Springtime for Murder Read online

  “And didn’t you make the right decision? Because, as you well know, Bunny is still very much alive.”

  “Yes, but Kitty very obviously isn’t. This is not a routine medical matter. It’s no accident. It’s a crime scene – with a crime that only the police can solve.”

  As the back door creaked open, I spun round, hoping to see the police. But it was only Billy.

  “There’s nothing for the police to solve here,” he said, his face crumpling as he leaned against the door jamb for support. “I tell you, it’s all my fault.”

  33 Billy Pours His Heart Out

  We rushed up the steps and ushered him back into the kitchen. I steered him to his seat and settled myself in the next chair, laying my arm around his shoulders to comfort him.

  “I should never have left Kitty and go to the pub,” he wailed. “I promised Bunny I’d always look out for her if ever she was left on her own.”

  “And so you did. I’ve never seen her look as well as she did on Thursday.”

  He shook his head.

  “Sophie, you don’t know the half of it. Bunny’s natural instinct was to keep her daughter away from temptation and harm. She kept alcohol out of the house so as not to tempt her, even though she used to enjoy a drop herself. She never rumbled the – you know, what Kitty used to grow in the garden.”

  I doubted his code would fool the doctor.

  Billy covered his face with his hands again.

  “What she hadn’t allowed for was my own addiction. I needed a beer last night, and I abandoned Kitty to her fate. I turned my back on my family duty.”

  He let his head slump down on to the table, his shoulders heaving as he sobbed in silence.

  A flurry of high-heeled footsteps alerted us to Angelica coming downstairs. Seeing us, she hesitated in the kitchen doorway, pale as a sheet of paper. She seemed to realise immediately that she’d walked into a crisis.

  “You didn’t abandon her,” she said, her voice gentle. “Kitty spent the evening with me, remember? We had a good old chat.” She crossed the room to lay a comforting hand on Billy’s shoulder. “We had a lovely evening. She told me lots of funny stories about what Stuart was like when he was a little boy. Where is Kitty now? Still in bed?”

  Her face fell as she interpreted our sombre expressions.

  “I’m afraid she’s had a terrible accident, Angelica,” I said, aware of needing to break bad news gently to someone in her condition. But she seemed already to have sensed what it was.

  “You mean my baby will never know his Auntie Kitty?”

  She collapsed on to the nearest free dining chair, threw her arms and head down on to the table and began to sob loudly – a little over the top for someone who’d spent only hours in Kitty’s company.

  “She invited you to stay the night?” asked the doctor. “You mean you’ve been upstairs since yesterday evening?”

  Angelica sat up and wiped her eyes.

  “Yes, because she said Stuart was due to be calling in here this morning, so the quickest way for me to get hold of him would be to sit tight and wait.”

  “So if Stuart wasn’t here last night,” I asked gently, “where was he?”

  Angelica blinked in surprise. “I’ve no idea. He wasn’t answering his mobile phone.”

  “Didn’t that worry you?”

  “Oh no, he’s always misplacing it or letting it run out of charge. I’m used to him not answering his mobile phone when he’s away on business. I gave up worrying about that a long time ago.” She flashed a tender smile at the memory of his foibles. “Kitty suggested he might be at their mother’s hospital bedside keeping an all-night vigil.” Her face fell. “Poor Stuart. Perhaps it will be a double funeral, mother and child together, Bunny and Kitty. How unnatural is that?” Her hands flew protectively to her stomach.

  Billy groaned and rubbed his eyes roughly. “Auntie Bunny will outlive the lot of us yet.”

  “You see, that’s exactly why I didn’t call the police after Bunny’s accident,” said Dr Perkins. “She’s remarkably resilient. I’m her family doctor, by the way.”

  He held out his hand for Angelica to shake.

  “Former doctor,” said Billy, narrowing his eyes. “A retired doctor, not a detective.”

  “Sherlock Holmes found Dr Watson invaluable,” retorted the doctor.

  Angelica leapt to Billy’s defence.

  “Frankly, doctor, if my mother-in-law’s injuries put her close enough to death’s door to bring Stuart to her bedside to say his goodbyes, I’m wondering whether your response at the scene of her accident was inadequate.”

  “Thank you, Angelica, my thoughts exactly!” I said, relieved that someone besides me and Hector was seeing sense at last.

  “Offering first aid on the spot in a crisis is one thing for those ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ moments,” she went on. “But trying to be a one-man 999 service is quite another. I hope you wouldn’t also try to cover for the fire service?”

  “Let’s set fire to him and see, shall we?” asked Billy, rallying.

  Dr Perkins shot Billy a more venomous look than one might expect from a GP. “My dear lady, if you’re looking for suspicious characters, I suggest you look no further than Billy Thompson there.”

  Billy leapt to his feet so sharply that he knocked over the chair he’d been sitting on. As he clenched his fists, the doctor stepped back to dodge him, and moved the nearest chair between them in self-defence. Billy looked at the chair, thought better of it, and stood up the one he’d knocked over instead.

  “After all,” the doctor continued, smiling slightly, “Sophie found Billy on the patio with the hammer used to murder Kitty.”

  “What do you think this is, a board game?” asked Billy, sitting down hard on his chair in astonishment.

  “And thinking back to Bunny’s ‘accident’—” the doctor mimed air quotes at this last word “—Bunny was found in a grave dug by Billy, camouflaged with a grassy tarpaulin, while his means of getting her there, a wheelchair, was clumsily hidden in his compost heap.”

  “I never touched that wheelchair!” cried Billy.

  The doctor hadn’t finished. “And who else was a guest of the house when Mrs Lot was found slumped in the driving seat of her car?” His smile slowly broadened and he turned to me, as if hoping to engage my complicity. “Yes, Billy Thompson. I rest my case.”

  34 A Pauline Conversion

  “Nonsense on both counts,” I said. “The blood on the hammer was already starting to dry when I found Billy with it. The attack must have happened when he was up at the shop buying sausages. And Billy wasn’t at the Manor House at all when Mrs Lot was taken ill.”

  The doctor blinked. “Wasn’t he?”

  “He’d been having elevenses at Hector’s House during her visit, and found her asleep at the wheel of her car on his way back. As you well know, Dr Perkins, because you happened to be walking past the Manor House when Hector arrived in response to Billy’s call to the bookshop.”

  Angelica looked puzzled. “And Hector is?”

  “The local bookseller. He owns the shop where you first met me yesterday.”

  Angelica raised her eyebrows. “So are booksellers part of the emergency services in this village too? What did you expect Hector to do, fend off her attacker with a copy of War and Peace?”

  “The police will bag the hammer up and take it away for prints,” I said, trying not to panic on Billy’s behalf.

  “Well, obviously it’ll have my fingerprints on it,” said Billy crossly. “I picked it up to look at it. It’s not as if it’s got my name on it.”

  “Has it got someone else’s name on it, then?” asked Angelica.

  “I suppose it might have the owner’s postcode,” I said. “The police are running a campaign at the moment to get people to put postcodes on their valuables in SmartWater. They came in a few weeks ago and did our till.”

  Billy hesitated. “Funnily enough, there was a name on it, but that don’t mea
n nothing. Anybody could have picked it up from the back of the pub. One of Paul’s workmen was telling me last week that they like working out here because they can leave their tools out overnight and no-one will pinch them.”

  I stared at him. “So whose name is on the hammer?”

  Billy cast an apologetic look to Angelica.

  “Brady Homes. My cousin Paul Brady’s outfit. Estranged half-brother of Kitty and whole brother to this lady’s fancy man, Stuart.”

  “Husband,” said Angelica. “Brother to my husband.” Then, as if realising she might be positioning herself too close for comfort to the suspect, she added, “Not that I’ve ever met Paul Brady.”

  “You haven’t missed much,” I said before I could stop myself. “I mean, he’s rude and abrasive, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “Some people might even describe him as generous,” said Billy. “He buys a good round in the pub.”

  “Yes, out of self-interest.” I hadn’t forgiven him yet for hijacking Hector the previous night.

  “What self-interest?” asked Angelica

  I glanced at Billy.

  “It’s no secret that he wants to convert this house into a care home for the elderly, against the wishes of Bunny and Kitty.”

  “Well, I think his plans are laudable,” put in the doctor. “Look around you. Can’t you see the Manor House would make an excellent care home? Generous room sizes, a beautiful, secluded garden, and a pleasant community setting. As a medical man, I’d give it my seal of approval.”

  He sounded more like an estate agent than a medic.

  “But it is his mother’s home, and his sister’s,” said Billy. “What makes him think he has the right? Why can’t he at least hold his horses till his mother passes on? It’s not likely to be a long wait at her age, God have mercy on her soul.”

  “You’ve just said yourself she’ll outlive the lot of us,” returned the doctor. “Besides, the pair of them would have had a much better quality of life if properly cared for in a good home. You’re all talking nonsense. Paul was well on the way to converting the Manor.”

  Billy wasn’t rising to the bait. “I may not be a medical man. Not even a retired medical man. But I knows about human decency and independence and people’s rights. And I’m afraid my cousin Paul’s been pushing them too far.”

  “I notice it doesn’t stop you drinking Paul’s pints, though,” retorted the doctor. Billy clenched his fist, ready to land a punch on him.

  With impeccable timing, a familiar voice echoed down the corridor to stall the action.

  “Did someone call?”

  The new arrival kept us waiting as he tried to force the front door to close properly. “Kitty, why didn’t you tell me this was broken? I’d have send a man up to fix it for you.”

  “Stuart!” Angelica’s face lit up, only to fall again as the kitchen door opened.

  “Paul!” said the doctor.

  The room fell silent as Paul surveyed the faces staring at him like a Greek chorus waiting for the hero to speak. He looked blankly at Angelica, clearly not recognising her, although she was gazing curiously at him, presumably astonished by the strong resemblance between him and his brother.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said to Angelica, “but who are you and what are you doing in my mother’s house? And what are the rest of you doing here so early on a Saturday morning?” He closed his eyes. “Oh God, what’s Kitty been up to now?”

  I stepped forward and put one hand gently on Paul’s arm. Although I didn’t like him, he deserved to have the dreadful news broken to him humanely.

  “Paul, I’m sorry to tell you that something awful has happened to Kitty. I’m afraid your poor sister has been found dead this morning. It seems she’s been murdered, struck a fatal blow on the head with a hammer.”

  As Paul staggered slightly, I put my arm around his shoulders to guide him to a free chair. I knelt down beside him and took his ice-cold hands. With his bluster and bravado gone, my heart went out to him.

  “My little sister?” he murmured. “My little sister, killed? I mean, I know she could be a pain in the rear and half the time she was off her trolley, but she was still my little sister.”

  He looked away into the distance. “I still remember Mother bringing her home from the hospital, with her little hands screwed up like paws, a twitching pink button of a nose, and a tiny mewing cry. That’s why we called her Kitty, you know. My brother and I thought she looked like a kitten, and we were just as delighted as if Mum had come home with a pet for us.”

  He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, blew his nose, wiped his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “So what happened? Where is Kitty now? And why the hell aren’t the police here? Don’t tell me none of you have had the wit to dial 999.”

  “That’s the first thing I did, Paul.” I looked at my watch. “That was about half an hour ago. What on earth is keeping them?”

  “Bloody roadworks,” said Paul tersely. “That bridge closure’s slowing everything down. My fifteen-minute journey from Slate Green just took me nearly an hour.”

  I reached out to touch his hand gently. “You’ll have the chance to see her when they get here, if you want to. We’re keeping the area sealed off for now, so as not to disturb the evidence before the police get here.”

  Paul shook his head vigorously. “To be honest, I don’t think I could bear to see her in that condition.” His eyes darted about the room. “How ever will I break it to Mother?” He gazed imploringly at each of us in turn. “But who? Why? How? Was it a burglar? I’ve been on at Mother for years to let me fit a proper alarm system, but she wouldn’t have it. This place is a gift to a housebreaker, hidden from sight by its big garden and high walls.”

  “And the front door here hasn’t closed properly for days.” I put my hands over my eyes. Why hadn’t I got Billy to fix it?

  Billy coughed. “So, Paul, where have you been since you left the pub last night? You were in no fit state to drive home when I left The Bluebird.”

  Paul rose unsteadily to his feet, his face suffusing with blood. “What? Is that your roundabout way of asking me to give you an alibi? You think it might have been me? Why would I murder my own sister?”

  Billy shrank back. “No, not at all. I didn’t mean nothing like that.”

  Paul crumpled into his chair, elbows on the table, his head in his hands.

  “Oh my God, it’s all got horribly out of control. My intentions were always the best. You have to believe me. Honestly, I never meant it to end like this.”

  35 Immaterial

  I gasped. “Surely you’re not confessing?”

  Staring at me in astonishment, Paul uttered a hollow laugh. “No, you stupid girl, of course I’m not confessing. What I meant was, I never meant our family to fall apart like this. I was simply trying to act in their best interests. I’d offered Mother and Kitty free luxury accommodation for life if they let me convert the Manor House into a proper care home. They could even have kept their current bedrooms, after I’d given them a proper makeover and added extra facilities to bring them up to par. They don’t need to live like this, you know.”

  He cast a hand about to indicate the down-at-heel décor. Kitty’s attempts to tidy it up this last week couldn’t disguise the fact that the place was overdue for modernising.

  “They’re like those recalcitrant old toffs who insist on staying in their stately homes as they crumble about their ears, when a swift deal with the National Trust would solve all their money worries and give them a grace-and-favour residence for life. And Stuart needn’t miss out. He could have shares in the care home for an extra income stream. God knows he could do with the money.”

  “What did the rest of your family think about your proposition?” I asked gently.

  “Oh God, there’s another thing I’ve screwed up. To be honest, I have no idea. I hardly seem to see my wife and son these days. All I am to my wife is a source of funds. She’s instilled
the same values in our boy. He doesn’t see why he should take out a student loan like every other young person. He expects me to stump up the lot for him and save him the bother. Yet once he’s qualified as a pharmacist, he’ll have no problem paying it back.”

  He paused, as if wondering how much to take us into his confidence.

  “Besides, I don’t have that kind of money sitting around in cash. It’s all tied up in business investments. Half the time I’m operating on loans, speculating to accumulate, until a project is finished.” He shrugged. “I told Fenella if she just sold her sports car, which mostly sits idle on our drive, it would cover the whole of his student loan. But no, apparently it’s all down to me.”

  He looked up, as if startled to find us all still listening. “What am I telling all this to you for? This should be strictly a police matter. Where the hell are they? Why aren’t they here, getting on the trail of whoever killed my poor sister?”

  “Half-sister,” corrected the doctor, unnecessarily.

  Paul glared at him.

  Angelica tried to soothe Paul. “I’m sure we’re all just trying to help. And I don’t know about the others, but Billy was very fond of Kitty, you know, and Kitty of him. She told me so last night.”

  She gazed at Billy warmly for a moment, and the old man’s mouth fell open.

  “Did she? Did she really? My little cousin Kitty?” His eyes filled with tears.

  She nodded, gave him a little smile of sympathy, and continued. “Most murders are committed by someone known to the victim, rather than by a passing stranger. Far too often, family feuds or inheritance issues get out of control. For example – and I’m only speaking theoretically here – you, Paul, might have wanted to oust Kitty from your mother’s will.”

  Paul pointed a shaking hand at the doctor. “As Dr Perkins will tell you, that’s preposterous, because he witnessed my mother’s will. She left the estate divided equally between Stuart, Kitty and me.”

  “Really?” That was news to me. “Kitty never knew. Or at least she didn’t seem to when I spoke to her about it.”