The Weeping Women (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 3) Read online

  Patrick C. Walsh

  The Weeping Women

  The third ‘Mac’ Maguire mystery

  Garden City Ink

  A Garden City Ink ebook

  www.gardencityink.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2016

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2016 Patrick C. Walsh

  The right of Patrick C. Walsh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0-9932800-3-0

  Cover art © Patrick S. Walsh 2015

  “Ready tears are a sign of treachery, not of grief.”

  Publilius Syrus

  For Kay and Ian and Jeremy and, of course, Walt

  Thursday

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Four weeks later

  Thursday

  Mac sat at table thirteen in the Three Magnets waiting for his friend Tim to come back with some alcoholic refreshments. It had been a slow day for both Mac and his friend and so they decided to take the only rational course of action. They quit work early and headed off to the pub.

  He wouldn’t stay too long. After a couple of pints and something to eat he thought it quite likely that he’d go home. He was feeling dog tired so an early night was definitely on the cards. Due to the pain he’d only been getting three to four hours sleep a night for the last week or so and the deficit was building up. Even Tim had noticed that he was starting to look a bit run down.

  He gazed aimlessly out of the pub window at the street scene outside. It was just before four. Lots of people were out and about and the shops were doing good business.

  Perhaps it’s the sunny weather that’s brought them out, Mac thought.

  Although it was still only March the sun was shining for the first time in weeks and it was warm enough to allow some of the hardier souls to sit at the outside tables.

  Then, on the other side of the window, a young woman sat down. Tears were streaming from her eyes and she looked distraught. Although she was only sitting a few feet away, the glass seemed to somehow make him invisible to her.

  She sat near a group of people who were smoking and who seemed totally unaware of her emotional state. They were busy chatting and laughing as the tears raced down her cheeks.

  Tears that were seen only by Mac from the other side of the glass.

  Chapter One

  Friday - nine days before Easter

  There were huge stacks of brightly coloured confectionery on either side of the entrance as Mac walked into the supermarket. This caught him somewhat by surprise. He looked at the displays of Easter eggs and wondered where the winter had gone. Of course Easter was going to be early this year so that might explain it.

  He found it slightly worrying, however, that he didn’t seem to be able to keep track of time the way he used to. Of course when he’d been working his week had been punctuated by weekends and there were always monthly and quarterly reports to compile or read. Now his time seemed like an unending stream and weekends were pretty much the same as every other day. He sighed. He still missed being a policeman.

  He picked up an egg and looked at it. It was the biggest one on display by far. While he’d never had a sweet tooth as such, his wife and daughter had loved the Easter Sunday ritual of smashing several chocolate eggs to bits and wolfing down the contents, and he’d loved watching them do it.

  He had a sad moment as he realised that he had no-one to buy eggs for any more. His wife had died the year before and his daughter was a woman now and had outgrown childish things. On impulse he put the egg in his trolley anyway, even though he had no clear idea what he was going to do with it.

  He continued with the week’s shopping. This didn’t take very long. There was just him now and the shopping trolley was far from full. He had just stowed his purchases away in the boot of his old green Nissan when his phone rang.

  ‘Hello, Mac Maguire.’

  ‘Are you the private detective from the web site?’

  The voice was that of an elderly man and he sounded upset.

  ‘Well, yes I’m a detective alright. How can I help?’

  ‘I’d like you to call around immediately if that’s possible. I have a matter of the utmost urgency to discuss.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Montgomery Llewellyn-fforbes with two f’s, both lower case,’ the man replied. ‘Can you come around now?’

  Mac agreed and took the man’s address. It was in one of the better parts of town, Letchworth Lane near the golf club. Mac hoped that this might be a real case, something he could get his teeth into. He’d not had the sniff of a client for some weeks now and he’d been struggling to find things to do to fill up the time. He went home and stowed away his shopping and then headed towards the golf club.

  He pulled up outside a house that he guessed could have happily accommodated a couple of rugby teams and still have had some room to spare. The two storied building had a gable at each end and a lot of house in between. Mac didn’t need to guess that there was money here.

  He rang the bell and a crusty old man with a precisely clipped white moustache and walking stick opened the door. He looked Mac up and down, his eyes lingering on Mac’s crutch for quite a while.

  ‘Are you really the detective chappie?’ he eventually asked with an inflection of deep scepticism.

  ‘Yes that’s me,’ Mac answered, already feeling a little annoyed with his prospective client.

  ‘Well, I suppose you’d better come in then,’ the old man eventually conceded.

  He led Mac down a hallway towards the back of the house and into a large conservatory that overlooked a spacious back garden.

  ‘Here, look at what the blackguard did,’ he said with some emotion.

  He pointed vaguely towards a set of French windows with his walking stick. The doors were wooden and the glass panels were made up of small square panes held in by thin strips of lead. All of the panels were intact.

  ‘Sorry but what am I supposed to be looking at?’ Mac asked.

  The old man went over and had a closer look.

  ‘Oh, she’s gone and got it fixed!’ the old man said, looking a bit put out by this. ‘Well anyway that pane there, the one right by the lock, it was broken.’

  Mac looked at the door carefully. It had a dead lock.

  ‘I take it that the key was in the lock?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Well of course it was. I mean this is Letchworth not one of those heathen places like London. A man should be able to leave his key in his lock without any interference from riff-raff. I can only suppose that this town is finally going to hell in a handcart along with the rest of the country.’ />
  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Well catch whoever did it of course. What else? The police aren’t interested. They were around here yesterday morning and they said they’d look into it. Not a dicky bird since. Look into it!’ the old man said with a snarl. ‘They’re too bloody busy catching speeding motorists to bother with a real crime.’

  While he spoke he waved his stick around and his face started turning red.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘The night before last and a bloody cheek it was too. We were lucky we weren’t all killed in our beds.’

  ‘What did they steal?’ Mac asked, wanting to cut to the chase.

  ‘Why they stole one of the eggs! I’d bought a load of them for the great-grandkids and great-nephews and nieces and so on. I’d stacked them in the living room on top of the dresser and when I came down in the morning little Molly’s egg had gone.’

  The old man’s face spoke of utter shock and horror.

  ‘I’ll have to buy another one now, won’t I? It was a Peppa Pig one too, they’re like gold dust at the moment.’

  ‘Show me,’ Mac said, his spirits already drooping.

  The old man took Mac down a short hallway and then into a spacious room with several studded leather sofas and a wall full of books.

  ‘Just there.’

  The old man pointed to a very large Welsh dresser adorned by several framed photographs and stack of Easter eggs.

  ‘Was anything else stolen?’ Mac asked.

  The old man rummaged around his brain for a moment.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What nothing?’ Mac asked incredulously.

  ‘No, we checked and everything was ship-shape and Bristol fashion.’

  ‘So you rang me because you want me to find out who stole your Easter egg?’

  Mac was incredulous.

  The old man nodded.

  ‘Yes that’s about the size of it. I want the blighters caught and punished. It’s not just the egg, it’s the damage and the principle of the thing. I’d string them up if it were down to me.’

  Mac wondered whether he should just turn around and walk out of the door. However, he’d been so bored lately that he decided on balance that even an Easter egg hunt might be a better alternative to daytime television.

  Mac sighed as he told the old man how much he charged.

  ‘I’ll give you three days,’ the old man said. ‘If you’re a real detective then that should be more than long enough.’

  Mac thanked the old man silently for the glowing vote of confidence.

  He gave the house a backward glance as he walked towards his car and wondered if such a surreal episode had really taken place.

  He drove straight to Letchworth Police Station and asked for Detective Sergeant Woodgate. He’d only waited a minute or so when Mac heard footsteps coming down the stairs and Toni Woodgate appeared. She was in her late thirties, wearing a grey trouser suit and looking as business like as ever. She smiled and held out a hand to Mac.

  ‘How can I help, Mac?’ she asked.

  Mac looked around the lobby. There were people around that might hear.

  ‘Can we go somewhere?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Toni said, mistaking Mac’s grumpy expression for one of utter seriousness.

  He was grumpy because he really wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable embarrassment he’d feel when he told her what had brought him here.

  She led Mac towards one of the interview rooms and held the door open for him.

  When they were seated she asked, ‘So what do you need me for?’

  ‘I’ve just been hired to look into a burglary.’

  ‘Okay, let me have the details,’ Toni asked.

  He gave Toni his client’s name and address. He could feel his face reddening already.

  ‘Yes, that was only the night before last wasn’t it? They had an Easter egg stolen.’ She stopped and looked at Mac in some disbelief. ‘Is that what they've hired you to find?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, unfortunately business is slow and it was either that or Countdown. Can you tell me anything about the case?’

  ‘Well, cases actually. Mr. Llewellyn-fforbes is among five people in the area that have been broken into and had chocolate items stolen and, as far as we can tell, absolutely nothing else was taken.’

  Mac’s embarrassment disappeared when he heard this.

  ‘There’ve been four other burglaries?’

  ‘Yes. The first one was five nights ago, then we had one the night after that and two the night after that one.’

  ‘What’s Andy doing about it?’ Mac asked.

  DI Andy Reid was Toni’s boss and had worked with Mac some years before when they were both part of the London Murder Squad.

  ‘Not a lot really. He’s scheduled to take part in a major counter-terrorism exercise that’s taking place in London over Easter so we’re only concentrating on essential stuff at the moment.’

  ‘And I take it that missing Easter eggs don’t fall into that category. Do you think Andy would mind if I looked into these cases?’

  ‘Let’s go ask him,’ Toni said with a smile.

  Mac followed Toni upstairs. She waited for him at the top as he gingerly took it one step at a time. When Andy saw him he jumped up from behind his desk, obviously happy to see his old boss again.

  ‘Mac, how have you been?’ he said offering his hand.

  Mac shook it firmly.

  ‘Not too bad, apart from being a bit bored I suppose. I’m afraid that business has been a bit on the slow side.’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘It’s about the Easter egg burglaries,’ Toni said helpfully.

  ‘Really?’ Andy said, giving Mac a puzzled look.

  ‘Yes really,’ Mac admitted with a grimace. ‘Someone’s hired me to find their stolen Easter egg. Mac Maguire has officially hit a new low.’

  Andy didn’t say anything for a moment.

  ‘Don’t be so sure, I remember when you came to us not long ago about a dead squirrel and look how that turned out. If I’m honest I’ve been toying with the idea of asking you if you’d look into these burglaries. I’ve got a feeling that there’s more to it than the chocolate but I’ve no idea why. With this exercise coming up I can’t justify expending much resource on these cases but if you’re looking into it anyway…’

  He thought for a moment.

  ‘Toni, give Mac a copy of all the files related to the burglaries. I know you’ve been hired by someone else but if anyone asks you’re working for us. Let me know if you find anything.’

  ‘You think there’s something to find?’ Mac asked.

  Andy looked up at Mac.

  ‘I do. I have a feeling that there’s a lot more to this than meets the eye and thanks Mac, it’ll be one less thing for me to worry about. Here, you might find this useful.’

  He took a warrant card from the desk drawer and passed it to Mac.

  ‘I got the photo from Dan Carter,’ Andy explained.

  Mac smiled broadly as he put the card in his wallet.

  ‘Thanks Andy. This means more than you’ll ever know.’

  Toni disappeared for a few minutes and Mac was expecting her to return with an armful of files. Instead she gave him a small memory stick.

  ‘I’ve put everything on there for you Mac,’ Toni said.

  He gave Andy and Toni his thanks and left the station with a grin on his face, happy to have something substantial to work on. His first reaction on hearing that there had been five thefts was exactly the same as Andy’s.

  There had to be a lot more to this than a thief with a sweet tooth.

  Chapter Two

  Back home he made himself a pot of coffee and started reading the files on his laptop.

  He looked at the names of the victims first; Llewellyn-fforbes, Foskett, Pegram, Pratt and Wells. His first instinct was to see if they were all in the same area. He wrote down the addresses. Three of them lived
in Letchworth, one in Baldock and the last in Radwell. They were all more or less within three miles of each other. He checked their locations on Google maps but nothing jumped out at him. He topped up his coffee cup and read on.

  Mr. Montgomery Llewellyn-fforbes, a retired civil servant who lived in Letchworth Lane, Letchworth. Quite a grand house so perhaps one that might be a good target for any jobbing thief. They got in sometime during the night and made off with just a single Easter egg. Although four people lived in the house no-one heard a thing and the break-in was only discovered the morning after. It was assumed that the thief, or thieves, had climbed over a five foot garden fence at the back of the property although no shoe prints or any other evidence was found to support this theory. Mac looked at the photos.

  A wooden fence ran along the back of the garden and, although it was hard to tell the scale from the photos, from his visit Mac reckoned that it must be at least a hundred feet long. It was fairly new and looked in good condition. There was a strip of newly dug ground running right next to the fence. Mac estimated that it would be about three or four feet wide, ready to put some bedding plants in he guessed. On the left of the garden there was a thick hedge, much higher than the fence, while on the right there was an older and slightly higher fence.

  Mac looked at the house on Google Earth and he could see why it was assumed that the thief had gotten over the back fence. The house stood on a corner with the main road at the front and a smaller road on the right hand side. It was surrounded on the other two sides by the golf course. Although it was possible that someone could have gotten over the older fence it was directly overlooked by properties on the other side of the road. No burglar in his right mind would use that route.

  The fact that there was nothing else stolen was confirmed by Mr. Llewellyn-fforbes’ grand-daughter, a twenty six year old doctor who worked at Hertford County Hospital called Helena Biggerstaff. Forensics carried out a cursory examination and found no prints or anything else that helped. Entry had been gained by breaking a small glass pane which allowed the thief to turn the key and open the conservatory door.