Whisper the Dead

by Stella Cameron

  For the first time in days, the sun shone through the windows. Tony glanced at light sparking off a row of crystal glasses. He knew what he needed to say but he avoided what he knew would cause contention.

  ‘I’d better wait to go up to London. I need to catch up here first and make sure Mum’s OK with the idea.’ Alex crossed her arms. He heard her let out a shaky breath. ‘What if that woman has known exactly where we were all these years? She did know Mum was away from home that day. And from when she talked to her she had to be aware that my mother hadn’t come back home yet. The idea that she’s keeping tabs on us makes me feel sick.’

  ‘Lily’s got to accept reality,’ he said. He poked the table with a forefinger, emphasizing his points. ‘This can’t be controlled for anyone’s comfort anymore. And if Lily thinks logically, she’ll see that you don’t avoid confrontation just because it’s easier, not when there’s no way to know exactly what this woman means or what she’s capable of doing. It isn’t as if she didn’t try to manipulate Lily all those years ago. Now she’s threatened to hurt someone Lily cares a lot about. Who could that be? To me, the top candidate is you, Alex.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Silence on the phone made Alex wonder if she’d been forgotten by the woman at the Child Protection Services who had asked her to wait. She glanced at her watch. Almost lunchtime already. Too late to get to London today.

  Lily held Kyle Gammage’s gray tabby over her shoulder. She nuzzled the cat’s head absently with her chin and gazed into space as if she hadn’t heard Alex’s phone conversation. They were in Doc James’s study at his house, where Alex had finally caught up with her mother.

  ‘Yes, I’m still here,’ Alex said into the phone. At Doc’s insistence, she’d taken over the chair behind his desk and held a pen over an empty pad of paper, hoping this wouldn’t be as unproductive as she expected it to be.

  ‘It’s a busy place there,’ Lily murmured, jiggling Naruto as if she were a baby. The cat purred loudly enough for Alex to hear. ‘Do you think we should call back later?’ her mum added.

  Alex shook her head, no. She understood her mother’s reluctance to follow up on the phone call she had received from Beverly, but they had already waited longer than they should, given the inference that had been made.

  Doc James was seeing patients in his surgery and Tony had gone to his clinic. It had been Doc’s idea for Alex to come to his house where Lily seemed more comfortable than anywhere else. The closeness between Lily and Doc was ever more obvious.

  ‘Yes, hello,’ Alex said. ‘Thank you very much. Didn’t I tell … I thought I’d explained why I was calling.’ After explaining – again – that she wanted to find Beverly Irving, an old friend of her mother’s, she listened to what the abrupt woman at the other end of the line had to say for some minutes, making a few notes as she did so. ‘Very well, thanks,’ she said finally and hung up.

  Holding the cat even closer, Lily watched Alex’s face.

  ‘Do you remember signing for Beverly to be responsible for any correspondence that came in for you?’ Alex asked.

  Lily frowned and thought about it. ‘Yes, but that was before you were born. It was when Beverly was a saint to me – she wanted to save me, or I thought she did.’

  Clearing her throat, Alex thought about how to ask the next question. ‘Did you ever cancel that order, Mum?’

  Too long passed before Lily said, ‘No. I never thought about it. I assumed they would get in touch with me once I was a certain age if there was anything they needed me for.’

  ‘So, you made sure the agency had your address?’

  Her mother put Naruto down slowly. ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t want Beverly to have a way to find me.’ She stood still, looking into the fire. ‘The letter I got about Angela dying was forwarded.’

  ‘From where? I didn’t see the envelope.’

  ‘There wasn’t a return address – at least I don’t think so. It was typed. Beverly must have sent it to me. She would have been afraid of questions if the agency made a concerted effort to find me. And they might have asked her things she wouldn’t want to talk about. She knows my address. She probably knows everything about me.’

  ‘Now do you see why I’m going to London to push for information about Beverly?’

  ‘No.’ Lily closed her mouth firmly.

  ‘We could just tell the police what we think and—’

  ‘No!’ Lily cut her off. She planted her hands on the edge of the desk, across from Alex and looked down at her. ‘This is my life. I want it to stay the way it is.’

  Alex stood up. ‘And I don’t have a right to my life, Mum?’ she asked quietly. ‘Don’t you see what I’ve been trying to explain since I got here? Your Beverly is psychotic. She’s spent more than thirty years spying on you – and me. There’s nothing else to call it. And now she’s really lost it and she’s openly threatening us.’

  ‘She’s threatening me,’ Lily said. ‘If she’s really threatening anyone at all.’

  Alex came from behind the desk. She took her mother gently by the arms. ‘Mum, she told you she would hurt someone you love. She didn’t have to mean me but she may have. I think I know what you’ve suffered but we’ve got to be sensible.’ Sensible? Did that mean she should go to the police now, regardless of what Lily wanted?

  ‘I’ll go and find out myself,’ Lily said, one hand hovering in front of her mouth. ‘I’ll go tomorrow morning. I’m sorry I’ve done this to you but I didn’t let myself think what it could all mean, not really. When I have Beverly’s address, I’ll go and see her and make her stop. She’s not a bad person.’

  No, just crazy.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘We don’t need a warrant, Mr Hill,’ Dan said. ‘Not unless you refuse to let us take a look at that carriage house. I’m sure you can see that wouldn’t be a good idea unless you want to make it look as if you’ve got something to hide.’

  ‘Come in,’ Hill said. He walked stiffly but showed no sign of suffering pain. ‘Make me understand what’s going on first.’

  From the outside, Knighton House was a large, austere, grey brick house with rubbed crimson brick arched over the many uniform sash windows flanking the front door. Palladian, very symmetrical. Massive chimneys clustered on the central bay were impossible to ignore. To Dan, a porte-cochère seemed an ostentatious afterthought, but what did he know about great houses?

  Hill led them through a long hall, past large rooms to a decidedly masculine and comfortable library. ‘Come in and take a seat. Will you have a drink? I imagine the morning is a bit early.’ The man gave a short laugh. ‘Coffee or tea?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you,’ Dan said and Bill Lamb also declined. ‘We don’t want to keep you, sir. You must still be recovering.’

  ‘I’m doing well, thank you.’

  Brown leather chairs, studded and used to a shiny patina, both flanked and faced a fireplace where logs burned, throwing out considerable heat. Large rugs, silk, Dan decided, were worn thin but held their softly blurred colors. He wouldn’t say no to sitting in this room, alone, for hours. Books reached from floor to ceiling on all walls.

  ‘Quite a house,’ Dan said. ‘Is it Georgian?’

  ‘Close enough. It’s around three hundred years old.’

  Dan went to one of two French windows leading onto the grounds at the back of the house, working out where the carriage house and stables were in relation to the house. He had the chart of the property in the car and he had studied it again before coming to the door of Knighton. Unthinking, he held back a heavy green velvet drape and opened a door to step outside. Rainfall surprised him and he came back in.

  ‘Make yourself at home, chief inspector,’ Bob Hill said, sounding amused.

  Dan smiled in response. ‘What is it you want to know before we go to the carriage house?’ he asked. LeJuan Harding and Barry Trafford’s report from their poking around of the day before had surprised the team. Dan felt they might be moving firmly in the direction of
a breakthrough.

  ‘How is your investigation shaping up?’ Hill asked. ‘Do you have any suspects for the fire yet – and what exactly happened to Lance? Do you know if he tried to get out? And the woman in Winchcombe? You must have some thoughts about the motives behind all this by now. I take it the woman’s death was a separate issue from Lance’s, though? Just a coincidence of timing?’

  ‘Is that all, Mr Hill?’ It was Dan’s turn to sound amused. ‘Most of what you ask we still don’t know. We do feel we’re moving toward some breaks in the case but I really couldn’t share any of that at this point.’

  He watched the other man’s face with interest. The impatience he’d expected wasn’t there. Bob Hill looked puzzled and disconcerted.

  ‘Why is it taking so long?’ he asked. ‘Did you find out who was driving that car?’

  ‘Which car would that be?’ Dan said, grateful he had enough control over his reactions to sound interested rather than surprised.

  Hill frowned. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and glanced away. ‘I think it was a Jeep 4x4. Dark green. Not new. I was too tied up with getting to the construction trailer. The Jeep was on its way to the gates, I presume, and I was on foot and running. I think I almost forgot it until now. Isn’t that strange?’

  Dan wasn’t a psychiatrist but he supposed shock and injury could block things out – or not. ‘This Jeep drove past a trailer fire, did it? Just drove by? I’d think that was pretty memorable but the mind does odd things.’

  ‘The vehicle was already past the fire when I saw it,’ Hill said. ‘At least, I think it was. The fire was just starting to be visible then. There was smoke, of course.’

  Bill wrote busily in his notebook. Whenever there was a pause, he turned his head to look at book titles. Usually Dan forgot what an avid reader his sergeant was and that he usually read large tomes with esoteric titles.

  ‘Thank you for telling us about the Jeep,’ Dan told Bob Hill. ‘We’ll look into it. It’s too bad there aren’t any cameras … there aren’t, are there?’

  ‘No, damn it. Well, there are but there’s a glitch and it hasn’t been fixed yet. It should have been by now but it hasn’t happened. One of a number of things I wanted done immediately that fell by the wayside.’ He turned away as if embarrassed and Dan wondered if Lance Pullinger was the one who had tended to fall down on the job. ‘It’s a good idea to have active cameras during construction to make theft more difficult,’ Hill added.

  ‘Or to catch an arsonist,’ Bill said without looking up from his notebook. ‘Did you happen to get the plate number for the Jeep?’

  ‘Would you have, sergeant? Under the circumstances?’ A phone rang on a small gilt table beside one of the leather chairs and Hill was quick to pick it up. Apparently no one else was expected to answer the call because he didn’t announce himself, just listened and stared straight ahead. He frowned deeply and closed his eyes. At last he hung up, still without a word.

  ‘I doubt I’m telling you anything you don’t already know, gentlemen, but it appears both Lance and this Darla Crowley woman were murdered.’ Scrubbing at his face, he seemed to bow over at the shoulders. ‘Murdered. Lance. It doesn’t make a single bit of sense. He was liked – well-liked by everyone who knew him. What could have happened?’ His dark eyes settled on Dan’s face.

  So it was out. They had been given the gift of more time than he’d expected anyway, but he hated the thought of dealing with the media. ‘Losing a good friend is always hard, sir. Death by murder is often impossible to accept at first. Please trust us to be on this and work for a satisfactory result as soon as we can. We can’t bring Lance Pullinger back, but we can hope to find justice for him.’ He decided not to press Hill for the identity of his caller or the source of the information. That would come soon enough.

  Hill paused. ‘Yes, well, go ahead and check out the carriage house, both of you, although I can’t imagine what good that will do you. I’m told the renovation is getting along nicely – if slowly. Lance hadn’t been there for some time before he died, but I’ll give you a key.’

  They returned to the hall that ran completely through the house to a conservatory that opened onto walled gardens.

  ‘I added the conservatory,’ Hill said. ‘I’ve always been partial to them. Watch your step with all this slippery stuff on the ground. It was nice to see a bit of sun first thing, but thank God for some rain. Could be we’ll finally see good reliable dirt again. There’s a path over to your right that takes you through the wall and onto the rest of the estate. You’ll see the outbuildings easily enough. Don’t make a mistake and walk into the pool house – an indulgence for our children. We keep it going in winter so a wrong step in the dark could land you up to your neck. This is the key you need.’ He unhooked one from a crowded board inside a door to the kitchens which, from a brief glance, looked like acres of green marble and stainless steel atop polished stone-tiled floors. Nothing Georgian about all that. Dan almost asked if the house was listed but stopped himself. If it was and Hill hadn’t followed the tight requirements, he’d have to sort that out for himself.

  Leaving Bob Hill behind with his thoughts, they set off in increasingly heavy rain. Before they reached the path they’d been promised, they both wished they’d worn wellies but it hadn’t seemed appropriate to go into the Hill castle in rubber boots.

  ‘Don’t you wonder who called Hill?’ Bill asked.

  ‘I’m only human. Of course, I do. We’re bound to know soon enough – and find out who got the information to spread. Damn the leakers, but they’re always around.’

  ‘This stinks,’ Bill said, his feet squelching by the time they passed through the wall around the garden. ‘I’m going to need a shoe allowance shortly.’

  Dan chuckled. ‘I want to hear you try that on the super.’

  ‘I thought you’d arrange it for me.’

  ‘Yeah, shoes and three months’ paid vacation a year. Anything else?’

  They snorted in unison.

  ‘Like Hill said, at least this rain is starting a bit of a melt,’ Dan commented, wiping rain from his eyes to see ahead. ‘Bugger it. Where are these outbuildings?’

  They trudged for what felt like miles in the slushy ground snow, following what they could find of the path as it led them through a heavy stand of mostly cedars. ‘There.’ Bill pointed ahead. ‘That’ll be them over there.’

  When they reached the first building, Dan looked at it and said, ‘Pool house. Must be nice.’ The place was modern with a visible domed skylight.

  Beyond this were what was probably the carriage house, built of the same gray brick as the house and which looked to be in very good repair, and several stone buildings in front of a stable with an empty paddock. Dan didn’t care enough to get even more wet going to see if there were any stabled horses. There were no signs of life at all.

  Dan used the key on a very solid-looking door to the side of the old carriage doors which had been left in place. The roof had a central apex and high windows were an obvious addition.

  ‘Mess, is it?’ Bill said when they stood in a large, open room that resembled a good barn conversion more than a carriage house in need of considerable repairs. ‘Looks damn good to me. Ready for one of those magazine layouts like they have in the Cotswold Journal. I doubt Hill’s been out here himself lately.’

  ‘If ever,’ Dan added, looking around at expensive russet colored suede furniture, multi-striped throw rugs on polished oak floors and a round stove in the middle of the room. ‘Hill’s too tied up with his own construction. Must just accept what he’s told about what’s going on around the estate. Let’s put our phones on vibrate and keep things a bit quiet, just in case someone walks by and asks what we’re doing. We probably need more time than Bob Hill imagines us to be out here.’ Dan dealt with his own phone.

  ‘Is Detective Chief Inspector O’Reilly available?’ Alex asked of the first officer she saw inside the parish hall. She had only walked from the Range Rover parked at the l
ot entrance, but rainwater dripped from her hair and inside the neck of her jumper.

  ‘I don’t think he’s back,’ the constable said. He was an older man she had not seen before. ‘Let me check.’ He walked behind the screens.

  She waited, fending off the desire to flee. If she had not come, she’d be an idiot and because she had come she felt like a traitor to her mother. And she felt sneaky for saying she was going home, but coming to the police instead.

  LeJuan Harding appeared, his lovely smile lighting his face. ‘Good to see you, Alex. The guv’nor’s out for a bit. Can I help you?’

  Giving him a smile that felt like a poor effort, Alex shook her head. ‘No, thanks, Sergeant Harding. I really do have to talk to him.’ That sounded too desperate but she couldn’t take it back.

  ‘Let me give him a call?’ He produced his mobile and pressed the contact before Alex could think how to stop him – or if she wanted to.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said faintly.

  Harding smiled, head on one side, and kept listening. At last he said, ‘Would you mind waiting a minute?’ to Alex and left her alone.

  A desk phone started to ring, producing a tall blond woman from the zone-of-secrets behind the screens. She picked up the phone and looked at Alex. Cringing and hoping it didn’t show, Alex remembered the last time she saw Constable Miller. It had been raining then, too, and Miller had made Alex feel a complete fool.

  ‘Did you try Sergeant Lamb?’ Miller asked over the phone, watching Alex as if making sure she didn’t pinch the paperclips. ‘Right. We’ll follow up from here. Crowley? Who’s Crowley – ah, Vince, the husband.’ She listened with her mouth slightly open, waiting to break in. ‘How the hell did you manage that? Wait till O’Reilly finds out you’ve lost him. You’re toast.’ More listening. ‘You think he’ll care if it was you or not? First one he sees will get it. Crowley had better be found and fast.’ She hung up with a satisfied little smile on her attractive mouth.