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

‘I need to see you urgently. Shall I come up to the police station?’

‘Yes, of course. Come up any time after midday. Are you OK? I did tell you to be careful.’

‘Yes, I’m fine. Just had a couple of busy days and not a lot of sleep, but I have some important items to show you.’

‘Well, bring them along! Incidentally,’ he went on, ‘you’ll be interested to know that your friend Maureen’s reappeared. God only knows where she’s been.’

‘Only God and myself,’ Kate corrected him.

Woody – clad in jeans and a roll-neck sweater – was engrossed in the paperwork on his desk when Kate was shown in.

‘Hi, Kate, sit down.’ He shuffled the papers to one side. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘I’ve had an interesting few days,’ Kate said, searching carefully in her bag. ‘And this’ – she chucked the note across the desk to him – ‘is what I woke up to, on my pillow, on Friday morning.’

Woody read it, looked up with a puzzled expression, and read it again. ‘On your pillow?’

‘Correct. I have this window that doesn’t shut properly and my bed is right alongside it. I like to feel the cool air, you see. Somebody climbed up, leaned through the window and attached it to my pillow with a stonking great hatpin.’ Kate burrowed further in her bag, produced the hatpin and rolled it along the desk towards Woody. ‘So who would be likely to have a hatpin like that?’

‘Dear lord!’ Woody was visibly shocked. ‘Whoever this was could have killed you, Kate! Why did you not bring this note to me straight away? Why did you wait two days? Kate, this is––’

‘Because I went to London to find Maureen and bring her back,’ Kate interrupted.

‘What?’ Woody closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again.

‘I went to London to find Maureen and bring her back,’ Kate repeated.

‘You did what?’

Kate grinned at him. ‘You heard.’

‘I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing! How did you know she was in London? Where was she?’

‘She was visiting Billy’s lady friend and little girl.’

Woody pushed his chair back and gazed up at the ceiling for a moment. When he straightened up he asked, ‘And how did you know she was there?’

‘Don’t you remember our conversation in Truro? I said to you then that I could get close to people and that they were more likely to confide in me than in the police.’

Woody nodded silently for a moment, staring at her. ‘But how did you know where she lived?’

‘I persuaded Billy’s mother to give me the address.’

‘Is there no end to your talents? But then how did you persuade Maureen to come back?’

‘I said it was unfair to let Billy rot in prison when he hadn’t killed anyone. Why should that innocent child have to live with the knowledge that her father was a murderer if he wasn’t? And I pointed out – more importantly – that meant the real killer was still at large.’

‘Kate,’ Woody said with a long-suffering-type sigh, ‘Billy has confessed!’

‘I know that. But even you weren’t altogether convinced, were you? Yes, he was doing it to get Maureen off the hook, trying to make up for deserting her and all that. And I reckon that, as neither woman now wants him, he doesn’t greatly care what happens. And he could hardly have pinned that note to my pillow if he was in jail, could he?’

Woody looked stunned.

‘And the person who left the note in my pillow must be the killer,’ Kate said. ‘Furthermore, he or she must know that I suspect them.’

Woody continued to stare at the note.

‘And I have further proof it wasn’t Billy,’ Kate went on, digging out the rail tickets. ‘He was back in London for one night – and one night only – to get his things. The night Fenella was killed. He came back the next day. I have the rail tickets that Delyse found on the floor after he’d left. Great Western, Bodmin Parkway to Paddington: right day, right date.’ Kate slid the ticket across to him. ‘Last four numbers on the payment card prove they’re his.’

Woody picked up the tickets and studied them. ‘I suppose,’ he said doubtfully, ‘they could be anybody’s tickets, but we can check his payment card.’

‘Anybody’s? Found under Delyse Barber’s sofa where he spent the night?’

‘So why didn’t she show them to the police when they first went round there after the murder?’

‘She told me she didn’t care what happened to him after she found out about Maureen, so she didn’t tell them he’d been back there. She found the tickets later, when she was

vacuuming.’

Woody leaned forward. ‘Kate, do you have an answer for everything?’

‘Not quite,’ Kate said, ‘I’m still not sure who, out of the remaining suspects, the killer might be.’

‘Right,’ he said, ‘I must now call an emergency meeting this afternoon.’ He leaned back in his seat and rubbed his eyes. ‘In the meantime, I want you to move out of that house into some temporary accommodation. Your life could be in danger.’

‘No, it’s OK; I’ve tied the window up with some string so I’d wake up if anyone tried to get in. And I think someone’s coming tomorrow to fix it.’

‘A piece of string!’ Woody rolled his eyes. ‘Listen, I can’t condone anything you’ve done from a police point of view because of the danger you’re putting yourself into. But from a personal off-the-cuff point of view, I think you’re crazy – but wonderful!’

Kate laughed and they grinned at each other.

‘I’m going to arrange for the guys to go round and work out how whoever it was got up to your bedroom window,’ Woody said. ‘There may still be a clue there somewhere, because it hasn’t rained for a few days, has it? I’ve no doubt he or she wore gloves but there may be footprints or something. Do you have any ladders lying around outside?’

Kate admitted