Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen (novel24 TXT) 📕

pride. ‘You only have to ask. You can encourage people to be honest. There’s never any harm in it, and a lot of good. I’d invited her to come over one evening and talk about it, if it would help. I think she’d have come.’

For a second Doddsy thought again of the threat that had landed on his desk. You next. But he hadn’t been. Some other innocent had been next. ‘Okay, Claud. Thanks. That was all.’

‘Right,’ Jude said. ‘What do we make of that? Two people now who knew Gracie was gay. Three if you include Claud. But not George.’

George had been outspoken on social media and argued loudly for equality. His avatar bore a rainbow and a pinned tweet proclaimed that love was love. ‘You don’t need me to tell you. Sometimes when it comes to motive it isn’t about how things are. It’s about how you think things are.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘And there might be other lives at risk.’

‘There almost certainly are, I’d say. I’m no psychiatrist, but I can’t see how these particular killings can be anything other than the product of a warped mind.’

In an unguarded moment, Jude was silent, staring across the room. Following his gaze Doddsy saw that it went beyond Faye and to the far side of the room where Ashleigh was sitting with her head down over a pile of papers. ‘You reckon?’

‘Yes.’ Jude turned back, as if he hadn’t even realised that his mind had jumped from the job. ‘Which is what makes it so difficult. I don’t know where this leads. I don’t know who else is targeted. Which is perhaps why Faye is so jumpy.’

Everyone’s a little bit gay, Claud had said, and now it made sense. Doddsy had seen the newspaper that morning and though his mind had been too busy racing on to more important things than tittle-tattle it had registered with him. So Faye was bisexual and now Jude was looking towards Ashleigh with that slight crease of the forehead which signified concern. Cheshire.

Ashleigh had put the papers down now, and was sitting back as if a revelation had come upon her. A ray of sunlight crept onto her desk, fingering the sheet of paper on top of the pile. She picked it up, put it to one side, sorted through the pile — witness statements, he presumed — and extracted two. Then she jumped up from the desk and, carrying the three pieces of paper, crossed over to the desk. ‘Jude.’

He motioned to her to sit. Faye, now seeming more interested in what was going on at the table beneath the whiteboard than she was in the conversation in which she was engaged, gave up pretending and also got up and moved towards them. A briefing meeting convened itself, uncalled for, around the table.

‘Do you have any updates for us, Jude?’ Sitting down, Faye directed a frosty stare at Ashleigh. Until that moment her obvious dislike had puzzled Doddsy, but now he thought he understood.

‘We were just discussing that.’ In a few words he outlined the calls with Claud and Phil. ‘Anyone got anything to add before we discuss things?’

‘I have.’ Ashleigh spread the three sheets out in front of her. All were witness statements, typed up and signed, and all had Gracie Pepper’s name at the top of them. ‘The latest victim. I knew the name rang a bell. We’ve spoken to him.’

‘Have we? When?’

‘He was one of the people we interviewed after Gracie’s death. He’s a bell-ringer. They do bell ringing practice in the church on a Tuesday evening from six thirty until eight. He was early and he was already in the church. He didn’t see anybody or anything suspicious. I took a chance just there and called Claud to see if he knew him and he did.’

Jude picked up his pen and began making rapid notes. Faye’s expression was chilly.

‘George spoke to Claud and Natalie when they were leaving Hunter Lane on Tuesday night. He’d given his statement to a police officer — Tyrone, as it happens — and he was on his way home. Claud says he'd didn’t recognise George at first, but when George introduced himself, he did.’

‘Recognised him from where?’

‘Church. George is a regular churchgoer and very keen on Claud’s proposal for a Rainbow Festival. He’d been at the meeting Claud had held in the church. ’

‘The Rainbow Festival,’ said Jude, still busily twirling the pen. ‘That keeps coming up, doesn’t it? And yet from what I heard about the idea it was barely formed enough for anyone to know what it was, let alone develop a murderous objection to it.’ He looked towards Doddsy and Faye, who seemed tolerant of everything except other people’s religious beliefs, shook her head as if this mumbo-jumbo was too much for her.

‘It’s early days but it’s still causing a stir.’ Doddsy was the one to whom Jude was looking for comment. Tyrone had been right. You couldn’t hide things. ‘I understand Phil was opposed to it.’

‘Dear me,’ Jude said, playing the whole thing down as far as he could and convincing no-one. ‘Strongly opposed?’

‘I think so.’

Faye sniffed. ‘Did Claud and Natalie say anything about that?’

Ashleigh referred to her notes. ‘Yes. Natalie couldn’t remember his name, though she did remember what he said. Claud somehow managed to give chapter and verse of the encounter. He’s one of those people who remembers that sort of thing.’ She put the papers down on the desk. ‘So as far as I can see that’s three people who died, all of whom have some kind of connection to Claud Blackwell. Len died within sight of his house. He found Gracie dying in front of his office. And George Meadows introduced himself to Claud two days before he was found dead.’

You could make a case — a looser one, admittedly