Murderous Secrets

  Neal & Merry Book 6

  MURDEROUS

  SECRETS

  A brilliantly gripping crime mystery

  JANICE FROST

  First published 2018

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Janice Frost to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  www.joffebooks.com

  ISBN 978-1-78931-247-8

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  ALSO BY JANICE FROST

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  GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH SLANG FOR US READERS

  Chapter One

  Ava Merry was feeling distinctly underdressed. She had just arrived at PJ’s flat, expecting to be greeted by a fellow ‘land girl.’ Instead, a vision of floaty 1940s loveliness appeared at the door holding a glass of fizz. PJ — real name Polly-Jane, though no one called her that — was Ava’s friend and colleague. She had recently become a detective constable, working alongside Ava, who was a detective sergeant. She had also recently broken up with her fiancé.

  “You’re inappropriately dressed for bringing in the harvest or mucking out the pigsty,” Ava pointed out.

  “I know, I know. Sorry. I know we agreed we’d both dress as land girls . . .” PJ ushered Ava into her tiny flat. “But that get-up looked awful on me.” She gave Ava the once-over. “Alright for you with your tiny waist. Dungarees make me look like a sack of potatoes tied in the middle.”

  Instead, PJ wore a knee-length periwinkle blue dress of some slinky, rayon material. It had shirring at the waist to flatter her size 14 curves. She had done a great job on her hair, too. Her naturally unruly mop, which she often straightened until it was sleek and glossy, was set with smooth curls. No way had she managed that on her own.

  Ava thought of the hour she’d spent in front of a YouTube teach-yourself-vintage-hairstyles video to achieve her own poor imitation of victory rolls. Thankfully, a red-and-white-checked headscarf hid the messier bits. She gave a soft whistle. “You look like a 1940s pin-up girl. Veronica Lake or Rita Hayworth.”

  “Well, you look glam, too, even in bib ’n’ braces. Then again, you’d look sexy in an old bin bag.”

  Ava laughed. PJ’s self-confidence had taken a downturn since her fiancé, Steve, had ditched her in favour of travelling the world and embracing new experiences. He’d had a cancer scare and, after obtaining the all-clear, he’d decided that he needed to live each day to the utmost. His plans to travel the globe didn’t include marriage and settling down with PJ.

  Still, PJ was a naturally optimistic person, with a bubbly personality and a big heart. Ava was sure she’d bounce back, given a little time. The 1940s dance had been PJ’s suggestion, and Ava had been happy to go along with it. She hoped a night of jiving and bopping to big band music would be just the thing to lift her friend’s mood.

  It was the sort of event that Jim Neal would shun, Ava thought, her mind straying to their serious, sometimes dour, DI. Neal was in Scotland attending the wedding of his younger sister, Maggie, to his best friend, Jock Dodds. Neal was best man. Ava had been invited. A sigh escaped her, unchecked.

  “Wishing you were in Edinburgh?” PJ was a mind-reader when it came to emotions.

  “No, I was just thinking how much Jim Neal would hate the prospect of spending an evening in a draughty old barn with a bunch of 1940s geeks.”

  “They’re not geeks. It’s a themed dance. But you’re right. He’d hate it. Shame. I can totally see him rocking the glam RAF pilot look. You know, little leather bomber jacket with sheepskin lining? Aviator goggles?”

  Ava rolled her eyes, but the image PJ had planted in her mind was not unappealing. “Alright, Betty Grable,” she said. “How about lending me some of that red lippy you’re wearing?”

  “Sure. I’ll just get it for you. Glass of wine while we wait for our ride?”

  “Okay, thanks, Peej.” Ava helped herself from a half-empty bottle of prosecco in the fridge.

  This was only her second visit to PJ’s new place. The first time had been when she helped PJ move in. It hadn’t been a happy occasion. After Steve had had his life-changing experience, the house they had been buying together had to be sold. PJ couldn’t have afforded the mortgage on her detective constable’s salary.

  Ava looked around. “You’ve done the place up nicely.” The one-bedroomed rented flat had been empty when PJ moved in but, after coming to a financial arrangement with Steve, she had now brought most of the furniture and other household items from the house they’d shared.

  “Yeah, well. Makes a difference when you get all your things arranged the way you want them. Trouble is, everything reminds me of bloody Steve.” She handed Ava the lipstick. Suddenly, she covered her mouth. “Oh, Ava! I’m so sorry, I forgot to ask how Ollie’s getting on!”

  Ollie was the reason Ava had been unable to go to Maggie and Jock’s wedding. The day before she was due to depart for Scotland, her seventeen-year-old brother, who lived with her, had been rushed to hospital with what turned out to be a burst appendix. There was no way she could leave him.

  “It’s okay. He’s doing really well.”

  “And how are you coping with your mum’s visit?”

  Ava sighed deeply. “She only just arrived this morning, and already we’re driving one another bonkers. She’s pining for her latest man. But the worst thing is she keeps asking why I haven’t met anyone yet. It broke her heart when I stopped seeing Joel, even though she never actually met him.” Ava had a brief affair with an A&E doctor, Joel Agard, about a year and a half before. She’d liked him a lot, but not as much as he’d liked her, and they’d gone their separate ways. “Thank goodness she’s leaving soon.”

  “Well, at least you’re getting away from her for a few hours this evening.” They chinked glasses.

  A few minutes later, a horn outside alerted them to the arrival of their taxi.

  Their driver, who immediately introduced himself as Arthur Spencer, was the chatty type. He was very interested in their costumes and the event he was driving them to. “The wife and I love dancing. Ballroom, mind you. Friends reckon we’re better than some of them what’s on Strictly.”

  PJ, a more sociable soul than Ava, chattered back. Ava suspected that before
they reached their destination, PJ and the driver would discover that they were related in some way — third cousins twice removed at the very least. PJ was Stromford born and bred. She seemed to know or be related to half the county.

  Now that her brother Ollie had moved in with her, Ava didn’t go back home much. She figured it had to be weird to live somewhere all your life, like PJ, meeting people you went to school with in the street and knowing everybody’s business. Sometimes PJ’s local knowledge was useful for her job, though. No one else in the team was from these parts. Tom, the other detective sergeant, was from London, and Neal, of course, was Scottish.

  “Right out in the sticks, isn’t it?” Arthur commented.

  Ava looked out the window. There wasn’t much to see now that they’d left the bright lights of Stromford behind, just darkness and black shapes that were probably hedgerows and trees. PJ had told her the event was being held in a barn owned by the Stratford family. They’d bought the farmhouse and some of the land surrounding it to run a glamping business and brew beer. The dance had been organised by a local charity to raise money for a nearby hospice.

  The city of Stromford was surrounded by countryside, much of it farmland. There was no need to travel far to feel a long way from anywhere. Ava lived only three miles south of the centre of Stromford, in a rented cottage on a quiet country lane that felt much more distant from the city than it actually was. It didn’t suit her mother at all. She preferred bright lights and big cities to rural peace and quiet. Just as well. She’d probably visit more often if Stromford appealed to her.

  “How far did you say this place was again?” she asked PJ, when she could get a word in.

  “About twenty-four miles from Stromford. Should be there soon. We’ve been going for half an hour already.”

  “Another ten minutes, I reckon,” the driver chirped. “How are you young ladies getting back later?”

  “Taxi,” PJ said. It was no surprise when Arthur volunteered his services. At least PJ would probably be drunk and fall asleep on the way back, Ava thought. She wouldn’t have to listen to her and Arthur’s banter.

  Arthur missed the turn-off. The satnav had gone quiet some time before, baffled, no doubt, by the expanse of flat nothingness all around.

  “I’ve gone too far,” he said. “Too busy gassing. I brought a passenger out this way earlier today, funny enough. I don’t often come this far out of town, never mind twice in one day. He wasn’t the chatty type, mind. Bit of a toff, I reckon. Too good to talk to the likes of me.”

  Arthur executed a neat U-turn and backtracked a mile or so up the road. Then, without warning, he veered sharply to the left, tipping PJ sideways onto Ava, momentarily crushing her against the door.

  “Sorry, ladies. Nearly missed the road again in the dark.”

  It was more of a track than a road. Five minutes of bumping over uneven ground. There go my victory rolls, Ava thought, feeling her hair loosening some more at every jolt.

  “I can see some lights,” PJ, said, sounding like an excited child. Ava saw them, too — straight ahead, twinkling through a small conifer plantation that screened the farm buildings from the track.

  “We have arrived!” Arthur announced, swerving round a long bend. The track opened into a cobbled farmyard flanked by a stone-built farmhouse and a cluster of rustic outbuildings.

  The barn was a short distance from the house, beyond another cluster of outbuildings. A succession of light-reflective arrows pointed the way. As they drew closer, the smooth strains of ‘Moonlight Serenade’ drifted through the frosty night air to greet them.

  Arthur drove past rows of parked cars and then pulled up at a rough concrete ramp alongside the barn. PJ tipped him — rather extravagantly, to Ava’s way of thinking. He promised to pick them up, whatever time of night — or morning — they called.

  They looked at some of the guests milling around outside the barn entrance. “Loving the costumes,” said PJ. An eclectic mix of military and civilian dress from the period was on show. Some costumes looked as though they had been hired, others had probably been scavenged from vintage clothes stalls or charity shops. To Ava’s relief, she wasn’t the only land girl. As they stood in the queue to show their tickets, an air raid warden in a tin hat and a woollen waistcoat winked at her and asked if she’d save him a dance. PJ grabbed Ava by the arm and propelled her towards the entrance.

  “Cool,” Ava said, taking in the vaulted ceiling, exposed brickwork, timber beams and twinkly lights.

  “Big, isn’t it?” PJ said.

  “Vast,” Ava agreed.

  Tables were arranged around the barn’s perimeter, leaving plenty of room in the centre for dancing. On a temporary stage, the band was now playing another Glenn Miller favourite: ‘In the Mood.’ A buffet was laid out on trestle tables topped with red, white and blue checked cloths. Ava spotted a stall selling hot dogs and burgers, but it was the bar that had caught her friend’s attention. “Come on,” PJ urged, “Let’s get our first drink in.”

  The band seemed to have exhausted its Glenn Miller repertoire for now. It struck up a lively dance number, immediately drawing lots more people onto the floor. One or two couples, obviously practised at forties dance steps, were demonstrating how to do the jitterbug.

  “They’ve certainly gone to town,” Ava said. “It’s for a good cause though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. A hospice in Langby.” Langby was a pretty market town in the Stromfordshire Wolds, and the nearest town to where they were now.

  They had to push and shove their way to the bar through a throng of people. PJ ordered two lime daiquiris, “To ease us into the theme.” Then, they chose a table with a good view of the dance floor.

  Ava sipped her drink, feeling contented. For now, her sense of disappointment over missing the wedding had retreated. It wasn’t long before she and PJ were up on the dance floor, learning the steps to the Jitterbug and the Lindy Hop as they went along. It was great fun. As the evening wore on and she started feeling a bit tipsy, Ava switched to tonic water. She wasn’t on duty until Monday morning, but she was looking forward to a long run the following day and didn’t want it hijacked by a hangover.

  PJ, on the other hand, was well on the way to being drunk. “I haven’t had this much fun in ages!” She collapsed into her seat after some energetic jiving. “Steve was a bit of a stay-at-home.”

  “Your sailor looked like he was having fun, too,” Ava said. PJ’s most recent dance partner was a young man dressed in an American navy uniform — just as if he’d stepped out of the musical On the Town.

  “He’s my cousin,” PJ sighed. Her eyes roved around the dance floor. “Hey, check out Gregory Peck over there! He’s really hot and, as far as I know, we’re not related.”

  Ava grinned, recognising the PJ that she knew and loved. When a red-haired man in an RAF uniform asked PJ to dance, Ava decided to slip out of the barn to get some fresh air. She zigzagged across the dance floor, dodging couples slow-dancing to a trio of crooning female vocalists who had taken over from the band.

  The air wasn’t all that fresh directly outside the barn, for a group of smokers had congregated there. Ava gave them a wide berth.

  A small group of young lads caught her attention. They were heading in the direction of some outbuildings beyond the farmhouse. Ava followed behind them. No harm in seeing what they were up to.

  She watched as the smallest of them tried the door of one of the larger outbuildings. To her surprise, it was unlocked. All three went inside.

  Some instinct stirred within Ava. It wasn’t that she suspected something was wrong, but the unlocked door bothered her. The boys had left it ajar. She stole a look inside. One of the boys was shining his phone on a bottle of vodka that another had produced from inside his jacket. So that’s what they were up to. They took turns to have a swig.

  It was hard to be certain, but they looked to be around twelve years old — definitely too young to be consuming alcohol. Ava was reluctant to spoil thei
r fun, but knew she should intervene.

  She was about to step forward, when one of the lads said, “What’s that?” She froze. “Shine a light over there, Ed.”

  Ed obliged. The beam of light from his phone illuminated a vehicle of some sort, old and khaki-coloured. “It’s an old ambulance from the war,” Ed said, angling his phone light at the familiar Red Cross symbol on the side of the vehicle.

  “Cool,” said one of his friends. The bottle was forgotten in their excitement.

  “See if it’s open, Kieran,” Ed said. Kieran obeyed, stopping only to activate the torch on his own phone. Watching him, Ava felt an inexplicable quiver of unease.

  Kieran pulled on the handle of the right-hand door to the ambulance. There was a moment’s silence, followed by a slightly hysterical laugh.

  “There’s a dummy inside dressed up like a sort of gangster.”

  Ed and the other boy jostled to be next aboard to see what Kieran was talking about. Ava overheard snippets of their conversation.

  “Kind of . . . realistic . . .”

  “Gone a bit over the top with the blood . . .”

  “Looks like a scene from that horror movie me and my brother saw last week . . .”

  Her heart gave a sudden lurch. She felt an unwelcome sense of foreboding. Time to announce her presence. She crossed to the ambulance and mounted the step, startling the boys, but it couldn’t be helped. The first thing she noticed was the familiar coppery scent of blood. “Right, you lot, out now!” she ordered. They didn’t need telling twice.

  The dead man, who was dressed as a wartime spiv, was lying on an old-fashioned, narrow wooden stretcher. His right arm hung rigid and lifeless over the side, the fingers of his hand almost brushing the floor. His throat had been cut — inexpertly. Blood from a ragged slash to his neck had pooled in the collar of his white shirt and was already beginning to dry. Rips and tears all over his blood-soaked jacket spoke of multiple other wounds. His wide-open eyes stared at the ceiling as if in astonishment.

  Ava took a step closer. She felt for a pulse. Nothing.