CHAPTER NINE
Taylor woke to the sound of her phone ringing beside her.
“There are two police cars outside Milly’s house,” Alice Green said without any preamble. “They’ve been there since early this morning.”
“They’re probably just having another look around.”
“Have you found something?”
“We’re not sure yet.”
“Milly’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Like I said, we’re not sure yet. We’ll know more during the course of the day.” She tried to sound as steady and reassuring as possible.
“I’m going to go over and ask them what they’re doing.”
“Please, Mrs Green, please just let them do their jobs. If anything turns up, I promise I’ll let you know.”
“Will you be popping round this morning? I’ll make us some tea and we can have some honey and bread. The honey’s a bit odd, but it’s still good, you know.”
“I have to go to work.” Taylor looked at the clock on the microwave. She was going to be late already.
“Milly was my friend.”
“I’ll see if I have time to come by later.” She felt obliged to — after all this was an old lady who’d lost one of the few people she was close to. “I have to go to work now, though.”
The police station in Trotterdown was a far cry from the hovel Taylor had worked at in Edinburgh. The outside of the station was clean and fresh. Flower-boxes had been placed on each side of the entrance. The car park was almost full, for once, with unfamiliar cars. She realised why when she went inside the station.
Unsurprisingly, the story of a car going over the cliff at Merryhead had attracted reporters, who were now pestering PC Hargreaves at reception. “I don’t have anything to tell you,” Hargreaves insisted. “I’m just manning the front desk. I’m sure you’ll all be informed in due time.”
Taylor hated journalists. After Danny’s accident in Edinburgh, they had hounded her day and night. One had even shown up at the funeral, complete with photographer. She despised the lot of them.
“Morning,” Hargreaves said. He looked harassed. “The DI wants everybody in for a meeting at nine thirty.”
“Is this about the car that went over the cliff?” asked a woman with a microphone. “Do we know if there was anybody in the car when it went over the edge?”
“Yes,” Taylor said without thinking, “we do happen to know whether or not there was someone in the car at the time.” She walked past them down the corridor. Hargreaves sniggered.
DI Killian was poring over some notes in the small meeting room. “There’s a pack of wolves at the front desk,” Taylor told him. “It doesn’t take that lot long to sniff out a story.”
“I’m afraid this is just the beginning. What happened up on Merryhead is going to be big news. You should know by now that nothing much usually happens around here.”
“Can’t we just kick them out?”
“I’m afraid not. In this day and age it’s a case of quid pro quo. They can actually prove to be very useful.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Press coverage helps us reach people we couldn’t otherwise. Have you seen Duncan?”
“His car wasn’t in the car park.”
“He’s probably hungover. You’re not a drinker, are you?”
“Not much. I’m usually on the tonic water or ginger beer.”
The door opened and PC Eric White and PC Thomas White walked in. They looked alike and shared the same surname, so everybody assumed incorrectly that they were related. “We can’t wait all day for Duncan,” Killian said. “We’ve got a lot to go through today. Taylor, you can start at the beginning for the benefit of the Whites.”
“Milly Lancaster was reported missing on Saturday,” Taylor started. “The PC who took the call didn’t feel there was anything to be concerned about. Milly’s friend Alice Green phoned in again yesterday. I took the call myself. DS Duncan and I went to take a statement and have a look around Milly’s house. There was no sign of a disturbance and the only thing missing was Milly’s car. As we all know, the car was found yesterday at the bottom of Merryhead,”
“Right.” Killian glanced at his notes. “I have the initial forensics report right here. The brakes were off and the locks on the doors had been tampered with. They were jammed shut. The engine wasn’t on when the car went over the edge.”
“So someone pushed the car over the edge with Mrs Lancaster inside?” Thomas White said.
“It appears so, yes. There was blood on the shattered windscreen as well as strands of hair. We now have some hair samples from Mrs Lancaster’s house and they’re being analysed as we speak.”
“If she was inside the car, what happened to her body?” Eric White asked.
“She was probably washed out to sea,” Taylor suggested.
“Which may mean we’ll never find her body,” Killian pointed out. “The tide would have taken her right out.” His phone started to ring in his pocket.
“Killian,” he answered it. “Thank you.” He put it back and frowned. “That settles it, then. The blood found on the windscreen belongs to Milly Lancaster. She was definitely in the car when it went over the edge of the cliff.” He scratched at a scab on his nose.
“The missing person case is now a murder investigation,” he added. “White and White, I want you to start gathering information about Milly Lancaster. We need to speak to everybody who might have spoken to her before she ended up on the rocks. We have to piece together her movements before the car was pushed over the cliff.”
“Alice Green last saw her on Friday evening at around seven,” Taylor said.
“Then we’ll start there. You can speak to Mrs Green yourself. I’m going to liaise with our friends from the press. I want Milly Lancaster’s photograph out on all media by tomorrow morning. Somebody must have seen something. An old lady doesn’t just end up at the bottom of a cliff without somebody knowing something about it.”
CHAPTER TEN
DC Taylor’s heart was beating faster than normal as she drove to Polgarrow. Murder, she thought. Finally, something to sink my teeth into. Dreadful, of course, but also something she could get really involved in. Since she had transferred to Trotterdown, nothing she had worked on had sparked much interest. The odd housebreaking and a less than suspicious death of a ninety-year-old man had been the highlight of her time in the south-west so far. But now she had a murder to investigate.
Taylor parked outside Alice Green’s house and stopped the engine. Alice opened the door before Taylor had even reached the path leading up to the house. “I knew you’d come,” she said, smiling. “I’ll put the kettle on. The bees have been busy too, so we can have fresh honey. I hope it’s all right this time.”
She seemed quite cheerful. Taylor felt slightly sick: how was she going to tell this nice old lady that her best friend had been pushed over a cliff in her car? She followed Alice through to the kitchen, where the jackdaw was preening the feathers of its broken wing in the cage by the window.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Taylor came straight to the point.
“Milly’s dead, isn’t she?” Alice put two tea cups on a tray along with some slices of bread and honey.
“I’m afraid so. It’s been confirmed. She was inside the car when it went over the cliff. It looks like her body was washed out to sea.”
“Oh my.” Alice’s face went pale. Taylor was afraid she was going to faint.
“I’m all right.” Alice poured some hot water into a teapot, but her hands were shaking.
“Let me help you with that.” Taylor took the tray from her. “I know this is hard, but I have to ask you a few more questions.”
“Of course.”
“You said you last saw Milly on Friday evening?”
“That’s right. Milly helped me to pack the honey and she left around seven. She had to finish off some baking.”
“And she seemed fine to you? There wasn�
�t anything bothering her?”
“She was getting over a cold. That’s all I can think of.”
“And she didn’t mention that something was troubling her?”
“No, and she would have. Milly tells me everything.” Alice poured two cups of tea. Her hands had stopped shaking.
“Why are you asking me all this again?” she said. “You’re not thinking she did herself in, are you?”
“No, there’s no doubt about that. The car was helped over the edge.”
“Somebody pushed her over a cliff?” Alice seemed shocked. “Who on earth would do such a terrible thing?”
“We don’t know yet.” Taylor took a sip of tea. “But we’ll get to the bottom of all this, I promise.”
They sat in silence for a while. The only sound in the kitchen came from the jackdaw’s cage. It was frantically pecking one of its feet.
“Forty-two years,” Alice said, “forty-two years I’ve known Milly Lancaster. She was at my wedding. Me and Stanley. A match made in heaven.” She stared out of the window. “My arse,” she added, “if you’ll pardon my French.”
“Where’s your husband now?” Taylor asked.
“Stanley?” Alice looked slightly flustered. “Your guess is as good as mine. He walked out ten years ago. I haven’t seen him since.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Alice said. She sounded calmer again. “What about you? A pretty young girl like you must have somebody in your life.”
“No, there’s nobody.”
“There will be, you mark my words, but watch out — all men are liars. They promise the world and they always let you down. Give me the bees any day. Did you know that a bee will die for his queen if he has to? Without even thinking twice about it. That’s loyalty. No, men are worse than rats. Do you think the honey is all right? I still think it’s tasting a little odd.”
“Really, it seems fine to me. When Mrs Lancaster left your house on Friday, do you know if she went anywhere?”
“She headed straight home, I think. She needed to get ready for the market.”
“And you didn’t notice if she got in her car? You didn’t see her drive off?”
“No, Milly always parks by the pub. If she was going up to Merryhead, she wouldn’t have passed by my house anyway. Merryhead’s in the opposite direction.”
A knock on the door made the jackdaw rattle its cage.
“Who can that be now?” Alice stood up and went to the door. She returned a moment later with the two PC Whites in tow.
“We saw your car parked outside,” Eric said to Taylor.
“We haven’t found anything,” Thomas White added. “It seems that Milly Lancaster kept herself to herself. She very rarely went out. She even had her groceries delivered.”
“I could’ve told you all that,” Alice said. “I’m Milly’s best, and only, friend.”
“Sorry,” Taylor said, “these are two colleagues of mine. PCs Eric and Thomas White.”
“White and White?” Alice stared at the two constables. “I can see the resemblance.”
“What now?” Eric White asked Taylor, ignoring the observation he’d heard many times before.
“We leave Mrs Green in peace.”
“My dad used to keep bees,” said Thomas.
“Good for him,” said Alice, showing them to the door.
*
Taylor stopped her car on the grass at the top of Merryhead and made sure the handbrake was on. Even though she had parked a good distance away from the edge of the cliff, the ground sloped down and the edge felt very near. She got out and gazed at the Atlantic. She could see a line of cargo vessels in the distance and the small silhouette of a sailing boat closer to land. The wind had torn down the police tape, and it now flapped loosely from metal poles. The forensic technicians had gone over every inch of where Milly Lancaster’s car had been parked before it had gone over the cliff.
She wondered what had gone through Milly’s mind as the car had started to roll towards the edge of the cliff. What was it like to realise you have only a few seconds left to live? Inevitably, her thoughts drifted off to the day of her husband’s accident. Her legs started to tremble and she had to sit down on the grass.
She stared out to sea and tried to regulate her breathing. She watched as a lone gull folded its wings and plummeted into the water. It surfaced a few seconds later empty-handed. She went on staring at the sea for quite some time. Eventually, she plucked up the courage to risk standing up again. Concentrate, she told herself, as she got to her feet slowly.
Her vision went blurry for a few seconds but soon steadied. She took a last look over the cliff and got back in her car.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alice Green finished reading the article about Nosema Apis in the Beekeepers Quarterly. It hadn’t done anything to lift her spirits — whole colonies of bees were being wiped out by the disease and the author of the article believed the future of beekeeping looked bleak. She fed the jackdaw and went outside to the back garden.
Her heart almost stopped as she saw what had happened underneath the hollyhock bushes. It looked as if a wild animal, probably a fox, had dug up a large amount of the soil and now a dirty arm was clearly visible. Alice recognised the shirt the arm was wrapped in. It had been Stanley’s favourite black-and-white checked shirt. He’d worn it for years.
This can’t go on.
She wondered if it was time to tell the police — she had made a promise to Milly, after all — but then again it would only spell trouble. The police would start asking all kinds of questions, especially after what had happened to Milly.
No, Alice thought, there’s only one thing to do. Stanley’s body must remain hidden, one way or another.
She fetched the spade and started to dig next to the body. The bees buzzed around her head as she worked. When she had enough to cover the mess the fox had made, she shovelled the soil onto the exposed arm. It was only a temporary measure, of course. The fox was bound to come back. She would have to find some way to dig up her husband and dispose of his body for good, somewhere far away, but that would take a bit of careful planning, and she had neither the time nor the energy for that at the moment.
Satisfied that the corpse was suitably hidden, Alice set down the spade and wiped the sweat from her brow. She was exhausted.
“Beautiful day for it.” Eddie Sedgwick appeared in the doorway. “I did knock but you obviously didn’t hear. I’ve been meaning to get down to a bit of gardening myself.” He looked at the freshly-dug earth underneath the hollyhock bushes.
“The bees are getting busier by the day.” She had to think quickly. “I decided to plant some more hollyhocks.”
“I wish ours grew like yours.”
“Can I help you with something?” Alice could not face making small talk. She wondered how long Eddie had been standing there.
“We’d like to invite you over for supper.” Eddie smiled. “It was actually my Barbara’s idea. I couldn’t believe it when she suggested it.”
“When?” Alice was shocked.
“This evening. If it’s convenient with you, that is.”
It was the last thing Alice felt like but she agreed all the same.
“Come by around six,” Eddie said, obviously very pleased with himself.
She had two hours before the supper ordeal. She hadn’t mentioned Milly’s death to Eddie, and she didn’t intend to. It was none of his damn business. She was not looking forward to the dinner, but it might take her mind off everything that had happened in the past few days. She sat in her kitchen slumped over a cup of tea, looking at the door, half-expecting Milly to come shuffling in carrying a freshly-baked chocolate cake or a new batch of biscuits. It still did not seem real. Her oldest friend was now lying at the bottom of the sea.
“Stanley,” the jackdaw shrieked. “Stanley Green.”
Alice was shocked. She had taught the bird to say a lot of things, but her husband’s name wasn’t one of them.
At six, Alice made her way next door, armed with half a bottle of port. She had decided that if she was going to have to endure an evening with the Sedgwicks, she would need a bit of help. Eddie Sedgwick answered the door with his usual inane grin, which widened when he saw the bottle. “We’ll definitely have a drop of that later.”
He led her into the meticulously neat cottage. Alice could not remember the last time she had been inside but she remembered that Barbara Sedgwick had always been extremely house-proud.
“Take a seat,” Eddie told her. “Barbara’s just finishing off in the kitchen. What’ll it be? Red or white?”
It could be green or pink for all I care. Just give me something to drink so I can make it through this. “You choose.”
Eddie waltzed off and returned with a bottle of Riesling and two wine glasses.
“This ought to go nicely with the haddock.” He poured Alice a glass. “My Barbara doesn’t drink much since her operation, but that doesn’t stop us, does it?” He poured himself a glass and sat down. “Cheers.” He took a small sip and added, in a voice little more than a whisper. “Can you do me a favour? Don’t talk about your bees. It’s a bit of a sore topic at the moment, if you know what I mean.”
“No bees,” Alice agreed.
*
After producing the driest piece of haddock Alice had ever tried to swallow, Barbara returned to the kitchen to do the dishes. Alice and Eddie were left alone with the port.
“That was very nice,” Alice lied. “Barbara’s a very good cook.”
“She used to be,” Eddie poured them both a generous glass, “before the operation, I mean. I don’t know what happened, but she hasn’t been herself since then. She seems to have forgotten how to cook.”
He looked around the room as if to make sure there were no hidden eavesdroppers.
“Between you and me,” he whispered, “I couldn’t take it any longer. After one piece of rubbery steak too many, I had to get my false teeth reinforced.”
THE BEEKEEPER a gripping crime mystery with a dark twist Page 4
