Time Enough to Die

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  “It’s the shop where Linda worked,” Matilda told her. “It’s just up the street from Nick’s father’s cafe.”

  Ashley slumped down in the chair. Great, she’d just dug Nick a deeper hole than he was in already. Unless he really was working with Reynolds, and was just using her to get information on the dig. If he could get sex, too, then that was a bonus. . . . Shit. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Gareth and I realized tonight we hadn’t been comparing notes thoroughly enough. Now it turns out that you know some important things we don’t. Knowledge is power.”

  “Aren’t you and Gareth writing a book about the case?”

  “No, we’re trying to solve the case. That’s the other thing I need you to keep secret. No one except Howard and me knows that Gareth’s not a reporter, he’s a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard.”

  “Scotland Yard?” Ashley repeated. “I just told a cop where to get off?”

  “He won’t hold it against you professionally. What Gareth needs to know is what Nick told you. So far Nick’s never even admitted he knew Linda.”

  “Go figure. He thinks the police are out to get him anyway.” Ashley sighed. “He probably thinks Reynolds killed Linda. I bet that’s why he was waiting outside the hotel tonight, not to see me but because Reynolds was inside.”

  Floorboards creaked overhead and water gushed down the pipes that, thanks to architectural renovation, were on the outside of the hotel’s walls. Matilda brushed her wave of hair away from her forehead. She had small hands and short unpolished nails. Capable hands, Ashley thought. She flexed her own hands into fists and loosened them again, wondering if they were big enough to hold everything that had been dumped into them.

  “I’m also telling you all this,” the older woman said, “because your knowledge might put you in danger.”

  “Danger from Reynolds? He doesn’t know me from any of the others.”

  “No, danger from Nick. You understand, don’t you, that he has to be on our suspect list, too?”

  “I understand. But if he had some sort of antiquities scam going why would he live in a trashy travel trailer?”

  “Camouflage? I don’t know. It’s all—complicated.” Matilda shook her head wearily.

  Ashley pulled her legs into the chair and wrapped her arms around them. She’d gotten over Chris by working and studying and anticipating her trip to England, hoping it’d be an adventure. Now that it was—well, who said, be careful what you wish for, you might get it?

  “Are you still having nightmares about the severed hand?” Matilda asked.

  Taken by surprise, Ashley answered honestly. “Yes, sometimes.”

  “Has Nick told you anything about the so-called ‘party’ Friday night?”

  “Yes. It sounds like some kind of pagan rite re-enactment.”

  “A re-creation of the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane. Were you planning to go with him?”

  “Yes—well, I mean—they’re not actually going to sacrifice anyone, are they?”

  “I sincerely hope not. I imagine some of the participants will be there to party, some will be there searching for God.”

  “That’s what Nick said, except he said gods, plural. The old gods? Are they still around?”

  “As long as someone believes in them,” Matilda said, “they still exist.”

  Ashley felt like she was cramming for an exam, even though she didn’t know what the test going to be and who was going to decide whether she passed or not.

  “There’s a terrible fascination to death, isn’t there?” Matilda went on. “Dramatic death. Branwen sacrificed to expiate sins she’d never committed, rather like Christ, I suppose. Linda murdered.”

  “Branwen?”

  “One of the ghosts at the fort.”

  “You really can see ghosts? Nick said you were just saying that to discourage treasure-hunters.”

  “It would take more than that to discourage treasure-hunters. And yes, I really can see ghosts.” Matilda stood up. Stretching, she walked over to the fireplace and stared down at the cold, silent electric fire. “The problem with a cult of the dead, like the Druid cult, is that it so often leads to a cult of Death. Such a tight a focus on the end of life sometimes makes living lose its relevance, and the final surrender becomes more important than the struggle.”

  “Yeah,” Ashley said cautiously.

  “Myself, I believe in patterns of time and fate. A time to sow and a time to reap, a time to love and a time to hate, a time to be born and a time to die. There’s always time enough to die. There’s no need to rush toward it like rushing into a lover’s arms.” Decisively Matilda shook herself, like a cat shaking off water. “Ashley, think very carefully before you go with Nick Friday night.”

  “You’re not going to warn me not to go?”

  “Would it make any difference if I did?”

  Ashley shrugged. “When he asked me to go I figured he just, you know, wanted sex. But tonight he was talking about having to set up the Druid’s altar, that sort of thing. He hardly seemed interested in me at all. So I guess he’s got another agenda.”

  “The Druid,” Matilda repeated. “Is Nick the Druid himself?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Of course not. Ashley, a lot of people around here have agendas—Gareth and me not excepted. Please, please, keep alert and be prepared to duck.”

  “I will.” Ashley unfolded her limbs. This had gone on long enough. Her brain was going to explode and so was her bladder.

  Matilda continued staring into the fireplace, unfocussed. It must be her ESP that made her so empathic. How could she bear risking so much in touching other people? “Can you read my mind?” Ashley asked.

  “No,” Matilda replied. “When there’s very little distraction I can sense moods. Like how you’re getting impatient right now.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Go to bed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ashley got up. At the door she turned back into the room. “Thanks, Matilda, for being on my side.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s side. I’m on the side of what’s right. But you’re very welcome.”

  Leaving Matilda meditating in the sitting room, Ashley scurried upstairs. The hotel was weirdly quiet, considering the number of people who were sleeping beneath its roof. She wondered if Matilda’s dreams were disturbed by the dreams of others, flooded with images of flight, sex, and severed hands.

  Ashley stopped in the W.C. and then slipped into her room. Jennifer was asleep. She hurried into her pajamas, burrowed into the bed, and lay shivering beneath the weight of the comforter.

  She felt as though she’d been picked up by the heels and shaken. The people around her were lying, and worse. She no longer wanted to go to the rites, she no longer wanted to see Nick, she no longer wanted to see Gareth, she—no. She didn’t want to go home. She couldn’t, not and keep what self-respect she still had.

  She just might forgive Gareth for his high-handedness, even though it hurt that he only looked at her as one of the kids. And yet she had, however inadvertently, achieved something Mr. Detective Inspector hadn’t. By making friends with Nick instead of suspecting him she’d found out about his relationship with Linda. . . .

  The idea didn’t light up like a light bulb above her head. It came like a swelling chord of music, starting in some obscure neuron of her brain and rolling forward to absorb her entire mind. Ashley would have sat up in bed with the exhilaration of it, except the room was too cold.

  She was the missing link. She could tie everything together for Gareth and Matilda and help them solve the case. She could prove herself—not just to Gareth, not even to Matilda, but to herself.

  All she had to do was go to the rites with Nick and find out what he knew about Linda and what he knew about Reynolds. All she had to do was go out to Durslow Edge in the dark, with someone whose designs on her body might be the least of her worries.

  Ashley lay wide-eyed, staring up at the
shadowed ceiling, as the travel clock beside her bed ticked the time away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “We’d better be quick,” Gareth directed. “The students have already gone to the dig.” He sat down on the edge of the bed.

  Matilda yanked the sheets and comforter smooth, driving Gareth to the chair. If he’d been a woman she’d have described his motion as a flounce. He radiated irritation—with her, with Ashley, with the case. She wasn’t exactly calm herself. “Not to mention,” she said with more than a trace of sarcasm, “that evildoers come scurrying out of the woodwork like cockroaches as soon as you turn your back.”

  “Did you talk some sense into the girl?” Gareth asked.

  “I talked with her, yes. I can’t tell her what to do about Nick, though—that’s up to her. And it’s far too late to cut her out of the case.”

  “The case is none of her business.”

  “Yes, it is her business. She more or less tripped and fell into it, true, but she’s up to her neck in it now.”

  “Stupid, silly . . .” Gareth muttered under his breath.

  “Come off it,” returned Matilda. “She’s young, she’s naive, she’s desperate for affection. Don’t tell me you weren’t ever young and naive. And if you start giving me any kind of double standard crap so help me I’ll throw this pillow at you.”

  Gareth stared at the carpet, his mouth set in a straight line. Even the curls in his hair were tight and stiff, like compressed springs.

  “Ashley has done something neither of us has done,” Matilda went on. “She’s earned Nick’s trust. Or enough of it, at least, that he told her he and Linda were—well, quite good friends, judging by the forensic evidence.”

  He looked up abruptly. “So the penny drops at last, does it? What else did she say? Is there enough evidence to charge him?”

  Matilda re-arranged the notions and potions on her dresser. She pulled out her cell phone, checked it for messages, put it away again. She summarized her conversation with Ashley and concluded, “Nick sounds like a very interesting person. I’m looking forward to meeting him at the ceremony tomorrow. If you want more than that, I suggest you talk to Ashley yourself, starting with an apology for being rude to her last night.”

  “I wasn’t rude to her.”

  “She interpreted your directness as rudeness. She thought you were trying to boss her around. She doesn’t realize you’re concerned about her. And she has a crush on you, which made it worse.”

  “She fancies me? Good God, does the girl think I’m after robbing cradles?”

  “It doesn’t have much to do with you at all, frankly. It has everything to do with her own romantic dreams, ones you and I have to respect. She’ll forgive you, given the chance—she seemed quite dazzled when I told her that you’re from Scotland Yard. . . .”

  “You blew my cover?”

  “If she knows we trust her then she’ll trust us. Maybe she’ll help us.”

  “You’re not letting her go to the nutters’ rave-up tomorrow!”

  “It’s her decision. I warned her as best I could.”

  “Jesus!” The muscle jumped in Gareth’s jaw. His eyes flared. Matilda thought of Vesuvius quaking and rumbling and emitting little bursts of smoke while the citizens of Pompeii went innocently about their business.

  She retrieved Letters from Roman Britain from the nightstand and added it to the stack of books on the table. On its back cover was a photograph of Howard Sweeney, striking a pose amid the wind-swept ruins of a fort on Hadrian’s Wall. “Sweeney must’ve told Reynolds about the gold torc. At least Reynolds knows about it, and the only other person he could have heard it from is Watkins, but I just can’t believe Watkins is on the take.”

  “You told me not to trust Watkins,” Gareth said.

  “I know, I know.” She squared the stack of books.

  “What did Reynolds say?”

  “Nothing specific, just hints. Daring me to confront him, I think.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “It was nice talking to you, good night. Do you think I’d blurt the entire case to him?”

  “You blurted the entire case to Ashley.”

  “At the risk of stating the obvious, D.I. March, Adrian Reynolds and Ashley Walraven are two different people in two different situations.” Matilda told herself to lower her voice. She slammed into the bathroom and starting folding the laundry hanging from the shower rod. The silence in the room behind her grew ominous.

  She carried her unmentionables back into the bedroom, half-expecting to see lava running from Gareth’s ears and pooling steamily on his shoulders. He was sitting just as she’d left him, tight, tense, and controlled. His lashes curtained the fire in his eyes. “The char will clean your room for you,” he said, very quietly.

  “I’m just being nervous,” Matilda replied.

  “If you’ve quite finished lecturing me, I’m off to the dig.”

  “I’m sorry you think I was lecturing you. I’ve finished telling you what I know.” She stood back while he rose, stalked across the room, and shut the door firmly behind him.

  Well, she thought as his steps receded down the hall, maybe she wasn’t after robbing cradles, either.

  * * * * *

  The rain was too light to send the students back inside and too heavy to make working comfortable. It certainly did little to quench Matilda’s own volcanic mood. She stood atop the mound and surveyed the surrounding countryside. The trees along the river shivered in the cool, fresh breeze that fanned her cheeks. The buildings of Corcester and Fortuna Stud resembled a watercolor, all muted colors and smeared lines. On the horizon Durslow Edge was a purplish-gray smudge like a bruise.

  Gareth was digging much too busily in the Miller trench. Ashley sat at the edge of the emerging bathhouse with her back to him, although she offered Matilda a cramped smile. Sweeney was wearing a tweed deerstalker and a fatuous grin. “Good morning, Mrs. Gray.”

  One of these days, Matilda told herself, she was going to take her Ph.D. diploma and stick it in his—teeth, she hastily amended. “Howard, why did you tell Reynolds about the gold torc, after we agreed not to?”

  “Why my dear, what makes you think. . . .”

  “I’m not your dear.”

  Sweeney had the grace to look shamefaced. “One can’t sell you a dummy, can one? Yes, I plead guilty. I don’t happen to like being chucked down holes, you see, whilst the rotter who did it falls about laughing.”

  “We have no proof Reynolds did anything to you. Or stole anything, or murdered anyone.”

  “That’s just the point. We have to draw him out, make him and his confederates tip their hand, or whatever idiom you use in the States. It’s time we had this charade well and truly finished.”

  “I agree with you there,” Matilda admitted.

  Bryan walked by with the sketchbook, delivered it to Ashley, stood around joking with her for a moment, and then returned to his own trench.

  Sweeney dropped his voice to a whisper. “There were at least two blighters climbing about the dig last night. I saw them from my window. If I had your skills, I might have been able to send some telepathic warning to our well-meaning but unfortunately dense local constable.”

  Matilda considered making some remark about telephones working better than ESP when it came to calling the cops, but she saved her breath.

  “I hope you twig something at the Reynolds’s this afternoon,” Sweeney went blithely on. “Please excuse my not coming. The last time I took tea with Adrian, Della served soggy scones, dry sandwiches, and bitter tea.”

  “Some of us will simply have to make the sacrifice,” Matilda told him, and turned toward the Miller trench.

  Gareth had uncovered quite an array of stones—building, inscribed, and rubble. Raindrops sparkled on his hair. His cheeks were pink from the chill. When Matilda slithered through the mud to his side he looked around in weary resignation rather than rage.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I was
making decisions about the case without consulting you.”

  One brow and the corner of his mouth lifted in a shrug. “Decisions have to be made, don’t they? Do you think Ashley will talk to me?”

  “Yes. Just be your usual charming self.”

  “I don’t want to give her any ideas.”

  “Don’t worry. She’s pretty well disillusioned.”

  Groaning, Gareth hoisted himself up on a column drum. “Ashley, would you be so good as to bring the sketchbook?”

  “Oh,” said the girl’s voice. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

  Matilda turned to the ancient stairway and the monogram of St. Peter. If for nothing else, she told herself, Corcester would be remembered by the history books for that. And remembered by the popular mind for the gold torc. A shame the other torcs had been stolen long since, carried away and melted down.

  With a muddy squelch, Ashley arrived in the trench. She eyed Gareth with a mixture of caution and anticipation, as though expecting him to rip open his shirt and display a badge tattooed on his chest. “Do you really want the book,” she asked in a stage whisper, “or do you want to see me?”

  “You,” Gareth told her. “I—ah—I’m sorry—last night—I meant well.”

  “I know,” she returned, with a shrug that was more of a spasm. “It’s okay.”

  “I need to know what Nick told you about Linda.”

  “Nothing much,” Ashley said to her feet. “She’d been at the camp, and Nick was going to drive her back into Corcester, but his car broke down. It was a nice night, cold and clear, so she hitchhiked. That’s all.”

  “He didn’t see who she hitched with?”

  “No. I mean, he couldn’t have seen, or he’d know who killed her.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Matilda. “but we need to locate the driver of that car. I bet it was someone Linda knew.”

  “Unless Nick killed her himself,” Gareth said. “He was the last person to see her alive. That doesn’t look good.”

  Ashley’s chin went up. Her eyes sparked. “That’s exactly the reason Nick won’t talk to the police. To you. Why even mention Linda to me if he was guilty? But you wouldn’t believe him if he said today was Thursday. He says toffs—rich people—commit crimes and the police look for poor people to blame.”