The Three Deaths of Magdalene Lynton by Katherine Hayton

Author:Katherine Hayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katherine Hayton

14

Bea Woolham gave Ngaire further evidence, none of it pleasant. Testimony about Paul and his strange sexual habits. After she’d left, Ngaire wanted to go straight to William Glover’s work and question him. But Deb was still working the case of the body washed up on Sumner Beach. The autopsy had already been pushed back twice but was definitely—probably—going ahead now, and she wanted to sit in.

Ngaire could work as much as she liked on her own at her computer, or out discovering things in the field, but an interview needed two until the DS was happy with her performance again. Preferably two, unless they came into the station.

She thought of asking someone else, but even if they agreed, Gascoigne had only assigned her and Deb. Ngaire didn’t want to earn his wrath if she waltzed off with someone he needed elsewhere.

Instead, she pulled the compound keys that Mary Lynton had given her from her bag and headed for her car. Isaiah’s strange message, if it was one, still niggled in the back of her brain. Now that she knew both the dog and Isaiah were friendly, the farm held no fear for her.

On reaching the property, Ngaire stuck her head in the housing block and called out, “Toodle-oo,” just in case Isaiah was hiding out. She couldn’t hear him or Trev running around the property. She walked into Magdalene’s room, craving a second look at the artwork covering every wall surface. No prizes for guessing who kept the work refreshed by tracing over the dimming ink. The drawings must have meant a lot to Isaiah.

She wondered whether he missed her. They’d been the only children in the compound, the only teenagers. Had that resulted in a tighter bond, or had Magdalene distanced herself from Isaiah to set herself apart as a person? Mr. Pontus indicated that they had been separate, but that might only have applied to school. Ngaire remembered two-tier friendship systems at that age—at-school friends and after-school friends. And never the twain would meet.

Ngaire caught a shadow in her peripheral vision as she exited Magdalene’s room and heard a faint noise she couldn’t place. Heart hammering, she moved to the next door in time to see a strip of wallpaper fall sodden to the floor. The damp was growing worse.

Outside, the sun shone with just a wisp of cloud to cover it. A plane left a thick contrail behind it as it traveled on a trajectory across the sky. Sign writing for clouds.

The church door was still unlocked, as it had been when she and Deb had paid their earlier visit. Inside, it was cool after the bright sunshine, even though it was too soon yet for the sun to carry any real heat. The windows were angled so light couldn’t make many inroads. Designed to be cool in the height of summer in a city that was lucky if it needed that architecture for a month each year.

Ngaire walked to the locked door and gave it a tug.

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