She turned away toward the theater, and Reggie went on toward the pub, feeling a little conflicted. On first meeting Mrs. Hatfield, he admitted to himself, he had found her just a bit annoying; that was because she seemed to be the cause of an infringement on his time with Laura.
But seeing her cry in front of the estate agent’s—which, he noticed, was closed now as he walked by—made him feel quite differently. Someone, somehow, had misled the woman. Estate agents had been known to do that, sometimes with their clients never realizing it. If Reggie’s mobile had any reception at all—he took it out of his pocket now and checked again; still nothing—he would have called his brother, Nigel, who was quite good at ferreting out that sort of thing, and put him onto it.
But he could reach no one. And before he could rest easy about Laura, there was still something he needed to know.
Reggie put his phone away and continued on to the pub.
11
There were some new early evening patrons at the Wayward Pony.
A man in poorly chosen casual business clothes was in a back booth, looking at advertising flyers. Probably the estate agent, fresh from the office. In another booth was an older couple, too carefully attired to be local, who were just now being joined by a younger woman, who was too casual not to be.
Reggie went to the bar, hoping to get the bartender talking on the right subject this time. But he saw only the barmaid. She came over and drew his beer.
“Where did the bartender go?” said Reggie.
“Fixing something in the kitchen,” she said, as she poured Reggie’s beer. “You were here last night, weren’t you? You and the lady. The stand-in for Melanie.”
“Yes. Say, perhaps you can tell me—just what sort of accident was it that happened to Melanie?”
“Fell into one of the quarries.”
“Quarries?”
“On the moor. They used to cut granite here. She wasn’t found until the next morning. The coroner drove out from Amesbury to rule on it.”
“Did he say how one falls into a quarry?”
“Don’t know. Gravity? Maybe she tripped taking a selfie? I was going to replace her, you know. I mean, not that I would push anyone into a quarry for a role.”
“No, of course not.”
“Anyway, it’s your lady that takes the role now.”
“Yes. Well. I am sorry about that.”
“Maybe she pushed Melanie?”
“What? No! I wasn’t suggesting anyone pushed anyone! I was just curious.”
“Hmm. It was all in our local paper, you know.”
“I don’t suppose you’d still have a copy?”
“We have a recycle bin, just like anyone else.”
“Can you check? I’d very much appreciate it?”
She frowned, but nodded.
“I’ll ask Charlie,” she said, and she went away to the back kitchen.
Now, the three people who had been sitting at the nearby booth came up to join Reggie—a portly white-haired man of about seventy, in an expensive London-casual sport coat and a narrow woolen tie; a woman of the right age and attire to be his wife; and a twentyish woman in jeans and a faded logo pullover.
“We know you!” said the man, clapping a hand on Reggie’s shoulder.
The two women sat on the bar chairs on either side, flanking Reggie.
“You do?” said Reggie. “I’m sorry, I can’t quite place you.”
“We met in London, certainly,” said the gentleman.
This was worrisome. Had they met in some capacity at the Old Bailey? If so, Reggie’s being recognized now would not be an issue by itself, but once that was established, the connection to Laura would not be far behind.
He resorted to his barrister’s training and tried to confuse the issue.
“Have you been to Piccadilly Circus?” asked Reggie. “Perhaps we bumped into each other there?”
“Well, of course I’ve been to Piccadilly Circus,” said the gentleman. “So has much of the civilized world. But there are always a million people there, so I could hardly remember you out of all of them.”
“Ah,” said Reggie. “You are mistaken, then. We don’t know each other after all. No harm done. I hope you enjoy your stay here.”
Reggie tried to turn away on his bar stool, but the man’s tipsy wife blocked him.
“My husband is a highly renowned archaeologist, I’ll have you know!” she announced.
“Now, dear, don’t make a fuss—”
“He was with the British Museum!”
“Ahh, Perhaps that’s where you saw me, then; I was there once,” said Reggie. “At the museum, I mean.”
“Excellent! What was your particular interest?”
“T. rex, at the time. It was a school field trip. I was eight.”
“Oh. Well, that’s not why you look familiar, then, is it? But I’m sure in time it will come to me.”
Reggie tried to change the subject.
“So, you are an archaeologist? Are you on a dig here?”
The man laughed.
“Not at all. We’re on holiday. Just plain old tourists!”
“And I’m their tour guide!” said the younger woman, much further along in her cups than the other two.
“I thought perhaps you were collecting antiquities or something for the museum,” said Reggie to the archaeologist.
The man laughed again at the apparent absurdity of it.
“Not a bit of it; this area was fully explored a couple of decades ago, nothing to be found. Not even King Arthur’s funeral pyre!” Now he grinned and slapped a hand on Reggie’s back. “Truth is, for my wife and me, at our age, I feel that every time we return to the museum, we’re bringing them antiquities!”
“Speak for yourself, you old coot!” said the wife.
“And I’m their tour guide!”
The young woman announced this with even greater drunken enthusiasm than before. She waved an arm around to indicate the whole expanse of everything for which she was to be their guide, and then she would have fallen dizzily to the floor if Reggie had not propped her up against the bar.
The archaeologist tried once more.
“You really do look familiar to me. Something missing, though. Do you wear a hairpiece, usually?”
Reggie took a moment to be depressed that his hairline—just recently having begun to recede, and really hardly at all—had become that noticeable.
“Maybe what’s missing is the lady from the other night,” said the young woman, having recovered her balance, and a bit of belligerence. “That so-called actress.”
“Oh?” said the archaeologist. “Anyone we’ve heard of?”
“Probably not,” said Reggie. “Well. Don’t let me keep you!”
Reggie stood, clapped the man on the shoulder, and then quickly turned back to the bar.
Reluctantly, the couple finally exited, along with their cheerful tour guide.
Reggie got up from the bar and walked to the back booth, where the estate agent was seated, with several glossy land-sales brochures spread out on the table.
“May I join you for a moment?” asked Reggie.
The man looked up and saw that Reggie looked like he had the money to be a buyer.
“Certainly,” he said.
Reggie sat down and pointed at the brochures.
“Do you know the area well?” he asked.
“Better than most,” said the agent.
“What can you tell me about the old boarding school out on A30?”
“I can tell you that two hundred years ago it was not a boarding school at all, but a lavishly custom-built estate—and that is what it will soon be once more. Are you interested?”
“Not exactly in that way,” said Reggie. “I’m wondering what you would say about the chances of someone buying it and returning it to its educational purpose?”
The agent looked surprised.
“You are the second person to ask me about that today,” he said.
“Well, I … I would say that yes, it is. You and a woman earlier today are the only ones who have inquired regarding such a use for the property.”
“Really?” said Reggie. “No one else has inquired along those lines at all?”
“No. And I doubt that anyone will. The property is simply worth more as an estate. I don’t think anyone could afford it as a school. Fifty years or a hundred years ago, this was a viable location for a boarding school, but not two years ago when it closed, and not now.”
“I see,” said Reggie. “And yet there is a fund-raiser in this town for that purpose.”
The agent sighed.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “But it only started up just recently, after she began work on fixing up the local theater. I took it to be just a sort of promotional tactic—you know, to get everyone enthused to attend the opening night. In that respect, of course, it worked. My understanding is that literally everyone in this town is going.”
“Even you?”
“Of course. I don’t want to lose potential clients. At this point, not to go would be an affront.”
Reggie nodded. He looked at the brochures spread out on the table and politely remarked that some of the properties were situated in quite striking landscapes.
“Yes,” said the estate agent. “Location, location, location. That’s what everything is about.”
“So they say,” said Reggie.
“And it applies to everything. This pub, for example. It’s the only place in town where you can just look out from your deck and see the moor. Best location there is.”
“You mean in terms of property values, correct?”
The estate agent shrugged.
“Depends on how you feel about the moor, I guess,” he said. “Some people like to say that timing is everything. Personally, I put my money on location.”
“Well, I suppose it’s all relative,” said Reggie, and he stood up now, because he saw that the barmaid had returned and was looking for him. She came over to the booth.
“Charlie said to tell you that the recycle bin was full this week, so he just tossed the papers in the Dumpster, and that you are welcome to knock yourself out. Which he said he hopes you do. Not sure why he said that.”
“I see,” said Reggie. “And where is—”
“The Dumpster is out back, below the deck. I’ll pour you a fresh beer when you come back, but you’ll probably want to wash your hands first. And maybe change your shirt.”
12
Reggie found the Dumpster by the smell of it.
He also saw that there was still room in the nearby recycling box for much more newspaper. Judging from the cut twine, Reggie’s guess was that the bartender had actually transferred the more recent papers to the Dumpster just for Reggie’s benefit.
That didn’t matter. Reggie opened the Dumpster lid, to the visceral stench of rotting vegetables and burnt cooking oil.
There were no newspapers on top of the pile. Of course not, that would have been too easy. He would have to dig, probably wherever it was most unpleasant. That would be the side with discarded fish parts.
Reggie rolled up his sleeves and plunged in above the elbows. Yes, there it was—the bartender had literally used it as fish wrap. Reggie pulled the dripping parcel from the bin and shook out the entrails.
On an inside page, under the heading “Quarry Victim Drowned,” he found a summary of the coroner’s findings.
A hiking accident at dusk. A woman who had walked out too far to get back before dark, was too absorbed in her music to pay attention, and had fallen into an abandoned quarry and drowned.
The newspaper dutifully included a map, showing the location of the particular quarry on the moor. It was beyond the hill behind the theater.
Reggie tore that one soggy page from the paper and returned to the deck behind the pub. He looked out toward the moor.
The sun was setting. There wasn’t time to walk back to the theater and start from there. If he wanted to see where the accident had happened while there was still any light at all, he would have to take the shortest route, and cut diagonally across the moor, and do so immediately. No time for another beer.
Reggie came down from the deck, walked around the side of the pub, then down the slope where the viewing deck jutted out, and then up the opposite slope. He zipped up his mac, edged his way through a hedgerow of thorny gorse bushes, and then set out rapidly across the moor.
He was not nearly so much a fan of nature walks as Laura was. He knew, as the wind picked up and stirred the grasses, and the setting sun glinted on the pinkish heather and on the yellow gorse flowers and on the white stones that were embedded pretty much everywhere in the mud, that this should be a pleasant walk. No mystery as to why the unfortunate hiker had gone out.
On the other hand, the stirring grasses bristled with edges like razors; the yellow gorse bushes had stabbing thorns that were longer and harder than those on any rose or bougainvillea; the rocks impeded his stride and stubbed his toes from their hiding places in the mud; and the breeze was getting damn cold.
He wanted to get this over with, satisfy his nagging doubt, loop back to civilization at the theater, where Laura was rehearsing, and then just take her home.
He kept his eye on the tor—the white granite outcropping—at the top of the hill that rose up behind the theater. According to the newspaper, the woman had stumbled on the slope just below that.
The tor was a natural structure, not man-made, he knew. But if the forces of nature had not created it there, humans would have—it was that good a landmark. Exactly where anyone out for a hike—or walking on the moor for any reason—would want to head.
He was almost there, but he was finding his way in twilight. He quickened his pace.
Now he was at the summit, right next to the tor. To his left, the ground sloped down to the field behind the theater. To his right, some fifty yards farther onto the moor, was where the woman was said to have fallen.
He descended the slope cautiously, trying not to disturb rocks and mud that could ruin whatever evidence might still be there—and trying not to slide down the slope and into the quarry himself.
With just a few yards to go, Reggie stopped.
He was already too late, he knew, to learn much of anything. The light was fading very quickly now, and Reggie knew he would not be able to find anything at dusk that the coroner had not found in full daylight.
But any coroner, no matter how good, investigates far more natural and accidental deaths than intentional ones. It would be difficult not to assume that this was just another accident.
Reggie could make the opposite assumption. And he had to, because he had to understand the letter that had brought Laura here. If something was terribly wrong in Bodfyn, surely it had to do with the death of this young woman. Why it should involve Laura, he didn’t know—but it did involve her. Or at least the letter writer thought it did.
So if it had not been an accident—if the woman had not fallen into the quarry, but had been pushed—where would that person have stood?
Reggie walked several yards back up the slope. One possibility—given that the woman had been wearing headphones—was that someone had simply followed her on the path and come up behind her, unheard and unseen. If that had been the case, then Reggie knew he would find nothing—any obvious footprints would have been noticed by the coroner, any remaining ones were likely obliterated by now, and Reggie would not be able to find them in the dark in any case.
But what if, instead of pursuing from behind, someone had lain in wait?
There were yellow gorse bushes on both sides of the path, just two or three yards from the edge of the quarry, still just picking up enough light to be visible. Reggie went to the nearest one and inspected it as closely as he could. The thorns grabbed at his mac and pricked his hands. He found nothing.
He went to the next. The breeze picked up, and he thought he saw somethin
g move. He bent down, scratching his neck on a thorn—but he found it. A piece of tweed cloth, dark brown. A man’s coat, probably.
Someone had gone to the trouble of hiding in a damn gorse bush and waiting until the young woman had gotten close enough to the edge.
And then she had been pushed.
13
It was night as Reggie came down the slope, past the windbreak of pine trees, and into the parking area at the back of the former church.
He heard nothing as he arrived, but probably that was just because they were on break.
He didn’t want to breach etiquette yet again by going in through the back; he walked around to the front entrance.
The exterior light was on. He knocked at the front door. No answer. No answer the second time, either.
He tried the door. Locked.
He checked his watch. Nearly nine.
Fair enough. Dress rehearsal must have been completed, and everyone had adjourned to the pub.
Reggie started up the main road in that direction.
It was a bloody inconvenience not to have cell phone reception. He wanted to call Laura; probably she had gone to the pub with everyone else, but she might just have walked back to the house.
At least it was on the way. When he reached the house, he ran up to the entrance, unlocked the door, looked in, and called out.
No answer.
So she must have gone on to the pub.
Reggie walked quickly down the main street.
As he neared the pub, it became obvious that was where everyone had gone. The interior lights blazed out through the windows and lit up the street; he could hear rowdy singing fifty yards away.
Surely all was fine and wonderful.
He made up his mind not to tell anyone but Laura where he had gone and what he had found. He was beginning to have his own doubts about it now anyway as he approached the cheery sight and sound of the pub. In any case, all he needed right now was to see Laura.
He opened the door—carefully, in case any drunk people should spill out. But none did, and he went inside.
He had hoped to see Laura at the bar, having a pint and waiting to greet him, but she wasn’t. A couple of locals who were at the bar glanced briefly in his direction, then went back to a loud discussion of a football match on the telly.
A Baker Street Wedding Page 8
