Murder at Raven's Edge: An unputdownable English cozy murder mystery (An English Village Mystery Book 1) by Louise Marley

Author:Louise Marley [Marley, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Storm Publishing
Published: 2024-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

That night Ben took all the archive boxes home – and this time he was careful to read their contents. He fell asleep sometime around dawn, waking with a raging headache and still slumped on the sofa with the files scattered around him. He showered and changed but skipped breakfast before heading into work.

He gave the morning briefing, updated everyone on the fact that Patrick had been released from prison three years ago and was in contact with Milla Graham, aka Kiran McKenzie. He could almost hear everyone collectively move her up to Suspect Number One in their heads, but what would be her motive? Presumably the same as Patrick’s – revenge on Dermot Graham. But Patrick had an alibi – he’d been in Somerset with his wife. And Milla? She’d been with Ben.

And that didn’t look good for either of them.

He sent a request to Traffic to keep a look-out for Milla’s car – she had to leave the safety of Dermot’s estate sometime – and assigned two admin staff to go through the boxes from the archives and index everything.

Now, was it worth driving to Somerset to interview Patrick Graham? Or could he get away with requesting a local officer do it for him?

Of course he couldn’t. What the hell was he thinking?

He was thinking he didn’t want to go to bloody Somerset.

As he sat in his office, with his head in his hands, trying to focus on the statements taken from those witnesses who remembered seeing Amita at the Calahurst Festival, a mug of black coffee slid silently across the desk and into his line of vision, closely followed by a packet of paracetamol.

There was no need to look up. Who else would it be?

‘Thank you, Harriet.’

He popped the pills from their packet and tossed them into his mouth, knocking them back with a hefty slug of coffee. It was mouth-blisteringly hot but felt so good he decided he didn’t care. Harriet showed no sign of leaving, so he raised his head.

She was on the other side of the desk, looking decidedly boot-faced.

‘You think she’s innocent, don’t you?’ she said.

No need to ask to whom she was referring.

‘Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, Harriet. You know that.’

‘Yes, well some people are more innocent than others.’

‘True.’

She loitered.

‘Can I help you with anything, Harriet?’

‘You wanted to be notified if information came in on a white Ford Fiesta registered to Kiran McKenzie?’

‘You know I did.’

‘We’ve had a report that it’s turned up in the car park at Port Rell. Shall I send someone to check it out?’

Did she mean someone other than him?

Was she deliberately baiting him?

‘No,’ he said. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘What do you think she’s doing there?’

‘I have no idea.’ It seemed unlikely Traffic were checking tourist car parks. They’d left that kind of thing to the council traffic wardens, years ago. So why had Milla’s car suddenly turned up in Port Rell?

And why did someone feel it warranted reporting to the police?

‘How did the information come in?’

‘An anonymous phone call,’ Harriet said.

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