Trap Lane

by Stella Cameron

  ‘I know what you won’t say no to,’ Mary said, a little color returning to her cheeks. ‘Harriet, you know what to give them. And those cheese balls. The ones in a tin. This is the perfect time for them. There’s a box of Turkish Delight in the cupboard over the stove, too.’

  Harriet hurried away, clearly grateful to do something, anything. Alex met Tony’s eyes but he gave a slight shake of his head. He read her too well. He would know that she was thinking of asking what was going on.

  Then Alex heard it – a hiccup and a loud sniffle. It came from the bedroom beside the kitchen.

  Mary took a deep breath and stared at the worn, rose-covered carpet. It was soft and beautiful but had definitely served a number of owners well. ‘It’s warm,’ she said, still not looking at them. ‘I hate these days when opening windows doesn’t do a thing.’

  They all made noises of agreement and the moments stretched.

  The kitchen door opened and Harriet backed out. She faced them triumphantly with a silver tray bearing sherry glasses and a bottle of the ladies’ favorite Harvey’s Bristol Cream. She set this on a small antique mahogany table polished to a mirror shine. ‘Do the honors, please, Tony,’ she said, sounding much more normal. The Turkish Delight, pink and white and smothered with powdered sugar made a small mountain on a glass plate beside a bowl of what had to be the cheese balls. The latter resembled miniature footballs wrapped in yellow wafer. ‘There,’ Harriet said. ‘A bit like Christmas.’ She laughed but the laughter faded away and she all but downed the glass of sherry Tony gave her.

  In a stage whisper, Mary said, ‘Harriet will tell you what’s going on. Stay by her, but don’t look as if you’re telling secrets in case …’ She looked at one of the bedroom doors.

  ‘What?’ Alex said.

  Mary put a finger to her lips. ‘Hush. Go by Tony and let Harriet explain. I’ll get it all wrong. And don’t fall over Max or Oliver – they get so angry if you do.’

  Grey tabby Oliver and one-eyed, orange Max slept peacefully on either side of the hearth, far away from Alex. She put the sleepy little dog on the couch and went to stand beside Tony. They both bent close to Harriet who looked quickly over her shoulder but didn’t say anything.

  At last Alex said quietly, ‘I heard someone in your bedroom.’

  ‘Nothing feels right,’ Harriet whispered. ‘She was crying after they left. Sobbing so hard we made her come up and lie down. When she fell asleep we called you but you took so long … well, if she was awake now, she’d come out, wouldn’t she?’

  Tony leaned closer. ‘Who? Harriet, please explain while you can.’

  However long that’s likely to take.

  ‘Those people … we had never seen them before … they walked into the tea rooms late. She had stayed on to talk to Mary and me but she saw those two and looked shocked. She stared at them and they moved to her table. They talked to her, or the woman did. The man didn’t say much. We overheard some of it – not everything – but bits and pieces.’

  ‘Mm.’ The sisters, Alex thought, had a way of overhearing all manner of things.

  ‘We don’t think it would do to press Annie. She’s too fragile. We think she trusted us once and she could trust us again – all of us. Then it will be easier for her to confide in us. But something is definitely very wrong.’

  ‘Harriet …?’ Tony hesitated.

  ‘Annie, who?’ Alex asked.

  ‘I don’t remember her last name. She was … she still refers to herself as Elyan Quillam’s fiancée even though he’s in jail, a psychiatric place. He may never get out.’

  NINE

  ‘It’s been too long,’ Detective Chief Inspector Dan O’Reilly said. ‘I mean it’s been too long since we had a chance to talk about anything but business and not much of that since the shake-up.’

  ‘Right,’ Bill Lamb agreed. He’d told Jillian Miller to drive the psychologist back to Gloucester and return in the morning. Both he and Dan had taken rooms at the Black Dog. They had a good excuse for staying – in addition to wanting an opportunity for some personal talk.

  Hugh had come back with them. Keeping an eye on him was another reason for sticking around.

  ‘Your old room,’ Bill said, glancing around. The breeze coming through open windows was warmer than when they’d last been here. He sat on a newly installed easy chair, but Dan had passed up the straight-back in favor of lounging on the bed. ‘I’m across the hall from you. Hugh’s rooms are at the end. We can hope to hear him if he decides to do a moonlight flit.’

  ‘Let’s have some of that Aberlour,’ Dan said. ‘I’ve developed a taste for it. We may have to lay in a few more bottles by the time we’re finished with the latest Folly fiasco. Anything to do with the Quillams is likely to turn into almighty chaos.’

  ‘I think it defies reason that Percy Quillam raised his head here again – not that it lasted for long.’ Bill picked up the bottle of honey-colored Aberlour. ‘At least the body would be hard not to identify. Just about everyone who sees it knows it’s him. Fingerprints won’t be as easy as they should be after hours in the water, but they’ll get to them. Then there’s the clothes – Percy certainly had his own style. Tracking down why he came is at the top of my priority list.’

  ‘Too bad this isn’t prime door-to-door territory,’ Dan commented. ‘I still believe in good old-fashioned legwork but you’re most likely going to have to go pretty far afield with this one.’

  ‘I’ve got someone finding out Percy’s last known location. We’re starting with his professional bookings. And I’m praying he’s been busy recently.’

  Dan rubbed at the old scar on his jaw and nodded. ‘Good move,’ he said. The scar was from a knife wound he’d suffered on a night when his wife and son were home alone, and he’d been barely in time to intercept a thug who had broken into his house, bent on revenge against him. That night had been the start of the final rift in his marriage.

  ‘I had a chat with LeJuan.’ Bill didn’t like the distant expression he sometimes saw in Dan’s eyes. ‘He’s very happy with his new situation. How do you think it’s going for the two of you?’

  ‘He’s a good man,’ Dan said of his sergeant, the replacement for Bill Lamb after his promotion to inspector. ‘I’m glad he was available. Neither of us is keen on playing babysitter to Dr Leon Wolf, though. The man thinks our only job should be to help him make fools of us.’

  ‘What good will that do him?’ Bill asked.

  Dan grimaced. ‘It’s hard to know for sure but he’s too chummy with the chief constable. At first I wondered if we were supposed to feel threatened and improve our slapdash ways. I don’t really think so now. Wolf has something in mind that will benefit him. Let’s hope he’s not writing an exposé of some sort on police work.’

  ‘I hope he stays away from me,’ Bill responded. He had used water glasses for the whiskey and grinned when Dan gave the large pour a skeptical eye. ‘Let’s ask Hugh about them carrying Aberlour here. He’s the resident whiskey expert, even if he doesn’t drink much of it.’

  ‘I’d like to try Birnam Bricht, the stuff his distillery produces. Pretty rarified, I’m told. That’s all part of the Hugh Rhys mystery, too.’

  ‘Yep, he’s a mystery all right. You haven’t told me why you came here this time, Dan?’

  ‘Supposedly to see if you wanted a hand. The suggestion – if you can call it that – came down from the big boss. The doc is far too interested in the Folly cases for me to believe that, though. You can bet Wolf asked for it to be suggested that I come. He knows way too much not to have studied everything that’s gone down here before – closely.’

  ‘Shit,’ Bill said with feeling. ‘That’s all I need. How would you feel about giving LeJuan lookout duty? He’d make a good job of keeping an eye on our friend. I don’t like the idea of him reporting every move we make to the chief constable.’

  ‘That would have to be carefully done,’ Dan said. ‘I can’t drop LeJuan into a situation where he draws the wron
g kind of notice. Let me see what I can do. I admit that Percy Quillam, deceased, is a complication I couldn’t have expected. But it does make a connection to my old case.’

  ‘It might mean all this will unravel easily,’ Bill said. ‘But I’m not holding my breath. It’s too bad Dr Molly wouldn’t give an opinion about the wounds on Quillam’s face and neck. His hands, too.’

  ‘Forensics will turn up some useful yay or nay responses in a hurry. If Percy’s blood type matches samples from Green Friday you’ll be off and running.’

  Bill had other, less optimistic thoughts. ‘Unless Percy’s taken to leaving women’s clothing and personal possessions around, we’re still looking for a woman. A woman who may be alive or dead. If it’s the latter she’s also a missing woman. No ID found – nothing. They’ve taken the house apart. I thought the locksmith who found the house open and walked around inside was telling us there were all kinds of things on that bed but he’s backtracked a bit. That or he thinks he may get caught out in exaggeration. At first he said there was money, bills and coins. We are doing another search but so far that wasn’t found by our people. I believe there was definitely a car and that was gone. Brock – that’s the locksmith – is sure it was a dark gray, late model Mercedes.

  ‘We don’t know if or how someone got in without being seen and took both the car – and any of the other normal things that would identify the owner.’

  ‘And it could have been the woman herself who did that,’ Dan put in. ‘Doesn’t that seem most likely? That’s what I think. And Radhika’s the only neighbor?’

  ‘Yes. When she’s there. She spends nights at Tony’s clinic. Sleeps upstairs. Only the tower is finished at the new house – more or less. She likes to hang out there and meditate or read. She’s been trying to persuade Alex to paint in the top room because the light’s so good and Alex hasn’t been painting for ages – it worries Tony and he’s talked to Radhika about it. Radhika was there last night. I’m not sure how late she stayed but I intend to ask if she’ll keep away while all this is going on – just to be safe. Given the time frame she wouldn’t have seen anything, though. We’ve talked to the people working on Radhika’s place but again, they didn’t see suspicious movement, or not that they remember.’

  ‘And we know who else was there last night, before we got anything on it – according to Chuck Short,’ Dan said. ‘He works for the Derwinters. Stables manager, I think.’

  ‘That’s who he is,’ Bill said. ‘I don’t think I heard what he had to say.’

  ‘Alex went up to Radhika’s for dinner. She and Chuck spoke when she was on her way up Trap Lane.’

  ‘I’m damned,’ Bill said. ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘LeJuan’s a favorite with the Burke sisters. They told him.’

  ‘But neither Alex nor Tony mentioned it. Bloody suspicious if you ask me. They should have made sure I knew and they’ll be explaining why they didn’t.’

  ‘Sorry not to pass it along earlier. I assumed you knew.’

  Bill seethed. He poured another slug of Aberlour and took a healthy swallow. ‘Too bad Hugh showed up at Green Friday all innocence and helpfulness this evening. If he hadn’t I’d have had him brought right in for questioning. What the hell, this way we can give him a little space to make some mistakes.

  ‘I need to nail Tony and Alex. I’ll keep it friendly speculation as long as I can but get at anything they might be hiding. The anonymous caller we got said Hugh was seen leaving Green Friday last night. I think he knows exactly who was there – who the missing person is. Maybe Tony and Alex do, too – or think they do. They could be protecting Hugh. They’ve been tight a long time.’

  Dan grunted. ‘Sound like good moves. You and Radhika are still an item, then?’ he asked mildly.

  ‘More so,’ Bill told him. He didn’t like discussing the relationship but he wasn’t about to lie about something so important to him. ‘I won’t say we aren’t still feeling our way, but we both intend to be together permanently.’

  Dan looked into his whiskey, brooding, Bill thought. ‘You’re a lucky bugger,’ Dan said. ‘She’s terrific.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ And he wanted the subject to close there. ‘When’s that boy of yours coming back from Ireland?’

  ‘Calum? In a week or so, if his mother doesn’t pull another stunt on me. How about Simon?’ Bill also had one son from a defunct marriage.

  ‘I see him every other weekend, or I try to. Really good kid, Dan. Not spending more time with him is my only regret about the marriage failure, not that Charlene isn’t a good woman.’

  Bill’s mobile rang. A tech from the lab in Gloucester apologized for calling so late. The woman spoke succinctly but said plenty and he could feel his pulse speeding up.

  ‘Well, that tells us something,’ he said when the call finished. ‘No blood match between the body and what was in the house, but they found orange silk fibers in the woods beside the driveway – with definite traces of the blood in the kitchen and hall. Another search in the morning. Dogs again.’

  Dan sat up and poured more Aberlour for each of them.

  ‘We really won’t be surprised if the car turns out to be a rental – Chuck Short remembered a sticker on a bumper he thought was for a rental place, but not what was on it. There aren’t many rental agencies around the Cotswolds but we’ll get them checked out, at the same time as we get an alert to all outfits around airports. We’ll find it. That’s all for now – unless any other techs decide to work all night.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not referring to the Mercedes,’ Dan said. ‘What car? Where?’

  Bill used his glass and extended fingers for emphasis. ‘This was this morning before we were called. A car was seen coming from the direction of Green Friday. Short said he doesn’t know one car from another, but it looked new and expensive. He was heading up Trap Lane on horseback – about mid-morning – and this car passed him. Chuck uses a track from the top of the Trap Lane hill to the Derwinters’. He said it’s convenient for the stables up there and he likes to ride in peace. After the car passed him, he looked back to see who was driving but couldn’t. He did see what he said was a rental sticker.’

  ‘That’s a lot better than nothing,’ Dan said. ‘Someone could have been driving from Green Friday. Too bad he didn’t recognize a make.’

  ‘Alex and Tony are in this up to their ears as usual,’ Bill said, trying to sound casual. ‘You do wonder how they happen to show up on every one of these cases, and, come to that, why the damned cases keep showing up around here.’

  Dan punched up the pillows on his bed and settled, although Bill saw tautness in his former boss’s body. ‘The only weird thing is that there’s been a string of these events here. And that Alex walks into them. But it’s a small place so there aren’t that many people likely to end up in the middle of a problem – they tend to turn a blind eye. And she’s a very observant woman – Tony’s no slouch but I think he mostly follows in her footsteps to keep an eye on her.’

  ‘Right.’

  He waited for Dan to say more but he stayed silent.

  Bill outwaited him and Dan eventually cleared his throat. ‘Any thoughts about Hugh Rhys?’

  That was more like it. ‘Yeah. He wanted to run into us today. Don’t ask me why but we’ll find out.’

  ‘We’re on the same wavelength.’ Dan lifted his head to swallow whiskey, then closed his eyes as he settled again. ‘Maybe you should get some sleep. I don’t expect we’ll hear anything else from Gloucester tonight.’

  A door slamming below made sure they were both wide awake. The only light on in the room was beside Dan’s bed and he switched it off. At the same time he put his iPod on low. The smart bastard thought of everything, Bill thought, smiling in the gloom. He set his glass quietly aside.

  Voices, faint but unmistakable, followed, then steps on the stairs – only one set. He wondered if it was the mysterious Neve Rhys whom they had yet to set eyes on.

  Light footsteps passed out
side the door and carried on to the end. There was a faint tap on a door. Dammit, he wanted to see through the wall, see who was out there.

  The tap-tapping came again and a while later a surprised mutter, deep, a man’s voice, and what sounded like a woman’s muffled response – then nothing else but a door closing.

  Silence hung in Dan’s room for as long as Bill could take it before he got up and went to the bed. ‘What the hell?’ he said, knowing the noise from the iPod covered him.

  ‘Damned if I know,’ Dan responded. ‘Except I think Hugh just let a woman into his room and he wasn’t expecting her.’

  ‘We’re on the same page. And whoever is still downstairs is either waiting for a reaction or … I don’t know, but I’m going down to find out who it is. Could be nothing or something but I hate to pass up an opportunity to find out.’

  ‘Do it,’ Dan said. ‘I bet you it’s Neve Rhys. See you in the morning unless you need me earlier.’

  Bill left the room quietly, knowing Dan wouldn’t attempt to sleep until he was sure there wouldn’t be action tonight.

  A single light was on inside the front door but following low voices to the snug didn’t take skill. Bill put a knuckle to a glass panel in the door and walked in.

  Alex and Tony sat, side-by-side, on a banquette. They appeared rumpled and worried and gave Bill a startled look when they saw him.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, attempting a casual approach he’d never achieved particularly well. ‘I’ve been upstairs in my room and I thought I heard voices down here. I hoped it was you, Alex, and I get both of you. A bonus.’ He cringed at his own phony effort.

  ‘Was there something you wanted?’ Alex turned those upslanting green eyes on him. Sleepy and concerned as she obviously was, he almost understood what a hold those eyes might have on Dan – even though he also knew the man needed to stop punishing himself and find another focus for his attention.

  ‘You know how it is when your mind won’t turn off,’ Bill said. ‘You must be thinking about everything you’ve dealt with today, too – how could you not? Any thoughts you believe could be useful?’