‘And he explained everything, and I dropped the charges immediately.’
Arrina turned around to face Olly. His shoulders were hunched, and his arms were wrapped around his skinny midsection. She turned back to Tony.
‘You dropped the charges?’ Arrina asked.
‘That’s right. Olly had an alibi for the time of the murder. He was too scared to explain in front of his parents, but when I got him down to the station, he told me everything. On the night of Hugo’s murder, a friend of his was waiting in a car outside the college. As soon as Olly walked off the screen from that rock-throwing video—which I still don’t know how you obtained, by the way—the two of them drove into the village. They were caught by another camera well before the time of the murder, and the other boy’s father confirmed the two of them were in his house until mid-afternoon that day.’
‘I’m so sorry about the cameras, miss,’ Olly said quietly from behind Arrina. He walked around to stand by Tony. ‘It was for my coursework. You know, for the module on social...’ He trailed off and raked his fingers through his hair once again. ‘It doesn’t matter. My parents already made it clear there’s no excuse for vandalism, even if it’s intended as art. I had replacement cameras in the car that I was going to leave on your desk. But I know I shouldn’t have done it. I’m really, really sorry.’
‘This is a lot to take in,’ Arrina said. ‘I appreciate your apology, and I’m glad you’ve realised it was wrong to break the cameras. But that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing living in the storage room of the village hall.’
She looked between Olly and Tony.
‘And it definitely doesn’t explain why everyone in the village still seems to think you’re the murderer,’ she continued. She stared hard at Tony.
He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. This was the same action she’d seen many times when Tony felt bad about something he’d said or done.
‘That phone call you overheard on Wednesday,’ he started. ‘It was about the college, like you thought. The SOCOs had sent some rush forensics in—hairs and prints around the crime scene as well as the murder weapon. They came back with nothing. Absolutely nothing that pointed to any suspect.’
‘You said bathrooms can be tricky.’
‘Right, but they had nothing, and no idea where to start looking next. And we couldn’t find the CCTV tape from that night. Though it did miraculously turn up the next day. I don’t suppose there’s anything you’d like to share about that?’
Wilfred must have copied the original for Arrina and put it back. ‘I think I might go with no comment right about now.’
Tony squinted as he stared at her but didn’t push it. ‘When we saw the tape, I went straight over to Olly’s to arrest him. But then he gave me his alibi, and I was able to verify it within a couple of hours.’
‘So then where has he been?’ Arrina’s voice came out louder than she’d intended. ‘And why does everyone in Heathervale still think one of my college students is a killer?’
Both Olly and Tony looked like little kids then, wishing that silence would make the problem go away.
‘It was my idea,’ Olly piped up.
‘Olly—’ Tony started.
‘No, really. It was my idea. I felt so bad about the cameras and then keeping it a secret and making the police waste time coming to arrest me. And I wanted to do something to help.’
‘How is this helping?’ Arrina asked, looking around the room, still mystified.
‘We didn’t have a suspect,’ Tony said. ‘And the worry at the station was that whoever had killed Hugo might strike again if they figured out we didn’t have any leads.’
‘But if they thought you had arrested Olly, surely, the killer knew they were safe.’
Tony shook his head. ‘If they killed someone else while Olly was locked up, it would have been clear we’d got the wrong man.’
‘I heard the officers talking about it,’ Olly chimed in, ‘and I asked if I could help them by staying in custody. I didn’t mind. Actually, I thought it might be good material for my art.’
‘But we couldn’t keep him legally,’ Tony said. ‘Not officially in a cell at the station, in any case.’
‘Then I had the idea to come here!’ Olly was standing straighter and holding his head up high again. ‘I painted these flats for the panto.’ He pointed at the palace and the kitchen. ‘And I knew that nobody would use this room until they got the baskets out for the harvest festival in a couple of months.’
Arrina looked around at the room again.
‘So, he’s just staying here until we get another lead,’ Tony said.
‘Is there a kettle in here?’ Arrina asked. ‘I don’t think I can process this without a brew in my hand.’
‘Coming right up,’ Olly said. He scurried off to the makeshift tea station in the corner of the room. ‘I’d just boiled it before you walked in.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you,’ Tony said to Arrina. His voice was low and gentle, and it made her have to look away and focus on Olly’s tea-making.
‘Do you have a lead yet?’ Arrina asked, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.
Tony shook his head. ‘I should be asking you that. I don’t know how, but you’re everywhere I turn in this investigation. Do you have a lead?’
‘I thought I did, but now...’
Olly put a cup of tea into Arrina’s hands. The familiar warmth of it seeped in through her palms.
‘What was it?’
‘I thought that Fiona Hayes had murdered her husband,’ Arrina said. ‘It sounds stupid, but I overheard her shouting about Hugo’s will, and I got the wrong end of the stick. Then I found an expensive bracelet dropped into the grass by her house. I thought it all added up to an affair and that Fiona had killed him out of jealousy.’
Tony stared at her without any hint of a reaction. This was his police face, and she’d hated coming up against it in arguments when they were together. She didn’t like it much now either.
Arrina blew on her hot cup of tea.
‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ he asked.
‘I... it was stupid. I was barking up entirely the wrong tree.’ Arrina thought of Maggie Lee then and the young woman’s fond smile as she’d talked about Fiona as if she were family.
‘I don’t know,’ Tony said. ‘I’ve received several statements that Hugo and Fiona were living apart this summer. So I think you could be on the right track.’
‘No, I’m not. Hugo wasn’t having an affair. He moved in with his brother temporarily while his family was... dealing with something.’ She didn’t want to bring Maggie into this, but she could tell from Tony’s hard stare that she would have to. ‘Hugo Hayes had a secret daughter that nobody knew about. She came to the village at the start of the summer, and it caused some difficulties in Hugo and Fiona’s marriage.’
‘Oh!’ said Olly. ‘That’s why he was at the farm that night. He said he’d been out walking the dog because he couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t understand why he was at the farm, not his house.’
‘Right,’ Tony said. ‘That’s why he was there.’ He nodded slowly, his face still giving nothing away. ‘But I have to say that a secret daughter showing up out of the blue still points to Fiona as the murderer. You said there was a problem with the will as well?’
‘Not a problem,’ Arrina said. ‘I don’t think it was any problem. I’m pretty sure. Hugo was going to change his will to turn the farm over to his daughter instead of Fiona. But it sounded like he didn’t get around to it before he was killed.’
Arrina wasn’t sure of that. But it was the only sense she could make of Fiona’s anger about the will on Wednesday.
‘That’s even more of a motive,’ Tony said. ‘If Fiona was going to be cut out of the will, then she’d want to kill him before he finalised it. When it comes to murder, money is the best motivator. It turns the least likely people into cold-blooded killers.’
‘The change in the will
was Fiona’s idea.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Hugo’s daughter.’
Tony’s face gave a flicker of reaction then. His eyes widened slightly at the news that Arrina knew the woman. Olly, standing next to him, had a far more openly shocked expression. Arrina hesitated before adding:
‘She’s a new teacher at the college. Maggie Lee.’
Tony pulled his notepad out of his back pocket. He wrote something down then looked up at Arrina again. ‘And are you sure you can trust this woman’s judgement of the situation?’
Arrina thought back to Maggie’s explanation of what she knew. ‘Well, she seems a little naïve, perhaps, but—’
‘OK.’ Tony snapped his notebook shut. ‘I think this warrants looking into a little further. I’m going to the station to gather some files and talk to my colleagues. Then we’ll go and speak to Fiona and this Maggie Lee. And though I know you’re going to ignore this, I’m asking you to stay out of this case. Whoever killed Hugo is dangerous. I don’t want you to...’ His dark eyes looked deeply into hers. ‘It’s not safe.’
He turned to Olly and said, ‘Hopefully, this is the lead we’ve been waiting for. We’ll get you out of here soon.’
Olly glanced up at the high windows then back to Tony. ‘OK,’ he said. He forced a smile to his face.
Tony left in a rush of efficiency. And only after he had gone did Arrina walk up to Olly and give the tall boy a hug. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said.
Olly sniffed a little, and when Arrina pulled back to look him in the eye, she could see he was struggling. The boy hadn’t known what he was signing up for when he’d agreed to hide here in order to help the police.
Arrina could see the dark circles under his eyes. And when she’d seen the boy’s mother outside, the strain had been obvious in her too.
The family needed to be free of the burden of this false suspicion. Tony was trying his best to help them, but Arrina knew he was looking in the wrong direction. Now, he was about to subject Fiona Hayes and Maggie Lee to a wrongful accusation as well. And the two women had already been through so much. This was the last thing they needed.
Arrina felt awful that she’d been the one to point Tony in their direction. She hadn’t meant to. She’d just wanted to help Olly and his family.
She was sure that Fiona and Maggie had nothing to do with the murder though. Neither of them.
But then, who did?
When it comes to murder, money is the best motivator.
That’s what Tony had said. And it gave Arrina an idea.
‘I’ll be back later,’ Arrina said to Olly as she dashed around the wall of boxes that concealed his hideaway. Then she headed into the main hall and went back to stand where she’d been when Olly had called out and revealed his presence.
She stared at the noticeboard of planning applications and walked down to the one at the very end of the row.
Money is the best motivator.
She thought it over again as she looked at the planning application in front of her.
Was it possible that the answer was staring her right in the face?
31
If the government put a road through someone’s land, they gave the person compensation. Two years earlier, when the bypass plans had officially been released, gossip in the village had been about nothing else. People whispered nonstop for weeks about who was getting payouts and for exactly how much.
The Hayes family had got a big chunk of money because the bypass cut off a corner of their land. Many people had been bitter about this since the family didn’t need the money. But Hugo had been a generous sponsor of many local events, and the bitterness soon faded away.
Since the bypass had been completed, fresh arguments had bubbled up over the proposal for an access road. Schools and hospitals got first option on proposing a route, according to local guidelines. And since there were no medical facilities in Heathervale, that just left Arrina’s college. She was entitled to three chances to submit her proposal before the option was opened up to other suggestions for routes. She’d been frustrated by the process, but it had seemed that by the third round of submissions, she’d shored herself up against any complaints the council might have with putting her route forwards to the county.
And yet the vote on the matter had been conducted behind closed doors, without Arrina having any opportunity to make her case. Then it had been rejected for a third and final time, meaning that anyone from the village was now free to make their pitch.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that Gillian DeViers had been one of the first bidders on a route for the road.
Arrina didn’t quite understand why Gillian would want the route to go through her house, but knowing Gillian, it must be something that would benefit her greatly.
Gillian would have to declare her interest in the application, but since she’d submitted it through her family company, she could keep at least some illusion of distance by making her sister present the bid. Everyone in the village would know that Gillian was the one behind it. But she was the chair of the Parish Council, and nobody there had enough confidence to stand up to her, so the route was sure to go ahead.
Gillian would get the payout from the county when her house and land were wiped out by the access road.
But how could that have led to Hugo getting killed? Could the promise of money from the county have motivated Gillian to take drastic measures to ensure Arrina’s vote would fail? Taking the vote behind closed doors was the only way to do it without everybody seeing exactly how crooked she was—it was one thing to show favour to her sister, but quite another to flatly turn down a bid without cause. But would Gillian kill a person to set that up?
Arrina honestly didn’t know.
And she also didn’t know why Gillian would want to get rid of her house in the first place. It would bring in money but not more than the land was worth. She could sell the place and be done with it far more easily.
Arrina tried to figure it out, but she couldn’t come up with anything.
She considered all of Gillian’s connections to what had gone on over the past few days.
Gillian had been the one to discover Hugo’s body in the college. At the time, it had seemed like an unfortunate coincidence that Gillian was there that afternoon. But perhaps it had been the woman’s plan all along. And she had recovered very quickly from her shock and run straight to Victor Stones to get Arrina in trouble.
Gillian would certainly have expected a murder in the college to throw off Arrina’s preparation for the access road vote. Besides which, the terrible events would turn all possible positive sentiment in the village against Arrina. Meaning nobody would care if she lost her bid for the road.
Arrina stared at the map printed on Gillian’s planning application once again. The bright-red road on it was like a slash of blood across the landscape. Was the money the road would bring really enough to kill someone over?
Arrina could scarcely believe it.
But it was the best lead she had in Hugo’s murder. And it was the only lead she had that could take Tony’s attention away from Fiona and Maggie.
Arrina pulled Gillian’s application down from the wall. She would thrust it in front of the unpleasant woman’s face and see how she explained it away.
Before Arrina turned to leave, she pulled down the other application as well—the one from the Yates family, which took the route through the Morgan family farm. There had been enough upset over this stupid road. She wasn’t going to let things get worse between the Yates and the Morgan families over this thing.
She stuffed the Yates family application into the bin in the corner of the room then folded up Gillian’s form and put it in her handbag. Then Arrina got into her car and set off to track down Gillian DeViers. Arrina would make the woman explain what was going on. Then she would take her evidence to Tony and force him to see that his focus on Fiona and Maggie was all wrong.
This time, she wouldn’t let him t
alk over her or push her away. He would listen to her and believe what she said.
32
Arrina had a few ideas about where to find Gillian at this hour on a Saturday. Possibilities included the local stables or one of the many spas over in Buxton or even at a brunch in the regal surroundings of Chatsworth House. However, the most likely option was the weekly meeting of the Women’s Institute, over which Gillian prevailed like a queen. The meeting took place in the Lavender Room of Wolferton Manor, an old country house that had been converted into a self-aggrandising hotel that Arrina disliked immensely.
When she’d first moved to the village, she’d considered attending a meeting of the Women’s Institute. She knew the WI had a reputation of being full of jam-obsessed housewives, but she’d hoped to make a few friends there or at least earn a little goodwill as a newcomer to the village. But when she’d found out who ran it, she changed her mind.
Arrina manoeuvred along the winding driveway of Wolferton Manor and up to the imposing country house. She sped to the front, sending up a spray of gravel in her wake and feeling tempted to cut across the driveway’s unnecessary bends and plough through the box-hedge topiary to get there even faster.
She parked outside the building, ignoring the doorman’s ineffectual attempts to signal her to go elsewhere. The Women’s Institute meeting was due to start at half past ten, and Arrina wanted to corner Gillian before the woman had a chance to settle in among a sea of supportive allies.
‘Miss, could I just—’ asked the tuxedoed doorman, rushing after her on silent feet, with a pained expression at having to inconvenience a guest. ‘Might I perhaps—’
Arrina stopped and turned to him with a wide, smarmy grin—doing her best to channel the entitlement of Gillian DeViers and her friends. ‘I just need to very quickly pop in to see the ladies in the Lavender Room,’ she said before flashing the grin again. ‘Then I’ll be right on my way and move my car from its terribly naughty parking space.’
She wished she were dressed in something a little smarter than jeans and a black jumper. It would have made the act far more convincing. But the doorman clearly knew what was good for him and avoided risking the ire of even the worst-dressed member of the Women’s Institute. With a swift nod, he turned away.
The Slay of the Land (The Heathervale Mysteries Book 1) Page 19
