A smile played on Maggie’s lips. “Interesting theory.”
“Am I correct?”
She shrugged. “In places.”
“Which places?”
“There’s time for that. All you need to know is you don’t need to worry about the suspects. You know the old bell foundry house next to The Old Bell?”
Ellie nodded, recalling the dark house shaded by trees behind a high red brick wall around the corner. “It always gave me the chills as a kid.”
“That was just Edmund’s style. He was very macabre on the outside, but he was a sweet man,” Maggie explained, her voice softening. “His family, on the other hand… something went wrong there… they all still live there, at Blackwood Bell Foundry House—most call it Blackwood House these days—and I hear their home life is far from harmonious.”
“More rumours?”
“Not much else to do around here except natter on most days. We have to talk about something, so why not each other?”
“Given there is a man dead on the floor, I’d say those rumours have some continuity with the truth,” Ellie replied.
Maggie’s expression turned serious. “Someone should go and talk to them.”
“I’m sure the police will,” Ellie said as more cars arrived, parking haphazardly at the opening of South Street. “This isn’t one of our old mystery book games. There’s no way for us to know what’s really going on here.”
“Hmm.” Maggie agreed in her throat, her eyes shifting to something beyond Ellie’s shoulder. “Brace yourself. She’s here.”
Ellie watched as a sleek, dark car glided to a halt at the edge of the growing crowd. The door swung open, and Detective Sergeant Angela Cookson emerged. She’d always been plain and unfussy, her outfit consisting of dark tones and classic cuts. Her fine brunette hair was cut to a practical length—long enough to tuck behind her ears but short enough to stay out of her way. Despite her unassuming apperance, her presence commanded the attention of the street. She rolled her neck, hands on her shoulders, looking slightly dishevelled and on edge. Her expression was as humourless as Ellie remembered, though now there were a few more lines etched around her eyes and mouth.
Angela’s gaze swept over the scene, landing briefly on Ellie and Maggie. The corners tightened, a flicker of disdain crossing her face before she quickly looked away.
As PC Finn Walsh approached Angela, speaking in hushed tones and gesturing towards the bookshop, more official vehicles began to arrive. Vans and cars pulled up, their occupants spilling out onto the cobblestones with purposeful strides. She continuted to avoided looking in Ellie and Maggie’s direction again.
Even after all these years, Angela still had the power to make Ellie feel small and unwanted with just a glance. As she strode towards the bookshop, her flat but loud voice carrying authoritatively over the murmur of the crowd, Ellie found herself shrinking back, moving closer to her grandmother.
“Not the homecoming you were expecting?” Maggie said, her voice low and tinged with concern. “I’m sorry, love. Really…”
Ellie shook her head, her eyes fixed on the approaching officers. “I wasn’t expecting a homecoming at all, but here I am, tangled up in a script I haven’t written.”
“And I suppose the question is,” Maggie whispered, “whose pen is writing the script?”
“And why was that pen important enough to take?”
Their speculation was cut short as Angela passed right through them without so much as a glance, accepting rubber gloves and shoe covers from an officer waiting by the shop. DS Cookson might not have looked, but she’d seen them.
“She hasn’t changed much,” Ellie muttered.
Maggie snorted. “Like most people, she just got worse with time. Not you though. You’re still the bright spark I remember.” She patted Ellie’s arm gently. “I meant it when I said you’d got a lot right. We’ll give the police our statements, and then I’ll tell you everything I know about Edmund’s family. He had two sons, James and Thomas, and Thomas has two children, Charles and Emma. They’re…” She sighed. “Well, they’re going through a lot right now, I imagine.”
A shadow passed over Maggie’s face as she mentioned the family.
“And…?” Ellie prompted.
Maggie sighed. “You know I like to see the best in people, but there’s something about that family. Since Edmund’s passing two years ago, I’ve seen deep rot in each of them.”
“And rot has a way of spreading,” Ellie said, sighing as she looked at the bookshop.
The morning had begun with her wanting to make something better of the mess. Maybe if she hadn’t let Penny drag her off for her mother’s buffet dilemma for her party later, she would have been at the bookshop to scare Thomas and his murderer off.
“What have you seen of the Blackwoods that made you think that way?” Ellie asked.
Before Maggie could expand on what she knew about the Blackwood family, PC Finn Walsh approached. “Ladies, if you don’t mind, we need to take your statements now,” he said, his tone apologetic but firm. “DS Cookson has insisted it happen separately.”
Maggie nodded and allowed Finn to guide her away, leaving Ellie standing alone. A moment later, a woman officer approached Ellie. She was stout and stern-faced, reminding Ellie of a rhino in uniform.
Somewhere, she heard someone ask for the time. Almost quarter past one. She’d been scheduled to work the 8-4 shift, and Happy Bean in Cardiff Bay would have been busy on a sunny July afternoon like this. Derek never staffed enough, and she’d have been glued to the coffee machine, steam blowing in her face on a day humid enough on its own.
Wiping the sweat from her neck, she tried to decide if that would be better or worse than what she was doing as she followed the rhino. Even with mace and a baton strapped to the officer’s belt, Ellie would still take the rhino over Happy Bean, Derek, and Susan from the studio and her soy milk.
Chapter 8An (even bigger) Emergency
The rhino, it turned out, was nothing of the sort. PC Jenny McCoy was Scottish, lovely, and owned a parrot called Dolly that she was very proud of. Settled in a quiet corner of The Drowsy Duck, Jenny pulled out her phone and proceeded to show Ellie video after video of her feathered friend singing snippets of pop songs while taking her statement.
But that was typical of Meadowlings.
Nobody was ever in a rush.
The days unfolded as they did, even with murder on their hands. Who was to say there wasn’t time for a parrot video between statement questions?
Judging by first impressions, the pub itself hadn’t changed either. It had a rustic charm owed to the huge fireplace filling the low-roofed space. The worn wooden beams and faded photographs on the walls told stories of countless village gatherings and quiet pints shared over the years. Ellie would stare at those photographs for hours as a child, imagining the days of the village gone by.
