A Slice of Murder, page 24
She felt a warm glow in her cheeks. The Malbec had hit the right spot. She quickly sent Theo a message asking if they could meet, but he hadn’t responded, and she didn’t fancy the drive or the sitting around at the station waiting for him. Instead she had started the long walk home.
With a raffia bag on her shoulder containing a selection of continental meats and a nice camembert, she approached the estuary. It was a quiet walk back; most tourists with families had already made their way back to their cottages and apartments, and the young were holed up in one of the bars in town.
It was then that she spotted the woman in the black dress from Mason and Harriet’s engagement party. She was sitting on a solitary bench, watching the curlew and little egrets find their supper as the tide came in and nightfall descended on Otter’s Reach. She almost hadn’t recognised the woman because of her scarf tied around her head, but it was that very same thing that also drew her attention. The woman seen talking to Alison the day she died was wearing a scarf tied in that way. What was she doing here? Shilpa doubted a woman of her social standing would just sit by the estuary on a public bench watching the local wildlife. She took a step back into the shadows of the tourist kiosk that was positioned just metres away from where her suspect was seated.
Shilpa watched the woman, who every now and again looked at her phone. She was waiting for someone. Her suspect stood up abruptly and looked around. Shilpa took another step back and held her breath. There was no reason to; she was well hidden thanks to the time of day and the shadow from the overhang of the kiosk roof.
‘Are you the lady from the market stall?’ a voice came from behind Shilpa just as a man started to approach her suspect. Shilpa reluctantly turned towards the voice and stepped away from the kiosk in fear of being spotted by her suspect.
‘You are, aren’t you, love. I’ve tried so many of your cakes now and they are all so delicious.’
Shilpa smiled at the older woman. She wanted to turn back to see who her suspect was meeting but she couldn’t. The woman was looking intently at her waiting for a response.
‘I am,’ Shilpa managed. ‘I’m glad you’ve enjoyed them.’
‘My Agnes is turning forty the first week in November. Do you think you could do something small for her?’ the woman enquired.
Shilpa nodded. She took out a business card from her pocket and handed it to the lady. She could hear a couple talking and she was certain one of the parties was her suspect.
‘Oh goody,’ the old woman said. ‘Let me find my number too. It’s best you have mine as well in case I lose yours. Then we can be sure to make the arrangements.’ As the customer rummaged through her bag, Shilpa furtively glanced over at the couple who were deep in conversation, but the old woman said something and she turned back without having taken a good look at the man. She took a step back and craned her neck to hear what they were saying.
‘I can’t see you like this in public, especially here; you know that,’ the man said. ‘Not now.’
‘I know,’ she hissed. ‘But after you called, I had to see you. You said you had it under control. You said that you had her under control.’
‘I do,’ said the man.
‘It doesn’t look like it to me. She knows. You said it yourself, and if she knows, who else knows? It’s only a matter of time.’ She paused. ‘Fat lot of good you are.’ Shilpa’s heart skipped a beat. She knew that voice. She was desperate to turn around now.
‘I’m protecting you,’ the man said. ‘This isn’t my doing, so don’t blame me.’
‘Here you go, love,’ the woman said, reeling off a number from a little pink diary. Shilpa swiftly added the number to her phone and said goodbye to the woman before she had a chance to ask anything further. She turned back to the couple.
‘You told her too much.’
‘I had to give her something. She was getting too close. What is it they say… keep your enemies close? I know what I’m doing. Do you think I’d risk my career for this?’
‘You always think you know what you’re doing. You never learn, do you? It may be just a game to you, but this is my life.’
‘That was different.’
‘You slept with a suspect. You’re lucky you didn’t get caught. No wonder you hot-footed it down to Devon. But that’s all it was – luck, not scheming on your part. You’re inept at that.’ The woman shook her head. ‘Did you really think that feeding her a few lies mixed with the truth would satisfy her?’ She shook her head. ‘Unless…’
‘Unless what?’
‘You actually like her. She’s pathetic and you’re no better. You’re never the one in control. You think you are, that you can play at being God. That’s why you gave her information about the case. You’re on some kind of power trip. You’re like your father – weak. No wonder Mama left him to be with mine,’ she said, turning away from him. ‘I’m not going down for this. I won’t, because if I go down, I’m taking you with me, brother dearest.’
The man turned towards her. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Ismene, I’m not going to let that happen,’ he said. ‘I promised you, and I promised Mama I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.’ As he spoke, he looked up towards the moon. His face was visible. Shilpa took a step forward, holding her hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming.
Theo looked towards her. She took another step back and held her breath. He squinted. Satisfied that he was not being watched, he turned back to Izzy. How had she not seen the resemblance between them before, the dark hair and olive complexion? Admittedly, she had only seen Izzy a couple of times. They had different surnames, different fathers, as Izzy had just alluded, but standing together it was glaringly obvious that the two were related.
Shilpa recalled the family photograph she had seen in Theo’s house. He had talked about his stepsister who was missing from the photo, saying she was used to getting her way, but he had been quick to change the topic. Now she knew why.
Shilpa wanted to scream. She had been played. Theo and his sister had been talking about her. He had been feeding her lies from the start. There never was a girlfriend who had moved to Costa Rica like he had told her. He moved to Devon to get away from what he had done. His superiors clearly didn’t know about it, because he was still a detective sergeant, but then what did she expect? He was a first-class liar. He had been telling her half-truths all along, like the foundation found in the sink. And it made sense now how she had found Alison’s emails and passwords so easily. Theo had been supervising the officers searching Alison’s apartment. He would have told his men that he had already searched Alison’s desk to avoid them finding the evidence that incriminated his sister. But it would have been too risky to remove something from the scene of the crime without someone noticing. Had he planned to return to Alison’s apartment later to remove and destroy it? Or had he hoped that once her apartment was searched there would be no further examination of the place? He had tricked her. He had sabotaged the investigation.
Izzy, dressed in an emerald-green pussy-bow blouse and black trousers, crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ she said. Her eyes were steely, like she was readying herself for a fight.
Theo took a step closer to his sister. ‘You killed Mason and Alison,’ he hissed. Shilpa closed her eyes. She had been foolish to even suspect Harriet for Alison’s murder.
Harriet had worn a scarf around her head the day that she was seen with Finley at the airport. That fateful trip that would cost poor Finley his life. But Harriet wasn’t the only woman who wore a scarf like that. Izzy had adopted the same technique to hide herself from the public when she approached Alison outside her home.
Alison invited Izzy into her home knowing that she had photos of her in the black dress. She felt a stab of guilt. She had let Alison down and ridiculed the photo she had of Harriet and Mason with Izzy in the background. Alison was right: she was the killer, and yet Shilpa had dismissed her so easily. No wonder she didn’t tell Shilpa immediately when she realised she had photos of Izzy in the black dress. Instead she had turned to the killer to confront her.
‘They got what they deserved,’ Izzy said. ‘Mason didn’t keep his promise, and so he had to pay. I suppose you could say it was my fault for believing him when he told me he loved me and that he was going to leave Harriet.’
‘That isn’t an excuse for what you did,’ Theo said.
Izzy looked nonplussed. ‘Did you know he was with me the whole time he was with her? Harriet thought he was still interested in Alison, and I may have done something to fan that fire. I played the perfect mistress. It was quite enjoyable, but one can’t be a mistress forever, can one? Do you know he pleaded for his life at the end? He said I was the only woman he’d ever loved, but of course it was too late then. I wasn’t going to be taken in again.’ Izzy laughed, then she stopped abruptly.
Shilpa took a breath. It explained why Harriet hated Alison, and it stood to reason that Alison hadn’t been invited to the engagement party. But it was Izzy who had been sleeping with Mason. Izzy had remained friends with Harriet only to deceive her. Leoni had said that Izzy’s relationship with Mason was brief and that Izzy had been the one to break it off. Leoni had been misinformed, but then she had confessed that her intelligence wasn’t up to date, as Izzy had moved away a couple of years ago. It also explained why Leoni didn’t know that Izzy was Theo’s stepsister, given that he had only moved to Devon after Izzy had moved away from Otter’s Reach.
Theo shook his head. ‘You’re crazy, you know that? I can’t help you. You say that I like playing games; that I play God. But what were you doing? You killed Mason at a party where there were witnesses, not to mention cameras. You even put the murder weapon back in the kitchen. How could you be that stupid?’
Izzy scowled. ‘You have to help me. I’m family. Imagine Mama’s grief if I were to go down for this. And anyway, killing Mason at the party was a stroke of genius. I mean, there may have been witnesses, but that also meant there were suspects. I asked Mason to meet me in the annex. I wanted to confront him about his marriage to Harriet as he had previously refused to meet me alone. He didn’t have a choice at the party because he was worried I would make a scene if he didn’t meet my demands. I took the knife from the kitchen as I was passing through. Just in case.’
Theo shook his head.
‘Alison nearly ruined it by approaching Mason and screaming at him for a good five minutes before he could get there. I followed him. After I told Mason what I thought of him and pulled the knife out of his chest – I underestimated how difficult it was to do that – my black dress was completely ruined, so I had to change, but that was the plan if things got a little out of hand, which they did. Black suits me, but it isn’t really my signature colour, so I thought it was a good decoy. I changed, put my clothes in the bag and walked out to my car, put the bag in the boot and went back to the party in my fabulous green Matthew Williamson number.
‘I suppose I was a little foolish with the knife. I should’ve taken it with me as well, but I panicked a little. I thought it would be better washed up and put back in its place. But that girlfriend of yours ruined that for me. She was faffing in the kitchen with that cake, and there were too many people. I guess I didn’t really think that part through. I should have washed the knife in the annex kitchen.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Theo asked.
‘I just needed to get out of that room quickly. There was so much blood. After I changed, I took the knife out of the bag and popped it back in its place as I walked through the kitchen and out to the car to deposit my bloodstained clothes. I didn’t want to keep the murder weapon in my car,’ Izzy said, as if keeping her distance from the murder weapon would absolve her from her crimes.
‘I’d assumed some minion of the Drews would have found it and cleaned it long before Mason was found,’ she continued. ‘I’d worn some lovely silk gloves when I touched the knife, so I wasn’t too worried.’
Theo shoved his hands in his pockets. He closed his eyes. ‘And Alison?’ he asked.
‘Oh Theo, stop being such a drama queen. I didn’t want to kill her but she gave me no choice. She called me, the fool, saying she knew I was the woman in black at the party that some guests recalled seeing but couldn’t identify. She said she had evidence. She was thrilled that some of her photos were finally going to be of use. I killed her to protect us,’ Izzy said, like she had done Theo a favour.
Theo took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed his temples. ‘We need a better plan. I have an idea, because I can’t hide the evidence–’ he started to say, but he stopped. He looked in Shilpa’s direction.
Shilpa took another step back and bumped into a metal bin fixed to the outside of the kiosk. The sound of the clanging metal was deafening. She froze as Theo started walking towards her. She looked behind her and momentarily thought about running. It was no use though. She knew Theo; she had felt the strength in his arms, his legs. He could easily outrun her, and once he caught up with her, what would he do? Would he silence her, or would Izzy do that for him?
She had to think, and fast. She had two options. She could smile her brightest smile and tell him that she was just walking past, pretend she hadn’t heard what she had. It was unlikely he would believe her. Her other option was to simply tell the truth; to confront this man she had been falling for, this man she was just hours ago considering taking home to introduce to her parents. But before she had a chance to make up her mind, Theo was upon her.
‘You need to go home,’ he said. ‘Get out of here.’
Shilpa could have nodded, taken his advice and removed herself from this situation, but something stopped her. Theo wouldn’t let her go that easily, would he? Not after what she had heard. He would come after her. She wasn’t sure of it, but the thought filled her with fear, and she found she couldn’t move. Izzy was walking towards them.
Theo turned. ‘We need to go,’ he said to his sister.
‘And leave her here? No way. She knows.’ Izzy stared at Shilpa with cold, dark eyes.
‘She doesn’t know anything, Ismene.’
Shilpa was silent. Theo was trying to protect her; at least that was something. But when she looked up at him, there was something menacing in his eyes. The knot in her stomach tightened. She would phone Drayton immediately. He had given her his number when she had been interviewed after finding the knife. She just had to get away.
‘Stop calling me that. It’s Izzy now,’ Izzy said. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Shilpa. ‘We can’t let her talk.’ She took a step towards Shilpa and in one deft move yanked her hair. ‘It’s dark and sheltered from view over there,’ Izzy said, pointing to a part of the estuary close to town that was shielded by a wall.
‘Oww,’ Shilpa screamed. Izzy hadn’t let go of the hair in her hand. She pulled again and then started to drag her towards the estuary. Shilpa’s raffia bag fell to the ground, the contents spilling onto the pavement. Her old Mulberry dragged along as Izzy pulled her. Shilpa tried to overpower her, tried slumping to the ground and even tried to kick, but it was all in vain.
‘A little trip over the side of the estuary and you could bump your head really badly,’ Izzy said. Theo looked around and then grabbed hold of Shilpa’s legs.
‘That metal handrail of the ladder down to the mudflats,’ Izzy said. She looked at Shilpa. ‘You could fall and hit your head on it. You’d pass out and drown in the incoming tide, and they’d find you in the morning, wouldn’t they, Theo?’ She looked back at him. Her lips, painted a bright red, formed a smile. ‘He’d be devastated, heartbroken. You really thought that she was the one.’
In another quick movement, Izzy pulled something out of her bag and hit her over the head. She opened her eyes to see a small crowbar in Izzy’s hand.
‘What the–’ Theo started.
‘Oh, shut up,’ she said. ‘We have to finish this.’
‘Yes,’ Theo sneered, ‘but not like this.’
Shilpa groaned. Her vision was blurred and she gasped for breath. She must have momentarily blacked out because her attackers had swapped positions. Her arms were being held by Theo, and Izzy was holding her feet. It was as if they were about to give her the bumps at a birthday party, but this was no party. They were going to knock her out and throw her into the estuary. The tide was coming in fast now.
‘I could tell Drayton that I’ve found evidence at her home,’ Theo said. ‘Her prints were on the knife used to kill Mason, and she had an altercation with Alison before she was murdered.’
Izzy seemed to consider this. ‘No,’ she said after a minute. ‘My idea is better.’ She smiled at Shilpa. ‘Another swing of this is needed,’ she said, looking at the blunt metal instrument in her right hand along with Shilpa’s left leg.
Warm liquid trickled down Shilpa’s neck from the throbbing pain above her left eye. She assumed it was blood. She could barely see straight and her head was aching. She wasn’t sure if Theo was holding her up or just trying to restrain her. She felt him squeeze her wrists a couple of times as if to reassure her, but she couldn’t trust her own judgement, not through the pain.
Shilpa must have passed out, she wasn’t sure for how long, but when she opened her eyes again and came to, she heard Izzy ask her if she was ready for the final blow. ‘The estuary has filled up nicely and is suitably high for you to drown,’ Izzy said.
Izzy tightened her grip on the crowbar, her hand shaking with anger. Shilpa opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came. She felt nauseated. Eventually she heard some words leave her mouth, but they were incomprehensible. She tried again.
‘The photos,’ she said, struggling for breath. ‘You took… Alison’s phone, but I’ve seen… all her photos. My friends… have too.’
Izzy was silent. Shilpa didn’t know for how long, but she had to finish what she wanted to say. It was the only way she could possibly save herself.
