“That’s right, he was putting a lot of pressure on Eve, but she refused. She loved that house: it was where she’d lived with her beloved husband up until his death, and she’d put a lot of time and effort into the garden. But it wasn’t just that. Between you and me, she told me that she was worried if she sold the house and gave Michael his inheritance early, he’d just squander it like he had his own money. Eve loved her son very much, and she wanted to protect him from himself.”
“And so he killed her to get his hands on the inheritance,” Phyllis said. Just like inOrdeal by Innocence.
“I keep thinking: if only I’d rung on the doorbell when I heard them arguing, maybe I could have saved her. I’ll live with that regret for the rest of my life.”
Phyllis glanced at Richard and saw him staring out of the front window, his face creased with sorrow. Then he shook his head and turned to look at her.
“Sorry, I’ve waffled on and rudely asked you nothing about yourself. How did you know Eve?”
“Oh, eh…” Phyllis wracked her brains for a cover story, then realized it only risked complicating things. Better to tell the truth; or a version of it, anyway. “I actually never met her. But I was in a book club with Michael, and I’ve met Cynthia before, so I felt I should come and pay my respects today.”
“How kind of you,” Richard said, smiling at her. “Now tell me about this book club. I’ve always been interested in joining one.”
“We meet at St. Tredock Community Center on the third Wednesday of the month.”
“And what sort of books do you read?”
“A mixture. Most of them are pretty poor, if I’m honest, but that always makes for a good discussion.”
Richard laughed, and Phyllis felt herself flush again. What was going on with her today? She was behaving like a silly school girl.
“And are you open to new members?” Richard asked. “I’ve only lived in the area for eighteen months and still not met many people, so perhaps a book club would be a good way for me to make new friends?”
“New members are welcome,” Phyllis said, staring out the passenger window so Richard wouldn’t see her pink cheeks. Thankfully, they were pulling into Mountfort Close, cars already parked up along the pavement. Phyllis was relieved to see a large crowd of people filing into number eight; with this many guests at the wake, she should be able to have a snoop without Cynthia spotting her.
“Here you go.” Richard held Phyllis’s door open for her and she didn’t move, momentarily flustered.
Once she was out of the car, Richard offered Phyllis his arm, but she pretended not to notice and walked straight to the door of number eight. Her whole body was vibrating with excitement as she stepped inside. Here she was, Miss Phyllis Hudson, about to sneak into the prime suspect’s house and find the vital clue to incriminate the killer. It was enough to make Agatha Christie proud.
“Let’s go to the living room, that’s probably where the food is,” Richard said, and Phyllis allowed herself to be steered left into a large, airy room.
There was a huge three-piece-suite in the middle, the biggest Phyllis had ever seen, and a conservatory off the back looking out over a sprawling mature garden. Phyllis thought of her own sparse living room and swallowed.
“That’s Cynthia’s sister over there,” Richard said, nodding at a small, birdlike woman twitching by the fireplace. “And the pair she’s talking to are Cynthia and Michael’s daughters, Caroline and Elinor. They rarely visited their grandmother, although they’ve both been playing the part of the grieving granddaughtersveryconvincingly this week.”
Was the whole family involved in the plot to kill Eve and get their hands on the inheritance? It would explain why Cynthia’s sister was looking so jumpy, and why the two daughters were trying to impress everyone. Phyllis studied the three of them, but their faces gave nothing away. She scanned the rest of the guests, but didn’t recognize any of their faces, apart from…Phyllis quickly turned away when she saw Beryl from the community center chatting to an elderly couple. The last thing she needed was that woman seeing her here; Beryl was a notorious gossip.
“They must have set up the buffet in the dining room,” Richard said. “How about you stay here and I go and get us both a plate?”
“Thank you.”
He gave a small bow and then disappeared in search of sustenance. As soon as he was gone, Phyllis turned and headed back toward the front hall, keeping her face tilted away from Beryl. If there were any clues to be found, they wouldn’t be on show down here in the living room. There was a staircase leading up from the hall and Phyllis began to climb it. With every step, she expected to hear someone shouting for her to stop, but no one said a word and she got to the top unnoticed.
There were five doors leading off the upstairs landing, and Phyllis scanned her eyes across them before heading to the one on the far right, at the front of the house. It was a bedroom, and from the raised guards on either side of the bed, Phyllis guessed that it must have been Eve Watkins’s. Was this where Michael and his mother had argued before he killed her? If so, the crime scene had long ago been cleaned up: the bed had been stripped of all linen and the strong smell of bleach suggested the whole room had been disinfected, removing any evidence of foul play. To the right of the door were several boxes of books and some black bin bags, and Phyllis pulled one of the bags open to see it was full of women’s clothes. Eve’s family were clearly wasting no time in casting her belongings off. Phyllis abandoned the bags and moved on to the next door.
This room appeared to be some sort of an office: there was a bookcase along one wall and a desk under the window. Phyllis crept into the room, pulling the door shut behind her as she tiptoed across to the desk. It was tidy, with only a computer, a pen pot—from the golfing images on the front, Phyllis assumed it belonged to Michael—and a paper diary. She opened it and began to flick through the pages to the most recent dates, but there was nothing about murdering a mother or running away to Bodmin in there. She put the diary aside and turned her attention to the desk drawer. Phyllis expected it to be locked, but when she pulled on the handle it opened to reveal a pile of papers. She took them out of the drawer and hastily flicked through. They seemed to be mostly household documents: electricity bills, insurance policies and some old receipts. But halfway through the pile, Phyllis stopped and drew breath. In front of her was a credit card statement addressed to Mr. M. Watkins. And there, in red, was a number the size of which Phyllis had never seen.
£165,449.
Was that how much Michael owed? Richard had mentioned the man was in financial trouble, but this debt was bigger than anything Phyllis had ever imagined. No wonder he’d looked so stressed the whole time; just the thought of it made Phyllis feel sick. Was this what Eve had discovered and she and Michael were arguing about before he killed her? If so, the police had missed a key piece of evidence.
Phyllis stuffed it into her bag and began to move around the rest of the room. She was sure there must be another clue in here, but what was it? Not a stopped clock, like inThe Murder at the Vicarage, or a frayed lamp cord, as inA Murder Is Announced? Phyllis mentally kicked herself; if Miss Marple were here, she’d know what to look for.
And then she spotted it.
Under the desk, a small wastepaper basket which, by the looks of things, hadn’t been emptied for a while. Phyllis hurried back to the desk and picked up the bin. It contained the usual random assortment of rubbish: a few empty crisp packets—Michael had clearly been a fan of Monster Munch—several discarded tissues, and some ripped-up bits of paper. It was these Phyllis was most interested in, and she scooped out the contents of the bin and stuffed them into her handbag. She would go through these later, when she was in the safety of her own home.
A clock chimed, causing Phyllis to jump. She really needed to get back downstairs before Richard returned from the buffet and started wondering where she was. At the thought of him, Phyllis’s stomach gave a small dip. It was ridiculous, a woman of her age fawning like a silly teenager. But still, it had been more than sixty years since a man had smiled at her in the way Richard had.
