Page 33 of Murder in the Winter Woods (Julia Bird Mysteries #8)

‘Well, as you heard, Coral thinks it might be from a woman. She said the ladies liked Lewis, although I suspect it was a case of Lewis rather liking the ladies.’ Julia paused for a moment.

Hayley didn’t usually like her speculating, but she had asked a direct question this time.

‘I had another thought. The picture is of a place in Scotland, and Ken lived in Scotland, so naturally, I’m thinking it might be from Ken.

And although he comes across as rather placid, even rather down-at-heart, at least when I’ve seen him, he’s a guy with a history of anger.

There’s a lot of bitterness in him, especially towards Lewis and Matthew.

It goes back to their younger days in the band.

And then there was conflict over the investment syndicate at some point, when Matthew and Lewis got cold feet.

So, I don’t know. Maybe Ken was threatening Lewis. ’

Hayley nodded, slowly, and scratched at a drop of candle wax on the kitchen table. She seemed distracted, as if there was something else on her mind.

The kettle reached a boil. Julia got up and switched it off, but sat down without making tea.

‘Hayley, why are you here? You didn’t come to talk about the postcard, and Ken.’

‘As it happens, I am here to talk about Ken,’ said Hayley. ‘I hear you visited him yesterday.’

Julia was taken aback. ‘Yes, I did. I dropped something off for him.’

‘Muffins.’

‘Muffins? No. A book. There was an old book of his that had been donated to Second Chances, which Wilma thought he might want. I offered to deliver it. What’s all this about?’

‘Ken was admitted to hospital. Suspected poisoning.’

‘Gosh, how awful!’ Julia looked at Hayley, who was staring at her intensely, a small frown between her eyebrows. ‘Wait, do you think it was deliberate?’

‘Julia, I have to tell you that this is an official police investigation. If you want to have a lawyer present, that is your right.’

‘A lawyer? Hayley, what are you talking about? No, I don’t want a lawyer. Why would I need a lawyer?’

‘Initial tests indicate that the source of the poison is the muffins you brought to Ken. They’re doing a full assessment of the poison used now.

Fortunately, he thought they tasted odd, so he only ate about a quarter of one.

He started to feel dizzy, and had stomach pains.

Luckily, he went to the emergency room. If he’d eaten the whole thing, he might have died. ’

‘Good heavens. That’s appalling. But I had nothing to do with it.

’ Julia thought for a moment, remembering the tray of muffins that she had picked up outside Ken’s home, thinking that she was doing him a favour.

In her mind she heard her mother’s voice saying, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ Julia had to make Hayley understand what had really happened. ‘Hayley, I didn’t bake the muffins.’

‘Ken said you brought them.’

‘I didn’t bring the muffins, I brought them in .

They were there when I got to Ken’s house.

They’d been left on the doorstep. I simply picked them up and handed them over.

He was so busy gushing about the book, he didn’t listen to me when I said I’d found the muffins on the doorstep.

Hayley, you know I…’ Julia stopped speaking, unable to finish her sentence she was so distressed.

‘Julia, I know you well. Of course I know you didn’t poison Ken Payne.

At least not deliberately. But the big brass are all over the Berrywick police now.

First the motor vehicle deaths, and now the attempted poisoning.

I need to follow the rules, play everything by the book, dot every i, cross every t.

It’s out of courtesy to our friendship that we are having this conversation at your kitchen table and not in an interview room at the station. ’

‘At the station?’ Julia could hardly believe what she was hearing.

‘I knew you wouldn’t poison anyone, Julia. But someone did. The question is, who? Who would deliver poisoned muffins to Ken Payne, and why?’

‘Well, baking, poisoning…not to be sexist, Hayley, but it does have rather a female feel to it, as murder methods go.’

‘Not just a feel,’ said Hayley. ‘Poisoning is a preferred method amongst female killers – although females are in the minority of killers overall, of course.’

A horrible, niggling thought was trying to make its way into Julia’s brain, even as she tried to push it aside.

Hayley interrupted her struggle with a question: ‘Did you see anyone else about the place when you got to Ken’s? Walking in the road? Driving away?’

‘No. Not that I recall.’

‘Well, the key question to ask is: why would someone try to poison Ken? Who would benefit from his death?’

‘He’s just a sad guy trying to get his life in…’ Julia stopped short. ‘Well there is someone. I mean, I’m sure they wouldn’t kill anyone, not at all, but in terms of motive…’

‘Who?’

‘I’m not suggesting that they…’

‘The name, Julia. Spit it out.’

She glanced in the direction of her neighbour’s house, where Hester and Coral were likely pottering about with the bees, quite unaware that their names were about to be mentioned to the police. Feeling horribly guilty, she said: ‘The widows. Hester and Coral…’

‘Matthew and Lewis’s widows?’

‘They want to get their money out of the investment with Anthony Ardmore, and Ken is standing in the way. He’s their co-investor, and all three have to agree if they are to withdraw the investment.

Ken stood in the way when Lewis and Matthew got cold feet.

He prevented them from pulling out, and now the widows want to get their money out.

They need the money. They are not going to just back off.

Hester said just now that they know what they need to do, and they’ve done it.

And Ken mentioned that he had just seen them yesterday when I was there.

Maybe they left the muffins after he failed to agree with them. Backup plan, so to speak.’

‘You think the widows tried to poison Ken Payne?’

‘I don’t think so. Or I don’t want to think so. They’re both lovely.’

‘Lovely people do terrible things,’ said Hayley, standing up. ‘I’m going to talk to them right now.’

‘Please don’t let them think that I’m accusing them, Hayley. I’m really not.’

‘I will be clear that it is entirely my own idea.’ Hayley frowned slightly. ‘It does make a terrifying sort of sense.’

When Hayley came back some time later, she looked grim.

‘We didn’t have our tea,’ Julia said, turning the flame under the kettle back on.

She waited for Hayley to say something. Her stomach growled in the silence; she realised she also hadn’t had lunch. When she could bear it no longer, she asked outright.

‘So, how did it go? They denied it, I assume?’

‘Well, I didn’t go and accuse them of attempting to murder the man,’ Hayley said. ‘I asked them what they knew about Ken Payne.’

‘And?’

‘The way they describe it, they barely knew him at all. He’d been away all those years, so they hadn’t seen him, and apparently the husbands barely even mentioned him. They didn’t talk about the old days much, or the band. It was ancient history as far as they were concerned.’

‘When did the widows meet Ken?’

‘Only yesterday, after they realised that he was a co-investor.’

‘And they wanted him to agree to try and pull their money out of the scheme.’

The kettle whistled, and Julia got up to set a tea tray.

‘Yes. He refused, as you know,’ Hayley said. ‘The way they tell it, they weren’t pleased. In fact, Coral said she was furious and has sent him an email just this morning giving him a good piece of her mind.’

‘She’s quite a livewire, is Coral,’ said Julia, pouring the boiling water into the teapot. ‘But if she’d killed him, she probably wouldn’t be telling you that, or leading you to the evidence of conflict.’

‘I read the email. It wasn’t threatening. And if she sent it this morning, she wasn’t expecting him to be dead.’ Hayley paused. ‘Unless that’s what she wants me to think.’

Despite the unfolding drama, Julia’s mind kept returning to her stomach, which had that hot, empty feeling. She opened the breadbin, and took out half a loaf of seeded wholemeal. She held it up to Hayley with an inquisitive expression. ‘Toast?’

‘Yes please. Anyhow, they said that they saw him yesterday, and then set up a meeting with the lawyer. I expect that’s what Hester could have meant when she told you that they had done what they needed to do.’

‘Did you tell them about the poisoning?’ Julia cut two slices of bread and put them in the toaster.

‘Eventually. Once they’d told me all they knew about Ken. They seemed genuinely surprised and horrified to hear about it. And of course, they denied having anything to do with it.’

‘Did you believe them?’

‘They were pretty convincing. I could probably get a warrant to search their kitchens, and test for poisons and so on, but I doubt I’d find anything.’

‘Well, that leaves you looking for a poisoner, doesn’t it?’ Julia said. She poured the tea, adding a drop of milk, as Hayley liked it, and handed her the cup. The toast popped up. ‘Marmalade?’

‘Thanks. And yes, I’m still looking for a poisoner with something to gain from Ken’s death. This whole business is just so strange,’ Hayley said. ‘I feel as if I’m missing a great big piece of the puzzle, but I can’t see what it is. Or where it fits.’

Julia brought the butter and marmalade to the table. ‘I know what you mean, Hayley. There are lots of bits that might sort of fit, but it’s not coming together. Let’s go back to Lewis and Matthew’s murders – if they are murders. What do the victims have in common with Ken?’

Hayley sighed, and said: ‘They grew up in the village. They went to school together. They knew each other as young men, and played in a band. Most recently, all three of them invested together with Anthony Ardmore.’

The toast popped up. Julia put a piece on each side plate and handed one plate to Hayley. ‘It’s not poisoned, I promise.’

Hayley gave her a reluctant twitch that passed for a smile.

‘And we know that with the brand-new car, and the kitchen still to pay for, Anthony Ardmore would do just about anything to keep that money invested…’ Julia continued. ‘But Hayley, would he stretch to murder?’

‘That’s a question one can never really answer,’ said Hayley thoughtfully, spreading butter onto her toast. ‘But he didn’t do it. Walter Farmer checked his alibi for Matthew’s death. He was home with his girlfriend, Clarissa.’

Julia felt a jolt of realisation so strong that it was almost like an electric shock: ‘Oh my word, Hayley! I’ve just realised, his alibi doesn’t hold. Clarissa bought honey that day.’

Hayley frowned at her in confusion, or perhaps irritation. ‘What are you talking about? What’s honey got to do with it?’

‘Anthony said he was at home with Clarissa, and not at the market, when Lewis died. But I know for a fact that he and Clarissa were at the Christmas market. Or at the very least, Clarissa was at the market, so Anthony wasn’t at home with her.

I know, because she ordered honey from Hester that day.

I was helping Hester with the orders and I delivered it to Clarissa yesterday. Which means Anthony must be lying.’

Julia hadn’t got to the end of the story before Hayley was on her phone: ‘Walter,’ she snapped. ‘Anthony Ardmore…’