“Tris, I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now. We’re on our way to arrest her. I’ll call you later.”
“No, wait!” But it’s too late. He's already hung up. I grab my phone and pull up the Uber app.
“Where are we going?” Dusty asks, holding Delores’ hand and patting it comfortingly.
“Clapham,” I say worriedly. “Danny found the murderer.”
20
“Have you found anything?” I look up as Maddie enters the room. She throws me a frustrated look and shakes her head.
“What about you?” She nods towards the old-fashioned cherry wood sideboard I’m currently rummaging through.
Closing the drawer and moving down to the one underneath, I continue to search. “Nothing so far,” I mutter. “There must be something here.”
It had taken a favour pulled in from one of Maddie’s friends who worked over at the magistrates’ court to get us seen so quickly but once we did, there was no problem getting a search warrant for Maeve Landon aka Edith Anderson’s tidy little two-bedroom house in Clapham Common. Sam may not have had much time to look into Maeve, but what he found was more than enough to convince a judge.
I think we all have a vested interest in seeing how this plays out. Not only could we possibly close Delores Abernathy’s case, but we may end up wrapping up a whole load of cold cases too, possibly even uncovering more.
I have an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, a gut instinct that tells me we’ve barely even scratched the surface of this woman’s crimes.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Danny, but the officers upstairs haven’t found anything yet and there’s nothing in the kitchen. This place is meticulously kept, not so much as a speck of dust or a coaster out of place.” Maddie sits down in one of the chairs.
“We need something more concrete.” I chew my lip thoughtfully as my gaze scans the living room. “She’s a clever woman. She has to be to avoid being caught for this long. She’s not just going to leave anything out in the open that would trip her up…” I scratch my chin as my mind works furiously. “I know there’s something here, there has to be. What do we know about the house itself?”
“Victorian semi-detached.” Maddie pulls out her notebook and flips through a couple of pages. “Owned by Charles Landon, Maeve’s name isn’t on the deeds. Looks like he bought the place back in 1967, way before he met Maeve. Records show they married in 1994 at the local registry office. Her name was Maeve Bennett at that point.”
“That must have been the identity her brother created for her in ’84 right before he was arrested.”
“Landon was older than her, by thirteen years or so. He would’ve already been 71 years old when they married according to the marriage certificate your friend Sam unearthed.”
“Did I hear my name?” Sam strolls into the room with his hands casually tucked in his pockets and looks around the room.
“We were just talking about Charles Landon,” Maddie says. “There’s no death certificate listed for him.” She raises one gloved hand and points a finger at him. “You’d better not be touching anything without gloves.” Sam grins and pulls one out to show off the blue latex.
“So where is he?” I lift a brow, already suspecting the answer.
“I think we all know what’s most likely happened.” Maddie scowls. “If he were still alive, he’d be nearly a hundred years old. Maeve’s still drawing his pension and all the bills are paid, but there’s no sign of a man living here at all.”
“We can probably add theft and fraud to her list of charges then,” I say darkly.
“Poor man.” Maddie shakes her head. “The sad thing is, no one seemed to notice he’d disappeared. Maeve certainly picked well. An older man who kept to himself, didn’t have many friends. A confirmed bachelor most of his life, no living family, no children.”
“We have to find something.” I glance down at my watch.
Maeve wasn’t here when we arrived to execute the search warrant, and while we have enough to arrest her once we find her just based on what Sam uncovered, it might not be enough to convict her. We need a smoking gun… or rather a bottle of arsenic with her fingerprints on it.
“We had old Victorian terraces like these back on the street where I grew up in Leeds,” Sam says as his gaze deviates to the doorway. “A lot of them had original features that were boarded up when the houses were modernised.”
“What—like fireplaces?” Maddie frowns.
“Like cellars,” Sam points out.
“You think it’s possible?” Maddie turns to me.
I close the drawer to the sideboard and stand. “Maybe. We don’t have time to track down blueprints to these houses, even if they still exist, but if a cellar existed at some point, the entrance would have most likely led off either the hallway or the kitchen.”
I head out of the living room, motioning Maddie and Sam to follow along behind me. Even though technically Sam shouldn’t really be here, Maddie seemed happy for me to let him tag along, especially given his invaluable help on the case so far. The fact he has police training as a former detective with the South Yorkshire police probably doesn’t hurt either, but I can’t deny I’ve missed him. We always did make a good team.
