Chapter 24
They found Skye at the back of the building, playing dominoes on the heated patio with a bunch of elderly people. She excused herself when she saw Cal and Jamie.
“Did you find anything out?” she asked, skipping over to them.
“Yeah,” Jamie said. “We’ll tell you in the car.”
“They all seem happy,” she said, walking across the lawn between the two of them. “The old people. It seems to be a nice place from what they told me. The staff are kind – no one had any complaints.”
Jamie waited until they were driving before filling Skye in on the conversation with Mr Barker.
“Ooh,” she finally said. “The evil stepdaughter after her inheritance. Didn’t I tell you it’d be the stepdaughter?”
“It’s not her,” Cal said. “It’s the cleaner.”
“Oh yeah.” Skye leaned forwards between the seats. “I forgot about that.”
“About what?” Jamie asked.
“I forgot to mention it,” Cal said, pulling out of the driveway and onto the winding lane. “Emma told me Petra had been fired from her last job for stealing.”
“What?” Jamie frowned, certain this information hadn’t just slipped Cal’s mind. Never mind that, though. “Even if she stole from her last job, it doesn’t mean she stole from the Langfords, or that she was involved in Marguerite’s death.”
“She threatened to get them back the day before Mrs Langford died,” Skye said matter-of-factly.
“She did what?”
Cal nodded. “According to Emma, she was furious with them for accusing her of stealing. She demanded the outstanding payment, and also said she was sick of people treating her like nothing and one day soon she’d make them pay.
” He glanced across at Jamie. “Something like that. Also, she was supposed to return the spare key they’d given her, but she conveniently forgot. ”
“That still doesn’t mean she did anything.”
“She had the key so she could have let herself in and removed the screws,” Cal said.
“Also, Mr Langford says he left Petra alone in the hallway while he went upstairs to get her cash. When he came back she was sitting on his toolbox. She looked pretty smug, but he put that down to her getting money from them after she’d stolen from them.
Emma wondered if she might have had time to tamper with the rail.
She probably already knew it was wobbly from when she cleaned for them. ”
Jamie pressed his hand to his forehead. “When did Emma tell you this?”
“This morning.”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything when I spoke to her,” he huffed.
“It’s confidential police stuff.”
“She told you!” Jamie pointed out.
“Only because she knows I won’t tell anyone.”
Jamie threw a hand up. “You just told me.”
“Keep it to yourself,” Cal said casually.
“If you knew this all along, why did we go to the care home?”
“You seemed so keen,” Cal said. “Didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“It was all your idea,” Jamie said, then twisted in his seat to look at Skye, whose eyes sparkled with amusement. “You knew about this too? Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I had the afternoon free and a trip to the care home sounded nice.”
“You make it sound like some kind of fun afternoon out.”
“It was!” She laughed. “I enjoyed it.”
“You two are weird,” he said, but the comment only seemed to amuse them. “And I still don’t believe Petra did anything. I’ll bet Emma finds out it was nothing to do with her.”
They fell silent for a few minutes before Skye spoke again.
“How long have you been together with your girlfriend?” she asked out of the blue.
“Two years.” He glanced back at her. “Why?”
“Just wondered. Do you live together?”
“Yeah.” His phone dinged and he pulled it from his pocket. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered.
Skye laughed. “Did you just refer to your girlfriend as the devil?”
“No.” He clicked into the message, his eyes widening at the length of it. When he blinked, it was gone and in its place a message to say it had been deleted. Weird.
“You did,” Cal said, his voice full of teasing. “You referred to your girlfriend as the devil. I guess absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder after all.”
Jamie looked up from his phone. “It’s just a turn of phrase,” he insisted. “She messaged while we were talking about her . . . it’s just something you say, isn’t it?”
“It is if you don’t like someone,” Skye said.
Cal nodded. “There are definitely some negative connotations there.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant that she was messaging me.”
“You could have just said that,” Cal said cheerfully.
“What did she say in her message?” Skye asked, leaning forwards again.
He glanced at his phone. “Nothing. I guess she sent it to the wrong person, because she deleted the message before I had a chance to read it.”
“Sent it to the wrong guy,” Cal said, chuckling to himself. “Awkward!”
Jamie didn’t laugh. His gaze drifted out of the window until Cal gave his arm a gentle punch.
“That was a joke, pal!”
“Yeah, I got it.” Pulling on his seat belt, he turned in his seat to look back at Skye. “What does it mean if my girlfriend refers to a guy at work as her work husband?”
Her shoulders lifted in a dainty shrug.
“He’s engaged,” Jamie said. “This guy, Daniel, who she always goes on about. Apparently, he’s the only person at work she gets on with these days. But he only started working there a year ago and before that she had other friends there, but now the only one she talks about is Daniel.”
“Okay,” Skye said. “Work husband is just something people say about their best friend at work.” Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you worried there’s something going on between the two of them?”
“No,” he said, but it didn’t sound quite as convincing as he’d have liked.
Cal’s tone was a little softer than usual when he spoke. “If there was something going on between the two of them, she probably wouldn’t refer to him as her work husband.”
“She doesn’t actually call him that. Not generally. There was just this one night we were out. A double date, essentially. Violet had a couple of glasses of wine and kept calling him that as a joke.”
“Did people laugh?” Cal asked sceptically.
“Daniel seemed amused. His fiancée not so much, and I found it slightly uncomfortable too. Not that Violet noticed.” He heaved in a breath. “I’m probably worrying about nothing, but the other evening he’d had an argument with his fiancée and Violet went and met him for a drink.”
“She told you about it though,” Skye said. “That’s a good sign. She’s not being secretive.”
“I suppose.” His eyes went to the phone in his hand and he couldn’t help but wonder if that long message had been meant for Daniel. He’d picked out his own name and North Berwick before the message vanished. She’d been messaging someone about him then.
“If he’s engaged you shouldn’t have anything to worry about,” Cal said.
“Yeah.” It didn’t feel that reassuring, though.
“Do you love her?” Skye asked from the back.
“Yeah.”
“That didn’t sound overly convincing,” Skye said.
“I do. I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect relationship. She can be kind of bossy, but that’s just her way. It’s all good, really. We work well together.”
Skye sucked a breath through her teeth. “I’ll be honest, that wasn’t the most romantic description of a relationship.”
He chuckled. “She’s great. The relationship is great. Everything is fine.”
At least, he hoped it was.