Folly

by Stella Cameron

  ‘Good,’ the detective said. He took out another evidence bag. ‘Your fingerprints will be on it, so you might as well go ahead and drop it in here.’

  ‘You can get fingerprints from material?’ Tony asked, and sensed it had been a mistake.

  O’Reilly gave him a measured look. ‘Times change,’ he said. ‘The answer would be yes.’

  If Alex took any note of the fingerprint exchange, she showed no sign, but when she glanced at Tony again he knew they were both thinking how odd it might look if the police could tell the fabric had been pulled off the knife. ‘It’s at my mother’s,’ she told O’Reilly. ‘I didn’t want to carry it around. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.’

  ‘We’ll collect it as soon as we get back down,’ O’Reilly said.

  He sat quiet. Bishop’s biro had a scratchy nib which sounded as if it were tearing up the paper.

  ‘Did Leonard identify the body?’ Tony said, not expecting a straight answer.

  ‘What makes you ask that?’

  ‘We heard he went to see the body. The ring you found on the hill was a Derwinter ring. There can’t be many like that. It would be natural to see if Leonard knew the man. Something had messed up the poor devil’s finger – something like a very tight ring being pulled off. Whoever took it off must have dropped it and not been able to find it in the dark.’

  ‘All very logical,’ O’Reilly said evenly. ‘But I imagine you’re a very logical man, Harrison.’

  And that, Tony thought, is as much as I’ll get on the subject.

  ‘If it were Leonard’s brother, wouldn’t you be able to find that out through DNA?’ Alex leaned toward O’Reilly, picking up her mug at the same time.

  Tony had stopped himself from suggesting the same thing, expecting the detective to resent any more questions from him. He already knew the answer but should have assumed Alex was just as likely to ask.

  O’Reilly took advantage of the door opening to avoid answering the question.

  A blast of cold air rushed in with Lamb. Without acknowledging anyone, he went to stand behind his boss and handed him a folded slip of paper.

  O’Reilly read it. ‘You don’t say,’ he remarked, his expression showing nothing, and put the paper in his pocket. ‘Anything outside yet?’

  ‘Could be,’ Lamb said. ‘I’ll take over here, Constable. They need all the help they can get out there. Time’s against us – and the weather.’

  ‘I don’t expect to find anything, but we need to check the house,’ O’Reilly said. ‘You look as if you’re done in, Alex. I’ll have someone drive you and Bogie to your mother’s and you can give the lace to the driver. We’ll talk more early in the morning. Harrison, I’d like to see you, too. You’ll be told when. I’ll be staying at the Black Dog until we can wind things up. We’ll meet there. Ask at the desk and they’ll tell you where to find me.’

  ‘I’ll drive myself down,’ Alex said. ‘But thank you for the offer.’

  Tony got up and looked outside. ‘It won’t be easy for anyone to get down that hill without putting on chains,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at her. ‘If you’d be comfortable with it, you could stay at my house tonight. I parked my car outside your gates and it’s almost flat between here and there. Give Lily a call so she doesn’t worry.’

  He turned back to the window without checking either O’Reilly’s or Lamb’s reaction.

  ‘Our units are already chained up,’ O’Reilly said. ‘We won’t have any problems.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex said, ‘but no. I’ll take you up on your offer, Tony. Come on, Bogie and Katie, let’s get moving.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tony’s house was warm.

  He scooped the post from the hall floor and flipped through envelopes as she passed him with Bogie. ‘Hot toddy in order, I think,’ he said, taking her by the arm. ‘Have you been here before?’

  Katie bustled by with proprietary importance and disappeared inside.

  ‘I’ve only seen the house from the outside. What a relief to be warm. It’s cozy in here – particularly for such a big house.’

  ‘A lot of it is closed off,’ he said. ‘No reason to keep up extra rooms you don’t use. If I hadn’t been so smitten with the property in general – and the house – I might have thought twice about getting something so large.’

  ‘How long have you been back in Folly?’ She knew it had to be considerably longer than she had but wasn’t sure when he’d returned.

  Tony looked up from the envelopes he had riffled through and set them aside on a demilune table. ‘About five years,’ he said, but showed no interest in discussing the topic of returning prodigals. ‘Let’s go in the breakfast room. I keep the fire ready in there. It’s not a breakfast room any more but that’s what it was supposed to be.’

  The wide hall showed off an impressive dark wood staircase with a carved newel post and balusters. Stretching toward the back of the house before opening right and left, the hall continued and they took the left fork.

  The breakfast room, as Tony called it, was a small room with waist-high wainscoting painted a deeper cranberry than the walls above, dark oak floors and a soft old Chinese carpet. Several wing chairs upholstered in dark, striped velvet faced a fireplace where he soon had logs crackling.

  ‘This is so comfortable,’ she said, smiling at him and hunching her shoulders appreciatively.

  He took her coat and shrugged out of his as he pushed open sliding doors that led directly into the kitchen. ‘Odd layout, really,’ he said. ‘But it appeals to me. Do you like hot port?’

  ‘I’ve never had it but it sounds wonderful. And I really like this place – the way it’s designed, too.’

  ‘Sit by the fire. This won’t take long.’

  She chose a chair from which she could see him moving beside a butcher block kitchen island with copper pans hanging from overhead hooks.

  Weighted down by the fatigue that intensified by the minute, Alex curled back into the chair with Bogie on the floor beside her. Automatically, she kicked off her boots and pulled up her feet.

  When she and Tony had been together at her mother’s cottage, she had been a mess and they had spent the time discussing her issues. She had made it easy to let him draw her out. But they hadn’t talked about Tony’s life, or why he’d returned to the village and bought a home here – alone. All she knew was that he didn’t appear to be married any more.

  When he used to bring Penny Cowan home, their connection had been obvious. They had moved in a private, shiny aura.

  Tony had been a quiet fixture when Alex returned. The one time she asked Lily about him, she said Doc James had never volunteered anything about Tony’s personal life and she had never asked him.

  Alex watched flames shoot up from the logs. The sound they made comforted her. Sights and sounds, memories that brought back snatches of good times. Her mother reading stories by the fire in their tiny Underhill cottage. Decorating a tree, the same tree they kept growing in a tub outside, for Christmas. That tree was planted in the garden of the cottage in Folly-on-Weir.

  Her eyelids wanted to close.

  Colored wrapping paper saved and cut into strips for paper chains.

  Holly sprigs collected from the woods and tucked along behind the old-fashioned picture rail in each room. And snowflakes cut from folded paper to stick on the single-paned windows Jack Frost painted with icy patterns in the early mornings.

  Magic.

  ‘Mummy, where is our daddy?’

  Her own child voice, high, clear and ingenuous, sounded as clear as if she had spoken in this room.

  Alex didn’t hear her mother’s response, or remember what it might have been, but she never got an answer to any questions about her father.

  She jumped and her eyes opened sharply. Tony stood beside the chair, looking thoughtfully down at her, a small glass mug in each hand.

  ‘Hello, sleepy. As soon as you’ve had this we’ll find you a comfortable bed. You’re wiped out, kiddo.
Use the handle – the glass gets hot.’

  ‘Mm. Sorry to drift off on you. Thank you.’ She took the mug and sniffed hot, spiced port appreciatively. ‘You need to take it easy, too.’

  They sat quietly, sipping companionably – until Alex heard the soft, snow-laden sweep of a branch across a window. She could see the branch and a scatter of falling snow on the glass, but darkness cloaked whatever lay behind.

  This was an illusion. At any moment the peace could pop like a soap bubble and droplets would sting her eyes with reality.

  ‘What is it?’ Tony watched her. ‘No poker for you, my friend. You have the most expressive face I’ve ever seen.’

  She nodded, but made no attempt to enlighten him. ‘I hope it’s OK to ask, but you know quite a lot about me and I don’t know anything about your life since we left Folly. You and Penny did marry?’

  ‘Yes. I thought you knew that.’

  ‘You never really said.’

  ‘I’m a widower.’

  The cold in her belly had nothing to do with the temperature this time. ‘I … Oh, Tony. It sounds so trite to say I’m sorry, but I am. I’m more than sorry. I’m horrified. I don’t understand why I didn’t know about Penny.’

  He set his mug aside. ‘It was a long time ago. You know how people are here – they don’t talk much about certain types of things. Of course they gossip, but not usually about everyday tragedies. It’s like an unwritten rule.’

  ‘Everyday tragedies, Tony? Oh, it’s fine to get through and get on, but it’s also all right to admit you’ve been hurt.’ She swallowed hard. Her throat was dry. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to judge how you deal with things. I didn’t expect you to say something like that.’

  He looked straight into her eyes and gradually smiled. ‘You’re OK. Do you know that? I like you, Alex Duggins – I mean—’

  She interrupted him with a laugh. ‘I know who you mean. After seeing that announcement about … After tonight I may go back to Duggins and try to forget as much of my marriage as I can. But thanks. You’re OK, too. When you’re not trying to be masterful.’

  They both laughed, and abruptly stopped.

  Katie was exercising her impressive bark. Bogie popped up to sit on her haunches, her floppy ears twitching. Moments later someone hammered the front door, waited a second, perhaps two, and swung the knocker with vigor.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Tony said. ‘Now what?’

  He hopped up and strode from the room, the mug still in hand. A minute or so, and a lot of murmured male conversation later, he returned with Dan O’Reilly.

  Fatigue shadowed the detective’s face but his stance, and the way he assessed his surroundings, were alert. ‘I didn’t realize you two lived so close,’ he said. ‘This is another nice house. People who don’t know the area never guess how many big places are hidden away in these hills.’

  Alex wasn’t sure how to answer, so she didn’t.

  ‘It’s you I mainly came to see,’ he said to her. ‘Thought you’d want to know immediately if we found anything significant.’

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ Tony said.

  O’Reilly declined. His intense stare, the suggestion that he was poised to pounce, made sure Alex was wide awake.

  ‘At least sit down,’ Tony said, and went back to his own chair.

  ‘Thanks.’ Without removing his coat, O’Reilly took a seat where he could look directly at either Alex or Tony. The confrontational position, she thought, her spine stiffening.

  Katie-the-traitor went to the man’s knees and rested her big head there. He stroked her square muzzle and scratched her ears. ‘Did you know the motion sensors at your place can be turned on and off from the outside, Alex?’

  She blinked several times, thinking about what he’d just said. ‘They can’t,’ she said at last.

  ‘They can. There’s a switch mounted in an insulated box under what looks like storm grating, only the runoff’s been diverted and the grate has a liner mounted under it.’

  ‘That’s senseless,’ Tony said, shifting to the edge of his chair. ‘It defeats the purpose.’

  ‘Depends on your purpose,’ O’Reilly said.

  ‘It could have been included in the system in case it malfunctioned,’ Alex said.

  ‘Smart girl.’

  Alex pressed her lips together hard rather than make a ‘smart’ comeback at O’Reilly. A glance at Tony showed he was amused. No doubt her ‘poker face’ said exactly what she was thinking about O’Reilly’s verbal pat on the head.

  ‘Unfortunately – or fortunately at this point – that switch is a recent addition. In other words, it hasn’t been there long.’

  ‘But I haven’t had any work done lately,’ Alex told him. ‘I’d know about a thing like that.’

  ‘Would you? How much time do you spend at the lodge versus in the village? Anyone who knew what they were doing could have dealt with this little job in no time and you’re away for hours at a time, Alex. The good news is that we now know how the lights were turned on and off, and we know you weren’t imagining things.’

  ‘That’s a bit bloody much,’ she snapped. ‘If you think I’m making things up that’s your business, but have the decency not to tell me to my face that you thought I was lying.’

  O’Reilly sighed. ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did. It’s always a relief when we can tie up an end or two, sure. Not that there aren’t plenty of ends still waving in the breeze.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Tony asked brusquely. ‘If so—’

  ‘It’s not,’ O’Reilly responded. ‘And this is for both of you.’

  ‘Twenty questions,’ Alex muttered, not caring that she was easily heard.

  ‘Yes,’ O’Reilly said. ‘Could be more than twenty. Are either of you aware of a path that runs behind both of your properties? It’s extensive, or we think it is. The snow makes it impossible to be sure exactly. It hugs the walls but we already saw places where it probably branches off.’

  Tony shook his head, no. ‘I’ve lived here, either in the village or up here, most of my life but I didn’t know of a particular … what did you call it? An extensive path?’

  ‘Lane. Footpath. Whatever. It runs past here and on up the hill and down behind Alex’s back garden, close to the wall, then close to hedgerows. It’s not maintained but it’s been used enough. It’s easily passable. Or it would be easy for anyone who knew it was there. We’re waiting for morning to see just where it does go. But someone used it last night. We’ve got one footprint – which could be useless now – in a sheltered patch by a spot where someone’s pushed through a hedge at the corner of the property. We went ahead and got a cast. We could still get lucky with evidence from where our boy, or girl, has been getting in and out.’

  Alex got up and stood behind her chair. Bogie picked up her ears. ‘So someone’s sneaking on to my property and getting into my house when I’m not there,’ she said. ‘I more or less knew that but it’s creepy to have proof.’

  ‘So far it’s been when you’re not there,’ O’Reilly said. ‘Fortunately.’

  Tony also stood. ‘Frightening people won’t help, will it?’

  ‘Making them wary could.’ O’Reilly got up. ‘Would you like me to stop by and let your mother know where you are, Alex?’

  The kind of anger he aroused made her feel like a stranger to herself. ‘Thanks for the offer, Detective Inspector, but I’ve already called her.’

  O’Reilly grunted. ‘Frightening you isn’t my intention,’ he said. ‘But I want you to think twice before you spend time at the lodge again until all this is cleared up. We won’t be surprised to find out the nice, easily missed little access network may even be a shortcut to the village. Someone knows the way very well.’

  The detective’s mobile rang. He answered, listened and left the room.

  ‘This has to be over soon,’ Alex said. ‘It’s been three days. It feels like weeks.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Tony asked. ‘I don’t think we’re goin
g to get much sleep tonight.’

  ‘I think I’ll have more port,’ Alex said, deliberately giving him a bright grin. ‘Don’t bother to heat it this time – just bring the bottle.’

  He laughed and did as she asked, returning from the kitchen with a big bag of crisps as well as the bottle ‘Eat some of these, too,’ he said, tearing open the package.

  O’Reilly returned and stood with his feet planted apart. He pushed his coat back and sunk his hands in his pockets. He watched them but seemed lost in thought.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said finally. ‘It would probably be better if we all sat down again.’

  Hesitating, Alex looked to Tony for his reaction. He nodded. ‘We’re both tired, O’Reilly. I hope this won’t take too long.’

  They both sat and O’Reilly followed suit.

  Alex worked to calm down. She sipped port, picked up the bag of crisps and crunched several. When she offered the crisps to O’Reilly, he gave her one of his askance stares and shook his head, no. Tony scooped out a handful and munched steadily. ‘They’re salt and vinegar,’ he said with his mouth full.

  ‘That’s grand,’ O’Reilly said without interest. ‘We’ve had some information of interest tonight. Sure, it could be nothing important, but under the circumstances we have to be cautious. Alex, are you aware of what happened to Tony’s wife in Australia?’

  She frowned at Tony, who clamped his mouth firmly shut. Muscles in his jaw jerked.

  ‘You don’t know?’ O’Reilly pressed.

  Alex sat on her hands while Bogie nosed her thigh and made soft, troubled sounds.

  ‘Why don’t you say your piece,’ Tony said. ‘Alex knows I lost my wife, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Does she know what lost means? Alex, stop me if you’ve heard any of this before. Apparently Penny Harrison went missing but her husband didn’t think it was worth reporting for a week. The story goes that she died while diving, but her body was never found. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Tony here had anything to do with the death, but it’s certainly worth a thought or two.’

  Tony didn’t say a word. He sat back in his chair and settled his hands on the arms. He kept his eyes on Alex’s face.