Moonflower Murders Read online

  Wesley & Khan – Solicitors

  Framlingham

  It was Sajid Khan who had told Lawrence and Pauline Treherne where they could find me. He had once represented Alan Conway. In what way, I wondered, was he connected to Martin and Joanne Williams?

  I was about to ask Joanne how she knew him but I never got the chance. She had been tight-lipped as she led me out of the kitchen but suddenly she turned round and I saw that something extraordinary had happened. She was furious. She was staring at me as if she wanted to kill me.

  ‘I don’t want you to come here again,’ she hissed, keeping her voice low so that Martin wouldn’t hear.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Just go away. We never wanted to see Frank and we don’t want to see you. Whatever’s happened at the hotel, it’s got nothing to do with us. So piss off and leave us alone.’

  I don’t even remember stepping out of the house. I just remember the door slamming behind me and being left with the knowledge that I had no idea what had just happened, but whatever it was, it made no sense at all.

  Branlow Cottage

  There was no one around when I got back to the hotel and no sign of any police car, which made me think (and hope) that Detective Chief Superintendent Locke must have left. It was just before midday, which seemed like a good time to call on Aiden MacNeil. I still had a certain dread of meeting him but knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I phoned Lawrence from the car, but it was Pauline who answered.

  ‘Lawrence is in the garden,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday. I wasn’t feeling very well.’

  ‘That’s all right, Pauline. I’m just on my way to see Aiden.’

  ‘Oh yes. He talked to the police this morning.’

  ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I was just wondering if Lawrence spoke to him. He said he was going to mention that I might call in.’

  ‘I don’t know. Hold on a moment. I’ll ask him.’

  There was a click as she put the phone down and then, in the distance, her voice calling through the window: ‘Daaaahling?’ I waited about a minute and then she came back, slightly breathless. ‘Yes. He’s waiting to hear from you.’

  ‘He doesn’t mind?’

  ‘Not at all. Anything that might help find Cecily . . .’

  That reassured me.

  I walked through the hotel, passing Lars, who was sitting behind the reception desk reading a Danish football magazine called Tipsbladet. He didn’t look up as I went past. I continued out the back, past the spa and swimming pool and along the gravel drive that led to Branlow Cottage.

  Why were they pretending it was a cottage? What they had built was a solid, three-storey house standing in its own grounds, surrounded by a low wall and a gate. There was a swing in the garden and a partly deflated paddling pool. The Range Rover was parked in the drive. Walking past it with my feet crunching on the gravel, I had the strangest feeling of trepidation, even of fear. But I wasn’t afraid of Aiden. I was thinking of Cecily, a daughter and a wife and a mother of a seven-year-old girl. She had gone for a walk in the Suffolk countryside and had never come back. Was there anything worse that could happen to anyone? When you live in the country, you spend every minute of the day surrounded by a vast emptiness. I could feel it now. But you never think for a minute that you might become part of it.

  As I approached the front door it opened and Aiden came out, walking towards me. He had seen me from the window. He held out a hand. ‘You must be Susan Ryeland.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s good timing. Roxie’s out with Eloise. She’s off school at the moment. Come on in.’

  My first impressions of Aiden surprised me. He was a very handsome man, fair-haired, blue-eyed, in great shape. He was wearing a polo shirt, jeans and loafers. From what the Trehernes had told me, I knew he was thirty-two years old but he looked at least five years younger, with a Peter Pan quality that expressed itself even in the way he moved, light on his feet. I followed him into the kitchen and, without asking me, he flicked on the kettle. The house was very clean and orderly. There was nothing out of place on any of the surfaces.

  ‘When did you arrive?’ he asked. It was only when he turned round that I saw the tiredness in his eyes, the worry lines. He hadn’t been sleeping properly. He’d lost weight.

  ‘Yesterday.’ I didn’t know how to begin. ‘I’m very sorry,’ I said. ‘This must be awful for you.’

  ‘Awful?’ He half smiled as he considered the word. ‘That doesn’t even begin to describe it, if you want the truth, Susan. What’s awful is that the fucking police think I had something to do with it. What’s awful is that they’ve been here seven or eight times and they still don’t have a fucking clue.’

  There was a ragged quality to his voice. It was as if he was speaking with a bad sore throat.

  ‘I know Detective Chief Superintendent Locke,’ I said. ‘He’s a very thorough man.’

  ‘Do you think so? If Detective Locke and his friends had been a bit more thorough to begin with, Cecily might have been home by now.’

  I watched him make the tea. He did it with exactly the same taut, jerky movements that an alcoholic might use to pour himself a glass of Scotch and he talked all the while, even with his back to me.

  ‘I called the police at eight o’clock on the evening she disappeared. That was a Wednesday. She should have been back at six to help put Roxana to bed and I rang her mobile a dozen times. No answer. I knew something was wrong but it was another hour before someone turned up – a pair of “community officers” – and even then they didn’t take it seriously. Had we had an argument? Had she been depressed? It was only when the dog showed up at Woodbridge station two hours later that they began to take action. Her car was there too.’

  ‘The Range Rover?’

  ‘No. That’s mine. She drives a Golf Estate.’

  I noticed the present tense. Aiden hadn’t hesitated. He thought she was still alive.

  ‘What did Locke tell you today?’ I asked.

  ‘He told me nothing – which is exactly how much progress they’ve made.’ He reached into the fridge and took out a carton of milk. He slammed it down on the counter, almost crumpling it. ‘You have no idea what it’s been like,’ he said. ‘They’ve taken her bank details, her medical records, photographs – there was one of us on our wedding day that was in all the newspapers. They had a hundred people searching around the River Deben. Nothing. And then we had reports. She’d been seen in London. She was in Norwich. She was in Amsterdam – although how she managed that when her passport was still upstairs, I don’t know.’

  He poured the milk.

  ‘I’m told that the first seventy-two hours are the ones that matter. People who were in the area are still there and they may remember things. You can still find evidence. Did you know that eighty per cent of all people who disappear are found forty kilometres from where they live?’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Locke told me. He thought it would cheer me up. But they haven’t found her and it’s been over a week now.’

  He brought the tea over and we sat facing each other, neither of us touching it. I wanted a cigarette but I knew Aiden didn’t smoke. There was no smell in the house and his teeth were too white. I thought of what Andreas had said on FaceTime. ‘Of course he did it. It’s always the husband.’ Well, either Aiden MacNeil was the most brilliant actor I’d ever met or he was on the edge of a breakdown. I looked at him sitting hunched up opposite me. There wasn’t a single part of him that was relaxed. He was a man torn apart.

  ‘Your parents-in-law think that Cecily’s disappearance may have something to do with a book she read,’ I began.

  He nodded. ‘Atticus Pünd Takes the Case. Yes. They told me.’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a long pause. ‘I was the one who gave it to her. I told her to read it.’ Suddenly he was angry. ‘If it’s true,
if she’s disappeared because of something in that book, then it’s my fault. I wish I’d never heard of the bloody thing.’

  ‘How did you hear of it?’

  ‘One of the guests mentioned it to me. That’s my job here, really. I talk to the guests. I keep them happy. Cecily manages everything and Lisa does the finances. I’m just PR.’ He got up and went over to a sideboard, talking as he went. ‘I met Alan Conway when he came here all those years ago but I had no idea that he was going to write a book about us. In fact, he told me quite specifically that he wouldn’t . . . the bastard. Then this guest started talking about it and said there was a hotel in the book called the Moonflower and of course we have a wing here with the same name. So I went out and got a copy and of course I saw at once that we were all in it. Lawrence and Pauline, Derek – the night manager – me . . .’

  He turned round and now he was holding a brand-new paperback copy. I recognised the cover with its silhouette of Atticus Pünd, the title in raised letters, ‘THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER’ printed proudly at the top. How many hours had I spent working on the look of the series? I remembered talking it through with production, telling them how we had to avoid the simple outlines and the pastel colours of a long-forgotten Enid Blyton England even if that was where these books were effectively set. There were plenty of publishers – the British Library Crime Classics, for example – who were already crowding out the front table at Waterstones with their vintage editions and we had to stand apart from them. Alan was an original, modern author, much more than an imitator of Dorothy L. Sayers or John Dickson Carr. That was the message I wanted to get across. After Alan died, when Orion Books bought the series, they’d rejacketed but they hadn’t changed the design. It was still, largely, my work.

  ‘Cecily read it. Did she say anything to you?’

  ‘Very briefly. She said there was something strange about it and that it made her think maybe Stefan hadn’t done it after all. The murder, I mean. But that’s all she said to me, Susan. I would have asked her what she was going on about but we had issues at the hotel. Roxana wasn’t sleeping. Lisa was being even more of a bitch than usual. There were all sorts of things happening and we just didn’t have time to sit down and talk.’

  We both sat staring at the tea, realising at the same time that we didn’t want it. He got up and took a bottle of wine out of the fridge. He poured two glasses. ‘I’m trying to hold it all together for Roxana,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t really understand what’s happening except that Mummy’s gone away. How am I meant to explain this to her?’ He took a gulp of wine.

  I gave him a few moments for the alcohol to take its effect. Then I asked: ‘Do you mind talking about the wedding? About you and Cecily?’

  ‘Of course not. If it will help.’

  ‘How did the two of you meet?’

  ‘She’d come down to London because she was thinking about buying a flat. I’m actually from Glasgow myself. I was living there with my mum.’

  ‘She came to the wedding.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She hasn’t come down now – to help?’

  He shook his head. ‘She has Alzheimer’s. My sister, Jodie, looks after her. But I wouldn’t want them here anyway. I’ve got Eloise. There’s nothing they can do.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I moved south . . . in about 2001, I think it was. I got a job as an estate agent and that was how I met Cecily. It was me who ended up showing her round a one-bedroom flat in Hoxton. It was great for getting to Suffolk but completely overpriced and there were problems with the roof. As it happened, it was my birthday that day and I couldn’t wait to get out and go to the pub – I was meeting a bunch of friends – so I told her not to buy it and asked her to come with me instead.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘All my friends loved her. And they all knew we were made for each other.’

  ‘How long after that did you get engaged?’

  ‘Eighteen months. That was too quick for Pauline and Lawrence but we didn’t want to hang around. They wanted me to come into the business and I was OK with that. What I was doing in London and what I’m doing here . . . they’re not so different. It’s all about people.’

  ‘So tell me about the actual day of the wedding. Everything that happened.’

  The wine was helping. I don’t know if Aiden was feeling more comfortable but I certainly was.

  ‘I’ll never forget it.’ Aiden shook his head. ‘Cecily always started the day by reading her horoscope in the newspaper. Well, on that Saturday it said prepare for ups and downs, which is the last thing you want to read on the day of your wedding and it really upset her. Of course, it turned out to be spot-on accurate. I shouldn’t say this, but Lawrence and Pauline made a bloody stupid mistake keeping the hotel open. If they hadn’t, everything would have been under control and at the end of the day Frank Parris wouldn’t have been there and the whole thing would never have happened.’

  ‘When did you meet him?’

  ‘That was on Thursday afternoon, when he arrived. He’d booked a standard room and we’d put him in the Moonflower Wing. It was a perfectly nice room but he wasn’t happy. He wanted something more traditional. So I managed to flip things round and put him in room twelve. That was where he was killed.’

  ‘Describe him for me.’

  Aiden considered. ‘Fifty years old, curly grey hair, quite short. He was jet-lagged when he arrived and that made him a bit surly. But the next day he was friendlier.’

  ‘You saw him twice?’

  ‘I checked him in. And then Cecily and I met him on Friday lunchtime outside the hotel. He was just getting out of a taxi. He said that he was pleased with the new room and when he heard we were getting married, he couldn’t have been nicer. He was quite camp. You could tell he was someone who liked to show off. If you’d told me he was going to be dead in just a few hours’ time, I wouldn’t have believed you. He was someone who was full of life.’

  ‘Did he say what he’d been doing in Westleton?’

  Aiden thought for a moment. ‘No. I don’t think so. He never mentioned Westleton to me, but he did say he was going to an opera in Snape Maltings that evening. It was something by Mozart. I don’t know if he’d come specially for that. But people do drive for miles to come to Snape. Quite a few of them stay with us.’

  ‘And you didn’t see him again?’

  ‘I might have. But if I did, I didn’t notice him. As you can imagine, Susan, I had quite a lot on my plate.’

  ‘There was a party on Friday night.’

  ‘Friday evening. Yeah – that was Lawrence and Pauline. They wanted everyone to feel part of it. They’re good people. The hotel’s their family.’ He glanced out of the window as if he had heard something. But there was still no sign of Roxana. ‘The party began at about eight thirty and went on for about an hour.’

  ‘Was Stefan there?’

  ‘Yes. Everyone was there. Lionel, Derek, Stefan, Lisa . . . No. Not Derek. But everyone else.’

  ‘Did you talk to Stefan?’

  Aiden frowned. ‘Probably. I don’t really remember. I don’t think I spent very much time with him because he was on his way out anyway.’

  ‘He was leaving?’

  ‘Hasn’t anyone told you? He’d been fired. Lisa didn’t like him. She was convinced that he was stealing the petty cash – or something like that. Actually, she didn’t need a reason to get rid of him. If Lisa doesn’t like you, you’re out. Everyone knows that. She doesn’t like me very much if you want the truth, but that’s probably because I’m married to her sister. She can’t bear Cecily having something she hasn’t got.’

  I wondered why Lisa hadn’t mentioned that she’d told Stefan to leave. What had she said over dinner? ‘We should have fired him right at the start.’ Maybe she was implying that she had, actually, fired him later, but it seemed to me that she had deliberately avoided mentioning it and that was strange. Apart from anything else, it made it more likely that he would have been t
empted to steal from the guests, knowing that he no longer had a job. I’d have thought she would want me to know that.

  ‘Did you see Frank Parris again?’ I asked.

  ‘No. I was with Cecily until eight thirty. Then we went to the party. Then we went to bed.’

  A thought occurred to me. ‘Shouldn’t you have slept apart? On the night before your wedding?’

  ‘Why would we want to do that? It was a traditional wedding in lots of ways. That was what Cecily wanted. But we didn’t do a hen night or a stag night. And we certainly weren’t going to sleep in separate rooms.’

  I remembered something that Aiden had just told me. ‘You said there were ups and downs. What exactly did you mean?’

  ‘Well, the murder was a pretty big fucking down if you want the truth . . .’

  ‘What were the others?’

  ‘You really want to know? They didn’t matter.’

  ‘Everything matters. You never know what’s going to be relevant.’

  He sighed. ‘Well, they were just little things. The sort of stuff that can happen at any wedding. First of all, the marquee was late. It didn’t arrive until after lunch on the Friday and they had to work all afternoon to get it up. One of the bridesmaids got sick and had to cancel. Cecily thought that was bad luck. And then she got upset because she’d lost a pen that she was going to have with her when we got married in the rose garden.’

  ‘A pen?’

  ‘It belonged to her dad. He collects antique fountain pens. He never stopped going on about it on the day. He’d only just bought it from a dealer in Snape – it was brand new, unused. And it was blue.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I didn’t get it.

  ‘It was old but it was also new. It was borrowed and it was blue!’

  ‘Of course.’ I felt like an idiot.

  ‘Anyway, she couldn’t find it. Later on we thought Stefan might have nicked it, but there were other things too. A whole box of wine glasses got broken. The cake was wrong. Why am I even telling you this? It was a wedding just like any other.’