‘That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’ Lamb said. ‘An endless string of why questions. We shall just have to keep on asking. For now I don’t want you to touch anything until our people have had a look.’
‘To check for fingerprints?’ Alex said.
‘Among other things. Someone may be along today but more likely tomorrow. This room will be taped off and someone stationed here to make sure it stays off limits. That needs to be taken out of here.’ He pointed at Katie.
Before Alex could tell Sergeant Lamb how much she disliked him, Tony picked up Katie and carried her out of the room.
Hurrying footsteps came up the stairs behind them and Lamb said, ‘Hello, boss,’ at the same time as Alex and Tony turned to watch O’Reilly, an unexpected smile on his face, coming to join them.
The instant he saw the room, he said, ‘This needs to be taped off.’
‘It will be,’ Lamb said.
‘You have residents or guests at the moment?’ O’Reilly said to Alex.
‘Two rooms occupied tonight,’ she said. ‘It’s slow in winter.’
‘Get someone up here with that tape,’ O’Reilly said, and paused while his second-in-command made his way down for reinforcements.
‘Don’t you wonder what happened to Reverend Restrick?’ O’Reilly asked without preamble, addressing Alex. ‘He just about ran into you leaving the crime scene this morning. Didn’t you tell me that?’
She rubbed her forehead, trying to unscramble her thoughts. ‘I forgot,’ she told him honestly. ‘It’s been a weird day. Did something happen to him, too?’
‘Wouldn’t it be reasonable for him to just come back when he recovered from the shock?’
‘Of course.’ Relief flooded Alex.
‘But you immediately think of something happening to him.’ O’Reilly didn’t sound aggressive but he was a master at planting seeds of doubt – at least about her.
‘Wouldn’t that be a reasonable assumption, Inspector?’ Tony said. ‘From the way you phrased your question.’
O’Reilly gave a short laugh. ‘Next you’ll be accusing me of leading the witness. Everyone watches too much TV. This isn’t a court of law and you’re a vet, not a barrister.’
A nasty feeling intensified in Alex. ‘The reverend – is he all right?’
‘No, he’s not all right. He was plainly upset when he ran out of his house. He must have gone to the church looking for some sort of sanctuary, I suppose. Then it seems he fell down the stone steps into the crypt. He’s in hospital with a serious head injury. He may not live.’
Alex’s hands felt frozen. She clasped them together and stumbled to sit on the top stair. ‘I don’t believe this.’
‘May I take Alex somewhere more comfortable?’ Tony asked.
‘In a moment. I want you to take a look at this first, Mrs Bailey-Jones.’ He had been holding a plastic bag behind his crossed forearms and he gave it to Alex. ‘Don’t open the bag. Just tell me if you recognize what’s inside.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Here it was. It did exist. A man’s heavy gold ring, dulled by mud and with sundry pieces of debris stuck to it.
Tony crouched down behind her and muttered, ‘That has to be it. Looks expensive. Even under the mud.’
It was a signet ring but larger than would fit on most men’s small fingers the way they were usually worn. She held it up to the light and pulled the plastic tight against the flat side so she could see any engraving.
She heard Tony’s indrawn breath behind her and shook her head.
‘This can’t have belonged to the monk,’ she said. ‘It’s got the Derwinter crest on it.’
TWENTY-ONE
Corner Cottage was as inviting on the inside as it was on the outside, but tonight Tony was most aware of tension in the small sitting room.
He stuck his head out of the door to look into the kitchen where Alex was clattering among pots and dishes making them ‘something easy’ even though he had tried to insist she let him drive them into Bourton-on-the-Water to eat.
After a horrible day, she needed to catch her breath, but she wouldn’t hear of going back on her invitation.
Katie and Bogie were in front of the fire he’d lit when Alex brought him in. With their noses to the warmth, they anchored a blanket to the floor, one each side and as far from one another as they could get without giving up occupation. The temperature was plummeting again and there was talk of more snow – not a cheerful thought for hill dwellers.
‘Coming through, Alex,’ he called and joined her in the kitchen. ‘I don’t need to be waited on. I’m not used to it and this is one time when someone should be looking after you.’
‘I’m almost done.’ Her face was tight, the mouth a straight line. ‘Mum said to finish the Oxtail soup she made. You get reheated soup but fresh bread from George’s and cheese and apples. Comfort food tonight. Here.’ She took a bottle of Pinot Noir from the counter. ‘Please open this for us.’
Her movements were too quick and too jerky. A tiny dining room opened off the kitchen with just enough room for a round table covered with a red cloth, four chairs and the row of shelves that adorned all four walls of a lot of these small cottages. A couple of feet from the low ceiling, books crammed every inch, and Tony had the thought that daughter had followed mother in a love of reading.
He carried the opened wine and two stubby, stem-free glasses to the table, poured and set the bottle in the middle. ‘I’ll lay the table,’ he said, and did just that with the cutlery, placemats and napkins she’d already heaped there.
‘Please, sit down,’ she told him. If she got much stiffer she was likely to stop speaking at all.
‘I was thinking you might like to run up to Lime Tree Lodge,’ he said. ‘After dinner? You must want to get more of your things.’
She mumbled under her breath and when she felt his eyes on her repeated, ‘I’d like to burn everything at the inn.’
Old blue willow plates reminded him of some his mother had used. The soup bowls Alex placed on top were big with wide rims, the way soup bowls used to be. He remained standing and held his glass, waiting while she loaded food on to the table.
Alex looked at him and he said, ‘Don’t mess with us,’ and touched his glass to hers.
At least she smiled a little. ‘It’s all unbelievable,’ she said, sitting down and clasping her hands in her lap. She popped up again and drew the heavy, red linen curtains.
‘The big question is whether or not that ring was on Brother Dominic’s finger. If so, where did he get it?’
‘Someone could have dropped it at any time,’ Alex said, playing with her soup. ‘It doesn’t have to be anything to do with him.’
‘Eat,’ Tony told her and dug into his own food. ‘Your mother makes a mean soup,’ he said. He tore off a hunk of bread from a braided, glazed multigrain loaf and slathered it with butter. ‘Start eating, Alex. Seriously, it’s so good you’ll get an appetite once you start.’
They carried on in silence. Tony cut big helpings of Cheshire cheese for each of them and cut up an apple.
‘Wouldn’t the Derwinters have reported a missing ring?’ With a piece of apple halfway to her mouth, Alex had a distant look. ‘I know the crest for the same reason you do, it’s on everything at the manor house on the estate. Not that I’ve been there more than a couple of times. I never noticed any rings. That’s the coat of arms over the door, right, not the crest?’
‘Right. I recognized the crest, too. A man’s hand in armor raising some sort of mangled bird claw. Never saw anything like that before. I don’t think I’d want it on anything of mine.’ He grinned at the thought. ‘I’ll have to ask my dad if the Harrisons ever had a crest. Probably a shovel and a pickaxe – that’d be in keeping with my serf stock.’
‘Serf stock?’ Now Alex actually laughed.
‘How about you? Anything interesting in your family?’ He managed not to either turn red or clamp his mouth shut. Idiot.
With raised eyebrows, Alex said, ‘I’ll have to ask Mum about her family. She never said anything. I think she came here after I was born. And although I remember your heroic defense, I really am a bastard.’ The little jerk at the corners of her mouth showed what it cost her to say it.
Moving right along. ‘Leonard wears a signet ring on his right small finger. I don’t think I remember one on Cornelius. He was around the horses a lot and I can see his hands in my mind. Leonard’s always been low key but I think Heather likes being lady of the manor. She’d probably want Leonard to wear his.’ He ate more soup.
‘That ring they found had nothing to do with Brother Dominic,’ Alex said. She sounded convinced. ‘But I do think he had a ring on his finger and the police were looking for it. The pathologist would work out what happened to that finger even if we hadn’t. It was obvious. I think the police were looking for it in my room before they knew one would be found on the hillside.’
‘They insist they didn’t search that room,’ he pointed out. ‘Don’t you think they’d admit it if they did?’
She nodded miserably. ‘I can’t find out anything about how Reverend Restrick is either and I can’t contact Charlotte Restrick. I don’t know where she is.’ Her voice clogged. Tears began to course her cheeks but when he made to go to her she waved him away. ‘I’m going to sound sorry for myself, but I’ve been doing well since I came home. It wasn’t easy, but I got it all together again.’
‘You do so well.’ He put a hand over hers on the table and she didn’t pull away. ‘Give yourself a break for being human.’
‘You heard all that stuff Lamb said about me.’
‘Lamb’s an ass.’
‘I lost it when I saw Michael looking as if he was devastated by the baby’s death.’
He doubted she could see through the wash over her eyes.
‘And at the same time I kept wondering if I could have done anything different that would have saved her.’
This wasn’t a good time to feel inadequate. Scooting his chair close to hers, he put an arm around her shoulders. ‘There aren’t too many absolutes in medicine. You can only guess at another outcome and that won’t help you.’
He wanted, badly, to tell her his own story, to get it into the open, but it would feel like piling on tonight.
She sobbed now. ‘It was a placenta first – placenta praevia, I think it’s called, where the placenta comes before the baby. I was at home on bed rest. I went into labor and then I haemorrhaged. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The ambulance probably came really fast, but it seemed like it took forever. I should have been in the hospital earlier. I didn’t feel good all day but I kept thinking it would pass.’
Her breathing grew shallower and sweat sprang out on her brow.
‘I’m so very sorry,’ Tony said. And how stupid it sounded – he was so sorry her little girl died. Sheesh. ‘It’s a horrible, senseless loss and I don’t think you could have done anything to change it.’
‘I kept waiting for Michael to show at the hospital.’ Her tone rose and she held her mouth open to grab breath. ‘And I knew he wasn’t coming but I hoped. They couldn’t reach him, Tony. He wasn’t where he said he would be. I thought – dreamed things would get better after the baby. I don’t think he liked being around me when I was pregnant.’
‘Alex—’
‘When the placenta is at the bottom like that it doesn’t have to mean the baby will die. Women get through it all the time now. But it wasn’t found until I went into labor. They couldn’t stop the bleeding. They set up for a caesarian section but it was too late for my little girl.’
He didn’t want to ask where Michael had been. He wanted to take the man by the throat and throttle him.
‘Michael … was … with … another woman.’ She choked between each word. ‘But I knew that in my heart. I just didn’t want to admit it.’
‘You were the normal one – he was a monster,’ he said, desperate and angry. He went to his knees beside her chair and pulled her into his arms, settling her head on his shoulder.
‘I blamed him.’ She was starting to hyperventilate. ‘That’s what happened at the funeral. I had my first panic attack.’
‘Hush,’ he told her. ‘Take a deep breath. Do it, Alex. Let it out slowly. Now again.’
‘Panic again now,’ she managed to say. ‘Sorry.’
‘Alex, you’ve got guts. Look what you’ve worked your way through. And you don’t have to be sorry around me. I … I care about you. Now, another deep breath. Deep and slow, all the way to your toes. Let me help you up. Make some more room for that diaphragm.’
When she hiccupped he was relieved, and took a glass of wine with him while he guided her into the sitting room and on to a couch.
She pointed. Both dogs stood in the middle of the room with their tails between their legs.
‘See. We all care about you. Sometimes we aren’t so strong we can’t use some help from a friend.’ He kept shoving thoughts out of his head. He did care about her but he couldn’t let what that might mean intrude now. His own history with relationships hadn’t left him confident about trying again. And since his father warned him he’d better come clean about Penny or risk any chance of Alex trusting him, he had thought of little else.
‘Fine doctor I am,’ he said as lightly as he could. ‘I’m going to follow instinct and make you drink some of this. Don’t you choke on me, or tell me your heart’s doing crazy things. It should quieten you down.’
He sat beside her and held the glass until she took it herself and drank. ‘Feels good,’ she said, breathing easier. Glancing up at him, she held the wine to his lips until he let her tip some into his mouth. ‘You don’t look so good yourself. Harrison and Bailey-Jones, private eyes, aren’t at their best. I wouldn’t hire them today.’
With a smile, he eased the glass back in her direction. ‘I admire you, Alex. I always have and never more than now.’
‘I’m glad you’re with me, Tony.’
TWENTY-TWO
The Gloucester Mortuary dealt with most coroners’ cases in the area. O’Reilly paced the lobby. He had visited Leonard Derwinter the previous evening and asked him to meet here at noon.
Derwinter was already half an hour late. Another ten minutes and they would have to track him down. Understandably, he had been shaken, confused even, to a point where O’Reilly wasn’t sure how much the man understood of what he’d been told.
Snow had started lightly enough that morning but now it splatted in fat blobs against the glass doors. O’Reilly could feel the temperature going down.
‘Getting your exercise there, Detective?’ Steven Runcie was one of those pathologists who subscribed to the lighthearted approach, although he didn’t buy into the black humor some of the police used during post-mortems.
‘Hello, Doc,’ O’Reilly said. ‘I’m hoping to reduce your John Doe load by one.’
‘His place won’t have a chance to get colder,’ Runcie said with a grimace.
O’Reilly was glad to be left alone in the lobby once more. A lot of digging among the residents of Folly-on-Weir had finally revealed that there had been two Derwinter brothers. Edward, older than Leonard, went away to a boarding school in Yorkshire when he was seven or eight. No one knew much about the kid except that he never returned home to live.
Leonard should be able to fill in the blanks about his brother, who was rumored to be dead. Lamb was on the trail of when and where this had become the case, but there was what appeared to be deliberate vagueness on the topic.
‘Inspector? Sorry I’m late.’ Leonard Derwinter entered the lobby looking ruffled. ‘The roads are getting bad again and it’ll be worse tonight.’ His dark hair must have been raked through by his fingers many times and purplish scoring under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept much.
They shook hands. Compact, fit-looking and wearing a well-cut tweed jacket and cavalry twill trousers, almost the uniform of the Englishman of his class, he nevertheless
had a Latin appearance. Lightly bronzed skin, a narrow face and generous mouth. Harassed, about summed up the impression he gave.
‘Before we do this—’
‘Let’s get it over with.’ Leonard, sliding his hands in and out of his jacket pockets, looked anxiously around the lobby. ‘I don’t see what help I can be, but of course, I’ll do whatever I can.’
‘I do need to ask you a few questions first,’ O’Reilly said, nodding to a corridor. ‘We can talk in private down here.’
A small waiting room, mostly never used, provided the chairs O’Reilly wanted. He waved Derwinter into one of them and remained standing out of habit.
‘First, there may be no connection between you and the corpse.’ He almost winced at the bluntness of it.
Derwinter shook his head but lost color beneath his tanned skin.
‘As I told you last night, this is the man who was found dead in the woods above Folly-on-Weir. There was nothing to point to his having anything to do with you until late yesterday when the hill and woods were searched. A ring was found in the woods. We still have to make an absolute connection between the body and the ring.’
Leonard rubbed his hands together until the palms squeaked. ‘You didn’t say anything about a ring. What ring?’
‘I thought you had enough to process last night, sir. Take a look at this but don’t take it out of the evidence bag, please.’
He took that bag from a Manila envelope and gave it to Leonard, who took it as he might a grenade minus its pin. O’Reilly sat on the edge of a chair that brought their knees close.
After as close a look at the ring as the plastic would allow, Leonard covered his eyes. ‘Where was it?’
‘Buried in brush in the woods.’ He noted the ring Leonard wore on the small finger of his right hand. ‘Is the crest yours?’
Leonard nodded. ‘But I don’t understand. Do you think the murdered man was wearing this?’ He looked up sharply. ‘Or the murderer? The only other one I know of, apart from mine, is the one my father wore. He took that off, oh, when I was in my teens, I suppose. He used his hands a lot and the ring annoyed him, he said, so it must be in with some other bits and pieces of his.’
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