Page 16

Nova

Nova was having a Very Bad Day.

The problems had started before she even got up. She and Craig were drinking coffee in bed when his phone buzzed. He read the message and his eyes went wide.

“What is it?” Nova asked.

He chewed his lip, and she could tell he was working out what to say.

“Craig?”

“Don’t freak out, but it’s an e-mail from the solicitors. Apparently Declan was released from prison last week.”

Nova’s stomach plummeted. She’d known this was due to happen soon, but it still sent goose bumps rippling across her skin. Craig reached over and put his arm round her shoulder.

“It’s okay, babe. You’re 200 miles away now, he can’t—”

“I’m not worried about that,” Nova said quickly. “It’s just a shock hearing the name again, that’s all.”

“The terms of his parole mean that—” Craig was interrupted by a scream from outside the door. Nova jumped and a moment later Pamela came bursting into the bedroom, her face ashen.

“Nova, what did you do ?”

“What’s wrong?” Craig said.

“I just texted the photographer to see whether she wanted chicken or beef on Saturday, and it turns out Nova gave her the wrong date! She thought our wedding was on the 26th of November , not October, and she’s got another wedding booked this weekend.”

Nova exhaled with relief—for a moment there she’d thought it was something genuinely bad—but Craig was looking at her in horror.

“How can you have got the date wrong for your own wedding?”

“I definitely told her October. This is the photographer’s mistake, not mine.”

“It was your one job,” Pamela said through gritted teeth.

Nova tried to defend herself, but Pamela stormed out of the room and refused to talk to her for the rest of the morning.

Things didn’t improve when Nova got to work for the start of her shift at midday and found Sandy and Lauren pulling the office apart.

“Where did you put the keys to the sports cupboard?” Sandy demanded as soon as she walked through the door. “Tim’s got twenty toddlers about to turn up for baby gym and we can’t find them anywhere!”

“I put them back in the key cupboard last night.”

“Well, they’re not there now. Are you sure you didn’t forget again?”

“I’m sure I—” she started, but then stopped when Lauren caught her eye and mouthed the word Derek . Nova’s heart sank. She’d been on her way to put the keys away yesterday when she’d been cornered by a community center regular, Derek, who’d spent twenty minutes telling her in graphic detail about his prostate operation. By the time he’d finished, Nova must have put the keys in her pocket and forgotten all about them.

“I’m sorry, Sandy, I must have taken them home with me,” she said. “Do we not have a spare set?”

“No, we lost those years ago.”

“I can go home and get them now if—”

“Never mind,” Sandy snapped. “I’ll have to tell Tim to run the session without any bloody equipment.” She stormed out of the office, slamming the door shut behind her, and Nova sank down into a chair.

“You okay?” Lauren asked.

“I just feel like Sandy’s going to sack me at any moment, and I have this constant tightness in my chest.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Lauren said. “Have you talked to Craig about how you’re feeling?”

“I’ve tried but he thinks it’s just pre-wedding nerves.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Nova sighed. Was this what every bride felt like, four days before their wedding day; this horrible sensation of suffocating? But then she supposed most brides weren’t mourning the recent death of their father, or the imminent loss of their job.

“I think you need to be more honest with him,” Lauren said gently. “If you’re feeling this stressed about the wedding then perhaps you should consider postponing it for a bit?”

“I can’t do that. You know what Pamela’s like.”

“But Pamela isn’t the one who matters here. I’m sure if you explain to Craig how you’re feeling, he’d understand. He adores you, and I know he wouldn’t want to go through with the wedding if it’s making you feel physically unwell.”

“It’s fine; I’m fine.” Nova took a deep breath. “I’m just tired. I need to get through the next few days without getting fired, and then my mum’s coming over for the wedding and I have a week off work. I know I’ll feel better after that.”

Her friend gave her a small smile, but Nova could tell she wasn’t convinced.

The afternoon rumbled on without incident. Nova was determined not to make any more silly mistakes, and she double-checked every booking she put in the diary, and even made an effort to tidy her desk in case the sports cupboard keys were there.

At four o’clock she had a short break, but rather than sitting in the office with a glowering Sandy, Nova made herself a cup of tea and headed to Tintagel. As she turned the door handle, she heard a shuffling sound on the other side. Nova stepped in to see Arthur and Ash sitting at one of the tables, Ash trying to stuff something in his bag.

“What’s going on in here?” Nova asked, looking between their guilty expressions.

“We were just having a little chat,” Arthur said. “Lovely weather we’re having today, isn’t it?”

Nova frowned and was about to press further when the door behind her flew open again, crashing into her back. She yelped in pain as Phyllis came bowling into the room, followed closely by Craddock. They were both panting.

“Are you okay?” Nova asked, as Phyllis leaned on a table to catch her breath.

“We…were…wrong…” The older lady gasped. “Everything…we thought…is wrong.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Phyllis straightened up, and Nova saw a strange intensity in her eyes. “We thought it was Michael who killed his mother, but it was Cynthia! She’s the murderer…and I think she’s behind Michael’s disappearance too.”

It was such an absurd statement that Nova couldn’t help laughing. “Phyllis, I’m sorry, but you really need to stop reading so many murder mysteries.”

Phyllis wrinkled her nose. “Laugh all you want. Miss Marple was used to people laughing at her and dismissing her as a silly old lady too.”

“I don’t think you’re silly, Phyllis, just—”

“Greed was the motive, just like I said it would be!” Phyllis interrupted. “Michael lost all their money, so Cynthia killed Eve to get her hands on the inheritance. And she’s the one having an affair, not Michael. My guess is that after killing Eve, Cynthia and her lover kidnapped Michael to frame him for the murder and get him out of the way so they could be together.”

“People do all sorts of crazy things when they’re in love,” Arthur said with a knowing nod of his head.

“Hang on, I don’t think Michael was kidnapped,” Nova said. “PC Khan told me that they found his car abandoned in the middle of Bodmin Moor, so it sounds like he drove down there after the book club.”

“No!” Phyllis slammed her hand on the table, making them all jump. “The abandoned car must be part of Cynthia’s plan, to make it look like Michael ran away. I have to give it to the woman, that’s an excellent touch.”

“How did you find all of this out?” Nova asked.

The older woman looked away. “That’s not important.”

“Phyllis, tell me.”

“You’ll just make a fuss.” She crossed her arms and let out a long sigh. “ Fine. Earlier today, I went to Eve Watkins’s funeral.”

“What?”

“I suspected that Michael might attend in disguise, so I went to try and catch him red-handed. And then I learned some new information at the funeral—don’t ask me to reveal my source—that led me to attend the wake at Michael’s house. And while I was there, I learned that Cynthia has a lover, and they plan to flee the country now that Michael’s out of the way.”

“Phyllis!” Nova burst out when the woman finally stopped speaking. “What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“Oh nonsense, I was never in danger.”

“What if Cynthia had recognized you from when we went round there last week?”

“Well, thankfully she didn’t,” Phyllis said, rubbing her left arm and not catching Nova’s eye.

“I wish you’d told me about your plans, I’d have come too,” Arthur said with a chuckle. “It’s like something out of one of Esi’s books.”

“This isn’t funny,” Nova said. “You could have been arrested for gate-crashing a funeral and trespassing on private property.”

“Oh, stop being such a drama queen,” Phyllis tutted. “I was merely paying my respects to an elderly member of the community.”

“Did you find anything else at the house?” This was the first time Ash had spoken, and Phyllis looked startled at seeing him there.

“I did, as a matter of fact.”

She made a big show of reaching into her handbag and pulling out a sheet of paper. She laid it down on the table with a grand flourish.

“Is this a credit card bill?” Arthur asked.

“It is. Michael owed over one hundred sixty-five thousand pounds, and by the looks of things, this was a final demand. He and Cynthia were running out of time to get the money.”

“This proves they were in financial difficulties, but it doesn’t prove either of them killed Eve,” Arthur said. “We’d need more than this to go to the police.”

“Be patient, there is more!”

Phyllis reached into her bag again, and despite herself, Nova found she was holding her breath. Then Phyllis withdrew her hand, and Nova exhaled in disappointment when the woman placed what looked like the contents of a rubbish bin on the table.

“Did you steal all of this?” Nova said, not really wanting to know the answer.

“It wasn’t theft. I was simply doing some recycling.”

“Is that a used tissue?” Arthur said, his nose wrinkled.

“Ignore that. It’s these we’re interested in.” Phyllis pushed several pieces of paper toward Arthur.

Nova stepped forward to get a closer look. “Is that a torn-up envelope?”

“Exactly!”

“How does that help us?”

“At the wake, my source told me that on Wednesday, shortly before Eve was murdered, he heard Michael and his mother arguing about a letter. Initially I thought they might have been fighting about the credit card bill, but then I found these ripped up in the bin.”

“But what good is this to us?” Nova said. “We can’t even see who the envelope was addressed to, half the pieces are missing.”

“It’s not who the letter was to we’re interested in,” Phyllis said. “It’s who the letter was from .”

She picked up another scrap of paper from her pile and passed it to Nova, who glanced at the words on it and frowned.

“Ham pie…pudding. Phyllis, this isn’t a clue, it’s a bit of old shopping list.”

“No, I believe it’s a return address on the back of the envelope. Look, you can see a bit of the sealed flap here. And look again at what it says next to pudding.”

Nova reread the scrap. “It says 3 Pudding, but I can’t read anything else as it’s been ripped.”

“Do you see now?” Phyllis’s face was alight.

“See what?”

“It’s an address,” Ash said, and when Nova looked over at him, he was staring at his phone, his thumbs moving fast across the screen. “According to this there are two Pudding Lanes in the UK, one Pudding Street and one Pudding Road.” He looked up from his screen. “One of the Pudding Lanes is in Port Gowan.”

“I knew it!” Phyllis crowed. “Whoever that letter was from, this is where they live. My guess is it’s someone Michael owes money to, perhaps a dodgy loan shark. Either way, I believe if we trace this—”

“It’s not a loan shark,” Ash interrupted, and Nova saw his eyes were bright with excitement too. “It’s a man called Graham Pierce who owns a company called Pierce Security.”

“ Ham pie ,” Arthur said, smiling in admiration at Ash’s detective skills. “But why would Cynthia and Michael need security?”

“It’s not just security. Here, look at the website.”

Ash held out his phone and they all crowded closer to see.

“Read it aloud, I haven’t got my glasses on,” Arthur said.

Ash cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed at having to speak in front of them all.

“Graham Pierce has worked in security for ten years, following a career in the British Intelligence Service.”

“British Intelligence Service!” Phyllis interrupted. “You know what that means? The man’s a spy, a trained killer.”

“He can provide a range of services from personal security to surveillance and private investigation work,” Ash continued. “If you’re interested in using his services then call the number below to arrange a meeting. Competitive rates, discretion guaranteed.”

Phyllis was bouncing up and down, barely able to contain her excitement. “Cynthia must have employed this private investigator to help get her hands on Eve’s money. Maybe Eve found the letter and told Michael what Cynthia was up to, and that’s what they were arguing about? And then Cynthia realized her secret was out, so she killed Eve and made Michael disappear!”

“You know, something like this happened in a book I read Esi,” Arthur said. “Only in that one, the assassin ended up falling in love with the woman he was meant to kill and then—”

“For the hundredth time, Michael doesn’t have a lover,” Phyllis said, cutting him off mid-flow. “ Cynthia is the one having the affair.”

“Okay, let’s just think about this calmly for a moment,” Nova said, although her heart was racing in a not particularly calm way. “If we think Cynthia might have hired a private investigator then maybe it was perfectly innocent? People sometimes use them when they’re getting divorced, especially if they think their ex is hiding money from them.”

“You’re not looking at the facts,” Phyllis said. “There’s been a theft, a murder and a missing person, and now we find out an ex-spy is involved too. There’s nothing innocent about any of this!”

“I think we should take this information to the police,” Arthur said.

“Absolutely not,” Phyllis snapped.

“But if you think Cynthia might be behind Eve’s death, not Michael, then you have to tell them.”

“I am not going to the police, and that’s final,” Phyllis said, crossing her arms.

“But—”

“They won’t listen to me.” Phyllis was staring at her feet. “In fact, if I tell them it was Cynthia, then they’ll actively dismiss it.”

“But why?” Nova asked.

The older lady paused before she answered, and Nova wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her look so uncomfortable. “The police and I have a bit of a history, as a result of which they’ve made it clear that they’re no longer open to my assistance…”

She trailed off, but she didn’t need to say anything else; Nova understood perfectly. Phyllis had obviously taken her amateur investigations to the police one too many times.

“But it’s different this time,” Arthur said gently. “There’s been an actual murder, and you have important information that could help them.”

Phyllis let out a long sigh. “Six months.”

“What?”

“That’s the maximum prison sentence you can get for wasting police time. And the North Cornish constabulary have made it clear they’d press charges if I ever got involved in one of their investigations again.”

“Ah, I see,” Arthur said, catching Nova’s eye behind Phyllis’s back and raising his eyebrows.

“So, what do we do now?” Nova asked. “We can’t just go barging into this Graham Pierce’s office asking questions about Cynthia, he’d get suspicious straightaway.”

“No, we need a cover story,” Arthur said. “We have to pretend we need his services to get a meeting, and while we’re there we do some digging.”

“Fine, well I’ll call and get an appointment, then.” Phyllis pointed at Ash. “Give me the phone number and I’ll call now.”

“I don’t think you should do it, Phyllis,” Arthur said.

“Why not?”

“For one, Cynthia might be onto you, especially if you’ve been sniffing round the funeral and wake. What if she’s already told this PI about you, and he recognizes you? What if she reports you to the police?”

Phyllis opened her mouth to argue, then obviously thought better of it. “Who’ll go, then?” She looked at Nova.

“No way, I can’t risk it. Honestly, I’m in enough trouble as it is, without getting involved with some dodgy private investigator.”

“I don’t mind going,” Arthur said. “No one will suspect an old Cornish farmer so I can probably ask a few questions without him getting suspicious.”

“I can go too,” Ash said, and they all looked at him in surprise. He blushed but carried on. “I know I’m not very good at talking, but people often don’t notice me, which might be helpful?”

“It’s true, I didn’t spot you when I came in here,” Phyllis said, then frowned. “Are you sure I shouldn’t come too? I’ve spent a lifetime studying one of the best detectives in the world. I’m sure Miss Marple would get all the information she needed and have time for a cup of tea.”

Arthur smiled at her. “We’ll still need your help, Phyllis. If this plan is going to work, you’ve a vital role to play.”