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

without doubt, an impulsive action on her part. She’d disobeyed Woody’s instructions to stay safe, not to go off on her own. And now here she was, in the mist and the gloom, doing just that. She mustn’t let her imagination run away with her though because who, in their right mind, would be tailing her today? Apart from Angie, no one could know that she was likely to be coming up here. Unless someone was watching her every move?

But that feeling of being followed wouldn’t go away. Kate quickened her step and her heart beat a little faster.

And then, ahead of her in the mist, she saw the seat. And Seymour with his dogs. She guessed right; he was there. Now that she knew who the killer was, she needed to find out from Seymour if and why he’d pinned that note to her pillow.

‘Hello!’ she said. ‘Not a very nice day, is it?’

‘No,’ he said solemnly as she seated herself beside him. ‘It certainly isn’t.’

When he turned to face her she thought there was something in his look that she’d not seen before. Perhaps she’d been wrong? She felt a tiny frisson of fear. Maybe her theory was wrong?

‘I was hoping you’d show up,’ he said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

It was then she looked down at his boots. Why had she never noticed before how enormous they were, how gigantic his feet were? Oh God, she thought. Woody will kill me, if Seymour doesn’t kill me first. She sat silently, paralysed with fear for a moment, her hands in her pockets automatically searching for the phone that she’d forgotten to bring with her. At least she had the anti-attack spray.

‘Why?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice from wobbling. ‘Why are you spying on me?’

‘Because you’ve been doing a lot of meddling, haven’t you?’ He continued gazing out at the almost invisible sea.

Kate gulped. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘I’ve been watching you for quite some time,’ he said conversationally. ‘I find you rather interesting, and very nosy.’

‘I’m not nosy,’ Kate said.

‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh, ‘you are. But why are you so involved with the Greys? They were, after all, the obvious assailants. Why were you so convinced they weren’t the killers? Why are they both free now, Mrs Palmer? Why have the police been at your house? Why have you become so friendly with the detective? I suspected last time I saw you that you could be trouble.’

In spite of her fear Kate was annoyed. ‘Who I choose to associate with is my business,’ she snapped, ‘and nothing whatsoever to do with you.’

He moved a little closer, his arm now touching hers. She shuddered involuntarily.

‘Oh, it has a lot to do with me,’ he said.

She prayed someone, anyone, would come along the coastal path. But it had begun to rain more heavily again and so that now seemed increasingly unlikely. She looked around for Barney, who was still romping with the two dogs.

‘There’s no one around,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts, ‘just you and I.’

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ Kate said, trying not to shake and wondering how on earth to make her escape. She was younger than him and hopefully she could run faster.

‘Why should you be?’ he asked.

‘Because it was you who left the note on my pillow, wasn’t it?’

He didn’t answer.

Kate again began to wonder if her theory was wrong. She reckoned they were only nine or ten feet from the edge of the cliff. And oblivion. She was going to have to make a run for it. She looked around in the misty gloom. She’d be safest to go back the way she came because she wasn’t too sure where some of these other paths led to – surely if she got back in sight of the village she’d be safe?

‘I know you left that note on my pillow,’ she said.

‘Why are you so certain?’

‘Because the police have your footprint.’ Kate looked down again at his enormous feet.

He smiled and said, ‘I never was much good at field work.’

‘I never believed you killed your wife and Kevin, but did you?’

He looked at her in amazement. ‘No, Mrs Palmer, I didn’t kill either of them. I loved my wife so why would I have wanted to kill her? But I was outside the door when I heard her arguing with Kevin Barry. He’d gone to prison for her, and she was refusing to pay him.’

‘Couldn’t you have paid him yourself?’

‘Yes, I would have done but I didn’t get the chance. We were making arrangements that night at The Tinners when Fenella was murdered. You may not be aware but I have a very important and respected position at Westminster and I wanted this whole thing to be settled and off the front pages. I cannot afford to have scandal in my life.’

‘So you didn’t kill Kevin either?’

‘Of course I didn’t kill Kevin. I can’t pretend I’m sad he’s dead but I haven’t killed anyone, believe me.’

‘I believe you, but then why stick that note on my pillow?’

‘Because you’ve been stirring things up and I need you to stop. I need you to stop defending the Greys when it’s plainly they who are guilty. And I want them charged so I can get back to London. Do you understand, Mrs Palmer?’ Then he stood up and called for the dogs. ‘I hope that, if we meet again, it will be in more convivial circumstances.’ And, with that, he disappeared into the mist.

Kate had gambled on her theory being right, and it was. She was now in no doubt as to who the killer was. It was then that the weird feeling came back again – that she wasn’t alone.

Barney began barking and making a bit of a fuss, and Kate realised that someone else was emerging from the thickening mist.

‘I thought he was never going to go,’ Sandra Miller said.

Twenty-Seven

‘What do you want?’ Kate asked, but she knew. Of course.

‘I’ve