Page 2 of A Very Bookish Murder (Ally McKinley Mystery #3)
TWO
Joyce screamed. Ally, too horrified to make a sound, kneeled by Jodi, whose face was red and flushed with small patches of broken blood vessels marring the surface of her skin.
And on the underside of her chin were livid scratch marks where she’d obviously tried to fight against the force of the scarf biting into her neck.
With shaking hands, Ally loosened the scarf and pulled it as gently as she could from around Jodi’s neck.
She knew that she shouldn’t really be touching the woman, but she had to check if she was breathing.
There were angry red weals where the scarf had bitten in, but what caught Ally’s attention most was the large red birthmark on the left side of her neck.
There didn’t appear to be any pulse or breathing, but Ally knew she had to try something.
She dragged Jodi gently out of the tiny space and into the main cloakroom, then began to do compressions on her chest, as she’d once been instructed during a first-aid class.
Oh, how she wished she’d paid more attention, never dreaming that she’d ever have to do it!
All this time, Joyce had continued screaming, the result of which was a stampede of women all arriving on the scene.
‘Has she collapsed?’
‘Is she breathing?’
‘Is she dead ?’
‘For God’s sake,’ Ally shouted as she continued to press vigorously, ‘someone call the ambulance!’
Mobile phones at the ready, several of the women were doing just that. Then a small, thin woman who, according to her name badge, was Anne, offered to take over. ‘I was a nurse,’ she said as she relieved an already panting and grateful Ally.
Another woman crouched beside her. ‘I’ll take over if you get exhausted,’ she said to Anne.
Ally stood up and pushed her way through the appalled cluster of women and went in search of Callum Dalrymple, the manager.
‘What the hell’s going on, Ally?’ he asked as he headed along from the reception area. ‘What’s all the fuss about?’
‘We need to call the police, Callum. Jodi Jones has been strangled.’ Ally took his arm and led him through the door of the ladies’ room.
‘Oh my God!’ he exclaimed as he followed Ally in and stared at the body on the floor.
‘We’ve phoned for the ambulance,’ one of the more coherent women told him. ‘They say the air ambulance will be here in about half an hour and will need somewhere to land.’
Callum rubbed his forehead. ‘Right, right,’ he said, gathering his thoughts.
‘Will any of you ladies with cars out there kindly remove them from the car park right now and leave them parked on the road.’ He turned to Ally.
‘I must speak to the other guests to get the car park cleared because I can’t think of anywhere else round here where a helicopter can land easily. ’
The women, many of them supporting each other, all headed obediently towards the car park. Within minutes, some other guests were streaming out and starting up their cars and, after about ten minutes, all was clear, and the women headed back into the Garden Room, chattering non-stop.
Callum re-entered the room, this time with a bottle of malt whisky and a bottle of brandy, followed by a waiter with a large tray of glasses.
‘You’ve all had a massive shock,’ he shouted through the babble of voices, ‘so you’ll be in need of a wee dram or something.
It’s on the house, so help yourselves and’ – here he paused to ensure he had their attention – ‘no one leaves this room. No one ! I’ve called the police, and that’s their orders. They’ll be here shortly.’
Ally wondered how Anne was making out, but the rule applied to her too, so she concentrated on helping the women pour their drinks.
Doing this gave her the opportunity to assess who’d left the Garden Room at the beginning of the break.
She’d consult her list and try to add some brief descriptions to the women’s names.
In the meantime, she could hear:
‘Nothing to do with me! I never left the room!’
‘Neither did I! You know, cos you were sitting next to me!’
‘It has to be that Irish woman!’
‘I hate to say it, but I really fancied that scarf.’
Anne, looking exhausted, reappeared and approached Ally. ‘Barbara’s taken over from me,’ she said, ‘but, to be honest, we’re wasting our time. That woman’s dead.’
Ally nodded, then, consulting her list, saw that Barbara was from Birmingham and wrote biographies. Anne, from Walsall, was a writer of women’s fiction.
She then found herself included in a group of five very shaken women, all of whom insisted they had not left the room before Ally discovered Jodi’s body.
However, all four of her guests at the malthouse had been to the ladies’ room at one time or another during the period in question, and so had the red-haired Della, and two others whose name badges weren’t close enough to read.
Ally kept hearing Della’s words: ‘God, I’d kill for that scarf!
’ But would you want the thing after you’d throttled someone with it? Probably not.
A large lady, with grey hair scraped back into a severe bun, snapped, ‘Well, I’ve come all the way up here from Plymouth and for what? No Jodi, no course!’
‘I’m so glad I went for a wee just before we came in here!’ exclaimed a tiny lady with the most beautiful dark-brown eyes. Ally looked surreptitiously at her list. Anita was from Bradford and wrote about partition in India and how it had affected her family. Interesting lady.
Callum had come into the room again and made his way towards Ally. ‘I cannot believe this,’ he muttered to her. ‘We’ve never had a murder in this hotel before!’
Ally patted his arm. ‘Hopefully this will soon be sorted out.’ She didn’t really believe it would be, but she wanted to do all she could to soothe his nerves.
She liked Callum. She’d known him from when she’d first arrived in Locharran and, although he was younger than her, she had rather fancied him, mainly because of his very blue Paul Newman-type eyes.
That, of course, was before he began to go out with her friend, Linda, who owned The Bistro, just a few yards along the road from the hotel – and before Ally had met the lovely Ross Patterson.
That reminded her. Ross! He’d be arriving at the malthouse any minute now because she was supposed to be cooking supper for them both this evening. Ally got out her phone and began typing. You aren’t going to believe this but…
At that moment, Ally heard the sound of the approaching helicopter. Callum rushed out, and the women all gathered round the windows to watch. It had hardly touched the ground before two paramedics were leaping out.
‘Isn’t this exciting!’ Someone called Janine was wide-eyed. ‘Just like you see on the telly! My God, girls, we’ve got some material here for our next books!’
Ally looked at her list. Janine came from York and wrote cosy crime.
They could all hear the sounds of chaos down the corridor in the ladies’ room: feet running back and forth, doors opening and slamming, raised but calm voices calling out instructions.
After about ten minutes, a solemn-looking Callum came in again. Everyone went quiet and looked at him expectantly.
‘I have to confirm,’ he said, ‘that Jodi Jones is indeed dead. And it appears that she has definitely been strangled. The police will be here very soon.’
There were gasps of disbelief, almost everyone looking towards Della Moran.
‘Nothing to do with me!’ she snapped. ‘Just because I questioned her methods.’
‘You went to the ladies’ room!’ someone shouted.
‘So did plenty of other people!’ Della looked around pointedly. ‘ You went there, and so did you , and you …’
Ally realised that Della was pointing her finger at both Joyce and Millie.
‘And so did I!’ said Penelope. ‘The thing is – it could have been any of us.’
Everyone looked at everyone else. Brigitte said, ‘I, too, visited the ladies’ room, but only to wash my hands,’ in a tone that indicated this rendered her blameless.
Ally, trying to stay neutral and avoid any unpleasantness, said, ‘Look, the police will be here soon, so I suggest we all have a statement ready because they’ll be questioning everyone.’
It would almost certainly be poor old Rigby again.
The unfortunate Detective Inspector Rigby had been persuaded by his Scottish wife to relocate from Birmingham to the Scottish Highlands, prior to his impending retirement, because ‘nothing much happens up there’ and, furthermore, they’d even bought a very nice wee bungalow in Inverness.
Well, plenty had happened up here since Rigby’s arrival, and Ally felt really sorry for him.
The poor man had honestly thought he’d only be tackling the odd sheep rustler or, occasionally, a drunk at bar-closing time.
That had certainly not been the case, if her recent experiences were anything to go by!
So, when Rigby and his forensic team arrived and went straight in to identify the body, Ally was quite appalled at his demeanour.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been quite robust, but he was now pale and exhausted-looking, with the appearance of someone who’d just been dragged from his bed.
Ally wondered if he had, or perhaps the poor man was sickening for something?
Rigby smiled in recognition when he saw her. ‘Ah, Mrs McKinley, we meet again. Tell me in detail about what you found, and when.’
She told him, with Joyce backing her up. ‘We could hardly get the door of the cubicle open with her on the floor behind it.’
Rigby was taking notes and breathing deeply as if he’d just run up the hill.
He faced the room and held his hand up for silence. ‘I want to talk to all the ladies who left this room at the time Miss Jones called for an interval. I realise that some of you did not, so I’ll talk to you later.’
Ally watched as her four guests were lined up: Joyce, Millie, Penelope and Brigitte, plus Della Moran, Laura, who was a school supply teacher and wrote ghost stories, and a woman called Morwenna, who lived in Cornwall and wrote fantasy novels. They had all visited the ladies’ room.
Rigby was now interviewing them, so Ally turned her attention to the five women who had not left the Garden Room.
They’d be questioned, of course, but if they were telling the truth, they could hardly be held accountable.
They included both Barbara and Anne who had been so helpful in trying to revive their tutor.
Half an hour passed. An ordinary ambulance arrived, and the ladies all crowded round the window again to see Jodi’s body being carried out and placed inside.
In the meantime, Rigby was still intensely questioning the women who’d left the room and was looking increasingly exhausted.
The helicopter was still there in the middle of the car park, rotor blades slowly turning.
They obviously planned not to be around for much longer.
The white-suited forensic team had gone out to the ambulance with the body, and the helicopter paramedics were now heading back towards the helicopter.
Rigby had begun to sway a little, and Ally was now alarmed; this was not the Rigby she knew! She saw him put his hand on a table to steady himself just before his eyes began to close, and he stumbled against the table before falling to the floor, causing even more mayhem among the women.
‘Oh, God! Bob!’ Ally realised, as she rushed to his aid, that this was the first time she’d actually called him by his Christian name.
He’d always just been around, calling her ‘Mrs McKinley’, and she’d called him ‘Inspector’.
She kneeled beside him and, for the second time in as many hours, she was checking for a pulse and breathing.
She couldn’t find either, so she began compressions.
And suddenly Anne was by her side again.
‘What is it about this place?’ Anne asked with a weak smile, but Ally could only hear the sound of the engine increasing as the helicopter prepared to leave.
As Anne took over again, Ally dashed towards the glass doors, where the women were gathered together waiting to see the lift-off.
‘Stop them! Stop them!’ she shouted as she pushed her way through to the car park.
Waving her arms madly, she saw the helicopter, which had just begun to hover above the ground, land on the concrete for a second time.
Within seconds, the paramedics leaped out again. ‘Inside, quick!’ she shouted.
She followed them inside to where Anne was still doing compressions.
‘He’s had a cardiac arrest!’ Anne said.
‘OK, we’ll deal with it,’ one of the paramedics said calmly, moving forward to take over the compressions while the other began unpacking the defibrillator. After a few jolts, the paramedics decided he was fit to be moved, and the more senior of the two medics shouted, ‘Get a stretcher.’
Within another couple of minutes, the stretcher appeared, Rigby was loaded onto it and then rushed to the helicopter. The paramedics then jumped in themselves and, shortly after, they were up and away.