The Murder at Skellin Cottage

by Amy Cross

  “Alice Pritchard,” she muttered under her breath, before turning and heading through toward the front of the hotel. “Who were you really?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Six months ago

  “Where the hell can I go?” Deborah whispered, standing in the bedroom at Skellin Cottage and staring down at her half-packed suitcase. “They're always going to find me, they...”

  Her voice trailed off for a moment, and she stood in complete silence until finally Merriwig jumped up onto the bed and wandered over, purring as she brushed against Deborah's arm.

  “Don't worry,” Deborah continued, stroking the back of the cat's head, “I'll take you wherever I go.”

  Sitting on the bed as Merriwig continued to purr, Deborah seemed lost in thought for a moment.

  “I've been such an idiot, Merriwig,” she said finally. “I thought I could run forever, or at least long enough to finish the book. I thought I could leave the past behind and start again. I thought no-one would ever find out the truth about me. And then just to really screw things up, I even let Susannah read three chapters of the damn thing.” Putting her head in her hands for a moment, she tried to figure out what to do next. “Every time I make a decision, I make the wrong decision. Every single time. What's wrong with me?”

  Merriwig purred as she settled down next to the suitcase for a nap.

  “I can't go,” Deborah said suddenly, getting to her feet. “Not yet. As long as Susannah keeps her word and doesn't tell anyone, I can stay to the end of the month, to the end of my agreement with Martin Chesleford.” She turned and looked down at the cat. “This is it, Merriwig. We're getting out of this place at the end of the month, and until then I'm just going to focus on writing my book and nothing else. I've been an idiot again, I let myself get sucked into having a social life and spending time with people, but that was a mistake. I have to finally get that book done, and then...”

  She paused as a shudder passed though her chest.

  “Nothing matters after that,” she added finally. “It was always about the book. That book is the most important thing in the world.”

  She hesitated for a moment, before turning and heading out of the bedroom, leaving Merriwig sleeping peacefully on the bed. Hurrying downstairs, Deborah made her way into the kitchen and began to boil a fresh kettle of water, before walking over to the sofa and reaching down to pick up her laptop.

  Suddenly someone knocked at the door and she turned, startled by the sight of Harry Morgan. Before she could even think to say anything, however, Harry turned the handle and tried to get the door open, only to find that it was locked.

  “I'm busy!” Deborah stammered.

  “Can I come in?” he called out.

  “Can't you come back later?”

  “I still don't have a new phone,” he replied. “I came all the way out here, Debbie. Can we talk?”

  She hesitated for a moment, before heading over to the door and turning the key in the lock.

  “I'm working,” she told him as she opened the door, only for him to kiss her on the cheek as he stepped into the cottage. He also touched her waist briefly, a moment of intimacy that made her flinch. “Harry, I really need to work. I've been falling behind and I have to start focusing more.”

  “Do you know what's up with Susannah?”

  She tensed at the mention of that name. “Why?”

  “I bumped into her earlier and she was acting really weird.” He headed over to the cupboard and grabbed an extra cup, adding a teabag before wandering to the fridge and taking a look inside. “She seemed to get particularly freaked out when I mentioned you and asked if she'd seen you. It was like I'd said something awful. Are you out of peanut butter?”

  “I don't know anything about Susannah,” Deborah replied, “but I think I'm not going to be seeing anyone for a while.”

  “Sick of us all, are you?” he asked, leaning further into the fridge. “Got any jam? I'm starving.”

  “I think you should go now.”

  Stepping back and swinging the fridge door shut, he turned to her.

  “I mean it,” she continued. “I'm sorry, Harry, but I need to focus on my work, and that means cutting all the distractions out of my life. All of them.”

  “It almost sounds like you're...”

  He paused for a moment, eyeing her with an increasing sense of suspicion.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, “but I think it's for the best. It's been fun, and you haven't done anything wrong, but I can't let myself lose focus. I came here to work on my book, I came specifically to get away from the world so I could just work all day every day. And since I arrived, I've slowly let myself slip into bad habits, into old habits, and I can't do that anymore. The only thing that matters from now on is my book. It's all I have.”

  “So you're ending it between us?”

  “Please don't make this difficult.”

  She waited for him to reply, but he seemed genuinely shocked. Behind him, the kettle finally boiled, but neither of them went over to pour tea water.

  “I've got to admit,” Harry said finally, “this has come out of nowhere. I know we weren't necessarily gonna end up tying the knot and pushing out kids, but I thought that over the past couple of months we'd come to mean more to each other than just sex.”

  “We did,” she replied. “I mean, we are. I mean...”

  She sighed.

  “So why are you doing this?” he asked.

  “I told you, I need -”

  “You need to focus on your book,” he replied, “yeah, you said that a few times already. So in order to do that, you want to cut everything and everyone else out of your life? I mean, I come over about twice a week, for a couple of hours at a time.”

  “It used to be twice a week. Now it's three, sometimes four.”

  “Is that really so bad?”

  “It's more than I can afford right now,” she said with tears in her eyes. “It's more than I wanted at the start. I shouldn't have been weak, I shouldn't have wanted human contact. Please, Harry, just try to understand. There are things I can't...”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “Things you can't what?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “You know,” he continued, stepping closer to her, “sometimes when you're talking, I feel like you're holding a hell of a lot back. Big things. Important things.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, only for her to pull away. “What aren't you telling me, Debbie?”

  “It's nothing like that,” she replied. “Please, just accept my decision.”

  “But -”

  “Please, Harry! I just need to work!”

  He stared at her for a moment, before turning and heading to the door.

  “It's not you,” she called after him. “It's me. It's because my life is so messed up and -”

  “Save it!”

  “Harry, I'm -”

  “Whatever.”

  Stepping outside, he swung the door shut until it slammed in the frame. Deborah hurried over and pulled it open again, just in time to see Harry marching toward the gate.

  “I'm sorry!” she shouted. “Please try to understand!”

  “Go to hell!”

  Standing in the doorway, she watched as Harry walked past the gate and climbed into his truck, which he'd parked at the side of the road. For a moment, filled with a sense of regret, Deborah considered running after him and asking him to stay after all, but then the truck's engine started and she could only watch as Harry drove away. Finally, left all alone, she stepped back and swung the door shut, before turning the key in the lock and stopping for a moment to listen to the silence of the house.

  Slowly, she turned to her laptop. She knew what she had to do, and she knew she'd delayed for long enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Today

  Even before she reached the manor house's front door, Jo could hear the sound of someone wailing loudly inside. She hesitated for a moment, before rea
ching out and finding that the door had been left unlocked. Stepping inside, she realized Phillip seemed to be sobbing loudly in one of the upstairs rooms.

  “Oh shut up!” Lord Chesleford shouted, storming through from the dining room, heading toward the staircase. “You stupid little -”

  Stopping as soon as he spotted Jo, he paused for a moment before his usual friendly smile returned.

  “I'm so sorry,” he said, clearly still a little flustered, “but as you can no doubt hear, we are having a rather troublesome morning here at Chesleford Manor.”

  “Is he okay?” Jo asked.

  “He's absolutely fine. He's just having one of his regular meltdowns. Truth be told, I made the mistake of mentioning this morning's grizzly news about that damnable Marriot woman. Phillip doesn't remember that he used to know her, but evidently he's decided to throw a tizzy about the whole thing. Don't worry, he'll calm down as soon as he's worn himself out, and then he'll be back to his usual self.” He hesitated for a moment. “I'm terribly sorry, but my memory of last night is a little blurry. Did we arrange to meet or...”

  “No,” she replied, “it's nothing like that. It's just... I wanted to run something past you. Have you ever heard of a woman named Alice Pritchard?”

  “Pritchard?” He furrowed his brow, as Phillip continued to sob upstairs. “No, I don't think so. Why?”

  “Deborah Dean never mentioned her to you?”

  He shook his head.

  “And the police never mentioned her?”

  “Should they have?”

  “That's surprising,” Jo muttered. “I thought that maybe you'd be the one person she might have confided in. Or at least that the police would have brought her up at some point.” She paused. “Then again, they might have been playing that particular card close to their chests.”

  “Might I ask what this is about?”

  “I'd rather get everything straight first,” she replied. “The death of Susannah Marriot has muddied the waters and I'm still trying to figure out how the two murders are connected.”

  “Must they be?”

  “I think there's a good chance.”

  “Dear oh dear,” he said with a sigh. “We're not used to such excitement in these parts, Miss Mason. Why, I don't know when somebody was last murdered within fifty miles of Chelmsbury, but now we appear to have suffered two such incidents in the space of six months. Still, the Marriott woman was somewhat loose and wild. Isn't it possible that this whole thing is just an awful coincidence?”

  “It's possible,” Jo replied, unable to keep from looking up toward the top of the stairs as she heard Phillip crying out. “I'm keeping an open mind. Are you sure your son doesn't need help?”

  “I'm quite sure, thank you.”

  “When you told him about Susannah Marriot's death -”

  “He doesn't have a clue who she is. Or rather, who she was. All of that was lost when he suffered his accident.”

  “But he and Susannah were engaged to be married.”

  “Where did you hear that?” he roared, as if the idea was preposterous. “Of course they weren't! Phillip was going to attend Oxford or Cambridge, he had his whole life ahead of him. I know he and the Marriott girl had some kind of fling, but that was just Phillip testing the waters, so to speak. He'd never have married a common little scrubber from the local town. He was destined for bigger and better things. And for better people.”

  “I got the impression they were in love,” Jo replied.

  “I suppose she told you that, did she?” He rolled his eyes. “She was delusional. Completely out of her mind. The very idea that someone like Phillip would be interested in someone so lowly is just... I do hope you have the good sense, Miss Mason, to realize that the whole idea is utterly ludicrous. Before his accident, Phillip was prime breeding stock. Chesleford stallions do not waste their valuable seed on common stock.” He sighed. “Not that I wish to speak ill of the dead, of course. May she rest in peace and so on and so forth.”

  “And you're sure he doesn't remember her at all?” Jo asked, still horrified by the sound of Phillip wailing and sobbing somewhere upstairs in the house. After a moment, however, her attention was briefly drawn to a crate of empty, used wine bottles near the door.

  “I'm quite sure he doesn't remember,” Lord Chesleford said firmly. “Now if you don't mind, I rather think you should be focusing on what I'm paying you for. And please, call ahead in future before you come to the door. We value our privacy here a great deal.”

  “But -”

  “This is just how Phillip is nowadays,” he added, as his son continued to weep upstairs. “This is just him.”

  ***

  “I'm not sure it's such a good idea for you to pack and leave town,” Jo said a short while later, standing in the yard outside Harry Morgan's home and watching as he loaded two more suitcases into the back of his truck.

  “And why's that?” he asked. “Am I a suspect?”

  “Have the police been to speak to you about Susannah's death yet?”

  “No, but I'm sure they'll want to. Don't worry, I'll leave a forwarding address.”

  “The incident with your ex-wife,” she continued, “when you were accused of hitting her...”

  He turned and glared at her.

  “That's not going to help you much,” she pointed out. “Even if charges were never brought.”

  “I never hit anyone!”

  “I just -”

  “It was an accident!” he hissed, stepping closer as if his temper was about to boil over, before stopping and taking a deep breath. “I don't want to want to talk about any of that, but I promise you it's got nothing to do with Debbie or Susannah or any of the things that are going on now.”

  “But -”

  “Nothing!” he shouted, banging his fist against the car before turning and storming away.

  Jo watched as he thudded back into the house, and then she wandered over to the doorway and looked into his home. Harry was rifling through some mail now, clearly in a state of panic, and Jo couldn't help noting that – even though he was far from her chief suspect in either murder – he was certainly acting in a rather suspicious manner.

  “So why are you leaving?” she asked.

  “I'm sick of this place, that's why. I'm sick of the town and the people and all the terrible things that keep happening. I should've moved away after I got divorced, but this bloody farm kept me here. It's like a millstone around my neck.”

  “Were you and Susannah close?”

  He hesitated, as if the question troubled him and he wasn't sure how to answer.

  “The police will find out,” Jo continued. “Were you and Susannah Marriott seeing each other?”

  “It wasn't like that,” he replied cautiously. “After Debbie died, Susannah and I spent a lot of time together. We'd both been shocked by what happened, and we both felt bad about turning Debbie away on the night she died. It's perfectly natural that after a while, after being together night after night and talking about how we felt, Susannah and I eventually...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “How serious was it?” Jo asked.

  He shrugged.

  “You don't know?”

  “Susannah could be a hard woman to pin down,” he explained. “She made it quite clear that she didn't see me as marriage material, if you catch my drift.”

  “So it was purely physical between the two of you?”

  “Well, we talked a little sometimes too.”

  “Where did you meet? Here?”

  He nodded.

  “When was the last time?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might.”

  “The last time was...” He sighed. “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “The police are going to find out about that,” she told him. “They're going to want to talk to you, and they're going to be suspicious if they find you've bolted like this.”

  “So what am I supposed to do? Sit around and let them t
reat me like a suspect again?”

  “Again?”

  “After Debbie, I mean. I was their chief suspect for weeks. They hauled me in for questioning a couple of times, and I could tell they thought they'd got their man. I sat there for hours and hours in that room, telling them everything I knew, but that bollock-headed Byron guy wouldn't listen. Even when they let me go, I could see it in his eyes. He was convinced it was me who killed Debbie. And now when the same cops find out about Susannah, I'm going to be right in their cross-hairs.”

  “Which only makes it more important than you stay,” Jo pointed out. “I understand that you're upset, but leaving town right now is going to be a big red flag.”

  Harry hesitated for a moment, before leaning back against the counter.

  “They're going to think it was me anyway,” he said finally.

  “Where were you last night, between about one in the morning and five?”

  “Here,” he sighed.

  “Can anyone confirm that?”

  He shook his head.

  “So you were asleep?”

  “On and off. To be honest, I haven't slept very well for the past few months. And when I do, I usually dream about...” He paused. “I dream about that night. I think about what might have happened if I'd just opened the door and let Debbie in.”

  “And you honestly have no idea who she was running from?”

  “Him. That's all she said.”

  “But you don't know who she meant?”

  He shook his head.

  “When you were seeing her, or dating her or whatever you want to call it, did she ever send you... compromising photos?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Photos of herself in various states of undress.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Reaching into her pocket, Jo took out her phone and brought up the pictures she'd copied from Phillip.

  “I'm not sure you're going to want to see these,” she muttered, swiping through the various shots until she found one that wasn't too explicit. Turning the phone around, she held it up so that Harry could see the picture of Deborah sitting topless on her bed, covering her breasts with her arm. “When you were with her, did -”