Page 4 of A Very Bookish Murder
That reminded her. Ross! He’d be arriving at the malthouse any minute now because she was supposed to be cooking supper for them both this evening. Ally got out her phone and began typing.You aren’t going to believe this but…
At that moment, Ally heard the sound of the approaching helicopter. Callum rushed out, and the women all gathered round the windows to watch. It had hardly touched the ground before two paramedics were leaping out.
‘Isn’t this exciting!’ Someone called Janine was wide-eyed. ‘Just like you see on the telly! My God, girls, we’ve got some material here for our next books!’
Ally looked at her list. Janine came from York and wrote cosy crime.
They could all hear the sounds of chaos down the corridor in the ladies’ room: feet running back and forth, doors opening and slamming, raised but calm voices calling out instructions.
After about ten minutes, a solemn-looking Callum came in again. Everyone went quiet and looked at him expectantly.
‘I have to confirm,’ he said, ‘that Jodi Jones is indeed dead. And it appears that she has definitely been strangled. The police will be here very soon.’
There were gasps of disbelief, almost everyone looking towards Della Moran.
‘Nothing to do with me!’ she snapped. ‘Just because I questioned her methods.’
‘You went to the ladies’ room!’ someone shouted.
‘So did plenty of other people!’ Della looked around pointedly. ‘Youwent there, and so didyou, andyou…’
Ally realised that Della was pointing her finger at both Joyce and Millie.
‘And so did I!’ said Penelope. ‘The thing is – it could have been any of us.’
Everyone looked at everyone else. Brigitte said, ‘I, too, visited the ladies’ room, but only to wash my hands,’ in a tone that indicated this rendered her blameless.
Ally, trying to stay neutral and avoid any unpleasantness, said, ‘Look, the police will be here soon, so I suggest we all have a statement ready because they’ll be questioning everyone.’
It would almost certainly be poor old Rigby again. The unfortunate Detective Inspector Rigby had been persuaded by his Scottish wife to relocate from Birmingham to the Scottish Highlands, prior to his impending retirement, because ‘nothing much happens up there’ and, furthermore, they’d even bought a very nice wee bungalow in Inverness. Well, plenty had happenedup here since Rigby’s arrival, and Ally felt really sorry for him. The poor man had honestly thought he’d only be tackling the odd sheep rustler or, occasionally, a drunk at bar-closing time. That had certainly not been the case, if her recent experiences were anything to go by!
So, when Rigby and his forensic team arrived and went straight in to identify the body, Ally was quite appalled at his demeanour. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been quite robust, but he was now pale and exhausted-looking, with the appearance of someone who’d just been dragged from his bed. Ally wondered if he had, or perhaps the poor man was sickening for something?
Rigby smiled in recognition when he saw her. ‘Ah, Mrs McKinley, we meet again. Tell me in detail about what you found, and when.’
She told him, with Joyce backing her up. ‘We could hardly get the door of the cubicle open with her on the floor behind it.’
Rigby was taking notes and breathing deeply as if he’d just run up the hill.
He faced the room and held his hand up for silence. ‘I want to talk to all the ladies who left this room at the time Miss Jones called for an interval. I realise that some of you did not, so I’ll talk toyoulater.’
Ally watched as her four guests were lined up: Joyce, Millie, Penelope and Brigitte, plus Della Moran, Laura, who was a school supply teacher and wrote ghost stories, and a woman called Morwenna, who lived in Cornwall and wrote fantasy novels. They had all visited the ladies’ room.
Rigby was now interviewing them, so Ally turned her attention to the five women who had not left the Garden Room. They’d be questioned, of course, but if they were telling the truth, they could hardly be held accountable. They included bothBarbara and Anne who had been so helpful in trying to revive their tutor.
Half an hour passed. An ordinary ambulance arrived, and the ladies all crowded round the window again to see Jodi’s body being carried out and placed inside. In the meantime, Rigby was still intensely questioning the women who’d left the room and was looking increasingly exhausted. The helicopter was still there in the middle of the car park, rotor blades slowly turning. They obviously planned not to be around for much longer. The white-suited forensic team had gone out to the ambulance with the body, and the helicopter paramedics were now heading back towards the helicopter.
Rigby had begun to sway a little, and Ally was now alarmed; this was not the Rigby she knew! She saw him put his hand on a table to steady himself just before his eyes began to close, and he stumbled against the table before falling to the floor, causing even more mayhem among the women.
‘Oh, God! Bob!’ Ally realised, as she rushed to his aid, that this was the first time she’d actually called him by his Christian name. He’d always just been around, calling her ‘Mrs McKinley’, and she’d called him ‘Inspector’. She kneeled beside him and, for the second time in as many hours, she was checking for a pulse and breathing. She couldn’t find either, so she began compressions. And suddenly Anne was by her side again.
‘What is it about this place?’ Anne asked with a weak smile, but Ally could only hear the sound of the engine increasing as the helicopter prepared to leave.
As Anne took over again, Ally dashed towards the glass doors, where the women were gathered together waiting to see the lift-off. ‘Stop them! Stop them!’ she shouted as she pushed her way through to the car park. Waving her arms madly, she saw the helicopter, which had just begun to hover above theground, land on the concrete for a second time. Within seconds, the paramedics leaped out again. ‘Inside, quick!’ she shouted.
She followed them inside to where Anne was still doing compressions.
‘He’s had a cardiac arrest!’ Anne said.
