‘I’m not upset.’ Lily lowered her lashes. She didn’t convince him.
‘How about that drink?’
‘No, thanks. Why isn’t she answering her phone? Can you even guess at that?’ She put her elbows on the counter. ‘I can, but what I’m thinking isn’t good. Yes, you’re right, I’m upset. How can you stand here while Alex is out there on a night like this and we don’t know if something horrible has happened? She’s not cruel, never cruel. This is so damned cruel.’ Lily put her hands over her face.
Tony and Hugh looked at each other. Carefully, trying not to draw attention, Tony put an arm around Lily’s shoulders and leaned closer. ‘Let’s get into the kitchen and decide what we should do. You’re right, we can’t just keep on waiting.’
Things got quieter in the bar, swelled briefly, and fell silent.
Tony glanced behind him and straight into Detective Chief Inspector Dan O’Reilly’s serious face.
FOUR
Brilliant entrance, O’Reilly, the perfect example of the calming arm of the law. ‘Evening, all,’ he said, stuffing gloves into his raincoat pockets. ‘We ran into Alex and she said it was time we stopped in.’ F for improvisation, O’Reilly.
‘Where is she?’ Tony and Lily asked in unison. Lily’s rigid face was colorless. Tony’s forward-leaning stance suggested he wanted to hit someone. From what he could see, Dan was the only target in range.
‘She’s parking,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a black coffee, please. One for Detective Sergeant Lamb, too. He’ll be right in with Alex.’
Tony straightened away from the counter and moved in close. ‘O’Reilly, I’m not in the mood for games,’ he said very quietly. ‘What are you playing at this time?’
‘I don’t seek you people out,’ Dan said, equally quiet. ‘You just turn up at my crime scenes. Or, to be accurate, Alex has a way of turning up at my crime scenes. And I suggest we take this conversation somewhere private. Where can we go?’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Lily said. ‘There’s nowhere in here. It’s too busy everywhere. It’ll have to be outside. But if you look around you’ll see it’s too late to hope we won’t have a lot of questions from customers later. You could have used the back door and avoided this.’
He wasn’t a family liaisons officer, or a shrink. ‘If you had held down your reactions, both of you, we would have been fine. What is it with all of you anyway? I’m here on police business. Now, back through the bar, or through the kitchens?’
Lily said, ‘Forgive me,’ and seeing her flush he felt callous.
Touching her arm briefly, following her behind the bar, he said, ‘It’s been a bad night but I should be better at holding my temper.’
As they passed, Hugh said, ‘There’s fresh coffee back there.’
Scoot Gammage was in the kitchen cleaning off trays of glasses and loading them into one of the dishwashers. When he saw Dan he gave a little nod and hurried to finish what he was doing.
Scoot smiled. His face was thin, his hair blond, thick and straight, and his body kept on getting taller and rangier.
‘Time to go home?’ Dan said. He liked the boy, admired his courage in working to help take care of his younger brother, Kyle. The two of them had been through difficult family times. Tony’s father, Doc James, and Lily, had taken them under their wings and stepped in when their aunt wasn’t around. That meant they spent a lot of time between Lily’s Corner Cottage and Doc’s house in Bishop’s Way.
‘Doc should be here to pick him up shortly,’ Tony said, joining the kitchen gathering. ‘How are you coming with the driving lessons?’
‘Great.’ This time the boy’s grin was wide. ‘Doc says I’m a natural. I never thought I’d get to drive anything like that new Lexus. I’m taking my test soon.’
‘Good for you,’ Tony told him. ‘I bet my dad’s a lot more patient with you than he was with me. But you probably got a bit of practice out at the cottage, right?’
Scoot nodded and showed no unhappiness at the mention of the cottage that was their home when their aunt showed up to be with them for a day or two. ‘Kyle did, too.’ He glanced at Dan. ‘Only on the farm, of course, not on the roads.’
Perhaps there would be a chance to get his own boy, Calum, together with these two when he finally came from Ireland to visit – supposedly for longer next time, Dan thought to himself. He stared into space. After spending Christmas in Spain with his mother, Calum was to have come to England for a school term and to stay with Dan. They had so many plans, but in the end, Corinne had backed out. She couldn’t face letting Calum go for more than the periods the court had granted Dan during the divorce. He still cared about that woman, blamed himself for what had happened to his family, but surely she sometimes regretted how Dan felt living without his boy?
The door from the parking lot out back opened with the force of the wind behind it. Alex came in along with Bill Lamb. Flurries of snow made their way inside before they could shut the door.
‘Doc’s out front waiting for you,’ Alex told Scoot. She didn’t make much eye contact with anyone. ‘Go quickly through the bar. I think Kyle’s in the car, too.’
The boy hung up his heavy apron and waved before pulling on an anorak. ‘I’ll be here the same time as usual tomorrow. It’s just as quick to go out here and cut around to the front.’ He slipped through the door and yet again snow blew in.
‘Nice boy,’ Dan said, well aware of the strained atmosphere all around him. He met Bill’s eyes and they both raised eyebrows a fraction.
‘The gang’s all here,’ Bill said, droll as usual and no hint of a smile. He took off his hat to reveal his thick, crew cut, sandy hair. ‘Just like old times.’
‘Right.’ Only Tony looked remotely amused. ‘I suggest we talk here rather than outside in the snow. Is this going to take long, gentlemen? I should be getting Alex home. She looks worn out.’ He frowned at the blanket she wore draped around her shoulders and her disheveled appearance. She looked very tired.
‘We’ll keep it short,’ Dan said. ‘There’s nothing sweet about it. We were called out to a suspicious fire with possible deaths. Near Winchcombe. The new development being built by Hill Development and Construction. Alex happened to have chosen today to go up and take a look at the place. She tells me there’s a lot of talk about it. I’ve seen the articles in the papers.’
‘It’s going to be lovely,’ Alex said, surprising Dan by sounding defensive.
‘Well, that’s as may be,’ Dan told her. ‘Not my concern. But Alex was there for the whole event. She helped Robert Hill – the owner – when he got his legs burned and ended up observing and being part of enough that we needed to ask her questions. There will be more but not tonight.’
‘Why?’ Lily’s voice rose. ‘She doesn’t know anything about all that. You shouldn’t have gone up there, Alex. That kind of poking around never ends well. You know what I think about opportunists and that’s what the Hill man is.’
Alex didn’t respond. She went to stand with Tony who gave her a hug.
‘Now, how do you know that about Mr Hill?’ Bill said and Dan was glad to be saved from asking the question.
‘I don’t,’ Lily snapped back. ‘But I’ve been told about it by people who know that he’s not really a dedicated local. They say other people have tried to buy pieces of that land to build on and they couldn’t get anywhere. He wouldn’t sell and they were warned they probably wouldn’t have got building permission if he had. And now, when it suits him, he’s back and he can do what he likes, when he likes. So much for protecting the land from overbuilding.’
‘We’ll soon know all about that,’ Dan said. ‘We followed Alex here because she had to stay later than she would have if nothing had happened up there, and the weather really turned. I’ll request that you don’t share anything you know with your patrons, Alex. They’ll learn what everyone else learns soon enough but we’d appreciate it if they didn’t get any extra details to spread around. That goes for all of you. I
had to assume you would share what Alex knows among you or I wouldn’t be talking to all of you like this. Gossip can do harm and you’ve got some champion gossipers in Folly.’
Not well-put, he supposed. And from Lily’s narrowed eyes he’d say she didn’t think so either.
‘Do you know much about Hill, Lily? You seem to dislike the man. Have you had dealings with him in the past?’
‘Me? Why would I? I doubt I’ve ever laid eyes on him.’ She grabbed mugs and poured coffee from an urn. ‘Warm yourselves up before you go back out there.’ She put the filled mugs down on a counter.
‘Thank you,’ Bill said, taking one for himself and another for Dan.
Alex put cream in three more mugs of coffee, for Tony, Lily and herself.
‘If you hear or see anything you think we might want to know, please get in touch.’ Fidgeting in a breast pocket of his jacket, he pulled out several cards and set them on the side. ‘You already know where to find us but it might help to keep one of these handy.’
‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t check up on Mr Hill tomorrow?’ Alex said. ‘He’s had a horrible shock and the burns will be so painful. Perhaps I can do something for him. I felt awful.’
‘Possibly,’ Dan said. ‘Check with us in the morning. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us on this one. Burning—’ He stopped himself from saying ‘deaths’. ‘Burning adds a lot of complication to an investigation.’
‘Why would it?’ Lily turned on Dan, her tone cutting. ‘This Mr Hill’s got burns on his legs. Surely you know how that happened by now. You do, don’t you, Alex? Dan says you were there.’
‘I don’t think that’s the point, Mum,’ Alex said. She drew the blanket more tightly around her. ‘It was a big trailer that burned. One person didn’t get out in time. They’ve got his body. And they don’t think his death was an accident, isn’t that right, Dan?’
He barely controlled the urge to roll his eyes. ‘I really couldn’t tell you that, Alex. We won’t know until later.’
‘After the post-mortem?’ Alex said, turning gray. ‘How can they do that on a burned body?’
‘Leave that to the experts.’ He looked from face to face. ‘And this is exactly what I don’t want you talking about out there.’ He hiked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘We need a few hours – at least that much to try to get ahead of the press and the ghouls. We’re aware of all the talk surrounding this building project – a lot of it negative. There are people just looking for ways to stir the pot and if we don’t get a lid on it, this will be whipped up more than it may need to be.’
‘Wasn’t it an accident?’ Tony asked quietly.
‘An arson team’s on it,’ Dan said, cursing his ill luck that he might not be able to control the narrative on this case. ‘They’ll be the ones to decide that.’
Alex blew into her hands, fixing Dan with a hostile gaze. ‘There’s nothing the police like better than an easy solve. Mr Hill was there and you think Mr Hill had something to do with it, don’t you? That’s ridiculous. You might as well call me a suspect, too.’
FIVE
‘It’s weird,’ Alex murmured to Tony and Hugh at the bar. ‘There’s no point pretending my mother isn’t behaving like someone I don’t know. Look at her.’
‘I know,’ Hugh said, sliding wine glasses into overhead racks. ‘I’ll finish these and go upstairs. She’s working something out and I think the fewer people around to watch her, the better.’
Alex put a hand into Tony’s on the bar to make sure he didn’t think he ought to leave, too.
He gave her a quick smile. ‘Lily’s a very even-tempered person, very reserved, but she’s got a right to get upset sometimes. Something is really hurting her.’
Hugh dimmed the lights behind the bar and went around the room turning down wall sconces before locking doors on his way to the inn and his rooms. He wished goodnight to Lily and the Burke sisters when he passed. The three of them leaned their heads together over the circular oak table. Mary’s one-eyed ginger tabby, Max – curled up on the table as he was most of the time – having arrived in the covered shopping cart the sisters used for his transport. Katie lay on her side before the fire with Bogie resting his head on her back.
‘Look at them,’ Tony said. ‘Someone ought to paint them. Maybe you. I haven’t noticed you talking about painting in that studio of yours lately.’
‘I couldn’t do them justice. Not my style but they do make a lovely group.’ She looked across at them. ‘That’s the oddest part. Harriet and Mary wouldn’t have stayed tonight if Mum hadn’t asked them to. They’re never here at closing, let alone after closing. It’s as if they’re her most trusted friends in the world.’ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
‘You’re hurt,’ Tony said. He ducked his head to look into her face. ‘Aren’t you? Please don’t be. Lily knew the sisters when you were very young, she’s said as much. And I’ve always had the feeling there was a special relationship between them – an understanding, if you like. If they can help her deal with whatever’s bugging her, let’s celebrate.’
‘Wise as usual.’ She touched his jaw. ‘And right. I wouldn’t say I can celebrate, but I can try to be a grown-up.’
‘Why didn’t you take a coat today?’
She took an instant to change focus. ‘Oh, I did. I threw it over Mr Hill’s legs to help put out the sparks. It’s in the back of my Range Rover but I’ll have to bin it.’ Her mother caught her eye. ‘I think my mum wants us to join them.’
They took their beers and went to pull extra chairs up to the table. Lily shifted closer to Harriet to make room for them – just.
‘I was still a teenager, wasn’t I?’ she said to the sisters. ‘When Alex and I came to live here.’
Alex glanced at Tony. This wasn’t a subject she would ever expect her mother to raise.
‘Just a girl,’ Mary said. ‘Not quite twenty. Hard times, I’m sure, aren’t you, Harriet?’ Both ladies were overly pink-cheeked.
All three women held the stems of sherry glasses. A bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry stood on the table, another first-time event in Alex’s memory.
‘Yes,’ Harriet said. ‘But I think parts of it were happy, too.’
‘A lot of it was.’ Lily kept her eyes downcast. ‘I knew what I had to do by then. You were good to me. Not everyone was, but they didn’t bother me as much as they wanted to.’
Alex’s mother never ever mentioned the history of how she came to live here. Growing up, Alex asked about and got the barest details of her early life. It had been obvious Lily didn’t intend to reveal more and eventually Alex had stopped asking.
‘We lived in Underhill,’ she said tentatively. ‘But you worked here at the Black Dog. I remember coming here after school from when I was little and playing in the garden in the summer. When it got colder I went in the snug if it was empty, or one of the rooms upstairs. I went to pre-school at the rectory. I remember bits about that.’
‘There’s nothing interesting about all that,’ Lily said. She flapped a hand. ‘All in the past.’
‘What’s the matter, Mum?’ Alex said. ‘Can you tell us? Do you want me to come to the cottage with you tonight?’
‘Anything I can tell you, I can tell Tony. That’s how it should be when two people are as close as you are. And he’s like his father – he keeps his own counsel.’
Lily and Doc James enjoyed each other’s company when they had time free from their busy lives and the mutual affection they held for each other was well known.
She stroked Max, who was supposed to be invisible when he was on the table, and gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘Harriet and Mary are my oldest friends.’
‘We’ll take that as a compliment,’ Mary said, her eyes huge behind very thick glasses.
‘We’ve been talking about old times,’ Lily said. ‘But I need to share this with Alex, too.’ From a pocket in her dress, Lily removed a legal-sized envelope. She put it on the table in front of her and s
moothed her fingertips along the ragged opening.
The revolution in Alex’s stomach wasn’t a new experience but she hated the feeling. ‘What is that? Mum?’ She leaned forward and shook Lily’s wrist. ‘Mum?’
Lily’s skin was clammy, her face ashen.
‘Would you like to lie down?’ Tony asked. ‘You’re not feeling well, are you?’
She shook her head, no. ‘But I don’t want to lie down. I want to know why this makes me feel anything at all.’ She lifted the envelope and stared at the typed address. ‘I’ve had it for weeks.’
‘Lily—’
‘It’s just that I thought … I more or less thought she might have died years ago.’ She stared into Alex’s face. ‘She promised she’d come back. That was when I was ten but it was in the back of my mind all these years and I couldn’t help hoping she’d come through the door. Sometimes I still look for her among faces in the street, or in shops.’
Alex didn’t dare speak. They sat listening to silence but for the spitting fire.
‘My mother died in July last year,’ Lily said. She raised her chin. ‘It’s all right. I should have expected it, but I didn’t, not really. I suppose it’s normal to take a while to accept these things. There, out of my system. And you belong with Tony tonight, my girl.’
SIX
A police constable at the door to Bob Hill’s hospital room surprised Alex. Winchcombe seemed a laid-back little town – but there must have been more than the obvious attached to last night’s fire to justify extra precautions surrounding Robert Hill.
Alex drew back and slipped into a small, empty waiting room. And she immediately pulled back her shoulders, left again and walked up to the policeman.
‘Good afternoon.’ She smiled at him and his countenance softened. ‘I was the one who helped Mr Hill last night after his legs were burned. I’m just dropping by to find out how he is.’
‘Are you family?’
Whisper the Dead Page 3
