Mydworth Mysteries--London Calling! Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Mydworth Mysteries

  About the Book

  Main Characters

  The Authors

  Title

  Copyright

  Prologue

  1. The Women’s Voluntary Service

  2. Concerned Parents

  3. A Chance Meeting

  4. Pied-à-Terre

  5. Walking the West End

  6. A Pint with Alfie

  7. A Night on the Town

  8. The Red Rabbit Club

  9. Lost

  10. Showtime

  11. Secrets of the Red Rabbit

  12. A Very Private Party

  13. The Sordid Truth

  14. Breakfast Meeting

  15. It’s All in the Timing

  16. Game Over

  17. Royal Box

  Mydworth Mysteries Episode 4

  Mydworth Mysteries

  Mydworth Mysteries is a series of self-contained novella-length mysteries, published in English and German. The stories are currently available as e-books and will soon be available as audiobooks in both languages.

  About the Book

  When a prominent family's daughter flees sleepy Sussex to seek a career on the stages of a glittering West End, Harry and Kat are asked to check in on the young woman. But the two of them soon discover that there is a much bigger danger to the woman and her family than mere acting dreams being crushed.

  Main Characters

  Sir Harry Mortimer, 30 – Born into a wealthy English aristocratic family, Harry is smart, funny and adventurous. Ten years in secret government service around the world has given him the perfect training to solve crimes; and though his title allows him access to the highest levels of English society, he’s just as much at home sipping a warm beer in the garden of a Sussex pub with his girl from the wrong side of the tracks – Kat Reilly.

  Kat Reilly – Lady Mortimer, 29 – Kat grew up in the Bronx, right on Broadway. Her mother passed away when she was only eleven and she then helped her father run his small local bar The Lucky Shamrock. But Kat felt the call to adventure and excitement, first as a nurse on the battlefields of France, then working a series of jobs back in New York. After finishing college, she was recruited by the State Department, where she learned skills that would more than make her a match for the dashing Harry. To some, theirs is an unlikely pairing, but to those who know them both well, it’s nothing short of perfect.

  The Authors

  Matthew Costello (US-based) is the author of many successful novels published around the globe, including Vacation (2011, in development for film), Home (2014) and Beneath Still Waters (1989), which was adapted by Lionsgate as a major motion picture. He has written for The Disney Channel, BBC, SyFy and has also designed dozens of bestselling games including the critically acclaimed The 7th Guest, Doom 3, Rage, Pirates of the Caribbean, and, with Neil Richards, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier.

  Neil Richards (based in the UK) has worked as a producer and writer in TV and film, creating scripts for BBC, Disney, and Channel 4, and earning numerous Bafta nominations along the way. He’s also written script and story for over 30 video games including The Da Vinci Code and Planet of the Apes, and consults around the world on digital storytelling.

  MATTHEW COSTELLO

  NEIL RICHARDS

  London Calling!

  BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

  Digital original edition

  Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG

  Copyright © 2019 by Neil Richards & Matthew Costello

  Copyright for this editon © 2019 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6 – 20, 51063 Cologne, Germany

  Written by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards

  Edited by Eleanor Abraham

  Project management: Kathrin Kummer

  Cover design: Guter Punkt, München

  Cover illustrations: © Kharchenko_irina7 / Getty Images; Anton_Sokolov / Getty Images; SHansche / Getty Images

  E-book production: 3w+p GmbH, Rimpar (www.3wplusp.de)

  ISBN 978-3-7325-6955-7

  For information about the authors and their projects please visit: www.facebook.com/Cherringham

  Prologue

  Lizzie Spence lay on her bed, listening to the night-time sounds of the house, watching through her heavy lace curtains for the first hint of sunrise, barely able to believe what she was about to do.

  I’m running away from home, she thought. Me! Timid little Lizzie. Lizzie in the corner, Lizzie head down, Lizzie never say “boo” to a goose! Nobody will ever believe it!

  Running away from boring, dull, nothing-ever-happens Mydworth.

  Running away to London!

  Running away to seek fame and fortune!

  For what felt like the hundredth time, she checked the little clock on her bedside table. Twenty to five in the morning. Just five more minutes, then up she’d get. Bag packed – hidden underneath the bed and ready to go.

  Then, out of the house in the near darkness, down to Mydworth station and onto the milk train to London. Her adventure beginning. Her first steps to the West End, stardom, then – who knows? – maybe Broadway, or even Hollywood and the talkies!

  Just like her screen idols, Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford, Betty Balfour.

  Wasn’t this exactly how they started? Chasing a dream, defying their stuffy old parents, running away to the theatre?

  Oh! She absolutely couldn’t wait to meet them, or imagine – working with them, laughing with them – sharing this story with them!

  How she too escaped!

  She knew – without a doubt – that would happen.

  She checked her clock again. Saw beside it the little note she’d left Mum. Felt a pang of guilt, but pushed it away.

  Quarter to five.

  Yes. Time to go.

  Barely able to contain her excitement, she slipped off the bed (already dressed, coat on) grabbed her bag, and then picked up Teddy, popped him in her pocket. Sure, she was a big girl, but still, mustn’t forget Teddy.

  She crept to the door and opened it as gently as she could, afraid of the creaky floorboards sending up an alarm.

  She looked across the landing in the darkness. Her parents’ room – door shut. From within, the reassuring sound of both of them snoring.

  Upstairs in the attic room, she knew Ellen the maid would be sleeping soundly too. (God – who wouldn’t be, the hours Ellen worked?)

  Heart pounding, she closed the bedroom door behind her, tiptoed along the landing, then down the stairs, concentrating so hard, not letting her little leather case bang on the banisters.

  At the front door, she heard the old grandfather clock chime the third quarter – silly old clock, always slow, always had been.

  Silly, she thought, yes, but also, beautiful. Would it be one of the things from this big old house she would miss?

  For a second, she felt a pang of real fear at this amazing, dangerous step she was taking, and looked around the hallway as the first soft glow of dawn began to filter through the little stained-glass windows by the front door.

  Then she shook the fear away. No! There could be no turning back. She had to get out of here. Seize the future! It’s 1929, and the world is changing!

  Wasn’t that what Oliver had said to her at the dance academy?

  “Make your own life, kid,” he’d said, his eyes all twinkly. “You’re one in a million. I can tell. You’re special and you, young lady, are going to be a star.”

  After that, Lizzie knew she would never forgive herself if she stayed here in stuffy Mydworth, got married to some bo
ring, pompous man who probably worked in the City and snored all night, did the rounds of church and sherry parties and bridge evenings and the tennis club.

  Her whole life – so boring!

  God no!

  She wanted – no, needed – the bright lights, the cheering crowds, the cameras, the red carpets!

  So – she opened the front door and stepped out onto the spotless tiled steps and breathed in the summer dawn smells of Mydworth.

  Maybe for the last time. Why would she ever come back?

  Then she quietly closed the door behind her, and walked down the drive to the road that led to Mydworth station – and her dreams.

  1. The Women’s Voluntary Service

  Kat Reilly – or rather “Lady Mortimer” as she was slowly (and reluctantly) getting used to being called – wiped her paint-spattered hands on her overalls, and stepped back from the office wall she’d been painting.

  “Ta-da!” she said, turning to Melissa and the Women’s Voluntary Service Director, Nicola Green, who stood together in the far corner of the new WVS office, unloading books from crates and filling shelves. “So – what do you two think? Pretty good paint job?”

  The two women stopped their work and came over, stepping around the worm-eaten loose floorboards of the shabby, dilapidated room.

  “I’d say you’ve missed your vocation, Kat,” said Nicola.

  Kat loved that Nicola had absolutely no problem dispensing with any of that “Lady” rigmarole.

  “Love the colour,” said Melissa.

  “Shame half the can seems to have ended up in my hair,” said Kat. “Does it say it’ll wash out? Do hope so. Not sure lime green is my shade! Okay then – what’s next?”

  She watched as Nicola Green lit another of her foul-smelling cigarettes, spat out a loose bit of tobacco, and scanned the room.

  Not a habit that Kat ever – what was the word they used here? – fancied.

  Nicola – in her tweed jacket, faded blouse and ancient slacks – always looked to Kat like she should be in a vegetable patch somewhere, maybe planting potatoes. Or a cattle ranch, if Sussex had such things.

  Kat watched her tug at a light switch in a section of wall that seemed to be only staying up thanks to the Victorian wallpaper.

  “Don’t suppose you also know anything about electrical wiring?” said Nicola, as chunks of plaster crumbled to the floor. “The other rooms were okay – but I think this lot here needs replacing.”

  “Now there you’ve got me. Paint’s the limit of my housebuilding skills. Though I can hammer the odd nail, albeit none too accurately.”

  “No matter. I know a chap who could do it,” said Melissa, the WVS’s newest – and so far only – recruit. “Billy Pagett, over at the garage. Handy with all sorts of things!”

  “We wouldn’t be able to pay him,” said Nicola quickly. “Well, maybe a bit.” She shot a look back to Kat. “We need to watch every shilling!”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Melissa, grinning. “He’s awfully struck with me. If I ask, he’ll do it for nothing, I’m sure.”

  “Well, okay then. That’s fair enough,” said Nicola.

  “Isn’t that worker exploitation, Nicola?” said Kat, teasing the old suffragette.

  “Not at all. He gains the admiration and respect of our young Melissa here. I’d say that’s a good deal!” said Nicola, laughing.

  She walked over to the bay window that looked down onto Mydworth’s Market Square. “Anyway, we do have to get this place up and running, I can’t keep meeting people at my home. Talk about needing repairs!”

  Nicola opened the window and flicked the ash from her cigarette.

  Kat knew Nicola lived and breathed this work – the WVS was a lifeline for women for miles around who came with every problem under the sun, hoping for a sympathetic, confidential ear. And often desperately needing help.

  And finding – sometimes with the assistance of Kat and her husband Harry – a solution to their troubles.

  Yet, just a few weeks ago it had seemed that the organisation must close. No base of operations, having been told to vacate the dingy room above the dress shop. And almost no funds.

  But then, an anonymous donor had stepped forward, enabling Nicola to rent this near-derelict house on the square, with its all-important rear alleyway and discreet entrance.

  “Women who come to us,” she’d said, “are often under threat of violence, Kat. They’re so brave reaching out for help. The least we can do is make sure they can get that help without being seen.”

  The money had also been enough to fund a young assistant – Melissa Shreeve – who’d seen first-hand the work that Kat, Nicola and Harry could do and had instantly volunteered her time.

  Kat had already seen how Melissa – just eighteen years old – could tap into the world of the younger folk of Mydworth in a way that she and Nicola couldn’t possibly manage.

  Together, the three of them had spent the last month gutting the three floors of the building – painting, decorating, dragging in furniture. This top floor was the last to be done – and now the real work could begin.

  “Tell you what,” said Nicola, turning back in to the room. “Why don’t you two get yourselves washed up while I—”

  But before she could finish, the telephone rang on the floor below, the sound shrill and loud in the empty building.

  “—answer the phone,” said Nicola, and Kat watched her head quickly downstairs.

  Kat changed out of her tattered overalls. Melissa did so too. Then one after the other, they washed in the cold water of the sink in the bare bathroom.

  By the time Kat saw Nicola appear again, she was dressed and ready to go home.

  “Favour to ask, Kat,” said Nicola.

  “Sure – shoot.”

  “You and Harry around this evening?”

  “Um, should be,” said Kat. “Harry’s due back from London on the five-thirty train.”

  “Excellent!” said Nicola. “That phone call? Need you – both of you – to drop in on someone in the town. Talk to them, if you could.”

  “Sounds urgent,” said Kat.

  “I think it might be. I’ll give you the details.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Missing person,” said Nicola.

  “Really? We deal with those?” said Kat. “I thought that was generally a job for the police.”

  “Right. In this instance though, the police don’t seem to agree that the person is actually ‘missing’.”

  “Ah,” said Kat, guessing what the story might be. “Somebody’s husband? They usually come back, don’t they?”

  “No, not that,” said Nicola, looking at Melissa then back to Kat. “It’s a young woman.”

  “Oh. I see,” said Kat.

  Nicola turned to Melissa. “Why don’t you head home, my dear, while I talk this through with Kat? And thank you so, so much for your hard work today.”

  “Glad to help, really am,” said Melissa. “See you both on Monday?”

  “You bet. Have a great weekend, kid,” said Kat, smiling.

  Kat waited while Melissa grabbed her coat and bag and headed home.

  Then Nicola, who clearly didn’t want Melissa in on this – at least not yet – told Kat about the disturbing disappearance of Lizzie Spence.

  2. Concerned Parents

  Sir Harry Mortimer stepped off the five-thirty train from Victoria, tucked his copy of The Times under his arm, and briskly headed up Station Road towards Mydworth with the other London commuters.

  Those commuters – more like a well-ordered herd, Harry thought.

  And, as for Harry, he wasn’t exactly sure this was quite how he’d pictured his work with the Foreign Office.

  It was beginning to feel, well, all rather domestic and tame!

  The stroll was becoming a familiar one since he’d returned to the little Sussex town a few months back with his new wife Kat, after years abroad in government service.

  He nodded a
nd smiled at his fellow workers as, one by one, they scurried off home in different directions, no doubt looking forward to a weekend away from the bustle and noise and smoke of the city.

  Office workers, clerks, bankers, a smattering of civil servants, all – like him – in their workaday suits and hats. He smiled to himself. None of them would have guessed his own rather unusual role in a discreet government department in St James’s Park.

  Discreet – and also most secret.

  Even Kat wasn’t really allowed to know the details. Not that he kept much from her. He’d trust her with his life.

  She certainly knew the work was a continuation of his Cairo posting and was subject to the Official Secrets Act.

  Having herself worked for some years in a similar role for the US State Department, she knew not to ask too many questions, and Harry appreciated this.

  It was still light – the wonder of summer! – as he crossed Market Square and headed up the little cobbled street towards the old church and their house that was tucked behind it.

  The Dower House, several months on, was still not quite decorated, though they had made a well-stocked cocktail cart – silver shakers and an array of spirits – a priority.

  He passed through their gate, and as he walked up the gravel drive he loosened his tie and took off his hat – so looking forward to a little domestic time with his beautiful American wife. That oh-so-welcome gin and tonic together as they strolled in the garden planning shrubs and beds, or sat chatting about the day’s events before dinner.

  Though he sometimes worried that this life here in Sussex might not prove exciting enough for her. He knew his Kat, and the girl from the Bronx liked her excitements.

  As he reached the step, he saw the front door open – Kat standing there, coat on, handbag on her shoulder.

  Dressed, not in her more customary slacks, but, as if she was off to meet someone.

  Curious…

  “The warrior returns,” she said, stepping close.