Page 8

Nova

Nova spent the drive to Port Gowan kicking herself for agreeing to this. Sandy had told her to keep her head down and stay out of trouble, and yet here she was, visiting the wife of a recently deceased (possible) thief, with a wannabe Miss Marple in tow. And what would Craig say when he found out? After everything that had happened in her old job, he’d freak out when Nova told him she’d driven to the home of a (possible) murder victim. Maybe she shouldn’t mention this outing to him? Although how she’d explain the strong smell of dog in the car, Nova wasn’t sure. She wrinkled her nose and wound down her window.

“I think this is a bad idea,” she said as they reached the end of Michael’s cul-de-sac. “If Michael really was murdered, the last thing his widow’s going to want is random strangers turning up on her doorstep so soon after. Let’s come back in a few days’ time.”

“We’re not strangers, we were in a book club together,” Arthur said. “And if the tables were turned and I was the one who’d died, I’d like to think you’d all visit Esi to pay your respects.”

Nova sighed but she could hardly argue with that. She turned the car into Mountfort Close and pulled up by the pavement.

“That’s his house, over there on the left,” Phyllis said. “That red car is the one I saw yesterday. It belongs to his wife.”

“How do you know that?” Nova asked, turning to look at Phyllis in the backseat. “Please tell me you haven’t been searching car records?”

“Of course not, but it’s obvious. For one, no man in his sixties drives a red MINI Cooper. And secondly, at the book club meeting last month, Michael was wearing a golfing tie, and you’d never fit golf clubs in the boot of that car.”

Nova hated to admit it, but that logic did make sense.

“I wonder if it was his wife who killed him?” Arthur said absentmindedly as he stared at the house. “It happens all the time in Esi’s romance novels; a lovers’ tiff that turns nasty. A crime of passion, they call it.”

“Not you as well with the fictional theories,” Nova said with a sigh, and Arthur chuckled. “Right, let’s get this over and done with, shall we?”

They climbed out of the car and headed up the driveway. When they reached the front door, Phyllis pressed the doorbell.

“Remember, we’re just giving our sympathies and then leaving,” Nova whispered as they waited.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Phyllis snapped.

“I mean it, Phyllis. No interrogations about money or murder or—”

At that moment, the front door swung open to reveal a woman with salt and pepper hair pulled back from her makeup-free face. She was dressed in a black sweater and slim trousers, and had a look of confusion on her pale face as she took in the strange trio and wheezing dog standing on her doorstep.

“Can I help you?”

Nova opened her mouth to speak but Phyllis got there first.

“Hello, deary.” An unfamiliar soft, quivering voice emerged from the woman’s mouth. “I’m so sorry to trouble you when I’m sure you’re busy, but we just wanted to pay our respects.”

What on earth was Phyllis doing? She may be many things, but a sweet, timid old lady she certainly wasn’t.

“Sorry, who are you?” the woman asked.

“We’re friends of your husband’s. We were in a book club with him over at St. Tredock community center and—”

“Did you say a book club?” The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry, but I think you must have made a mistake. My husband isn’t the book club sort; not unless all you read are golfing manuals.”

“Oh, have I got the wrong address?” Phyllis’s face fell. “Sorry, I’m getting ever so forgetful in my old age, maybe I remembered it incorrectly. Is this not Michael Watkins’s home?”

The woman frowned. “A book club, you say?”

“That’s right. You’re welcome to join yourself, when you feel up to it. The book choices need improving and the biscuit selection is poor, but we do have a good debate, and it’ll get you out of the house. We meet on the third Wednesday of every month.”

The woman shook her head, as if not believing what she was hearing. “The third Wednesday; as in the day before yesterday?”

“Mm-hmm, that’s right. This month’s pick was Where the Crawdads Sing , although I don’t think poor Michael thought much of it. How sad to think the last book he read was such a bad one. If only we’d gone with my—”

“Bloody hell, that man!”

They all startled at the rage in the woman’s voice. Nova knew better than anyone that grief brought a roller coaster of emotions with it, but she’d never heard someone swear quite so angrily at their recently deceased spouse.

“What’s that, deary?” Phyllis said, leaning forward. “Sorry, my hearing’s not what it was, you’re going to have to speak up.”

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” the woman said quickly, although the two red dots on her cheeks suggested otherwise.

“We should leave you in peace,” Nova said. “We just wanted to come and say how sorry we are for your loss, but we’ll be going now.”

She grabbed Phyllis’s arm and began to pull her back before she could say anything else. Nova expected Arthur to turn around and join them, but instead he bowed his head.

“I’m very sorry, too, Mrs. Watkins. I didn’t know your husband well, but he seemed like a good’un.”

His voice was low and respectful, and Nova saw the woman’s expression change.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My wife, Esi, always says that anyone who loves books can’t be a bad person, so I’m sure your husband was a fine man. I’m only sorry I didn’t get to know him better before he passed.”

The woman stared at Arthur for a moment, and then she threw back her head and let out a loud bark of laughter.

“My God, you think Michael’s dead?”

“Isn’t he?”

“No, he’s very much alive. Although if he turns up at your book club, you can tell him that Cynthia says if I ever see him again, I’ll kill him myself!”

Nova was too shocked to speak and even Phyllis seemed to have been stunned into silence. Only Arthur managed to find his voice.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. Someone saw a body being taken away from here yesterday and we thought it was Michael’s.”

“No, that was his mother, God rest her soul. I was the one who found her when I came back from staying at my sister’s yesterday morning.” The woman, Cynthia, visibly shivered as she said the words.

“Oh dear, how awful for you,” Phyllis said, regaining her strange, quivering voice. “That must have been a terrible shock for you and for Michael. Would you be able to give us his phone number, by the way? Only we think he might have taken something when he left the book club on Wednesday, and we’re very keen to get it back.”

“I can give you his number, but it won’t do you any good. If the police’s theory is correct then Michael, and whatever it is you want back, will be long gone by now.”

“What do you mean the police’s theory?” Nova asked.

For a moment Cynthia didn’t speak, and Nova could see her weighing something up. Then she sighed and lowered her voice. “I might as well tell you, seeing as word’s bound to get out sooner or later. The police think Michael’s mum was murdered. I found her body at the bottom of the stairs, and from the way she was lying, they think she was pushed.”

“Oh, dear God, how awful!” Arthur said.

“Do they have any idea who killed her?” Phyllis asked.

Cynthia leaned closer to them, dropping her voice even further. “They think it was Michael.”

“What!” Arthur said with a gasp. “But that’s rubbish, surely? He didn’t strike me as the murdering sort.”

“That’s what I told the police. But he was overheard arguing with Eve before she died, and he has been behaving strangely recently. I’m sorry but could you please control your dog?”

Nova looked down to see Craddock humping a garden gnome.

“So Michael’s run away?” Phyllis said, pulling back on the lead.

“He was seen driving away from the house around the time the police think Eve was killed, and he’s not been seen since. Although by the sounds of things, he came to your book club before he disappeared.” Cynthia stopped as a thought occurred to her. “Is she in your book club? Is that why he came?”

“Who?”

“That woman .” Cynthia’s voice was thick with vitriol. “He thinks I don’t know, but of course I do: the hushed phone calls, the money gone from our bank account, all those evenings he came home late with no decent explanation of where he’d been.” Her eyes flicked to Nova. “It’s not you, is it?”

“Of course not!”

“I suppose you’re not really his type. I wondered if it might be Wendy, the barmaid from the golf club. She’s in her fifties, big breasts, very stupid. Is she in your book club?”

“I’m afraid not,” Phyllis said. “Do you know where this Wendy lives? Maybe that’s where Michael is now.”

“I’ve got no idea, and quite frankly, I don’t care,” Cynthia said, although behind the angry words, Nova could hear a wobble in her voice. “Do you have any idea the mess he’s left me to deal with? I came home to find Eve’s body, and then there’s been police and forensics buzzing all over the place. And now I have a funeral to organize on top of all the legal business around this house and sorting Eve’s stuff. And he hasn’t even bothered to send me a text!”

“It sounds like you’ve got a lot on, so we should get out of your hair,” Nova said. “Thanks for your time, and I’m sorry again about your mother-in-law.”

“Yes, if there’s anything we can do to help, please just ask,” Arthur said. “You can find us at the St. Tredock Community Center.”

“And you’re absolutely sure you don’t know where Michael is?” Phyllis added, but Cynthia had already shut the door.