‘What do you mean?’ Maud gave him a blank look.
‘Come on, Maud. You know. Laura’s trust will happily nestle back in with the rest of what Audrey left to Percy. And it could be that the loving papa has been too free and easy with money for too long. I think he’s been worried about money. Why else does he want Elyan booked for everything and anything that comes along. The boy shouldn’t be overexposed. He’s too young.’
‘I wouldn’t know about any of that.’
‘Hah, I bet you know all about everything, Maud. People talk to you.’
Like you?
‘Of course, you know who’ll be the most relieved.’
She didn’t like the way her stomach was starting to feel. She shook her head, no.
‘After Sonia, it would have to be Sebastian. If everything fell apart he’d be nowhere. He wants his cushy situation to continue. There could never be anything quite like it again. Family for Daisy. Privilege. Oh, yes, it will suit his master plan that Percy turns the money spigot on full again. Although …’ He frowned deeply and poured whisky into his cup without bothering with coffee this time. After a mouthful he said distantly, ‘Of course that could have been what he was really after, the bastard.’
THIRTEEN
Summer rain always lifted Tony’s spirits. He grinned, pulling the hood of his Barbour back up and holding onto it. Wind drove the rain – and his hood if he tried to release it. Everything dripped.
Katie didn’t like rain at any time of year so it was a good thing she didn’t belong to a hunter. Rather than run ahead as she usually did, when it rained she did her best to use Tony as a shield. This evening she managed to trot behind his left heel without too many collisions.
The front car park at the Black Dog looked full and more vehicles were pulled in along the hedgerows and drystone walls. Colored lights along the rooflines shone through misty haloes. In the forecourt, benches had been tipped upside down on top of the tables.
He pushed open the door to the bar and Katie rushed past him. She disappeared in the direction of the fireplace where the Burke sisters were already ensconced at their table. One-eyed orange Max had graduated to Mary’s lap where he curled up, apparently oblivious to humans and animals alike.
Live music probably accounted for the crowd. Tony shrugged out of his coat and shook it vigorously. Piano. Jazz. He recognized Bayou something and a distinctly Oscar Peterson sound that brought a broad smile. Almost no conversation interfered with this performance. Whoever Alex had hired was incredibly good, not that she enjoyed jazz so much.
Alex wasn’t behind the bar, or circulating among the customers.
The piano stood in what was known as the up-room because it was one step up from the rest of the bar and used primarily by people who wanted a little quieter spot to eat their bar food and talk. Someone had pulled the old upright from its usual spot against a wall and moved it to a more visible spot.
Tony paused, letting his arm fall so the coat trailed on the floor. The jazzman was Elyan Quillam who bowed over the keyboard in a very non concert-like pose.
‘I wonder if they all know who they’re listening to,’ Juste Vidal whispered close to Tony’s ear. ‘Would his papa approve, do you think?’
Tony heard a smile in the man’s very French accented English and looked at him, raising a palm. ‘How did this happen? His father would be furious, I should think.’ He grinned. ‘Who is the young lady with him?’
The girl had long, auburn hair and she was lovely in a wholesome way.
‘Her name is Annie,’ Juste said. ‘His girlfriend, I think. I wish he would play all night.’
This theology student studying in Cheltenham to be a minister frequently made unexpected comments. ‘So do I,’ Tony said. ‘Have you seen Alex?’
‘She went through to the back a little earlier.’
‘Okay.’ Rather than walk between pianist and his audience, he would go back outside and use the door into the kitchens from the back car park. ‘Any sign of O’Reilly and Lamb?’ He hoped not.
‘Mmm, no. Perhaps they find no reason to come back.’
‘From your lips to God’s ears,’ Tony said and gave another, broader grin. ‘Well, you do have a closer connection than most of us.’
Chuckling and shaking his head as he went, Juste threaded a path between tables to reach the bar.
They were all listening to a virtuoso, a man scarcely past boyhood with a prodigious talent that was not constrained. He played his jazz with absolute assurance and his love for the form made it, and him, magical. Yet he was known to the world for his classical concerts and would, so Tony’s father had told him, also be famous for his own compositions, or so it was expected by those with inside knowledge.
Finding Alex felt even more pressing. She had yet to fully explain her reasons for suspecting Elyan of sneaking around the rectory, although Tony doubted she could look at him tonight and hold onto any doubts.
He retraced his steps, pulling on his coat by the time he opened the front door to a ferocious battering of wind and rain. The night was a wild and wonderful one.
Staying close to the building, Tony walked carefully, watching the ground beneath his feet with the aid of ground lights. The path was reduced to mush, clumps of grass surrounded by welling water.
By the time he reached the back of the building, he was moving very slowly and wishing he wore boots.
‘You made me a promise. I told you coming to Folly wasn’t a great idea, but you insisted. Now you have to stick to your side of the bargain and leave me out of anything to do with your issues.’
The familiar voice, Hugh Rhys’s, came from nearby, probably where an overhang shielded the back path from rain for customers. Tony flattened himself to the wall and looked behind him. He needed to retreat, and absolutely quietly.
‘That’s not what you used to say, Hugh. We wanted each other and you would have done anything for us to be together. All I’m asking for is a little of your time, a little comfort. I still love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I’m lonely and I’m afraid.’
A stranger’s voice this time, a woman struggling not to cry. A desperate woman.
The last thing Tony wanted was to embarrass anyone with his presence.
‘I should never have leased Green Friday to you.’
‘Don’t be like this, Hugh.’ Not a stranger’s voice, Tony realized. This was Sonia Quillam. And this was the first tiny window into the man’s past. Alex treasured Hugh’s easy and efficient management of the pub, but she wondered, as Tony did, why Hugh had chosen to bury himself in Folly. He never spoke of family or friends but obviously had considerable means. And he liked his job, that much was obvious.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sonia said. ‘I won’t give away anything about us.’
‘There hasn’t been an “us” for a very long time. That was your choice and you made sure there could never be any turning back of the clock. I don’t want to think of you being afraid, but I don’t see there’s any threat to you, Sonia. Your cozy world – and you chose it – is a bit upset and nasty for now. I’m sad for your loss, but why should it make you afraid? From the look of young Elyan, he’s coping and he loves that girl in there. The poor dead one’s been sick most of her life, I hear. It could have been expected. It’ll all settle down, you’ll see.’
Tony knew he should move, regardless of any sound he might make. He turned around.
‘I’m not safe,’ Sonia said. ‘Something awful could happen to me.’
‘Meaning what? Are you terrified of your own death, now? We all die.’
‘Of course we do and it might be a blessing if it came for me now. It might be easier than have them come after me and everything that could mean. I can’t be shut away.’
‘Who would come after you?’ Hugh was silent for moments. ‘You can’t mean the police.’
‘I could become a suspect. They could say I had reasons to want Laura dead.’
Grateful for the sound of rain beating on wi
ndows, Tony took long, hurried strides through the mud and didn’t stop until he had passed the front of the Dog and reached the inn and restaurant entrance.
He should have thought to get to the kitchens via the restaurant in the first place.
The place was deserted on this side but Elyan still played in the bar and the music filled the building.
‘Tony?’ Lily came briskly down the stairs. ‘Is everything all right?’
He raised his brows. What he’d overheard wouldn’t be repeated – except to Alex – but he’d be a liar if he told Lily all was well. ‘It will be. I’m looking for Alex. Is she still in the kitchen? I don’t feel like going back into the bar to see if she’s there now.’
‘She went out to drive over and see you. In a hurry. She said you were working late at the clinic.’
‘Blast it. And I walked over. I’d better call her.’
‘I’m here.’ Alex walked into the restaurant and came to stand a few feet from him. ‘I went out to get in my Range Rover, but it wasn’t a good time.’
He looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
Then he knew. He hadn’t been the only listener in the dark.
‘We can talk about it later,’ Alex said. ‘I was coming to tell you the reprieve is over. O’Reilly and Lamb are upstairs. They came back a little while ago and took rooms. I think we know what that means.’
FOURTEEN
‘This won’t be any simple case,’ Dan O’Reilly said, stifling a yawn. The night hadn’t been long enough. ‘And the boss isn’t amused. He’s convinced we’re missing something in this village. Says it’ll be his neck on this one.’ Dan sat on the edge of his bed while Bill took the one small, easy chair in the room. Through the mullioned window there was a view across the village green and the pond to the hillside beyond. He had opened one window, thinking some fresh air would help him wake up, but he hadn’t expected the stream of cool wind that tossed the flowery curtains. Beyond the green rose the hill where a bizarre crime had first brought him to Folly. The place flooded him with an unsettling mix of emotions he’d rather not study too closely.
Up on that hill, in the shallow valley they called The Dimple, was Alex’s house, Lime Tree Lodge, and he wondered if she still lived there when she wasn’t staying at her pub … and if she lived there alone. Or at Tony Harrison’s house.
‘Did you hear what I said, guv?’ Bill said.
He hadn’t and shook his head, no.
‘I asked if the boss thinks we haven’t had plenty of the same thoughts he’s had about this place – and what goes on here?’ Bill said. ‘Here we are again. Same place, different day – another dead body. But we both know the common denominators.’
The rain had stopped. Keeping company with the wind, early-morning sunshine cut a path into the room. They would have a heavy work day and had agreed to meet here for a quiet chat before breakfast. Dan was hungry now and smells of fresh brewed coffee and sizzling bacon made him salivate. ‘Let’s eat. With luck Alex is in and we can start our interviews with her. Works best with her to keep the approach casual. I’ll invite her to join us for breakfast.’
Bill stood and checked the knot on his tie. ‘You treat her with kid gloves. I think you’d be better off if you never had to deal with her again. You’re not objective around Alex Duggins.’
There was a lot Dan would take from Bill Lamb because the man had a good and useful mind, but sometimes he went too far.
‘Twaddle,’ he said, but he didn’t laugh. ‘Keep your attention on the case – and giving me the support I need. When I need my head examined, I’ll see a shrink. And you can add our necks to the boss’s if we don’t get the right result.’
‘We got results in the other Folly cases,’ Bill said, shrugging into his jacket.
‘We did. But whether we like it or not, little jugs have big ears and you can bet every misstep we took is known to the wrong people.’
‘Is that why you got the promotion to chief, guv? Because we didn’t get results.’
Dan got up and opened the door. ‘I don’t believe in selective amnesia. And you won’t like hearing me say this. We had help.’
Why hadn’t she agreed to Tony’s suggestion and gone home with him last night. Out there in the car park, in the rain, a bomb had landed in their laps. But she had wanted to think it all through before jumping in with any decisions. They had a digging job to do and she wasn’t ready for what they might turn up. She had decided, but was possibly wrong, that she and Tony needed to work through what they had heard, each on their own.
Alex set a pile of plates firmly on the kitchen pass-through to the bar.
‘Breakfast in the snug,’ Lily said, and she wasn’t smiling. ‘Sounds anything but cozy to me. Good luck and be careful.’
‘Careful?’ She heard a crack in her voice. ‘Why?’
‘Lamb’s the one you have to watch. He’s good at tying you up in knots and you don’t want to give him any ideas.’
‘About what?’ Alex stared at her mother, puzzled, but Lily only shrugged. ‘Come on, Mum. If there’s something I’m missing, tell me about it.’
‘Just the obvious, really. You’ve heard him mention how you’ve been showing up at murder scenes. When he says that, what does it mean to you?’
‘He’s trying to stir things up, we both know that. And we don’t know if this is another murder. Not for sure.’
‘Don’t we?’ Lily’s expression made her meaning clear.
‘Have they been served breakfast yet?’
‘No. Almost ready.’
Alex gave Lily’s arm a squeeze. ‘Thanks for caring so much, Mum. I’ll just have toast.’
Alex went directly to the snug where O’Reilly and Lamb were waiting for her. They already had coffee. A pot and an empty mug stood ready for her.
‘Morning,’ Dan said, smiling.
He was an appealing man. ‘Good morning,’ Alex said. She could never quite get rid of her curiosity about him but doubted she was likely to get any revelations.
‘Good morning,’ Bill Lamb said. ‘We have questions for you – in light of recent discoveries. I know this is convenient to you – meeting here – but if you think you’d prefer to talk away from your place of business, just say the word.’
He gave her one of his pale blue-eyed, unblinking stares and her stomach flipped. Dan shifted abruptly in his seat. His expression had become serious.
‘This is good for me,’ she said and cleared her throat.
‘You don’t need a solicitor present. This is informal. But if you do want one and you can’t afford—’
‘I can afford one and I don’t need her, thanks. Unless you’re going to charge me with something – like breathing.’ Damn, already she was letting him get to her.
‘I’ll ignore that,’ Bill said, but a corner of Dan’s mouth tweaked up.
‘Did you give in your breakfast order?’ She just needed something to say. She’d been unsettled since she’d been asked to come here, now she was jumpy. And she was being silly. Pull yourself together, Alex.
‘We’ve dealt with that,’ Bill said. ‘Let’s get on with this. You know the drill – a bit too well, I should think. We’ll start from the beginning, the very beginning, but first I’ve got a few other loose ends to tie up with you.’
She couldn’t help a glance at Dan who kept his eyes on his coffee.
‘Of course.’ She reached for the pot and poured a full mug for herself. ‘Fire away.’ Careful to keep her hand steady, she added cream.
‘When did you first find out the Quillam family would be coming to Folly-on-Weir?’
‘I didn’t, I mean I heard about them when they got here. My manager, Hugh Rhys, owns Green Friday and he leased the place to them.’
‘We know that. It isn’t what I asked you.’
She brought her back teeth together. ‘Yes. But I did answer your question.’
‘Hugh Rhys didn’t run the idea past you ahead of time?’
Alex made herself wait a few seconds before saying, ‘Why should he? It’s none of my business.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay with us doing this here, Ms Duggins?’
He wanted to get her on edge. Well, she’d do her best to disappoint him. ‘Do you have the parish hall set up already?’ That’s what the police had arranged the two previous times a case had brought them here.
‘No,’ Bill Lamb said, ‘but we can take you into Cheltenham till we do get that – or somewhere else – set up in the village.’
‘I appreciate how considerate you are. But we’re fine here. This is a very quiet time of day for us. Is this because you’ve decided Laura was murdered?’
Bill Lamb glanced at his boss. ‘You don’t have to think about that,’ he said.
He must have picked up some message from Dan since he turned back and asked, less aggressively, ‘How did you come to be in the church on the morning Laura Quillam died?’
‘I’d gone to the churchyard, and I—’
‘That’s not what I asked you—’
‘You asked why I was in the church. It was because I was in the churchyard and heard singing and the piano. It was wonderful. Blues. It was Laura. She was fabulous. When she stopped singing, I was disappointed.’
Lamb drummed his fingers on the table.
A knock at the door broke the moment. ‘Okay if I serve breakfast?’ Lily answered Bill’s bellow to ‘come in’. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
‘No problem, Mum,’ Alex said, darned if Bill Lamb would trample even the simplest civility. ‘Thanks. Just put the tray down and I’ll do the rest.’
Lily slid the tray on the table, catching Alex’s eye as she straightened. Always sensitive, her mother had caught the atmosphere and was anxious.
‘Thank you very much,’ Dan said, smiling.
Lily took the breakfast plates off the tray herself and left without another word, but not without leaving an orange cat, who slipped into the snug without her noticing him.
Bill raised a hand as if to protest to Lily, but Alex scooped up Max and deposited him on her lap. ‘Hey, boy,’ she said, and to the detectives, ‘don’t worry about him. He’s becoming a fixture. Not usually on his own or so early in the day, though, so I’ll keep him in here till I find out if Harriet and Mary know where he is. He may have got out of their cottage.’
Melody of Murder Page 11
