Murder Your Darlings (Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries Book 6) by Debbie Young

Author:Debbie Young [Young, Debbie & Young, Debbie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hawkesbury Press
Published: 2020-02-25T23:00:00+00:00

18 No Smoke Without Fire

As we descended the track in silence, the wind remained strong. The creaking pine trees were on the wrong side of the track to offer us any shelter. We’d come down not a moment too soon. By the time we entered the hotel lobby, plump raindrops were spattering down on the marble patio slabs around the pool, like cynical angels spitting on our supposed island paradise. I was glad to get inside and close the doors behind us.

Katerina was at the reception desk, working on the hotel accounts. I was not looking forward to breaking the news to her. Not only was she a self-declared fan of Marina’s books, she was also a hotelier whose business would suffer if her guests met fatal accidents – or worse.

Ben saved me the trouble. He leaned over the desk and reached for Katerina’s hands. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Listen, Katerina, we think something terrible may have happened. Sophie and I have just come back from the windmill where we found Marina’s phone cracked and abandoned, as well as her new scarf and shoes. One shoe was at the edge of the cliff and one on the ledge below. I’m afraid it looks as if she’s taken a tumble into the sea.”

Katerina gasped and pulled her hands free from Ben’s to put them over her mouth.

“You don’t think she jumped? No, of course not. She was perfectly happy. She must have been pushed. Someone killed the famous novelist Marina Milanese at my hotel! Oh no, this is a disaster!”

More so for Marina than for you, I thought, startled by the shallowness of Katerina’s affections for her favourite author. Then I remembered how Marina had offended Katerina on our arrival, in front of everyone else, refusing to sign her books. Katerina would be doubly regretful now. Marina’s autograph would be worth even more after her death, the source cut off forever.

I laid a comforting hand on her arm.

“There’s almost certainly a more innocent explanation. The sort that a court would rule death by misadventure. Perhaps she was blown over the edge.”

Ben was quick to back me up.

“She might have simply not seen the edge while taking a selfie and taken a step back too far. It happens all the time at famous beauty spots around the world. My paper has reported such incidents before.”

“I know for a fact that Marina was short-sighted, but too vain to wear her glasses,” I added.

Katerina pulled a handkerchief from her apron pocket to wipe her eyes.

“She could not have been blown away by the wind,” she said. “It was not strong enough.”

“You’re right, this is Floros, not Kansas,” said Ben. “So I’m afraid she may have fallen against her will.”

“But we don’t know anything for sure yet,” I said. “We didn’t see it happen. Someone seems to have gone over the edge, considering there’s a flip-flop halfway down the cliff, but it might not even have been Marina. She just seems the most likely, given the circumstantial evidence of her phone.

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