers anything about her in the meantime.’

  ‘You just get back to work, Davey. I’ll have to let Mulligan in soon, or he’ll have tunnelled his way under the road to the pond, and be covered in weed and other filth when we get him out.’ The thought of having to bathe Mulligan was a serious threat to his owner, as it was such a struggle, and Carmichael moved swiftly towards the front door so that Kerry could open the back one.

  As they exited the warmth of the cottage, Falconer was struck again with Castle Farthing’s prettiness, even in this dreary, cold winter weather. Its mix of roof tiles, slates, and thatch seemed to fit together as well as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the difference in finishes to the walls, be they stone, whitewash or brick, made a very pleasing sight. The place didn’t look as if it had been cobbled together over a couple of centuries, but seemed as if this was meant – it was how it should be, and always had been.

  Number two Drovers Lane was now occupied by a retired couple, the Walkers, who had moved from the south coast, having had enough of the seaside brigade in the warmer months, and wanting something different for their retirement.

  ‘It was all crowds of trippers in the summer making the beaches too crowded to visit, with sea mists and breezes; and gloomy weather and drizzle in the winter, when nobody would want to walk there,’ explained Mrs Walker, unnecessarily, in Falconer’s opinion. He didn’t need to know why they’d moved to Castle Farthing, just whether or not they had ever met Annie Symons.

  ‘We moved inland because it’s warmer in the summer and has more snow in winter. The coast is just too temperate and boring,’ she added, even more superfluously.