Murder in Langley Woods

by Betty Rowlands

  ‘Warn him!’ Rachel’s tone was beseeching. ‘Warn this man of the danger he is in.’ She reached across the table and clutched Melissa’s arm. ‘I cannot do it … if it became known that I had betrayed my own kin, I would become an outcast. I trust you, even though you are a gadgy. All I ask is that you go to see this man and tell him what I have told you. I will give you his name, tell you where he lives …’

  It was time to put an end to this crazy charade. Melissa put her own hand over the gipsy’s and gave it an encouraging squeeze. ‘Listen, Rachel, there’s nothing for you to worry about, truly. The man is known to the police and he has already been warned of the danger he is in.’

  Astonishment made Rachel’s huge eyes appear even larger. ‘How is this possible?’

  It was too long and complicated a story to repeat. All Melissa said was, ‘I have friends in the police, and I learn things from them. They too are looking for this man, but he is in hiding … he was gone when they came to question him, but I’m sure he’ll soon be found. Please, Rachel,’ she went on earnestly, as the gipsy shook her head in disbelief, ‘Trust me, I’m telling you the truth. Your people must leave it to the law to bring him to justice. Go back and tell them that.’

  ‘I shall tell them nothing.’ Rachel’s tone was bitter. ‘They must not know of this visit. I am a mere woman who knows nothing, understands nothing.’ She looked down at her mug of coffee and almost absent-mindedly raised it to her lips.

  Melissa reached out to take it from her. ‘That must be cold. Let me make you some fresh … or I can warm it up in the microwave.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I must go now. I took the car without asking leave and I must return before it is missed.’ Rachel swallowed a mouthful of the tepid coffee, then hastily put down the mug and got to her feet. ‘Someone is coming!’ she said in alarm. A car was approaching the cottage. It stopped; a door slammed, heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel and the doorbell sounded.

  ‘I’m not expecting anyone,’ Melissa muttered uneasily. She glanced at Rachel, who had turned a sickly yellow and stood looking wildly around her, clutching her shawl around her body as if trying to hide within its folds.

  ‘Wait here, I’ll go and see who it is.’ Melissa tried to sound calm, but her own heart was thumping at the possibility that men from the Romany camp had followed Rachel and were about to cause an ugly scene. Before opening the door, she peered through the sitting-room curtains to check who was outside, thinking that all she could do if the worst came to the worst was bolt the door, lock every window and summon the police. To her immense relief she recognised Ken Harris’s car. ‘It’s all right, it’s someone I know,’ she called over her shoulder, and went to let him in.

  It was clear that he was not in the best of moods. Instead of entering, he turned and gestured with a scowl at Rachel’s dilapidated Ford. ‘Where did that heap of junk come from?’ he demanded.

  Melissa’s hackles rose. ‘It belongs to a friend of mine who’s just leaving,’ she said curtly.

  ‘I didn’t know you had friends who don’t pay their car tax!’ he grunted. ‘I’ll have something to say to him about that.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind, you’re not a policeman now. And it’s not a him, it’s—’ Melissa broke off as Rachel emerged from the kitchen. She appeared only marginally less scared than a moment ago when she feared that her own menfolk had arrived to mete out their own brand of punishment to a disobedient wife.

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Melissa, and thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s been nice seeing you, Rachel, and please remember what I told you.’

  ‘I will.’ Rachel’s eyes rolled as she sidled nervously past Ken, whose bulk all but filled the narrow passage. He glared down at her, but said nothing. Melissa, with less ceremony, brushed him aside and escorted her visitor to the door.

  Rachel stepped outside, took a couple of steps towards her car and then turned to say in a low voice, ‘Take heed of my earlier warning.’ In response to Melissa’s questioning look, she added, ‘Cleave to the one who truly loves you.’ Without waiting for a response, she strode away.

  Melissa watched her get into her car. She was on the point of following her to ask what she meant by her cryptic pronouncement, but stopped when she heard Ken’s voice behind her, irritably demanding to know what all that was about. Reluctantly, she closed the front door and faced him. His expression was set and angry. ‘She’s that gipsy woman you got mixed up with before, isn’t she?’ he barked, without giving her a chance to speak. ‘I thought I told you to keep away from those villains.’

  Melissa glared at him. ‘What business is it of yours who I invite into my own home?’ she retorted. ‘And what are you doing here anyway? Your message said you wouldn’t be in the office until three … I wasn’t expecting you until this evening.’

  ‘I got back early and found a message to call Matt Waters. He told me what you’ve been up to.’ His tone was accusing, almost hectoring as he followed her into the kitchen. ‘The minute my back’s turned—’

  ‘So that’s it … my bodyguard has been telling tales!’ Melissa swung round and faced him across the table, on which still lay the detritus of the interrupted coffee break: the two mugs, one still half-full, the jug of milk, the sugar, the packet of biscuits and a scattering of crumbs. Mechanically, she began clearing it away.

  Ken frowned. ‘Bodyguard?’ he repeated. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t brief Matt to keep an eye on me while you were away. I tackled him about it and he didn’t deny it.’

  ‘So what? I was only thinking of your safety. You went and put yourself at risk once before, getting mixed up with that lot, and now it seems you’ve done it again … and worse. I think that’s proved that I was right.’

  ‘It’s proved nothing of the kind. I warned Matt – and I asked him to be sure to pass the warning on to DCI Holloway – that whoever took Hannah Rose away from her people might very well be at risk of some kind of tribal retribution.’ She was on the point of adding, ‘And as it happens, I’ve just learned I was right,’ but refrained. That would lead to further questions, meaning she would have to repeat what she had just been told. That might lead to a police raid on the Romany camp, which could land Rachel in serious trouble with her menfolk. Rocky himself had been warned, the police already knew of the danger and it was up to them to protect him once they found him.

  So all she said was, ‘By a fluke, I found out who the man was and since no one appeared to be taking my warning seriously I decided to go and see him myself … but presumably you know all this. I suppose Matt saw my statement and decided to lodge a formal complaint about me.’

  ‘There’s no need for sarcasm,’ said Ken in a quieter tone. ‘I asked him to keep an eye on you, yes, I admit it. It’s only because I care about you … can’t you imagine how I felt when he told me what had happened?’

  Melissa felt a twinge of compunction. ‘Yes, yes … I know, and I’m sorry if I gave you a fright. It’s nothing to the fright Rocky gave me,’ she added jokingly, but there was no answering smile. ‘Look,’ she said in what she hoped was the voice of sweet reason, ‘I don’t want to quarrel with you, so let’s not talk about it any more. I’ll make you some coffee – I could do with another cup myself.’ She filled the kettle, set it to boil and fetched clean mugs. ‘As things have turned out, my intervention has brought about a breakthrough in a rather nasty case. All right, it could have gone horribly wrong, but I came out of it unscathed, thanks to Bruce Ingram.’

  ‘Ingram!’ Ken almost shouted. ‘That’s something else we’d better get straight once and for all. Melissa, I absolutely forbid you to have anything more to do with that irresponsible bloody scribbler!’

  ‘You what?’ Melissa kept her voice steady with an effort; inwardly she was seething again.

  ‘You heard me!’ His face had turned a dull red, he was breathing heavily and his large hands gripped the edge of the table. ‘In futur
e, you’ll stay clear of Ingram and his hare-brained schemes!’

  ‘And what makes you think you have the right to tell me who I may or may not associate with?’

  ‘If you and I are to have any sort of life together—’

  ‘I have to do as I’m told, is that it?’ He did not answer, but his expression remained hostile. ‘Well, here’s something you’d better get straight, Ken Harris. You’re not a big-shot police inspector any more and I’m not one of your raw recruits. I’m a grown woman, I’ve led an independent life and looked after myself and made my own decisions for more years than I care to think about … and if throwing in my lot with you means handing you the right to order me about—’

  ‘Mel, please!’ He walked round the table and tried to put his arms round her, but she held him off. ‘Darling, don’t be angry with me … I can’t bear the idea of your running into danger.’

  ‘You prefer me to sit at home and be a good girl and not speak to strangers, is that it?’

  ‘Now you’re being childish. Of course I don’t expect you to—’

  ‘Then what do you expect? No, let me tell you.’ Melissa could hear herself becoming steadily more wound up; she knew she was putting at risk a relationship that had brought her much happiness, but all she could think of at that moment was the fact that her independence was under threat. ‘I think you want to take over my life and be available whenever it suits you, drop everything and come running when you lift your little finger—’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Isn’t it? Let me remind you of the message you left for me yesterday. “I’ll be round about six,” you said. Not “if that’s all right with you,” or “let me know if it isn’t convenient”.’

  ‘I assumed that as I’d been away for three days you’d want to see me.’ He managed to appear hurt and huffy at the same time and she knew she had got under his skin.

  ‘Suppose I’d made other arrangements for this evening?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Well, have you?’

  ‘No, but that isn’t the point. You have absolutely no right to take me for granted.’

  ‘I can see that.’ He showed no sign of contrition; rather, he sounded like a man who has suddenly discovered a serious flaw in some expensive object he had been thinking of buying. ‘I think I’d better leave you alone for the time being so that you can think things over.’

  ‘That’s a very good idea,’ she said coldly. Without another word, he turned and left the house.

  The kettle that she had set on the Aga set up a fierce hissing as the water boiled. She made coffee, filled one of the two clean mugs and put the other one back in the cupboard. Outside, she heard the sound of Ken’s car starting and driving away.

  ‘I’ll be thinking things over all right,’ she muttered aloud, ‘and I suggest you do the same.’

  Nineteen

  Melissa took her second mug of coffee upstairs to her study. She placed it carefully on a mat bearing round its rim the legend, The Grey Goose, Stowbridge and in the centre a crude representation of a goose in flight. She had picked it up on impulse on leaving the pub with Ken Harris after their first date and it had been in daily use ever since to protect her desk from heat marks. The design was partially obliterated by rings of tea and coffee; more than once she had been on the point of replacing it with something a little more elegant and once she had actually thrown it into the waste bin but later, out of what she recognised was a slightly ridiculous sentimental attachment, retrieved it.

  Today, however, she had more pressing problems to consider than the fate of a stained circle of cork. She had promised to give Ken her answer to his proposal – how quaint and old-fashioned that phrase sounded! – by Saturday, the day when Iris also was expecting a decision from her about Elder Cottage. She had just two days to make up her mind about the direction her life was to take in the foreseeable future.

  She sat slowly sipping her coffee while abstractedly contemplating the view from her study window. It was the kind of pastoral scene beloved of compilers of guide books to the Cotswolds: a blue sky flecked with white puffballs of cloud, fields dotted with grazing sheep, and dry-stone walls topped with cushions of emerald moss and splashed with grey and yellow lichen. The hawthorn tree that gave her cottage its name was spangled with scarlet berries that shone like fairy lights where they caught the autumn sunshine. Beyond the boundary between the cottages and the neighbouring fields the land dipped steeply for a short distance, levelled out beside the stream that ran along the valley bottom and then sloped gently upwards to a clump of woodland on the crest of the hill. There was an air of permanence about the familiar landscape that seemed to accentuate the present turbulence in her own life.

  The telephone rang and she automatically reached out to answer, but stopped with her hand on the receiver, telling herself that it might be Ken, conciliatory, apologetic and wanting after all to see her that evening. A week, even a couple of days ago, it would have been the thing she most wanted to hear, but some inner voice warned her that the relationship was at crisis point and she needed space and solitude to analyse her own feelings. So she waited until the answering machine cut in and delivered its pre-recorded greeting and request for a message. To her intense relief it was not Ken on the line, but Joe Martin. She stopped the tape and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Joe, I’m here … just couldn’t get to the phone in time,’ she lied, mentally registering surprise and some concern at the pleasure she could hear in her own voice.

  ‘Mel! I’m off to catch a plane for Stockholm in half an hour, but I thought I’d try and catch you before leaving … you mentioned you wanted us to meet for a talk some time soon.’

  ‘That’s right. Joe, I need some guidance about where I’m going from here. I think I already mentioned that Drop Dead! will be the last Nathan Latimer book, for a while at any rate. I’ve been playing with one or two ideas …’

  ‘Yes, you did say something about it, but I wasn’t sure if you were serious. What’s the problem? Is the old boy having a mid-life crisis?’

  ‘No, but I think maybe I am.’

  That wasn’t what she had intended to say. It had slipped out on an unexpected wave of emotion, as if her anger and hurt after the stormy scene with Ken had up to that moment been held in check by some kind of mental barricade that had suddenly given way. The last thing she wanted was to involve Joe; for one thing, he had been in love with her himself for so long that he could hardly be expected to take a dispassionate view of the situation.

  She was trembling, and she realised to her dismay that she was close to tears. Joe must have sensed it, for he said, ‘Mel, what’s the matter? Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s all right now.’ At least she had the perfect explanation ready to hand, without having to lie or prevaricate. She took a deep breath, determined not to break down and make a fool of herself. ‘I had a bit of a skirmish yesterday with a man who turned out to be a rather nasty type of crook.’

  ‘Good heavens! What happened?’

  ‘I’d rather not go into details now. You’ll quite likely read about it in the papers in a day or two … although you’ll no doubt be sorry to hear I’ve been promised my name won’t be mentioned so there’ll be no publicity.’ She felt her poise and her sense of humour come back with a rush on spotting a chance to tease him about his well-known relish for anything with the potential to boost sales of his authors’ books.

  ‘Never mind that – are you all right?’ His concern was unexpectedly heart-warming and she felt herself breathing more easily as she assured him that she was fine. ‘Look,’ he went on, ‘I can easily reschedule the Stockholm meeting if you’d like me to come down. Just say the word and I’ll—’

  ‘Joe, that’s really sweet of you, but there’s no need. I do want to talk to you, though. One day next week?’ She reached for her desk diary and flipped it open, picturing him doing the same at the other end of the wire.

  ‘How about Tuesday?’ he su
ggested after a brief interlude of page-rustling. ‘I’ll catch an early train … we could have lunch at that pub you were telling me about. What’s it called, the Golden Bell?’

  ‘No thanks, anywhere but there!’ she said hastily. ‘Tuesday would be fine,’ she went on quickly to forestall the obvious question, ‘but I think I’d rather meet you in town. It’s ages since my last trip to London … I could do a bit of shopping.’

  ‘Great. Why not stay overnight? We could have dinner and maybe do a show.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful.’

  ‘I’ll get you booked into a hotel.’

  ‘Thanks, Joe, I’m really looking forward to it.’

  ‘Me too. Must go now or I’ll miss my flight. Bye.’

  He rang off, leaving Melissa somewhat bemusedly asking herself how it was that her mood could have changed so suddenly. She was still wondering when the phone rang again. This time she answered without hesitation; when Bruce came on the line in his usual breezy fashion she could not keep the laughter out of her voice as she returned his greeting.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve been forbidden to talk to you,’ she replied.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You’re an irresponsible scribbler who puts me at risk with your hare-brained schemes.’

  ‘Oh, I get it … your ex-copper has heard about yesterday and is not best pleased.’

  ‘Right first time.’

  ‘I see. Do want me to hang up and never darken your doors again?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I can understand his concern, but he can’t know you very well if he imagines you’d take that sort of instruction lying down.’

  ‘Exactly. Bruce, it so happens I was going to call you later on. Guess who came to see me this morning? Apart from old Bossy-Boots, that is.’