“Oh, Buckley, Buckley,” she finally whispered hoarsely, automatically taking her phone from her pocket with quaking hand and dialing 999.
Minutes later, the store was abuzz with police and medics, as she sat nursing a cup of tea in the kitchen, stunned and fighting waves of nausea.
She looked up when she became aware of being watched, and she saw a man looking down at her from the entrance to the kitchen. He was tall and broad and easily filled the doorframe, both in width and height. She noted to her surprise that he was gazing at her with a scowl on his handsome face. Perfectly coiffed dark hair, steely gray eyes, chiseled features and an anvil jaw lent him classic good looks, and for a moment she thought none other than David Gandy himself had wandered into the store, mistaking it for the scene of his latest swimwear shoot. But then the man cleared his throat.
“Inspector Watley. Can I ask you a few questions, Miss McCabre?”
She nodded, wiping a tear from her eye. “Yes, of course, Inspector.”
The inspector took a seat at the table and placed a small notebook in front of him, checking it briefly. “Your name is Henrietta McCabre?”
“Yes, but most people just call me Harry,” she said softly.
“You were the one who found the body, Miss McCabre?”
“Yes, I did,” she said, tears once again brimming in her eyes.
“And what time was this?”
“Must have been… around four. I’d just come back from an errand.”
He gave her a dark look. “An errand connected to the store?”
She nodded again. She was loathe to reveal the nature of her errand. Even dead, she didn’t want to betray Buckley’s confidence.
“Tell me exactly what you saw,” Inspector Watley said gruffly.
She quickly told him what had happened, and didn’t forget to mention the groan she’d heard—the sound which had alerted her of Buckley’s presence.
Watley’s frown deepened. “You heard a groan, you say?”
“Yes, I did. It’s the reason I came back here. I thought Mr. Buckley had stepped out of the store, as he didn’t respond when I called out. So when I heard the groan, I went looking for him… And that’s when I found him.”
“That’s odd,” the inspector said, fixing her with an intent stare.
“What is?”
“The groan.”
“Why odd? It is perfectly natural for someone who’s just tumbled and knocked his head to groan. I’m just surprised I didn’t hear it sooner.”
“According to the preliminary findings of our coroner, Mr. Buckley must have been dead for at least half an hour before you arrived, Miss McCabre.”
This news startled her. “He was dead… before I arrived?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Oh, poor Mr. Buckley,” she said. “To think he’d been lying there all this time before I found him! If only I’d arrived sooner, he could’ve been saved.” She looked at the policeman. “I knew this would happen. I just knew it.”
He stared at her blankly. “You knew he was going to die?”
She nodded. “He was very unsteady on his feet lately. Only last month he took quite a tumble when he stepped from the store. I told him he should get a cane, but he was far too proud.” She shook her head, extremely distraught. “It was only a matter of time before he took a bad fall and hit his head.”
The policeman eyed her curiously for a moment, then lowered his head and said slowly, “Your employer didn’t hit his head, Miss McCabre.”
“What do you mean? If he didn’t hit his head, then how did he die?”
“Mr. Buckley was murdered, Miss McCabre. Murdered in cold blood with a blunt object by the looks of things.” Then, without waiting a beat, he went on, “Can you account for your whereabouts between the hours of three and four, Miss McCabre?”
Her jaw dropped. Was he accusing her of murdering her own boss? “Well, I wasn’t here if that’s what you mean,” she was quick to point out.
“Where were you then?”
And she was about to respond when she remembered she couldn’t. Even though providing herself with an alibi was more important than respecting Mr. Buckley’s wishes, she still couldn’t tell the inspector where she’d been. Not if she didn’t want to get in big trouble with No-Neck and his employer.
Chapter Two
It didn’t take a genius to figure out she was in a pickle. Not only didn’t she have an alibi, but apparently the safe was empty, all of Mr. Buckley’s possessions stolen. It was obvious how things looked from Scotland Yard’s point of view. They probably figured she’d burgled the safe, seeing as she knew the combination, was caught in the act by her employer, at which point a violent struggle had ensued and she’d violently slain the older man. The only reason she wasn’t being placed under arrest was that she’d be an idiot to stick around after the murder, or to call the police herself.
These and other thoughts were now swirling in Harry’s head as Inspector Watley told her tersely to please remain available for questioning—probably the Scotland Yard equivalent for ‘Don’t leave town!’
She nodded quickly, her face now completely devoid of color and her extremities of blood, and wobbly got to her feet the minute Watley left.
And as she made her way out of the store, which was still swarming with police, she feebly wondered what she was going to do now. For one thing, she was most definitely out of a job. Which was something she should have told Watley, she now saw. Clearly she had no motive for murder; it simply meant unemployment. Then again, she’d just tucked a million pounds of motive into the shop till, and who knew how much more money Buckley kept in his safe, along with countless other valuables? Plenty of motive there.
As she rode her bicycle home, the rain was coming down again in sheets, and even before she’d reached the street where she lived, she was soaked to the skin. A fitting ending to a lousy day, she thought miserably.
Arriving home at Valentine Street No. 9, she quickly fastened her bike to the cellar window grille, wiped the rain from her eyes, and jogged up the steps to the front door. Letting herself in, she stood leaking rainwater on the black and white checkered floor for a moment, then slammed the heavy door shut, and quickly checked the mailbox. A magazine had arrived—the historical magazine she subscribed to—and a bill from the electric company, probably announcing another rate hike.
She hurried up the stairs, already shucking off her jacket, and when she arrived on the landing wasn’t surprised to find her neighbor patiently awaiting her arrival, Harry’s snowy white Persian in her arms.
“Oh, shoot,” she said, taking the cat from the elderly lady. “Did Snuggles sneak into your flat again, Mrs. Peak? I thought I locked her up this time.”
Mrs. Peak, the wizened old prune-faced lady who lived next door, gave her a wistful smile. “I don’t mind, Harry. I only wish she visited me more often. I wouldn’t mind having a darling like Snuggles myself, you know.”
“Perhaps one day you will,” said Harry as she pulled Snuggles’s ear. “If she keeps this up, I just might have to give her away.”
Mrs. Peak didn’t seem to mind one bit. “Snuggles can drop by any time,” she assured her.
“Thank you, Mrs. Peak,” she said, letting herself into her flat. And as she closed the door, she whispered, “What’s the matter with you, little one? Why do you keep sneaking off to the neighbors, huh? Don’t you like it here?”
She put the cat down on the floor and looked around her modest flat. It wasn’t even a flat, really, more of a studio apartment. One living room with kitchenette, a small bedroom, and an even smaller bathroom. Just enough for the student she’d been when she took it, and currently all she could afford on her meager earnings. She’d told herself back then that once she got her first paycheck she was going to find something bigger. But then she’d seen the paltry sum on her paycheck and had realized that it would be a long time before she’d be able to afford anything more than what she had. In fact she was lucky to have a place as nice as this one, London quickly becoming too costly for anyone without a millionaire mum or dad to foot the bill.