Downward Facing Death

by MICHELLE KELLY,

  If it was irrational. Something told Keeley that Ben was no Brett; he would never intentionally deceive her, and yet, she couldn’t allow herself to be certain.

  Even so, when the door went she ran to it, suppressing a howl of frustration when once again it wasn’t Ben but Annie Rowland.

  “Are you all right, dear? I saw young Ben tear off down the hill at some speed, and I thought, that will be because of me and my big mouth.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Keeley said, opening the door to let her landlady in, though she did half wish that Annie had never said anything. She had always thought of the woman as the epitome of genteel discreetness.

  “I take it you had a quarrel, then?”

  Keeley nodded, feeling tears sting her eyes again.

  “Well, I’m sure you will sort it out, although honestly, I don’t think he’s quite the young man for you, really.”

  Keeley felt puzzled. Did Annie know more about Ben? She held a chair out for her landlady in the kitchen and poured them both a cup of tea from the pot. Annie sipped at hers daintily.

  “What makes you say that?” Keeley said. Her phone, which she had left on the kitchen counter, buzzed with a message, and she nearly tripped over herself to get to it, expecting it to be Ben. It was Megan, wishing her good luck on her date. Keeley groaned and sank back into her chair.

  “He just seems such a serious young man—he would be married to his job, I would imagine. And I don’t think he’ll be long for Belfrey.”

  “Neither will I, at this rate,” mumbled Keeley; then she waved her hand as if to refute her words when Annie gave her a concerned look. “No, ignore me, I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I’m not going anywhere, in fact, I’m really looking forward to the opening.”

  Annie didn’t smile at her or give any encouragement as she might have expected her to do. Instead she gave Keeley an inscrutable expression that seemed to be hiding a touch of anger. About what? Keeley wondered.

  “Honestly, dear, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m surprised you’re going ahead with it, given everything that’s happened. It sends out the wrong message, don’t you think?”

  Keeley felt puzzled, and more than a little hurt. Annie had always seemed so supportive, and now even she was turning on her.

  “Oh dear, I’ve said too much.” The usual look of concern was back on the woman’s face, and Keeley thought she had just imagined that flash of anger she had seen in them.

  “I’ll be going,” her landlady said regretfully, picking up her bag and swinging it over her shoulder. “I do hope I haven’t upset you?”

  “No, of course not,” Keeley said, the words automatic, but she was looking at Annie’s skirt. Her landlady’s jumper had ridden up as she lifted her bag, revealing what should have been a set of two gold buttons at the side. One was missing. The one that remained, however, was a dead ringer for the one upstairs on Keeley’s dresser.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Her heart hammering, trying to keep her expression carefully neutral, Keeley smiled at her landlady.

  “You don’t need to go,” she told her, trying to look anywhere but at her waistband, “you haven’t upset me. To be honest, you’re probably right.”

  The relief on Annie’s face was palpable as she sat back down, and for a moment, Keeley told herself not to be so stupid. She was chasing shadows now, seeing murderers in the friendliest of faces. Yet something worried at her, some half memory that wanted to make itself known but that she couldn’t quite seem to grasp at. If she was right, she should probably be running screaming for the door, but instead she wanted to speak to Annie further, if only to rule the hitherto kindly woman out. After all, Gerald had said the buttons were commonplace, and lots of people lost buttons, all the time.

  “Really? Oh, I am glad. I worry about you, you know, with all this dreadfulness that’s been going on. Poor Jack and his dog, and of course, Terry getting killed like that. Awful, isn’t it really. One minute here, and the next, bashed around the head and that’s it, gone. Such a waste.”

  Keeley stared at Annie, a creeping sense of dread pervading her limbs as she digested the woman’s words. Bashed around the head … As far as she knew, the exact method of Terry’s death wasn’t common knowledge. It hadn’t been in the papers. Keeley knew only because Ben had told her, that first day, that Terry was hit with a large, blunt object. Keeley swallowed, trying to smile as though nothing were wrong, but her features felt frozen on her face. Annie stared back, and Keeley saw the knowledge dawn in her eyes that she had said something wrong, something out of place.

  Keeley wrenched her gaze away from the woman and conjured up a bright smile, hoping it was enough. That Annie hadn’t seen the dawning realization on Keeley’s own face.

  She reached for her phone, her hands clammy, murmuring that she should really text Megan back, then sat back in alarm when Annie reached for her phone and slid it out of Keeley’s grasp, then picked it up and placed it in her own handbag.

  “What are you doing?” Keeley aimed for a tone of interested bemusement, to keep up the façade, but her voice came out as no more than a terrified squeak. They sat for a few moments in silence, every nerve ending on Keeley’s body bristling as she tried to judge the distance between herself and the doors, her stomach roiling when she realized Annie blocked her exits. She stood up and reached for the teacups, and Annie sprang to her feet, almost diametrically opposite her now. Challenging her, her eyes as cold and still as a snake’s. It was as though she had been wearing a mask earlier; there was nothing of the kindhearted landlady in the figure now standing before her.

  “Give me my phone, Annie, please,” Keeley said firmly, though she could feel her thighs trembling. Annie tipped her head to one side as if considering her request; then her voice, now so unfamiliar, rapped out, “No. I think not.”

  Keeley looked her landlady straight in her eyes. She should probably scream now, she thought, but instead a different sound came out of her mouth.

  “Why?”

  For a moment, she thought Annie wouldn’t answer; then a desperately sad look came over the older woman’s face.

  “I didn’t really have a choice, you see. I did it for Donald.”

  “Your husband?” When Annie nodded, Keeley went on, “I’m sure you had your reasons, Annie; we’re all capable of different things. I’m sure if you explain to Ben—”

  Annie’s chin snapped up, her eyes flaring with rage, any remorse forgotten. The woman’s kindly old lady mask had well and truly come off; the angry sneer she now directed at Keeley would have terrified the hardest of men.

  “To Ben? To your fancy man? You’re nothing but a little tart, Keeley Carpenter, just like your mother before you.”

  Her mother? Ignoring the insult to herself, Keeley shook her head, puzzled. “What does my mother have to do with any of this?”

  “Everything,” Annie said. “It was all her fault, even in the beginning. Seducing my Donald, as if she didn’t have a husband of her own.”

  Keeley felt as though an iron fist had planted itself in her gut. Donald Rowland? That had been the man her mother had an affair with? And Annie had known all this time? Things began to drop into place in her mind, fitting together with a horrible understanding.

  “That’s why you wanted to burn down the shop. You must have heard my mother was reopening it and thought she was coming back. But I don’t understand,” Keeley frowned, aware she was still missing a very big piece of the puzzle, “why it should bother you after all this time? My mother’s affair was years ago, why didn’t you take it up with her then?” Before, the idea of the gentle Mrs. Rowland facing down Darla would have been laughable, but seeing this version of Annie, Keeley thought her mother might have had something to worry about.

  “Because,” Annie said with impatience, as though Keeley were dim-witted for not understanding. “I didn’t know then. It was only after Donald died, and I was moving our things from the town house, that I found the letters.” An
nie’s face twisted with grief and other, darker things. “Your dear Darla this, my darling Donald that. He had been in love with her, can you imagine? Even wanted to leave me for her.” There was the hint of a sob in Annie’s voice, and in spite of herself, Keeley felt sorry for her. She knew what it felt like to be cheated on and lied to. So this was what her mother’s infidelity had wrought.

  “Annie, I’m sorry,” she said, surprised to find that for that at least, she genuinely did feel for the woman in front of her. “What my mother did to you was awful. But surely, it’s in the past? She can’t hurt you anymore.” And her husband’s dead too, she thought.

  Annie gave her a look of disdain, then laughed, a hard brittle sound that was so unlike her usual quiet chuckle, it filled Keeley with dread.

  “It isn’t your mother I’m concerned about, you silly girl,” Annie said, shaking her head at Keeley’s apparent stupidity. “It’s you.”

  Keeley felt her stomach turn over, certain that whatever Annie was about to reveal, it would certainly be something she didn’t want to know.

  “You tried to burn down the shop to get at me,” she said in a flat voice. Annie nodded, looking triumphant.

  “Clever girl. Well, not to get at you as such, that would be petty, but to stop you coming here, or at least make you go home. But no, you had to be a stubborn thing, didn’t you? That’s just like her as well.”

  “But why?” With the inevitability of one watching a train wreck, Keeley knew she had to find out. Had to hear this out until the end.

  “Because you’re his. Donald’s. His and your mother’s dirty little secret.” Annie’s face held a hatred so raw and deep that even if her revelation hadn’t caused Keeley to collapse on her chair, legs shaking, that would have. “She spoke about you in the letters, about the ‘little love child.’ Sickening.”

  Keeley shook her head fiercely, to block out Annie’s words even as they made an awful kind of sense. Annie, who had adored her husband, who couldn’t have children of her own; it wasn’t hard to imagine how she could hate Keeley enough to want to derail her plans. To keep her away from Belfrey.

  “You sent me the letters. And the meat.” Keeley felt sick as she remembered the smell and feel of those pieces of rotting meat, and her initial assumption that they were the parts of a human. Annie, however, smiled as though proud of her own creativity.

  “Yes. That was a stroke of luck, really. I hoped the letters would be enough to scare you away, but instead you started going round asking questions; just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? I knew I needed something else. Then I was about to visit you one night and heard you talking to Ben.” Annie smirked. “Your so sad little tale about finding your father, and it putting you off meat for life. So I went home and cut up a good joint of ham I had and let it sit in the sun for a few days.”

  Keeley glared at her. “That’s just evil.”

  Annie just shrugged, unperturbed.

  “I tried to do more, just little things, to get you to go. Spread a few rumors about you being implicated in the murder, had a word in Ted Glover’s ear, dropped hints about Ben visiting you, and even told Renee you had asked for the stall in the center because you didn’t want to mix with all the meat-eaters. Of course, that backfired when it started to rain, but the weather’s one thing no one can control, I suppose.” Her tone was almost conversational now, even though each new revelation cut Keeley like a butcher’s knife.

  “But you were so nice to me,” Keeley protested. “You were supportive, and gave me advice, and I’m renting out your cottage, for God’s sake!”

  Annie gave her a look of annoyance, then a melodramatic sigh that made Keeley want to punch her. Hard.

  “Yes, and I absolutely hated it. I had to let you think I was your friend, didn’t I, dear, so that you didn’t suspect. When you made inquiries about the cottage, well, I thought someone up there was having a good old laugh at my expense, I can tell you. Then I thought that if I turned you down, you would only rent somewhere else, or even buy, and then I’d never get rid of you. So I thought to myself, at least with you here, I could keep an eye on you. I wasn’t sure if you knew or not, you see.”

  Keeley shook her head as the full implications of Annie’s words sank in. Her father wasn’t really her father? Generous, kind George Carpenter, whom she had looked up to and tried to emulate her entire life, wasn’t really her flesh and blood at all. She wondered if he had known, had realized he had been raising a little cuckoo in the nest. A wave of desolation washed over her.

  Annie was still talking, either not noticing or not caring about the impact of her words on Keeley. She suspected the latter.

  “I couldn’t let it get out, could I? Donald was a well-respected man. He was just weak, easily tempted, and once that trollop got her claws in, well, what do you expect? He was only a man.” Annie gave a sad smile, as if masculinity were a valid justification for all sorts of wrongdoing.

  “So Terry Smith was blackmailing you,” Keeley said flatly. That was the crux of the matter, the reason her café had become a crime scene. Annie jerked her chin in confirmation.

  “Yes. Nasty, horrible little man. He used to do odd jobs for people, you see, as well as the betting, no doubt so he could go through people’s things. I asked him to help me clear the attic after Donald’s death, and he must have seen the letters before I did.” Annie paused, her expression far away, and Keeley risked a glance around her toward the back door, thinking she might just make it. But was the back door locked, and where was the key? Her mind, already burdened with more than it could bear, drew a complete blank.

  “He didn’t say anything right away,” Annie went on. “He bided his time. Then a few months ago, one of his regulars at the betting shop, a young man who works at the letting agents, let it be known that Darla was leasing the shop over to you. That’s when he came to me and started asking for money. He knew I wouldn’t want everyone to know, to look down on me. That I couldn’t give my Donald a child, but that bitch could.” Annie’s face twisted again with such pure fury, Keeley felt genuinely scared. For the first time, she understood that she might in fact be in mortal danger. Not wanting to risk making a run for it, she looked around for something she could use as a weapon, at the same time trying to keep Annie talking.

  “So you killed him.”

  “Well, that wasn’t my original intention. In a way, it was an accident.”

  “Oh?” In spite of her fear, Keeley couldn’t help but be interested in what had happened on that night.

  “I couldn’t find a way of stopping you coming here, with your silly little café, dragging it all up again. I thought if I got rid of your business, well, there would be nothing to bring you back here, or that it might scare you off. But Terry saw me going to the shop, even though I checked and thought the street was deserted. Horrible snoop.” She gave her assessment of Terry with a pursed mouth and look of disapproval, as though a spot of evening loitering were far more amoral than attempting to burn down someone’s property, in an attempt to hide a dead man’s transgressions.

  “He followed me,” Annie went on, “sneering at me in that way of his. Offered to help me, as long as I paid him, of course. I knew I had no choice, and he was already leeching more money from me than I could afford. All of our savings were going.”

  “So you killed him.” Keeley resisted the temptation to shake her head in disgust, not wanting to antagonize the woman. If Annie would just move out of the way, she might be able to make a dash for the door. Her eyes alighted on the vase of flowers on the windowsill, wondering if she could reach it. It was heavy, she knew, and would make a suitable defensive weapon. Annie’s eyes followed her own and Keeley tensed, ready for some kind of attack, but Annie had misread her intentions. Her landlady gave a sly smile.

  “Yes, that’s right. I lured him upstairs, so we could talk without being seen, not really knowing what to do. I had vague ideas of pushing him out of the window, I suppose. Then I saw the vase the last te
nant had left. Pretty, isn’t it? I asked Terry to go downstairs and fetch the gasoline—he thought it better to start upstairs, you see—and hit him with it. He didn’t die, not straightaway. He struggled, grabbed at me. I had to hit him a few times.” She recounted the killing in an almost singsong voice, and Keeley saw, very clearly, that Annie was nothing short of severely mentally disturbed. If not an outright psychopath. How could she have been living in such close proximity to such madness, even evil, and never have noticed? Had even seen the woman as a friend, a mother figure? Keeley felt sick, right down to her toes.

  “I didn’t know what to do with the vase. I had to get rid of it, but I didn’t want it found. It was so funny, seeing you coo over it and the flowers when you moved in.” She gave a little giggle, and Keeley felt her nausea replaced with a wave of white-hot fury. She stood up, her limbs shaking, her breath catching in her throat.

  “And Bambi? Was that you too?” When Annie didn’t answer, only responded with a sly smirk, Keeley remembered what it was that had niggled at her before. Something Megan had said. “It was you he was barking at, wasn’t it? Just like he barked that night. He remembered you.”

  “Yes,” Annie looked annoyed. “I never did like that dog. Great smelly thing. As soon as I knew it was barking at me, I knew it was only a matter of time before it happened again and Jack put two and two together. I was lucky that yesterday the High Street was crowded enough that no one would have realized just what he was barking at. So I bought a piece of meat from the one of the stalls—everybody was buying that delicious ham on the bone—and mixed up some of the painkillers the doctor gives me. I get a touch of arthritis in my left shoulder at times, you see, but it’s not bothered me for a while now. So luckily, there was plenty left.”

  In spite of Annie’s continuing speech, given in that awful lilting tone of voice as though they were discussing mundane matters, the atmosphere had perceptibly changed. The woman had visibly tensed, her eyes tracking Keeley’s every glance ad flinch. Waiting for her to make a move. Her soft, plump frame had become a solid barrier to Keeley’s escape, and she had no doubt that the woman would attack her if she tried to leave. But she wasn’t going to stand there and wait for Annie to decide that she too needed dealing with.