Murder at Hawthorn Cottage_An absolutely gripping cozy mystery

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘How about popping it into selected handbags during the performance? They’d all have their eyes glued to Gorgeous George, waiting for him to drop his fig-leaf!’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ Melissa considered for a moment, then rejected. ‘That would mean someone moving around in the dark. Sooner or later an innocent member of the audience would notice and start asking questions . . . no, this is a professional operation I’m writing about, not a bunch of bungling amateurs.’

  ‘Ah, I’ve got it!’ He assumed the voice of a ham actor playing Dracula. ‘A secret panel in the cloakroom that opens to reveal a bony hand dropping parcels of smack into the shopping bags!’

  ‘You are absurd!’ Melissa laughed aloud and immediately felt more relaxed. She had been working much too hard these last few days. ‘Anyway, take a Brownie point for trying. I’ll give it a bit more thought.’

  ‘Do. I’m looking forward to reading about Sergeant Dilys Morgan complaining to Nathan Latimer about having to sit through “that sort of thing”! I’ll keep you posted on developments my end.’

  ‘So long then . . . no, wait a minute!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That last suggestion of yours . . .’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The cloakroom at the U.P. Club . . . it’s like a huge cupboard with a door in the back wall. I noticed it because it’s got one of those old-fashioned porcelain door-handles with some fancy design on it . . . but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.’

  ‘Well, there you are then . . . that’s more likely than a secret panel.’

  ‘No, forget the book . . . you remember I told you how there was a lot of hoo-ha about who parked her shopping trolley where, and whose got moved because it was in someone else’s place?’

  ‘Yes, but what . . .’

  ‘Don’t you see? The same five women normally arrive before everyone else and park their trolleys along the end, in front of that door. Something went wrong last week and one of them was late, but when Sharon parked her trolley by the door, it was moved and the regular one was put there. She . . . I . . . everyone just assumed the owner was being childish.’

  ‘And you’re suggesting . . . hell’s teeth! It’s feasible, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll say it’s feasible. From its position, that door leads into the restaurant, which is closed during the afternoon. When the fun and games upstairs are at their height, someone could easily whip open the door, deliver the goods and shut it again . . . it’d take less than half a minute to deal with all five trolleys, and Annie’s constantly on guard to make sure nothing goes wrong.’

  ‘These trolley things . . . are they the sort with a canvas bag that fastens with a zip at the top?’

  ‘That’s right . . . they sit on little wheeled frames.’

  ‘I believe you’re on to something!’ She could picture him, eyes alight with excitement. ‘I’ve known all along that Babs was tangling with something dangerous but I never thought of The Usual Place . . . I was so sure it was tied up with the model agency or . . .’

  ‘I think,’ Melissa interrupted, ‘that I’ll pay a second visit to the U.P. Club tomorrow.’

  ‘Am I really hearing right? Is this the lady who didn’t want to know about any more really-life sleuthing?’

  ‘Be quiet and let me think.’ Melissa’s brain was in overdrive. ‘Can you arrange to be near The Usual Place about four tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘As far as I know . . . what have you got in mind?’

  ‘We could really do with some help . . . someone reliable who’ll keep their mouth shut.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Sophie . . . my colleague . . . it’s her patch. Now would you mind telling me . . . ?’

  Early the following afternoon Melissa, her hair carefully wound into a top-knot secured with Spanish combs, drove out of the village and parked in a quiet lay-by. With the aid of plenty of lipstick, mascara, eye-shadow and blusher she transformed herself into Meryl Collins before driving on into Gloucester, thankful that none of her neighbours had happened to pass by and wonder what she was up to. Her hands were trembling, making her aware of the tension building up, the adrenalin pumping round her body.

  At Bruce’s suggestion, she left her car in a street-level park close to the cathedral. If any of their quarry should be making a delivery by car, he said, that was the most likely place for them to be parked. Following his directions, she found herself approaching The Usual Place from the rear along a narrow and very congested service road. A brewer’s lorry was unloading barrels through a trap-door in the pavement; in the cellar below she caught a glimpse of Pete Crane directing operations. Behind the lorry, a lad in a white apron was throwing empty vegetable crates into a brown delivery van. One of its rear doors was folded back and the other bore the words ‘Hill Farm Produce Daily’ one above the other in white letters. Melissa edged past and turned into the passage leading to the entrance to the U.P. Club. It was almost half past two. Already, it seemed, she was an established member, for Annie nodded her through with barely a glance at her card.

  ‘Thought you weren’t coming!’ she remarked. ‘I was just going to lock up.’ She moved out from behind the desk and dropped the catch on the street door.

  ‘Got held up at the check-out, didn’t I?’ Melissa had been practising a touch of the local accent and felt rather pleased with the result. Annie responded with a flick of her furry eyelashes.

  It was a fine spring afternoon and only a few light jackets hung above the assortment of shopping-bags and baskets in the little vestibule. Five trolleys were lined up against the door and on the pretext of rummaging for her purse, Melissa managed a quick study of them. If last week was anything to go by, they belonged to the regulars. All had a zip fastener across the top and in each case the fastener was only partially closed.

  Sharon and Sue, seated at their usual table, greeted her with delight.

  ‘There you are!’

  ‘We wondered if you were coming!’

  ‘We’ve saved you a place . . .’

  ‘Ever so glad to see you . . .’

  ‘We were just saying, weren’t we . . . ?’

  ‘What a pity if Meryl doesn’t come . . .’

  ‘And Gorgeous George is back . . .’

  They chirruped away like sparrows in a hedge until Pete entered, delayed a few minutes by the arrival of the beer lorry. His innuendo-laden announcement that their favourite performer had returned was greeted with squeals of delight and a round of applause. Effie’s strident voice was heard to utter some expressions of approval which evoked ribald laughter in some quarters but sorrowful head-shaking on the part of Sharon and Sue.

  ‘She doesn’t improve.’

  ‘Always the same.’

  ‘So vulgar.’

  Melissa observed Pete as he postured and gestured. At first acquaintance she had simply accepted him at his face value: a big man with a touch of coarseness and a hint of the lady-killer who was pleasant and good-humoured with the customers in the bar and acted the genial, risqué master of ceremonies at the less-well-publicised activities upstairs. A man with the right sort of personality for the job.

  Now she saw him from a very different standpoint. She sensed an underlying hardness in his voice, a lack of sincerity in his too-ready smile and a hint of cruelty about his full-lipped mouth. There was a sleekness about him; his clothes and wristwatch were expensive. She was ready to believe he could be involved in some lucrative but questionable dealings.

  She watched the gesticulating hands, large and powerful, and with a growing sense of apprehension imagined them locked round the neck of a helpless girl. Was she really on the right trail? Was this strutting, wise-cracking showman not only a dealer in a filthy traffic but also Babs’s killer? Throughout the statutory bingo session her mind was working furiously.

  Five minutes into Gorgeous George’s performance, she decided that she infinitely preferred Sultry Sam. He might be less well-endowed in certain respects but his act had a certai
n subtlety lacking in his rival, whose appeal was more of the caveman variety. Still, there were plenty in the audience who appeared only too willing to be clubbed. Even the restrained Sharon and Sue were bouncing up and down in their seats. Melissa suddenly thought of Aubrey, pictured his look of horrified disgust if he knew where she was and clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter. As the performance came to an end, her neighbours mistook her mirth for a different emotion.

  ‘Smashing, isn’t he!’

  ‘Thought he’d get you going!’

  ‘Young Sam was only an amateur . . .’

  ‘Our Georgie knows his stuff . . .’

  It was some while before the excitement began to die down and chairs were scraped back. If things went the same as last time, there would be an interlude of chatter before anyone made a move to the door. Melissa got to her feet.

  ‘I must be getting along,’ she murmured. ‘Got some more shopping to do.’

  ‘Nice to see you again,’ said Sharon.

  ‘See you next time!’ added Sue.

  Expecting to find Annie on guard, Melissa had formulated a plan to engage her in conversation until the others arrived to collect their belongings but, to her astonishment, Annie was nowhere to be seen. She felt a stab of dismay, thinking that this must surely mean that there was nothing there to guard, that the whole idea was nothing but a product of her own over-fertile imagination.

  Apparently not. Melissa’s heart began thumping as she ran her eye along the line of trolleys and saw that every zip was now tightly closed. It was what she had hoped and expected to see and must surely mean that during the performance, someone had slipped a package inside each canvas bag and fastened it. The drop had apparently been made — probably through the door from the restaurant — but something must have gone wrong with the security system for the place to be left unguarded.

  There was as yet no sign of an exodus from upstairs. Melissa peered out into the corridor. It was still deserted; the sound of a flushing cistern overhead indicated Annie’s probable whereabouts. On an impulse, Melissa dived back, unfastened the bag on the nearest trolley and peered inside. Moving aside a copy of the Gazette that lay on top, she saw nothing but perfectly innocent-looking groceries. She closed the zip, her heart hammering like a drum-roll, and once more checked the corridor. Still no one. She went to the next trolley, and then the next. She had just finished with the fourth when a chorus of feminine chatter exploded at the head of the stairs. Evidently it coincided with Annie’s emergence from the ladies’ room.

  ‘Super show today, Annie!’

  ‘Georgie-boy was in great form!’

  ‘Here, you feeling all right?’

  ‘You look a bit green!’

  ‘Got an upset stomach, then?’

  Annie, it seemed, was suffering from the effects of some suspect shellfish which had forced her to desert her post. The tread of feet down the stairs proceeded slowly while she supplied details and received sympathy. Melissa, elated with her success so far and taking a calculated risk, managed a quick peep into the last trolley. Her sense of triumph, as she saw what she expected to see, was at boiling point. She tugged at the zip to close it. It refused to budge. She tugged again, harder. Still it wouldn’t move and her sweating fingers lost their grip. Her face grew hot, a tight knot formed in her stomach and her hands trembled as she wrestled with the slippery scrap of metal.

  Her fellow-members of the U.P. Club were almost at the bottom of the stairs. In a few seconds the first one would reach the cloakroom. Melissa jerked the zip further open and plucked frantically at a thread caught in the teeth. In the nick of time she managed to free it; the wretched thing yielded at last and slid home. She kicked off one shoe and when the chattering group swept in she had assumed an expression of pain and was rubbing solicitously at her ankle.

  ‘Meryl! You all right?’ asked Sharon anxiously.

  ‘Slipped on the stairs and gave my foot a wrench,’ Melissa explained.

  ‘That’s what you get for hurrying,’ reproved Sue.

  ‘All in the wars today!’ commented someone else. ‘Poor Annie’s got the trots!’

  Amid the chorus of concern, Melissa was aware that Annie, looking pale and shaken, was staring at her string shopping bag, which contained nothing but a packet of biscuits and half a dozen apples, all clearly visible. There was alarm in the green eyes that appraised the contents.

  Amid laughter and chat, everyone gathered up their belongings and began to leave. Lost in the mêlée, Melissa contrived to remain until she had identified the owners of the suspect trolleys. It came as a slight surprise that Effie was one of them.

  Outside, she sauntered across to where Bruce was browsing among some dilapidated volumes outside the second-hand bookshop. Feeling like a professional private eye, she bent down to study some ancient maps in the window. ‘The brunette in the green tights is one, and the dumpy lady with frizzy hair is another,’ she murmured out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Look out for copies of the Gazette.’

  ‘Roger.’ She saw him gesture to someone inside the shop as she moved away in pursuit of Effie.

  It was exciting, doing something in real life that she had so often described in her novels. It was also surprisingly simple. Effie had a distinctive walk, taking short, quick steps but moving comparatively slowly. Melissa, with her long stride, found no difficulty in keeping up with her. The pavements were fairly congested with home-going shoppers but Effie was on the tall side and her magenta head was easy to spot, bouncing up and down among the crowds along Westgate.

  She appeared to be heading for the bus station and Melissa began to fear that she might find herself travelling to some unfamiliar neigbourhood, become hopelessly disoriented and lose her quarry into the bargain. Effie, however, was not yet ready to take a bus. Instead she entered a café. On the pretext of studying the menu displayed outside, Melissa peered through the window.

  Effie had parked her trolley under the flap at the end of the counter. She bent down, evidently fumbling with the zip, and produced a purse and the copy of the Gazette which she placed on the counter in front of her. A gaunt-faced assistant with thinning hair and a gold ring in one ear shambled forward to serve her. He filled a glass with milk from a cooler, pushed it across the counter, took her money and put it in the till. His eyes flickered as if asking a question and as she picked up the glass, Effie’s magenta head moved in a barely perceptible nod. She took her milk and the newspaper to a table a few feet away, sat down with her back to the door, lit a cigarette and began scanning the headlines.

  Melissa decided to take a chance. She entered the café, bought a cup of tea and retreated with it to a corner. Effie, deep in her newspaper as she sipped her milk, appeared totally oblivious to her surroundings.

  There were no other customers waiting to be served and the assistant was standing close to the point where Effie had left her trolley, giving every appearance of being bored and unoccupied. He fiddled with the rows of cups lined up beside the steaming urn and polished a few spoons. Then he dropped one and bent down to retrieve it. The wheels of the trolley were just visible from where Melissa was sitting and she was certain they moved slightly.

  The man straightened up, raised the flap and came out from behind the counter carrying a tray. He began gathering up used crockery and glasses, emptying ashtrays and flipping a grubby cloth across the tables. When he came to Effie’s table he picked up first her empty glass and then the newspaper, which lay apparently discarded in front of her.

  ‘Finished with this, love?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ Effie stubbed out her half-finished cigarette, reclaimed her shopping trolley and left.

  ‘We’re getting somewhere at last!’ said Bruce when he rang that evening. He was almost panting with eagerness. ‘Frizzy Lizzy was a doddle, she only went just round the corner to a used car lot at the back of Shire Hall.’

  Melissa felt a small prick of apprehension. She had a feeling he was about to tell her somethi
ng she did not want to hear.

  ‘She hung around for a bit,’ Bruce went on, ‘pretending to be looking at cars while a flashy-looking character was giving a spiel to a prospective customer. It was a classic performance . . . like something out of a TV sit-com.’ He chuckled at the remembrance.

  ‘Well?’ prompted Melissa.

  ‘The customer was asking a lot of questions, Lizzy was wandering up and down with her trolley and Flash Harry was watching her out of the corner of his eye and looking distinctly fidgety. Then a patrol car came cruising by and I could swear he turned several shades paler.’ Bruce paused for dramatic effect.

  Melissa became impatient. ‘There’s no need to flog the suspense factor, just tell me what happened! Did Lizzy hand anything over?’

  ‘I’m coming to that. Lizzy started looking at her watch as if she had a train to catch. The customer was still asking questions and he must have wanted to look at the engine because matey upped the bonnet and started her up. Then he left the bloke peering at it and sprinted over to a sort of hut they use as an office. Lizzy followed him, they both went inside, she came out a few moments later and trollied off towards Southgate.’

  ‘And Flash Harry?’

  ‘He came out of the office almost immediately, but here’s the interesting thing. He locked it behind him before going back to talk to the customer. It wasn’t locked when they went in.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. The door was actually standing open.’

  ‘Mm,’ Melissa murmured. ‘It certainly looks as if Lizzie handed over something valuable.’

  ‘You said something about the Gazette when you came out of the U.P. Club.’

  ‘There was a copy of the Gazette in every one of the suspect trolleys, right on the top.’ She described her search and he whistled in admiration.

  ‘That was cool!’

  ‘I didn’t feel very cool at the time. It was a stroke of luck that the coast was clear. By the way, did you get the name of Flash Harry’s outfit?’