A Body in the Village Hall by Dee MacDonald (best business books of all time .txt) 📗

road of mainly Victorian villas, most of which had been converted into flats, many looking sadly neglected. Number 182 was marginally tidier than some with its three doorbells clearly marked. ‘D Barber’ was the lower one, so presumably the ground floor.

Kate was desperately hoping that Delyse was in, otherwise she’d have to hang around somewhere until she came back, if she came back. Her stress levels going ballistic again for the second time in two days, she pressed the bell. There appeared to be no entry system but, with great relief, Kate heard footsteps approaching from within.

The door opened. The black woman who stood there was statuesque and beautiful. Kate was mesmerised for a moment before saying hesitantly, ‘I’m sorry to bother you but I’m looking for a Miss Barber.’

‘I’m Delyse Barber, and who are you?’ the woman asked, staring hard at Kate.

‘I’m Kate Palmer, a friend of Maureen Grey, from Cornwall, and I’m trying to find her.’

The woman continued to stare. ‘And what makes you think she’s here?’

Kate could now detect a West Indian accent. ‘I think she wanted to meet Jasmine,’ she said.

The woman’s stance relaxed a little. ‘Just a moment,’ she said, and closed the door again.

Kate waited on the doorstep, now convinced Maureen was inside, and praying that she’d be allowed in. A couple of minutes passed before the door was opened again and the woman said, ‘You’d better come in.’

Kate followed her through a glass-panelled door into what was obviously the tiny hallway of the ground-floor flat, off which were four further doors. One of them opened and a little girl appeared. She was a beautiful child, slim and delicately boned, with enormous brown eyes and her hair tied up with a red ribbon into a topknot.

Then a familiar voice called out, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve let her in, Delyse?’

Kate entered a sunny sitting room where, next to a table on which stood a half-constructed Lego house, Maureen was sitting.

‘Hi, Maureen,’ Kate said.

‘How the hell did you know I was here?’ Maureen asked by way of a greeting.

‘I guessed.’

‘There’s no getting rid of this bloody woman,’ Maureen said to Delyse.

The little girl had climbed onto the chair alongside Maureen and was studying some pieces of Lego.

‘We’re building a house for my doll,’ she informed Kate.

‘And very nice it is too,’ Kate said. ‘You must be Jasmine?’

The little girl nodded as she stuck a few more pieces together. ‘We need to make another window, Auntie Maureen.’

Auntie Maureen!

‘I’ve come, Maureen, to take you back to Cornwall with me. Tonight.’ Kate spoke firmly.

‘I’m not going!’

‘You’d better sit down,’ Delyse said to Kate, indicating the settee.

‘You are Billy’s partner, aren’t you?’ Kate asked.

‘Yes. Did you expect a blonde?’

‘I didn’t expect anything, Delyse. I only hoped to find Maureen before the police did. But thanks for letting me come in.’

Delyse stood silently for a minute. Then: ‘Let me tell you something,’ she said, pointing at her little daughter, ‘if anything should ever happen to her, God forbid, I don’t think I’d be able to carry on living. I don’t know how Maureen’s survived and I didn’t even know she existed until a few weeks ago. Don’t you think she’s been through quite enough?’

Kate hadn’t expected this. These two women had apparently bonded in a very short period of time. She looked at Maureen who was silently continuing to construct the wall of Lego.

‘The reason I’m here,’ Kate said, ‘is because if Maureen doesn’t come back with me, the police will arrive here eventually and I’m afraid they just might put her back in prison because she wasn’t supposed to leave Tinworthy at all. If you come back with me now, Maureen, we can just say you went away for one night to sort yourself out or something, and I’m sure the police won’t bother to take it any further. And, Maureen, you know Billy didn’t commit these murders! And, however gallant it is of him to take the blame so you could be released, it isn’t right.’

No one spoke. The only sound was the clicking of the Lego bricks.

‘The thing is, Maureen,’ Kate went on, ‘as long as Billy’s in custody the police can’t justify continuing to look out for someone else. Which means there’s at least one killer on the loose out there somewhere. Is it you?’

When Maureen finally looked up, Kate saw that her eyes were full of tears. ‘How can you think that? You’re supposed to be my friend. I don’t want to go back, not yet. I’m happy here, Kate,’ she said.

Kate swallowed. ‘But you can come back afterwards. You can’t do that if they stick you in jail. I’ve always been pretty sure you’re not guilty and you said yourself that Billy wasn’t guilty, didn’t you?’

‘Billy’s a two-timing idiot but he’s not guilty,’ Delyse said firmly. ‘We need to show the police the proof, Maureen.’

‘What proof?’ Kate asked.

‘He’d come back here the night that woman was murdered,’ Delyse said. ‘He came to tell me that he was going back to live in Cornwall. We’d had a terrible row before he left because I’d asked him why he wouldn’t marry me, for Jasmine’s sake if nothing else, and he said he couldn’t. No explanation. I didn’t know he was married until the police stormed in here.’

‘That’s Billy for you,’ murmured Maureen.

‘And once the police told me,’ Delyse said, ‘I was so upset and angry I didn’t care what happened to him. I told them he’d left a week before but didn’t tell them he’d come back for one night to get his things.’ She sighed. ‘He slept on the sofa there.’

‘But what proof do you have of that?’ Kate asked, trying to make sense of what she was hearing.

‘I’ve got his train tickets,’ Delyse replied. ‘I found them under the sofa when I was vacuuming. It’s got the date on them, and he bought them at Bodmin Parkway station.’

‘May I have them?’ Kate asked.

There was a further silence for a minute before Kate turned to Maureen.