The Bodies in the Library

by Marty Wingate

  “Yes.” His invitation caught me by surprise—a lovely, warm surprise—but I was quick and sure with my answer. “Dinner. Where will we go—the café at Waitrose?”

  His smile returned. “I’ll try to do a bit better than that. How about Friday?”

  Oh, I see. He’s giving me a deadline—and I could work with that. I nodded. “Friday.”

  We stood grinning at each other, and I decided that perhaps a kiss—just a small one—would be all right. But a knock came at the door along with a voice calling, “Mr. Moffatt?” and then my phone rang.

  “Class,” Val said.

  “Dinah,” I replied, looking at the screen.

  “Stay here and take it,” he offered. He chanced a light squeeze of my hand on his way out. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  * * *

  * * *

  And, Mum, when I said why couldn’t we make the box room into a bedroom and then find another housemate, she said she’d been thinking the same, and so we advertised and just like that found this woman who’s going through a divorce and she’s moving in tomorrow. That’s three of us, and just think, this will slash the amount of rent I owe.”

  “Dinah, sweetie, that’s fantastic. Well done.” I sat back in Val’s desk chair and envisioned my bank account rising by a few precious quid every month.

  “I’m going to start saving for a car!” Her enthusiasm bubbled over. “Then I’ll only need to take driving lessons and I’ll be set. I wonder, how much do they cost?”

  Enough, I was sure. Plus, there would be insurance and petrol. The bank account dipped once again.

  “Just think—when I have a car, it’ll be no problem to pop over and take Gran for a day out. She’d like that.”

  She would indeed—I gave my daughter credit for spending time with her grandmother and for knowing what would persuade her mum to fork over the money.

  “Right, sweetie, we’d better take this slowly, though—don’t you think?”

  “Oh yeah, sure,” she said with great equanimity. “There’s no hurry. Oh, Mum—have you dug out my diorama yet?”

  A vague memory surfaced—I was to find the model of our home she’d built as a girl. She needed it for one of her courses at uni.

  “It’s only up in the attic—I can put my hands on it in a second. I expect it may need a bit of repair after all these years. Don’t worry—I’m on it.”

  We rang off, and my eyes fell on a triptych of photos of Val’s own girls amid the books and papers. The center snapshot showed them grown, but on each side was an identical twin at about age seven. The girls wore kilts in a blue-and-green tartan and flat black shoes, and each had one hand on her hip and one curved over her head. Scottish dancers—I would ask him about that over dinner on Friday. Dinner on Friday—it sounded like heaven.

  I rang Wyn and left another message, then stepped out into the corridor, where I heard Val’s voice coming out of a nearby classroom. I moved closer to its open door and listened to him read from a student’s new work.

  “I didn’t do it, and nothing you can do will say I did.”

  “Nothing?” The detective smirked. “You forget I have your fingerprints on a glass, and it would be nothing to transfer your dabs to the key, the alarm pad, the door—all with only a bit of Sellotape.”

  “No one’s going to believe that.”

  With a note of mock sadness, the detective said, “One wrong word, and this can all so easily go pear-shaped for you.”

  “Right, that’s it. I don’t care if they do nick me for those robberies, I’m going to the police and tell them everything.”

  Never turn your back on a murderer.

  The knife slid into the victim with such ease—a long, thin blade with a double curved point and so sharp that it sliced through skin, tissue, and muscle like jelly—between the ribs it went and then up and into the heart. It took only a second. Death was instantaneous, the detective observed—otherwise there would’ve been blood, so much blood.

  The story brought gooseflesh to my arms. Were any of the Golden Age of Mystery writers like this? Did we have books in The First Edition Society library that spoke of blood and gore? I hoped not.

  * * *

  * * *

  No alarm was necessary on Tuesday morning—I was up and on my walk by seven o’clock, back in my flat before eight, showered and on my second cup of tea by nine. That’s when I rang Wyn. Was I mad—doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

  Mrs. Woolgar looked grim when I stepped into her office for our morning briefing. “Do you read the local tabloids, Ms. Burke?”

  “I pick up a Chronicle on Thursdays.” Although, I’d been avoiding the news since we found the body in the library, afraid of what Bath might make of us. Me.

  “The online rags. I was only searching for a weather forecast and saw this—it was posted today.” She nodded to her computer monitor, and I walked behind her chair and bent over to read.

  No Leads in Death of Local Man

  Nearly a fortnight has passed since the death of local writer Tristram Cummins. He was killed at Middlebank, a Grade-II listed Georgian terrace house designed by John Palmer, now the home of The First Edition Society, an organization that describes itself as a collection of “detective stories.” A source who spoke to this reporter on the condition of anonymity revealed that the upheaval the murder has caused in the ranks of the Society is threatening its very survival, and in a last-gasp effort, the board of trustees may need to turn to founder Lady Georgiana Fowling’s only living relative, Charles Henry Dill, of Nottingham. Mr. Dill had no comment on the rumors, except to say that if called upon, he would, of course, do everything in his power to save his aunt’s vision of sharing her favorite books with the world.

  The words on the screen swam in front of my eyes, and I was unable to breathe. At last I drew in a wheezy lungful of air and choked out, “Rubbish! How can they print such lies? And do they think we don’t know who their anonymous source is?”

  “Charles Henry has a knack for collecting secrets,” Mrs. Woolgar said, “and he must have one on this reporter. Blackmail. We should pay these so-called news items no mind.” She reached for her mouse to click away, but something caught my eye.

  “Wait—what’s this about?” I pointed to another headline.

  “An advert, no doubt,” Mrs. Woolgar said. “These untrustworthy online sites attempt to entice us to follow them down the rabbit hole. I will not succumb.”

  “No—look at the headline. ‘No Sign of Forced Entry.’ That’s what the police said about us. Go on—let’s have a look.”

  With a huff, Mrs. Woolgar clicked through to a short item about a break-in in Bathhampton—an area just northeast of the city. It was a fairly dry account compared with the piece about us, telling of a robbery at a house where no one was at home. Some jewelry and several small but valuable objects were taken. It was the third such crime in the area since the beginning of September.

  “They take what is easy to carry and hide about their person,” said Detective Sergeant Hopgood of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. “They need to travel light—they aren’t about to drag an antique hall stand out with them.”

  I tapped on the screen. “Those are my words. I told DS Hopgood that if a thief had been inside Middlebank looking for something to steal, they’d come up short and that we would’ve noticed if someone had tried to drag the mahogany hall stand out the door.”

  “I’m afraid I’m a bit lost here, Ms. Burke.”

  Mrs. Woolgar hadn’t heard my idea about the murderer being in Middlebank before the night Trist died, and so I took the chair and explained.

  “I don’t want you to feel unsafe,” I said, “but we must consider the possibility this has happened.”

  “I will not be frightened out of my own home,” she snapped.

 
“Good—neither will I.”

  * * *

  * * *

  You see what he’s doing,” I said, pointing to the news item I’d brought up on my phone. I had declined a trip to Interview #1, and instead, DS Hopgood and I stood off to the side in the police station’s lobby.

  “It’s poor journalism at best,” he said. “I’d pay it no mind, if I were you. I’ve certainly learned to.”

  “It is his goal to make our lives miserable,” I complained.

  “He’s full of hot air,” the DS replied. “I’ve seen the sort before—he’s all mouth and no trousers.”

  If he kept up this amiable demeanor, I’d soon be calling him Uncle Ronnie. But I thought I’d better take advantage while I could, so I next brought up the article on the break-ins. “And look here, Sergeant—about this series of robberies. No hall stands gone missing?”

  One side of his mouth lifted, drawing up a corner of his mustache. “My apologies for borrowing your turn of phrase, but it was a fine example.”

  “Those robberies had ‘no sign of forced entry’—just as ours did.”

  Hopgood nodded. “I tried to see a connection between the two enquiries, but the simple fact is that nothing was taken at Middlebank—and robbers are so seldom murderers. A thief wants to get in and get out without any fuss. Unlike at Middlebank, where someone took the effort to bring the victim into the house, thus creating a murder scene.”

  Defeated, I dropped my phone in my bag. “And Charles Henry Dill?” I asked without hope. “What was he doing in Grove Street? With whom had he stayed before he moved to the Royal Crescent Hotel?”

  “The business of your Society, Ms. Burke, unless a law is broken, is not the business of the police.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Sergeant Hopgood’s mention of the Society was as good as an answer—Charles Henry must have been staying with Maureen Frost in Grove Street. Why hadn’t I thought of that before this moment? Because I’d jumped to conclusions, that’s why. I’d seen Dill and then I’d seen Lulu Ingleby, and I had latched on to the idea that the two of them had carried out the break-in and the murder. Evidence—or the lack thereof—was forcing me to look elsewhere for Trist’s killer.

  Lulu remained a suspect in my mind. I had seen her argue with Pauline, her employer, and there had been what looked to me like a suspicious exchange between Lulu and Leonard. But I had not a shred of evidence against her, and I felt Sergeant Hopgood, as kindly as he’d been about my suspicions of Charles Henry, was nearing his limit of patience. Surely I could carry out this one piece of investigation on my own in order to eliminate her from the enquiry. Or put her in the frame.

  I rang Pauline.

  “Hiya, Hayley.” I could hear the clanking of metal behind her—must be a delivery of kegs to the Minerva.

  “Sorry to bother you at work. I had a quick question about Lulu.” I wasn’t sure how I could ask this without making it sound important and mysterious, but I could only try.

  “Hang on.” Pauline turned away from the phone and I heard her say, “Did he ask you about the winter ale? Right, fine—yeah, I’m sure he’ll let you know. No, here now, I can sign for him.” When she came back to the phone, she sounded both distracted and annoyed. “You want to know about the little princess? Don’t get me started. If she doesn’t show up here in the next hour, I’m giving her the boot. What did you want to know?”

  “Oh, nothing, really,” I gushed, thrilled with my accidental success. “I remembered you were concerned, and only wondered how it was going. It sounds like you’re busy, though—we’ll talk on Thursday. See you.”

  There you are—I would head for the Minerva, snap a photo of Lulu, and show it around to the writers and Mrs. Woolgar. I might even stick it in Charles Henry’s face to see if I got a reaction. If one of them recognized her, we could be onto something. That is, I would hand over the matter to the police.

  I hurried up to Northumberland Place and to the café on the other side of the pub. I marched in, ordered and paid, and then installed myself at an outdoor table. When the server brought out my coffee and cinnamon bun, he made a comment about the heavy gray skies and chill in the air and said they wouldn’t start up the outdoor heater until the lunch crowd arrived. Didn’t I want an inside table? I’d brought only a light jacket along, not expecting to spend a late October morning staking out a pub, but I told him the temperature suited me fine, and he shrugged, probably thinking I was a smoker.

  I pulled one of the old paperbacks out of my bag. A Caribbean Mystery—I had thought it might be fun to see Miss Marple on holiday. I opened it to a random page and kept one eye on the door of the pub while sipping my coffee and not even breaking my attention when I made a quick call to Wyn. Voice mail.

  Lulu appeared just short of her hour deadline, wearing coveralls and her Cleaned by Pauline bandanna. The lane had filled with pedestrians, and the other café tables were occupied with people already ordering lunch—they sat clustered round the heater—and so she didn’t notice me even though I was only twenty feet away. I fumbled for my phone—my fingers numb from the cold—and moved to the edge of my chair, ready and waiting. Lulu popped out of the pub in only a couple of minutes, looking flushed and flustered. She tore the bandanna off, ran her fingers through her black curls, and tossed the scarf in the nearest bin. When she looked round, I ducked behind my Miss Marple, and when I saw Lulu stomp away, I hurried after, wanting to get just close enough for a clear shot.

  When she looked back over her shoulder, I hopped into a shop doorway and right onto the toe of an extremely high-heeled shoe. “So sorry. Are you all right?” I asked the woman wearing it. I didn’t wait for an answer, but bounded away up to the next shop entry. Lulu had stopped—here it was, my chance. I stuck my arm out into the lane, only barely able to tell I was pointing at my subject, and snapped once, readjusted, and snapped again. I checked that it had worked.

  It had—too well. My cold finger had lingered on the button, and instead of a couple of photos, I’d taken two “bursts” of about thirty each. Were any of them useful? I glanced at the first few—yes, I could recognize Lulu. But would anyone else?

  After making certain she had disappeared, I stepped out into the lane and saw my phone screen rapidly spattered with heavy raindrops. I stuck it back in my bag, put my collar up, and hurried off.

  25

  What began as fat drops rapidly grew into sheets of unrelenting rain, and by the time I had climbed the terrace and reached Middlebank, I could barely see from the rain in my eyes, and my hand shook with cold when I put the key in the lock.

  Inside, I dripped on the entry rug and peered at myself in the hall-stand mirror. My drenched ponytail drooped in a single sodden hank, rivulets of water ran down my neck, and the light jacket I’d put on for a cool October morning would need to be wrung out. As I kicked off my shoes and shivered, my phone rang.

  “Dinah, sweetie, you’ve caught me just in from the rain. Can I ring you back?”

  “No need, Mum—I only wanted to tell you this one thing. I mentioned to Dad about getting a car, and he said he would be willing to sell me his. He sort of acted as if it was already done and dusted. It’s a cute car, I know, but I thought I’d find out from you if that would be the . . . you know, right sort of thing to do.”

  Anger flared in an instant, and I had to take another look at myself in the mirror to make sure I didn’t look like a cartoon character with steam coming out of my ears.

  “Listen, sweetie”—I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead—“wouldn’t you rather have a little Ford Fiesta? Something guaranteed to run?”

  We both got a laugh out of that, mine sharp and caustic. Roger’s ancient sports car spent more time with the mechanic than it did on the road. And here he was trying to foist it off on his own daughter. Of course, he knew who would be paying for it.

  “Yeah,” Dinah sai
d in a rush, and I could hear the relief in her voice, “that’s what I thought, too. But, you know how he is. I wonder if—”

  “Let me have a word with him. And then we’ll start looking for a proper car for you, all right?”

  We rang off, and I squished my way over to Mrs. Woolgar’s office. When the secretary caught sight of me, she hurried over before I could step in.

  “Have you ever seen this woman?” I asked. Shivering, I held up a photo of Lulu.

  Mrs. Woolgar adjusted her glasses and examined the image. “No,” she said. “Who is she?”

  “She works for Pauline. She looks . . . shifty.”

  Mrs. Woolgar didn’t answer, but gave me a look.

  “I don’t know if it has anything to do with Pauline—it’s just an idea I have.”

  I dropped the phone into my bag. “But for now, I need a hot shower. And then I think I’ll spend the rest of the day in my flat reading Lady Fowling’s notebooks, if you don’t mind. I’m not going back out in that.” I headed for the stairs, but stopped. “Mrs. Woolgar—what about Jane Arbuthnot?”

  “Promising news on that front—she’s distancing herself from Maureen and this whole affair.” The secretary blushed. “That is, the . . . well, regardless, she understands the danger Charles Henry represents. I’ll have another word with Maureen, try to make her see sense.”

  * * *

  * * *

  A hot shower did wonders for me. I dried my hair and dressed in . . . I confess, I put on my flannel pajamas, literally giving up for the rest of the day. Bunter had followed me to my flat, no doubt sensing the possibility of a nap, and had settled at the end of the sofa.

  I joined him. A bowl of grapes and the carton of notebooks within reach, I covered myself with a throw. I was asleep in seconds, and awoke two hours later when Bunter sat down on my chest. I got up and opened the door for him and he trotted away, full of purpose. I stretched, popped a few grapes, and thought how rare for me to have an afternoon to myself in my own flat. Also, I was quite hungry, but lunchtime was long over. An early dinner? While I considered my options, I had a cup of tea and two tiny Bakewell tarts, and, thus fortified, rang my ex.