The Dead Squirrel (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 2)

by Patrick C Walsh

  One of the photos was of a sheet of paper that had been torn unevenly from a notepad. In spidery handwriting it simply said, ‘I’ve been lonely for far too long, PH’.

  Mac looked at this for quite a while.

  He read the investigating officer’s report twice. The investigation team seem to have been thorough and everything pointed to suicide. The Coroner’s report also confirmed this. There was evidence given that about the time of her death she’d been depressed and her doctor had actually tried to get a bed for her in a local psychiatric hospital. Unfortunately they were full. The Coroner’s verdict was that ‘Philippa Hatch killed herself while the balance of her mind was disturbed’. Mac couldn’t find any reason to disagree.

  But why? The question mark he’d dreamt of flashed into his mind. For some reason he still felt that this might be the key to the whole case. She said in the note that she’d been lonely too long. What had been the tipping point that led her to commit suicide? Was it really something Catherine said or was it something else?

  There were copies of statements from her neighbours. Although she’d lived in the same house for over forty years the statements were very short. All they seemed to know about Philippa was her name and that she lived very quietly. One said that she’d known Philippa’s mother a little better as they’d gone to the same church. While being a devout Christian she was also described as being a hard woman who had shown no love for her daughter in public.

  A name leapt out at Mac from another statement. It was from Anne Holding and in it she described the scene at the ball and how Catherine had upset Philippa.

  The next statement was from Catherine herself. She said that Philippa had been a valuable member of the Letchworth Society of Janeites for a number of years. However she’d seemed to be very upset on the night she took her life. Mac read the next part very carefully.

  Catherine stated that, ‘She was always a little up and down but she’d always been in good spirits for the balls before. However that night I made a joke about pretending she was Miss Bates from Emma when she ran off in tears. I must admit that I hadn’t noticed her getting upset. However my friend Penny thought that it was something I said that seemed to have upset her, although neither of us could figure out what it might have been.’

  Mac gave this some thought. He took his edition of Emma from the bookcase and read the passage where Miss Bates enters the ballroom. She is clearly excited at attending a ball and, in a breathless monologue lasting nearly two pages, she babbles on about many things including her mother. In fact she mentions her quite a bit so he could understand why Catherine, addressing Philippa as Miss Bates, would have asked her about her mother. Mac had a sudden thought.

  He read the investigating officer’s report again. It referenced some related evidence but didn’t say what it was. He looked at the clock. He was surprised to see that it was now seven o’clock. He carefully placed all the documents back into the file. He showered and shaved and thought. He now knew what he needed to do next and found he was eager to get on with it. After another quick cup of coffee and a couple of rounds of toast Mac set off.

  Mac made a call as soon as he got to the station. They called him back a few minutes later with some good news. He rang Leigh and she said she’d pick him up in five minutes. He left Andy a note.

  ‘So where are we off to so early in the day?’ Leigh asked.

  ‘To Police Headquarters in Welwyn, they’ve got something for us to look at. By the way I re-read a bit of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ this morning, about the ball at the Crown, and it was very interesting. I was reading about Miss Bates…’

  ‘Is this the same Miss Bates that Amanda mentioned?’ Leigh asked.

  ‘Yes that’s right, very well remembered.’

  Leigh gave him a smile.

  ‘Anyway I was reading about Miss Bates. In the book she’s middle aged and basically quite good hearted although in all honesty I think she’d drive me right up the wall. She never stops talking and most of what she says is nonsense yet the characters in the book are all supposed to take pity on her. Her family were once well off but, at the time that the novel’s set, they’ve become quite poor. Now Miss Bates has a mother and she’s a very interesting character. She’s in quite a few scenes and is talked about a lot but I don’t think she ever says a word.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well Jane has it that she’s deaf but I think she just doesn’t bother because she’d never get a word in edgewise anyway.’

  ‘So what has this Miss Bates and her mother got to do with the case?’ Leigh asked.

  ‘I’m hoping I’ll find that out very soon,’ Mac said mysteriously.

  At the Police HQ they eventually found their way to the evidence store where Mac was handed a cardboard box. He was warned that nothing could be taken away but documentary evidence could be copied if required.

  He sat down and opened the box. It consisted mostly of documents. One was a bank statement that showed that when she died Miss Hatch had a very healthy balance and, in that way at least, she was very far from being like Miss Bates. He looked at the statement carefully and the only outgoings he could see were quite mundane, energy, food, council tax and so on. There was one debit that interested him though. It appeared to be for an item of clothing from a Jane Austen gift shop, for the ill-fated ball he concluded.

  There were only two further items that interested Mac and they were both near the bottom of the pile. The first was a photocopy of Philippa Hatch’s will dated just a few months before her death. She left everything to a mental health charity under the proviso that it was used to help combat loneliness. The second was a copy of her birth certificate. Mac read this carefully.

  Mac was beginning to think that his hunch might just be right.

  ‘She was adopted,’ he said. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Hatch weren’t her real parents and perhaps that explains why Mrs. Hatch didn’t seem to be that close to her own daughter.’

  ‘Who were her real parents then?’ Leigh asked.

  ‘There’s only the mother’s name on the certificate, Elizabeth Margaret Allenby, aged fourteen. I wonder if she was one of those poor girls who were more or less forced to give their babies up for adoption.’

  ‘Poor Miss Allenby, poor Miss Hatch. Still I don’t see how this gets us any further? ’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Well we’ve not come across anyone with those names yet. I mean even if she married she’d still have her first names wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Not necessarily, people change their names all the time. Come on, back to the station.’

  Mac explained his theory to Andy and Toni and they all started work. Andy and Toni went to the Hertfordshire Registration Office and chased anything they could find in the records on Elizabeth Margaret Allenby. Meanwhile Mac and Leigh started contacting local adoption agencies. They met up three hours later.

  ‘We’ve found Elizabeth Margaret Allenby, there’s a marriage certificate…’

  ‘I’ll bet she married someone called Corning,’ Mac said.

  Andy smiled.

  ‘You’re dead right, she married John Corning in 1976 and they had a daughter, Jennifer Corning in 1978.’

  ‘Did she change her first name or something?’ Leigh asked.

  ‘No Peggy’s short for Margaret but it’s not a name you hear much these days. It’s not unknown for people to use their middle names if they don’t like their first name that much. Do we have an address for the daughter?’

  ‘Not yet, there’s no record of a Jennifer Corning living in the area so they’re looking for a marriage certificate for her. We know she’s divorced so she still might be using her husband’s name. What did you find out Mac?’ Andy asked.

  ‘We’ve found the adoption agency that Philippa Hatch used to trace her birth mother. Through them she contacted her mother, twice as it turned out. Both times the reply was that her mother didn’t want to be contacted. The second reply arrived on the morning of the ball.�
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  ‘So that’s why she was so upset when Catherine kept going on about her mother,’ Leigh interjected excitedly.

  ‘She said in her suicide note that she’d been lonely for too long. She was obviously desperate and had placed all her hopes in getting a positive reply, so it wasn’t Catherine but the fact that she thought her own mother didn’t want to know her that killed her. Catherine just reminded her of the fact.’

  ‘Tell me what you think happened,’ Andy asked.

  ‘Okay, Leigh you remember that Peggy’s reason for joining the group was because her daughter was mad on Austen and she wanted to know more about the novels?’

  ‘Yes that’s what she was supposed to have said.’

  ‘However the daughter she was talking about wasn’t Jennifer but Philippa. I’ll bet that sometime after Philippa killed herself Peggy contacted the adoption agency herself and found out that her daughter had died. She must have felt tremendously guilty when she heard the news, perhaps she thought that joining the group and learning about Philippa’s favourite author might be a way to get to know her dead daughter a little better. She was present when Anne described how Catherine had seemingly upset Philippa at the ball, upset her to such a degree that she killed herself shortly afterwards. Guilt can be a terrible thing and I think it may have driven Peggy Corning to kill.’

  ‘Yes, it all fits so far,’ Andy said. ‘There’s still the thallium though?’

  ‘That’s something that my theory can’t explain at the moment,’ Mac said, ‘but I’d bet we’ll find something when we have a look around where she lives.’

  They were interrupted by a detective who gave Andy a sheet of paper.

  ‘Jennifer Corning is now called Jennifer Williams and…’ he went to a large map pinned to a board, ‘she lives here.’

  Andy pointed at the map with his finger.

  ‘Why that’s right at the back of Amanda’s house!’ Mac exclaimed.

  ‘I’ll get a couple of uniforms and I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes,’ Andy said as he disappeared down a corridor.

  Mac and Leigh waited in the car a little down the road from Jennifer Williams’ house. Mac gazed at the house but there was nothing different about it when compared to the rest of the Letchworth cottage style homes that lined both sides of the road. A two story building with a peaked roof, rendered and painted white. It was a bit larger than most but otherwise was entirely unremarkable.

  ‘So why exactly do you think she did it?’ Leigh asked.

  ‘Everyone has their breaking point and, as I said, guilt can be a terrible thing. In those days I’ll bet that she was made to feel guilty for having a child in the first place and then afterwards felt even more guilty for giving it up. She’s carried that guilt around for over forty years now. Then, after refusing to meet her own daughter twice, she finally decides to contact her and she’s told that her daughter’s taken her own life. I think that might send anyone a little mad.’

  ‘When you put it like that I think I can see what you mean.’

  Their conversation was terminated by the arrival of Andy and Toni in an unmarked car closely followed by a police car. Mac got out of the car as two uniformed officers made their way to the front door. He could hear the bell ringing inside but there was obviously no-one at home.

  He turned and saw a woman in her late thirties coming towards the house. She had a house key ready in her hand and a look of fear on her face. The look of fear was intensified when Andy showed her his warrant card.

  ‘Is it mom? Has something happened to mom?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘No, as far as we know your mother’s alright,’ Andy reassured her. ‘I take it that you’re Jennifer Williams, nee Corning?’

  Fear was replaced by puzzlement.

  ‘That’s right. What do you want with me?’

  ‘It’s your mother we’re looking for, routine enquiries that’s all. Is she around?’

  She opened the door.

  ‘Come on, we may as well talk inside.’

  She looked left and right to see if any of the neighbours were looking as she opened the door. They followed her into the living room.

  ‘Mom won’t be back from work for half an hour or so.’

  ‘She’s working?’ Andy asked. ‘Where?’

  ‘At the Arts Café in town. She does three afternoons a week. Can you please tell me what this is all about?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Andy replied. ‘Is it okay if we have a look around?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she replied with some hesitation.

  Mac made straight for the back door. He unlocked it and went out into the garden. A few yards from the house stood a brick outhouse. Some might have called it a shed but Mac thought it was a bit too substantial for that. The door was held shut by a rusty padlock.

  ‘Look,’ Mac said, pointing to the bottom of the door. It was open by at least an inch.

  ‘More than enough for a squirrel to get through I’d have thought’, Andy said. ‘Shall I ask for keys or…’

  He left the question hanging. Mac smiled and took out his lock picks. Although the lock looked rusty it opened easily enough. Mac knew why when he looked at the picks, they were smeared with oil.

  ‘Someone’s had this open recently,’ Mac said.

  Inside ranks of shelves ran around three sides of the outhouse, all were full of glass containers of different sizes and colours. Labels, somewhat faded now, gave the name of the substance and below that its chemical formula. Underneath the shelves and running the entire length of the wall opposite the door there was a wooden table top with drawers underneath. On the top he could see two Bunsen burners, retorts and test tubes nestled in wooden racks. The top was burned and scarred in places. All of the surfaces were dusty and strewn with cobwebs.

  ‘Well we were talking about chemical labs, looks like we found one,’ Andy said.

  ‘It’s not been used for some time though has it? Except possibly for that.’

  Mac pointed to a large container which was less than half full of a white powdery substance. The label said ‘Thallium Sulphate TI2 SO4’. The lid had been cleaned of dust and it could be seen that the container had been moved from its original position.

  ‘I’ll bet there’ll be some good prints on that.’

  ‘And here look,’ Andy said.

  On one of the shelves the last of a row of red packets lay on its side. A red powder had spilled out, the packet having clearly been gnawed at by something.

  ‘Your squirrel I’ll bet,’ Andy said. ‘I’ll get forensics in here as soon as possible. Let’s go and see if Mrs. Corning’s returned and see what she has to say.’

  Mac pointed to other containers as they left.

  ‘Strychnine, Arsenic, Atropine…there’s enough poison to kill half of Letchworth. What in God’s name was going on in here?’

  Mrs. Corning still hadn’t arrived and everyone was standing around awkwardly in the living room when Andy and Mac returned.

  ‘What do you know about the outhouse?’

  Jennifer Williams looked surprised.

  ‘Dad’s lab? Nothing really, Mom always kept it locked. No-one’s been in there since he died as far as I know.’

  ‘What did your dad do in there?’ Mac asked.

  She shrugged.

  ‘No idea, he never talked about it and neither did mom. She’d only say that it was his little hobby. When he got ill he spent even more time in there. Mom said it helped him forget that he was dying.’

  ‘What did he die from?’

  ‘Luekaemia. I was only eleven when he died, they couldn’t do much about it in those days.’

  They all turned at the sound of a key in the front door lock.

  A woman walked in and said, ‘Hello Jenny, you’ll never guess…’

  She stood frozen for a few seconds at the sight of the police filling up her living room. Then her shoulders slumped and a half smile of resignation appeared on her face.

  ‘You know,’ she
flatly stated.

  ‘We do. We’d like you to accompany us to the station for questioning,’ Andy replied.

  ‘Of course, just as well I didn’t take my coat off,’ she said with a broad smile.

  A murderess she might be but Mac’s first impressions of Peggy Corning were quite favourable. Her daughter looked from her mother to Andy and back again in sheer bewilderment.

  ‘What does he know mom? And why do you have to go to the police station? I was going to start cooking tea soon….’

  ‘Don’t worry about tea tonight, love.’ She turned to Andy. ‘Can she come? She might as well hear it all at first hand.’

  ‘If you like,’ Andy replied.

  He left one uniformed policeman guarding the front door and another outside the outhouse. The van containing the forensics team pulled up and Andy had a quick word with them.

  In an interview room at the station Andy, Toni and Mac sat opposite Peggy Corning and her daughter. Leigh stood behind them. Peggy had refused to have a solicitor and seemed anxious to tell her story.

  ‘I knew you’d find out and if I’m honest I’m quite relieved. It’s been like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ll say up front though that I’m glad that the bitch is dead and that she died in pain.’

  ‘So you admit poisoning Catherine Gascoigne?’ Andy asked

  Her daughter’s brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  ‘Who’s Catherine Gascoigne, mum and why would you want to poison her? He’s just joking, isn’t he? Please say this is all some sort of joke.’

  Peggy turned towards her daughter and gripped her hand tightly.

  ‘It’s no joke love but hush and listen and you’ll hear the whole story.’ She turned to Andy and said, ‘Yes I poisoned her and I’ve no regrets about it either. Here’s what happened…

  I had Philippa when I was only fourteen. I didn’t want her at the time, I’d been raped you see, raped repeatedly by my own father. I was bound to get pregnant sooner or later. So they took her away and the good thing was that they took me away from my father too. I spent the next three years in a children’s home and it was blissful compared to the life I’d been living.’