Page 56 of Worse Than Murder (DCI Matilda Darke Thriller #13)

T he restaurant is quiet. I stand in front of the Gaggia and I’m almost thinking about trying again to make myself a strong Americano when I hear the crunching of gravel outside.

I recognise the sound of the whistling brakes and look out of the window to see Sally pulling into her usual space.

From this angle, I can just about see that Philip is in the front passenger seat.

‘How are you feeling?’ I ask as I run down the steps to greet him. He looks fine; his normal self, dressed in jeans and a creased long-sleeve polo shirt. His eyes are droopy from lack of sleep and his thinning hair could do with a brush, but apart from that, he looks well.

‘I’m okay,’ he smiles. ‘You?’

‘I’m fine. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘As I’ve told Sally every two minutes since leaving hospital, I’m absolutely fine.’

‘The ward sister said he was the worst patient she’s seen in her twenty-year career,’ Sally adds.

‘Let me guess: you were complaining about the food?’

Philip rolls his eyes. ‘The toast was yellow and clock-cold. I’ve no idea what animal the meat I was given for lunch yesterday came from, but I don’t think it was meant to be for human consumption.’

I pull a face. ‘Eww.’

‘By the way, I’ve ordered some new cameras for the restaurant. I never really wanted those cages up. They’d look too institutional. These ones are more sophisticated and can be hidden. Nobody will know they’re there.’

‘Shouldn’t you have been resting?’

‘That’s what I was telling him,’ Sally says scathingly, as she takes his overnight bag from the boot.

Philip makes his way up the steps to the restaurant.

‘I’ve ordered them on a rush delivery. I want to find out who is trying to sabotage my restaurant,’ he says.

I hold back from following, and look to Sally. ‘Are you sure he’s all right?’

‘Oh, he’s fine, physically. I’m just worried he’s going to turn this place into Fort Knox. I’m expecting him to start interviewing for armed guards on the door any day now.’

‘Has he thought about a metal detector in the doorway like they have at airports for customers to walk through?’

‘I haven’t lost my hearing, you know,’ Philip calls out. ‘Sarky mares.’

We follow him into the restaurant and find him at the coffee machine.

‘Matilda, would you like a cup?’

‘Silly question,’ Sally mutters as she heads for the stairs to take Philip’s bag up to the bedroom.

‘Have the police said anything useful?’ Philip asks.

I pull out a stool and sit at the bar which runs along the back wall of the restaurant.

‘No. Typical. You know what police are like.’

‘You do realise you are still one of them, when you’ve finished pulling them to bits?’

‘My team excluded, obviously.’ I’m still calling them my team, I notice. ‘Anyway, forensics came out and did their usual thing. No prints were left behind. No footprints or tyre tracks outside. CCTV didn’t reveal anything either.’

‘Sally told me they’d been moved again. These new ones won’t be easily tampered with,’ he says as he passes me a cup of strong black coffee.

I inhale and feel myself instantly relax at the hit.

A thought enters my mind. I sit back and frown as I mull over what it could possibly mean. I look around me, taking in the door leading out into the car park, the door to the kitchen and stairs going to the flat above, and the door the intruder came out of the night before and attacked us both.

‘What is it?’ Philip asks.

‘The burglar came through the back door, right?’

‘Right.’

‘He came in here and he came out of that door over there, when we entered this part of the restaurant, right?’

‘Yes. So?’

‘Well, to get this far, he had to pass the storage room where you keep your booze, the bar, here, where you’ve got those bottles of wine and whisky lined up, and the till where you keep the cash and card machines. He left all that and went through that door. Why?’

‘I’ve no idea. He didn’t hang around for me to ask him.’

‘Apart from leading to the basement, what else is through that door?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So, only the stairs down into the cellar you’re going to renovate?’

‘Yes.’

‘Huh.’

‘What?’

‘What else is down there apart from an empty room with damp?’

‘Nothing. It’s a shell of a room. And it doesn’t have damp. It just smells like it does.’

‘In that case, why did the intruder go down there? He didn’t have a bag with him, so he wasn’t planning on stealing anything. Why did he pass all this expensive stuff and go down into an empty room?’

Philip’s eyes widen. ‘Do you think he took something down there?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s possible.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Something that would stop my renovations, that could possibly get me closed down?’ He places his own cup on the bar and heads for the door to the basement.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To have a look. What if he’s put a dead rat down there? Or worse, a live one. I don’t want Carl going down there and finding it. I don’t want bloody health and safety going down there.’

‘Jesus!’ I exclaim as I follow.

Philip leads the way, pushes open the door and begins to descend the stone steps.

There’s an underlying smell of damp, though it’s possibly due to the fact this room hasn’t been used much over the past couple of decades.

There’s no lighting so Philip pulls his phone out of his back pocket, turns on the torch and points it to the ground so we can see where we step.

At the bottom of the steps, he points the phone all around the floor. There is nothing there. A few plastic crates stacked in the corner, but no rotting rodents, nothing anyone from the health and safety department could object to should they wish to make a snap inspection.

I remain still at the bottom of the stairs.

I’m not a fan of basements. I’ve developed claustrophobia since being kidnapped.

I always need to be able to see a way out of a room and, as the cellar only has one exit, I remain where I can look up the stairs and see the door leading to daylight. My breathing has become shallow.

‘I’m sure this place will look charming when it’s finished,’ I say, trying to make light of my mental battle.

Philip is walking around the vast space. ‘I just… I can’t understand why the intruder came down here when there’s nothing here. There’s nothing for him to take, and he left nothing.’

I draw in a deep, shaky breath. ‘Is there any chance of some decent lighting down here?’ I’d feel better if I could see the far wall, at least. The total darkness is making me feel more penned in than I really am.

‘I’ve got one of the arc lights upstairs in the storage room. Will that do?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll go up and?—’

‘I’ll go,’ I interrupt. I turn and scramble back up the stairs. I can’t leave the basement fast enough.

I find the light with ease and also a long extension cable. I plug it in and bring it down with me. Immediately, the room is transformed as it’s lit up with a brilliant white light. I feel instantly better and can breathe now I can fully see the dimensions of the room.

‘It’s bigger than I thought.’

‘I know. It’ll make a great wine-tasting space.’

Philip continues to talk, to share his vision, while I head for the back wall, the wall that Carl said will make a picture window overlooking the lake. I press the palm of my hand flat against the cold brick. I look up to the corner. My eye travels along the ceiling and down the other side.

‘Have you had anyone down here?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Have you had any builders or anyone down here?’

‘Not yet, no. I’ve spoken to Warren in the village. He was going to come down last week and measure it, but the storm has made him very busy with repairs. Why?’

‘This is a false wall.’

‘What?’

‘This back wall is false.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When you’re building a wall, the bricks dovetail in the corners to add strength and stop them from falling over. These don’t do that. Look.’

Philip looks up into the corner and spots the bricks sitting perfectly in a row.

‘Oh yes. How do you know that?’

‘My husband was an architect. He also very nearly knocked down our house when he was doing the renovations. I made sure I knew exactly what he was doing after that. Someone has built a wall in front of the original wall.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You mean, behind there is a recess of some kind?’

‘Possibly. I don’t know how big it is. You’d need to measure the inside, then the outside, and you’d be able to calculate your discrepancy.’

‘It can’t be that big or I would have noticed before now.’

‘True.’

‘Why would anyone want to put up a false wall? I mean, what could be behind there?’

‘I may have been in the police too long, because the first thing that came to my mind was a dead body.’

‘The first thing I thought of was buried treasure.’

‘Which makes you childish and me ghoulish.’

‘Where do we go from here?’ Philip asks after a long silence.

‘Looking for a hammer and chisel.’