Page 60 of A Village Theatre Murder
‘Well, you made us come all this way, Troilus,’ said Hector. ‘Give the dog a pat.’
Julia recognised the exasperation that only a parent could feel with a frustrating child. Usually though, the child in question was a bit younger than Troilus. It was almost like he had frozen at the age he was when his mother died. Hector put his satchel down on the table with a thump.
Chaplin, who was sitting on the table, hissed in Hector’sdirection as the bag went down. It was true that Chaplin tended to be entitled and supercilious, but Julia had never seen or heard him hiss at anyone. Was this some kind of sign? Was Chaplin some kind of savant cat who could detect evil the same way as those people who could find water with twigs?
Now she really was being ridiculous, she told herself sternly. The cat was simply annoyed at the disturbance.
She tried to reassure herself again that Hector couldn’t know that she knew he had bought theComplete Works. She was pretty sure he hadn’t seen her at Second Chances when he was there earlier. As far as he was aware, she knew nothing about the book, and wasn’t busy constructing theories about his involvement in Roger’s murder.
His next statement seemed to be innocuous enough: ‘Sorry, cat. I didn’t mean to bother you.’
Chaplin gave him a withering look and turned away. Hector seemed unperturbed by the cat’s behaviour. Troilus had finally roused himself into action, and bent down to give Jake a pat. ‘Good dog,’ he said. Jake’s tail thumped with pleasure. A pat was a pat, no matter how unexpected the person delivering it.
Hector, to Julia’s dismay, pulled out a chair and sat down, smiling benignly at Troilus.
‘Such a tragedy, Roger’s death,’ he said. ‘And Graham’s. And things always come in threes.’
Julia froze. The man was absolutely cold-blooded! He sat there with a smile on his face, as good as telling her that she would be the third death. Julia reached out and held on to the back of one of the chairs to steady herself.
‘Hector, I really think…’
But Hector, as ever, had no interest in what anyone else thought.
Hector had only one thing on his mind.
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‘Yes, indeed, things always happen in threes,’ Hector said, with a deep sigh. ‘One,’ he held up his finger to illustrate. ‘Graham. Two: Roger. And three: Shakespeare.’
Julia, who had been wondering if she would be able to grab a kitchen knife to defend herself, found herself staring at the man, open-mouthed.
‘Shakespeare?’ Surely Shakespeare’s death had been too long ago to warrant being included in this list?
‘Would you believe that this week, of all weeks, myComplete Workswent missing? Just as I needed the soothing voice of the Bard to still the sorrow in my heart, it was nowhere to be found. Completely misplaced.’
‘Hector…’
‘But all was not lost. I found a marvellous copy in your lovely little charity shop. Dare I say it, an even more beautiful version than my own. Ah, how I look forward to rereading the great works and annotating them as I did before. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Or in this case, tooketh and then gaveth.’ Hector gave a slight frown, trying to correctly express the machinations of the deity.
Julia sat herself down in the chair she had been holding on to. If Hector was telling her about his lost Shakespeare, she must have been wrong. There was no chance that he would be sharing this unless he genuinely believed that his book was lost, and not a murder weapon. The police had deliberately not shared this piece of the puzzle – nobody except Julia, the police and the murderer knew about the book.
And if it wasn’t Hector, then someone had taken the book from him, and used it to throw at Roger. It was hard to imagine that someone had taken it specifically to use as a murder weapon – but perhaps the plan had been to leave it on the scene to frame Hector – which is exactly what it had done.
‘Hector,’ she said, in her firmest and most commanding voice. ‘There’s something you should know.’
Hector’s eyes grew rounder and rounder as Julia explained that a copy of theComplete Workshad been found next to Roger’s body. He clasped his chest theatrically.
‘Felled by the Bard?’ he said, in clear distress. ‘By my very own book. Oh, Julia, how can this possibly be?’
‘Well, I think the real question is, who could have taken your book?’
‘Nobody,’ said Hector, confidently.
‘And yet, someone did. You just told me that it was missing.’
‘It was in my house, next to my bed. Nobody could get in. The book was just mislaid somehow. Troilus is home most of the time; he would have seen. Wouldn’t you, Troilus?’
Troilus.
