‘Why?’ Alex couldn’t stop herself from going to Bendix and looking up into his fresh young face. ‘Why the scene of the crime people? This is an accident. She fell and hit her head.’
‘What sort of team?’ Elyan’s voice was dull and he didn’t attempt to get to his feet.
‘Nothing to worry about, sir. We just have to take all possibilities into consideration. This is the protocol they follow when there’s anything … unusual.’
‘Who’s coming?’ Alex said. She couldn’t stand wondering. Unusual meant they didn’t believe they were definitely dealing with an accidental death. ‘It’s okay if you tell us the names of the people coming, isn’t it?’
The two officers glanced at one another. ‘Detectives, miss. They’d like all of you to stay here, please.’
‘Who are they?’
‘You wouldn’t know them. Detective Chief Inspector O’Reilly and his partner. They said he’s familiar with the area.’
‘Oh, my god,’ Tony said.
FOUR
Dr Molly Lewis had bustled into St Aldwyn’s with photographers and SOCO in her wake. The latter waited at a respectful distance while the police surgeon started her preliminary examination. The photographers and videographer wasted no time before setting up lights while a woman worked with recording equipment.
Alex had never been more grateful to get her marching orders. With the exception of the professionals, apart from Constable Bendix who had been appointed as keeper of the civilians, they were all sent to the rectory to wait for Detective Chief Inspector Dan O’Reilly and his partner. Unless something had changed in the past couple of months, that would be the prickly Detective Sergeant Bill Lamb. Constable Wicks had tied Katie and Bogie to the metal ring in a concrete block near the side door where they’d been waiting, which didn’t make Alex happy.
Entering the rectory vestibule with its worn black- and white-tiled floor felt unpleasantly familiar. Alex had not been inside the handsome Victorian house for months and the last visit had been fearsome.
Sybil Davis stood at a distance in the hallway leading to the rest of the house. She held her dachshund, Fred, in her arms and they both looked miserable. She had evidently been told not to interact with her visitors but she raised a hand and gave a small smile.
Bendix pointed the way to the library which seemed more gloomy than Alex remembered. As a schoolgirl she’d come here with Harriet Burke – some years before she retired as a schoolteacher – to use some of the extensive collection of books packed into dark wood, floor-to-ceiling shelves. For a moment Alex felt the anticipation she’d experienced in her early teens when she came into a room that felt like an Aladdin’s cave to a young book lover.
When the four of them were seated in sagging tapestry chairs with wooden arms, arranged around a pink-mottled, white, marble fireplace, they waited in awkward silence. A grandfather clock ticked sonorously in one corner. The scent of dust toasted on old radiators all but beat out liberal applications of lavender wax that shone on every wooden surface. Alex shifted her forefinger on the arm of her chair, leaving a smear behind.
She put her hands in her lap.
Constable Bendix cleared his throat. ‘Sorry about this. They’ll get to you soon enough.’ Again his throat ground and he added a sharp cough. ‘A nice cuppa wouldn’t go amiss, I should think. Can’t do any harm if I pop out to the kitchen and ask the vicar’s wife if she can manage that.’
‘No harm,’ Tony said amid the others’ polite murmurs.
‘Right then.’ And Bendix was off with a sigh of relief. He wasn’t enjoying himself much more than they were.
‘How are you feeling?’ Doc asked Elyan, leaning toward him. ‘Say the word and I’ll have them find a place for you to rest.’
‘I don’t want to rest,’ Elyan said sharply and turned red. ‘Sorry. Why won’t they let me get my father, at least? He should know.’ His sneakered feet jiggled. He wore a navy-blue sweatshirt and jeans like a million other teenage boys but he had a presence that set him apart.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the police have already spoken to him.’ Tony craned around to look through the leaded windowpanes. The glass was old enough to distort the view in places.
‘You can’t see the dogs from here,’ Alex told him, reading his thoughts. ‘They’ll be okay.’
He didn’t look completely convinced but he said to Elyan, ‘The cops like a chance to interview people alone, if they can. Before there’s any chance to compare stories with someone else.’
‘We’re not alone now,’ Elyan said. ‘We could be talking about anything.’
‘True, but we were already together before anyone else got there.’
‘They’re wasting time. We’re no threat to anyone but someone out there is. I’m not staying here.’
Elyan made to get up but Doc touched his arm and he slumped in the chair again. ‘If there was something that could change what’s happened, we’d all go and do it. We can’t. And we’ll only slow things down if they have to come looking for us because we’ve wandered off.’
Joyful yips heralded the arrival of Alex and Tony’s dogs.
‘Oh, my,’ Alex muttered.
Tony opened his arms to the dogs. ‘Well, at least we weren’t the ones who tied slip knots.’
A restrained titter faded with the arrival of Harriet Burke, her nimbus of white hair awry and the usually faint pink of her cheeks considerably heightened.
‘What on earth is going on?’ she said. Harriet never minced words. ‘Katie and Bogie were tied up outside the church and there are all sorts of those officious police types marching around out there. There was so much coming and going I thought I should come and see if I could be useful. Elyan, I didn’t expect to find you here!’
‘Laura’s dead,’ Elyan announced loudly. His voice broke when he added, ‘In the church. They won’t let me leave and I’ve got to go and be with her. She’s on her own with strangers.’ He looked close to tears and spread a hand above his eyes.
Harriet looked around at the rest of them with disbelief. Doc shook his head slightly and stood up to give her his chair. She sat down on the edge, her brown brogues incongruously large at the end of thin legs clad in heavy, tan-colored tights. Usually completely in command in any situation, she gave an impression of having shrunk inside her green twinset and heavy tweed skirt. ‘Yesterday,’ she said quietly. ‘It was only yesterday the three of you came in for tea. Your sister is Laura, the blond girl?’
Elyan nodded.
‘We met yesterday,’ Harriet said, her voice breathy. ‘And the other girl was—’
‘Annie, my girlfriend.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I wish she was here – but I’m glad she’s gone back. Stupid, I sound stupid.’
‘Not to me,’ Tony said. Against an open-necked white shirt, he already looked tanned from working outside with animals. ‘I’d want the one I trusted most to understand how I felt, too – at a time like this.’ He looked at Alex and she gave a little smile. They did trust each other. Too often she took that for granted.
Heavy shoes came slowly in their direction and Bendix appeared, carefully balancing a tray of teacups, saucers and a large teapot. Sybil hurried in behind him, set down biscuits, sugar and milk and scurried out again.
‘What are we likely to say that Sybil shouldn’t hear?’ Alex said, her temper fraying.
‘Just following protocol, miss,’ Bendix said, lifting the teapot. He paused with the floral pot held by spout and handle and frowned first at the dogs, then at Harriet with Doc standing at her shoulder. ‘No one’s supposed to be hearing what’s said here until—’
‘The dogs aren’t gossips,’ Harriet said with a straight face. She was renowned for her quick powers of recovery and ability to throw any opposition off balance.
‘It was you I had in mind, er—’
‘Harriet Burke. Miss. I live on Pond Street with my sister Mary. At Leaves of Comfort. Silly name for a perfectly good tea shop but Mary would have it.’
If she allowed the laugh she felt bubbling up, Alex knew it would come out in a hysterical series of squeaks. She put a fist to her mouth.
‘Who tied these dogs up anyway?’ Harriet said. ‘I knew Tony and Alex wouldn’t do it. Someone should be spoken to about cruelty to animals. I won’t have tea, thanks just the same. We just had some. Where would you like me to take the dogs? We’d have them at ours but the cats might torture them.’
‘They’re too much for you,’ Tony said.
‘I’d like you to stay, Miss Burke,’ Bendix interjected. ‘Just until the chief inspector says it’s all right for you to go.’
Harriet’s chin came up. ‘Not Dan O’Reilly? Is he coming?’ Her face had relaxed and she smiled happily. ‘It’s been too long since he was here. Mary and I miss him. Such a nice man.’
‘He only came before because—’
‘Of course.’ Harriet reached for a biscuit. ‘I wasn’t thinking. He only comes if there’s a murder but he is good company and ever so interesting.’ She checked both sides of the biscuit and put it in the pocket of her cardigan. ‘Shop bought, but Oliver won’t mind. First cat I ever had who was partial to biscuits and cake.’
‘I’ll call my assistant, Radhika, Constable Bendix,’ Tony said. ‘You can hand the dogs over at the door and she’ll take them to the Black Dog. They feel at home there.’
‘Murder?’ Harriet asked in an unnaturally loud voice. ‘Has there been another murder?’
Bendix puffed up his cheeks. He had the look of a man who had lost control and didn’t have an alternate plan.
‘Oh, Elyan, you poor boy. What am I thinking of, prattling on about nothing. I got confused by all the fuss and noise. Tell me your dear sister hasn’t been … well, you know. She was so quiet yesterday.’ Harriet took Elyan’s closest hand in her near transparent fingers.
Elyan had sunk even deeper into his chair and lost the last vestiges of color from his face. He stared at the floor and said nothing.
‘Will someone tell me what’s going on?’ Harriet said.
‘Constable,’ Alex said, ‘this young man has had a terrible shock and so have the rest of us. He needs to go home and it won’t do for any of us to stay here like this. The vicar must need his library – this is his study, too.’
‘Some situations take precedence, miss. Anyway, the vicar isn’t here.’
Alex could see the man wouldn’t bend.
‘I should think Reverend Ivor would want to go over to the church under the circumstances,’ Harriet announced.
Bendix let out a long, exasperated sigh. ‘His missus says he left yesterday. Went to see his bishop. He won’t be back till Saturday so why don’t we all just settle down and make it easier on everyone?’
‘On you, you mean,’ Tony said, not sounding at all like himself. ‘I’ve got appointments and I’m sure my father does, too. Keeping us here is ridiculous.’
The tea was cooling but Alex drank it down while she thought hard. It seemed hours since she’d walked in the peaceful churchyard – and listened to Laura sing.
She went over what had happened, bit by bit. All so unreal.
Then she remembered her disappointment when she realized Laura might not sing again. Her cup hit her saucer with a dangerous clatter. ‘That can’t be,’ she said, getting up and starting toward the door. ‘I’m going to talk to Sybil.’
FIVE
A pre-lunch crowd congregated in the main bar at the Black Dog. Conversation was a good-natured rumble that would go up as the beer went down.
Listening for familiar voices, and especially for anyone mentioning the police activity in the village, Tony and Alex had entered the pub by the back door. His dad came into the kitchen behind them and Tony gave him credit for having wiped the irritation from his face. Their destination was the snug where the door could be closed and the room put off limits to anyone Detective Chief Inspector O’Reilly and his sergeant didn’t want around.
‘I love ’em all, but we’re trying to avoid that lot out there, Mum,’ Alex told Lily Duggins. ‘Brace yourself. O’Reilly and Lamb are likely to be here shortly. We got a command message from a plod to wait for them in the snug.’
Tony gave all his attention to Lily who had the wide-eyed look of someone anticipating doom. He told her, ‘We’ve been kept hostage in the rectory library for well more than an hour, but apparently our old detective friends have more important fish to fry before they take us out of shackles completely.’
‘James?’ Lily and Doc James were old friends and enjoyed one another’s company in a quiet way. At least, that’s what Tony assumed. Perhaps he assumed too much.
‘Can we get to the snug by going through the other kitchen, then the restaurant, Lily?’ Doc asked. Another part of the building housed nine guestrooms, a restaurant and guest lounge. It also had its own kitchen, and a common wall with the one behind the bar. ‘I saw Kev Winslet walking through the graveyard as if he was a frequent visitor there, pretending he wasn’t scoping out what was going on, which means he already knows – at least about the police crawling all over the place.’
Lily, a much taller, more statuesque version of Alex, who was a small woman, had the same oval, green eyes and dark hair, although Lily now wore her hair longer and wound up at the back of her head. She hadn’t moved her attention from Tony’s dad. Her expression said she was expecting bad news. ‘Kev’s in the bar. I thought he was whispering to his cronies.’ Winslet was gamekeeper at the big Derwinter Estate higher in the hills behind both Alex’s and Tony’s homes. His appetite for curiosity and gossip was legendary. ‘Even Major Stroud’s showing his face again, hm? Right in the thick of things, he is. Nothing like someone else’s bad fortune to take attention away from your own.’
Major Stroud had been through his own brush with the law, even if indirectly, and what to him must be an almost unbearable family shame. Image was everything to the major. Still Alex was glad he had found a way to return to his stomping grounds and the people who were tightly wound into his life – or as tightly as anyone could be.
Doc watched Lily closely. ‘It’s not good, old thing,’ he told her. He wasn’t given to tiptoeing around. ‘There’s been a death in St Aldwyn’s. Obviously it should be appropriately investigated. But what I can’t believe is that they’ve already decided it’s a case for a serious crimes unit. Let’s get to the snug.’
They trooped through a passageway from the pub kitchen, past an expanded area where restaurant meals were prepared, and through a door into the restaurant. There were already diners seated but with Lily in the lead, the group hurried through an archway that would take them back to the bar but went into the snug instead. Lily retrieved an open and closed sign and hung it, closed side out, on a hook facing anyone who might approach.
The instant the door was closed, Lily said, ‘Who is it?’
Tony caught his father’s eye. ‘No one from around here,’ Doc said. ‘It’ll all be in the open soon enough.’
Lily considered that for a moment, then nodded. She was not a woman to press for information. ‘You’ll want some lunch?’
‘There’s no hurry.’ Tony wasn’t hungry and he doubted the others were too interested in food.
‘I’ll go round and get you some sandwiches in case you find you do want something,’ Lily said. ‘You might feel like a shot of something?’
‘Just coffee, please,’ Alex said.
‘Make that for three,’ Doc said and Tony smiled a little. His father was accustomed to taking charge and making decisions.
Lily left and the three of them sat silently at a round oak table. Alex inclined her head to look at the tapestry cushions on captains’ chairs. They needed a good cleaning or replacing.
The door opened and rather than O’Reilly and Lamb, Hugh Rhys who managed the Black Dog for Alex came in. A rangy, muscular man, good-looking and dark-haired with the well-dressed confident air of a country gentleman about him, he stayed on his feet, repeatedly running a hand through curly ha
ir in an uncharacteristically concerned manner.
All eyes were on him but he seemed reluctant to say anything. Despite his Welsh name, he wasn’t Welsh, something he’d never explained – if it needed an explanation.
‘Is it true?’ he said finally, pausing with his feet braced apart. He hitched back his tweed jacket and anchored his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘Did something happen to one of them from Green Friday?’
Tony let out a long breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. ‘Of course, that’s your place. You’ve got tenants for the summer.’
Several months earlier, unbeknownst to any of them, Hugh had quietly bought Green Friday, an impressive estate left empty by a dwindling old family for years before it went on the market. Where Hugh got the money for such a purchase was the latest source of local speculation. The village became aware of the acquisition when Hugh started hiring contractors to deal with renovations and the supposed cost of what he was doing got larger and more outrageous by the day.
‘Hugh,’ Alex said. ‘You’re making me nervous. Sit down, will you?’
He dragged up a chair, turned it backward to the table and sat astride. ‘Right, I’m sitting, boss.’
Known for being unshakably polite, this didn’t sound like the Hugh they had come to like so much.
‘O’Reilly’s coming over to talk to us shortly,’ Tony said. Hugh puzzled him, most of all because he chose to work as a pub manager. A darn good one, but still.
‘What’s happened?’ Hugh asked. ‘How come you three are involved?’
‘I was unfortunate enough to find a body,’ Alex said softly. ‘I wish I hadn’t.’
Yet again Hugh raked at his hair. ‘I told them this was a good place to spend a summer,’ he said. ‘I should have known better.’
In the long pause that followed, Tony studied Hugh, a man he’d always liked. His reaction to a shocking death was way off. Did he really care more about whether his tenants would connect him to a tragedy he couldn’t have predicted?
Melody of Murder Page 4
