Five Six Pick Up Sticks (Grasshopper Lawns) Read online

  There were also twenty-three email messages from the two websites and she logged in quickly to see if there was anything that needed attention. Icebreakers, for the most part, including one from a nineteen year old who was artlessly telling every single woman registered as a member ‘I liked you’re photo alot’. How to get personal.

  She deleted that, and another from a frisky – literally, his name was Frisky Felix – man in his seventies saying he had studied her photo and detected a hint of passion in her eyes that excited him very much. She couldn’t imagine any of the victims responding to a lead like that, and there was no file on him. There were two messages from Nick; one to say he couldn’t stop thinking about her and another, more prosaically, that he had booked dinner for them both for the end of the month at the restaurant they’d discussed. She penciled that into her diary, smiling. If Donald and the others wanted to ride shotgun, it could be a fun night out for them.

  There was no email notification from Phwoar but the website signaled that Mountain Bob was on line and wanted to talk to her. With a slight sigh she clicked agreement, so that his photo came on the screen. He wanted to know how her lunch had gone, and to assure her that Cheryl was wonderful; she was already in training for the Caledonian Challenge and suggesting they train together for the Three Peaks. The September one, he added helpfully, as he probably wouldn’t be ready for July.

  Edge raised her eyebrows at this assumption that she was au fait with all the fixtures in his diary, and typed back that she had another instant messaging request so she’d have to go, but that she was really pleased for him.

  She signed out altogether, logging into the second website to check the last few messages. One of them was an approach from someone called Ben, and her pulse jumped. Ben had been linked to seven previous victims. There were four photographs in his profile, showing him to be somewhat above average height, very smart in some kind of uniform in one, holding a Frisbee for a jumping border collie in another, a laughing shot with a much older woman in the third and a close-up in the last. He was smiling but looked slightly wary and she enlarged the photo to study it, feeling for a moment rather like Frisky Felix.

  He wasn’t handsome – certainly not as good-looking as Nick – but if she’d been scanning the websites for herself he would quite definitely have caught her eye. He looked both sensible and pleasant and, according to his bio, was widowed, with grown-up twin daughters. He described himself as semi-retired, and writing a book about his travels to top up his pension, which showed under income as a very respectable thirty thousand a year.

  His message was a good one, too, considering he was sending it to someone who called herself Suzi-cute and she smiled as she answered, using the familiar phrases Susan had sketched in for the Suzi-cute character: enjoying life, but lonely – money isn’t everything, is it, although it’s a blessing not to have to worry about it – new to the area, wanting to make friends. She did so with a pang of slight regret. This was a nice man, but also, of course, quite possibly a serial killer. With which cheering thought she logged off and prepared for bed.

  Chapter 10 - Kirsty moves house

  Kirsty rang at an indecently early hour in the morning, sounding keyed-up and excited, to find out when they’d be arriving.

  ‘If you haven’t forgotten?’ she added anxiously, and couldn’t seem to resist adding snidely, ‘with all your other distractions?’

  Edge, not a morning person, giggled sleepily. ‘We’re all thoroughly looking forward to staggering round with heavy boxes. We can do with the exercise – Vivian and William have been so good about shadowing me on every single date over the last ten days, and Donald often comes too, he even covered two when they couldn’t. Vivian still insists I can’t make dates on rehearsal nights but she was saying she’s put on half a stone with all the eating out. She’s braver than me, I haven’t dared get on a scale. A bit of hard labour is exactly what we need.’

  She rang off and lay back, but Mortimer, once awake, jumped onto her chest to knead and insist on his breakfast. At least the night before hadn’t been a very late one; a week ago she’d apologetically cancelled the long-standing date with Nick, who had taken the huff and not been in touch since, in favour of a new prospect who hadn’t turned up at all, and the evening had instead been a laughing, but early, night with her unofficial bodyguards, and a chance to go off duty for the secret ones. It didn’t make it any easier to be woken at - she pushed Mortimer away gently, looked at her bedside clock, and groaned. Eight in the morning!

  It was close on eleven before their little convoy found its way to Kirsty’s flat in Onderness town centre, in unseasonably hot weather. William’s help extended no further than establishing himself on a sturdy shooting-stick on the pavement to direct the cases, but with some difficulty, and a great deal of repacking, the seemingly endless stream of boxes from Kirsty’s upstairs flat finally found places in the fleet. Vivian, who said she had a problem with her ankle, was excused the stairs and concentrated on packing the cars. After four trips Edge had a blister forming on her heel and gave up on the stairs to help her. With the best will in the world, and despite William’s shouted advice, the doors on Kirsty’s little car couldn’t close on the last duvet, and there wasn’t an inch to spare in the other three cars. Kirsty pushed strands of damp hair back from her flushed face after a final determined attempt to squeeze the duvet in and around the suitcases and boxes, and shrugged.

  'So I come back for it. Not the end of the world. Stupid winter duvet, anyway, I won’t need it for months.'

  'No, wait, I have an idea.' Donald loped back to his BMW, lifted two boxes out of the boot and reappeared with a tangle of elasticated ropes with coated hooks at either end. 'To hold the back door down – they clip anywhere.'

  William was delighted by what he insisted were dating tethers. When Donald loftily refused to rise to the bait, he turned the teasing on Edge. He’d insisted on seeing the website and had taken a great fancy to Nick, telling her now that she’d need to borrow the tethers to pin him down, if she could ever coax him into another date. Tempers were fraying a bit by the time Kirsty hastily led the convoy across to pretty little Dunkeld.

  She had already garaged her car by the time William’s 4x4 hesitantly nosed into the crowded tiny close and onto the driveway but Edge, who had managed to squeeze her two-seater hatchback into the only street shade, hung back for a moment on this third visit to take in her niece’s new home. The little house, white with smart green trim under green tile, looked as peaceful and friendly as though murder had never come near it. Geraniums had taken the colour baton from the fading azaleas, the black acer was in early bloom, variegated shrubs were crowding the front path as though fascinated by the visitors, the birdbath had been refilled and the lawn was newly trimmed. Kirsty appeared in the doorway, holding up a glass jug of lemonade with a grin and Edge smiled at how completely right she looked. The house was perfect for her, and she was perfect for the house.

  'Tea!' Kirsty announced nearly an hour later. 'That’s it, I’m not unpacking another box, the rest can wait. Anyway, I wanted to ask a favour of you.'

  'Another?' William stopped packing groceries into a kitchen cupboard and glowered at her. 'You young besom, you’ll be the death of us yet.'

  'Oh, no, this one is a consultation. I wonder where the tray is? Do you think Susan even had one?' Vivian smilingly produced a tray from the gap next to the stove, and Kirsty bustled – there was no other possible word for it – about to entertain her first guests.

  William commandeered the sofa, as neither chair looked suitable for his bulk, and fortified himself with a doughnut and a long draught of tea before reminding her, 'You wanted a favour?'

  'I wanted to consult the collective.' She sat suddenly, and folded her hands in her lap. 'You lot are so good at solving things. Edge has told me you all spark ideas off each other and, well, here’s the thing. You should know that a colleague of mine was murdered in this house, barely a month ago. That’s how I co
uld get it so cheaply, to be honest. How I could get it at all. And I wondered – if you could look around, set off your sparks, see if you could come up with anything? We haven’t stopped our investigation, not at all, but we haven’t come up with anything new, either. Are you up for it?'

  'We’re always up for that.' William collected his walking sticks and heaved himself upright. 'But I have to warn you, there’s a distinct possibility Donald will find a body. He usually does.'

  Edge hung back with Kirsty as the others moved purposefully off. 'I don’t understand?'

  Kirsty dropped her voice to a murmur. 'We still haven’t had a victim for last month, if it wasn’t Susan. That other death I mentioned, the day after Susan’s, had a carnation in a glass, not a rose, and anyway she’d been throttled. With Susan there was the bunch of roses scattered on the floor, but she wasn’t dressed as though she was expecting company. Certainly not as if she’d been out on the town. If there’s any chance at all she really was killed by someone else, that being on this case didn’t sign her death sentence…'

  She looked at her aunt helplessly and Edge finished for her, 'You’ll be much happier about living here. Okay.'

  'Either way, obviously, anything you find that could solve her death would be amazing. You’ll do it?'

  'Of course we will, darling. But I must warn you my contribution to the collective is usually talking, and listening. If you’re a person who talks a lot, like me, and start conversations at the drop of a hat, people tell you the most astonishing things. But I will try to be a bit more of a detective.'

  True to her word she wandered round the house, feeling extremely bogus. It was small but well-planned, with excellent storage space including a shallow pantry in the kitchen, a deep cupboard under the stairs, and even a roomy hall closet. She looked inside this last, brows drawn together. Could anyone have hidden there? But he’d still have to get inside in the first place…

  She stepped into the back garden and found Vivian looking thoughtfully at the outside tap, which had a half-full bucket set crookedly beneath it.

  'Look at that – the bucket’s half full?' Vivian greeted her and Edge looked bewildered. Vivian shook her head at her. 'It’s half full, Edge. No gardener – and this garden is lovely – would leave a bucket full of water squarely on top of a mint patch. It must have been full to overflowing to still have any water after nearly a month - in fact you can see how it tilted a little and has sunk into what must have been mud. Don’t you think that’s significant?'

  'No!' Edge shook her head, more bewildered than ever. 'Maybe the tap drips?'

  'It isn’t dripping now,' Vivian pointed out. 'That’s definitely given me a theory. What have you found?'

  'Nothing.' Nettled by Vivian’s slightly pitying look, she added, 'Apart from the fact there’s a hook on the wall in the hallway with nothing on it. That strikes me as highly suspicious.'

  'Good point!' Vivian raised her eyebrows, looking impressed, and Edge, who was being deliberately facetious, gave up and left her to it.

  When they gathered again in the living room, a little self-conscious under Kirsty’s expectant gaze, Donald glanced around and, with a smirk, dug out a battered notebook. He tapped it with his pen. 'Okay, what do we know?'

  William beamed at him approvingly and explained to Kirsty, 'That’s how he starts us. Then we all come up with theories and he makes rude remarks about them. Now, I quizzed Kirsty while you lot were galloping round gathering clues, and she assures me Susan would not have opened the door to anyone she didn’t know. There’s a closed-circuit camera which shows her anyone at the front door. So we know, Donald, it was a neighbour, a friend, a colleague or someone who broke in.'

  'And she was wearing a kind of velour tracksuit and slippers,' Kirsty put in, 'so she certainly wasn’t expecting anyone.'

  'Was there mud on the slippers?' Vivian asked swiftly and Kirsty nodded, looking puzzled.

  'What time did she die?' Donald asked and Kirsty lifted her shoulders.

  'Probably around eleven pm. They don’t know exactly when she last ate, but about four hours after that meal. The educated guess is that she died somewhere between ten thirty and eleven thirty. She’d sent an email at ten thirty.'

  'Kirsty, I don’t want to upset you,' Donald said diffidently, 'but how did she die? And what has been taken from the house since?'

  'Well,' Kirsty paused, then shrugged again. 'Okay, but as usual – discretion, please? The only things taken by us were some work files and her laptop. There was a half cup of coffee on the kitchen table, but the kitchen was otherwise tidied up for the night. Other than the coffee, this was the only room that had anything odd or out of place. Her bed was made, so she hadn’t gone up yet. What else? She hadn’t locked up. The back door has a spring lock and a bolt, the front door has a spring lock, a mortice, and two bolts. They were both on their spring locks so the killer could have left through either door. The sofa was pushed back a bit, out of its usual marks on the carpet, and a side table was knocked over. There was a plastic vase, knocked over, and half a dozen red roses on the floor next to that side table.'

  She looked around, frowning in thought.

  'I think I’ve forgotten something. I’ve removed Mortimer’s stuff – litter box, harnesses hanging behind the door, that sort of thing. Otherwise I think everything was as you see it. She was lying on the floor, her head on the fender, and the autopsy shows the fall fractured her skull. She must have been knocked unconscious immediately, and she died soon after. We’ve ruled out an accident, not only because of the signs of a struggle but because some small stuff was stolen. She had a personal iPad, which has gone, and a good camera went, but she was still wearing a half-carat diamond ring, and there was some reasonable jewellery, including diamond earrings, in her bedroom closet. She had a laptop that was top of the range, but the burglar doesn’t seem to have gone into the study at all. There’s the possibility whoever killed her was interrupted before he could do a proper search.'

  'So whoever came in, she was drinking coffee at the time but didn’t offer them any,' William said thoughtfully. 'And she didn’t bother to take off her slippers – her muddy slippers, as Vivian said – so she knew them very well, but wasn’t being particularly welcoming.'

  'I can’t believe she would let someone in.' Kirsty said stubbornly.

  'You’re right,' Vivian agreed. 'I wouldn’t let anyone in at that time of night unless it was an absolute emergency, and the first thing I would do is make them a hot drink. Whoever it was, tricked her – it’s a very old trick, too, but it works every time.'

  'Oh!' Edge suddenly realized the relevance of the bucket, and Vivian looked a little smug.

  'What do you do,' she asked Kirsty, 'if you hear the garden tap running as you’re getting ready to go to bed?'

  'I – well, I’d go out and turn it off.'

  'Leaving the kitchen door open, of course. While she was turning off the tap – which had been running a little while, by the way, as the ground is still slightly muddy weeks later, but then that bit would be in the shade – where was I? Oh, right, while she was turning that off, the killer nipped in through the kitchen door.'

  'Nice one.' William was deeply impressed and Vivian shrugged.

  'It’s a common trick in Africa. Edge had forgotten it but Gordon and I got caught that way once. Luckily the dogs were in the kitchen and instantly sprang raging to their feet. Our would-be burglar charged straight out again, knocking poor Gordon flying, and was last seen clearing the six-foot wall in a single bound, pursued by the ridgebacks. Anyway. No dog here.'

  'So, hmm.' William lifted one finger and waved it from side to side, frowning. 'They didn’t clash in the kitchen, or the coffee would have gone flying. She had already switched off the lounge lights, so she was on her way to bed. Heard the water skooshing into the bucket, put down her coffee, went outside, and in the dark got mud on her slippers. He slipped past and made for the darkened lounge. He’s a burglar, not a killer, or he’d have tackle
d her outside. He should have gone into that big hall closet, but perhaps he didn’t have time to risk it. She closed the kitchen door, heard a noise in the lounge, left her coffee on the table, walked in, switched on the lights, and bam.'

  Kirsty had the slightly stunned look of someone experiencing their first William re-creation, but recovered quickly. 'She was a cop. Undercover, yes, but still a cop. Her Airwave was already locked in her safe in the study for the night but if she heard a suspicious noise in the house she’d have used her panic button, and that was hanging right there in the hallway.'

  'The empty hook,' Vivian said triumphantly, looking proudly at Edge. 'That was something else you lot removed, then.'

  'Sorry, yes. I forgot that. She was occasionally involved in quite high-risk investigations. There’s another built-in panic button upstairs.'

  'So she didn’t use the button, even though it was hanging right there. If she’d locked her radio away William’s right, she was finished for the day, and heading for bed. I’m guessing in that case the front door was bolted; you might want to try fingerprints there if you say it was unbolted when you found her. Something made her go to the lounge. To collect the cat?' Donald looked at Kirsty again. 'You say there was a skirmish. Had she held her own? Would she have fought back?'

  Kirsty shuddered, but answered calmly enough. 'There was skin and blood under her nails, and her knuckles were bruised. She punched him at least once, and scratched him. She knew some Judo. In fact we think she skidded as she was going for a crippling kick, there was a faint muddy smear from her slippers.'

  'Is that her in the group photo in the hallway? Very good looking?' Donald asked with interest and Kirsty gave him a startled glance.

  'Yes – well, yes, I suppose she was. Why do you ask?'