by Cathy Ace
“That’s fine. I didn’t like it anyway,” said Marlene.
“So he had pots of money all this time? And he was covering over masterpieces up in his attic?” asked Hannah. “And he used my brown café to do his dirty business, all the time pretendin’ to be me friend?” She sounded hurt. “Blackheart! I lied for him, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” I replied. “You tried to convince me you hardly knew Jonas, but you knew him very well, didn’t you?” Hannah looked sheepish. “All his very expensive, if old, clothes neatly laundered and pressed, and you with a washing machine and a clothesline? You did all that for him, didn’t you?” The woman made brief eye contact with me, then looked away. “I suppose you were grateful to him because he created fake paperwork so you could change your name, and live as a Dutch citizen, owning your café and living life as you chose, on your terms, without needing a man to support you.”
Hannah looked tearful. “I did that,” she said hoarsely. “And when I lost me leg, he begged me to keep the place on longer than I wanted to. That’s why he did it, in’t it? And there was me thinkin’ he was doin’ it because he thought it would be good for me to have an interest.” She shook her head sadly. “It’s true what they say. You never know a person.”
“You don’t,” said Els quietly. “I’m sorry about your grandfather, my darling Ebba, and all of this. I’m sure it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it’s best for the truth to come out.” She pulled her daughter close to her and wept quietly.
Greta had remained standing, and I noticed she was eyeing the door. “No point running, Greta,” I said. “The police are outside, waiting for you all. They are keen to interview each one of you. This time, there’s no way out. And by the way—just for you Greta—they’d like to talk to you about the death of Charles de Groot. You told your friends you’d found him dead in the street, and suggested an overdose. They accepted what you said, and helped you cover up what they believed to be a tragic, but accidental, death. But it turns out Charlie died of stab wounds to the heart. Wounds made with a long, very thin spiked instrument—rather like the hat pins I understand you’ve always favored. It should be an interesting time for you, explaining how the violent end of an affair with a man—witnessed by so many of your friends—coincided with the end of his life.”
The only sounds in the room were of the fan droning, quiet sobbing, and my heart pounding. It was done at last.
A Summer Afternoon on the Canal
BUD AND I WATCHED THE cooling waters of the canal churn in the wake of our tourist boat, and held hands as the breeze tousled our hair.
“Hannah seemed pleased at the idea she’ll be moving to a new apartment,” I said to Bud.
Bud agreed. “She did. I’m happy about that at least. It’s going to take a long time for the teams to work out exactly where all the profits of the ring went, but I’m thinking the properties are bound to be taken into consideration, so I don’t know what they’ll decide about the money Hannah made from selling the café. Not for me to guess, but we’ll keep an eye on her, make sure she’s taken care of somehow.”
“Investigating organized crime’s not my thing, as you know, but I understand it can take years. Then attribution and restitution teams get involved, too. It could go on…well, it might never all be resolved, I suppose.”
Bud smiled. “I’ve cooperated in every way I can. I’ve handed control of everything Uncle Jonas owned to the authorities. I’ve even given them his ashes. There’s no more I can do, so let’s not worry about it, Cait. However, I still have one question,” said Bud, holding me close as the boat slid beneath yet another bridge. “The guy in those photographs and portraits. He wasn’t the young soldier who died, so do you have any idea who he was—or is?”
“There’s an app for that,” I grinned. “Come on, look straight into my phone’s camera.” I snapped a photograph of my husband, pressed a few buttons, then held the screen for him to see.
He looked puzzled. “That’s not me, is it? It sort of looks like me, but not.”
I pressed a few more buttons and showed him a second picture.
He looked even more puzzled. “Again—not quite me.”
I looked at both photos and agreed with him. “You know how I hate seeing photos of myself?”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re always going to lose twenty pounds, I know,” grinned Bud.
I shrugged. “Well, yes, there’s that, but not liking photos of oneself is really quite normal. The person we see in a photo is not the person we know, because our reflection is always reversed. A face in a photograph isn’t reversed—and our brains have a bit of a problem dealing with that. But this?” I held up my screen. “This is an app that takes each half of your face in turn, then duplicates and reverses it; one shot shows you with the left half of your face, twice, the other shot with the right half of your face, twice. Each side of a face differs quite markedly from the other, and it’s fascinating to see what happens when you make a whole face from a double-version of each of the two halves. Like you said, they both look a little like you, but not quite. That’s what these photos are.” I took the photo of the unknown man from my handbag.
I held it so Bud could see it. “Your uncle used a similar photographic technique to replicate the side of his face that was unblemished, giving him this vision of himself. He repeated the process over the years and, once he knew what he might have looked like without his birthmark, he painted that face obsessively into portrait after portrait. Didn’t you notice there wasn’t one single self-portrait of him as he really was? This was his vision of the person he could never be. His unblemished self.”
“Maybe he should have worked harder to come up with a lifestyle that didn’t involve so many moral blemishes, then,” said Bud. “This is a mess, and I have no idea what I’m going to tell Mom.”
“If you tell her the truth I don’t think she’d be hurt or surprised,” I said. “She didn’t have a terribly high opinion of him. Remember she kept telling us he was bad? It looks like her childish judgment was spot on—maybe his birthmark really did contribute to forming the sort of person we saw him to be, by his actions, in later life. I have to say I also believe the choices he made were what led him along the particular road he chose, rather than just an accident of genetics, because not everyone with an obvious or unusual blemish ends up a crook. However, I think your mom would be quite happy to be proved right in her assessment of her brother. She likes to be right almost as much as I do.”
Bud smiled wryly. “Dad has said, more than once, that you’re a lot like Mom.”
I gave it some thought. “No, I don’t see it. Anyway, what’s the alternative? Lie to her? Forever? That’s a slippery path to tread. And we would both feel the injustice of it too keenly. I really think it has to be the truth, Bud. All of it. And we have the box for her too, don’t forget that.”
“The box?”
“The one Jonas hid in the wall. John Silver cleared it so we could take it back to Canada with us. I’m betting the letter s carved into its lid is for ‘Samuelsson.’ It’s the sort of thing your grandmother might have used to hide any pieces of good jewelry. If it is what Jonas took when he left Sweden, it could have financed his journey to Amsterdam.”
Bud sighed. “You’re probably right. You usually are.”
I hugged him. Tight.
Acknowledgments
THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE who have shared their love and knowledge of the Netherlands with me, and have shared time with me there too, that it’s impossible to mention them all by name, but some must be thanked! To Roy—that was a long time in a tent. To Hans and Els—thanks for welcoming me into your home, and for sharing your love and intimate knowledge of Amsterdam so many times, over so many years, with such true friendship. To Emma and Menno—thanks for showing me different parts of the Netherlands, for letting me be in your lives over so many years, a
nd for allowing me to use your names. To Loes (and remembering Lennert)—thanks for all your encouragement. Thanks, too, to everyone I’ve ever dragged around a gallery or museum; to have people share my love of art is to have people share my love of life.
Thanks to the person possessed of particular expertise in this field, to whom I promised anonymity, for sharing your insights into the “business” world of art. Your secrets are safe (-ish) with me.
My family has been as supportive as ever; my mother and sister listen to endless hours of storytelling, I’m not sure how my husband puts up with me sometimes, and I’m glad the dogs are happy to play when I need a break, while remaining at my feet while I type.
Thanks to you for choosing to read this book. I’m grateful to all the reviewers, booksellers, and librarians who have helped you find my work. The TouchWood Editions team has, once again, been stellar, and I’m always aware of all the “invisible” people behind the scenes, like printers, distributors, and the salesforce, who ultimately play pivotal roles in this book being where it is now—in your hands.
Welsh Canadian mystery author CATHY ACE is the creator of the Cait Morgan Mysteries, which include The Corpse with the Silver Tongue, The Corpse with the Golden Nose, The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb, The Corpse with the Platinum Hair, The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes, and The Corpse with the Diamond Hand. Born, raised, and educated in Wales, Cathy enjoyed a successful career in marketing and training across Europe before immigrating to Vancouver, Canada, where she taught in MBA and undergraduate marketing programs at various universities. Her eclectic tastes in art, music, food, and drink have been developed during her decades of extensive travel, which she continues whenever possible. Now a full-time author, Cathy’s short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies, as well as on BBC Radio 4. In 2015 she won the Bony Blithe Award for Best Canadian Light Mystery (for The Corpse with the Platinum Hair). She and her husband are keen gardeners who enjoy being helped out around their acreage by their green-pawed Labradors. Cathy is also the author of the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries. Cathy’s website can be found at cathyace.com.
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The sixth instalment in the Cait Morgan mystery series, a classic whodunit featuring an eccentric and funny female sleuth set on a Hawaiian cruise ship.
Cait and Bud have set sail on a romantic and worry-free Hawaiian honeymoon cruise, but when a man drops dead at their card table, Cait can’t help but lend her expertise. The sudden death appears to have been from natural causes, but Cait suspects something sinister, and with only two days left at sea—and thousands of possible suspects—she and Bud join the head of security in an investigation. However, the unique circumstances of an at-sea investigation mean their involvement cannot be official, and Cait must lean on her charm to conduct her own covert interviews.
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The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes
It's Cait and Bud's wedding weekend and for the first time she feels like a bride—or at least, she's supposed to. But then the rain won't quit, the supposedly romantic Welsh castle feels creepy, and there's a dead body on the stairs.
What first appears to have been the untimely, unfortunate, and accidental death of their wedding choirmaster quickly reveals itself to have been a murder. And when a series of mysterious events occur around the castle, Cait, Bud, and Cait's sister Sian tackle the case of The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes, attempting to solve the mystery before another sinister event can ruin their destination wedding.
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The Corpse with the Platinum Hair
Winner of the 2015 Bony Blithe Award for Best Canadian Light Mystery
With birthday celebrations in the cards, Cait Morgan and her significant other, retired cop Bud Anderson, travel to Las Vegas. As they are about to finish dinner in the casino owners’ exclusive private dining room, Miss Shirley, a woman acknowledged as Queen of The Strip, is murdered. Security locks down the room. Cait, Bud, a corpse, and ten possible murderers are trapped in the luxurious restaurant for twelve deadly hours. The bodies pile up, the tension mounts, the list of suspects dwindles—and Cait knows she has to work out who the killer is because there’s no telling who might be next to die.
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The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb
A dream vacation at a Mexican beach resort swiftly dissolves into a nightmare for criminologist and foodie Cait Morgan when her significant other, Bud Anderson, is wrongly arrested for the murder of the local florist, a gifted plantswoman.
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th Bud’s freedom, and maybe even his life, at stake, Cait has to fight the clock to work out which member of the small Mexican community might have killed the respected florist, and why. Investigating under the watchful gaze of the local police, Cait has to keep her relationship with Bud a secret, and she soon discovers she’s not the only one with something to hide. Peeling back layers of deceit to reveal even more puzzles, Cait struggles with a creeping sense of unreality as she desperately tries to save Bud . . . and, ultimately, herself.
The third book of the beloved Cait Morgan Mysteries, The Corpse with the Emerald Thumb travels to the idyllic Mexican countryside and a tequila plantation as Cait races to clear her partner of murder.
The Corpse with the Golden Nose
The second book in the Cait Morgan Mysteries brings overindulgent foodie and criminologist Cait Morgan to the vineyards of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley.
A world-famous vintner is dead. And when a heartfelt plea to look into the matter is paired with an exclusive gourmet event in BC’s stunning wine country, Cait Morgan cannot resist. She is sure the owner of the family-run vineyard was murdered. But her companion, Bud Anderson, is convinced that the woman took her own life. That is, until death strikes once again. Uncovering obsessions and murderous thoughts among the victim’s wacky neighbours is a start. But, as Cait unravels the clues, she realizes that more lives are at stake. Can she think, and act, fast enough to prevent another death?
The Corpse with the Silver Tongue
