Dark clothes, I reiterated to myself. “Give me a minute.”
SEVENTEEN
Ready in my all-black ensemble, similar to Ruth. We were undercover in darkness. Charlie on the other hand, being white, brown, and a little orange in the mix, he somewhat stood out, but he was a dog, and not a huge cause for concern.
We walked. It was the least obvious way of getting to Doreen’s house without bringing unnecessary eyes to us. We walked by houses and gates, all curtains were closed shut and little light travelled from behind them.
“I’m hoping Doreen has his name written somewhere,” I said. “I hope he sent her a letter or something.”
“Hopefully something the police haven’t combed through and taken every piece of,” Ruth said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been inside her house before.”
“Similar layout to mine,” I said. “Except hers is a little smaller, probably because of all the greenhouses around it.”
“You know, it impresses me,” she said. “Keeping all that land on her own.”
“She never mentioned employing anyone,” I said. “So, I assume it was all her.”
It was provoking. Thinking about the land, and how I’d never seen anyone else or hear her talk about anyone else caring for her plants in her greenhouse. It was wrenching on my stomach to think about how all those plants were now going to be lost because there was nobody to care for them.
After twenty minutes of walking, we reached the hedgerows, and peaking above them were the roofs of the greenhouses.
“Fingers crossed there’s nobody here,” Ruth said as we turned into her driveway, poking our heads to view the house at the end of the paving and the beat-up red hatchback, still sleeping away.
Not a single light turned on, but in the dim moonlight, a glimmer caught my eye from caution tape striped twice across the door.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been in,” she said.
“Looks the same as it did this morning,” I added, recalling the drive to Mortimer’s house. “I’m surprised Amanda hasn’t been, especially if she was next door.”
Ruth nodded in agreement. “Let’s see then.”
As soon as we walked towards it, Charlie raced ahead of us. He’d been here before, he probably knew the property better than both of us, he probably knew where Doreen had been, and I hoped he’d lead us all the way to it.
“Glad I don’t believe in ghosts,” Ruth said. “Otherwise I doubt I’d be so willing to join you.”
“If I believed in ghosts, I’d probably also believe they haunted the people who killed them, and if they weren’t killed, then they just surrounded the people they loved.”
Ruth paused to give me a side eye. “Well, either way, I don’t believe in them.”
The tape was in an X formation across the door. I stretched my fingers out in the gloves Ruth supplied before turning the handle.
Click. Hud.
“Locked?”
I turned again, forcing my weight on the door.
It opened, taking the tape off with it. It needed a little pressure applied.
“Stuck,” I smiled back at her.
Charlie zoomed past both of us, shooting inside.
“And the tape.”
It drifted against the door, stuck to it instead of the doorframe. “Well, that’s just poor application.”
Turning on both flashlights, we walked in, slowly pressing the door shut back in place.
The white light cut through the darkness of the room, illuminating only single circular areas.
The entrance was a small hall, leading off into several other rooms, and at the end of the hall was a staircase, leading upstairs.
“Let’s find Charlie,” I said. “He probably remembers where she was when she was found.”
Ruth nodded, flashing the light in my face.
I tssked. “It’s bright. Where did you get these?”
“Brand new,” she said, moving it around in her hand. “They were a double pack; I think Frank uses them in his little garage tool shed.”
“The one that doesn’t get used?” I raised my brows. It made sense as to why they were new.
“Don’t tell him you said that,” she chuckled. “He’s always whining about wanting to build stuff as his father did with him when he was younger.”
“Boys and their toys,” I grumbled back. “Surprised you didn’t try for a boy after Annie was born.”
“Let’s not talk about that,” she said. “I think he still wants to.” She snickered and shook her head.
As we moved around the house, there was one thing for certain. Doreen kept the place immaculate. Nothing out of place. Her dishes were stacked away, her sink and draining board both empty.
“Did she even eat?” I asked.
“Maybe they cleaned for her.”
“I doubt that.” Although the thought of the two officers, Barker and Healey putting on pairs of pink marigolds and doing the dishes did humour me.
“You’ve been here before, you should know.”
I should’ve. But I didn’t.
“Charlie,” I called out quietly, shining the torch around in different directions. I knew once shone across his body and his eyes would give that eerie red glow. “I think she was found in the kitchen, or dining room. I’m trying to remember what the officer said.”
“For someone who worked with flowers, she didn’t have any in vases,” Ruth observed.
I pulled the torch and glanced around at the counters and walls. “Well she made up for that with the paintings,” I said.
“Found him,” Ruth called, her torch shining at the floor near the back door, connected to the kitchen.
Charlie was sniffing around at a spot near the door. “I think that’s where she died.”
“Or was—you know—eugh.”
Yeah—murdered. My breath throttled. It wasn’t something I wanted to be thinking about, I didn’t want to think only days ago, someone was inside this place, right here, someone was here and they killed her.
“Charlie,” I whispered. He glanced at me for a brief second before resuming his sniffing duties. “Stay.”
“Let’s go look for some letters.”
I snapped my fingers. “On task,” I said. “I like that.”
We split, moving to different rooms. I took the living room while Ruth took the dining room.
If Doreen had been alive that morning, we would’ve been in the living room and I’d have been asking her questions, talking about what the future of her business looked like, and about how people could order from her. The last time, she’d mentioned setting up a website.
“C’mon,” I mumbled to myself, wracking my brain. I didn’t know where she’d keep letters, but me—I’d throw them anywhere. It didn’t take an investigator to find something in my home, just someone with the patience of a saint.
Someone with the cleanliness of Doreen, they must’ve kept all their letters organised. Everything in place, specifically put into spaces.
I sat on the sofa and felt around the coffee table. There was a drawer, only small, but it was small enough to keep something in. I opened it, shining the torch inside.
Nothing.
Or if there had been something, it was gone.
“Ruth?” I called out. “Find anything?”
“No. She didn’t like clutter, apparently.”
A stark contrast to Mortimer who lived inside clutter. Perhaps opposites did attract, and that’s what brought them together when she fell pregnant with Amanda.
“Or someone’s taken everything already,” I suggested. The police were one option, or the daughter who was most likely written out of the will alongside being disowned.
“Likely,” she said.
Thud.
What followed was a rolling sound from above.
“Eve?” Ruth called out. “You’re in the living room, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied softly, moving closer to the hallway.
“And Charlie.”
>
“By the back door.”
It wasn’t her. It wasn’t me.
There was someone else was here. Someone else was inside Doreen’s house. We met each other in the hallway, both freezing together, our eyes dead set ahead. We looked forward at the set of stairs.
“Should we—” I began.
“We should—” she grumbled.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A trembling thud fell, collapsing from above.
We shrieked together, gripping hold of each other’s arms.
A weak voice cried out from ahead. It sounded painful, oohing and ahhing.
Both of our torches faced forward to look at the lumpy mass on the ground at the foot of the stairs.
I didn’t recognise it. It wasn’t anyone I’d seen recently.
“Sorry,” the voice cried out. “I wanted one thing.”
“Who are you?” I called out.
“Philip,” he said. “Could someone help me up?”
The mysterious Mr P.
EIGHTEEN
He was an old man, I wasn’t sure how old, but as we approached him and helped him to his feet, he was hunched over. He wore a white dress shirt tucked into a pair of beige trousers and two elastic suspender straps over his shoulders.
“Philip,” I said, watching as he collected a book from the ground. “You were—you were—you—”
“Let’s talk in the kitchen,” he said, dusting off his book.
We sat in the kitchen, all the lights off. I prepared some tea while a torch lay flat on the side of the table to bring in some light.
Charlie was back by the door, sniffing at the floor. I doubt whether he’d moved a single inch after hearing the loud bang or Philip taking a tumble down the stairs.
“So, you sent the flowers?” I asked, placing a cup of tea in front of him. I handed Ruth hers. “Because, that seems to be what the police are looking into.”
His trembling fingers tapped against the cover of the hardback book, it rattled the table and the cups. “Well, I—I—we, Doreen and I—well, you see, we were very secret about our relationship.”
I went back into the kitchen for my cup while Ruth held his hand and cooed softly at him.
Much like Mortimer, this man wasn’t capable of stabbing someone in the back with gardening shears. Unless they were fooling everyone. Nobody had known about Amanda’s father until now, or the real reason why Amanda was sent away. I didn’t know what to believe.
“What happened?” he asked. “I sent her those flowers, but when she didn’t call, I didn’t think anything of it.”
“She called you?” I asked.
“No, no, no,” he stuttered, “that’s precisely what she didn’t do. She didn’t call me. We were being secretive about all this, she would call me and tell me to come over. Usually before dinner, we’d eat, I’d help her in the greenhouses, and we’d watch a movie. But I was always gone around midnight.”
“Oh, why?” Ruth asked.
“You know how everyone is, gossiping,” he grumbled. “She didn’t want anyone seeing us together.” He straightened his suspenders out on his shoulders. “My wife left me three years ago, and she thinks if we’re seen together, they’ll blame her for my wife leaving.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a seat opposite at the dining table. “But what are you doing here?”
“I heard she’d died,” he let out quickly, pulling his hands together. “I heard, and I knew I needed to come and get something to remind me of her. Nobody would’ve let me in, so I needed to do it at night.” He shook his head. “Can barely see in the light, let alone the dark, but I just wanted a keepsake.” Releasing his hands, he tapped the cover of the book once again. “Her favourite book, Pride and Prejudice.”
“Philip,” I said. “You should probably go speak to the police.” Usually, I wouldn’t recommend it, but if it was to clear his name. He needed to, they were all looking for some mystery man in Doreen’s life, and here we sat with him. “You seemed to know her better than anyone else.”
He nodded, cupping his hands around the mug. “Well, she didn’t have much family.”
“She had a daughter,” Ruth said.
He scoffed. “Not in her life,” he said. “Amanda, her daughter, she was blackmailing her.”
“Blackmail?” I asked, locking eyes with Ruth.
He’d piqued at our interests. I’d spoke with Amanda and she hadn’t seemed like the type of person to ransom off blackmail for money.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s not something she’d ever speak about, but I remember her telling me one evening. She, talking about Amanda, she was asking for five-thousand pounds.”
“Or?”
“Or tell everyone what happened when she left,” he said.
“When she left?” I asked, my face creased in concern. “Do you mean, why she left?”
“Yes, yes, why she was kicked out,” he continued, nodding his head to himself.
“Do you know why?” Ruth asked.
We only knew what we’d been told by Amanda, and before that, what we’d learned from public knowledge. There was definitely more to it, definitely more to Amanda’s story.
He shrugged. “Doreen never talked much about it, she said it was a dark time. She mentioned paying someone to keep it a secret.”
“Harry?” I grumbled.
“Sorry?” he asked.
“Was it a man named Harry?”
He shook his head. “No, no, the man Amanda had been with.”
“The boy’s father,” I said. “So, it’s possible he wanted to keep it a secret as well.”
“A married man,” Ruth mumbled, repeating what we already knew.
Philip lifted the cup to his lips, sucking deep from the rim, and spilling it down the jowls of his cheeks and chin.
I tapped the table to grab Ruth’s attention. “Is it possible the boy’s father killed Doreen to keep the secret, especially with blackmail on the table.”
“Hardly,” Ruth said before sitting upright. “Unless—”
“What?” Philip asked, his head wobbling in a daze.
“What if Doreen told the boy’s father what was being threatened, and in turn, he decided to kill her,” Ruth continued. “So, we need to know who this man is.”
It was easy to create theories about an unknown man; he was the invisible dot connecting all the points together. “Did she mention him?” I asked Philip.
He shook his head and sighed, pulling on one of his suspender straps. “We never talked about it, like I said, only the one time she was upset.”
“I’m really sorry for your loss,” I replied.
He sighed harder. “We were going to move, probably Europe. We talked about getting away often.”
“And her business here?”
“Selling it,” he said. “Or trying to. She’d created a bit of a bidding war between some different companies.”
“The florist,” I said. It made sense, but I wasn’t aware of other businesses bidding.
He nodded. “Now, who’s going to buy this place? Someone died here. Doubt whoever is in her will even bother finding out and getting its worth—or worse, her next of kin.”
“The next of kin?” Ruth asked.
“Her daughter, probably.”
If that was the case, then her daughter was the only person in all of this that had something to gain either way. Her mother alive, bribery, her mother’s death, an entire company on the market’s chopping block.
We offered to help Philip get home, but he refused, insisting on staying at the house for the night. That was his call, we’d gone to find answers, and we’d found them—including losing the front runner, our mysterious flower sender, and gaining a new number one at the top of all the suspects.
Charlie took the most convincing to leave. I picked him up and carried him.
In the cool air, I felt like I could finally take my first breath. There must’ve been so much swirling around in both our heads as we walked, because n
either of us said a word for a solid five minutes.
“You think he did it?” she asked.
“Couldn’t have been,” I said. “It has to be the daughter, or the man whose son she had.”
“And what you told me, about her son being here looking for him before the death.”
“Well, it’s clear she was murdered,” I said. “We just need to figure out who did it. And why they did it.”
There was all number of reasons someone would kill. “Money? Anger? Revenge?” Ruth listed. “It was someone close, we know it was someone close.”
“Someone she knew,” I said.
Ruth paused, bringing me to a stop. “I’m turning off here,” she said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“The café?”
“I want to see Amanda, but I think we should go to the flower shop to talk about this bidding war,” I said.
“Then we can both go see Amanda,” she said. “I don’t want Paul to think you’re doing anything unprepared.”
“Well, we make a great team,” I said. “And if I’d gone to hers tonight and he was there. I would’ve probably screamed—louder.”
“And you definitely couldn’t have lifted him alone.”
“I would’ve left,” I said with an eyeroll.
“Of course, you would,” she chuckled back.
“Right,” I said. “Tomorrow. See you then.”
We walked off in different directions.
While my mind raced, all my body wanted was to find the worn-in curvature of my bed. And the soft pillows to cushion the fall when I inevitably collapsed for near-out exhaustion.
NINETEEN
Saturday, February 2nd
The next sound I heard after my head hit the pillow was a whining grumble. It went on for several minutes, as my eyelids fluttered open and glued themselves shut again. Finally, I picked my head from the pillow and glanced around the bedroom.
In my mind, I’d only just gone to sleep, but according to the alarm clock. It was 9:41 A.M. and the whining grumble was coming from Charlie as he stood at the bedroom door, whacking his paws at the wood.
“Oh, fudge,” I mumbled under my breath, still squinting through slits in my eyes. “Let me get up. I’ll let you out in a min.”
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