Small Town Suspicions (Some Very English Murders Book 3) (14 page)

“You’re on duty,” Penny
said, taking in Cath’s neat dark suit.

“Lunch break. I’ve brought
cake. Shall we grab some cans of pop and sit in the sun?”

“If we can wrestle a bench
free from some tourists, sure.”

Once they were seated and
settled, Cath opened. “So. I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but Carl
Fredericks turned up at the police station first thing this morning.”

“Oh, did he?” Penny
attempted to sound and look innocent. She pulled the paper wrapper from the
edge of the carrot cake that Cath had passed to her. “How interesting.”

“Yeah, he said he’d had a
visitation from some lunatic woman with red hair and a tall bloke with big
arms. So I knew it was you and Drew.”

“Lunatic? I was behaving
pretty normally. Ask Drew! I was really
trying
.”

Cath raised her eyebrows.
“What did he say to you, this Carl? Anything interesting?”

“It could be something and
nothing,” Penny said. “He claimed he had lost touch completely with Alec, but
that Alec had called him out of the blue on Friday night. He was also surprised
to hear that Alec was a ‘pillar of the community’ which is just something I
said to, um, well, you know. But he seemed to know that Alec was a recluse,
which was odd, if he hadn’t had any contact with him. And he said that Alec hadn’t
called him for a chat, anyway. He had wanted to get in touch with Carl’s
ex-wife, Amanda. Except, of course, you know we tried to look her up? I know
why we couldn’t!” She paused, waiting in triumph for Cath to ask her what the
big secret was.

Cath nodded. “Yeah, because
she’s called Mandy Jones now.”

Penny deflated. She kicked
her boot against the bench leg. “Ca-ath!” she whined like a petulant teenager.
“That was
my
news.”

“I guessed as much. Sorry.
Not sorry.”

“Good cake, by the way,”
Penny said. “He seemed awfully keen to get us interested in this Mandy Jones.
Francine tried looking her up online last night, but we didn’t find anything.”

“And that’s the thing,” Cath
said. “He turned up at the station to tell us all about Mandy, or Amanda, or
whoever she is. I think maybe you spooked him. You’re right. He was
very
keen to get us to look at her. Maybe he’s being all public-spirited, or maybe
he’s an angry and bitter divorced man.”

“He’d be right to be bitter,
though. I mean, she did ten years in prison, didn’t she?”

“So she did. And no
wrong-doing before or since.”

“That we know of.”

Cath smiled. “I haven’t met
her so I’m not going to prejudge her on what might have been one stupid
mistake.”

“What, taking part in a
robbery with a notorious gang of jewel thieves? That doesn’t just happen.”

“She claimed innocence all
the way through the trial.”

Penny shrugged. “So? Where
is she now, and what does she do?”

“She’s in Lincoln.” Cath
couldn’t stop her smile getting wider. “Fancy a visit this afternoon?”

* * * *

Cath refused the lift as a
pillion passenger on the back of Penny’s motorbike. She outlined brief
directions and headed off for her car, while Penny went to collect the M21. She
managed to catch up with Cath’s car and follow her out of the old Bailgate
area, and to a grey and boxy housing estate on the edge of town. Much of it was
social housing, a few decades old, and three blocks of flats rose up, tall yet still
dwarfed by the Cathedral on the hill. Penny parked up next to Cath in a general
visitors’ parking area, and looked around.

“Will my bike be safe here?”

“As safe as anywhere. Don’t
worry. This isn’t inner city London.”

“I liked inner city London. It
was vibrant. I suppose I’m just unfamiliar with this area…”

“Do you want to put your
gear in my car?”

“Please.” Penny offloaded
her heavy jacket and helmet, and followed Cath into the entrance hall of a
squat building. There was an intercom entrance for the residents, but it was
propped open with a fire extinguisher. A handwritten sign on the door read, “If
U nicked my trainers UR dead” to which some wag had appended “No I’m clearly not.
Your trainers are great. Thanks.” There was, sadly, no more room for the
conversation to continue on that sheet of paper.

“Is this a shoe-stealing
sort of place?” Penny asked.

“Only if you leave expensive
shoes outside, I would have thought. Right, we need to be upstairs, top floor.
I bet the lift isn’t working.”

It was, but it smelled of pee,
so they took the stairs anyway.

The door to the flat was at
the far end. It had a small, traditional brown mat outside that said “Welcome”
and a door knocker in the shape of a comedy cat. Cath rapped the tail against
the cat’s bottom, and stepped back as they waited.

The door opened on a
security chain, and a dark eye peered out at them. “Hello.”

Cath flashed her police
identification card, and introduced themselves. “Are you Amanda Jones, once
Amanda Fredericks?”

“Yes.”

“May we come in?”

The woman sighed heavily.
She slipped the chain free, and opened the door somewhat reluctantly. She was
short, and quite thick-set, with curled grey hair and a monochromatic outfit of
black trousers and a thin, polyester white blouse. She led them wordlessly into
the main room of the flat, which was surprisingly large with windows one two
walls, and it was incredibly neat and tidy. It was a place that was crying out
for doilies.

She waved them to a large
sofa, and took her own place in an armchair opposite, and folded her hands on
her lap. She looked old, her lined face and baggy eyes suggesting seventy and
not the sixty that they knew her to be. She was very changed from the photographs
of her at forty years old.

But her smile was both tired
and serene. “What can I do for you, officers?”

Penny wondered if she ought
to correct the mistake. Wasn’t impersonating a police officer an offence?

Cath seemed to ignore it.
She said, “Do you already know why we’re here, Ms Jones?”

“Call me Mandy. I suspect
it’s to do with Alec, isn’t it? I saw the news. I was shocked.”

“Do you work, Mandy?” Cath
asked.

Penny realised that Cath was
practised at questioning people, and she decided she could learn a lot from
staying silent and watching.

Mandy nodded. “Yes. I work
in a shop on the High Street. We sell cards and party things.”

“Have you worked there
long?”

“About eight years.” Mandy’s
hands remained in her lap, but the fingers twisted around each other. She kept
her body very, very still. “Is this to do with Alec Goodwin? Or … something
else?”

“What else?”

Mandy’s eyes widened and
then narrowed, an almost imperceptible movement. “To do with the shop,” she
said. “But we haven’t had any shoplifters – that we’re aware of – since April.
And he was caught.”

“No.” Cath shook her head
and her voice was light and kindly. “No, it’s nothing to do with the shop. It
is to do with Alec. You were old friends, weren’t you?”

“We knew each other but it
was a long time ago.”

“Can you tell me about Alec?
How did you know him?”

Mandy looked down for a
moment. She stared at her hands. Eventually, she said, “Well. That wasn’t a good
time for me, and I don’t like to think about it.” Her voice was clearly
wobbling. “I knew Alec because he was my ex-husband’s best friend. I got
married late in life, you see. I was thirty-five.”

That’s not late
, thought Penny.
I’ve never got around to it and
I’m way past thirty-five. Not that I’m ruling it out. There’s a few years left
in me
… she forced her concentration back onto the scene in front of her,
and held her tongue. Cath stayed silent too, waiting for Mandy to fill in the
gaps.

“Anyway. Alec was our best
man. They were close, my husband and Alec. But they lost touch, and anyway, I’m
divorced now.”

“What was your husband’s
name?”

“Carl Fredericks. He runs a
bulb business. I have his contact details if you want. We do still send
Christmas cards to each other, that kind of thing. It’s not a friendship, I
suppose, but it’s as good as it could be.”

Penny kept her face
carefully blank. It didn’t match with what Carl had said. He’d claimed to have
no contact with Mandy these days.

Mandy started to get to her
feet, but Cath waved her back down. “It’s okay. We’ve had a chat with him
already. When did you divorce?”

“Ten years ago.”

“So you moved here…?”

“Yes.”

“And got the job in the card
shop…?”

“After a year or two.”

“What were you doing
before?”

Mandy hesitated. “I was
unemployed.”

You were in prison
, Penny thought.
But a more unlikely looking
criminal I have never seen. It must have really changed her.

Cath let the matter drop.
“Times were tough, eh?”

“Yes.” Mandy was looking
down again, and she must have known that she looked suspicious. She began
speaking, all in a rush. “Look. It didn’t work out with me and Carl. Sometimes,
things don’t. It was my fault. Totally my fault. I … I’m not proud of this, but
I had a gambling problem. These days, I’m clean. I go to meetings and I help
others, which is why I’m speaking out about it now, because I have to own up to
it. It wasn’t a good time for me, or for Carl. And that’s that.”

Oh
, thought Penny,
that is not what I expected to
hear
. Cath was nodding in sympathy.

“Of course, of course,” Cath
said soothingly. “Thank you for being honest with us.”

Mandy didn’t raise her head.
“Gambling … it destroyed me and it destroyed my marriage. Everything went
wrong. Everything.” Finally she flung her head back, and her eyes were
glistening with tears. “I am so lucky to have come through it all,” she said, a
sudden fierce passion in her voice. “Now, I have this flat, I have a job, and I
have friends. I am blessed to have been given a second chance. Not everyone
gets this kind of chance. I feel I have to make the very best of my remaining
time on earth.”

Penny shivered. The
conviction in Mandy’s voice seemed real and raw. If she was lying, she was very
convincing. Penny stole a sideways glance at Cath, who was looking carefully
neutral.

“Thank you, Mandy. I can see
this isn’t easy for you,” Cath said. And then she was silent again, leaving a
large gap in the conversation.

It stretched out. Penny felt
uncomfortable but she knew what Cath was doing, and she bit her own tongue
until Mandy spoke again.

“There’s something I haven’t
told you. I haven’t told anyone.”

“Go on.”

Mandy was hiding her face
again. “Carl called me. Right out of the blue, he rang me. Although like I
said, we send each other cards and that, we don’t really socialise together.
But he rang me up on … uh, Saturday night, just over a week ago. I had been at
work, you see. So he rang me that evening and told me that Alec wanted to get
in touch.”

“So you had lost touch with
Alec, and he didn’t have your contact details?”

“That’s right. He’d gone to
Carl, apparently, to try and find me. And Carl rang me to warn me.”

“
Warn
you?”

Mandy rushed on, her fingers
now twisting frantically like snakes. “But I said, I said to him, to Carl, it
was all okay. You know? It was all water under the bridge, and I had forgiven
Alec. It didn’t matter.”

“Forgiven him for what?”

She leaped to her feet, and
rubbed her face. “Excuse me. It was all such a bad time. The past …” She dashed
out of the room, and they heard running water.

Penny and Cath exchanged
looks. Penny shrugged and Cath frowned, but nodded. She stood up and Penny
followed. When Mandy came back in, Cath thrust out her hand.

“Thank you so much for your
time, Ms Jones. We really appreciate this, and I must apologise for any
distress we might have caused you. If you remember anything about Alec, please
do pop into the station for an informal chat. Any information could be
extremely valuable in finding this killer. Here’s my card.” She passed over a
small, discreet rectangle. “And please, when you feel ready to talk about Carl
Fredericks, we would be very willing to listen.” Cath stared meaningfully at
Mandy, and she reddened, and looked away.

They left, and Penny managed
to stay quiet until they were out in the parking area again.

“She had more to tell us!”
Penny exploded. “We should have stayed and got it out of her?”

“What do you suggest?” Cath
asked. “Thumbscrews?”

“Well, no, of course not. Not
actual thumbscrews. But the verbal equivalent, yes.”