Maggie’s lips thinned, her eyes fixed on her plate as she pushed a piece of broccoli around with her fork. “I’ve told you, Ellie, I don’t want to discuss this.”
Ellie leaned forward, her food forgotten. “But why? You’ve always had a heart for the underdog. You give money to the homeless, take in injured birds, and protect people who need it. Like you did with me, pushing me to go to university to escape the village’s... atmosphere.”
At this, Maggie looked up, her eyes softening. “Is that cloud still hanging over you, dear?”
“Don’t deflect, Gran,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “There are different clouds now. Black clouds. Blackwood clouds. Aren’t we supposed to be clearing them?”
Maggie sighed, setting down her fork. “And we will, Ellie. I promise you that.”
“But that can only happen if we’re honest with each other,” Ellie pressed. “First and foremost.”
“I am being honest,” Maggie insisted, her voice quiet but firm. “It’s just... I need to sort something out first.”
Ellie opened her mouth to argue further, but the resolute look in her grandmother’s eyes made her pause. There was clearly more to this situation than met the eye, and Maggie wasn’t ready to reveal all just yet.
“But what if he murdered his father?”
“What if he didn’t, Ellie?” Maggie pleaded right back, clutching her hand across the table, their gammon and roast potatoes barely touched. “I think I can prove that he’s innocent, but until then—”
“He might be guilty.”
“Until then, trust me,” Maggie said instead. “Please? For your old gran? I know you all think I’ve lost my marbles, but I promise the only thing broken about me is my hip.”
“I thought it wasn’t broken, it was new.”
“Well observed.” She squeezed Ellie’s hand, leaning back with an easy smile. “How about we ditch these plates and skip straight to—”
Ellie watched as her grandmother hobbled towards the front door, her newly mended hip still causing a slight limp. The aggressive buzzing of the doorbell echoed through the house, setting Ellie’s nerves on edge. She ran her hands through her hair, feeling the pressure of the past few days weighing on her patience.
“If that’s Sylvia trying to get me to donate to another needy cause, I might just turn her into a needy cause myself,” Maggie muttered, her voice a mix of exasperation and amusement.
“You wouldn’t,” Ellie replied, shaking her head. “You’re too much of a mouse.”
Maggie turned, fixing Ellie with a hardened stare. “Mice have teeth, and don’t you forget that.”
Ellie would have rushed up to answer the door for her, but if it was indeed Sylvia, she wasn’t prepared for the inevitable interrogation she’d felt she was dodging all day. The thought of facing more questions when she herself had so many unanswered ones made her stomach churn. And her grandmother’s lack of honesty wasn’t helping matters. Lives were at stake, and yet Maggie seemed determined to keep her secrets. Ellie knew she should trust that there was a good reason for her grandmother’s reticence, but it wasn’t that simple. The image of Thomas Blackwood’s lifeless body flashed through her mind, a stark reminder of the gravity of their situation.
She tried to push the gruesome memory aside, focusing instead on the sound of the door opening. Ellie held her breath, waiting to hear who their unexpected visitor might be.
Granny Maggie returned, followed closely by DS Angela Cookson. The detective’s presence filled the space with immediate tension, her eyes scanning the room as if to verify if it was as she remembered. Her gaze briefly met Ellie’s in the conservatory before she turned on her heels and settled in front of the stove, just out of view.
“Tea, Angela?” Maggie offered.
“No,” she replied instantly. “Thank you. I won’t be here long.”
The remnants of their past relationship as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law thickened the air. Her presence stirred more discomfort in Ellie, caught between her grandmother and her father’s ex-wife, but her curiosity about potential case updates made her swap her seat for lingering by the entrance to the kitchen, hidden behind a leafy parlour palm.
Angela reached into her pocket, producing a set of keys that glinted in the soft light from the oven, glowing with Maggie’s apple crumble still baking inside.
“I told them to be careful with your shop,” she said, handing them out, “but I can’t promise about what state it’ll be in.”
Maggie reached out and accepted the keys with a small smile, her fingers closing around the familiar metal as she stepped back.
“Thank you, Angela, and truth be told, the shop was in somewhat of a state before the murder, so I’m sure it’s fine. I’m glad to have them back.” She shook her fist with the keys still clenched in her palm. “I felt a little lost without them.”
Silence descended upon the room, thick and expectant. Angela made no move to leave, her stance rigid as she lingered near the stove. Ellie knew Angela wouldn’t have made the journey up to Maggie’s cottage just to return the keys. A PC could have easily been sent up, and it could have waited until morning. Something else was brewing.
Ellie stepped out from behind the parlour palm and joined her grandmother at her safe distance by the fridge. Together, they regarded Angela with matching expressions of intrigue, waiting for the real reason behind her visit to unfold. Ellie was eager to ask and her gran fizzed with the same impatience, but it wasn’t likely either of them would ask for more information. To Maggie, that would be like begging.
Angela’s demeanour shifted, her professional facade softening slightly. The detective reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, her short nails tapping on the screen.
“We found something at the scene of the crime in James’ pocket,” Angela began, her voice steady. “A scrunched-up piece of paper. A... riddle.”
Angela sighed as though it was the most absurd thing she’d had to say out loud about a case, but Ellie felt her heartbeat quicken at the possibility of this being a new riddle. She glanced at her grandmother, noticing the slight widening of Maggie’s eyes.
“Does this riddle mention Edmund’s Last Draft?” Maggie asked, as eager as Ellie.
Angela shook her head. “There was no mention of a ‘Last Draft’, but I think I know what this riddle is alluding to.” She cleared her throat, and Ellie couldn’t help but exchange a surprised look with her grandmother. Angela Cookson was in their kitchen volunteering information, so this must be serious. “The riddle goes like this,” Angela began, her voice flat and monotonous, lacking Thomas’s earlier theatrical reading:
“This house of stories, tall and grand,
Centuries have graced this land.
Where sacred family bells do chime and windows glow,
With tales of old from head to toe.
Seek the place where history’s kept,
