Dig Your Own Grave : a gripping cosy crime thriller Read online

  Dig Your Own Grave

  Revenge is a dish best served poisoned

  Carmen Radtke

  First Published by SpellBound Books 2022

  Copyright © 2022 Carmen Raktke

  The moral right of the author to be identified as the owner of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, locations and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or any actual places, business establishments, locations or events is purely coincidental.

  PRINT ISBN:

  Cover Art © a r t E A S T c r e a t i v e 2021

  I’m loving memory

  This book is dedicated to my dad, who loved dogs, and who introduced me to mysteries and thrillers.

  He passed his love of reading and of slightly weird jokes on to me.

  Gone, but never forgotten.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter One

  The soil hit the coffin with a muffled thud. Marie Ingram stepped away from the open grave.

  Her heartbeat echoed in her ears, drowning out every other sound.

  “If you ask me, the wrong person’s in that grave.” Detective Inspector Peter Bell chewed harder on his nicotine gum. His sleeve swiped over the beer-soaked ring on the oak table in the snug, but he didn’t notice. Or care.

  “I know.” Marie put one hand on top of the other to stop the tremor. The sunshine poured through the leaded windows, crisscrossing the table with flickering shafts of light. The weather made everything worse. The heavens should have sent a deluge, or a hailstorm, to mark Ellie’s funeral. Instead, the small gathering had basked in an unseasonal mild December afternoon.

  “He killed her, as good as if he’d slashed her wrists himself.” Peter reached for his third pint. He and Marie were the only mourners left. Ellie hadn’t been close to many people when she took that final step into oblivion. Her husband had seen to that.

  “If only –” Marie paused. “I should have called her as soon as I moved back home, but I was so busy with my own affairs I kept putting it off. And even before that. I should have realised something was wrong.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. She kept it secret what happened behind closed doors. And you had your own problems. I was sorry to hear about your mum, although the death notice at least led me back to you.”

  “But you knew about Ellie?”

  Peter took another swig. “She asked me about restraining orders, must have been fifteen years ago. Her arms were black and purple. She tried to hide the bruises, but her sleeve kept slipping up.”

  “Fifteen years?” The blood pounded in Marie’s ears as she imagined the pain and fear that her old schoolfriend must have lived in for all that time.

  “Next time I met her, she waved it off,” Peter said. “There was nothing I could do to help her, without her cooperation. Why do you think so many bastards get away with abuse? Especially if they’ve got money and wear bespoke suits? The wives are convinced nobody will believe them and just keep quiet.”

  He took out his police ID card and turned it in his hands. “Makes me sick sometimes. Here I am, sworn to uphold the law and protect the innocent, and what happens? Nothing, that’s what. Every bloody week I see someone walk scot-free who should’ve been banged up.

  Or rot in a grave, like Ellie.”

  He put the card away. “I’ve seen the body and her medical files. Scars from cigar burns, broken bones that hadn’t been set properly. Looks like every time a business deal went sour, she copped it. And he’ll do it again, to another one. I’ll stake my pension on that.” A taste of bile crept into Marie’s mouth.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with this. Can I get you a drink?

  Brandy?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, nursing her cup of tea. Strong liquor was no longer an option, although she still drank wine. “I can’t comprehend why she didn’t leave.”

  “Too brow-beaten, or scared. Most abuse victims don’t ever break free, or they crawl back to the abuser. It takes on average seven attempts to leave for good.”

  “She was always so full of life, even after she lost her parents.” Marie pictured Ellie the way she’d been right before her wedding seventeen years ago. A nursery school teacher, with an infectious grin and a knack for dirty puns. How could such a girl end up slitting her wrists in a tub full of warm bathwater?

  Peter said, “I wish I could make him suffer the way she did. Except that would make me the perp, and him the victim. Sometimes I wonder if we haven’t got it all mixed up, what’s right and what’s wrong.”

  “Yes.” Marie traced a sticky beer-ring with her finger. “Same old moral dilemma we used to discuss at school.”

  “I never argued with you, did I, Maid Marian?”

  “I haven’t heard that nickname in years.”

  “We should have tried harder to stay close,” he said. “Not just meeting up every few years to relive our glory days on the school stage. We owned the parts, didn’t we? You the headstrong champion of justice.”

  “And you starting out as the corrupt Sheriff, until you got promoted to Robin Hood, champion of the underdog.”

  “All due to my silver tongue and golden curls.” Peter ruffled his short blonde hair shot with the first touch of grey. “Although they cast you wrong. You were always much more of a rebel than me.”

  “Thank you for calling me and telling me about Ellie.” Marie touched his arm with her too thin hand. Her wrist bones jutted out these days, but she’d always been slim.

  He stroked her cheek, wiping away a tear she hadn’t even noticed. The physical contact felt comforting in a world that lost its reality more and more. “I’d like to keep in touch for good, now that you’re back,” he said. “Not many of the old gang left.”

  She nodded. “I’m glad at least we two have reconnected,” she said. “I should have come back more often. It just –”

  Peter interrupted her. “It just felt boring, when there was so much world out there, right? All these adventures.”

  “At least that’s what I used to think. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s who you’ve always been. A wanderer.”

  Marie forced a smi
le onto her lips. “Well, that’s over. Suitcase closed and passport

  retired.”

  “In that case, I’d better pin you down before you change your mind. Next week? Wednesday is pie and a pint night.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  He took her parka from the coatrack and helped her with it, in a display of manners that took her by surprise from a muscular ex-rugby player. But Peter had always been good at handling girls when they were at school. Marrying a woman he adored would also have helped shape him.

  She stole a glance at his left hand; a pale indentation where a ring must have sat not too long ago.

  They passed the graveyard, where the setting sun touched the marble headstone of Ellie Featherstone, beloved wife, died aged thirty-eight. Marie quickened her step, anxious to escape her own feelings of guilt over her friend.

  Peter accompanied Marie to the doorstep of the semi-detached house she’d inherited from her parents, but he didn’t linger. She went inside, lonelier than she’d been for ages. She used to relish her freedom, another thing that seemed to change.

  Marie lit the fire, rubbing her arms. The chill that seeped into her bones had nothing to do with the room temperature, but the flames had a soothing effect.

  She hung up her parka, deliberately avoiding looking at the empty dog basket. She should have gotten rid of it after Barney’s death, but in a perverse way, it kept his memory closer to have this constant reminder.

  First her mother. Then Barney. And now Ellie. She closed her eyes, but the image of the coffin wouldn’t go away. A gleaming brown box, heavily carved, with four brass handles. One shovel full of soil, and the grieving husband walked off without so much as a glance back.

  Marie put another log onto the fire before she climbed up the narrow ladder to the attic where she’d stacked boxes with all her mementos before she left home for good. She took the lid off the uppermost box and lifted out a photo-album and a diary that all her school-friends had signed before they went off to college. Ellie among them. The next step hurt her so much, she could barely bring herself to do it. “You’re a coward,” she told herself until she had enough. She descended, photo-album and diary under one arm, and went to her room. Hidden away in a zipped compartment in her suitcase were a handful of postcards from

  Ellie. Messages she could no longer ignore.

  She picked up the first postcard, dated six years ago. It had been forwarded by the New Zealand post because Marie had just relocated again. The curly handwriting said, “Miss you so much. Wish you were here.” Had she replied to this at all? Or to the next one? “Any vacancies for new hobbits?”

  The last letter postcard reached her in Italy. “I could do with a bit of La Dolce Vita.

  Love, Ellie”

  What had she replied to that, on a kitschy postcard featuring a cartoon gondoliere?

  “La Vita would be a lot more dolce without church bells at six and singing tourists at midnight.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. What had Peter said? Seven attempts to leave, on average. Ellie had tried, only to be rebuffed by Marie at every single, fumbling step. She should have seen these postcards for what they were, cries for help. Now all her remorse came too late.

  Nothing she could do would change a thing. Unless … Peter’s words echoed in her mind.

  “He’ll do it again, to another one.”

  Marie sat by the fire, postcards in her lap.

  Choices. She didn’t have too many left, with acute leukaemia, but physical frailty was no excuse for moral weakness. Now she knew the truth about Ellie, she had to come to a decision. She could sit back and bury the memory as deep as her mind would allow. Or she could take a stand and seek – not justice, there was no justice that would restore the balance of Ellie’s life – she could seek retribution and prevent further evil.

  The fire burnt low in the grate as she came to her conclusion. Jeff Featherstone would

  die.

  Chapter Two

  Fog filled Marie’s head the next morning. A dull ache worked its way through it. She trudged downstairs, wrapping herself in the shabby bathrobe she clung to for comfort. It used to envelop her in luxurious soft warmth, but the years had rubbed off most of the velvet, and the once glowing scarlet had faded.

  She washed two painkillers down with her morning tea. She barely allowed herself any medication, because it blunted her mind as well as the pain. The photo album sat half hidden behind her mother’s cruet set.

  She pulled it towards her and opened it, stroking the opaque tissue paper that protected the old snaps.

  They’d looked so young, and innocent. Assured of themselves, too, convinced the world was waiting for them, and they could withstand the odd knock or two and get up laughing. Ellie. She’d almost forgotten how pretty she had been, with a heart-shaped face, wide grey eyes full of dreams, and blonde hair that owed everything to nature and nothing to artifice. On some of the photos, Peter stood in the background, his gaze slightly towards Ellie. A handsome boy, with his open grin and broad shoulders.

  Most girls had a slight crush on him back then. Not Marie though. She’d preferred the more intellectual types, although most of them had also gravitated towards the elfin Ellie and not Marie, with her dark bob, green eyes and strong opinions.

  A tear dropped onto the paper. She blotted it with a tissue. She didn’t even know who or what she was really crying for. Ellie, whose life must have spiralled into a hell she couldn’t escape from, the death of their dreams, or herself?

  Marie pushed the album away. “Enough,” she said out loud. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” The grandfather clock struck ten. She should have sold it, she should have sold the whole damn house when her mother died two months ago. No wonder she got morbid ideas in a place reeking of her mother’s slow demise. As for that crazy thought she’d had last night about Jeff Featherstone, that was dead and buried too. Time to celebrate life, and her last festive season.

  She wrestled with the fake eight feet tall Norwegian pine Christmas tree in its bulky box. Marie had pleaded for years with her mother to forego plastic and get a real tree instead that she could plant outside after the holidays, but she might as well have tried to convert a nun to pole-dancing. She could have gone out now to buy the real thing, but it felt churlish. More to the point, she also was in no shape to dig a hole in the rock-solid soil to put the tree in afterwards.

  She decked the tree with all the trimmings of her childhood. Wonky straw-stars crafted in primary school, woollen angels crocheted by her grandmother, and baubles in all the colours of the rainbow, the way it used to look when she was small and believed in

  Santa’s magic with all her heart.

  Her mum would have been happy with the result. Marie checked again with the old polaroid photograph of the tree. On the picture, her grandmother stood on tiptoes to festoon the top with a golden angel from Liberty’s of London that spent the rest of the year wrapped in three layers of cotton wool.

  Marie’s dad kept out of the way, slipping into his shed with the dog, his pipe and the paper. Funny how clearly these memories were etched into her brain, and yet she could barely remember yesterday’s breakfast.

  When the tree sparkled in all its mismatched glory, Marie looked at it and waited for a sense of joy or loss to happen. Instead, she felt tired. The dead were gone, and the gilt of her own life had long since worn off. Maybe if she’d stayed in New Zealand, teaching eager overseas students and afterwards strolling barefoot along the beach – it never seemed to be cold in her memories, only sunny, windswept and free. Or she could have bought a flat in Italy, her last station before her return to Hampshire.

  Her mother’s doctor had called her, at 11.35 am on the first Thursday of September. Marie had cursed under her breath as she answered, in the middle of marking papers about “How to find an apartment”. Everything took longer lately, and every interruption threw her concentration out of whack.

  “Marie?” the voice at the
other end asked. “Marie Ingram?”

  “Yes.” She put a red mark against one of Chiara’s answers. The girl had written, “To find an apartment you go to dating app”. Most of her students worked hard, but pretty, spoilt Chiara could barely be bothered to turn up for class.

  “I’m Dr Marsh, your mother’s physician.” A small pause, filled with instant pictures of accidents.

  “What’s wrong with my mother? Is she hurt?” Marie’s gaze flickered to her laptop. She could try to book a flight from Bergamo, or Milan to England, and take a train for the final leg of the journey.

  The pause on the other side dragged on. Marie held her breath until she heard the voice on the other end.

  “She’s been admitted to hospital. We’ll make sure that she’s comfortable, but a hospice would be the best for her,” Dr Marsh said.

  “A hospice. That’s where you go to die.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Marie heard her own voice as if from afar. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She ended the call and waited for tears to come. Her eyes stayed dry while she booked her flight, packed two suitcases with clothes, and she left instructions what else to send after her. Umberto promised to take care of that. The lease on her sunny third floor apartment with a view from the balcony over the lake and the Garda Mountains ran for another two months, before she needed to renew it.