The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (books for students to read TXT) 📕

I’ll quiz her.

The same thought occurred to Stella and Lucie. Beverly had a tendency to jump more than one gun. Jack had found her in Andrea’s house in London and since Gladys had said Joy was blackmailing her, Beverly’s money was on Joy.

Seeing light spilling out of the gift shop, Stella felt dread. If Jackie were on the spot she’d have watched out for Beverly. Stella had taken her eye off the ball.

The shop was shut. Stella let herself breathe. Then she got a text. Disappointment that it wasn’t Jack was mitigated by Bev Mob.

At Mrs Wrens. Joy on way, will trap her. I’m on it! B.

‘We have to stop her.’ Stella spun around. ‘Is this the chance to shine you meant?’

‘Bev on her own with two likely killers? No, hot damn.’ Grim-faced, Lucie voiced what Stella couldn’t bear to think.

Another text.

‘Felicity knows who attacked her,’ Stella said. ‘She’s asked to meet me at our flat and go with her to the police.’

‘Tell her to come here. Find out who it is then text me. We’re not handing this to Janet on a plate. I’ll go and rescue Bev.’

‘Take Stanley, his bark is scary.’

Flinging up the hood of her Driza-Bone Lucie zipped it up to her neck and, like a giant bat, flew along the north ambulatory. Stella heard the door slam.

She was alone.

She stared through the grille into the gift shop. Through the bars, a carousel of fabric hens might be in prison. Bev had warned her that Jack had bought her one, so she could arrange her face when he gave it to her. No need, she’d happily accept the lot. Bev said Joy got easily upset.

Bev might be the youngest in the team, the least experienced and terrible at filing, but she was sharp and brave. Too brave. Stella WhatsApped her.

Don’t do ANYTHING. Lucie coming, me too soon. Be NICE to Joy, DO NOT make her upset.

Listening out for Felicity, Stella pressed send.

Through the grille, Stella saw a light on the counter. She heard a buzz. Glimpsing two Yuletide candles Stella supposed they were electric. She looked at her phone. One grey tick against her message to Beverly. Two grey ticks signalled that the other device had got the text. Two blue ticks told you the recipient had read it. Beverly had not read it. Thinking to attract her attention, Stella resent the text. Another buzz. Another light on the counter, not the Yuletide candles. Propelled by the buzzing, a pink object juddered past one of the candles and stopped by a cluster of Mary and Josephs, like the couple Stella had bought. Her mind raced.

Beverly had texted from Gladys Wren’s lodging house on the High Street. Yet her phone was here.

‘There you are, Stella.’ Felicity’s cheeks were reddened from the cold. She swung a black umbrella that explained why she was perfectly dry.

‘We have to go.’ Stella turned to go up the north aisle. ‘Bev texted that Joy is going to Gladys’s lodging house, Beverly believes Joy killed Roddy March the podcaster and… she’s right.’ Why hadn’t she listened to Beverly?

‘Go where?’ Felicity was peering through the gift shop grille.

‘To the lodging house.’ Felicity wasn’t getting it. Stella felt screaming frustration.

‘We’d be better calling the police.’ Felicity sounded reasonable. ‘Better yet, let’s tell them when we go to the station.’

‘There’s no time.’ Stella knew fear for herself, but fear for someone else was another thing. Her teeth started to chatter.

‘Stella, it looks like Joy tricked you like she tried to trick me.’ Felicity gave a grim smile.

‘Tricked, how?’ Stella couldn’t speak properly, her mouth was dry, her breathing fast. ‘I’m being dense. Beverly couldn’t have texted from Mrs Wren’s, her phone is in there.’ Beverly had never left the gift shop.

‘Beverly,’ Stella shouted. She wrenched on the grille as if she could yank it from the thick wooden door into which it was fixed. ‘Bev is in there, injured or…’

‘Stop. Joy is here in the abbey. She told me she was going ahead with the rehearsal with or without the choir. You were there, you remember. I wanted to see you at your flat to avoid her, but when you said you were at the abbey, I had to come. We have to get out now.’ Felicity tottered, as if telling Stella had brought it home. She clutched the umbrella like a spear. ‘Joy wanted me to come, not to sing or to hear her play, but to kill me.’

‘Why you?’ Stella was picking up on Felicity’s nerves.

‘Not just me. She will murder you too. She knows March told you his killer’s name. Clive knew, that’s why he’s dead. Joy thinks you told me too.’ Felicity was scouring the abbey. ‘She’s here. Listening to every word.’

They heard a click then a grinding sound. The sound of stone rolling on stone. In the cavernous abbey they couldn’t tell where it came from.

‘It was Joy who attacked me. I saw her. She attacked you at the weir and left you for dead.’

‘What’s that noise?’ Stella whispered to Felicity. There were too many chapels, too many pillars and dark corners.

‘That way, from the Wakeman Cenotaph, the bitch, she’s teasing us.’ Fear had made Felicity look somehow younger. Pale and waxen.

‘Roddy March didn’t tell me his killer’s name.’ Stella raised her voice for Joy to hear.

‘Joy won’t believe you.’ Felicity got the ruse. ‘She has outplayed me.’

‘She’s got Beverly.’ Joy had outplayed them all.

‘Sshhh.’ Felicity gripped her shoulder, ‘It’s a double bluff. Beverly will be at Mrs Wren’s. Joy’s not interested in her, it’s me and you she wants.’

‘I’ll call Janet… I mean the police.’ Stella’s limbs were jelly. Bravery is a quality attributed by others in retrospect, terror consumes in real time. Why hadn’t she made Janet listen, sent her the spreadsheet? Because, as Andrea had said, Stella wanted to play detectives.

‘It’s too late for the police.’ Felicity put a finger to her lips. ‘Come with me. Stay close. Joy is dangerous.’

They had moved only a