Page 28 of Murder in the Winter Woods (Julia Bird Mysteries #8)

Julia went to bed early after a busy day at Second Chances, but she slept badly.

Ken Payne visited her in her dreams, draped in tinsel and playing a banjo, which even while asleep she knew was not his instrument.

She woke late feeling poorly rested, the twanging banjo ringing in her ears, and her mind mulling over the previous day’s events and discoveries.

She had an uneasy feeling about the circumstances around Ken Payne’s appearance – or reappearance – in Berrywick.

Chaplin jumped onto the bed with a ‘ prow ’ of a good morning, and rubbed his head against her.

She stroked him, enjoying the feel of his warm, rumbling body under her hand.

Chaplin’s good morning head-butting was becoming more insistent as the minutes passed.

Now, he wasn’t so much saying good morning, as reminding her forcefully of her duties – of which cat feeding was top of the list, obviously.

‘All right, all right, I’m getting up,’ she said, pushing the cat gently aside, and swinging her legs to the floor.

She had slept late, and she had things to do.

The week had run away with her. Between the deaths and the Christmas season, she had been so busy and distracted that she’d hardly shopped or cooked.

She’d have to get to the shops unless she wanted egg on toast for supper.

Julia got up and padded to the kitchen to let Jake out, closing the door behind him quickly against the chilly morning.

While the kettle boiled, she poured biscuits into Chaplin’s bowl.

To the soundtrack of his determined crunching, she set the tea tray, the sequence of movements happening automatically, without her conscious thought.

While her hands found the teapot and the cup and saucer, her brain ran through the list of what she knew about Ken.

He had only been in Berrywick for a couple of months or so, after an absence of many years, following the death of his mother.

On his return, he had reconnected with his old friends Dominic, Matthew and Lewis over a long lunch.

Dominic’s brother, Anthony Ardmore, had gate-crashed the lunch to pitch his dubious investment scheme.

Ken had come into some money and property when his mum had died, and had invested in the scheme, along with Matthew and Lewis.

The whistle of the kettle brought Julia back into the present. She poured the water over the tea leaves and took the tray back to her bed. When she had settled in comfortably, she added a few more items to the mental list of what she knew about Ken.

He had been angry about the band breaking up all those years ago. According to what she’d heard from David, whom she’d met at Christopher’s birthday party, he had been quite aggressive, even threatening. And, of course, Lewis and Matthew, his fellow investors and his old friends, were both dead.

It all seemed like rather too many coincidences, frankly.

Was Ken somehow responsible for the other deaths?

He certainly didn’t look like the murderous type, at least not based on their interaction in Second Chances.

If anything, Ken had seemed defeated. A fellow who had had some hard knocks in life, starting with the almost-success, but ultimate failure of the band.

The knocks seemed to have left him weakened and downhearted rather than aggressively angry.

Of course, Julia had been witness to enough violence to know that looks could be deceiving. The mild-mannered could be murderous, and the openly furious could be harmless. But still, from the little she’d seen of Ken, she didn’t peg him for the violent type.

In fact, she had another, contradictory, idea.

If Ken wasn’t involved in the men’s death, might he be in danger himself?

The men all had one thing in common – aside from a youthful friendship – and that was their connection with Anthony Ardmore and his investment.

Were investors being bumped off? And if so, was Ken in the firing line?

If it was a possibility, she should warn him.

The only way that line of reasoning would make sense was if someone – presumably Anthony Ardmore – stood to gain from their deaths.

Ordinarily, an investor’s heirs would inherit their stake in the business.

She wondered what DI Hayley Gibson’s financial fraud people had discovered about Ardmore Accelerated Investments.

Were there any unusual clauses? Any new life insurance policies?

If so, might he have killed the two men for financial gain?

There was only one way to find out.

Handily, Julia had a completely legitimate motive for dropping in on Hayley.

Hayley was an ardent and speedy reader, so Julia was always on the lookout for books for her.

She had spotted a book by one of Hayley’s favourite authors at Second Chances, and had gone to purchase it as a gift for the detective inspector.

In fact, Wilma, who had seemed to be having a generous day, had told her to take it, and bring in another book when she had one going spare.

Julia messaged Hayley now:

I’ve got a little something for you. I’m going out soon to do some errands. Can I drop it by the flat?

Ah! Intriguing! But I’ll be at work.

On a Saturday?

Paperwork.

Ugh.

Can you pop it in the post box?

Easier to drop it off at the station. I’ll be coming right past. I’ve got to do some shopping. See you later.

Cheers.

The road safety protesters were nowhere to be seen when Julia pulled up outside the police station some hours later.

Maybe they had decided that the two deaths were attributable to something more than just bad driving.

Perhaps the ominous clouds and the stiff breeze had put them off.

Or perhaps they had taken Saturday off to get a move on with their Christmas shopping.

Hayley was delighted with the book. ‘It’s one of the few I haven’t read! I’d better let Sylvia know there will be no sparkling conversation from me tonight.’

‘Just the weather for a good read, isn’t it?

I heard on the radio that there’s another storm coming in.

I’m pleased you haven’t read this one, although I could have taken it back to the shop if you had.

Oh, and Hayley, speaking of the shop, there was a strange coincidence yesterday, something I think you might be interested in. ’

‘Really?’ Hayley’s cheerful pleasure in the book was replaced with a suspicious narrowing of the eyes. ‘What “coincidence” exactly?’

Julia could hear the invisible inverted commas around the word ‘coincidence’ but pressed on regardless.

‘A man came in, a chap by the name of Ken Payne. He’s an old friend of Lewis and Matthew, who recently moved back to Berrywick.

It seems he was also a potential investor in Ardmore Accelerated Investments. ’

‘Well, I hope he didn’t put in his last ten quid, because I don’t think he’s going to be making his fortune in this scheme.’

‘I hope not. He seems even more of a babe in the woods than the other two, poor chap. What did the special investigators say? Is it a scam?’

‘Most likely, from what I know so far.’

‘I was thinking…’ Julia paused, trying to think exactly how to phrase it.

Hayley put the book she was holding down on her desk, and said, ‘Go on, spit it out. I know you’ve come with a theory or gone on a fishing expedition. Let’s cut to the chase.’

Julia blushed, but didn’t deny it. ‘Well, since you ask, with two of the men dead already, I am worried that Ken might be in danger. Or maybe even that he was somehow involved in the other men’s deaths.

I can’t see how it all fits together, but Anthony Ardmore and his scheme are the common denominator between the other two men. ’

‘It’s one of the things they have in common. They also lived in the same town, they were at school together, they played in the same band, they would have known many people in common. There are lots of areas of overlap I can think of, and maybe more that I haven’t.’

‘They were killed just after they invested in the scheme.’

‘Granted,’ Hayley nodded. ‘The timing is interesting.’

‘Is there any chance that Anthony killed them, to somehow get his hands on their money?’

‘He already had the money. They invested it with him.’

‘Well, it was still theirs. Maybe the shares reverted back to him if they died, or something. Or maybe there was an insurance policy, I don’t know. Something that gives him a motive.’

‘I’ll speak to the financial forensic guys about that. But Anthony has an alibi for the night of Matthew’s death. While he was at home alone when Lewis died, which we can’t really verify one hundred per cent, he has a witness for the night that Matthew died.’

Julia must have looked sceptical, because Hayley added: ‘He was with his girlfriend. Clarissa someone or other. Walter Farmer followed up with her.’

‘Well, I suppose if his alibi for Matthew checked out, that’s something.’

‘It takes him out of the running. It’s incredibly unlikely that different people killed Lewis and Matthew in exactly the same way.’

‘I see that,’ agreed Julia.

Julia saw the detective’s eyes flick towards the stacks of files and papers that populated her desk like hills and vales on some topographical model. She was clearly impatient to get back to work. ‘Well, I’d best be getting home. Enjoy the book, Hayley.’

‘Saturday afternoon on the sofa with a new book. My reward for getting on top of this,’ Hayley said, casting her eyes on a papery Mount Snowdon.

‘Good luck.’

As Julia turned into her driveway, Hester was leaving her own house. Hunched against the gathering wind, she locked the front door and picked up a large cardboard box from the doormat. Julia, emerging from her car, could hear what sounded like the clinking of glass.

‘Oh, hello, Julia,’ Hester said, as Julia emerged from her car. ‘Have you had a good day?’

‘It’s been a busy one What about you? Are you on your way out?’

It was a slightly awkward moment, the two women standing there, Hester with the big box of honey jars in her arms, braced against the wind.

One or two fat raindrops plopped down on the pavement.

The advance party in a big rainstorm, Julia suspected.

Hester, who was wearing a long raincoat, hunched over the box to protect it from the rain.

‘Oh, dear. The weather…I’m going to go out and deliver honey.

There are quite a few back orders that need to be processed and delivered.

I’ve had so much on my mind, what with Matthew…

and, you know, the money…and the worries.

I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’m so, so tired. I’m afraid I’ve let things slide.’

‘That’s quite normal in the circumstances, Hester. I’m sure the customers will understand if they have to wait a day or two.’

‘I want to fulfil Matthew’s last promises to the customers.

And some of the orders from the Christmas market are for Christmas gifts, so people will be worrying if they don’t get them.

’ Hester looked down at the box. ‘This is half of them. But now I’m thinking, did I pick up the right box?

’ She shifted the weight of the box to her hip, steadied it, and freed one arm to pull a sheet of paper from the box.

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I think this might be the box for Edgeley, not Berrywick. But there seem to be too few jars. I think I have got into a muddle. I’d better go back inside and check everything. ’

A rumble of thunder cut her sentence short.

‘Hester, are you sure you want to go out in this?’ Julia asked. ‘Why don’t you do this tomorrow instead? I’ll come and give you a hand sorting it out. It’ll be easier with company.’

‘That’s very kind, but I don’t know…’

The fat drops were coming faster.

‘I’m going inside, Hester. I think you should do the same. The weather is really terrible. Put the fire on and have a quiet afternoon and an early night. I’ll come by tomorrow morning, and we’ll go through those orders together and check you’ve got everything right.’

A crack of lightning split the sky. The two women flinched.

‘That is very kind. Thank you, Julia,’ said Hester, quickly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

The two women walked briskly towards their respective homes as the storm gathered force behind them.