We heard a snort of amusement from the man at the other end of the phone. ‘Oh, but I think you do, Mrs Philips. Your husband was an accomplished mechanic as I understand it. The officers I have at your house now report there to be a garage full of tools. Am I to believe that in decades of marriage you never once helped your husband tinker with his cars? I’m afraid, Mrs Philips, that I am a very good police officer. Criminals do not escape me, even when they look as unassuming and innocent as you. Please tell me where you are so I can have my officers come to you. Please do not make me chase you, Mrs Philips. It will go so much easier if you surrender willingly.’
I could barely breathe. My vision had sparkly lights dancing in it. He wanted to arrest me again and now he had to believe he had proper evidence. Of course, he could just arrest me for the assault on the man in John’s house. It was Mindy who hit him, but I wasn’t going to roll on her.
Roll on her! Listen to me. I even sound like a criminal. How long before I am trying to make a shank?
A snort of fear-induced laughter escaped my lips, making me sound a little mad. I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t. I wanted to return to work and have all this go away, but there was no option to do that either.
‘I’m waiting,’ Chief Inspector Quinn prompted, now sounding impatient.
I was going to have to turn myself in and pray Shane could prove I was innocent. What would that do for my reputation though? Primrose would swoop on all my customers the second she found out and I could kiss goodbye any hope of snagging the royal wedding. It felt like everything I had worked for was being crushed around me and there was nothing I could do to stop it happening. Even if I were found innocent, I would be in jail for a period first. Isn’t that how it works?
‘Mrs Philips,’ the chief inspector’s voice broke through the numbing fear now enveloping me. ‘I grow tired of this conversation. You will surrender yourself, or I will send the full force at my command to find you.’
Opening my mouth, though it felt dry and parched, I was about to say I would come to the station when Mindy grabbed the phone from my hand.
‘Come and get us, copper!’ she sneered and then thumbed the red button to end the call.
Now staring at my niece in horror, I gasped, ‘What did you just do!’
Mindy shrugged. ‘Sounds to me like there is only one way out of this, Auntie. We need to solve the case. You said there was a man in the offices last night and he was talking about destroying evidence. There’s clearly something going on there. We just need to figure out what it is before the police catch up with us.’
‘But I don’t have the first idea what is going on, Mindy!’ I pointed out a rather large flaw in her plan.
‘Yet, Auntie. You don’t know yet. We found that cream at John’s house. That sounds like a clue to me. Why don’t we speak to the doctor who was treating Derek and see what he has to say? I bet if we look under enough rocks, we will find the person responsible for killing John and then the police will have to let you go.’
‘But John might have been the victim of poor car maintenance!’ I blurted. ‘I’m only guessing he was murdered.’ A few hours ago, I’d been convinced there was a big conspiracy to uncover. Now I worried the whole thing was in my head. My suspicions were all based upon overhearing one man talking about destroying evidence. He might have been wiping away evidence that he’d been watching dirty videos on the work computer for all I knew.
I was so stupid.
However, I also had little choice. If there was foul play at foot, if I could prove John had a reason to push Derek off his balcony, then maybe I could muddy the water enough to make the chief inspector think twice about locking me up.
‘What about the assault charge?’ I asked.
Mindy shrugged like it was nothing. ‘That was me, not you. Besides, dad will get me off.’
That was it then. The pool of people to look at was a small one: people working at Orion Print, the Bleakwiths … that was all I could come up with. I added Dr Kimble as Mindy suggested and with nowhere else to go, I asked my niece to head for the local practice in Meopham where Derek would have gone.
Add Theft to the List
Convinced I needed at least some shoes to put on my feet, we stopped first at a charity shop in the small parade of stores that line the main road through Vigo.
Mindy tried calling her dad on the way there, but he was in court and could not be reached. She left him a message in which she begged that he call back as soon as he could. We were going to need his help before the day was through.
Two ladies in their seventies were chatting behind the counter of the shop. They each had mugs of tea, steam slowly rising from them. I was instantly jealous and suddenly hungry. Noon had been and gone which made breakfast a long time in the past. My stomach gave a rumble as if on cue.
‘Where do you keep your shoes?’ I asked of the ladies behind the counter. They each had silver hair with no trace of their original colour left behind. They wore light green tabards to protect their clothing, which consisted of jeans with a
