The Maggie Murders

by J P Lomas

  Without her, I can’t see the point of remaining in Perfidious Albion…

  ‘Interesting reading, darling?’

  Jez looked up from his lover’s computer.

  Maggie Mallowan was looking down at him; wielding a wrought iron candlestick holder in her right hand.

  Chapter 30

  The picture of the yacht she’d seen in the Mallowans’ elegant library kept coming back to haunt Jane as she hammered down the road leading to Exmouth. Well she managed to put on a fair lick until the stretch of dual carriageway came to an end at Topsham. She then found herself stuck in stationary traffic waiting for a herd of cows to cross the road just outside of Exton; flashing lights and sirens were no proof against cattle. Frustrated by her lack of progress, she tried to focus on why her hunch had sent her haring down to Exmouth, as the opening line of the nursery rhyme kept playing on a loop in her head – ‘Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub.’

  Maggie Thatcher may have chosen to step down, rather than contest a second round, but Jane felt that the arrogance their prime suspect had displayed in her interview last year meant that she still had another trick up her sleeve. She’d killed three men to secure her fortune, but there was still the possibility that the fortuitous link with Thatcher had become more than that now. The idea that Maggie Mallowan would step back into the shadows like her near namesake, was not one Jane was comfortable in accepting.

  Mrs T had been brought down by the men in her party and Jane felt that their killer might not forgive that. It could well be that the local Conservative Club, or the White Rabbit gentleman’s club would be her targets and yet the fact that her husband not only had a boat – a very expensive tub by all accounts, but also had it moored at the former docks which had made his fortune, made Jane fearful of some new horror being planned for Exmouth’s newly opened marina.

  She recalled the smaller fire ships the English had used to help destroy the bigger galleons of the Spanish Armada and wondered if their killer had a similar plan for the marina. Gerald Mallowan’s yacht might have been called ‘The Iron Lady’; however it had been constructed out of far more flammable materials and with the right amount of preparation could be turned into a very effective modern day fire ship. A fire would spread very quickly among the other sailing boats berthed at the pontoons in the harbour and given that a lot of the expensively priced apartments built on the site of the former warehouses and silos had been constructed in a faux New England style, it meant that their colourful wooden frontages would go up like matchwood if the conditions were right.

  It might have been fanciful, but as she waited for the cows to cross the road, Jane could picture dozens of boats burning in the marina, surrounded by a ring of fire as the apartments encircling the harbour caught light. As the last cow ambled into the field on her left, images of some ‘Death on the Exe’ style Gotterdammerung at Exmouth’s newly opened marina flashed through her head, she pressed her foot on the accelerator and hoped the darkening, winter sky was not an omen of an opportunity already missed.

  As Jane shot past the Royal Marines’ base at Lympstone Commando, she just hoped that many of the second home owners hadn’t chosen to come down to Exmouth this weekend. Given the sheer number of apartments, a conflagration of these clapboard buildings, which looked as if they would be more at home in Long Island Sound than Lyme Bay, could kill more people than the King’s Cross Fire. Perhaps that was what Maggie Mallowan wanted? The people who could afford to live in the new marina were not locals; they were prosperous incomers from the South East who had grown rich during the economic boom of the 1980s and who had reaped the benefits of Thatcherism. And they were the very type of people who had turned on Maggie when the going got tough.

  As she roared into the town where it had all begun seven years’ ago, she hoped that there would be some back-up to meet her at the marina. She also hoped that Colonel Redfern had sent along the marines’ bomb disposal team; he might be a bit of a pompous arse, but at least he was a bit of a pompous arse on her side!

  Darkness had fallen by the time she reached the old docks. Two patrol cars with their lights flashing were already parked by the entrance to the marina and a couple of military jeeps were already inside the complex. Coming to a halt by the development office, where Nigel Byrne had picked up his most infamous passenger three years before, she scarcely had time to consider the millions of pounds idling at anchor in the marina. All she needed was to find which one of these yachts might light the blue touch paper. Thankfully, the Harbourmaster was already at her side as she stepped from her car and pointing out to her where ‘The Iron Lady’ was berthed.

  The uniforms were already in the process of evacuating the area and the wail of more emergency service vehicles could be heard in the distance. Meeting the captain of marines in charge of the bomb squad, she pointed out Mallowan’s yacht berthed alongside one of the central pontoons. The whole scene was eerily deserted and there were few lights on in the apartments overlooking the harbour, whilst all the boats appeared to have been in hibernation; this at least would mean fewer casualties should her worst fears have been confirmed.

  The earlier murders had happened much later at night than this and yet if their murderer had had her hand forced by Thatcher’s resignation, then there was every possibility she might have changed her timing. She watched as one of the marines approached the yacht. A scene like this should have been happening on the streets of Belfast, not on a jetty in a millionaire’s playground in East Devon! The heavily armoured man, doing the most dangerous job in the world, slowly approached the potential fire ship.

  Jane half wondered if someone like Jez Carberry might be trussed up and bound inside the boat, awaiting his fate like Edward Woodward’s sacrificial policeman in ‘The Wicker Man’. She sensed that she had detected the hidden currents which would cause that particular relationship to drift towards the rocks. It seemed clear to her that the love struck young man was clearly besotted by the elegant and ravishing widow; however she felt that Mrs Mallowan had regarded Jez with nothing more than a show of affection. Lust yes, love no. She’d noticed during their last interview the tell-tale signs that Jez was beginning to lose some of his youthful allure; even Debbie had said that he had looked jaded during their interview and was very far from being the hot, young stud she had imagined. Whereas with her looks and recently acquired fortune, Mrs Mallowan would never be short of eligible young suitors.

  She watched the man in the protective suit make a signal to his colleagues and saw more marines approaching the boat. Unlike their colleague, they were dressed in their normal fatigues and she began to feel some of the tension escape from her body. In fact the elegant boat eating up the mooring fees on the site of the former docks, held no further horrors for the case. There was nothing more murderous about it than the cost of its upkeep; which was far more than Jane had ever paid for her mortgage, even with the latest rises. According to the bomb squad, Mrs Mallowan hadn’t been planning to turn it into a fire ship, or Viking funeral ship; this tub at least was safe.

  It was only when the call came through from Osborne that she felt she could finally put her doubts aside and put the expensive surroundings of the marina behind her.

  ****

  ‘Dead...didn’t mean to… can’t find a pulse…’

  The switchboard operator had yet to ask which emergency service was required.

  ‘Upstairs in the library…please come quickly…’

  What words could be distinguished between broken sobs seemed to indicate that both the police and ambulance services were going to be needed.

  ‘Just came at me. I had no choice…’

  If this was a hoax, it was a very convincing one.

  ‘It was an accident…you’ve got to believe me…had no choice…please help me…not moving…’

  There were yet more sobs.

  It took the switchboard operator several more minutes to calm the caller down. Finally, she got them calm enough to state the address that
the police and ambulance crew would be sent to.

  ‘4, The Crescent, St. Leonard’s.’

  Well at least the emergency services should get their tea served in some decent china for a change, reflected the switchboard operator.

  ****

  Jane and the DCS reached the crime scene within minutes of each other. Jane had half expected to see the building in flames, destroyed by a vengeful wife like Thornfield or Manderley. Well she was half right – there was at least a dead wife to contend with.

  ‘Miss Scarlet in the library with the candlestick, ‘reflected Osborne, ‘not the most original of crime scenes…’

  ‘He did say she came at him with it and it’s just as effective as a piece of lead piping.’

  Jane indicated the heavy wrought iron candlestick holder which lay besides Maggie Mallowan’s body on the floor. There was no visible mark on the woman’s body and even in death she still looked elegant and stylish. Her ash blonde hair tumbling over her forehead disguised the spot where her temple had struck the marble edge of the hearth.

  ‘Do you buy his line of self-defence?’

  Jane considered for a moment what she knew of Jez Carberry and Maggie Mallowan.

  ‘I think it more than likely, sir. I can’t see any motive for why he would want to kill her.’

  ‘Apparently he’d hacked her computer and found her diary on it.’

  ‘Well that’s convenient.’

  ‘We’ll need to get the tech boys to check it out. It’s possible he could have planted it there himself.’

  ‘What was he looking for on her computer?’

  ‘It seems he was getting jealous of her, felt that she was keeping something back from him, which I suppose she was and began rooting around in her personal stuff.’

  ‘I’d put any jealousy down to her. She’s the one with the toy boy.’

  ‘Be it as it may, he looked up to find her coming at him with a candlestick holder…’

  ‘And he just pushed her back in self-defence?’

  ‘Seems that way, Jane. Looking at her heels, I’d say she’d have one hell of a problem keeping her balance in most situations, let alone carrying a heavy candlestick holder in her hand… the slightest of touches could have sent her flying.’

  The DCS squatted down to point out the expensive stilettos on the victim’s feet. Though he thought victim seemed an incongruous word to use for their suspected killer, now lying supine by the fireplace. Her heels were certainly longer than Osborne had seen on any woman outside the worlds of ‘Dallas’ and ‘Dynasty’. He indicated to the photographer that he should ensure he got a close up of her shoes.

  ‘Killer heels, eh?’

  ‘You said it, sir.’

  ‘Well let’s get lover boy down the station and find out what he knows. I’ve a feeling we may just have come up with a result.’

  Epilogue

  Sobers gently laid the chrysanthemums on Kellow’s grave. They seemed to be the only flowers to have been left there for a very long time. Walking away from the crisp, glossy headstones which made up the newer part of the cemetery he joined Jane by the prettier, though more overgrown older part of Littleham churchyard.

  ‘Don’t get many black vicars down here.’

  ‘And Happy New Year to you too!‘ smiled Sobers.

  ‘Times are changing.’

  ‘True, very true.’

  ‘Might get a black Prime Minister one day.’

  ‘Or another woman.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re going to have another one of those for a very long time.’

  ‘Once bitten, twice shy.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You let lover boy go then?’

  ‘Just another innocent victim.’

  ‘Of who?’ Sobers took a seat next to Jane on the bench.

  ‘Maggie.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘That’s so typical of the left-wing bias in the Church nowadays!’ grinned Jane, ‘blaming everything on Thatcher!’

  ‘Well what about his avarice, ambition and lust?’

  Sobers counted them off on his long fingers.

  ‘I’m pretty sure at least two of those are Deadly Sins.’

  ‘I’m afraid they’re no longer on the statute book; well not the one the Police use!’

  ‘So Jez Carberry walks away from this?’

  ‘Well we can’t pin anything on him. He now claims to have been out for the count on sleeping pills when the candlestick-maker was murdered. Apparently, they were slipped into his drink by Maggie Mallowan. There’s no way we can prove otherwise and no evidence linking him to any of the crimes.’

  ‘So you’re happy to let him go unpunished?’

  ‘I thought vicars weren’t supposed to be so vengeful?’ remarked Jane, as she curled her feet up under her bum in a vain attempt to fight the wintry cold.

  ‘Just wanted to be certain justice was done. Connie Baker had her reputation dragged through the mud in this case and poor old George Kellow had his past raked up too. I just wanted to be certain Maggie Mallowan was guilty.’

  ‘Well you were the one who put me onto her, Reverend.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘That night… ‘ Jane looked momentarily embarrassed, ‘…when you gave me the stuff about the ABC murders…’

  ‘Ah, yes. The idea of concealing one particular murder in a sequence of unconnected killings.’

  ‘The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick-maker in this case, with poor old Kellow being the first to get done in just because he sold a couple of steaks and a few pounds of mince every day.’

  ‘And Jez Carberry found this out from reading her diary?’

  ‘It seems she kept a lot of stuff hidden on her computer. It was just his bad luck that he was something of a computer whizz and had taken to checking up on her lately. I just wish our forensic boys had done a better job in finding that stuff last year…’

  ‘Do you think she meant to kill her lover?’

  ‘Given she’d just found out Maggie had resigned and that her lover had discovered her secret journal, then yes, I’d say he was very lucky not to have been killed.’

  ‘So you don’t think that Jez might have placed all that stuff on the computer himself, before killing his lover? We’re not going to find one day another secret file called ‘N for Nemesis’ in which he boasts about setting up Maggie Mallowan?’

  For a moment Jane paused to consider – the case had been so complex, that she didn’t want to think she had been caught out by a final twist.

  ‘He would have been seventeen at the time of Kellow’s murder and hadn’t even met Maggie yet. Plus he did seem genuinely heartbroken at killing her. I don’t think the easy-going young man we first interviewed is ever going to be the same again. According to Debbie, he’s been declared bankrupt and has had to return home to his parents as a broken man.’

  ‘The Prodigal Son,’ muttered Sobers.

  ‘Whilst Maggie Mallowan seemed to have died intestate. All her millions will go straight back to the Treasury, unless someone comes forward with a claim on the estate.’

  ‘Well that should give John Major some cash to help rebuild the economy with, but I’m still not utterly convinced by Jez Carberry’s innocence. There have been younger killers than him; it is just about conceivable that this whole series of killings could be down to him,’ pointed out Sobers.

  ‘For a man who expects me to believe in an unseen, omnipotent deity, you do seem to require a large burden of material proof for these worldly crimes,’ sighed Jane.

  ‘There’s still a part of me which is a policeman and enough people in this case have had their lives ruined on the basis of very little evidence; I’d just like to be certain all this was down to Maggie and not Jez.’

  ‘He’s got an alibi he doesn’t even know about!’ smiled Jane.

  She recalled last night’s meal with Debbie. They’d been celebrating the success of Debbie’s article on the murders and the journalist had retur
ned the detective’s favour of giving her Jez’s number by filling Jane in on where she’d remembered seeing him before.

  More pertinently, Debbie was able to remember exactly when she had seen Jez before.

  ‘Debbie saw Jez on the night of the first murder,’ explained Jane, ‘there was an 18th birthday party on the beach and Debbie went along at midnight to pick up her younger brother who was in Katy Bennett’s year at school…’

  Seeing the puzzled look on Sobers’ face she added –

  ‘Katy Bennett was the girl having the party.’

  Sobers nodded in acknowledgement; Jane had a habit of assuming people knew everyone she mentioned.

  ‘When Debbie got there everyone was having a good laugh at this couple snogging in the dunes. Well everyone was laughing except Katy, she was furious about being upstaged by her younger sister who was one half of the couple making out in the sand. Katy made quite a scene when she dragged the drunken boy off her little sister and then frog marched her sibling home. It was only when Debbie was interviewing Jez the other day, that she realised he was the boy who Katy had been screaming at. And so there’s no way he could have set the fire at Littleham Cross which killed George Kellow.’

  ‘The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways… ’ remarked Sobers.

  ‘It’s far too cold to stay and listen to your cryptic musing. I’m sure the pub must be open by now, you can tell me over a mulled wine.’

  ‘Nothing to tell, ‘smiled Sobers getting up ‘it’s just she took her plan from one Agatha Christie novel, only to become the title of another one.’

  ‘The Body in the Library!’ smiled Jane.

  ‘I’d say the good Lord has a very dry sense of humour.’

  The End

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to my family for all their help and support. Also many thanks to Glenn for reading the manuscript and Tim for creating the front cover; all that time in The Bicton now seems so far away! Thanks to Michael and my colleagues for answering endless questions on a host of topics and in particular: Neetendra, Simon, Mary and Gill! Finally, my thanks to Phil and Jools for their help and advice on e-publishing. As ever, any errors are mine and mine alone!