‘Time she learned the difference between friend and foe,’ Mary said tartly.
Harriet frowned. ‘Too few people have manners these days,’ she said. ‘The man who was with the woman just sat there and looked at the tablecloth. He kept running a fingernail along the embroidery. I wanted to smack his hand.’
Alex hid a smile. Harriet never forgot her priorities.
‘The woman said she knew all about Elyan Quillam and what a horrible childhood he’d had. She told Annie someone should have taken Elyan away from his father because the way he was made to work at the piano was child abuse.’
‘It probably could be,’ Doc said. ‘Not that I’d know in this case. Brilliant pianist. Wicked waste.’
‘Quite,’ Harriet agreed. ‘That’s when the woman started talking about Hugh and saying he was dangerous and Annie shouldn’t have anything to do with him. She insisted Hugh had enemies and he wouldn’t stop at anything to make sure they didn’t get in his way.’
Alex and Tony looked at one another. Alex didn’t say that it sounded as if Harriet, and probably Mary, had overheard just about every word spoken at that tea table. But she didn’t know what to make of the reported conversation or what was said about Hugh. It all seemed unbelievable.
‘What did these people look like?’ Alex asked. ‘You’re sure you never saw them before?’
Mary slowly shook her head. ‘I’m sure. The woman was a bit theatrical. Short dark hair. Very pale skin and her eyes looked black.’
‘Tall,’ Harriet said. ‘He was nice enough looking but she used up all the attention.’
‘Oh,’ Alex said, and swallowed. If Hugh or her mother were there they’d both know who the sisters had seen. Alex hesitated to blurt it out unless she was absolutely sure. She was sure but she still couldn’t say the name.
‘Isn’t this something the police should be hearing?’ Doc said. ‘They’ll have to know it all sooner or later and the less we hold things back, the less likely we are to venture into dangerous waters. They won’t like us keeping information from them.’
‘They haven’t asked us questions that would lead to this,’ Alex said. Or the right questions, she thought. There were a number of ways to avoid the truth and she was guilty of at least one or two of them right now. In addition to not mentioning Hugh and his car at Green Friday the previous evening, she hadn’t revealed to the police how she’d seen him on the hillside near the pond, or his strange behavior there.
‘So we’re keeping our mouths shut when we have information the police will need? They need it now. We’re obstructing them.’
‘Damn it, Dad, you’re so bloody reasonable.’ Tony spoke through his teeth and Alex shifted back on her seat. ‘If they’re so brilliant, they’ll find their own information.’
Doc’s expression hardened. ‘I think a lot of us know we can hide facts for a while but they tend to come out eventually and when they do, we’ve only made them worse by making them more mysterious – and potentially more dangerous if something happens that might have been averted.’
He and Tony looked at one another, unflinching. Alex had never seen them so openly at odds toward one another. She could have sworn there was a subtext in what they said but it made no sense to her.
The sisters sat, their backs rigid, hands in their laps – or in Mary’s case, on the dog in her lap.
Mary cleared her throat. ‘Toward the end, the woman leaned close to Annie and spoke in her ear. She took hold of Annie’s hands as if she was holding her there. We couldn’t hear a word but Annie looked dreadful. She closed her eyes and I think she was already starting to cry. We thought afterward that the couple was trying to turn Annie against Hugh and that they hoped she would be on their side in something they had planned, only the woman saw me and it must have been obvious I was listening because she got up to leave. The man took a while to get the message – he looked blank – then he followed without a word. That’s when we took Annie upstairs and she broke down. So we made her stay quiet on her own and called you, Alex and Tony.’
‘She wasn’t happy about it when she saw us,’ Tony said. ‘Did she say anything else about why she’s here in Folly or why she wanted to see Hugh?’
‘No, but there’s something else – two things.’ Harriet stood up, her lips sucked in. She walked to the window and pulled a curtain aside. ‘It’s going to rain.’
‘What else?’ Doc pressed quietly.
‘I don’t think I should tell you.’
Alex rubbed at her face. You couldn’t force someone to tell you something, but Harriet wouldn’t have mentioned whatever this was if she were not longing to unburden herself.
Doc sat quietly, waiting, and Mary tutted. ‘Harriet, we have to say. It could be dangerous or wrong not to.
‘As long as we all keep Annie safe until this is all over, it won’t be. But she should tell these things herself. She hasn’t even told us any real details, remember, and from the way she clammed up, she was already wishing she hadn’t said anything at all.’
‘All right.’ Harriet returned to her seat and sat with a thump. ‘We aren’t sure she wasn’t rambling. This is probably nothing, but she said she wished she could ask Zack about it. We thought that was the name. She put a hand over her mouth. I felt terrible for her. She was running a fever, but then Annie said she thinks Elyan doesn’t love her anymore. That’s what she said. Then – just as she was falling asleep she said something else – but we weren’t sure what it was and we couldn’t ask again.’
‘You couldn’t make it out at all?’ Alex could hardly contain herself. ‘What do you think she said. Do you have any idea?’
Harriet let out a long sigh. ‘We’re not sure. But it could have been that Elyan might be ill again …’ She looked at Mary, who nodded. ‘Or that he could kill again.’
ELEVEN
‘I’ll leave you to close,’ Molly Lewis said to an assistant, as she stepped back from the stainless steel table where Percy Quillam’s corpse lay, the torso still open.
Bill lifted his mask enough to push more wintergreen gum into his mouth and followed Molly, stripping off garb as he went and tossing it into a hamper. Like Molly, he scrubbed his hands at a deep sink. Even minus any of Quillam’s bodily fluids on him, he felt the need to scrub hard and long. No matter how many post-mortems he attended, he still felt vaguely sick at some points and his throat wanted to shut. He was glad to see how well Jillian Miller did, even if she usually disappeared once she got out of the morgue.
Miller had arrived late and with an infuriating smirk on her face. Bill had no doubt he would be hearing the reason for that shortly.
They convened in Molly’s small office where she maintained a miraculously clear desktop. She motioned for the pair of them to sit and flipped on a giant screen.
‘You understand that anything I tell you now is preliminary,’ she said without looking at them. ‘These are teaching films, not that you need them. They just make it easier for me to point out what I mean. Lungs of a suspected drowning subject who did drown.’ She indicated films on the left of the screen. ‘And here, the lungs of a suspected drowning subject who did not drown. Percy Quillam’s lungs resemble these and his films will be similar. He did not breathe underwater, breathe in water, or die under the water.
‘There are events called dry drownings but given what else we now assume, that does not apply here. There are signs of violence to the corpse – I would have expected more – but petechiae or small hemorrhages, in the eyes in this case, point to strangulation and there are signs of pressure – bruising – on the neck. I believe these are from manual constriction although they are only present at the front which could almost mean they happened during an attempt to lift or pull him back. There are numerous cuts and abrasions on the neck and arms – on the shoulders – but no defensive signs that I can see. However, the deceased had cardiac issues and almost certainly suffered cardiac arrest. Further examination will clarify that, but I think we can take this to the bank. Had t
he cardiac event happened under different conditions he might not have died. Compromised cardiac elements added to some extreme stress made the difference – probably. This type of thing happens all the time and is not particularly significant, but under the circumstances …’ She spread her hands.
‘He was murdered,’ Bill said. ‘By strangulation. And put in the water to make it appear he’d drowned.’
‘That fits with my conclusions – more or less,’ Molly agreed. ‘Although strangulation isn’t a positive. The abrasions are a puzzle but we’re on our way to solving that. I have to wonder if death happened before the attacker intended – or if death occurred without it being immediately noticed. Did the attacker only expect the deceased to be incapacitated enough to go under water, without much fight, and drown? Did he even realize the body had caught on those roots and remained barely submerged and coming up entirely when it rolled? It’s reasonable to set the time of death during darkness but I still doubt that theory. I’m only the forensic pathologist here but I think perhaps the attacker ran away and ran fast once he thought his deed was done. Forgive me if I sound a little Shakespearean.’
Bill studied her. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ She avoided meeting his eyes and rubbed a forefinger slowly up and down the edge of a folder.
Molly glanced at him and then away again. ‘Yes, there is. Unfortunate on our part but these things can happen in the best of times. It may not change anything substantially, other than … give me time, Bill. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’
TWELVE
Tony leaned across the bar and spoke close to Alex’s ear. ‘I’m damned, me darlin’,’ he said. ‘Is that who I think it is?’
‘I think it is. Yes. Hugh asked if it was all right for him to take the first hour or so off but he didn’t say why – or where he was going. Then those two showed up and sat themselves right there. I think we’re looking at people who don’t know everything we know. Or at least they think we don’t know anything. I’m not sure I just said what I meant. Hugh joined them as soon as they got here. I wish I thought I could ask him to take me into his confidence.’
‘I understand the way you feel,’ Tony said. ‘It might even have been a good idea but if it wasn’t, we’d have lost any chance of him coming to us if and when he’s ready.’
Alex gripped the edge of the bar. ‘You’re right.’ She pulled a beer for a man in motorcycle leathers and passed it across the counter. He drank it down in an open-throated swallow, nodded and walked away.
‘Ever wish you got a steady stream of customers like that?’ Tony asked, grinning. ‘No need to ask how his mother is or if his cousin’s over shingles. Nothing.’
‘No, thank you.’ Alex swiped a cloth across the counter. ‘And even if you are fond of your quiet spaces, you’d miss the little dramas in here.’
‘Mmm.’ He supposed he might. ‘Have you had any more ideas about why Hugh was in Burford this morning? You said he sounded defensive when you phoned him.’
‘It’s a complete puzzle to me. I expected him to talk to me about it when I saw him earlier but he didn’t say a word – unless his grim mood was supposed to be expressive, which it was.
‘And last night when he was at our house, he didn’t bring up anything Annie might have said. I thought it was because there was nothing much to talk about. But after hearing the sisters today, surely Annie said something to him, don’t you think?’
What did he think? ‘Maybe yes, maybe no. She was in a state. Hugh said she seemed out of it, but if he weren’t avoiding any conversation with us we could ask about it.’
They were going to have to take most of this to the police and they’d still look like obstructionists for not contacting them sooner.
The Black Dog had barely opened and the first few customers, most regulars, had come in with their orders. Colonel Stroud’s tightly clipped grey mustache was already tipped with foam from the single beer he drank to begin his evening. Afterward he shifted to whiskey and rarely left the premises until his gait became decidedly unsteady. Kev Winslet, the florid and rotund gamekeeper for the Derwinter estate, rocked on his heels as he drained the end of his second pint. He liked to get a head of steam on fast, did Kev.
The two men stood together but stared silently past one another in the customary rumination stage of the evening.
‘Do we know the man I just served?’ Alex said, looking beyond him. ‘Nice looking in a way although I don’t like the sideways stares he gives. He’s watchful – or maybe just shy. Don’t turn around.’ She stopped him as he would have done just that.
‘No. I could have seen him before, but I don’t remember him. At least, without taking another look, I don’t.’
‘Oh, forget it, he’s Harvey’s friend – unlikely friend.’ She glanced at Carrie Peale who was working at the bar this evening and not looking happy. ‘I know Carrie doesn’t like Harvey being here, drinking all the time. Poor woman is in a bad place, I think.’
Tony took advantage of a new group of customers at the counter to turn around and face the room. He rested his elbows on the counter and casually surveyed the crowd – he hoped he looked casual. The man in question, average height, blond and well-built, had a forearm on Harvey’s shoulder while the latter chuckled at whatever the biker said into his ear.
The table tucked into a bay window, where Hugh sat, captured Tony’s attention again. He turned back to Alex. ‘That is Neve Rhys with Hugh, right?’ he asked.
‘Yes, and I believe the man with them is Perry Rhys, her husband. Mum said she got a call this afternoon to say he was definitely joining Neve later today.’ She passed a customer’s change across the counter and smiled her thanks. ‘He’s Hugh’s cousin. The coloring’s similar but Perry doesn’t look like him, does he? Do we think they’re the ones who spoke to Annie at Leaves of Comfort?’
‘I’d say so,’ Tony said. He studied the body language of the threesome. Hugh had his back to them. ‘The sisters should be in shortly and we’ll know the answer to that then, as soon as they see each other. From the look of things, Hugh doesn’t like either of those two. Or if he does, there’s some other reason he wishes they’d evaporate. He still doesn’t know the sisters have seen them before, does he?’
‘No,’ Alex said sharply. She braced her weight against the counter. ‘I’d forgotten he wasn’t at your father’s house for the meeting. I can’t get my mind off what happened with Hugh and Sergeant Miller in Burford this morning.’
‘I don’t like the way any of this is going,’ Tony said. ‘Jillian Miller must have had a good reason to follow him like that.’
Alex couldn’t take her eyes away from Hugh’s table. ‘Look how the woman stabs the table with her finger. They want something from him. They’re trying to make him agree with some point or points. She’s a dramatic one, isn’t she? When you can, take a look at her hands. She uses them like laser pointers. It’s a shame her fingernails don’t light up.’ She gave a short laugh.
‘Why would they meet here?’ Tony asked. He couldn’t see it. So public. ‘Unless this is the only way Hugh would do it at all.’
‘I can’t think what would make him decide that.’
‘Safer? Easier to keep things under control with them?’
Alex frowned. ‘Sounds unpleasant. Do you want a drink?’
He shook his head, no. ‘Not yet.’
‘Hugh knows how the noise works in here,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘You’re overlooked but not easily overheard unless you shout. The other voices make sure of that. Neve keeps looking around. I think she’s nervous. Perry’s got those puppy dog eyes. Sad and thoughtful but you get the impression his mind is somewhere else. No, he doesn’t look at all happy. I don’t think it was Hugh’s idea for them to meet in here, though.’
‘If Annie comes down, the shit … Sorry. But it would hit the fan.’
‘Unless it was another couple who went to see her at the tea rooms.’ Alex stiffened. ‘It wasn’t another couple. Don�
�t turn around now but Harriet and Mary just came in and almost fell over one another when they saw the Rhyses.’
Tony glanced over his shoulder to see the sisters’ progress across the room to their reserved table by the fire. Harriet pulled Mary’s tartan shopping cart in which Max, their one-eyed orange tabby cat, traveled, supposedly because he couldn’t be left at home with the other cat, Oliver. Lillie Belle was tucked inside her blanket.
The two ladies pinned their attention ahead and settled at their table where Katie and Bogie waited on blankets by the fire. Rather than lean close and talk, both women sat quite still as if they were waiting for something.
‘Give me two glasses of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, please,’ Tony said. ‘The occasion may call for more than a thimbleful. Use small wine glasses, not sherry glasses, and I’ll take half a pint of shandy.’
‘Shandy? Good grief, Tony. When did—’
‘Since I don’t want to look as if I’m not having anything even though I really don’t need anything. This could be a long, or at least a difficult night.’ Lemonade and beer, mixed, wasn’t his favorite but it was innocuous and passed for light beer. Alex put the drinks on a tray and he pulled it toward him. ‘Have you thought what happens if Dan and Bill walk in? They are staying tonight?’
She grimaced. ‘Yes. And Hugh knows that. He also knows they’ve been trying to reach him again. What is he thinking of, just showing up and sitting there like that?’
‘I’m starting to wonder if that’s the problem – he’s not thinking.’ He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. ‘I don’t mean it to sound like that. It could be that he’s got something on his mind that we don’t have a clue about.’
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