This announcement caused more hope than it probably should. ‘In that case I’ll have you find that for us. We wondered if it had been stolen by the dead man.’
‘You can’t be sure he ever saw it.’
‘True. But in case you have seen him, and remember him, it could help a great deal.’ He had decided to save his questions about the brother, Edward, until after the viewing. It did appear that this family had a few unexplained details from the past. Hitting Leonard with too much all at once might be counterproductive. ‘Let’s do this.’ He led the way from the room.
The body had been taken from storage and wheeled into an area without any distractions. The folded-down sheet exposed Brother Dominic’s face, neck and upper shoulders but covered all but the start of the Y incision made by the pathologist.
O’Reilly watched closely as Leonard approached the gurney. Sadness wouldn’t have been the first expected reaction but it was clearly there. He pointed to the gaping wound in the throat. ‘That was made with a dart?’ he said.
‘We think so. The killer worked at it to make sure his victim wouldn’t be coming back from the dead.’
‘He was a monk, right?’
‘Yes. We have some confirmation of that from a reported conversation with the second monk, the one who talked to Alex Bailey-Jones.’
Derwinter shook his head. ‘Pointless.’
‘Do you know him?’
Silence fell and stretched. Leonard stared at the body and kept on staring.
‘What did your brother Edward call you when you were boys, Mr Derwinter?’ O’Reilly asked.
Leonard straightened. He stared at O’Reilly and frowned. ‘Edward? Why would you ask me that? I haven’t seen him since I was just a little kid. He’s been dead for years.’
Conjecture was right up there with leaps of faith, O’Reilly thought. He’d better step carefully. ‘Did he call you Lennie?’
‘Everyone did,’ Leonard said, his voice rising. ‘My family, or what there was of it. So what?’
‘Probably nothing. Do you recognize this man?’
Leonard looked uncomfortably close to breaking down. ‘I don’t know.’ He made as if to touch the face but drew back. ‘I want to see his hands.’
Without responding, O’Reilly left the room and found a technician who came and slid Brother Dominic’s arms from beneath the sheet. He crossed them over the waist. ‘Call me when you’re done,’ he said, and walked out again.
Leonard went to the left side of the gurney to look at the right hand, the hand where the ring finger was distorted into an awkward angle.
He took the hand in both of his and O’Reilly didn’t try to stop him.
‘I must have seen it but I don’t remember. I was too young. Father said Edward’s finger was broken when they closed the lid of our mother’s casket on it. He didn’t make a sound and no one noticed for days. Edward said he’d run away if they broke and reset it. He wanted it that way. Could it be like this if he grew up with something like that?’
O’Reilly shook his head. Either this man was one hell of an actor or he was devastated by the possibilities in front of him.
TWENTY-THREE
‘Edward was the oldest,’ Kev Winslet said, his jaw thrust out as if daring someone to challenge him. ‘I’m just tellin’ you, that’s all.’
‘Hardly necessary, old chap,’ Major Stroud said. ‘We all know as much.’ His feet were planted apart in damp brown suede brogues and his scalp sparkled through carefully combed back hair.
Alex was busy putting out clean beer mats and greeting customers. Then she went to add wood to the fire. Apart from what Kev Winslet was reporting – supposed facts overheard at the Derwinters – she hadn’t heard anything about Leonard’s visit to the mortuary in Gloucester. She knew he had gone there to meet O’Reilly because Constable Smith had let it slip when he stopped by to remind her to stay out of her room upstairs.
‘You’re an incomer,’ Winslet said suddenly, glaring at Major Stroud and getting red, as expected. Steam rose from the shoulders of his waxed jacket as it started to dry out from the storm. ‘You ’aven’t lived here all your life like some of us.’
The major’s guffaw was genuine. ‘I was born here. I served my country for a long time. Takes a fella away from time to time, as you might remember – or perhaps not. The Vines was my father’s home and his father’s before him. Not that we’re discussing my right to be in this village and have an opinion.’
The Vines was the largest house in Folly proper. There was a Mrs Stroud who didn’t mix much, and two grown children, both males. One son had followed his father into the army; the other did something in the capital. From the look of the Maserati he drove down from London some weekends, he did something very well in that financial maze that was the City.
Will worked behind the bar while Cathy flitted in and out of the kitchen with snacks. Liz Hadley, who ran a struggling dress shop in Broadway, filled in as barmaid three nights a week. This was one of her nights. The regulars obviously liked her even though she didn’t say much.
Harriet Burke beckoned Alex. When she got close the woman said, very low, ‘Mary and I have some interesting news.’
‘Better tell her it’s a bit fantastic,’ Mary said. ‘In the hard to believe way. I’m not sure someone isn’t pulling our legs.’
‘I promised Tony I’d wait for him to get here,’ Alex said. ‘He’s going to go up to Lime Tree Lodge with me so I can get more clothes. They won’t let me into my room here.’
‘We heard about that,’ Harriet said. ‘Nasty business. It’s nice you’ve got Tony looking after you.’
With a sigh, Alex raised her eyebrows and said, ‘He isn’t looking after me, just being a good friend. Mum’s loving me staying at her place and Tony has appointed himself chauffeur until I’m settled down there, for however long it takes. I just hope it won’t be long before I can get back to my own place permanently. Can you stay here and let Tony and me drive you home? It’s bitter out there, and dangerous to walk in. Then you can tell us what you’ve found out. Is it about the lace?’ she finished, so quietly both women leaned toward her.
‘Yes,’ Mary whispered back. ‘And some other things we wonder about.’
‘Later, then,’ Alex said, bursting to find out what they knew.
‘You can’t go around accusing people of things like that,’ Will Cummings announced in his best bellow, the one usually reserved for, ‘Time, gentlemen, please. Drink up!’ when he’d already said it twice or so at closing time.
Alex glanced at the sisters. Mary had her glasses on to see her knitting and the irises of her eyes resembled tadpoles in Petri dishes.
‘Loud-mouthed little boy, loud-mouthed man,’ Harriet murmured. ‘Not that he spent much time in school.’
‘I can say what I bloody well want to,’ Kev Winslet hollered. ‘I’m only repeating what’s on everyone’s mind. They reckoned the older brother was dead, so everything went to Leonard. The old man liked the young’un best so that would have suited. But if that wasn’t really the way it was then it’d be a bit inconvenient for our lord and lady of the manor to have the real lord show up. I’d say Edward Derwinter would be the last one they’d want to see.’
‘Why is he saying that?’ Harriet asked.
‘Don’t know.’ Alex’s stomach jumped around and she hurried from her spot by the fire.
Will and Kev faced off across the bar. Liz Hadley, tall, dark-haired and as serene as if nothing had happened, continued to serve staring customers.
‘Are they talking about little Edward Derwinter?’ Mary said, stopping Alex as she passed. ‘His father packed him off somewhere up north as a young lad, Yorkshire, I think. Never came back.’
Harriet sipped her sherry and put the glass down slowly. ‘That was a disgrace. Poor little boy. They said he wasn’t right – whatever that means. Seemed fine to me, even if he was very quiet. The father never had any time for those boys. Edward saw the Cummings’ boy drown. Stopped talki
ng altogether after that.’ She glanced around the bar. ‘It can wait till we go home, though. There’s too many ears waggling in here. We only found out what Cornelius Derwinter wanted put about anyway, but none of what happened to that boy was right. It’s a miracle Leonard’s as normal as he seems to be. You go on, Alex, you’ll be wanting to referee those fools.’
She made straight for the bar and stood between Kev and Major Stroud. The latter stood his ground but only, she thought, to have a front-row seat on the flap between Kev and Will.
Kev turned all his attention on her. ‘Was the one on the hill a monk?’
Alex assumed everyone must know that by now anyway. ‘Yes.’
‘And some other monk came looking for him? You were talking to him the night the dart match got cancelled?’
She waited so long to answer the sound of fruit machines in the next room became deafening – at least to Alex.
‘Ah,’ Kev said sagely. ‘That’s right, then. And now that one’s dead, too, isn’t that right? That’s what all the fuss was about at the rectory yesterday.’
‘I say, old man,’ Major Stroud said, his back ramrod straight and his well-mown mustache bristling. ‘Alex isn’t on some sort of trial here. She doesn’t know any more than the rest of us.’
‘Doesn’t she?’ Kev drained his beer and pushed the glass back to Will. ‘Same again. Reckon there’s a lot you know, Alex. The other monk was found hanging at the rectory and the vicar was so shocked he ran into the church and fell down the steps into the crypt. Beaned himself good enough to just about finish him. He’s in a hospital somewhere in London, only no one knows which one because the police aren’t sayin’. Why would that be?’
‘Oh, my God.’ Liz Hadley tuned in on Kev’s last comment. ‘Reverend Restrick got hurt? Nobody said a word.’
‘Nope,’ Kev said. ‘’Cept me, and I waited to hear if anyone else would say something before I opened my mouth. Seems to me there’s a lot going on around here that’s not being talked about. I reckon we got a lot more trouble on our hands than we know about and it’s time we pushed that O’Reilly and his mouthy sidekick for some explaining.’
Some assenting grumbles started.
‘Don’t you think we can move things along best by just keeping our eyes and ears open? That and taking care of ourselves?’ Alex smiled hopefully. Surely these were all reasonable people.
A woman from Underhill, Gladys Lymer, scraped her chair back. ‘Take care of ourselves?’ she said. She and her husband had been coming in fairly regularly lately. ‘If we’re in danger, the police should be taking care of us.’
So much for her peacemaking attempts. ‘They’re doing their best,’ Alex said. ‘Let’s allow them to do their job.’
‘What about Charlotte Restrick?’ Liz said. ‘She was away, wasn’t she?’
Caught between feigning complete ignorance and giving information that seemed only right to give, Alex said, ‘The reverend told me Charlotte was staying with her sister. I’m sure they’ve contacted her. We’d have been asked where to find her if they hadn’t.’
‘Why would that monk hang himself?’ Major Stroud mused. ‘I would have thought that was against his religion.’
‘Reckon I know about everyone and everything around here,’ Kev said vaguely. ‘I hear most things. Could be that monk didn’t hang himself.’
Alex cringed.
‘How would you know that?’ the major said. ‘Damnably difficult to hang a man who doesn’t want to be hanged unless he’s unconscious.’ He looked away, frowning.
‘Or already kicked the bucket,’ Kev said. ‘Not that you wouldn’t have to be as strong as a horse to lift a dead man like that.’
TWENTY-FOUR
The night had turned treacherous. After he shepherded Alex and the Burke sisters outside, Tony all but lifted Harriet and Mary Burke into the back seat of the Land Rover, which he’d parked behind the Black Dog. When he got in himself he glanced anxiously at Alex, who had greeted him with an expression that suggested the end was near. Her apprehension was palpable.
‘Let’s sit here and talk,’ he said. ‘The car’s still warm and we can add some heat if we have to. I doubt it’ll be so easy to get close to your front door, ladies.’
‘We’re used to it,’ Mary said in a determined voice that reminded him how important independence was to these two. ‘We walked down. It’s not far and we’ve had plenty of experience. We stand or fall together.’
She and Harriet laughed.
Alex kept her face turned from his and stared through the window. The yard behind the pub was dark except for the faint glow from steamed-up windows on to the snow.
‘Mustn’t leave Oliver too much longer,’ Mary said, and when Harriet gave a muffled chuckle, she added: ‘You have to accept what you can’t change, like that wretched cat someone foisted on me.’
Snuffling called attention to Katie in her crate. Bogie was still ensconced in Lily’s care and seemed happy enough, although Tony had seen the dog’s eyes following Alex, who had become his lifeline.
‘You notice young Tony doesn’t leave his dog all alone for hours,’ Mary said. ‘Knows it’s not good for them.’
‘Bring Oliver with you, then,’ Harriet said shortly. ‘You can pull him along in that wheeled grocery bag of yours and take him everywhere you go like that batty Prue Wally and her smelly little poodle.’
Alex did look at Tony then, with a smile he couldn’t miss even in the murky light. He patted her hand and she briefly used her free one to give his a squeeze. Just as quickly, she pulled away to fiddle with her scarf.
‘I already told Alex that some of what we’ve been told sounds peculiar but it does tell us about the lace handkerchief. Or it seems to.’
Tony swiveled toward Harriet. ‘Handkerchief?’
‘This is a bit from the edge of an old handkerchief,’ she said, passing him a folded piece of tissue. He could feel the scrap inside. ‘It was made by Violet May, Winnie Hawker’s mum. Winnie recognized it because Violet invented the pattern. She liked it so much she put it around the handkerchiefs she gave to brides as gifts to use on their wedding days. Something new.’
‘See?’ Mary said. ‘I told you the story gets a bit deep in places.’
‘I think it’s interesting.’ Alex broke her silence.
‘That pattern’s really intricate,’ Harriet said. ‘Violet is in her nineties now. She still makes lace-edged handkerchiefs but they’re much more simple.’
Mary harrumphed and said, ‘If her eyes are like mine she’s got my sympathy. Before we go on with this, I want to ask something about Reverend Restrick. Kev said the police won’t say which hospital he’s in. Don’t you think that sounds as if they’re afraid someone will get in and kill him?’
Tony smiled to himself. In this village everyone was a budding detective. ‘I suppose it could, but it could also be a big leap to think that. Could be the man’s so injured they don’t want a lot of visitors showing up.’
Alex put a fist to her mouth. ‘We shouldn’t talk about what we think too much. You heard the way they were going on in the Black Dog, Mary. You, too, Harriet. If they could settle on a culprit they’d have him in the stocks by now. Then we’d have to make sure they threw rotten fruit and veg at him, not darts from the Black Dog.’
‘Unfortunately our village stocks are missing the top bit,’ Harriet said with a smile in her voice. ‘But you’re right. They were … well, to be honest it was mostly Kev Winslet who was ready to convict the first likely candidate.’
‘Did he have anyone in mind?’ Tony asked.
‘Just a lot of stuff about how he heard the police were saying the man on the hill could be Edward Derwinter, which is silly when he died years ago. And how Edward coming back would mess things up for Leonard and Heather, because of the inheritance.’ Harriet sniffed. ‘We still don’t understand why that boy was sent away. He had a terrible stutter and sometimes he didn’t talk for weeks on end, but that shouldn’t have been a reason to hi
de him away like that. First he lost his mother and he’d been like her shadow up till she died. He turned very quiet then. And after he saw the little Cummings boy drown, he shut up altogether. If he did try to talk, you couldn’t understand him. We all think old man Derwinter was ashamed of him.’
They were all quiet until Mary said, too loudly, ‘Kev should know better than to sneak around his employers’ place listening for things that are none of his business. Those people have been good to him – they’re good to anyone who works for them.’
Tony could sense Alex’s distress. The past days had been too much for her. His father’s warnings about not waiting too long to tell her about what happened to him in Australia weighed heavily. When was the right moment for something like that? He was almost sure she would believe his side of the story, but he couldn’t be completely certain.
‘Is there more about the lace?’ Alex asked. She swiveled in her seat to look at the sisters.
Neither of them answered, just gazed out of the windows.
‘Is there?’ Alex pressed.
‘Don’t say we didn’t warn you. It sounds outlandish. There’s a little edge of the bride’s initials still on the lawn. Just the very top of the first one, and the second one, but a bit more of the third one. The letters M, then O, then S. There’s a bit more of the S but we’re all sure the first two are M and O from the very top shape.’
Alex shocked Tony by abruptly resting her forehead on his shoulder. ‘How will we ever make something out of that?’ she said.
He stroked her black curls. Alex glanced down, then straightened up quickly. What he felt was more than the reaction of a friend.
‘Any ideas?’ he asked the sisters.
‘Violet’s sure she knows. Maria Olivia Scaduto. Says she could never forget anything that unusual.’
‘And Violet’s in her nineties?’ Tony said.
‘We don’t all go dotty past the fine age of thirty-five, young man,’ Harriet said.
‘Absolutely not,’ Tony said diplomatically – if a little late.
‘She was Cornelius Derwinter’s wife,’ Mary said. ‘That’s where Leonard’s coloring comes from. Italian. Beautiful girl. Only saw her a few times.’
Folly Page 14
