Chapter 20
The doorbell rang when Jamie was in the shower contemplating the fact that his muscles were already aching. Tomorrow was no doubt going to be rough.
By the time he was dry and dressed there was no sign of anyone at the door, but the sun was shining brightly so he grabbed his phone and AirPods and headed outside.
He’d have a beach walk then stroll around the town and scout for Misty.
Hopefully that might take his mind off the two job cancellations he’d received that morning.
The clear blue skies meant the beach attracted a fair few others out for a stroll too. Or at least more than usual, but given the expansive beach it still didn’t feel like many.
A piece of sea glass caught his eye and he ran his fingers over the smooth green edge before tucking it in his pocket. He’d collect a few pieces for Violet. Seashells too. She’d enjoyed beachcombing when they’d spent a week in Devon the previous summer.
With his eyes down, searching out treasures the sea had thrown ashore, he probably wouldn’t have noticed Heather if she hadn’t approached him.
“I rang your doorbell,” she said.
“Sorry.” He put his hands into the pockets of his jacket, fingers brushing over the small collection of shells and sea glass which were grainy with sand. “I was in the shower. How are you doing?”
“I don’t really know.” Her chin quivered. “I feel a bit of a mess, to be honest.”
He dug the toe of his trainer into the sand. “I lost my stepdad six months ago. Out of the blue. It’s hard to process.”
Her features softened. “Marguerite was my stepmum, but I’ve known her since I was five. My biological mother has four other children with another man. I never felt as though I fitted in with them. I was closer to Marguerite.” Her lip trembled and she caught it between her teeth. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Do you want to walk a bit?”
She nodded and they set off, ambling slowly. “I came to apologise,” she said.
“What for?”
“I said something . . .” She pulled a strand of hair from her face as the wind whipped at it.
“I was upset and the neighbour came over. Trisha is a gossip, that’s nothing new.
Usually, I’d be careful what I say around her, but I wasn’t thinking straight and I told her that you’d cut Mum’s favourite plant back. ”
She inhaled a breath. “Then she said something about you making a mess of the banister rail and I didn’t correct her.
I didn’t think much about it, but she came over this afternoon with a lasagne.
That was nice of her at least. But she mentioned she’d warned people not to hire you.
She made it sound as though she’d done some kind of good deed.
I honestly never meant for that to happen. ”
“It’s okay,” he said. “That’s definitely Trisha’s fault and not yours.”
“I feel terrible.”
“You’ve got enough to feel bad about. Don’t worry about me.”
She stopped dead and looked up at him. “I don’t understand what happened. I tested the banister after you tightened the screws and it was solid. How could it just collapse the next day? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t,” he agreed. “But I’m sure the police will figure it out. Maybe the screws were rusty or something. I didn’t take them out to check – just tightened them up.” He really didn’t believe the problem was with the integrity of the screws but if he could give her some comfort, he would.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” she said on a sigh. “She’s gone. That’s the bottom line.”
“Grief is rough,” he said, then felt a lump clog his throat as he thought about his mum and his stepdad. It took a moment before he trusted himself to speak without his voice cracking. “Give yourself time. Let yourself feel sad.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she continued walking as she swiped them away.
“I feel as though Mum was cheated too. The last couple of years were hard for her. She was in a lot of pain. The surgery was supposed to offer a new start. She struggled through the recovery, and it was for nothing. All the arguments we’ve had about how best to care for her . . .”
Jamie tilted his head. “How do you mean?”
“We thought she might have to go into a care home. Dad wasn’t sure it was realistic for her to stay at home when she could barely walk and was in so much pain. They were never sure the operation would be successful, or if she’d even survive it – she had a heart condition too.”
“That all sounds stressful,” he remarked quietly.
“It was. Mum hated the idea of going into a home, even though Dad insisted it was the best one around. I actually think she’d have liked it at Fernleigh House.
We looked around it and it’s got lovely gardens.
She’d probably have been in her element surrounded by people, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
” Heather sighed heavily. “She always did get what she wanted. No care home for her,” she added darkly.
“I’m sorry.”
Heather stopped again and pressed a hand to her forehead. “It’s me who should be sorry. I only wanted to apologise for Trisha sabotaging your business and now I’m offloading on you.”
“Happy to listen,” he told her.
She put a hand on his arm and met his gaze with an intensity that made him inwardly squirm. “I know you didn’t really know her well, but Mum seemed to really like you.”
“I liked her too,” Jamie muttered.
His stomach dropped as he thought about Marguerite loudly expressing her thoughts on his looks. Heather’s hand on his arm felt as though it was burning right through his coat. She wasn’t going to ask him out, was she?
She was very attractive and if he were single, he’d be game. Turning her down when she’d just lost her mum felt pretty harsh. It wasn’t as though he could go out with her out of pity, though. That would be a difficult one to explain to Violet.
“I’ll leave you to enjoy the sunshine in peace,” she said, removing her hand. “Thank you for being so kind. And thanks for all you did on Tuesday. I’m glad Dad wasn’t alone when he found her.”
He nodded and she walked back the way they’d come.
Taking a deep breath, he focused on the sights and sounds around him.
Wandering along the gusty beach, he savoured the sea spray blowing onto his cheeks and the sound of the seagulls squawking as they wheeled on the breeze.
Only when he felt he’d absorbed a sufficient amount of nature did he fish out his phone and his AirPods.
Without his usual routines he’d missed his regular podcast episodes and had some catching up to do.
He’d just opened the app when he recalled Petra talking about Marguerite listening to herself on old radio plays.
On a whim he typed Marguerite Langford. When no results came back, he added radio plays to the search bar.
Bingo. A list of results came straight up.
It seemed she’d recorded a series of six hour-long plays.
According to the series description, the Country House Murders were mysteries in the style of Agatha Christie.
After pressing play on episode one – Death Before Breakfast – he set off walking again. The tinny intro music made him grimace and contemplate returning to his usual podcasts.
Then Marguerite’s voice was in his ears and he couldn’t help but smile.
Her voice acting was comically over the top and the rest of the cast sounded quite flat in comparison.
The story itself was fairly clichéd – a house party where a guest was found dead in a wardrobe, and an uninspiring pool of suspects.
He made it through half of it before deciding he’d had enough. With his phone in his hand, he searched for something else to listen to.
He stopped dead. His heart rate increased a little as he skipped back thirty seconds.
Not only did Marguerite’s voice have the same whimsical edge it’d had when she’d spoken to him in the garden, the words were the exact same too.
“Sometimes I think my daughter might kill me for my money.” A loaded pause. “She wants my inheritance and she’ll stop at nothing to get it!”
“What the heck?” Jamie muttered, then continued with the play. When that one ended, he moved to the next episode – The Butler’s Deadly Secret. He walked miles, occasionally stopping to relisten to something Marguerite said.
Two hours had passed when he found himself back on the stretch of beach outside Moira’s house. Quickly, he tapped out a message to Cal asking for Emma’s number. He replied after a few minutes without questioning why Jamie wanted her number.
Emma was probably working and wouldn’t answer but—
“Oh, hi!” he said, hearing her voice. “It’s Jamie.”
“Why do you sound surprised?” she asked. “You called me.”
“Wasn’t sure you’d answer.”
“I’m at work. What do you want?”
“I wanted to let you know that the cleaner didn’t steal any jewellery.”
“Excuse me?”
“Petra. She didn’t steal from Mrs Langford. I was already dubious about that story. But . . . this will sound odd . . . I was listening to some radio plays that Marguerite recorded years ago and I realised she was quoting lines from the play.”
“When?”
“When she told me her daughter might kill her for her inheritance. It was a line from the play. The same with the comment about the cleaner stealing her jewellery. And she also offered Petra money to kill her husband, but that was in one of the plays too.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Everyone says she was dramatic, right? I think she was going into character and acting out her old lines.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing the word out. “And you don’t think at some point she’d have admitted to that, instead of letting the cleaner get into trouble?”
“I don’t think she knew she was doing it.”
“Like some sort of psychotic episode?”
He paused, considering it. “I wondered if she was on strong painkillers – something that might have affected her mind. She’d been in pain for a long time, right?”
“If she was on strong medication that’ll show up in the post-mortem, but her husband didn’t mention anything like that. Also, you’re wrong about the cleaner. She’s a thief. And I suspect she may have also tampered with the rail.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I can’t discuss this with you.”
“That sounds like you have proof?”
“I have to get back to work,” she said curtly.
“Hang on, though. Do you have proof? Because I really think you’re on the wrong track.”
“Thanks for your input,” she said. “Funnily enough I’m going to keep following my leads. That’s what I’m paid to do. What’s your excuse?”
“Well people seem to think I’m at fault, in case you forgot.”
“No one thinks that.”
“That was the rumour going around the kickboxing class. Probably going around the whole town.”
“It’s a small town. There are always some rumours going around.” She sighed dramatically. “I have things to do. Stop digging around in this. Leave the professionals to handle it.”
“Will you at least listen to me for a minute?”
When she didn’t reply, he looked at the phone, only to find she’d hung up.
Apparently she wasn’t going to listen.