Melody of Murder

by Stella Cameron

  ‘You shouldn’t be eating at this time of night,’ she told him, but found a few pieces of cooked chicken she’d saved for him.

  A key turned in the front door to the inn. It opened, closed and footsteps started across the restaurant toward the stairs, then stopped.

  She straightened. The detectives had come back and they’d seen light shining from the kitchen. If she stood still they might carry on upstairs without checking. It wasn’t unusual for a light to be on here and there in the building.

  But would they tell her anything if she asked a direct question or two?

  Footsteps went upstairs, but only one pair.

  Dan appeared from the bar. ‘I was afraid I’d shock you,’ he said.

  ‘No. I heard you come in. You must be worn out. May I get you something?’

  ‘No, I just need sleep.’

  So why had he come back there?

  ‘Bogie’s looking pretty good,’ he said, crossing his arms and leaning against a counter. ‘I’m glad he’s bouncing back. We haven’t had any luck tracing who caused the accident. There must be two Range Rovers for every household around here.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Did you see the press conference earlier?’

  ‘Of course. I think everyone in the village did.’

  He stared at her until she looked away. ‘Aren’t you going to ask the big question?’

  ‘Nope. You wouldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘Not much. But you’ll find out it was Wells Giglio we took in.’

  She thought about that. So Wells was definitely somewhere in the frame. ‘You said you were arresting someone.’

  ‘He’s been taken in.’

  Her legs felt rubbery.

  ‘He knows more than he should but he doesn’t know everything we know about him. I don’t think he ever thought he’d be taken into custody, but he set himself up.’

  ‘How?’

  Dan shook his head. ‘I couldn’t tell you that.’

  ‘Not till you’ve got the test results on Mrs Meeker? But I’d make a bet he likes to make anonymous phone calls.’

  ‘You’re too quick for your own good. If there’s some brandy you can get to easily, I wouldn’t say no. If you join me in a drop.’

  Alex considered that. Why not? Perhaps she’d shake something loose. ‘Of course. Let’s sit in the up-room – it’s comfortable.’

  He waited until she led the way with a glass in each hand and slid into one of the high-backed banquettes.

  ‘What do you think of Wells?’ he said, after taking his first swallow from a snifter. ‘Any idea what he wants? I mean here, with the Quillam family.’

  ‘To bask in reflected glory,’ she told him, without meaning to. ‘That’s not kind. He may have been in love with Laura, in which case, he’s grieving and that’s a personal journey.’

  ‘How close was he to Mrs Meeker?’

  Alex pursed her lips. He was searching for something. ‘I don’t really know. The only comment he made about her that I found odd was that she knew everything about everyone. I never heard that they didn’t get along. Anyway, he was in no condition to do whatever happened to her last night.’

  Dan took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He was an appealing man and she hadn’t missed the interested signals he sent her way.

  He raised his eyes to hers. ‘What I’m going to say is for you and only you. You’ve got a mind I need, a mind to help me through the undergrowth of the way people behave – and why. What if I said I didn’t think Wells was too drunk to do mischief last night?’

  The prickles didn’t come so often now, but that sent a charge up her spine and into her scalp. ‘I saw him, Dan. When he came back he was paralytic. Sonia had to help him into Green Friday.’

  ‘Sonia?’ He swirled his brandy and watched the gold fire twirl.

  ‘Mmm. She helped him get into the sitting room. He all but fell into the house. He’d been sneaking off to drink in a bathroom all night. I don’t know why he didn’t put his car up a tree when he drove down here.’

  He gave a lopsided smile. ‘Because he wasn’t really as drunk as we were all supposed to believe?’

  Alex spread her hands. ‘I don’t know. I have no way of knowing that. I do know what I saw.’

  ‘He had a blood test.’

  She frowned. ‘When?’

  ‘After he got back to Green Friday. He did a helluva job staying in character. You’d have thought he didn’t know what was happening. Said, yes, when we asked and there you have it.’

  ‘And.’

  ‘His blood alcohol level was elevated, but not nearly as much as he wanted us to believe. From one report, he was seen in the Dog car park tipping up a bottle, but he didn’t look smashed. His readings showed he’d had a few – a couple too many – but nothing like he wanted us to think.’

  Alex lifted her glass to the light. ‘Why would he do that?’ She sipped.

  ‘What do you think? Did he want us to think he was too shattered to do anything to Mrs Meeker?’

  Alex put her elbows on the table. ‘Did Mrs Meeker take those pills willingly?’

  He shook his head. ‘If this comes out, I’ll know who let the cat out. In Laura’s case the drug was liquid mixed with a strong liquor. We expect to get a similar result from Mrs Meeker. But it looks as if Laura drank the stuff either all on her own, or at least willingly. We have learned she enjoyed her gin and lime, or whatever. Mrs Meeker has bruises where she was probably held and forced.’

  Alex put a hand over her mouth.

  Dan took hold of her wrist. ‘You okay? I thought a long time about sharing anything with you but you seem to have an extra sense about some things.’

  She didn’t pull her arm away. His steady strength settled her jumping nerves. ‘I’m okay, thanks. Laura loved Mrs Meeker. They’d been around each other since Laura was born.’

  ‘There’s something off,’ Dan said. ‘It’s been off from the beginning. Something we’ve missed. We had help missing it, that I’m sure off.’

  ‘Do you think Wells did this?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. He could have – but I can’t imagine that. I only met him a couple of times and he didn’t seem the type.’ She felt horrible, giving opinions on someone else’s propensity for ultimate violence. ‘No, he couldn’t have.’

  Dan leaned across the table. He smiled, closing his eyes a little, and tapped her bottom lip with a forefinger. ‘Your problem is that you’re too nice.’

  ‘I’m not too nice.’ Not too nice to enjoy a little flirtation with a very appealing man. ‘But I have to be careful and fair.’ She sat far enough back for him not to be able to reach her. Tony deserved better than this. She wanted better than this for him.

  Dan drank more brandy. ‘It’s good. This is nice.’ The look in his eyes gave her no doubt that the comment had more than one meaning. ‘Wells went out of his way to make it look as if he was leaving the room to go to the bathroom while he became – as far as anyone could tell – more and more plastered. I don’t yet have proof if he did anything untoward to Mrs Meeker, but I will. I already know there are no fingerprints on the digitalis bottle. A lime liquid designed for those who don’t take pills well. The bottle had been wiped clean. We don’t have a final on the glass. We do know Mrs Meeker has bruises on the back of her neck and on her left wrist. We believe she was left handed.’

  Alex digested that. ‘I see where you’re going but it doesn’t have to be neat like that.’

  ‘No it doesn’t, wouldn’t it be nice for people like us if it was always neat.’

  She didn’t miss the ‘us’. Did he think of her as a sort of partner? She got those prickles up her spine again.

  ‘Couldn’t it be that even if he planned everything the way you think he did, he had no intention of killing her? What if he was afraid of being implicated and he tried to make himself look innocent. He could be innocent and probably is.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘I’ve got to th
ink about this, Dan. A lot.’

  ‘And while you do, think about the other people in that house last night. There were definitely motives for getting rid of Mrs Meeker. But I don’t really know what they were.’

  ‘Money,’ she said, before thinking enough. ‘I mean, perhaps there could have been a money issue. Laura was to come into a lot of money when she was twenty-five, wasn’t she?’

  He gave her a genuine grin. ‘We’d make such a team, lady. You’re thinking straight along the lines I’m thinking. All we need are the individual motives, evidence of enough will to carry out murder for profit, and an eye into how it was pulled off.’

  ‘Which means you don’t think Wells did it.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ He kept on smiling. ‘We should both get some rest. Is Tony upstairs?’

  She went on alert. ‘He’ll be back when he’s taken care of his dog.’ Not an entire lie.

  ‘Good,’ he said, but his eyes didn’t echo the sentiment. ‘I’d better say goodnight, then.’

  Alex made to get up. ‘Elyan was here tonight, with Annie. He played the piano. Not for long, but it was lovely.’

  ‘Really?’ A speculative expression changed Dan. ‘I thought his father and Sebastian were going to nail his toes to the piano pedals and make him practice until he dropped. That was the impression I got before I left the house. That boy has a heavy weight on his shoulders. He’s their meal ticket.’

  ‘We see that in the same way,’ she told him. ‘I think Reverend Ivor threw Elyan a wobbler by offering him the choir piano. Elyan said he couldn’t stand being at Green Friday or around his father and Sebastian. He didn’t take Ivor up immediately, but I got the impression he would think about it.’

  ‘Bit macabre when his half-sister more or less died playing the thing.’

  ‘Yes, but Ivor said he’d had someone help him move the piano to the other side of the altar to make it easier on Elyan.’

  Dan fell back in his seat. ‘Fuck.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘You’re joking,’ Bill Lamb said, keeping his voice down. He sat across from Dan O’Reilly in the inn restaurant. They were the only ones already down for breakfast.

  ‘I bloody well am not,’ Dan said. ‘I’ve got to clean up my mouth.’ He wasn’t pleased with what he’d said in front of Alex the night before but the language went with the territory and he hadn’t asked her to involve herself, not in so many words.

  Damn, he was glad she had involved herself and he had to back away from that, or risk making a complete fool of himself.

  ‘So the damage is already done,’ Bill said. ‘Those cretins guarding the church have let the horse in.’

  Dan screwed up his face. ‘What horse, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Language, remember,’ said Bill, looking a bit smug. ‘Trojan horse, of course. While our lot pattered about outside like flaming idiots, they let someone give aid and comfort to the enemy. Just let them in. Amazing.’

  ‘Finish up,’ Dan said. ‘We’ve got to get over there. When does the shift change?’

  Bill checked his watch. ‘Any time now, I should think. It’ll be back to the day shift but I don’t know who’s in the rotation.’ He wolfed down the rest of an egg on tomato, on cheese, on toast and finished his large mug of coffee. ‘Ready when you are.’

  At once, Dan got up and walked out of the building without looking back.

  Bill drove Dan’s Lexus. Dan had never been an enthusiastic driver – cars were just a means of getting from place to place.

  ‘We’re going straight to the church?’ Bill asked.

  ‘Pull over,’ Dan said at once and they drew in to idle beneath a hawthorn tree in full red bloom that overhung a wall a short distance from the Black Dog. ‘Careful is the watchword. No broad statements. Pleasant manner, even comments and questions tentatively couched. Remember it would be natural to allow the reverend into his church. We can work out later if someone should have taken note of any minions he took in with him. I want to be casual and friendly. Stroll around inside. But keep your eyes and ears open. Any little remark could be important and anything that doesn’t look right could be the lead we’re waiting for. Anything.’

  ‘Got it, guv’nor.’

  Dan wasn’t sure what he thought of Bill’s attachment to calling him ‘guv’ or ‘guv’nor’ but had decided to take them as a form of respect, even if respect had never been Bill’s strong suit. He did know that Bill Lamb wanted to move up the ladder but it wasn’t happening for him. Dan wasn’t sure why.

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ Dan said and Bill put the Lexus in gear.

  Constable Frost, whom he hadn’t seen for some time, was at the main entrance to St Aldwyn’s. She looked fresh and competent – and confident.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ she said, and nodded to Bill. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Were you here yesterday?’ Dan asked. ‘Toward evening?’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  ‘Anyone go in or out of the church?’

  She frowned. ‘Not that I saw.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He and Bill walked around to the door nearest the area where the choir practiced. The door was taped from jamb to jamb but there was no officer present. Bill raised a brow when Dan looked at him.

  Wicks, looking scrubbed and on task, appeared from the back corner of the church. He started to greet them, but Dan cut him off. ‘Wicks, were you on yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, sir. A good part of the day.’

  ‘Are you doing some sort of patrol, man? Leaving one door to look at another?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But it doesn’t take me more than a few minutes to go between the two and we’re a man short.’

  ‘I see,’ Dan said, swallowing the bellow he’d like to give.

  Bill turned the stiff metal handle that opened the door, ducked under the crime tape and went inside.

  ‘Am I being too hard, Bill? Expecting these people to do as they’re told?’

  ‘No, guv,’ Bill said and Dan picked up on the edginess in the man’s voice.

  ‘Mmm. Well, it’s so damn quiet around here it probably doesn’t matter.’ He looked down, past the choir stalls, to the stone-flagged floor already painted pastel hues by the sun streaming through the stained-glass window. ‘No piano. Reverend Ivor really did move it. I was praying he was still planning to do that in the future.’

  He loped down to the main floor and set off around the altar, past gleaming brass – no doubt the work of diligent ladies of the parish – and stiff floral arrangements, to an area that mirrored the one they’d left except it held kneelers in front of a small altar rather than risers for choristers.

  ‘I wanted it all left as it was when Laura died. I don’t see why that was so much to expect. Not that it’s made much difference, or not necessarily.’

  Out of habit, they began to search. Inch by inch, flagstone by flagstone, they paced off each area. ‘The music stand was moved, too,’ Bill remarked when he passed Dan yet again. ‘Not that it matters.’

  ‘This doesn’t feel good to me,’ Dan said. ‘Something’s out of place, and not just the piano.’

  At last they stopped by the piano, which had been placed in much the same position as it had been on the other side of the altar, and Dan sat on the bench. ‘All dusted, right?’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  Dan couldn’t play but he did his childhood rendition of chopsticks and Bill put his fingers in his ears.

  ‘Sounds awful,’ Dan said. ‘And not just because I’m playing it.’

  ‘Bagpipes running out of wind,’ Bill said and laughed. ‘Used to think I’d like to play those things just to annoy my old man.’

  Dan didn’t comment. His partner rarely said boo about any member of his family and Dan thought it best not to draw attention to it when he did.

  ‘You play a fine chopsticks, guv,’ Bill said. ‘My old man played the piano. Played in a pub to make extra money. He was good, too. Nasty blighter.’

  Holding the ledge under the keyboard, Dan st
ood up. The instrument was old and carved with acorns along a garland of ivy leaves. Making sure he didn’t drop the thing, he lifted the front half of the lid, lay it back on its hinges and peered inside.

  ‘Never saw inside a piano before,’ he said, and turned his head sharply, thinking. ‘Was it open or closed when we first saw it?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ Bill responded.

  ‘I think it was open, at least at first. Not that it matters.’

  He had no idea what he was looking at. Hitting a key, he watched a part rise and hit another part and almost winced at the sound. He tried several more. Who had possibly dreamed up a piano?

  ‘Do you play?’ he asked Bill.

  ‘No, guv. My old man hated it if I even touched his piano.’

  Bill’s old man sounded like a real winner.

  ‘Hammers and strings and who knows what. Amazing.’ He reached to close the lid again.

  In a front corner, on the left, dropped straight down and wedged there, was something red. He knew what it was before he took an evidence bag from his pocket to lift the thing out.

  ‘Look what I found,’ he said, swallowing against the heavy, fast beat of his heart. ‘What do you suppose this is?’

  Bill came to his side at once, watching the red thermos bottle with a tartan sleeve around it, come into view.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ was all he said.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Mary Burke patted Sybil Davis’s hand. ‘You finish up that tea and you’ll have the first cup from the new pot. We’ll get you set up in no time.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have troubled you,’ Sybil said before dutifully drinking the rest of her tea before Mary whisked the cup away.

  ‘Rubbish. Women have a special bond. Women who think the same way about things like kindness and duty, good manners and doing the right thing. Don’t they, Harriet?’

  ‘In many cases,’ Harriet said, taking the cup and refilling it from the fresh pot she’d just made. ‘But we still can’t make the mistake of letting past experiences color a new situation. All men are not insensitive and those who are insensitive fail to understand some things in different ways, one man from another. In other words, we can’t put all men in one category and say they’re obtuse.’