Murder by the Minster Read online

  Murder by the Minster

  Title

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2019 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2019 Helen Cox

  The moral right of Helen Cox to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 52940 222 3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook by CC Book Production

  Cover design © 2019 Ghost

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Dedication

  For all the librarians

  Contents

  Murder by the Minster

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Contents

  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

  Acknowledgements

  One

  The corner of Kitt Hartley’s mouth twitched. She closed her eyes, praying that when she opened them again Grace, her assistant, would be standing in front of her with the hot cup of Lady Grey she’d gone to fetch over fifteen minutes ago. Instead, when Kitt lifted her eyelids, she was still faced with the man in the forest green anorak. He still smelled like cabbage that had been on the boil too long, and his dark bushy eyebrows remained raised as he waited for an answer.

  ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles?’ Kitt repeated the book title that had caused her lips to twitch.

  ‘Aye, I can’t find it. Our lecturer said it was a classic. Surely you’ve got a copy? This is supposed to be a library,’ said Cabbage.

  The librarian ran her fingers through the front of her long red hair. The gesture would seem natural enough to the student, while giving her the opportunity to tug on the copper strands, channelling her frustration. ‘Yes, we have several copies, sir, on the fiction floor. You see, this is the Women’s Studies section.’ Kitt’s stare flitted across to the large maroon sign at the top of the staircase that read, with excruciating clarity, ‘Women’s Studies’.

  Countless times she had been forgiving about the fact that people entering a library didn’t switch their grey matter to Reading Mode on the way in. With its towering oak bookshelves, stained-glass windows, and high ceilings painted with ornate murals, the Vale of York University Library could be an intimidating environment for newcomers. But, on this particular Monday morning, Kitt was still hungover from the weekend, and had a limited supply of patience. Especially pre-cuppa.

  ‘Oh.’ The man’s almond eyes widened to walnut-size. He tilted his head back, as if he were taking in the details of his whereabouts for the first time. ‘Well . . .’ Cabbage said, ‘I’ve only been studying here a week. Still orientating myself.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kitt said, forcing a smile so the man might feel less embarrassed over his failure to check what floor he was on before asking a question, ‘it is a tricky place to find your way around at first, but you get used to it.’ She smiled up at the mural on the patch of ceiling above her desk; it depicted Prometheus gifting humanity with the spark of fire. ‘Give this place even half a chance and, before you know it, it will feel like a second home.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Cabbage said in the flattest of all possible tones. ‘But I don’t see why we need a Women’s Studies section anyway . . .’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Kitt said, hoping she’d heard wrong, but knowing, by the heat flaring in her chest, she hadn’t.

  ‘Well, there’s no Men’s Studies section, is there?’ he replied.

  Kitt’s mouth twitched again. If the man had merely rubbished her job she could have handled that; she had taken that kind of disservice on the chin for years. But comments like this came out of a dangerous sense of entitlement. Why did this man think he had the right to silence voices that weren’t his?

  With a storm brewing across her brow, Kitt mentally flicked through the dozen or so books she’d read on mindfulness. She recalled one particular chapter suggesting it helped to identify the physical feeling anger caused in your body. If you could alleviate that, the calm was supposed – by some sort of spiritual osmosis – to pass to your brain.

  According to the textbooks, most people experienced anger as a perpetual clenching of the shoulders. In Kitt’s case it was a searing sensation in her chest. There didn’t seem much point in intellectualizing that feeling. If it were muscular, a person could take up Pilates. There was, however, no easy way to put out a bonfire blazing in your ribcage. By the letter of scientific law, deep breaths would add more oxygen to the flames.

  ‘Actually,’ Kitt said, ‘we do have a whole floor almost completely devoted to Men’s Studies. It’s called the History section.’

  The man’s face scrunched in on itself as he digested Kitt’s comment. ‘That’s very rude.’

  Kitt put a hand on her hip. ‘So is suggesting that stories different to your own aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.’

  The man opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Grace’s thick West Yorkshire accent – her vowels were almost as hard as her consonants.

  ‘Lady Grey tea for the lady,’ said Grace, as the soothing perfume of citrus floated up to Kitt’s nose.

  ‘Thank you.’ Kitt accepted the mug and snuggled back into her pine-green office chair to which she’d added a plush purple cushion, embroidered with a peacock, to make it a more inviting place to sit. Cabbage glared at her. Avoiding his eye, she concentrated on smoothing the creases in her ankle-length navy skirt. This, alongside a white shirt, navy blazer and tan b
elt had, over the years, become her unofficial work uniform. Her wardrobe boasted several variations on this outfit, and little else.

  Cabbage grunted, scowled at the two women, and walked away, muttering.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ asked Grace, shaking her head hard enough to make her shoulder-length brown-black curls undulate.

  ‘I think he’s a bit put out that his early morning round of casual sexism didn’t go to plan,’ Kitt said, blowing on her beverage before taking the first sip. The balmy liquid slipped down her throat, extinguishing the flames stoked by her first customer of the day. But, as the fire burned down to embers, those familiar, doubtful moments amongst the ashes began. Perhaps she should have found another way to speak to that man . . .

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Grace. ‘Can’t imagine you’re in the mood for that this morning. But I am a bit surprised you’re still hungover from Friday night. You’re usually quite good at handling booze.’

  ‘Friday and Saturday night, thank you. Two nights on the trot,’ Kitt protested. ‘I blame Evie . . . or Meg Ryan, I can’t decide.’

  ‘Meg Ryan?’ said Grace. ‘Somehow I can’t imagine her down the Nag’s Head with you and Evie on a Saturday night, pint in hand.’

  ‘Me and Evie are good company. Meg Ryan would be lucky to have us,’ said Kitt, smiling at the thought of her best friend, even if she was at least partly to blame for her hangover. Still, it seemed Evie wasn’t feeling any spryer than she. Every Monday morning, Kitt received a message from Evie telling her just how much she wished she didn’t have to go back into work. Every Monday, except today. Evie was something of a text addict, so if she couldn’t face her phone screen she must be feeling it – sherry really was the fluid of the devil.

  Glancing up, Kitt saw Grace executing her most sheepish gesture: tucking a curl behind her left ear before covering her mouth with her hand to hide a smirk.

  ‘What?’ asked Kitt.

  ‘Nothing, what you said was amusing,’ Grace said, with a dismissive wave. The turquoise sleeves of her long-line floral cardigan, which she had thrown on over a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt, dazzled against the tan of her skin, which had deepened in tone after her September trip to India to visit her maternal grandparents.

  Kitt shook her head. Grace had studied Psychology at the university for a year now, fitting library shifts around lectures to subsidize the commute she made from Leeds every day. But over the months of examining human behaviour, it seemed, she had not clocked how telling her own tics were. She had a neat, somewhat pointed face, with sharp cheekbones that emphasized even the slightest expression.

  ‘That’s not what you’re smiling at. It’s the mug again, isn’t it? Are you ever going to get over that?’

  ‘Never!’ said Grace, watching Kitt sip again from the mug she’d bought her for her birthday back in April. It was neon yellow, with the words ‘Kiss the Librarian’ written across it in tall black lettering. ‘That was the best day ever.’

  ‘Grace . . .’ Kitt tried, but it was too late. Her assistant had already snatched the maroon trilby resting on Kitt’s desk. It had a black ribbon sewn just above the rim, and from autumn through to spring, Kitt was never seen without it. It also served as a useful prop for Grace’s impromptu, and often unwelcome, skits.

  Grace perched the hat on her head and held her hands six inches apart. ‘A gift? For me? Oh, really, Grace, we haven’t known each other long enough for that malarkey.’

  Kitt smirked. ‘I am nowhere near that posh.’

  Ignoring her boss’s protests, Grace continued to mime opening a box. ‘Oh, how awfully delightful, a receptacle for my beverages . . . but do you think the wording is entirely work appropriate?’

  ‘Give over, will you,’ said Kitt, whipping her hat off Grace’s head. ‘You make me sound like Hyacinth Bucket on steroids.’

  In any other part of the world, this kind of insubordination would have been interpreted as a sign of dislike. But born and bred in Middlesbrough, Kitt understood how interchangeable affection and mockery were in the county of Yorkshire. By this marker, Grace’s gift to a woman who hadn’t been on anything that resembled a date since the pair had crossed paths was a sign of undying admiration. For this reason, she had used the gift every day without fail.

  And besides, even taking Grace’s cheeky streak into account, Kitt understood she was lucky to have the luxury of an assistant. It pained Kitt to think about it, but she knew from her training days, and friends she had in other institutions, that public libraries all over the country were surviving only thanks to kind-hearted volunteers.

  ‘When you’re done laughing at my expense, could you please start on the returns pile?’

  A smile lingered on Grace’s thin lips as she pressed two fingers to the side of her head in a cheeky salute, and approached the first of the returned-book trolleys.

  Swallowing a few more mouthfuls of tea, Kitt brought a hand to the side of her own head and gave the area a gentle rub. The older she got, the higher the price for having fun, especially when drink was involved. Hardy was right, Kitt thought, remembering the title of the fifth phase in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: ‘The Woman Pays’, indeed.

  Looking out of the nearest window, Kitt began fiddling with a pendant she wore every day, etched with a quote from Jane Eyre. She sighed at the autumnal scene beyond. For all she had read, no verse or paragraph had ever romanticized death in quite the way an autumn day in the city of York could. The view was like a line Keats might have dreamed up but never got around to committing to the page. The rosehips and rowan berries blazed with a primal fire in the hedgerows. The river path was a trail of fallen conkers, pine cones and ivy leaves, and the dawn redwood trees glowed like embers against the sky. As if all this decaying beauty weren’t enough, the university campus was close to the city centre and the Minster bells carried clear and true across the Ouse. A rousing sound, so often heard in the library’s mock-Tudor building, which stood on the south bank of the river, on the periphery of Rowntree Park.

  Suddenly, Kitt felt two sharp jabs on her right shoulder. This was an established code between herself and Grace. It meant it was time to look busy.

  Looking up, Kitt saw her manager, Michelle, stalking towards her desk. Grace, with rabbit-like fear in her dark eyes, picked three more books than she could carry with any degree of comfort from the trolley and scurried off in the direction of the bookshelves.

  Kitt sat up straighter and brought up the most complicated spreadsheet she could summon at speed on her computer screen. Michelle had a gorgon-strength judgemental stare that could transform even the gutsiest hearts to stone. Right now that stare was fixed on Kitt.

  ‘Katherine?’

  ‘Michelle,’ Kitt said, trying not to cringe at the use of her Sunday name. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Kitt feigned surprise; nothing was ever all right in the world of Michelle. Her lips turned down at the corners without any effort on her part, and even her bobbed mouse-brown hair looked limp with displeasure.

  No bounce. No volume. No sign of life.

  ‘We’ve had a complaint,’ said Michelle, cradling a lilac clipboard against her chest.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Kitt, ‘about what?’

  ‘About you.’

  ‘Me?’

  So Cabbage had already filed his complaint? That was quick.

  ‘A lady you served on Friday? Apparently, you, and I quote: “squashed her right to freedom of speech”.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Kitt said.

  Kitt could hear one of Michelle’s winter boots tapping against the library floor, which was tiled with a blue mosaic: a ceramic ocean that washed over all six levels of the building.

  ‘She made a racist comment to another member of the library reading group.’

  ‘She never mentioned saying anything out of turn to me,’ said Mic
helle.

  And you never thought to give me the benefit of the doubt, thought Kitt, after a decade of service. ‘It wouldn’t be in her interests to.’

  Michelle folded her arms. ‘You mustn’t tolerate discriminatory remarks, but you must handle these situations politely.’

  Kitt felt a strong urge to pass an ill-advised comment about doing her best to be nice to racists in future, but instead she let out a sigh heavy enough that Michelle would guess she had a few more things she’d like to say. ‘I’ll be as polite as I can,’ Kitt said, which was the best promise she could make.

  ‘Thank you,’ Michelle said, though nothing in her face conveyed gratitude. ‘So you know, I’m not in this afternoon. Hospital appointment.’

  Michelle had suffered with stomach ulcers for as long as Kitt had worked with her.

  ‘Hope it goes all right.’

  ‘’Ello, love,’ a husky, familiar voice interjected.

  Kitt turned to see Ruby Barnett hobbling towards the student enquiry desk. Ruby was a woman in her late eighties who frequented the library, though she had no connection whatsoever to the university. She suffered with arthritis, and as a consequence had to use walking sticks. She was panting from her ascent up two flights of stairs. There was a lift at her disposal, but she had always refused to use it for undisclosed reasons. This morning, however, she seemed to be more out of breath than usual. Which could only mean one thing: she’d had another psychic vision.

  ‘We really must find a way of tightening security around here,’ Michelle huffed in Ruby’s direction.

  Ruby curled her lip at Michelle’s comment, but kept her eyes fixed on Kitt.

  Michelle had never been Ruby’s biggest fan, but six months ago the old woman had told Michelle she’d had a vision about her. In Ruby’s imaginings, fuelled by the dubious dandelion wine she fermented in her bathtub, Michelle was going to be offered an opportunity to travel to South America and make an important discovery. As the weeks drifted on and the only travelling she’d done was a weekend away in Cleethorpes, Michelle’s attitude towards Ruby had shifted from mild disdain to blatant irritation.