Chapter 25
Emma bunched her shoulders up against the cold and shifted from foot to foot on the doorstep of Sea Haven.
She cast her eyes down to her phone, re-reading the message she’d received from Moira as she’d been leaving work.
It had felt easier to call in on her way home from work and get the request out of the way.
Waiting for Jamie to answer annoyed her. She had a key and would usually let herself in.
Finally, he appeared and looked at her with mild confusion. No doubt he was surprised to see her after she’d hung up on him that morning.
“Moira asked me to call in,” she said, not bothering with a greeting and definitely not feeling the need to address their earlier conversation.
He stepped aside and as she moved into the warm hallway her nose twitched at the delicious aroma drifting from the kitchen. Something spicy and slightly sweet. She inhaled again. The gentle rumble in her stomach reminded her how long it was since the sandwich she’d eaten at her desk for lunch.
“Everything okay with Moira?” Jamie asked.
“Yeah. Apparently before she left she ordered cat food to be delivered. She can’t remember what date it’s coming and there’s no note of it in her calendar, but she’s sure she wrote it down somewhere. I’m supposed to hunt down the scrap of paper she wrote it on.”
“I could’ve had a look,” he said, then glanced along to the kitchen.
“She thinks it’s in her bedroom. I don’t think she wanted to ask you to rummage through her chaos.” She pointed up the stairs. “Do you mind?”
His eyebrows lifted before a smile tugged at his lips.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just surprised at you asking permission. Some people round here don’t even bother waiting to be let in.”
She rolled her eyes. “Cal?”
“He and Skye just come in and eat my food.” He glanced behind him again. “Speaking of which. My dinner might be about to burn. Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” she said and hurried up the stairs. On the landing her eyes automatically went to the front bedroom where the door was ajar. Her room, back when she lived here, but Jamie would be in there now. She resisted the urge to stick her head around the door, and opened Moira’s door instead.
A groan escaped her as she registered the space.
It wasn’t a mess, as such, just a lot of stuff.
The shelves and drawers were all loaded with knick-knacks.
Mismatched jewellery boxes, assorted perfume bottles and half-burned candles decorated the vanity table.
Postcards were tucked into the frame of the mirror and scarves were strewn over the back of the chair.
Where to start? A notepad sat on her bedside table, but a quick flip through was unhelpful. Moving to the vanity, a flash of white on the carpet caught her eye and she picked up the torn-off corner of paper.
Misty food was scrawled across it along with a date and time. That was easier than she’d expected.
As she went back into the hallway a flash of black darted up the stairs and into her old room.
“Hi, Misty,” she cooed, following without thinking.
The cat hopped onto the bed and lay down.
She stretched out, purring contentedly when Emma stroked her.
Emma barely looked at the cat though – her eyes swept over the room and Jamie’s things.
It was all pretty ordered. The bed was neatly made and the wardrobe doors were closed.
On the bedside table sat a Kindle and a glass of water.
A pair of jeans hung over the back of the chair and only a few items lay on the desk – a handful of change and a couple of scrunched receipts, as though he’d emptied his pockets.
Frowning, she took a couple of quiet steps to the desk and plucked a piece of sea glass from the collection beside the coins.
There were shells too – including the pretty bright yellow ones which Emma could never resist collecting.
She had a jar of them on the windowsill in her kitchen.
At a sound from downstairs, she whispered goodbye to the cat and made a quick exit.
“I found it,” she told Jamie in the kitchen. He moved the wok to the back burner and crossed the room with a bowl of food in his hand.
“Great,” he replied as he took a seat.
“The cat food should be delivered next Thursday,” Emma said, reading from the scrap of paper. “Sometime before midday. If you’re out then, you could ask Cal to come over and wait for it.”
“I can be here,” Jamie replied, winding noodles onto his fork.
“Good.” She took a few steps to leave the paper on the table. Her mouth watered at the chicken noodles in front of Jamie.
“There’s plenty,” he said, pointing at the stove with his fork. “Chicken chow mein. Help yourself if you’re hungry.”
She was ravenous. And the entire kitchen smelled divine. There was no way she was eating with Jamie, though.
Her eyes flicked to the stove.
“I made loads,” he said quietly. “You may as well eat while you apologise for hanging up on me earlier.”
She opened her mouth to snap at him, but caught the amused twitch of his lips and decided not to give him the satisfaction.
“I didn’t hang up,” she said calmly, while she took a bowl from the cupboard. She might as well take him up on the offer rather than go home to stare at the uninspiring contents of her fridge. “We’d finished talking. I ended the call.”
He swallowed his mouthful before he spoke. “You ended it abruptly.”
“I was busy at work and you called me to—”
He interrupted her. “To provide you with useful information about Mrs Langford.”
Emma didn’t respond, but filled her bowl and sat opposite Jamie at the table. “This is great,” she said after her first forkful. “Thank you. I can never be bothered to cook after work.”
“No problem.” A frown wrinkled his forehead as his gaze went to the hallway.
“She’s upstairs,” Emma said. “If you’re looking for Misty – she’s up on your bed.”
A hint of panic flashed in his eyes.
“I wasn’t snooping around your room or anything,” she said quickly. “I saw Misty go in there and went to say hello.”
When he continued to look panicked, she felt bad for invading his privacy. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have gone in there. It was only for a minute, though.”
“It’s fine,” he finally said and returned to his food. He didn’t speak again until he’d finished his bowl. “I heard you found out that Petra was fired from her last job for stealing?” he said, pushing the bowl away.
“I can’t talk to you about that.”
“Cal told me about it. About how Petra claimed the Langfords still owed her money, and how she made threats about getting back at them.”
Emma inhaled a steady breath through her nose. “Cal shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Do you think Petra tampered with the banister rail?”
“I don’t know,” she said on a sigh.
Jamie rested his elbows on the table. “I don’t think she stole anything from Marguerite. When Cal and I spoke to her she swore she hadn’t.”
Emma sat bolt upright. “You should never have spoken to her. That probably tipped her off. She’d have got rid of any stolen goods pretty quickly then.”
“Did you search her place?” Jamie asked.
She scratched at the back of her neck. “I’m not allowed to talk to you about this.”
“That means you did,” he guessed. “But you didn’t find anything?”
She pushed her fork into the noodles, moved them around. “We searched her property today,” she mumbled. “Couldn’t find any trace of the missing jewellery or anything else out of the ordinary.”
He grimaced. “How did she react to the search? I imagine she wasn’t happy.”
“It was a voluntary search, since I couldn’t get a warrant.
She offered for me to come in and search as soon as I mentioned the jewellery.
” She lifted an eyebrow. “Which could mean she’d already shifted it, but I actually don’t think she stole anything.
” Maybe she’d just been a good actress, but Emma liked to think she was pretty good at sniffing out truth from lies.
“What about the threats she made?”
“She claims she’s a hothead and it was all talk.”
“Okay.”
“At the moment there’s no evidence Mrs Langford’s death was anything other than an accident. The post-mortem gave no evidence of foul play. We’re still waiting on the full forensic report. That should shed more light on things.”
“Will it?”
She nodded. “They’ll do toolmark analysis. If someone loosened the screws recently, they’ll be able to tell from the marks on them.”
The shock on his face was almost amusing. “I used a screwdriver on them,” he said loudly. “Your forensic report is going to point to me.”
“Not unless you don’t know which way to turn a screwdriver. Tightening the screws leaves different marks to loosening them.”
It was almost cute the way his eyes bulged.
“Are you serious? They can tell that much from a screw?”
“Yep. It’s microscopic, but if the screws were loosened, they should be able to see that.”
He pressed his fingers to his temples. “That’s crazy.”
“It’s pretty cool,” she said with a hint of second-hand pride over what the forensic team were capable of. “They can also tell if the marks were made recently – they can’t give a specific time or anything, but it’s still good info.”
“Can they tell you who did it, by any chance?”
“Sadly not. It’s also very specialised work, so it takes a while.”
He released a breath. “It could end up looking like I made a mistake, couldn’t it?”
“Possibly. But even so, it’s not your fault. Mr Langford should have got a professional to look at it.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he snapped. “That rail was absolutely secure when I left.”
She paused with her fork in front of her mouth. “I believe you.”
“Sorry. I just wish you’d hurry up and get to the bottom of it.”
“We have a lot of other cases. This isn’t a priority until we know for sure it wasn’t an accident.”
“It should be a priority.”
Something like relief bloomed in her chest. Because Jamie was as desperate as she was to find out what happened. Maybe they had different reasons, but it felt good to talk to someone who also thought there was more to this case than a nasty accident.
“Did you know Marguerite had dementia?” Jamie asked, the words taking her by surprise.
“No. Are you sure? Mr Langford didn’t mention it.”
“I think he was trying to keep it quiet so he could get her a place in a care home.”
“Hang on . . .” Emma’s mind raced. “You don’t think he had something to do with his wife’s death?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“Why would he even need to keep the dementia quiet? There are care homes specifically for people with dementia. I don’t think that would be an issue.”
“But he wanted her to go into a specific one. Fernleigh House. It’s a really good one, and nearby. Except they don’t accept people with dementia. They don’t have the facilities.”
“From what I can tell, Mr Langford has been a devoted husband who couldn’t do enough for his wife. He doesn’t seem like someone who’d plot her demise.”
“Fair point,” he conceded. “But he also wasn’t thrilled about me fixing the banister rail. He knew it was faulty but he’d been putting off fixing it.”
“You mentioned that on the day Marguerite died,” Emma mused. It was entirely at odds with the other reports she’d heard about Mr Langford. “It’s strange.”
Jamie shook his head. “I think he was just a bit embarrassed that he hadn’t done it already when it was such a simple job.
There’s also his daughter,” he continued eagerly.
“She didn’t want her mother to go into the care home because it was expensive.
Maybe this was her way of making sure she could get her inheritance. ”
“You think Heather Langford tampered with the banister?”
Warmth pooled in Emma’s stomach – nothing to do with the question. Discussing possible suspects with Jamie shouldn’t be so much fun.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “No,” he said, looking slightly pained. “Heather was distraught on the morning her mum died, and I also bumped into her on the beach. She seemed genuinely upset.”
There was an obvious flaw to his argument. “If she’d wanted her mum dead she’d still pretend to be upset. She’d hardly go around smiling about it?”
“So you think she might have done it?”
“No.” She sighed. “Probably not.”
“What about the physiotherapist?” he asked eagerly. “Did you speak to her?”
“Who?”
“Amira. She’d been visiting Marguerite for physiotherapy sessions. According to the neighbour she was at the Langfords’ house on Monday evening. Trisha said she heard shouting. Amira claims she’d forgotten her scarf, and the shouting was actually the TV on loud, but I’m not sure I believe that.”
Emma blinked slowly. “You questioned the physiotherapist about it?”
“It was mostly Cal.” He grimaced, then his phone rang, interrupting them.
It buzzed on the table, flashing up a number rather than a name.
“I need to take that,” Jamie said. “Might be about a job.”
While he left the room, Emma mumbled about it being convenient timing since she’d been about to give him an earful. It was a good interruption for her too, since she really shouldn’t have been talking about the Langford case with him.
She turned her attention to the noodles, and had just finished when Jamie came back into the kitchen – his coat in his hand and a look of mild panic on his features.
“I’ve got to nip out,” he said.
She checked the time. “Bit late to be working, isn’t it?”
“It wasn’t about a job. It’s something else.” He bit into his bottom lip. “I need to get to the shop before it closes,” he said, and the uncertainty in his voice gave it away as a lie. “You can let yourself out, can’t you? I’ll talk to you soon.”
He left before she could question him. She stayed at the kitchen table for a few minutes, wondering who on earth had called him, and what they’d said to send him rushing off in the dark.