A Body in the Village Hall by Dee MacDonald (non fiction books to read TXT) 📕

going to have a pub meal. Kate extracted a cannelloni from the freezer and stuck it in the microwave. She decided she’d be in bed by nine, ten at the latest. For a brief moment she wondered if she should phone Woody but then decided against it. There didn’t seem to be much point in calling him only to inform him that she’d managed to annoy two of the remaining suspects.

Kate ate her supper, had two more glasses of wine, was in bed by nine thirty and asleep by ten.

When she woke just after six o’clock Kate was aware of two things: a cold blast of air and something fluttering alongside her face. As she slowly came round she stared in astonishment at the wide-open window, knowing that she hadn’t left it like that. Granted, it didn’t close properly, so perhaps there’d been gusts of wind in the night. And then she saw what was fluttering. It was a small piece of paper, which was anchored into her pillow with a very long pin. It looked like a pearl hatpin. Had Angie left her a note when she came in? Kate couldn’t imagine she’d have done it this way and, besides, Angie certainly didn’t have a hatpin.

Rubbing her eyes, Kate sat up in bed and pulled out the pin and the note, which was typed and looked as if it had been printed from a computer. What on earth?

And there, in a flamboyant large font, it said:

STOP MEDDLING. LEAVE WELL ALONE OR YOU’LL BE SORRY

Kate had often wondered what it felt like to have your blood run cold, and now she knew. For a moment she felt nauseous, and not just because of what was written, but by the fact that someone had come in through the window at least far enough to leave this note on her pillow while she was asleep.

They could just as easily have cut her throat.

She looked out of the window and could only suppose that the person had climbed up onto the kitchen extension roof, which was entirely possible by using the ladder that was permanently wedged between the shed and the garage. After that, she supposed, it would be easy enough to vault up onto the windowsill. And now that her bed was directly under the window he or she would only have needed to lean in to stab that pin into her pillow. How did that person know that this bedroom was hers? Had someone been watching her? Watching the windows at the back of the house? From where? Further up the hill? How often had she stood at that window in her nightie, pulling the curtains back before she got into bed because she liked the cool night air? Her mind went back to the flash of the sun on binocular lenses the day before.

Kate continued to feel sick. She would have to take the note to the police station and tell Woody what she’d been up to, because plainly she had hit a nerve somewhere with someone.

She came slowly downstairs, gulped a glass of water, put the kettle on to boil and looked at her watch. Seven o’clock. She couldn’t phone Woody yet, better wait for another hour at least. Angie would be unlikely to surface before nine and so there was no one in whom she could confide or show the note to. Of course Angie would only say something like, ‘Well, if you will get involved in things that don’t concern you…’ and Woody would probably say, ‘I told you to be careful, didn’t I?’ He might even put some form of police protection on the house and then the whole village would judge her either to be a suspect, or a meddling busybody, or at least to have been connected with the case in some way and so put everyone on their guard. Nevertheless, with her life possibly in danger, what else could she do?

She drank her tea, switched on breakfast television and tried to care about Manchester United versus Chelsea, about the bin strike in Birmingham or about the rain approaching from the west. Rain was always approaching from the west.

And all the time Kate was staring at the note. Would there be fingerprints on it? Almost certainly not; the person would have worn gloves. Should she wait until nine o’clock? Woody probably didn’t get to his office until nine so there was little point in ringing earlier.

At half past eight – just as Kate was composing what she planned to say to Woody – he phoned.

‘Kate? My apologies for calling you so early.’

She loved his voice. How did he know she was planning to phone him? Did they have some sort of telepathy? This was incredible!

‘Hi, Woody, I was just about to––’

‘Sorry to interrupt, Kate,’ he said. ‘But Maureen Grey has disappeared. Gone! Done a runner overnight. One of our guys checked on her this morning only to be told by a neighbour that she’d gone away late last night sometime, carrying a little suitcase, and had asked this neighbour to feed the cat while she was gone. We’re trying to trace where the hell she might go. You’ve become quite friendly with her so I wondered if you had any ideas?’

Kate didn’t need to think for long. ‘No, sorry,’ she lied. ‘But surely she’s not a suspect anymore so why does it matter where she is?’

‘Well, for one thing I’m not at all sure that she isn’t a suspect because she’s certainly acting like one.’ Woody sighed. ‘And secondly I’m not at all convinced that her husband is the killer. I think he might be putting up a shield to allow her to escape. This could be a plan they’ve cooked up between them. If you think of anything or anywhere she could be, would you contact us? Sorry, Kate, I’ve got a caller on the other line so I’ve got to go.’

Kate sat down, her heart thumping. She should, of course, have told