A fresh battery of barking broke Alex’s concentration and she raised her face to see the man and the child walking toward her.
A tight black turtleneck accentuated his slenderness and as he drew closer, straight dark hair, black-framed glasses and a pallor that suggested he rarely saw daylight, to say nothing of sun, gave an impression of artistic affectation. Alex glanced at the beautiful child in her expensive red raw silk dress and a black angora bolero – more suited to a party than a playground – and filed the twosome away under ‘foreign’, possibly French and quite likely Parisian.
‘Hello,’ the man said. Nothing remotely French there. ‘Thought we should introduce ourselves since we’ve invaded your peaceful territory. I’m Sebastian Carstens and this is my daughter, Daisy.’
Alex was taken aback at the approach – at any direct approach from a stranger. ‘Hello,’ she said, tentatively.
‘I’m six and we live with Elyan and his family,’ the child said seriously. Her eyes were the same green as her father’s. ‘Daddy’s a pianist, too.’
Sebastian Carstens laughed. It was clear that his daughter delighted him. ‘I have the honor of being Elyan Quillam’s teacher. Not at all the same thing, I assure you.’
Alex offered her hand and he shook it firmly. ‘Alex Duggins,’ she said. ‘The Black Dog is my place. I’m playing truant. Too nice a day to waste it all.’
‘Yes,’ the man responded vaguely, his eyes trained above her head as if he had already moved on from his greeting.
Alex wondered if they made a habit of talking to strangers as if they should automatically know who Elyan was, and possibly be impressed. But perhaps that wasn’t fair since it had been the little girl who made the personal announcement.
Daisy was very like him; the same slender face – almost too slender for a six-year-old. She was a lovely, feminine version of her handsome father except that there was nothing of his sharp focus in her.
‘You own the pub?’ he said, as if such a thing were amazing and inappropriate. ‘Strange for a woman.’ He didn’t sound rude, just puzzled.
She almost told him she was also an artist, but why should she feel she needed to justify herself? ‘I like it. I never know what a new day will bring. It’s perfect for someone who enjoys people.’
‘And do you … enjoy people?’ Once again she got the impression he was trying on a new idea.
Alex laughed. She picked up Bogie and sat him on her lap. ‘Bogie loves people, too,’ she said, looking at Daisy. ‘Would you like to stroke him?’
The girl looked at her father, who nodded but managed a slight shrug at the same time. Daisy came to stand beside Alex and lifted a hand to hover over Bogie’s head.
‘Do you have a dog?’ Alex said.
Daisy shook her head, no.
‘He likes it if you scratch his head between his ears.’
Bogie turned his head to regard the child who put her hands on her knees, bending a little to stare closely into the dog’s face. She made a humming sound.
‘He won’t bite?’ her father said, quietly but with tight anxiety.
Alex shook her head, no, and smiled at him.
‘Bogie,’ Daisy said in a high voice. ‘Good dog, Bogie.’ She rubbed between his ears and rested her cheek there, crooning to him.
Alex could feel her dog give great sighs and she couldn’t help grinning. ‘A natural dog lover,’ she said. ‘I was just like this with animals at her age. My mother had to take cats back to their owners when I borrowed them.’
Daisy’s dark ringlets were soft and shiny, loose, and there were tiny curls at her hairline. Alex swallowed and pressed her lips together. This girl reminded her of the one she saw in her dreams, in her imagination. She touched Daisy’s head lightly.
‘May I sit with you?’ Sebastian asked.
She drew her hand back. ‘Of course.’ A nasty sensation crawled up her back. A familiar sensation from other moments when she’d had a premonition of something unpleasant lying in wait for her. Was this an opportunity for her to learn more about the Quillams, or a potential trap? She couldn’t risk saying the wrong – or incriminating – thing. What could they possibly have to say to each other?
‘Go and play on the swings, Daisy,’ he said. ‘Stay off the other things. You might get hurt. And just rock on the swing, please.’
An overprotective parent, and he had something to say that was not for the child’s ears.
Daisy walked away obediently but looked back frequently, more interested in Bogie and what the adults might be about to say than ‘rocking’ on the swings.
‘You’re Alex Duggins?’ Sebastian said, flicking a gaze at her from behind his glasses. There was nothing soft in those eyes. ‘From the church – the one where Laura died?’
Swallowing, Alex held Bogie tighter.
‘That was you?’ Sebastian Carstens prompted, leaning toward her. He was rigid and his left hand made a fist on the table. ‘Wasn’t it?’ This time he was sharp and demanding.
‘But how do you know this is me? There’s no name mentioned here.’ She tapped the paper and folded it, in half, and in half again, using the time to think. He didn’t pose any threat, at least not while his daughter was with him, but for an instant she’d thought he might like to strike her. His mouth was still pressed together in a straight line, the lips pale.
‘Elyan knows who you are. We all do now.’
‘Yes, of course. I’m not from St Aldwyn’s, as you put it. I was in the churchyard and decided to go into the church.’ She owed him no explanations.
‘And decided to find Laura’s body?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ What an outrageous question. ‘I found her but that was the last thing I wanted to do. It’s a terrible thing.’
‘Terrible,’ he said with a one-sided smile. ‘We all love – loved, Laura. She was a gentle soul. Daisy loves – yes, still loves her to distraction. I think Laura’s the closest she’s come to a caring mother figure. She doesn’t know what happened yet. I don’t want it mentioned in front of her until I think she can handle the shock.’
Once again he was imperious. Alex had no doubt she was getting an order but she didn’t respond.
‘The police kept you together at the rectory afterwards, didn’t they? You and your boyfriend? Elyan and the doctor?’ Without any change in his expression, he managed to sound condescending, or insolent.
‘I can’t discuss any details with you,’ Alex said. She couldn’t understand his manner or the way he was approaching her.
‘Sorry to be pushy but it’s all in the family. We need explanations. We need to know what happened.’
‘I don’t know what happened.’ She kept Bogie on her lap and knew she drew comfort from him. Daisy’s presence on the swing was a relief although why Sebastian would seem threatening to her, Alex couldn’t decide.
‘You know what I mean. Tell me everything that happened. Why did you decide to go into the church?’
‘Because …’ No! This sneak attack was an attempt to catch her enough off guard so that she treated him like some sort of official. She started to get up. ‘No, Mr Carstens, is it?’
‘Sebastian. Everyone calls me Sebastian.’
She doubted that were true. ‘I’ve been instructed not to discuss anything about this case. Perhaps the police would answer your questions. Come on, Bogie.’ She put him back in her bicycle basket with her few purchases tucked in around him. He didn’t look pleased. ‘I must get to work. Goodbye.’
‘I’ll hope to see you again soon,’ he said.
Not if I can help it.
For the briefest instant she thought the glitter in his eyes looked moist. He pressed his lips together.
He stood also and while she buckled on her helmet, watched her face intently. If he was expecting to find some revealing answers there, he must be disappointed.
The weight of Bogie and the groceries in the basket made the bike more difficult to balance but Alex concentrated and started walking towar
d the gates.
Partway there she paused and looked behind her. Sebastian stood with his back to her, hands in his pocket, watching Daisy.
She raised her shoulders. A coldness tightened her skin and she took a quick inward breath through her teeth. Sebastian was a very slim man, but he was tall, or tall enough, and dark. When he started walking away, walking toward Daisy, Alex watched him, tightening her grip on the bicycle handlebars.
Seeing bogeymen wherever she looked would have to stop. But there was something familiar about the way he walked.
TWELVE
Maud Meeker had the unsettling thought that this house she so hated would be better named Black Friday than Green Friday, and until she got out of the place, for good, every day would be Black Friday.
The kitchen was more than adequate. The owner had spared nothing in his renovations, not that she knew exactly what it had looked like before, but everything had been gutted and designed afresh, very expensively designed.
Modern black sculptures, strategically positioned where, she assumed, they were never supposed to be other than a delightful diversion, got in the way and had no place in any kitchen she had to use. Walls completely tiled with silver tinted glass behaved like distorted mirrors when she moved around and she saw herself from the corner of her eye but faded away when she looked directly at the walls. Stainless steel countertops reminded her of a mortuary, her imagined picture of a mortuary.
Every cabinet had a glass front etched with grassy scenes that continued from one to another. Wheat blowing in the wind, the stalks on one door, the tassels bending toward and sometimes onto the next one. Maize dotted with floating dandelion puffs that plumed like a child’s soap bubbles, shooting into the imagined sky above. The gnarled branches of an old apple tree spread from the joint of two corner cabinets.
Maud tried not to look. It could probably win design awards, such things often did, but not in her book. Dark green Scandinavian appliances jarred the senses, but although the Aga cooker matched in color, it alone was enough to make her smile and forgive most of the rest.
At the sound of hammering, almost running footsteps on the polished blond wood floors outside the door, Maud winced. She looked around for an escape route but it was already too late. Wells Giglio of the distinctive walk, and equally distinctive orange suede shoes, pushed his way into the room. His expression remained as soulful and bereft as it had been since, in her dressing gown, she had let him into the house at an ungodly hour that morning. The sight of Wells on the threshold today – before Maud had even had time to shower – had been unbearable.
All this Latin melodrama exhausted her.
‘It’s the middle of the afternoon and they still haven’t come back!’ Wells spoke in statements delivered as exclamations. His thick, reddish hair, parted in the center, waved artfully to his ears. Maud knew he was considered good-looking although she couldn’t see it herself. These men who struck meaningful poses and demanded center stage made her impatient. An angular face, full, too soft mouth, and dramatically arched eyebrows apparently appealed to women. He always had a female in tow, or he had until … She had to stop shying away from details she’d rather forget. Once Wells had decided to pursue Laura, secretly, of course, but not secretly enough for Maud not to know about it, well, then he had given up his bevy of followers. He’d kept them away from the Quillams anyway.
When enough time had passed to make it obvious she didn’t intend to reply, he said, ‘They went to find out about the post-mortem.’ A choking sound momentarily cut him off.
‘The police asked them to,’ Maud Meeker said. ‘It was unexpected, I think – or perhaps not if we’d thought about it.’
She clenched her hands thinking of impersonal people poking at Laura, but waited in silence. Further outbursts would come without prompting.
Tears hung along Wells’s lower lashes. ‘They shouldn’t have let them do it.’
Wordlessly, Maud dropped a capsule into the coffee maker and positioned a cup.
‘It’s awful,’ Wells said. ‘How could they allow them to cut her up like that?’
Questions, even pointless ones, needed answers. ‘If you’re talking about Laura, it has to be done, so I’m told.’ She wanted him to go away.
‘Of course, I’m talking about Laura.’ As often happened, he’d moved on to almost shouting.
Maud watched coffee pour into the cup and said, ‘Cream?’
‘Whisky.’
She didn’t mention that he hadn’t had lunch and put a bottle on the counter beside his cup. ‘It’s raining,’ she remarked, while he all but doubled the quantity in his cup with liquor.
‘Bloody rain,’ Wells said, glancing at the windows. ‘Look at that. I was going in the pool. Don’t like to swim in the rain. It could thunder. Dear Laura. I miss her already. Oh, my god, what shall I do without her? My one true confidante. The only one I could trust with the truth from my heart. She was my heart.’
‘She’ll be missed by a lot of people,’ Maud said. She made coffee for herself, then dithered. She would like to take it to the peace of her room but feared Wells might trail after her.
‘Sit with me, Mrs M,’ Wells said, sliding onto a stool at the counter. ‘I can’t bear to be alone. I didn’t hear the piano. Why isn’t Elyan at the piano practicing?’
‘He’s probably out meeting Annie.’ And it wasn’t his business or hers, although she liked Annie and thought she was good for Elyan.
‘Annie? The accountant’s daughter?’ No one sneered quite like Wells. ‘Hardly a suitable time for her to be hanging around. What do you think the police are looking for?’
‘Looking for?’ Awkwardly, she negotiated her way onto another stool and sat with her hands cradling her cup.
‘Opening her up like that. She had a heart condition. It wouldn’t take slashing her from stem to stern and yanking everything out to decide that.’
Maud pushed her coffee back and forth, watching it come close to slopping over. ‘Who went to find out about the examination?’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘Who did you mean?’
‘Percy, of course. And I assume Sebastian since he isn’t here. I didn’t go.’
‘No.’
‘Can’t stand that sort of thing.’
‘I don’t think they would be at the post-mortem.’ She wished he would leave. Now.
‘But they’ll be asked if they want to see her again and my nerves just won’t take it. My darling girl dead. When I was here the other day, she was full of life. Full of life. She seemed very well – better than I’ve seen her in ages. Excited even.’
So now Wells was calling Laura his darling girl. From what Laura had said to Maud, and she told Maud everything, she found Wells cloying if fairly well-meaning. There were other things Maud did know, the secrets Laura confided in her. It wasn’t always a good thing to share information that could hurt you, or give others power over you.
‘Are you sure they haven’t called you to say what’s been decided?’ Wells asked, leaning closer. ‘You’re very trustworthy, Mrs M. and I’m sure you pride yourself on that, but I was special to Laura, too. She’d want me to know what’s going on.’
Maud moved a plate of croissants toward him, and a delicate flowered pot of apricot jam and wispy butter curls heaped on a double rectangular dish with ice cubes in the bottom half.
‘What did Percy and Sebastian say to you before they left?’ Maud asked.
She got a look that suggested Wells questioned her intelligence. ‘How would I have talked to them? They left while I was lying down after my shower. I left town so damned early, I was exhausted. It didn’t help to have Daisy galloping in like that, but a sweetie and money for another of those wretched rubber band kits she loves and she was dispatched.’
‘Why do you think they went to the post-mortem?’
He frowned and looked toward the rain-drenched windows. ‘There was a post-mortem planned. I don’t know who said it, but someone did. Perhaps it was Percy. Anyway, they’ve bot
h gone.’
She didn’t consider it his affair that since Daisy was also gone, and Sebastian’s car, he must have taken his daughter somewhere. As a surprise, of course. Sebastian was always designing surprises for Daisy. Sebastian was unlikely to take Daisy anywhere near a mortuary.
‘I just knew I had to come back down today, you know. Even though there isn’t a thing I can say about what happened. I decided I needed to be here in case the police want to speak with me, although I can’t imagine why they would. I wouldn’t want them to think I was avoiding them.’
He was talking aloud to himself.
Regarding him through narrowed eyes, Maud felt the potential of something slipping into place. Perhaps Wells and Laura had been closer than she thought. Surely Laura hadn’t made the mistake of confiding a dangerous detail in Wells.
Maud had been with Laura’s mother, Audrey, since before she married Percy in what Maud considered a self-destructive move. When Audrey fell under Percy Quillam’s thrall she had been a talented young soprano with a bright future. Percy had taken that from her. Unlike some, Maud was no fool. She knew Percy’s so-called adoration of Audrey would never have bloomed had she not been an heiress.
The betrayal of Audrey with Sonia – and few, least of all Maud were fooled that it was otherwise – had started a simmering disgust she kept at bay because she considered it her responsibility to watch and wait, to make sure justice was eventually served. Despite the recent dramatic events, she intended to fulfill what she considered her duty.
‘Sonia’s a bit of a bitch,’ Wells announced abruptly. ‘She must be thrilled.’
The croissants had sat on the counter too long but Maud made a show of nibbling thoughtfully at one.
‘I mean, there’s never enough lovely money for that one and now there will be a fresh windfall into the Quillam coffers.’
Melody of Murder Page 10
