The Appleton Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Novella Book 1) (9 page)

Janet
protested, but the girl had already buzzed the office for assistance.
 
Jack turned out to be a tall and gangly
young man who looked no more than sixteen.
 
He blushed bright red when the cashier spoke to him.

“Jack, can you
please help this lady to her car and load everything into her boot?” she asked

“Sure,” he
muttered.
 
He walked ahead of Janet
out of the store, pushing her trolley for her.
 

She unlocked
the car and then opened the boot for him.
 
It only took Jack a few moments to load the bags into it.

“Thank you
kindly,” she told the boy.

“You’re
welcome,” he mumbled.

“My sister and
I have just bought
Doveby
House,” Janet said.
 
“I suspect you’ll be seeing a lot of us
here in the future.”

“
Doveby
House?
 
From Gavin Appleton?”

“Well, from
his mother’s estate,” Janet replied.
 
“Do you know Gavin?”

“Not really,
but I know a few of the guys who work for him,” Jack said.
 
“I’d advise you to stay away from them,
really.
  
They aren’t nice
guys.”

“They aren’t?”

“I thought
about applying there.
 
Gavin seems
to pay really well, but he hired some old schoolmates of mine that I’m not
eager to spend time with,” Jack explained.
 
“This place doesn’t pay nearly as well, but I like everyone I work
with.”

Janet wanted
to ask the boy a dozen more questions, but he glanced back at the store and
then grabbed the now empty trolley.

“I’d better
get back to work,” he said.
 
“I
guess I’ll see you around.”

Janet
nodded.
 
“I’m sure you will.”

She climbed
into her car and sat behind the wheel for several minutes, thinking about what
Jack had said.
 
She was surprised to
hear that Gavin paid well.
 
The
garage didn’t look as if it were that successful.
 
Shaking her head, she started the engine.
 
She’d met some of Gavin’s staff, and she
had to agree with what Jack had said.
 
They didn’t seem like nice young men.

She headed for
home, eagerly anticipating not only custard creams,
but
a few other little treats while she waited for her sister.
 
Almost unconsciously, she found herself
slowing down slightly as she approached Gavin’s garage.
 
She was startled to see one of the
overhead doors open and lights on inside the building.
 
Slowing down even further, Janet tried
to see who was at the garage and what they were doing.
 

Without giving
herself time to think, Janet indicated and then turned into the car park for
the garage.
 
She drove to the far
end of the lot, pulling into a space as far from the building as she could
get.
 
None of the light from inside
the garage reached this far and there were no streetlights along this stretch
of road.
 
Janet turned off her car’s
engine and sat in the darkness, trying to figure out what she was going to do
next.

Chapter
Nine

After watching
the garage for several minutes, she didn’t see anyone moving around inside
it.
 
Rather quickly, she began to
get bored.
 
The sensible voice
inside her head told her to go home and eat biscuits.
 
Janet chose to listen to the other voice
that suggested she should check things out.
 

She opened her
car door and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her as quietly as she
could.
 
The noise felt loud to her,
and she waited for someone to come rushing out of the garage to investigate,
but no one appeared.
 
She walked
quickly from her car towards the edge of the building, trying to keep to the
shadows.
 
Feeling somewhat
ridiculous, she crept along the building’s
side wall
,
stopping to listen every few seconds.
 

When she
reached the open garage door, the third
one, that was
furthest from the office end of the building,
she stopped and listened
carefully.
 
She couldn’t hear
anything except the pounding of her own heart.
 
The sensible voice told her to go home.
 

“Hello?” she
called softly, stepping into the garage.
 
A couple of cautious steps later, she called again.
 
“Hello?
 
Is there anyone here?”

The bay with
the open door was empty, but there were cars parked in the other two
spaces.
 
Janet knew very little
about cars, but they both looked relatively new.
 
Janet wondered what was wrong with them
that they were in the garage for repair.
 

 
After a moment’s indecision, she headed
towards the small office where they’d found Gavin the last time they’d
visited.
 
The door was open, but the
room was dark.
 
Janet didn’t dare
turn on any lights, but she had a quick look around.
 
There was no sign of the poker game
they’d interrupted.
 
In fact, the
table in the
centre
of the room was completely bare,
as was the top of the desk along the back wall. Janet thought about seeing what
was in the desk drawers, but she wasn’t brave enough.
 

She sighed and
headed back towards the open garage door.
 
If she wasn’t brave enough to snoop properly, she might as well go
home.
 
She’d only taken a few steps
when she heard the sound of a car engine.
 
Without thinking, she dashed back into the office, hoping she would be
out of sight there.

A car swung
into the last empty bay.
 
Janet
watched as someone switched off the engine and climbed out.
 
In the rather dim lighting, Janet
thought she
recognised
the man as one of young men
who had been playing cards with Gavin on her last visit to the garage.

He stood
quietly, looking out the door for a few moments, as if waiting for
something.
 
Then Janet could hear
another car approaching.
 
She
watched as the man walked to the door of the garage and then disappeared
through it.
 
After a moment, she saw
someone pull down on the overhead door.
 

Janet suddenly
realised
that she was in danger of being shut up
inside the garage.
 
Now she hurried
towards the closing door, but she was torn between shouting and not wanting to
be found.
 
She felt helpless as the
door banged into place, leaving her standing between two cars.
 
She heard a car engine race and listened
to the sound as it got further and further away.

There has to
be a way to open the garage doors from the inside, she told herself, ignoring
the part of her that was panicking completely.
 
She walked towards the door, looking all
around for some handle or something that could be used to open it.
 
A sudden noise behind her had her jumping.
 
Her heart beat faster as she stood
still, uncertain of which was to go next.

Another sudden
noise startled her.
 
It was the loud
click that indicated that the overhead light had just switched off.
 
Janet froze in place as the entire
garage was plunged into darkness.

For several
minutes, Janet didn’t move.
 
Her
heart was racing and she felt terrified.
 
As her eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, her fear was replaced
by anger at her own stupidity and embarrassment at the predicament she now
found herself in.
 

With a deep
sigh, she dug into her handbag and found her mobile phone.
 
It lit up as she tapped in her pin code,
the bright light making her blink in the otherwise dark space.

“Joan, it’s
me.
 
I’m awfully sorry to interrupt
your date, but I’m afraid I need a bit of help.”

Janet explained
the situation and then leaned against the closest car as her sister launched
into a lengthy lecture about her foolishness.
 
When Joan paused for a breath, Janet
jumped in.

“Why don’t you
wait and yell at me when you see me?” Janet suggested.
 
“For now, I’d much rather you find a way
to get me out of here.”

Janet heard
Joan sigh deeply.
  
“Hold on,”
she instructed her sister.

“Like I’ve any
choice,” Janet mumbled.
 
She could
hear her sister talking with Michael.
 
After what felt like at least an hour to Janet, Joan’s voice came back
down the line.

“I’m afraid we
can’t come up with anything besides ringing Robert Parsons,” Joan said.
 
“We’ll ring him and I’ll let you know
what he says.”

Joan hung up
before Janet could speak.
 
She
pressed the disconnect button on her phone and watched as the handset went
dark.
 
She very nearly began to cry
in the silent blackness.

Later Janet
would discover that Joan, Michael and Constable Parsons arrived less than
twenty minutes after that call ended.
 
If you’d asked Janet, she would have said it was more like five or six
hours.
 
All Janet could think about
what how stupidly she’d behaved and the custard
creams
that were sitting in her car just outside.
 

The next time
I go snooping, I’m going to bring snacks, she decided as she waited.
 
Of course, I’m never snooping again, she
added.
 
After a short time she tried
walking carefully around the parked cars, but it was too dark and there were
too many obstacles along the floor to make it safe for her to move around.
 
After tripping over something unseen for
the second time, Janet decided to stand absolutely still and wait to be
rescued.
 
She heard the car before
she heard voices.

“Janet?
 
Can you hear me?” Joan’s voice sounded
muffled, but even so Joan could tell that her sister was angry.

“Yes,” she
called back.
 
“But if you’re angry,
you can go away again.”

“Of course I’m
angry,” Joan shouted.
 
“I leave you
alone for a few hours and you find yourself locked inside a garage you
shouldn’t have been anywhere near.”

“I stopped to
ask Gavin about the box we found,” Janet lied.
 
“But I couldn’t find him anywhere.
 
It’s hardly my fault that I got locked
in while I was looking for him.”

“Ms.
Markham?
 
It’s Constable
Parsons.
 
I’ve rung Gavin and asked
him to come down and open up the garage for us.
 
He should be here soon.”

“Thank
goodness for that,” Janet called back.
 
“I’m ever so sorry to have caused all this bother.”

“Yes, well,
we’ll discuss that later,” the
constable
told her.

Janet
suspected he was angry as well, but she didn’t know him well enough to be
certain from his tone of voice.
 
She
sighed.
 
She was at least as angry
with herself as everyone else was with her.

The sound of another
car arriving made Janet feel hopeful.
 
Surely Gavin had to be the new arrival.

“Ah, Constable
Parsons, I’m not sure why Ms. Markham felt the need to involve you in
this.
 
I’m happy to let her sister
out once she explains what she was doing here tonight.”
 

Janet heard
Gavin’s voice, but the initial relief she felt was replaced by fear when she
heard his words.
 

“I don’t think
we have to worry about that, at least not right now,” the constable
replied.
 
“Let’s get the door open,
shall we?”

“As I said,
you’re not really needed here,” Gavin repeated himself.
 
“You certainly don’t need any
reinforcements.
 
Once you’ve all
gone, I’ll open the door and the Markham sisters and I can have a
cuppa
in my office.”

“I’m not going
anywhere,” the policeman said.
 
“Open the door, please.”

Janet could
hear Gavin’s deep sigh from her side of the garage door.

“Look, this is
silly,”
Gavin
said.
 
“I don’t think this is a police matter,
that’s all.”

“You’re
entitled to your opinion,” the other man replied.

“What was your
sister doing here, anyway?” Gavin asked.

“I’ve no
idea,” Joan answered.
 

Janet could tell
her sister was losing patience.
 

“Now quit
arguing and open the door,” Joan added.
 

Janet smiled
to herself.
 
Now everyone could tell
that Joan was losing patience.

“Yeah, sure,”
Gavin muttered.
 
“I’ll just open it
a few feet and your sister can duck out.
 
No point in opening the door all the way or anything.”

“Don’t be
ridiculous,” Joan snapped.
 
“Just
open the door.”

From inside
the garage, Janet couldn’t make out anything that was being said for several
minutes.
 
Finally, she heard Robert
Parsons speaking quite loudly.

“Gavin
Appleton, I don’t need a search warrant to search these premises if I have
reason to believe that someone’s life is in danger.
 
Janet Markham is an elderly lady who
is believed to be trapped
inside the building.
 
For all I know, she’s had a heart attack
from the stress of the situation and is in desperate need of medical
attention.
 
If you don’t open one of
these doors in the next thirty seconds, I’ll open one myself.”

Janet thought
about calling out to reassure the policeman that she was just fine, and mostly
bored, but she decided against it.
 
Gavin was clearly reluctant to open the doors, presumably because he was
hiding something and he didn’t want the police to find it.
 

After a few
more minutes of muffled conversation, Janet heard one of the garage doors begin
to move.
 
As it lifted, an interior
light came on and Janet felt a rush of relief at being able to see once
more.
 
The garage that was opening
was the furthest from where she was standing, but she didn’t rush towards the
door.
 
If Robert Parsons wanted a
good look around, she’d give him every excuse to come inside the garage.

As it happened,
she needn’t have bothered.
 
When the
garage door was finally open, she could hear the policeman shouting.
 
“Stop him!”

Janet walked
slowly towards the open door, listening intently to the commotion outside.
 
When she reached the door, she found her
sister and Michael standing to one side, both staring with shocked faces at
Gavin Appleton who was on the ground with a large policeman lying on top of
him.
 

Robert Parsons
walked over and pulled the policeman to his feet.
 
Gavin looked up and sighed deeply.

“You’re under
arrest,” Robert told the man.
 

Gavin climbed
to his feet slowly, moaning and groaning the whole time.

“I think he broke
my ribs,” he complained once he was upright.

“You shouldn’t
have run,” the policeman replied.
 

“No, I guess
not,”
Gavin
said.
 
“I mean, I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?
 
I was just startled, that’s all.”

“Save the
story for your solicitor and the jury,” Robert suggested.
 
“I’ll be taking you down to the Derby
station for processing.”

“Surely that
isn’t necessary,” Gavin said.
 
“I’m
sure we can work something out.”

Robert didn’t answer.
 
Instead, he walked past Janet and into
the garage.
 
After a few moments he
walked back out, shaking his head.
 

“All three of
the cars in your garage were reported stolen in the last twenty-four hours,” he
told Gavin.
 
“I’m sure you’ll have
some sort of explanation all ready for the inspector when you get to Derby.
 
There’s no point in wasting it on me.”