Murder Comes Calling

Copyright Information

Murder Comes Calling: A Rex Graves Mystery
©
2015 by C. S. Challinor

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First e-book edition © 2015

E-book ISBN: 978-0-7387-4585-5

Book design by Donna Burch-Brown

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Cover illustration by iStockphoto.com/35821812/©Sylphe_7
iStockphoto.com/17843044/©GeorgHanf

Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Midnight Ink

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.midnightinkbooks.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

dedication

To fellow travellers and beautiful friends,
Patty and Abe, from Texas.

acknowledgments

Grateful thanks once again to “Mom” Neillie Miller for reading my manuscripts before they go to the editor.

one

“Imagine—murdered in your own
home!” Mrs. Graves shook her snowy head. “Three homes in one day, and all in the same neighbourhood! Soon we’ll have to keep guns, like in America.” She set the
Scotsman
down on the breakfast table. “The story describes Notting Hamlet
as a quiet residential community. Doesn’t your friend Malcolm live there?”

Malcolm Patterson had moved to Bedfordshire after graduating from Edinburgh University at the same time as her son.

“He does,” Rex said guardedly. When the subject of murder came up in the media, his mother invariably enquired if he would be involved in the case, thinking he spent enough time dealing with heinous crimes in his day job at the High Court of Justiciary. “He became a pathologist,” he added in a conversational tone.

“Nice lad, Malcolm. Morbid profession.”

“Not a lad anymore,” Rex pointed out, wondering if he should forego the extra toast in his on-going effort to curb excess weight on his midsection.

“And such grisly murders,” his mother went on, picking up the paper again. She peered at him over her spectacles. “I don’t suppose …,” she began.

Rex knew what was coming. The decision regarding the toast was made. “Got to hurry,” he said, casting aside his linen napkin. “I have to be in court.”

“Who are you prosecuting?”

“An arsonist.”

“I hope no one died in the fire,” she declared. “Such a horrible way to go!”

On his way into the hall, Rex ran into Miss Bird, the elderly housekeeper. “Mother is in one of her maudlin moods,” he warned.

“Did somebody die?” Miss Bird asked with alarm. Such an occurrence was common among people of their acquaintance, most of whom were getting on in years.

“Four people in a riverfront community in England.” Rex pulled on his raincoat and grabbed his brolly from the stand. “You’ll hear aboot it in the news—if you don’t hear aboot it from Mother first.”

“Was it the flu?”

“No. A serial killer.”

Miss Bird gasped.

“Make sure you lock the front door behind you,” his mother called from the parlour. Still possessed of the hearing of a bat, she missed little of what went on around her.

“I’ll lock after ye,” the housekeeper assured Rex as he opened the door to a blast of cold air and confronted the terraced street of respectable Victorian grey stone homes, bleak beneath the drizzling rain.

His fiancée was at that moment on her way to Aruba with her friend Julie, having failed to entice him to join her, even though she knew how he felt about cruises. All those sunburned hordes rampaging over the ship in search of fun and food, Rex thought with mild distaste as his polished leather shoe proceeded to sink into an icy puddle, soaking his sock. For a brief second he almost regretted forfeiting the cruise. But no, he decided it was just as well. Malcolm had called him from Notting Hamlet the previous evening. As Rex’s mother had feared, her son was soon to be immersed in his favourite hobby of murder.

two

On a gloomy afternoon
towards the end of November, Rex drove south along the A1 past the A421 junction to Bedford and continued another six miles before exiting the motorway and heading east. He had memorized the directions to Notting Hamlet and still managed to miss a turn on the lonely country roads, which was uncharacteristic of him, since he prided himself on his navigational skills. This, after the long drive from Edinburgh, much of it in the rain, contrived to put him in a rare bad mood.

When he finally arrived at Malcolm Patterson’s address, tired and irritated, his friend took one look at him upon opening the front door and declared, “You got lost.”

“How did you guess?”

“Don’t let it get to you,” Malcolm said, closing the door behind them. “Everyone does. It’s the ruddy signposts. Or, rather, the lack of them.” He took Rex’s dripping brolly that had shielded his guest from car to house.

“It’s as if you lot do not want to be found,” Rex said, less gruffly, giving his friend a warm handshake.

Malcolm laughed. “You may be right. We’re a bit off the beaten track out here.” Originally from Edinburgh, he still retained the shortened vowels and slight aspiration on the “w” that characterized Rex’s speech, though his “out” was pronounced less as an “oot.”

“But it seems someone managed to find us,” he added with a grim smile.

Rex’s spirits lifted. After all, that was why he had come: To find out who had murdered four of Notting Hamlet’s long-time residents.

“Well, come on through and warm yourself by the fire,” Malcolm invited, leading Rex into a living room at the back of the house.

The room exhibited a woman’s touch, floral and cosy. A hand-woven hearthrug lay in front of the flint stone fireplace, which had been converted to gas. Clearly, Malcolm had not changed the decor since his wife passed away three years ago. He had taken her sudden death hard and had quit his job at the mortuary.

Rex sat down in the recliner indicated by his friend and felt the strain of the long journey ebb away, along with the stiffness in his lower back. “Do you know what today is?” he asked Malcolm.

“Is it an anniversary?”

“It’s Thanksgiving in America. On the fourth Thursday of November they give thanks and cook a turkey, pretty much like we do at Christmas.”

“So what do they do for Christmas?”

“I think they cook a ham.”

“Well, there’s no ham or turkey for dinner, I’m afraid. Tea or Scotch for now?” Malcolm offered.

“Tea would be grand.”

While his host went off to fulfil his request, Rex sat back and closed his eyes, the warmth from the gas fire enveloping him and making him feel suddenly sleepy. The sounds of a ratting tea tray woke him just as he was nodding off into a light slumber.

“Age will do that to you,” his friend said.

“Do what?” Rex sat up in his recliner, blinking.

“Make one doze off in front of the fire.”

“Speak for yourself. I just drove all the way from Edinburgh, remember.”

“Aye, well,” Malcolm conceded. “And most of the way in the rain, no doubt. It hasn’t stopped all week here.” He poured out the tea. “Is it still three lumps of sugar?”

“It is.”

Rex waited for his doctor friend to make some remark about health and diet, but none was forthcoming. He hadn’t seen Malcolm since his wife’s funeral. Rex had been shocked at the time to find him turned grey from grief. They had kept loosely in touch by phone and through cards at Christmas until the urgent call regarding the murders. Rex had felt it was the least he could do to travel to south-central England and offer his old college friend what assistance he could, if only moral support. He worried Malcolm might have a relapse under the strain of dealing with more death right on his doorstep, so to speak.

The riverfront community of Notting Hamlet was small, containing seventy homes, and most of the residents were acquainted to one extent or the other. Malcolm had intimated on the phone that he had been on neighbourly terms with the victims, and was distressed by the grim circumstances of their respective demises, each killed in a different manner. Rex asked his old friend to bring him up to date with developments in the case.

Malcolm sat down, cup of tea in hand. “The police haven’t released many details. But due to the nature of the murders, they’ve cautioned us to keep our doors and windows locked and to install burglar alarms. That’s all nonsense, of course, since the victims obviously knew the killer. In none of the cases were there signs of forced entry.”

“The victims didn’t need to have known the killer,” Rex countered. “They could have answered the door to a stranger.”

“Possibly, but the front doors are all equipped with peepholes,” Malcolm informed him. “Same builder for all the homes. I’ll show you around in the morning. There are four different floor plans, but the level of finish is much the same in all. Good quality materials and similar landscaping to give Notting Hamlet a nice uniform look and feel.”

From what Rex had already seen, the houses ranged from villas to two-storey homes with half-timbered tan stucco façades and small-paned windows. Squat chimneys rose from the steep, brown-tiled roofs. Rex felt sure the developer would have stipulated thatch, had it been practical. It seemed he or she had strived for a rustic look for the community, the setting enhanced by a strategic spattering of mature trees.

“It’s an older community,” Malcolm went on, almost apologetically, “but well established and quiet. No new construction or so-called ‘improvements’ that you find in other developments.”

“No plans to move, I take it, in spite of the recent murders?” Rex asked.

“I’m settled here. And I feel Jocelyn’s presence around me, which I find comforting. A couple of ladies—single ladies, I might add—” Malcolm said with a blush, “have told me it’s time to move on. But I have my routine, and I’d rather not go through a major life change at the moment, not when I’m finally coming to terms with my wife’s death.”

“I understand,” Rex said, although he had at times thought Malcolm rather lacking in motivation. His friend had every right to live as he chose, after all. As far as Rex knew, he was living off the money from a life insurance policy taken out on his wife when they were first married fifteen years ago. He had no children to answer to, and his parents were dead. Rex glanced at his pensive friend across the coffee table. Poor Malcolm was very much alone in this world.

“Well, if you ever decide to return to Scotland, let me know. A visit would be grand. My mother’s place has several spare bedrooms, if you recall, and you haven’t seen my lodge in the Highlands yet. You’d enjoy the wildlife and scenery.”

“Most kind,” Malcolm murmured non-committedly. “It’s so long since I’ve been back home.”

“I know. You’re beginning to lose the accent. You sound more like a Sassenach now.”

Malcolm nodded and smiled. “Look, I’m not much of a cook, as you know, but I have some frozen dinners from Marks & Spencer. Will that do you?”

“Is there no pub around here where we can get some grub?”

“Not for seven miles of winding back roads, and it’s sloshing down rain.”

“Frozen will be fine,” Rex conceded.

“Won’t be a sec.” Malcolm got up from his armchair. “Switch on the news, if you like. I thought we could eat in here by the fire. It’s what I usually do—use one of those TV tables.” He indicated two identical items of furniture with Z-shaped legs designed to slot over one’s lap as he left the living room.

Rex would have preferred to go out to eat, but he felt better when his friend returned with a glass tankard of Guinness.

“I stocked up on your favourite tipple.”

“Most kind.”

“Oh, that’s the microwave beeping. Dinner will be right up.” Malcolm hurried away again and Rex grabbed the remote for the six o’clock news. An eager young male reporter in a windbreaker stood by the sign at the stone-pillared entrance to Notting Hamlet and announced that a man was helping the police with their inquiries into the killing of Ernest Blackwell, 81; Valerie Trotter, 47; Barry Burns, 79; and Vic Chandler, 55. As rain trickled down his hood, the reporter reiterated the brutal nature of the crimes and deplored how such a thing could have happened in this sleepy little community.

Generally, the police did not advertise the fact they had a person of interest unless they were almost sure they had the right person, Rex mused.

“No mention of the suspect’s name yet,” Malcolm said, returning with a bowl of cheese puffs. “But rumour has it it’s the house agent I told you about on the phone. Chris Walker. I still think it’s a fit-up. I mean, Walker isn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, but you’d think he would have covered his tracks better if he really was the murderer.”

“I wonder what could have been his motive.”

“The police don’t need motive, do they? Not when there’s piles of evidence. For all we know, he could be a psychopath.”

“You’re the doctor, Malcolm. Does this Chris Walker seem like a psychopath to you?”

“I’m a pathologist, not a psychiatrist. All I can tell you is it’s often hard to know for certain. Especially with sociopaths. Walker fits that mould all right. Personable, smooth. Perhaps a little too smooth. But most salespeople are like that. And he can be a bit pushy and has got a few people’s backs up. Oh, our meals. Almost forgot. Be right back.”

While Malcolm went to fetch dinner, Rex considered what could have made the police hone in on the house agent: Probably the fact the four victims each had their home up for sale, all listed through Chris Walker. Malcolm had told Rex about this bizarre coincidence during their first phone conversation. But three other homes were up for sale in Notting Hamlet, and their owners weren’t dead—yet.