Nova

Nova stumbled out of the meeting to find the community center in its usual Friday morning chaos. Every week, a volunteer-run food bank was held in the main hall, and from nine thirty until one o’clock, there was a constant flow of people coming through the center doors to stock up on food for their families, as well as have a cup of tea and a friendly chat. As Nova walked past the front door, she saw a queue had already formed outside, even though they didn’t open for another fifteen minutes. Her stomach lurched again at the thought of what all these people would do if the center closed and the food bank could no longer happen.

“Morning, Nova.” Arthur Robinson, who volunteered every week making tea, was standing in the main hall, trying to coax the ancient urn into life. “Any chance you know the magic spell for this thing?”

“Let me have a look.” Nova joined him behind the table and began to fiddle with the temperamental cable.

“I had young PC Khan on the phone this morning,” Arthur said, lowering his voice. “He told me about the theft during book club.”

“I’m sorry about that,” she whispered back. “I did try to tell him it wouldn’t have been you.”

“Oh, never mind that. I just can’t believe anyone would steal from this place.”

“It looks like it might have been Michael.”

Arthur’s white eyebrows shot up. “The man who ran out? He didn’t look the thieving type.”

“I don’t know who else it could have been. No one apart from us came in or out of the building on Wednesday night.”

“It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? And how are you doing, lass?”

Nova opened her mouth to say she was fine, but something caught in her throat and for a horrible moment she thought she was going to burst into tears.

“It’s not been great,” she managed to mumble. “We just have to really, really hope that we get the money back, otherwise…” She trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“Well, I’m happy to donate money again if needs be. Esi and I don’t have much, but we’d happily give what we can to help this place.” Arthur paused, his eyes scanning the room. “The community center means a lot to us, you know. We got married in Esi’s hometown in Ghana, but we had our British wedding celebration in this very room, back in 1966.”

“How amazing! Has it changed much since then?”

Arthur didn’t reply, and Nova could tell he was back there on his wedding day, dancing with his bride. A small smile passed over his lips, but his eyes were misty.

There was a shout over by the main door, and Nova looked up to see one of the food bank volunteers trying to remonstrate with a figure in the lobby. She couldn’t see who it was behind the man, but she had a good idea. Sure enough, a second later she heard a familiar voice.

“You can’t stop me going in here; this is a free service for the whole community.”

“You’re welcome to come in when we open, but the dog has to stay outside. It’s a health and safety rule.”

“This is discrimination! Would you stop a blind person bringing in a guide dog?”

“No, but that’s different; guide dogs are assistance animals.”

“Well, Craddock is my assistant.”

“I said assistance not…Ow!”

The man bent over to nurse his shin as Phyllis barged past him, Craddock at her side. She scanned the room until she spotted Nova.

“Oh Lordy,” Arthur muttered, as Phyllis bowled toward them.

“I assume you’ve heard?” The woman’s voice reached them before she did. “I told you there was something strange going on with that man, and I was right!”

“Phyllis, shhh!” The last thing Nova needed was her announcing the theft to the whole center. “Let’s go and talk somewhere quieter.”

She took Phyllis’s arm and steered her out the hall, past the volunteer who glared at the older woman.

“We can go into Tintagel, it should be free.”

Nova opened the door and ushered Phyllis inside, Craddock and Arthur hot on their heels. As soon as the door closed, Phyllis let rip.

“The second I saw him, I knew something was up. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine something like this would happen.”

“We still don’t know for sure it was Michael,” Nova said.

“Oh, it was him all right. I’ve considered all other explanations and that’s the only one that fits with the evidence.”

“Well, PC Khan was hoping to speak to him yesterday afternoon so we should know whether he confesses to the crime soon enough.”

Phyllis let out a snort. “He’s not going to have much luck interviewing Michael now. Not unless they have a spirit medium over at Port Gowan police station.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked.

Phyllis’s head snapped to look at him, and then a satisfied smile spread across her face. “Are you telling me you don’t know yet?”

“Know what?”

The older woman pulled her shoulders back and took a deep, dramatic breath before she spoke again.

“Michael’s dead!”

Nova felt her stomach drop. “What?”

“I saw his body being taken away from his house under a sheet yesterday.” Phyllis was practically hopping from foot to foot in her excitement.

“My God, the poor man,” Arthur said.

“Poor man, my arse! He stole ten thousand pounds from this place, remember?”

“But still, he didn’t deserve to die!”

“How do you know it was Michael if the body was under a sheet?” Nova said.

“By a process of elimination. Aside from the police car and the coroner’s van, there was only one car in his driveway, suggesting there were only one or two driving-age adults in the house. The body being carried out was heavy—the two people pushing it looked like they were exerting themselves—and Michael must have weighed at least fifteen stone. Plus, I saw a woman around his age standing in the doorway with smudged mascara, who I assume was the grieving wife. Ergo, it must have been Michael.”

“Imagine stealing ten thousand pounds and then dropping dead a few hours later,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “All that effort for nothing.”

“Assuming he did just ‘drop dead,’?” Phyllis said.

Nova looked at her in surprise. “What are you suggesting?”

Phyllis smiled, as if she’d been hoping for this question. “Let’s look at the facts, shall we? Michael Watkins, a man who lives five miles away in Port Gowan, chose to come to a neighboring book club rather than one closer to home. Odd, no?” She turned from them and began to pace across the room. “He behaved suspiciously the whole time he was here; clearly the man’s no bibliophile. On his second visit, he arrived late and seemed distracted but showed no obvious signs of ill health. Then, having received a text message that alarmed him, he ran abruptly from the meeting halfway through. These are peculiar things, wouldn’t you agree?”

Nova opened her mouth to answer, but it had clearly been a rhetorical question as Phyllis continued.

“Yesterday morning, ten thousand pounds was discovered missing from the community center, and yet there was no sign of a break-in, and CCTV footage showed that no one else entered or left the building, suggesting Michael was the thief. And then, most peculiar of all, a few hours after the missing money was discovered, our main suspect is dead, and the police are at his property investigating.”

“You’re not seriously suggesting you think Michael was murdered?” Nova said.

“The great Miss Marple always said that if all the facts fit a theory, it must be the right theory. And all the facts point to Michael’s death being suspicious.”

“But isn’t there another explanation?” Arthur said. “What if Michael came to our book club because he actually liked books, then got some bad news in the text, and on his way out he saw the unlocked office and stole the petty cash tin on a whim? And then, completely unrelated, later that night he had a heart attack or died from some other unfortunate natural cause. It could be a complete coincidence that the two things happened so close together.”

Phyllis let out a grunt of impatience. “Another of the many things I’ve learned from reading Agatha Christie’s novels is there’s no such thing as coincidence. Miss Marple knew this and always paid attention to the small, peculiar things, as she knew they were likely relevant. Like when Elvira Blake just happened to turn up at the same hotel as her long-lost mother in At Bertram’s Hotel , or Anne Protheroe accidentally not carrying her handbag in The Murder at the Vicarage . Others dismissed these as irrelevant coincidences and yet Miss Marple knew they weren’t. Just as I know that a man attending a faraway book club on the same night money goes missing and then his dead body turning up the following day are not mere coincidences. The man was murdered, and I propose that his death was linked to our stolen money.”

Phyllis stopped and looked at them as if expecting a standing ovation, but Nova’s mind was racing. The older woman was well known for having an overactive imagination: Lauren had told Nova about the time Phyllis had accused Sandy of running an international drug smuggling ring, all because she’d caught the woman with several boxes of donated talcum powder for the Christmas fete and been convinced they were cocaine. But however carried away Phyllis might sometimes get, Nova had to admit that everything that had happened in the past thirty-six hours did seem a bit, well, suspicious.

“How did you get Michael’s address in the first place?” she asked Phyllis. “In fact, how did you even know about the stolen money yesterday? Nobody knew outside of the staff here and the police?”

“I might just be a little old lady, but I know more than you think.”

“Have you told your theory to the police?”

Phyllis let out a guffaw of mirth. “Of course not! They’ll dismiss me as a dotty old lady, just like they always did with Miss Marple.”

“I still can’t believe Michael’s dead,” Arthur said softly. “Do you think we should go and pay our respects to his wife?”

Nova was about to say no, but then she remembered how grateful she’d been for all the people who’d come to offer their condolences after her dad died, even the ones she’d never met before.

“That’s an excellent idea!” Phyllis said. “And while we’re there, we can ask a few gentle questions about the missing money.”

“No!” Nova said. “You can’t ask anything about the missing money, or the circumstances around Michael’s death. All we’ll do is say how sorry we are and then leave, okay?”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Phyllis said, not even attempting to hide the excitement in her voice.