Page 112 of Joker in the Pack

“I want to look into any burglaries that were reported just before the payments started, and I’m also going to give Carol a call. Even if nothing went on record with the police, she might remember if there were rumours.”

He tried the office first and soon had a colleague hunting through crime reports. Then he dialled Carol and put his phone on speaker.

“Mr. Holmes! How wonderful to hear from you.”

She mooned over him for ages before he managed to get a word in and ask whether she recalled anything that fitted in with our timescale.

“Five years ago, you say? Well, that would be around the time Moira Fleming’s niece got married. Quite the scandal, it was, because her ex turned up at the church and objected on the grounds that she’d been in his bed the night before. The wedding went ahead, but the divorce six months later got a bit nasty.”

I could only imagine.

“Then young Tate Palmer went off to university. Oxford or Cambridge, one of the two. He was only seventeen, and his father crowed to everyone about it for weeks. All the girls in the village were heartbroken. He had quite the little fan club.” There was a long pause. “Goodness me, I got mixed up. That was the year before. Five years ago, Tate’s mother ran off with the gardener. Fenton didn’t have quite so much to say about that.”

Really? Poor Tate. What a terrible thing to happen to anybody. Perhaps I should have tried harder to be understanding with him over our relationship, or rather, our lack of one.

“Then there was Megan Shaughnessy. She decided she wanted to be an actress and moved to Hollywood. Following her dreams, she told everyone.”

“Did she make it?” I asked. I loved a fairy-tale ending.

“She starred in a number of movies, but they weren’t quite what her parents had envisaged. Not so many clothes involved, if you know what I mean. Mr. and Mrs. Shaughnessy couldn’t hold their heads up at the horticultural society any longer, so they moved to Benidorm.”

“And Megan?”

“Nobody’s seen her since. Oh, and around that time, Maggie Bottomly had her nervous breakdown. A truck driver found her wandering along the road at midnight in her pyjamas, and—”

Nye rolled his eyes and interrupted. “I was thinking more about unexplained thefts than anything else, Carol.”

“Oh. Let me have a think. As it happens, there were a few burglaries. A couple of months, that spate lasted, in all three of the Foxfords and half a dozen more villages besides. The culprit seemed to like the expensive things. Jewellery, mainly, but some art went missing as well.”

“Did they ever catch anyone?”

“No, dear. Except for Mr. Benson. It turned out he’d faked his own burglary to claim the insurance money. He’d been drinking away his fortune, you see, and he ended up owing money to some loan shark.”

“What happened to him?”

“Do you know, I’ve got no idea? I must be slipping. I’ll try to find out for you.”

“Thanks, Carol.”

After he’d hung up, Nye sat back with the faraway look of someone deep in thought. “The fake insurance claim is an interesting angle. What if someone else tried the same trick and didn’t get caught?”

I saw where he was going with that thought. “And Ronnie could have guessed, because he knew he didn’t do the burglary.”

This detective thing was getting exciting!

“Exactly. When we get the list of crime reports, we’ll go through it for high-value thefts and see which of those had big insurance payouts.”

“How would that fit with something being hidden in the house?”

“I’m not sure,” Nye admitted. “The vicar thought the envelope he gave Eleanor had papers in it. Maybe Ronnie managed to get copies of the insurance documents?”

“So we have to keep searching?”

“Afraid so.”

I started with the wardrobe while Nye took Aunt Ellie’s dressing table. I’d only cleared out a tiny corner for my things, seeing as I didn’t have much left, and most of the space was still taken up by her clothes. Shapeless old dresses and worn cardigans.

Her shopping habits clearly hadn’t extended to her own attire, or she’d have been outfitted in colourful kaftans and sparkly tops you could wear in three different ways. I hunted through all the pockets to no avail, then emptied everything onto the bed.

---