The Missing Bridegroom: A Charlotte Chase Mystery (The Charlotte Chase Mysteries Book 1)

by Georgia London

  His daughter was here, he said, in the home of the television spiritualist, Charlotte Chase. She must be being held against her will. Yeah, right. He had far more important cases to work on than a summons from the local multi-millionaire and his spoilt daughter.

  Paul had heard all about her recent upset, he could hardly have missed it, and it was not unheard of for someone to consult a medium in such traumatic circumstances. She probably wanted to be reassured that her fiancé was still alive. Or perhaps she wanted to be assured that he was not, since being dead was probably the only excuse she would accept for his jilting her at the altar.

  Either way, she was a consenting adult, Charlotte Chase was well known and had no criminal record, so valuable police resources being employed to investigate made him mad. When it came to the law, Paul was very much in favour of the same laws for everyone, no matter who they were or how much they were worth.

  Still, he couldn’t deny he was glad of the opportunity to get inside Castle House. He had lived in this town all his life and had often passed this place and gazed longingly at it. He’d always wanted to have a look round, but everyone knew Miss Mason was something of a recluse and he’d never quite got up the nerve to ask her.

  He got out of his car and looked into the distance at the ruins of the castle rising up on the edge of the garden, just before it dropped down to the beach. What an amazing place this was. He’d heard that it was built in the time of Queen Elizabeth I and his love of history made him volunteer for this assignment. He hoped he got a chance to explore.

  He certainly hadn’t come to interfere with the civil rights of a consenting adult, which Samantha Montfield was.

  The scene which met his eyes when a man opened the door was definitely not what he was expecting. He recognised Charlotte Chase, standing in the large hallway with two of the most enormous dogs he had ever seen sitting in front of her as though guarding her against any threat to her safety.

  In front of them was Jason Montfield, the multi-millionaire who could say the word and have the whole police force do his bidding. And he looked threatening all right; he stood with one foot slightly in front of the other as though about to lunge forward and his fists were clenched.

  In front of him stood a young woman, whom Paul assumed was Montfield’s ‘kidnapped’ daughter, although she certainly didn’t look as though she were in any danger. In fact, were it not for those dogs, Paul felt sure Charlotte Chase would have been the one in danger.

  “Thank God you’ve arrived,” Jason said at once, turning to face the detective. “Now you can arrest this lunatic and take my daughter home.”

  “Dad,” Samantha said. “I am here of my own free will and Charlotte has been helping me.”

  “Helping you? How much for?”

  “You think everything is about you and your money, don’t you? Well, it isn’t.”

  Paul sighed heavily. It was as he thought, another rich man trying to control everything with his wealth.

  “Miss Montfield,” he said. “May I ask your age?”

  “I am nineteen, why? Why is that important?”

  “Because you are an adult and if you say you are here willingly, as far as I can see the only one breaking the law is your father.”

  “What? I’ll have your job for that.”

  Paul chose to ignore the remark.

  “Miss Chase,” he said. “Do you want Mr Montfield here in your house?”

  “No. I don’t want him either,” she gestured toward Peter.

  “Then, Mr Montfield, I must ask you to leave before I arrest you for threatening behaviour. As to this other gentleman, I don’t know what he’s supposed to have done. Is he with you?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  He looked at Charlotte who shrugged.

  “He’s my ex-husband, Sergeant. He’s broken no law, unless being stupid is illegal.”

  “All right,” Jason said. “I’ll leave, but not without my daughter.”

  “She doesn’t have to go with you, Sir,” Paul said. “Now, are you going to leave Miss Chase’s property, or am I going to arrest you?”

  “You’ll be sorry for this, young man. Be certain of it.”

  Paul made no reply. It was pointless trying to argue with a man like this; he would always have the last word, even if that last word was irrelevant. He watched him leave, went to the door and saw him climb into the driver’s seat of his Aston Martin and drove away.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Charlotte said.

  The dogs left their position and went to the living room where they climbed on separate sofas and settled down to sleep. Their mistress was no longer in danger; now they could relax.

  “If you are okay, Miss Chase, I’ll get back to the police station. I have a body to identify, which is unusual in this part of the world.”

  “Whose body?” Samantha asked quickly.

  Paul could see by the fear in her wide eyes that she thought it might be her missing bridegroom. He almost wished he could tell it was; at least then she could move on with her life.

  “I shouldn’t discuss the case, Miss,” he said. “But I can tell you it is that of a woman.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  When the police officer had gone Charlotte opened the internet and looked up the address of the hotel along the coast, wrote it down for Peter and sent him on his away, protesting all the way out of the door.

  “I’ll pop back tomorrow,” he said. “When you’ve had time to think about things. We could make a wonderful hotel out of this place.”

  “I don’t think so, Peter,” Charlotte answered. “The ghosts might scare away the guests.”

  Peter sighed, bit his lip to hold back a retort.

  “We could make a fortune.”

  “Peter, let’s get this straight, shall we? I have no desire to go into any business with you and I have no intention of reconciling with you. Aunt Florrie had everything marked down in her Will to leave to various animal sanctuaries, just so you wouldn’t get your hands on it. As soon as the divorce was final, she changed that Will. If I were to let you into any part of it, I know she would come back to haunt us.”

  Again he bit his lip in frustration, but he drove away. Charlotte could only hope he realised she was a lost cause and she would never see him again.

  Her next task was to phone the local Chinese takeaway and order a delivery. One of the few concessions to the twenty first century this remote part of the world made was a Chinese takeaway. She went back on the internet to arrange that house insurance. She hadn’t thought of it, but now she had, she wouldn’t sleep until it was done.

  She fed the dogs then settled down to wait and study Samantha’s letter in more detail. When she’d first touched it, she knew at once there was something not right, but the interference of first Peter then Jason Montfield had left her with no opportunity to study further.

  She heard the kettle switch and turned to smile at Samantha. She was trying to make herself useful, poor girl, and Charlotte could see she’d been crying again. Even if Simon did turn out to be a conman, Samantha didn’t love him any less.

  “What are you thinking?” Samantha asked, sitting down at the table.

  “The envelope is fancy, looks as though it was designed to match whatever was inside, possibly a card or something. But the paper on the letter is a different colour and not even of the same quality.”

  “So you think the envelope is genuine, but Simon wrote the letter afterwards?”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “I don’t think Simon wrote this letter at all,” she said. She took Samantha’s hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want to build your hopes up and I’m no expert, but it seems to me the writing in the letter is not natural and I can see the hand that wrote it.”

  “You can?”

  “It was a woman’s hand. Do you have anything that Simon wrote, besides this envelope?”

  “No,” Samantha replied. “Simon wasn’t one for writing. He only did what he had to for th
e business but even that was a struggle.”

  “He’s dyslexic?”

  “Yes. Something else my father had against him. But you didn’t refer to him in the past tense.”

  Charlotte looked at her thoughtfully, wondering how much she should reveal. This girl didn’t need any more disappointments.

  “Simon is not dead,” she said. “I would know, but whether that means he is genuine or not, I couldn’t say. But if he is dyslexic, he definitely didn’t write this letter.”

  “Perhaps it was Mandy who wrote it. She’s the only one who would have given herself her full name.”

  “Tell me, you say she stalked you and Simon. Did she ever approach your parents?”

  “Once. She came to the house when I was out with Simon; my mother told me.” She paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Come to think of it, she referred to her as Miranda, so that’s what she said her name was. Mum never knew her as Mandy.”

  “That makes sense,” Charlotte said with a note of hesitation. “The hand I see writing this is not a young one. It is older, much older and it wears a diamond ring, surrounded by little rubies.”

  Samantha sat up sharply, her whole body going rigid.

  “Are you sure?” She asked, her lips quivering and an ache in her throat that threatened to choke her.

  “I rather wish I wasn’t. You recognise the description?”

  “That ring,” she said. “It never leaves my mother’s finger. It belonged to my grandmother.” Those tears started up again and Charlotte squeezed her hand. “She said she understood, that she knew what it was to be in love. I thought she was on my side at least, but apparently not. They’ve done something to Simon.”

  The heavy medieval door knocker rattled, taking Freya to the front door barking, Fritz following but keeping silent.

  “That’ll be our dinner,” Charlotte said.

  “I’m not sure I feel like eating now.”

  Charlotte opened the door to the delivery driver and was surprised to see Detective Sergeant Middleton standing beside him.

  She paid for the takeaway, then stepped back to allow Paul to enter. Charlotte wondered what he was doing back here, but she was hungry and was not about to delay her meal to answer his questions.

  In the kitchen, Samantha was laying out plates.

  “Will you join us, Sergeant?” Charlotte asked.

  “I’m tempted. I haven’t eaten all day, thanks to…” He glanced at Samantha and his voice trailed off.

  “Thanks to my father wasting police time,” she said. “I hope you’re going to charge him with that.”

  “I would love to, Miss, believe me, but my superiors have other ideas.”

  Samantha got another plate out of the cupboard and set it on the table.

  “Are you sure about this?” Paul asked.

  “There’s always too much for me,” Charlotte replied. “And I don’t let the baby bears have this sort of stuff; it’s bad for their digestion.”

  It didn’t do a lot for Paul’s digestion either, but this woman seemed far more concerned with her dogs than any humans. He was a dog lover and he had to admit, they were magnificent.

  They approached the table to see what might be on offer, laid their chins on the surface with no effort at all but when Charlotte looked at them and pointed to the kitchen door, they took themselves off. Paul wondered how much training that had taken; or was it that she had some psychic link with them?

  “What can I do for you, Sergeant?” Charlotte asked as she ate.

  “It’s Miss Montfield I came to see. You remember I mentioned a body? Well, it was discovered in a ditch the other side of Porthgowan. We think you might know the victim.”

  “You said it was a woman,” Samantha said, suddenly afraid they had found Simon.

  “That’s right, Miss. It was.”

  “Was it an accident of some sort?”

  “No. We are fairly sure the woman was murdered and dumped there. She had no identification, no driving licence, bank cards, nothing, so whoever dumped her there didn’t intend that she should be identified.”

  “And how did you identify her, Sergeant?” Charlotte asked.

  She already knew who the victim was; there was no other reason for the spirit to be visiting.

  “She had breast implants,” Paul answered, shovelling rice into his mouth. “They have serial numbers.”

  He was eating as though food was going to be hard to come by and really wanted nothing more than to finish his meal.

  A short laugh came from Samantha.

  “You find that amusing, Miss Montfield?”

  “She had those implants at the same time as she dyed her hair dark brown to match mine. She also had dark brown contact lenses, although she didn’t need them. She did everything she could to try to look like me and I have a generous bust.”

  “You know who the victim is then?”

  “It sounds like Mandy.” She tossed the letter across the table to Paul. “I got this; Charlotte thinks it’s not Simon’s writing and I agree.”

  He swallowed the last bite of his meal and picked up the letter. Was he now going to act upon the word of a psychic? He needed something more than that.

  “What makes you think so?” He asked.

  Samantha opened her mouth to tell him about the hand that wrote the letter, but Charlotte gripped her wrist to get her attention. She wanted to keep the information in this world, not the next. Otherwise it would be dismissed and they would be no closer to finding Simon.

  “The paper is all wrong. It doesn’t match the envelope. I think the seal has been steamed open and resealed using glue of some sort. Samantha tells me that no one ever called her ‘Miranda’ except herself and that Simon was dyslexic, so it seems unlikely that he wrote this letter.”

  “Is it possible he faked being dyslexic? It could all have been part of the plan to marry you and gain access to your father’s fortune. The Chief Inspector has interviewed him already and he says he gave your fiancé a quarter of a million pounds in cash. We are thinking that once he had the money, he decided he didn’t need Miranda any more.”

  “No!”

  Samantha jumped to her feet, her fists were clenched in anger and her complexion was crimson.

  “Simon didn’t kill her! Why the hell should he? He could have gone abroad with that money, changed his name even and she’d never have been able to find him. If he wanted to kill her he would have done it months ago, when she was following us about and causing trouble everywhere we went. Simon wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

  “All right, Miss Montfield,” Paul said. “It’s just a theory we’re pursuing.”

  “Then you’re wasting your time. Simon didn’t write that letter and neither did Mandy.”

  “Sergeant,” Charlotte interrupted before her guest could tell him about her vision. “Have you tried Simon’s workshop, to see if there is anything there to confirm your theory?”

  Samantha rummaged in her handbag and tossed the keys to the workshop across the table.

  “Help yourself. He has nothing to hide.”

  “What about his family?” Paul asked. “We need to interview them.”

  “He has no family,” Samantha answered miserably. “He was in care until he was eighteen, then he got a job as a trainee mechanic and worked his way up. He has no one but me. And he is not a killer!”

  “Thank you, Miss Montfield. I’ll get these back to you.” Paul stood up to leave. “Thanks for the meal, Miss Chase. I really needed that.”

  Charlotte studied him carefully. He was about her age, tall, well built. Had Peter not put her off men, she could go for this one.

  “That’s perfectly all right, Sergeant. You can return the favour some time.” She followed him to the door. “Where did you say Miranda’s body was found?”

  “The other side of Porthgowan in a ditch on the main A389. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Look, Miss Chase…”

  “Charlotte, please.”


  “All right, Charlotte. I hope you’re not planning on doing your own investigating in this matter. We have to be extra careful, with the connection to Jason Montfield.”

  “Sergeant, if Simon is alive, and I am certain that he is, he could be in trouble and he is likely to be near to where you found Miranda’s body. That note wasn’t written by him and it wasn’t written by her, but I believe it might have been dictated by her. No one else called her Miranda.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Nothing you’d want to know about, I’m sure.”

  “Charlotte, others might scoff at your abilities but not me. I know there are people who can sense things, even see things and if you know something, you need to tell me.”

  Charlotte hesitated for a moment. Should she trust him? At last she shrugged; what had she got to lose after all?

  “Very well. That letter was written by a woman but not Miranda, an older woman. She was wearing a ring that Samantha is sure belongs to her mother. If Miranda told her what to write, and I believe she did, it was on a promise.”

  “A promise of what? Money?”

  “No. I don’t feel that. She was crazy about Simon, stalked him, tried her best to split him and Samantha up. I think perhaps she was persuaded that if she helped forge the letter, Simon would be hers, along with a quarter of a million pounds.”

  “Why are you so sure he didn’t write it?”

  “I told you; he’s dyslexic and look at the writing. It’s forced, contrived, as though copied from something. But they only had the one word to copy from. I think the idea was to use Miranda to make it look as though he had taken off with her. Now she is dead and I believe he is in danger of being the same.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The drive to Porthgowan was not a long one and all the time Charlotte was thinking of how many places there were around that area to hide a kidnap victim. She also wondered why Miranda’s killers hadn’t dumped her body on the Moor; it might never have been found had they done so, but for some reason they’d just turfed it out of their car and into a ditch.