A Very British Witch Boxed Set Read online

  If she couldn’t leave, that meant fighting back. He was accusing her, if vaguely, and she needed to defend herself.

  “You think I killed a man?” Her voice sounded incredulous, because she was.

  “I don’t know what to think right now. Too early for that. At the moment, I’m just looking for information.”

  “And what?” she continued in the same tone. “I buried him in a field? Really? How did I get him there? Look at me. Clearly, I’m not strong enough to carry a grown man, or even drag him, for that matter.”

  “There were tracks left at the burial site,” he said. “Wheelbarrow tracks. Do you have a wheelbarrow, Scarlett?”

  “Lots of people have wheelbarrows!”

  “I’m not talking to lots of people, Scarlett. I’m talking to you.”

  “Well, maybe you should. Ask around. See how many people have wheelbarrows in this town. You’d be surprised.”

  “I’m constantly surprised by this town,” he said.

  Shut up, Scarlett. You’re talking like a suspect.

  But she couldn’t help herself. Her blood was up now. “And I how did I kill him, do you suppose?”

  “I don’t suppose, and I don’t know.” His tone was even and unflustered. “Not yet. But I’m going to find out. And when I do, that person will be held accountable.”

  “Me, you mean?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I think I’ve answered enough of your questions.”

  He closed his notebook. “Then we’ll agree to disagree. For now.”

  Tim smiled thinly and exited the shop, leaving Scarlett feeling overwhelmed by what had just happened.

  Chapter Six

  Private Lounge, The Bicester Hotel

  Tim returned directly to his investigation room. He wanted to type up his notes while they were still fresh in his memory. His handwriting was difficult to decipher so he made it a habit to put anything salient into a digital version as soon as possible.

  He had set up his operations in the Bicester Hotel. Space at the garrison was limited and he wasted an hour to get there and back into the village if he needed anything. The hotel had agreed to lease him a private lounge and assured him it was secure. The hotel manager had a key, but promised discretion, and the maids were instructed not to clean the room unless requested to do so by the occupant.

  The room itself held few secrets of any import. At least, not yet. But with the discovery of the body, and the interview with his primary suspect, that was all about to change. There were some photos pinned to cork boards he had hung on the wall, and more photos in a pile on the desk. He had taken digital snaps at the crime scene and printed them out on the hotel printer in the room but hadn’t pinned those up yet.

  He bolted the door behind him and removed his laptop computer from the hotel safe. He knew that hotel safes were not terribly secure, but the extra level of protection gave him some comfort. There were secrets on his computer that would shock the public, if they ever got out.

  It was Tim’s job to make sure they didn’t.

  He went to the desk and began transcribing his notes, beginning with the interview with his suspect, Scarlett Slater. He had taken few actual notes, so as not to alarm her, but he could recall the conversation almost verbatim. He quickly reconstructed her words into a word document.

  After that, he opened a new file for the crime scene. He had spoken to the lead detective on the scene, Boyle, but his notes were mostly written in the dark, and were sometimes hard to puzzle out. Tim chastised himself for not typing them up when he got in last evening, but he had been exhausted and needed sleep.

  The notes from his interview with the farmer, Robert Johnson, were easier to understand, but less illuminating. The farmer didn’t know much and had little to add that Tim hadn’t already learned from Boyle.

  He had spoken to a few of the technicians, who had all been rather terse, given their duties at the time. The uniformed policemen had been of little value, at least as far has his investigation was concerned.

  Tim hadn’t been able to speak to the coroner yet. He had put in a call earlier that day and left a message. So far, he’d heard no answer back. He was about to call them again when his cell phone rang.

  He answered it. “Clarke here.”

  “Shut it down,” the voice said. It was his supervisor, Wing Commander Daniel Gregory.

  “Very funny, sir,” Tim replied, good naturedly. “What’s up?”

  “No, I’m serious, Tim. It’s over. For us. This is a police matter now.”

  Tim felt anger swell in his chest. His heart picked up the pace and his hands tightened on the phone, as if to strangle the man on the other end of the line.

  Easy, he told himself.

  He took a moment and deep breath before responding.

  “Who decided that?” he asked.

  “I did,” Gregory told him bluntly.

  “When?”

  “Just now. And don’t interrogate me, Tim.” There was a pause, then his supervisor continued. “I just got off the phone with the police captain. They’re claiming jurisdiction.”

  “We have the missing persons case,” Tim countered. “My case was opened first. We brought them in on this.”

  “It may have been a missing persons case, but now he’s not missing. Now it’s a murder investigation.”

  “We don’t know why or how he went missing. It was my case first.”

  “Right or wrong, he’s dead, and his corpse was discovered in their jurisdiction. If you want to argue this in court you’ll lose. And besides, Tim, you jumped the gun and you know it. It isn’t a missing persons case until he’s been missing for forty-eight hours.”

  “Then it was official on Saturday,” Tim shot back. “The body wasn’t discovered until Monday morning. I’d be more than happy to argue jurisdiction in front a judge, if it comes to that.”

  “It won’t. You’re off the case.”

  “It’s my case, Danny. We agreed on that. We were both clear on that from the beginning. You gave me full rein to run with this.”

  “And now I’m reining you in.”

  “It should come under military jurisdiction.” Tim took another deep breath. The line went silent for a moment as he considered his options and changed tactic. “Can’t you smooth it over with the police chief? He’s reasonable, and we’ve been more than reasonable. How many times have we helped his cases? How many times have they asked for favors? Any time they came to us for help, we helped them, unless it was classified. I’m sure he owes us one. He sure as hell owes me one. I can’t ask, but you can.”

  Gregory didn’t say anything.

  “Plus,” Tim continued, “I’ll bet his local bobbies are overstretched with the last round of budget cuts. They could use our help. Frame it that way. We’re helping them. A joint task force, whatever. But don’t pull me off this one, Danny. I need to stay on this, and we both know why.”

  Tim heard a deep sigh on the other end.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Gregory conceded.

  “You’ll give him a call?”

  “Yes, I’ll give him a call.”

  “Thank you.” He paused. “Sir,” he added.

  It was a minor victory. At least he’d bought some time.

  Tim hung up the phone and went back to work.

  +++

  Slater Residence, Bicester, England

  When Scarlett arrived back at her apartment on Monday evening, she found Amanda on the sofa watching the telly. Her hair was damp from the shower and she was wrapped up in her robe.

  Not that it was much of a surprise. Amanda had to be up early for work. The only surprise was that she’d be sleeping in her own bed tonight, rather than staying over at Ronnie’s.

  Scarlett was glad about that. It would be good to have someone to talk to, and she never liked calling Amanda up when she was staying at her boyfriend’s.

  Amanda glanced up at Scarlett when she entered, and immediately put the TV program on p
ause.

  “Have you been crying?”

  “I’m fine,” Scarlett said.

  She removed her shoes at the door and set her purse down on the side table. There was a stack of mail there, and she pretended to look through it.

  “You look stressed,” Amanda observed.

  She was stressed. It had been a rough day. Not in terms of the customers, but on account of the investigation. Tim had thrown her for a loop, and her life suddenly felt off-kilter. She needed to sit down.

  Taking the bundle of mail, she collapsed in the armchair.

  “You need a drink,” Amanda decided. She turned off the TV and staggered stiffly over to the counter in the kitchen where they kept their drinks. It was amply furnished, thanks to Scarlett’s employee discount. “Anything in particular?”

  “Something light. Chardonnay, I think.”

  “Right,” said Amanda. “Vodka it is.”

  Scarlett smiled at that, thankful again to have a best friend who knew her so well.

  Amanda brought her a vodka neat, then took her by the hand and pulled her to the sofa, so they could sit together and talk.

  “Now what is it?” she asked, with an empathetic yet insistent tone. “Tell me. Did Karl say something to you again?”

  “It’s not Karl. For once. I don’t think I spoke three words to him today. Or he to me. He stayed in his office and left early. He’s been acting odd, keeping more to himself than usual, but that isn’t it.”

  “Well, what it is then? One of your boyfriends?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  Amanda beamed. “Ha! I’m right. I can tell by that look.”

  “What look?”

  “I can’t explain it, but I know it when I see it.”

  “I don’t have a look.”

  “You do,” Amanda insisted playfully. “It’s your tell. Like a bad poker face. I always know when you’re hiding something but want me to ask about. So out with it. Who’s the troublemaker? Soldier boy or coffee juggler?”

  “Soldier boy.”

  “So you saw him again?” Amanda’s face lit up.

  “He came into the shop this morning. They found the body.”

  “What body?”

  “Tim was asking about a missing person.”

  “Right, I remember. Missing, but now dead then?”

  “Apparently.”

  Amanda paused, her brow furrowing. “There’s nothing in the paper about it.”

  That made Scarlett more anxious. She took a sip of vodka, then another. “I hadn’t thought of that. It’ll be in the paper, won’t it?”

  “I imagine so, if it’s a murder or anything like that. But why should that concern you?”

  “Because it does,” Scarlett answered. “Or at least, Tim thinks it concerns me.”

  “Concerns you how?”

  Scarlett swallowed hard. “I might be a suspect.”

  Amanda leaned back, as if to take that in from a proper distance. “You? A murderer. That’s absurd.”

  “I didn’t do it, of course,” Scarlett added quickly.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I know you wouldn’t hurt a fly. There’s obviously some mistake. But why does he think you did it?”

  Scarlett realized she still had the mail in her lap. She set it on the coffee table and resettled herself. “He said there was a witness.”

  “To the murder?”

  “No, but it implicates me. Or Tim thinks it might. Someone says they saw me talking with the victim the night before he disappeared.”

  Amanda considered that. “Seems harmless enough, then. You talked to the guy, that’s nothing. Who was he again?”

  “Bill Knight, a writer.”

  “I remember now.” Amanda nodded, looking away slightly as if recalling their prior chat. She looked back at Scarlett and said, “So where did you talk with him?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then where did the witness say you did?”

  “At the White Hart.”

  “The pub? You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “You said you were home Thursday night. I can vouch for that. Not for you being home, but that’s what you told me before you became a suspect.”

  “I don’t know if I’m a suspect. He didn’t say that. Not exactly.”

  “But he implied it, right? They don’t always tell you, do they? These detectives.”

  “I don’t even know if he’s a detective, officially. He’s a soldier. A Flight Lieutenant.”

  “Then he has no right to harass you like that. He’s not a bobby, so he has no jurisdiction.”

  “Small comfort there,” Scarlett murmured. “He’s been talking with the police. They showed him around the crime scene, where they dug up the body. Some farm outside of town. So whether or not this is his case, the police will be knocking around soon enough.”

  She took another sip of her drink to calm her nerves. Talking about it was raising her anxiety again.

  Amanda looked at her sternly. “And if they do come knocking, all you have to do is tell them the truth.”

  “The truth,” Scarlett echoed, absently.

  Do I even know the truth?

  “That you weren’t at the White Hart on Thursday night.”

  Scarlett considered that and said nothing.

  “That is the truth, isn’t it?” Amanda prodded.

  “As far as I can remember.”

  “Hold on. Back up. What’s this you’re telling me?” Amanda leaned in, as if not to miss a word of the answer. “You don’t know where you were Thursday night? Four nights ago?”

  “That’s just it,” Scarlett said slowly, each word forming only with great effort, as if reluctant to be born. “Apart from my nightmare…”

  “Yes, you told me about that. You were having bad dreams.”

  Amanda put an empathetic hand on Scarlett’s free hand and gave her a squeeze.

  “I saw a face. In the nightmare. And it was his face.”

  “The victim’s face?”

  “Bill Knight,” she confirmed. “But I don’t know if I’m remembering the dream wrong because he showed me the picture the next morning, or…”

  “Or what?”

  “Or if I really did know him. I might have met him somewhere before, then dreamed about him, and then something terrible happened.”

  Amanda gave Scarlett’s hand another supportive squeeze. “Sounds to me like a coincidence. You had a dream and then you saw the face, and now you’re confusing the two.”

  Amanda released Scarlett’s and with a light pat, leaned back against the arm of the sofa.

  Taking a less empathetic and more thoughtful tone, Amanda continued. “It happens all the time, you know. I’ve read about it in the papers. Unreliable memories. Implanted memories, they call it. Something to do with the power of suggestion. I was watching this documentary on the telly, and they said that every time you remember something, just the act of remembering changes the memory. That’s why memories are so unreliable.”

  Amanda took a sip from her own wine glass, warming up to her theory. “So you have a nightmare, right? And you don’t remember it. But then you see a picture of this missing person. So you search your memory, thinking back to the night before. This officer, this soldier, this man of some kind of authority asks if you’ve seen him, so you want to answer him, right? You want to be a good citizen and tell the man what he wants to hear. You can’t remember seeing him, but you remember a faceless man in your dream, and now here’s a man’s face in the photo, right in front of you, and suddenly the two things get mixed in your mind, all jumbled together, so that now when you think about the nightmare, you also think about that face. Power of association.”

  “And now I’m a suspect.”

  “You don’t even know that, do you?”

  Amanda finished her glass and stood up to pour herself another. She held out her free hand. Scarlett threw back the last of her drink and handed her the glass.

 
; “So, who is this Tim guy?” Amanda called through from their improvised wine bar in the kitchen as she refreshed their glasses.

  “Some kind of liaison officer from the base,” Scarlett told her.

  “Then what is he doing investigating you for murder? Or anyone, for that matter, if he’s not a police detective?”

  Amanda handed Scarlett her vodka, then joined her again on the sofa.

  “I don’t know. But he seemed pretty confident, I’ll give him that.”

  “Cocksure, maybe? You know these soldier boys. Maybe he was off the reservation, as they say.”

  “Whatever his official role is, he seems to know something I don’t.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he knows a lot that no one else knows. Not the public, at any rate. Lots of strange rumors about that base, you know.”

  “Tall tales, you mean.”

  “Secrets. Classified programs. Who knows what they’re actually doing over there. Not like that have an active airfield or anything.”

  “They do keep to themselves. Which is why I was surprised to see him in the first place.”

  “It’s all very strange,” Amanda agreed. She set down her glass on the coffee table and crossed to the kitchen. “I made some curry,” she said. “You want some?”

  “I’m not that hungry.”

  “Not yet,” Amanda observed. She shuffled into the kitchen and dished out two plates of food and heated them up.

  Scarlett ate lightly as they chatted. The vodka bottle was on the coffee table now, within easy reach, and it wasn’t until her third vodka that Scarlett had a new thought. “I wonder if Karl was involved.”

  “What makes you think that?” Amanda asked.

  “The shovel.”

  “Right, I forgot about that. A man disappeared, and a shovel appears where it shouldn’t be. Curiouser and curiouser, indeed.”

  “And the missing man was found buried.” Scarlett wondered whether to mention her muddy shoes and going out clothes. They were after all what she would have worn if she had gone to the White Hart that night.