The Maggie Murders

by J P Lomas

  She figured she needed to be in Exeter for at least a day to scout out the background to what had happened to the candlestick-maker. In all honesty it sounded like someone was playing a bizarre game to her, but one that had now taken three lives since she’d been a cub reporter down in Exmouth.

  In the past, coming up to Exeter from Exmouth had always been a treat for her, the chance to go to the really big shops like Boots, Our Price and Dingles, but now it felt like she was arriving at a place where her newly acquired metropolitan snobbery was making her anxious about the quality of the coffee and the likelihood of finding a decent wine bar.

  Scolding herself for being too big for her very comfortable biker boots, she reminded herself that in a few days she could pop down to Exmouth for some spoiling from Mum and of course some further research into the first two murders. Having wangled a promise of having reasonable expenses being paid as part of the commission, she set out for the centre in search of a cheap hotel.

  ****

  ‘Magic Beans’ might have seemed an odd place to find two detectives discussing a case, it was more the type of New Age place that plain clothes officers might possibly visit in a bid to get information on the drugs trade, or Animal Rights activists. The wooden floor was covered in Moroccan rugs, whilst wind chimes hung by the entrance and New Age art work lined the shelves of its dark interior. In fact it was just as likely to be filled by Exeter’s chattering classes as students from the university, as it specialised in home baked breads and had an extensive range of vegetarian options. Tim had found it on one of his shopping expeditions and had taken to buying all their coffee from it in order to assist the cause of the Sandinistas. Jane only had a very vague idea who the Sandinistas were, but they certainly had a good taste in coffee.

  ‘So you’d never heard of ’Scandalabra’ before today?’

  ‘Wasn’t it supposed to be a bit kinky – the sex shop by the Cathedral is how I’ve heard some of the lads refer to it this morning?’

  Osborne had blushed, to Jane’s delight as he made his reply.

  ‘They may have been confusing erotica with exotica, sir.’

  Sitting at their slightly wonky table, Jane outlined the rise of the ‘Scandalabra’ boutiques. The ashes and cinders they’d been seeing earlier were the remains of the first branch which had opened in 1982. The shops combined quality high end furnishings and accessories with some slightly risqué designs. Nothing too sensational: a tasteful selection of nude prints which edged on the erotic, nothing that you couldn’t take home to your mum if you had cash to burn. Quite literally cash to burn if you could afford the range of exotic candlesticks and candelabra they specialised in.

  Ignoring the evidence in front of him, a frankly bemused Osborne had exclaimed –

  ‘But no one uses candles anymore! They went out with Dickens and the Workhouse!’

  Jane pointed to the unlit candle on their table.

  ‘Well apart from a few New Age hippies,’ he conceded.

  ‘A few New Age hippies that make exceedingly good coffee, ‘smiled Jane.

  ‘Okay, the coffee is very good. I just hope that’s a joss stick they’re burning behind the counter, ‘he grinned as he sipped his coffee.

  ‘You’re not married are you, Sir?’

  ‘Still young, free and devil may care Jane. And please call me Simon, it’ll make me feel easier and might make our young waitress less worried that we’re staking out the place for a drugs bust…’

  Jane laughed obligingly, Osborne’s manner would certainly give him top marks at a charm school, though in many ways she found the invitation to be informal more daunting than simply calling him ‘sir' or ‘guv’. She’d have to keep reminding herself how their ranks should really be reversed if life was any fairer, otherwise she’d find herself really getting to like this university educated high flyer. Musing that if she hadn’t been pregnant with Jen, she too might have completed her degree, she let her thoughts return to the matter in hand.

  ‘So you’re not really into interior design, home furnishings or trips to the shops on Sundays looking for those final touches to your des res?’

  ‘I’ll clear away the takeaway trays and bin the bottles if that’s what you mean?’

  ‘Well when you find Miss Right, you may find she may want a little more around the house than your 32” television and enormous record collection.’

  ‘It’s mainly CDs actually and a portable Sony, but I take your point – Chez Osborne does border a little on the Spartan, though if you ever want to come around and see my etchings...’

  Jane smiled in spite of herself as she sipped her coffee; she hadn’t expected to achieve such a natural rapport so quickly. She hadn’t taken to a man so quickly since working with Derek.

  Forcing herself to get back on track, she continued helping Osborne get up to speed on the case. As he was another outsider, having only recently transferred from Thames Valley, following a spell in Yorkshire, she sketched out how ‘Scandalabra’ had become a local success story. Candles made by monks at a local abbey had become one of their most popular lines and they weren’t cheap. It wasn’t one of those shops you could go in hoping for change from a ten pound note. Some people suggested that was the key to its success. Products its upmarket clientele would normally have given a wide berth to when priced at a reasonable amount, or found en masse on supermarket shelves, suddenly appeared desirable when expensively priced and packaged.

  The sale of some more controversial work by contemporary artists had also given it a slightly daring reputation which had made it stand out when set against the more traditional antiques and craft shops located near the galleries and designer clothes shops of the Cathedral. Although it might be fair to suggest that anything later than John Constable might have proved controversial given the generally conservative tastes of the locals. During the boom years of the mid-80s the business had proved very lucrative and other branches had soon opened in Totnes and Dartmouth.

  Gerald Mallowan, a local property developer, had just been the financial muscle behind the business. The public face of it was his wife, now widow, who would be their next port of call.

  ****

  In London, Derek Sobers peered at the photograph of George Kellow and wondered if they’d use a similarly bad one of him, if he was ever unfortunate enough to end up meeting a tragic demise. He felt that the blank stare and cold expression gave the man more the look of a murderer rather than of a victim. The photographs of Baker and Mallowan which accompanied the article also seemed to have been taken from a rogues’ gallery. At least the one they had dug up of him was more flattering, though he doubted the Archdeacon would welcome the attendant publicity.

  He’d caught a glimpse of Jane on the evening news and was pleased to see that she looked as pretty and attractive as he remembered. They’d last met two years’ ago, shortly before she’d gone on maternity leave and he’d been happy to guide her and the kids around the tourist traps of the metropolis. He was glad that she hadn’t seemed resentful that her career in the police had stalled at the rank of sergeant, though she had been perhaps justly critical of some of the colleagues who had passed her by on their way up the greasy pole.

  Yet the family life she had with Tim, Jen, Leo and now baby Max was one he envied. From what he could gather the ‘terrible teens’ were on their best behaviour when they came up. On the phone, Jane would often go into detail over the rows she had with Jen over boys, bands and smoking, yet together mother and daughter seemed to him to have more similarities than differences. He was astute enough to realise that Jane probably didn’t like the way that her role was more often than not that of ‘bad cop’ when it came to the discipline side and that easy going Tim had a hard time being anything other than the indulgent dad. He’d even had to promise Tim that he wouldn’t mention the fact he’d caught Dad and daughter sharing a surreptitious cigarette when they’d imagined he and Jane were catching up over old times! Whereas Leo’s only problem seemed to be that he d
idn’t want to rebel – here was a young man who’d preferred visits to the British Museum, the Courtauld Gallery and the V & A over the chance of going to Madame Tussauds, or Piccadilly Circus!

  Well at least his own family were on far better terms with him now he’d been ordained and he had a whole gaggle of nephews and nieces to spoil. Ronnie had moved on too and got himself involved with a television presenter from what he could deduce from Mrs Forrester’s constant chatter about celebrity culture. That part of his life had been buried. There were of course times when his desires nearly overpowered him and however hard he tried to be strong and sublimate those needs through the strength of his faith, it didn’t always work, but then what else was forgiveness for?

  He was still fascinated by one part of his old life though, the murder he had never solved. Death was always a mystery which people were interested in, he should know that more than most he reflected as he poured coffee from the cafetière into a V & A mug. After all, detectives tried to solve the mystery of death, whilst vicars tried to answer the mystery of life. He was just continuing his old job from another angle.

  Jane had kept him up to date about the second killing and they’d spent many a long night adding to the profits of BT shareholders by looking at connections between the crimes. The novel idea that these killings may not have had anything to do with politics had struck them before, they’d both agreed that the timing of the deaths may have been just a convenient cover, but they’d never had anything more than theories before.

  The Butcher, The Baker and the Candlestick-maker was no longer an abstract link in the case, it was a fact which took these murders in a whole new direction. Sobers recalled an Agatha Christie mystery in which the deaths had been linked by references to the nursery rhyme ‘A Pocketful of Rye’ and wondered if the killer was using this nursery rhyme in a similar way. ‘Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub’ he tapped his long fingers on the deal worktop as he recalled the verse. It was a short piece if he remembered correctly and that should at least mean the killer had finished, unless they intended to move on to a new rhyme?

  Enjoying the taste of the Nicaraguan coffee Tim’s visit had given him a taste for, he wondered if Jane would find the time to call him about the case tonight. They normally caught up with each other on Mondays, as it was his freest day of the week, for a long natter on the phone, but if there was something special in her life she was prone to call at any moment. Maybe this really was the time to buy an answer phone, as he didn’t want to miss the latest instalment.

  ****

  Waiting in the library at Mrs Mallowan’s plush residence in St. Leonards, Jane had time to wonder how people could increasingly afford servants nowadays. Were they still called servants? Perhaps ‘domestics’ was the more politically correct phrase today, after all they weren’t living in a Jane Austen novel.

  The Filipino maid who had opened the door to her and Osborne was unlikely to have grown up in the West Country. Her heavily accented English was devoid of the distinctive local burr which marked out the natives. She was probably a live-in domestic, as the Georgian pile they’d been ushered into was certainly big enough to have retained its servants’ quarters, as from the outside, the large detached house seemed to possess at least four storeys. As she tried to puzzle out whether servants were more likely to have been housed in the attics, or in the basements, she reflected that the Mallowans could probably have squirreled away half the population of Manila in the marble hallway they now found themselves in.

  Ushered up a magnificent sweep of stairs, they were asked to wait in the first floor library. A room which was certainly doing its job if it had been built to impress them, as the immaculate floor to ceiling mahogany bookshelves along two of the four walls certainly did that. The wall facing the door was given over to two huge sash windows with what looked like a reproduction Rothko print hung between them. At least she presumed it was a reproduction; the late Mr Mallowan had been rich, but had he been that rich? An antique desk, topped by a computer and monitor overlooked the rose garden at the back of the house. An open fireplace, the panelled doorway which had allowed them entrance and a large, framed photograph of the late Mr Mallowan behind the wheel of a yacht were on the other side of a room whose marble floor space, decorated with a bear skin rug, would easily have swallowed up both her lounge and kitchen/diner.

  Osborne settled himself in one of two black leather, wingback chairs positioned either side of the fireplace and picked up the Telegraph lying on the exquisite, glass coffee table. Clearly he was no bibliophile. Well at least he had continued to allow her to grace his company; the DCS had seemed more than happy to have Jane assist him in the current investigation, rather than just leaving her to wander around the dead ends of the earlier cases.

  Jane, whose own books overflowed in haphazard stacks dotted around her already overcrowded new house, went to investigate the impressive looking hardback volumes on the shelves. Complete sets of the canonical authors filled the shelves on the left side of the room: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, The Romantics, Scott, Austen, Dickens, The Brontës, Collins, The Brownings, Tennyson, Trollope, Eliot, Hardy, and Kipling. To her disappointment they weren’t first editions, but exquisitely bound facsimiles. Unlike her well-thumbed, broken backed and heavily annotated Penguins and Oxford Classics they didn’t appear to have been read – perused at best. Some of the books, like the ones in Gatsby’s library were also embarrassingly uncut. These literary heavyweights were literally that. They were augmented by their historical, philosophical and scientific equivalents. Jane wondered how many people had actually read ‘Gray’s Anatomy’? She knew it was one of the great unread books at home, probably propping up the copy of ‘Ulysses’ she’d also been meaning to finish for the last 20 years.

  The bookcase filling the opposite wall was more interesting to her, as it seemed to reflect the more personal tastes of the Mallowans. One side was dominated by books to do with naval history. These included a complete set of Jane’s ‘Fighting Ships’ and lots of hardbacks which seemed to incorporate everything from triremes to Trident. These were complemented by a range of novels which she would have categorised as ‘Boy’s Own’ fiction. This time there were first editions, many with slight tears, or creases on their dust jackets. The whole ‘Hornblower’ series seemed to be there and there was also a first edition of Fleming’s ‘Dr No’ inscribed by the author, alongside a signed copy of ‘The Cruel Sea’.

  On the other side were whole series of novels by the likes of Daphne Du Maurier, Mary Renault and R.F. Delderfield. There was also a very impressive collection of Detective Fiction. This included what must have been every volume by the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, as one long shelf was filled with volumes containing the investigations of Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and the less celebrated pairing of Tommy and Tuppence. The other English greats were also there: Conan-Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margaret Allingham and Josephine Tey. The heirs apparent were also there in volumes by both P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. The more masculine world of hard boiled American Crime seemed to be in short supply, although one volume by Dashiell Hammett had somehow managed to gate-crash the party.

  She was interrupted in her browsing by Mrs Mallowan’s entrance.

  For a woman who had just lost her husband, the grieving widow was remarkably composed.

  ‘Many of them are rare first editions and there’s a signed copy of ‘Rebecca’ somewhere. I’ve asked the maid to bring us a pot of tea, won’t you be seated?’

  She took the armchair opposite Osborne.

  A good looking man in his twenties had followed her into the room; in one well-manicured hand he carried a cane chair that he gallantly offered to Jane.

  ‘This is Jeremy Carberry. He’s my lover, but then you were going to discover that very easily as he is also my alibi.’

  ‘Forgive Margaret, she’s upset…’ the man hastily interrupted, although he did nothing to dissuade Jane of the veracity of her statement, by standin
g beside the widow’s chair and caressing her bare shoulders.

  Jane tried to build a picture of the poised and graceful woman in front of her. Margaret Mallowan benefited from a slim, but not too tall figure, a finely drawn face and shoulder length ash blonde hair. Her black dress emphasised her fine legs and graceful décolletage. Although you could have speared seal cubs with the heels she was wearing; Jane herself would never have considered wearing them, not that she’d have had enough money in a month of Sundays to fritter away on such a pair. And her clothes were so expensive that they didn’t shout money. A jade bracelet set off the well-toned skin of her arm and her fingers were long and elegantly manicured – not the type of hand which Jane could easily imagine pouring petrol through a letterbox. She knew from her notes that Mrs Mallowan was only just past forty, yet at an identity parade she would have guessed that most people would have placed her as no more than thirty.

  The Filipino maid diverted Jane’s attention by bringing in an elegant silver tea service and fine bone china cups. Mrs Mallowan immediately began a performance of sorting out who wanted what and how they liked it. Jane was impressed by her coolness.

  ‘Don’t listen to Jez, he’s just trying to protect me, it’s one of the things I find so appealing in young men.‘

  ‘And the other being what, Mrs Mallowan?’

  ‘Please call me Maggie and I’m sure a good detective like yourself must know what we women find so appealing in young men, sergeant?’ she said casting a mischievous look at the clearly discomfited Osborne.

  Jane was struggling to maintain her equanimity. When had British women become so direct? Had she missed some cultural watershed about it now being the time to be unashamed about your sex life? First it had been Connie Baker and now it was Maggie Mallowan guiltlessly boasting about their lovers. She must have missed the fax about the British no longer repressing their feelings.