Chapters (58)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
- Forty-nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-one
- Acknowledgements
- An Eastbourne Murder Mystery
- Canelo Crime
- About the Author
- Also by Sheila Bugler
She typed three names into her internet browser: Ed Mitchell, Fiona Holden, Annie Holden. Almost immediately, the results came back. Over 1 million of them, but Dee saw immediately she wouldn’t have to scroll far to get the information that she needed. It was all there on the first page. The shock of it being this easy took a moment to sink it. Once it had, Dee clicked on the first result and started reading.
By the time she’d finished, night had drawn in. The sky was a pitch black blanket, broken by the twinkling lights of faraway stars and the silver sliver of a crescent moon. Several times, while reading the different news stories, Dee had had to stand up and pace back and forth along the deck. The adrenaline rush of discovering so much at once made it impossible to sit still.
Eventually, she pushed her laptop away, and went inside to call Leonard.
‘Hear me out,’ she said when he answered, ‘and don’t interrupt until I’ve finished.’
‘Good evening to you too,’ Leonard said.
‘Annie Holden has a photo of Kitty and Emer when they were children. I was at her house yesterday and I saw it. But when I went back there today to ask her about it, a man told me no one called Annie had ever lived there. Now, I know that’s not true, because I met her mother there the day before.
‘Plus, I tried to contact Emer yesterday. When I couldn’t get hold of her, I phoned her mother’s house in Ireland. A woman called Emer answered the phone and said she’d never met me before. When I told her we’d already met, she didn’t know what I was talking about.’
Leonard started to speak, but Dee interrupted him.
‘Shh, Leonard. Please. I need to work this out, and the only way I can do that is by talking about it. Do you remember Ed Mitchell? Yup. That’s him. Good. While I was outside Annie’s house – which, just to be clear, is in London – Ed turned up asking me what I was doing there. And do you know what’s really weird? When I told him why I’d been looking into Annie, he seemed to take me seriously. I expected him to tell me the whole thing was ridiculous, but he didn’t do that. Which got me wondering… What did he already know about her?’
‘And you’ve worked that out?’
‘Damn right.’ Dee was so pleased with herself she didn’t even mind the interruption. ‘Get this, Leonard. Ten years ago, a man called Michael Holden was charged with murder. The murder took place in a village called Alfriston, which is about ten miles from Eastbourne.’
Dee paused, making sure she got all the facts right and didn’t forget anything. Going back onto the deck, she scrolled through the different news stories about the murder.