Trap Lane

by Stella Cameron

  He pulled out two scraps of orange silk with curled and singed edges. ‘This matches the bits found in the woods beside the driveway at Green Friday. Looks like a buttonhole here.’ He reached in again. ‘We haven’t identified the rest at all yet.’

  A strip of mostly melted black cloth, and another orange fragment. ‘Good work,’ Bill said. ‘I hope we’ll get some identification on these very shortly.’

  THIRTEEN

  The rain started around midnight. Not the kind that pattered softly on the windows and lulled you to sleep, but a battering downpour on the slate roof tiles of Tony’s house, punctuated by thunder and lightning of the variety that ripped the skies apart, sending flaring darts through the slatted shades and across the bedroom.

  The latest salvo startled Alex and she rolled toward Tony. She liked storms but this one seemed to vibrate through her. She had been awake for ages, staring at the illuminated face of her bedside clock.

  There was too much to think about and she had that wideawake sensation that meant sleep wouldn’t return easily.

  Hugh had come back from Gloucester not long before closing and started working immediately. He said little. Once the last customers had left, he suggested Alex call it a day – his smile didn’t warm her one bit but Tony said the idea sounded good to him. It had been a long day, he said.

  Alex rested a hand between Tony’s shoulder blades. He hadn’t been relaxed since he’d left the Burke sisters’ table to come behind the bar and tell her Hugh had left with Bill and Miller. He had looked at her frequently which unnerved her. She had come close to asking him why he was watching her, but for once managed to keep quiet.

  He wasn’t asleep either.

  The muscles in his back were taut and he was all but holding his breath. Breathing shallowly, anyway. She swallowed hard. For the first time in a while the back of her neck prickled. He was upset about something but not telling her about it. Tony was usually open with his feelings.

  Probably worried about Hugh the way she was. That was natural.

  Lightning cracked again. For an instant she saw the shadow of an old beech tree waver against the window shades. Thunder came close behind, rumbling across the sky.

  He knew she wasn’t sleeping.

  ‘Are you OK, Tony?’ She rubbed his back again.

  No answer. Pretending sleep was an even stranger piece of behavior from Dr Harrison.

  ‘OK, that’s it.’ She propped herself up on one elbow and pulled at his shoulder until he rolled onto his back. ‘What’s going on with you? We’re both worried about Hugh – among other things. Do you know something I don’t know?’

  He pulled her face onto his chest. ‘Go to sleep. We’re likely to have another unpleasant day tomorrow. You need your rest.’

  Sleep wasn’t likely to come as long as his warm skin was against hers. ‘That’s not an answer. Hugh didn’t talk about what happened in Gloucester. Not to me. Did he tell you anything?’

  ‘No, sweetheart. I’d have told you if he had. We’ll have to let him decide if he wants to tell us anything but that’s going to depend on … damn it. It’s impossible to completely shut out any thought that in some way he may have been involved in what’s happened. I just can’t make myself see him as a killer.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said, holding on to him. ‘It’s unbearable. Neve and Perry Rhys looked shocked, didn’t they? Or at least Neve did. After Hugh left with Bill. Perry just looked bemused. They just stayed there, staring at each other. I think they were waiting for him. I don’t know what time they went upstairs but Hugh didn’t say a word to either of them when he got back.’

  ‘I noticed. But I don’t think I can warm up to that twosome no matter how decent they turn out to be. In fact Neve disturbs me and Perry seems as close to unresponsive as a living man gets.’

  Alex laughed, she couldn’t help it. ‘That’s horrible, but it’s funny. His face hardly moves.’

  Tony reached out and turned on the bedside lamp.

  Alex hid her eyes against his shoulder. ‘Turn it off,’ she begged.

  ‘Nope. I want to see you. Since you initiated this chat, I’m going to participate. Did you know the Derwinters are expecting a baby?’

  She raised her face. ‘Gosh, no. Heather pregnant? Now that’s an odd thought. She’ll probably deliver on horseback.’ Heather was rarely out of riding clothes.

  ‘You haven’t seen her since she’s been pregnant?’

  ‘No. Don’t you think I’d have mentioned it?’ This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have, not now and possibly not ever. ‘I’m glad for them. It’s unexpected but I bet they’ll be adoring parents.’

  Tony slid away from her and sat on the edge of the bed, hunched, his head in his hands. ‘Heather saw you in Cheltenham a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘I didn’t see her, Tony. Does this matter? How do you know she saw me, anyway. Did she make a point of telling you? If she did, it’s strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘Depends.’

  Alex felt vaguely sick. The room was stuffy, and her face was hot. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re scaring me. Not scaring, worrying. Tell me, please.’

  ‘Are you pregnant?’

  The thump in her chest had to be her heart trying to jump out. If she were able to think of a response, it wouldn’t be possible to speak. Her throat had zipped shut.

  ‘Heather stopped by Leaves of Comfort,’ Tony said. ‘Evidently she’s got a sudden urge to knit and wanted some help from the sisters.’

  ‘OK. Heather knitting is something else I can’t imagine but it would be a reasonable thing to do.’

  ‘Are you?’ Tony repeated. ‘And if you are, why haven’t you told me?’ He looked back at her and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or close to some sort of panic.

  ‘Alex?’ His voice rose and she jumped.

  ‘This is cruel,’ she told him. ‘Are you getting around to telling me Heather saw me and thought I was pregnant? That’s ridiculous. And hurtful, frankly, that you’d believe for one minute I wouldn’t tell you. I’ll have to talk to her and find out what her motive was.’

  ‘Don’t do that. She’s probably a bit highly strung at the moment.’

  She looked at him, disbelieving what she’d just heard. ‘Right, Tony. Hysterical on occasion, too, don’t you think? I don’t believe this.’

  ‘She said she saw you at the clinic where she goes for her check-ups and just assumed.’ He turned and put an arm around her. ‘Sorry, old thing, dopey of me to take any notice but the sisters were agog, thrilled at the possibility. They’re the ones Heather shared her little story with.’

  So that was it. ‘Unfortunately, Heather isn’t very observant apparently. There’s also a fertility clinic in the same facility. I decided to get checked out. I wanted to be sure the trauma of losing a baby the way I did hadn’t done more damage than they told me at the time. That seemed a fair thing to do for both of us. I would just rather not have told you about it, or not yet.’

  An urge to get up and go to her own house came and left rapidly. She wasn’t a child and it wasn’t Tony’s fault if people in the village gossiped, although Heather Derwinter should know better. And her own house had been closed up for a couple of months which wouldn’t make it particularly welcoming.

  Alex rolled away, pulled up the covers and closed her eyes.

  ‘You’re doing this clinic thing because you want us to have a child?’ Tony said. He sounded strange, but she wasn’t giving him an easy break. He needed to learn to think before he waded in. ‘Alex. Oh, hell, what a fool I can be.’

  ‘Can’t we all?’ That wasn’t giving in, it was being grown up. ‘And yes, that’s why I’m going. No big deal.’ To her it was an enormous deal but she wasn’t about to say so.

  ‘Um, could we …?’

  Scratching at the door preceded it opening enough to let Bogie in. He came uncertainly to the bed and stood with one paw held questioningly in the air. If dogs cried, his tears would be dripping.

>   ‘Hi boy,’ Alex said. How did dogs know when you needed comfort? ‘Good boy.’

  His tail wagged. He leapt onto the bed and lay beside Alex.

  ‘Little opportunist,’ Tony muttered. ‘Well, I’m not stopping now. I know better than to overdo things, but would you come with me to buy a ring? We could call it a promise of a promise ring, if you like. Or a hope ring. Or a ring of potential. Just let me put the bloody thing on your finger before I go mad.’

  She hid her face in her pillow. This was one of those times when she was going to cry soon.

  ‘Alex?’ He shook her. ‘Don’t you go to sleep on me.’

  ‘All right, we’ll get a ring.’ She turned on her back. ‘Just don’t talk about anything else yet. People will start muttering, but we aren’t kids and we’ll do what we want to do, when we want to do it.’

  ‘You’ve got it, sweetheart.’ Tony assisted Bogie from the bed and planted an elbow either side of Alex’s head. ‘In the morning it’s back to horrible reality. Things are going to get nastier and we both know it. But for now we’ll do what we want to do, when and how we want to do it.’

  Knocking on the front door, distant but insistent, woke Tony. He still held Alex and across her shoulders he saw the clock read almost six in the morning.

  More knocking. Louder this time.

  He carefully pulled his arm free, but Alex sat up and stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘What is it?’ she whispered hoarsely.

  Tony flung from the bed, pulled on tracksuit bottoms and ran for the stairs. The visitor was giving the door an even less polite hammering.

  ‘Hold your horses,’ Tony said and he threw open the door – and immediately thought that he should at least have asked who was there. ‘Radhika? What are you doing here? Get inside, now.’

  ‘Good morning, Tony.’ Radhika’s turquoise and gold sari was all the more brilliant in the gray and damp early morning. She smiled, intriguing to look at as always, but he could see concern in her dark eyes, feel it in the stiff way she stood.

  ‘Come in,’ he insisted, taking her elbow this time. He avoided the temptation to mention that he wouldn’t have expected so fierce a banging on the door from her. She wore a fringed silk shawl over her sari but couldn’t be warm, and she carried a plastic shopping bag decorated with mallard ducks. ‘Now we get fog on top of the rain. Drizzle really, I suppose. Into the kitchen and I’ll make some coffee.’ He was aware of being shirtless. ‘I’m sure you haven’t eaten, either.’

  ‘Radhika!’ Alex came downstairs, barefoot, wearing jeans and a red T-shirt and carrying a sweatshirt for him. She tossed it to him and didn’t appear remotely self-conscious that Radhika had come. He tended to feel his assistant was very reserved, old-fashioned, even.

  ‘Oh, good,’ she said. ‘I hoped I would find you both here. I must talk to you.’

  So much for old-fashioned.

  ‘It’s chilly in here,’ Alex said, darting ahead and turning on the oven. She opened the door. ‘Sit here. The temperature really dropped in the night. I’ve turned up the heat in the house but it’ll take a few minutes. This will help.’ She placed a chair not far from the oven and shepherded Radhika to sit there.

  Tony busied himself with coffee, knowing that Radhika enjoyed a cup of very strong coffee in the morning – frequently more than one cup.

  Radhika sat quite still and kept silent until they each had a cup and sat together in the warmth of the oven. She smiled then and said, ‘Almost like home when my mother and father and I sat like this in the morning. People do not think of India being cold, but in some parts there are extremes.’ She flexed a thin hand, curved the fingers back from the palm and stared at the perfectly oval nails. ‘I prefer it here now.’

  She was stalling. The thought surprised Tony since Radhika was a straightforward woman. The duck bag leaned against her legs and she touched it from time to time.

  They drank their coffee in silence.

  Radhika cleared her throat and looked up at them from beneath long lashes. ‘I do not know how to start. Forgive me, please.’

  ‘Of course.’ Alex gave him a helpless glance.

  ‘It was by chance that I saw Kyle Gammage this morning. I like to look at the stream in front of the clinic and I couldn’t sleep so I had pulled the curtain aside to see out. He had put his bicycle down against the bank and was walking back and forth. He looked so worried.’

  Immediately, Tony shifted in his chair. That must have been some time ago and Kyle should still have been in his bed at Tony’s father’s house.

  ‘He wanted to talk to me but was nervous I would be cross. I think, if I had not seen and called to him, he would have left again. He had thought of going to Underhill, to that cottage where the Gammages lived, to hide these things he worried about.’

  Alex scooted her chair close to Radhika. ‘Please tell us what’s happened. We’ll work it out together. Where is Kyle?’

  ‘He is at the clinic until it’s time to go to school. Doc James is out on a call and Scoot will be on his way to the Black Dog to work there. Kyle is fine. I have food at the clinic.’ She looked at Tony. ‘You are so kind to let me stay there until my house is finished.’

  ‘Kind?’ he said explosively, throwing up his hands. ‘Taking advantage, you mean. I get round the clock coverage for our patients and you know I don’t like any of them alone in the night. I usually feel I must go and check on them.’

  Alex laughed. ‘He does. But you know that.’

  ‘I shall still visit them at night when I move to Trap Lane,’ Radhika said, seriously. She looked away and Tony heard her swallow.

  ‘Please, Radhika,’ Alex said. ‘What did Kyle want?’

  She let out a long breath and pushed back her sari scarf. ‘On the morning when Alex and the locksmith went to Green Friday with Hugh, there were two photographs in the bedroom at that house.’

  Tony frowned at Alex who flushed. ‘Yes,’ she said very quietly.

  ‘You left them at the Black Dog in a plastic bag, Alex,’ Radhika said. ‘So Kyle told me.’

  ‘That’s true.

  ‘Scoot was worried in case you should not have taken them from Green Friday.’

  Tony closed his eyes and waited.

  ‘I shouldn’t have been so careless with them. I forgot all about it. Then I couldn’t find them when I got back so I thought the bag must have been thrown in the rubbish. I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell Bill you’d taken them?’ Tony said. Pain niggled behind his eyes. ‘You still haven’t mentioned it to him?’

  ‘So much has been going on ever since. And actually, I didn’t take them. It was Sam who brought them from Green Friday to show Hugh. I didn’t think about them again.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘Well, not much. And then I did forget until now. What difference does it make? They were just an old picture of Hugh on a clifftop or something, and a grainy photo of someone we didn’t know.’

  ‘They were with the possessions of the person they haven’t found,’ Radhika murmured. ‘On the bed in the bedroom. Scoot told Kyle he heard they had been there.’

  ‘Good grief, Alex – you took them?’ What would make her do a thing like that?

  ‘No. I already explained how I had them. But I didn’t make sure the police got them and I know that was a mistake. Or I do now. When I got around to thinking about it I was afraid the police could make something of it and tie the missing woman to Hugh. She still hasn’t been found.’

  ‘Who is this woman?’ Tony asked. ‘Has everyone but me known there was a missing woman. First Percy Quillam’s found dead, now a woman is missing? We can’t keep things from the police at a time like this. Or any time, come to that. They’ll have to know about these photos now.’

  Radhika took two photos from her duck bag, the one of Hugh on top. ‘There is writing on the back of this one.’ She turned it over. ‘It says, “My Hugh”. Such a handsome man. He was younger, I think. Doesn’t it seem strange that the photographs should be left by the pers
on who took other things?’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Scoot said that Sam the locksmith talked about it. He should not be repeating these things, of course. The media will report them and any advantage will be lost. Isn’t that so, Alex?’

  ‘It could be. Sometimes little things mentioned help bring in information – especially about a missing person.’

  ‘Bill’s still staying at the Black Dog?’ Tony asked Alex who nodded, yes. ‘I doubt if he’s left for the day yet. I think we should ask him to talk with us. If he doesn’t think it’s important, fine. But he should know. Don’t you think so, Radhika.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said softly.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you want to tell him?’ Alex asked. ‘I’m the one he’s likely to be angry with, not you.’

  ‘Bill is not an angry man. But I have been foolish. I saw her.’

  Tony frowned at Alex who shrugged. ‘Who did you see?’

  ‘I should have told Bill at once but I know how much Hugh means to you and I didn’t say anything in case it … I should just have spoken up. What do I know about anything anyway?’

  ‘Radhika …?’

  ‘After you left my house, I saw the woman who was staying at Green Friday.’

  FOURTEEN

  ‘You want us out of your hair, don’t you?’ Neve said. She paused to look back at Hugh. ‘Wouldn’t that make your life simpler?’ Perry walked beside her toward the pond in the middle of Folly’s village green. They had left the Black Dog as soon as Lily got in. The morning was cool and still damp from last night’s storm.

  Hugh slowed down and let them draw ahead. He didn’t want to be with them, ever. Most of all he didn’t want to be anywhere near his cousin’s wife. Perry hadn’t been such a bad stick until she got her claws into him.

  ‘Come on,’ Neve called, wearing the enigmatic smile he’d come to detest. ‘The walk was your idea, Hugh. Let’s get this done, shall we? You can’t avoid the inevitable, although you always were one to run away from anything you didn’t want to deal with.’

  As usual, she tried to goad him into losing his temper. Given that on the one occasion when she had been successful in riling him his reaction had been anything but what she wanted, she must have some motive he couldn’t guess. He laughed aloud and they both turned around to stare at him. Hugh spread his hands in supplication and walked on. No, he had not become a man for whom anger triggered surrender … unlike Perry.