Shifting Ice: A light-hearted Scottish mystery by Traude Ailinger

Author:Traude Ailinger [Ailinger, Traude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Book Folks bestselling fiction
Published: 2023-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

When Nigel Mulgrew started off growing flowers and vegetables on his patch of land, Juniper Green had been a very small village in a largely rural area on the outer fringes of Edinburgh. Now, with ever rising house prices in the Balerno-Currie area, developers had snatched up every bit of land around the garden centre and built estates of little shoeboxes right up to the fence.

McCord parked the Juke in one of the residential streets near the back entrance to Mulgrew’s. It was already dark, and some of the porches were brightly lit. In one of the tiny front gardens, a rowan tree was covered in white electric lights.

“You’d think it was still Christmas,” McCord grumbled. “Clearly, electricity prices are still not high enough.”

Calderwood just shook his head and exchanged a smile with Dharwan.

“Let’s start with the properties closest to the back entrance and the street leading out of the estate onto the main road,” McCord said. “Calderwood, you take this side of the street, Dharwan and I are going to start over there. That way the available charm is evenly distributed.”

The first house did not look promising. There was no car parked in the drive, and the garage was probably full of stuff that these small houses never have sufficient storage space for. McCord rang the bell anyway. They were about to move on to the next house, when they heard footsteps inside, and a teenage girl opened the door.

McCord congratulated himself on having taken Dharwan with him because the girl turned pale at seeing his ID but visibly relaxed when the beautiful young woman in uniform smiled at her.

“Could we ask you some questions about two nights ago? The night of Sunday to Monday?” Dharwan asked.

The girl suddenly became wary. “A police officer has already been here and asked me questions about that,” she said and was about to close the door.

Having noticed the girl’s discomfort, McCord felt he should intervene. “There have been new developments. Can we please come in?”

“We would really appreciate your help,” Dharwan said. “There is nothing to worry about. Whatever you say will be confidential. Nobody needs to know, and you might just help us to solve a murder.”

After contemplating this for a few moments, the girl stepped back from the door and led the way into the lounge.

“What’s your name?” Dharwan asked, pulling out her notebook. The girl looked even more worried now, so Dharwan added, “It’s just that I have such a bad memory.”

“Laura,” the girl said. “Laura Ainsworth.”

Dharwan wrote that down and then smiled at the girl.

“Well, Laura, did you see or hear anything unusual that night?”

Laura put down her mug. It did not seem to occur to her to offer McCord and Dharwan a drink.

“I didn’t, but my boyfriend did.”

McCord tried not to let his excitement show and with some effort stopped himself from intervening. Dharwan was doing a sterling job with the girl.

“What is his name?” she asked.

“Rory. Rory Swinton.”

“And what did he see?”

“He saw a man running through the back entrance of the garden centre.

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