Let Sleeping Murder Lie
by Carmen Radtke
Genre: Cozy Mystery
‘A wildly entertaining read for lovers of cosy mystery and romance alike’
Fiona Leitch, author of ‘The Nosey Parker mysteries’
Love can be the death of you ...
American Eve Holdsworth is living her quintessential English dream in a picturesque village in the countryside. Meeting an attractive stranger adds to the appeal.
But Ben Dryden is a pariah in Eve’s new neighbourhood, since his wife was murdered five
years ago, and he was the only suspect. Eve, who is absolutely sure someone as charming as Ben could never be a killer, is determined to solve the case and clear Ben’s name, even if it’s against his will.
Soon enough Eve finds herself in deep waters, and with her life at stake, she can only pray that her romantic notions won’t be the end of her …
Carmen has spent most of her life with ink on her fingers and a dangerously high pile of books and newspapers by her side.
She has worked as a newspaper reporter on two continents and always dreamt of becoming a novelist and screenwriter.
When she found herself crouched under her dining table, typing away on a novel between two earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, she realised she was hooked for life.
The shaken but stirring novel made it to the longlist of the Mslexia competition, and her next book and first mystery, The Case Of The Missing Bride, was a finalist in the Malice Domestic competition in a year without a winner.
Carmen was born in Hamburg, Germany, but had planned on emigrating since she was five years old. She first moved to New Zealand and now lives in York, UK, with her daughter, cat, and sometimes her seafaring husband comes home.
1.
Had a good day?” Hayley set down pot and cup, and a china cow with milk.
Eve showed her the binoculars. “I’ve taken up bird-watching.”
“There’s a group you could join if that floats your boat.” Hayley shuddered. “They’re
constantly searching for new blood, and believe me, that’s not simply a turn of phrase.
Marching for miles at the crack of dawn, through mud and thistles, and when you can’t tell one bloody warbler from another, they’ll tear you apart.” She gave the gleaming counter a quick wipe. “Still, it’s a nice hobby I suppose.”
“I’m not much of a joiner.” Eve stirred her tea. “I just prefer to have a purpose when I
go for a longer walk. Otherwise I’ll slack off after a week or so.”
The discussion at the back ended with one of the women, a septuagenarian with a
mass of flame-coloured hair pouring out from under a woollen hat, taking up the darts. Her lack of aim was only equalled by the force of her throws. The dart-tips penetrated the wall left of the board. Pockmarks in the plaster led Eve to think it was a regular occurrence. The discussion started anew.
“That’s a pity,” Hayley said. “They always look for reinforcements at our local am-
dram. Our donkey’s ass moved away, and that could be the end of the group.”
Eve’s blank stare elicited a chortle from Hayley.
“We do nothing but the panto each year. It’s good fun.”
Eve lied, “I’ll think about it.”
The dart game got heated. Hayley ignored it.
“Do you know anything about a cabin in the woods? I was told it’s got a bad
reputation,” Eve said.
Hayley dropped her polishing cloth. “What cabin?”
“A little place, about two or three miles further down the stream?”
“How did you hear that?”
Eve added an unnecessary splash of milk to her tea and stirred it again. “A guy I met
mentioned it. Tanned, blonde, thirty-something. His name was …”
“Ben Dryden.”
“Yes.” Eve didn’t know why she was surprised. Bartenders knew everything, and
everyone.
Hayley picked up her cloth. “The place has a bad reputation alright, as does the rest of
the property. And the owner.”
“But why?” Eve asked.
“A woman was murdered there five years ago. No conviction, but ask most people
here, and they will swear to one thing. It was Ben who killed his wife.”
***
2.
Judged by the photos, Donna had been pretty, glamourous even, with a perfectly styled golden bob and enough make-up to make Eve feel dowdy with her tousled copper-brown curls and freckles. She needed to pay more attention to her looks. She also needed to stop envying a woman who’d been bludgeoned to death aged thirty-one.
***
3. Eve set out in her newly bought walking shoes and with a backpack containing a thermos of hot tea and a pair of lightweight binoculars recommended for bird-watching. She’d noticed lately a largely sedentary lifestyle made her back ache sooner. Since the nearest gym was ten miles away and the evening classes in yoga and seated exercise sounded as enticing as watching paint dry, an outdoor hobby with a specific goal – to watch the owl – seemed the best solution.
She crossed her fingers for luck. She’d heard often enough it took a measly twenty-one days to form a habit, but in her case the theory proved wrong. What she could confirm after vigorous self-experimentation was that it took barely twenty-four hours to backslide.
Repeatedly.
***
4. “That cabin is private property.” Ben took the hook off the rod, a wriggling worm still attached to it. A bucket at the side contained water and three fish trying to swim in the confined space.
“The fish are not dead.” Eve instantly chided herself for her trite remark.
“I’m not killing them. They’ll go into another pond.”
“Couldn’t you use a net, so they don’t get hurt? Anyway, the cabin. I’m not going to trespass, I promise.”
“Because you want to see the owl.”
She nodded.
“The place has a bad reputation,” Ben said.
“Why?”
“The owner’s notorious. If you stay in the area, you’ll find out soon enough.”
Eve felt the blood drain from her face. “Is it drugs?” The last thing she wanted was to stumble unwittingly upon a crime lord and his henchmen. She’d taken a few self-defence classes ages ago, and she tended to have a key clenched between her fingers when she walked home alone at night, but she’d be no match for well-trained career gangsters.
“Heavens, no,” he said, regarding her with faint amusement. “You must have lived in pretty rough places.”
“Life on the mean streets.” She imitated a heavy drawl, to lighten the situation. To be fair, she had witnessed a mugging during her childhood in Portland, Oregon, and another one in Bristol.
***
5. Eve gazed through a chink in her curtains at the moon. It had reached the stage in between where she always failed to know if it was waxing or waning. A moon stuck in between, where it could go either way. Like Ben Dryden. Either she forgot about him or she found out more. If he was guilty, which seemed highly unlikely, considering the public information, she’d get the hell out of Dodge. If he was innocent, it would be pleasant to get to know him better. All she knew was that he had a soothing voice and a smile that lit up his face, if she could coax one out of him.
Eve pulled the duvet over her head; much easier than getting up and closing the curtains properly. She needed utter darkness to think through her plans.
For a brief instant she remembered a documentary she’d watched, about women from all over the world falling in love with men on Death Row after exchanging letters.
Nonsense, she told herself. She’d never be that gullible, apart from the fact that she wasn’t falling for Ben Dryden, and odds were good he’d never killed a single human being.
The charm of small places
I’m a sucker for old world charm. In my youth, I spent many happy hours in St Mary Mead with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, spotting crime and misdemeanour behind ivy-covered cottage walls, the thick, turreted walls of mansions, where bodies lay in libraries and the sharp-witted, harmless looking sleuth outwitted every criminal she encountered because she knew how people behaved, especially in a village setting. Thanks to the Margaret Rutherford movies I know exactly how cottages and cobbled alleys appear in the slanting morning sun, I can hear the milkman calling out, and deep in my heart I’m absolutely sure this place and others like it exist. Somewhere. Probably.
“Let Sleeping Murder Lie” is an homage to the locations where so many cozy mysteries live, because it’s all about the people who are deeply acquainted with each other’s habits and peccadilloes, if not necessary with their thoughts. It’s the one place my heroine has longed to find, when, like me, she moved around. Like me, she’s also aware that it might just be a fantasy, but one she’s not willing to give up on yet. Even if it comes complete with homicide. Because that’s the other lesson Miss Marple taught us so well: Here be murder, and if you see a white-haired spinster with a guileless smile, knitting needles and a rockery, pack your belongings and run. Or watch from a safe distance, because there is something irresistible about the St Mary Meads, at least on the page and on the screen.
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