Maureen then summed up Dill’s pronouncement with, “Once I appealed to Charles Henry’s better nature, he understood the distress he’d caused.”
This was followed by a stunned silence in which I, for one, struggled with the thought of Dill having a better nature. Fortunately, Maureen saved us from responding by glancing at her watch and saying, “Lunch at one thirty.”
Charles Henry stood at attention. “Yes, well—good afternoon to you all.” He offered his arm to Maureen, and to us, a closemouthed smile. I couldn’t quite be sure it didn’t have clenched teeth behind it.
The three of us stared at the door after they’d gone.
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
“A leopard doesn’t change its spots,” Mrs. Woolgar said.
“And yet,” Mr. Rennie commented, “there’s no point in worrying about his next attempt until it comes.”
“Right, well,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. Rennie, for delivering the good news. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I retreated to my office and took my sandwich from my bag, but came out only a moment later. Charles Henry had pushed the murder investigation to the back of my mind, but I needed to tell Mrs. Woolgar about Lulu and Amanda. I paused before I reached her door when I heard the solicitor say, “Are you sure you’re all right, Glynis? You know you don’t have to stay here.”
“Yes, Duncan, thank you, I do know that,” the secretary replied. “But I believe it’s best for us—Ms. Burke and me—to remain. What would it look like to the world if the only employees of the Society turn tail and run over this incident? And surely the police are close to getting it sorted.”
Mrs. Woolgar emerged from her office as she spoke, and we met face-to-face, both turning a bit pink.
“Oh, Ms. Burke,” she said, averting her eyes. “Mr. Rennie and I are just going to lunch.”
“Yes, lunch.” My chicken and stuffing sandwich waited for me on my desk.
“Not the Gainsborough, I’m afraid,” Rennie said, emerging from the office.
“Certainly not,” Mrs. Woolgar replied. “It’s the company that makes an enjoyable meal, not the price on the menu.”
I watched as the solicitor helped her on with her coat, and I saw his hands rest ever so briefly on her shoulders. My, my, Mrs. Woolgar—there’s more to you than meets the eye.
Rennie had opened the door, but the secretary hesitated.
“Ms. Burke, one of your writers stopped in.”
“Oh—was it Harry?” Perhaps Harry had found a break in her busy day at the flower shop.
“No, one of the women,” the secretary replied, and I had opened my mouth to explain that Harry was one of the women, when she added, “The one who cut off her long braid.”
“Amanda?” I mouthed her name but wasn’t sure any sound came out.
“Yes, that’s it, Amanda. I explained you were out and she asked could she wait, and so I put her in the kitchenette rather than your office. Duncan and I were in the middle of the charitable-trust business. After about ten minutes, she looked in and said never mind, she wouldn’t wait, and she left.”
At the sound of Amanda’s name, I had stopped breathing, but had enough time by the end of Mrs. Woolgar’s explanation to start up again.
“Oh, good. Gone. Yes.” I put my hand on my chest and felt my heart thumping.
“Should I have asked her to wait longer?”
“No! It’s only that—” Really, what was the point of making them stay back from a lunch date to explain how far the enquiry had come? I would fill her in later. In an offhand manner I said, “Listen, as I’ll be on my own here, perhaps I’ll just set the alarm. Couldn’t hurt, could it? Just so you remember to turn it off when you return.”
That gave Mrs. Woolgar pause, but I didn’t want to spoil their date, so I sent them on their way with a “Have a lovely afternoon—don’t hurry back.”
I shut the door, set the alarm, and called the police.
30
Amanda was here, Sergeant, and not long ago.”
I stood in the middle of the front hall, my voice bouncing off the hard surfaces.
“I’ll send someone round, Ms. Burke,” Hopgood said.
“No, she’s gone now. Mrs. Woolgar said she was waiting for me, but then decided to leave. Do you think she knows I found the notebook? Do you think she knows I suspect her of the murder? Has she heard that you’ve got Lulu? Is Lulu talking?”
“Ms. Burke, first of all, keep yourself safe.”
“Yes, I’m all right. The doors are locked, the alarm is on.”
“We are out looking for Ms. Seabrook now.”
“You will let me know, won’t you—when you find her?”
“Will do.”
With that promise, we ended the call. I remained standing, as if glued to the flagstones of the front hall, wondering what it would be like when the police caught up with Amanda. I shook myself out of that daydream, went to my office, picked up my sandwich, and carried it into the kitchenette to make a cup of tea. But it seemed a bleak place to eat alone, and so I left the world behind me and took my lunch upstairs to my flat.
* * *
* * *
After I ate, I intended to get to work on . . . what? Writing the newsletter? Mapping out the salons? Beginning to read a new book from my piles of used paperback mysteries? The thought exhausted me—I had no energy, not even for books.
Instead, I stretched out on the sofa, thinking I could get quite accustomed to an afternoon nap. I closed my eyes and awoke what seemed like a minute later, disoriented, as afternoon light streamed through the sitting room windows. Four o’clock. I propped myself up on my elbows. I needed a cup of tea. Then a single word floated through my foggy brain.
Diorama.
Yes, there’s an activity I could handle while I waited to hear from the police—find Dinah’s diorama in the attic, give her a ring to tell her of my success, and ask a few questions about this fellow she met for a pint.
The attic door was unlocked, just as I’d left it the day before when Val had arrived with our Waitrose feast. Should I ring him to confirm our dinner date tomorrow? Shouldn’t he ring me?
I pushed in the door and switched on the single overhead light. A tortoiseshell form scampered past and I followed him in.
“I say, Bunter, you wouldn’t want to have a look at the gnawed furniture in the far back, would you? And if you find the responsible party, could you take care of things? If you know what I mean.” He paused to shake a paw, and I noticed his prints in the thick dust and the police footprints that had almost vanished. I saw my own prints from yesterday—and then I saw a fresh set.
The prints had an intricate waffle design, like the soles of trainers— so different from my black ballet flats. Their path led to the cartons that I had stacked in the center of the room—and that now lay open, their contents strewn about.
Bewildered, I crept closer, trying to make sense of what I saw. Who had done this? Not Bunter after mice. Were my stacks so precarious that the cartons had tumbled over of their own accord? I peered into the corners of the room to assess further damage, but saw none. I should leave—beyond that thought, my mind had become numb. Yes, leave—discretion is the better part of valor, after all. More to the point—ring the police.
I heard a noise behind me, and spun round to find Amanda pressed into the corner of the room.
She wore her red slicker over a skintight running outfit, and her blond shingle hairdo had cobwebs caught in it. She had her hands behind her back.
“Where’s my notebook?” she demanded.
“How did you get in here?” I shot back, my voice strong, but my knees weak.
“Where’s my notebook?”
Be reasonable, I thought. Perhaps that would get the wild look out of her eyes.
“Mrs. Woolgar said you’d left
.”
“Where’s my notebook?”
“It isn’t your notebook!”
Her eyes widened, and she advanced on me. That’s when I saw what was in her hand—Dinah’s old cricket bat.
“It is mine,” she said. “You know what they say about possession and the law.”
“Well, you don’t have it now, do you? It’s Lady Fowling’s notebook—it always was and always will be. And she would never have condoned what you’ve done.” As I spoke, I backed away slowly, threading my way through the mess of cartons.
“Lady Fowling—pfft! When I found it, the notebook became mine, not hers. It was stuck inside a copy of The Secret Adversary on one of the Christie shelves in the library. Tommy and Tuppence!”
“You came back to the library after everyone had gone.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “So what if I did?”
“You were a guest of the Society, and you took advantage—rummaging through the books on the shelves, taking what you wanted.”
“Don’t you see—the notebook was a sign, it was my talisman. It meant I could stop writing those same ten bloody pages over and over again. Then it went missing.” Her eyes became glassy as she remembered. “Trist had seen me with it. And he had found out I was coming back into the library after we’d all left the pub. He thought he was such a wit when he claimed it was Lady Fowling’s ghost moving furniture around.”
I stepped over a heap of Dinah’s school uniforms and old cooking utensils as I backed up and said, “He followed you here that night, and you killed him.”
Amanda, in slow pursuit, shook her head. “That was his fault.”
She pointed the bat at me, and I noted a good two feet of clearance between me and the weapon. I took another step away as she continued.
“He shouldn’t’ve threatened me with telling everyone. I only gave him a bit of a shove. And then, there he was, dead.” She gazed down at the floor as if she could see Trist’s body. “Well, I couldn’t leave him there on Gravel Walk, could I? So, you see, I did him a favor.”
“If it was an accident, you could’ve phoned 999—they would’ve believed you.”
“Would they? No, easier to bring him into Middlebank—and such luscious irony. Who’s the body in the library now? What would his precious vampire-fighting Jane Marple say about that?” She became thoughtful, and I took the chance to glance at my position—I had put more distance between us but found myself farther back into the attic than I should be.
“Did you take his leather case?”
“I thought he had my notebook,” Amanda replied defensively. “But all the time, it was you who had taken it.”
She turned her attention and looked at me with fresh interest. I saw her hand grip the bat tighter.
“Did Lulu give you the security code and a copy of the key?” I asked.
Amanda laughed. “Greed makes a person easy to manipulate. I enticed her with the treasures of Middlebank—even though I knew there were none to her liking here. She was easily led. They all are—don’t you see? It was nothing for me to take over the group after Trist. And I’m a much better leader—I’m sure they’d all agree.”
“But you were blackmailing Lulu.”
“Yes, poor sausage.” Amanda laughed. “That worried her. I told her I’d collected drinking glasses in our flat that she’d touched and I’d hidden them away. I told her she’d be charged with murder if I transferred her dabs from those and put them all over Trist’s leather case and then planted it somewhere. Out in the back garden here, probably—you really should trim that honeysuckle.”
“All this for a notebook?”
“Does that seem trivial to you? Because . . . it isn’t.” She tapped the bat on her toe. “When I lost it, I lost my ability to write. I had been on the verge of a breakthrough—I could feel it. But then it was gone, and only wrong words came out. I thought Trist had taken it, but it was you—you stole it.”
“I don’t see how Lady Fowling’s grocery lists and favorite Poirot books could make a difference in your writing. They are hers, not yours.”
“Mine!” Amanda shrieked. “It was my connection to Christie and to Tommy and Tuppence.” A gleam appeared in her eyes. “But all right, perhaps the power is not in the exercise book itself, but in its first owner. So, if I can’t have that notebook, give me another.”
She actually held out a hand, as if I could pull an exercise book from thin air.
“No, Amanda, you cannot have another notebook. They don’t belong to you.”
She tilted her head, like a dog. Then the cricket bat came crashing down, obliterating a carton and sending a small wooden box flying through the air. It crashed into the wall, and my collection of matchbooks scattered across the floor. The cricket bat came down again, closer to me this time, and I leapt away, but it struck only the bedding carton and crushed only cardboard.
“Amanda, don’t do this.”
“Or what?”
“The police know everything.”
Her laugh was full of derision. “They know nothing. You think I don’t recognize that old trick?”
But the police did know everything. Apart from where Amanda was at this moment—and that was a problem. She stood between me and the door and had a large weapon. I, on the other hand, had nothing, unless I could pick up a heavy oak side chair and hurl it at her. If she was trying to frighten me, she was doing a good job. Was this to be my fate—beaten to death by an unhinged cricket-bat wielder in the attic?
“All right,” I said, swallowing the fear that rose in my throat. “I suppose I could get you another of those exercise books. They’re downstairs in my office.” They were in my flat, but I certainly wouldn’t let her follow me there.
“That’s a lie. They aren’t in your office—I looked. You really have terrible security here at Middlebank,” she chided me, “and after Trist turned up dead in your library. When I told your secretary I was leaving, she never even walked me out. She had no idea that all I did was open and close the front door, and then sneak up here. Last evening you told the group the notebooks had been in storage—but they aren’t here either.” She wiggled the bat at me with menace. “Where are they?”
I shuffled farther back and bumped into a table with no top that sat against the wall. Amanda drew the bat high into the air again and this time took aim at the carton marked BABY. In my mind I heard the strains of “Edelweiss” and saw the figurine and Dinah’s eyes.
“Stop that this instant!” I screamed, and the sheer volume of my voice caused Amanda to freeze. I took my chance and made a break for it—circling round her and running an agility race as I hopped among the paraphernalia of my life. I had just reached the door when she recovered and I felt a whoosh as the cricket bat missed my head. I ducked, lost my balance, and hurtled forward through the door and across the landing toward the stairs. A strong hand grabbed my shoulder and held me back just long enough so that I slowed, fell to my knees, and wrapped my arms round the newel. But forward momentum caused me to swing out over the top step, and I caught a glimpse of where I had almost gone—down the steep attic stairs. I looked behind me. There was no one—except Amanda, cricket bat held high over her head, charging out of the attic, onto the landing, and straight at me.
Then a horn blared so loudly I thought it was going off against my ear. Only after my heart jumped into my throat did I recognize it as our alarm system. Had someone broken in? The noise caused Amanda to flinch mid-attack, and then, out of nowhere, a tiny gray form skittered across her path, followed close on by a tortoiseshell streak. She tripped, lurched forward, and—letting loose of her weapon—fell flat on her face next to me. The bat clattered down the stairs.
31
I screamed. “Help! Upstairs! The attic!” But the continued blast of the alarm swallowed my voice. I thought I heard shouts but couldn’t make out the words.
&nbs
p; Amanda stirred. I tried to stand, but my rush of adrenaline had dissipated and my legs wouldn’t hold me. When I felt the vibration of feet, I stopped trying, and watched a swarm of uniformed officers beat their way up the stairs.
Most went directly to Amanda, but a female PC leaned over me. “You all right, love?” she shouted over the blast of the horn.
The alarm stopped, and the silence was deafening.
My ears were ringing, but I managed to say, “I’m not hurt.”
I put my head against the rails and saw, at the bottom of the attic stairs, Sergeant Hopgood with the cricket bat at his feet. His eyebrows shot up when he saw me, and I managed a tiny wave as officers escorted a suddenly docile Amanda down to meet him. She stood, dazed and deflated, as the DS advised her of her rights, after which, two uniforms took her away. When the stairs cleared, I stood, and keeping a firm grip on the railing, made my way down to the next landing.
“Ms. Burke,” Sergeant Hopgood said, “do you need medical attention?”
I shook my head. “I only need to sit down—and perhaps have a cup of tea.” The door to my flat stood open. “Would you like to come through?”
* * *
* * *
Middlebank was, once again, awash in police—in uniform, in plain clothes, in those blue paper coveralls—they flowed in and out of my flat and up and down the stairs. I comforted myself with the thought that at least the medical examiner wasn’t needed this time.
The Bodies in the Library Page 28
