Marsh Blood (The Endel Mysteries Book 2)

by Lucilla Andrews

  ‘Of course it bloody has but whatever it is there’re enough people to cope with it without you and one’s a bloody medic ‒ someone’s coming.’ He let me go, dropped flat on the bed and rolled over on to his face before we heard the quiet urgent knock.

  I had to dry my hand before I could open the door. Linda stood there looking so pale the peeled skin was a rash on her face. ‘Nick said I should tell you ‒’ She broke off at the sight of David. ‘He out cold?’

  ‘Yes. Linda, what’s happened?’

  She put a hand on the lintel to steady herself. ‘I shouldn’t be so surprised. Nick’s been expecting this for months. It’s Renny. He’s dead.’

  I caught my breath. ‘Oh, God. How?’

  ‘Heart attack, Nick says. Classic symptoms. He must have just sat down in his chair, given himself his insulin, and gone like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘He looks so peaceful. Asleep. Angie thought he was when she walked in and then’ ‒ she shook her head ‒ ‘you heard her. Nick and Helen are with her now. He’ll give her something as soon as it’s safe. She’s had so much gin. There’s nothing else to be done.’ She had another look at David. ‘Want him moved? The guys downstairs’ll do it.’

  I was too shaken for a good lie so I kept to the truth. Some of it. ‘No, thanks. You’ve all got enough to deal with and he’d hate the idea when he surfaces tomorrow. I honestly don’t mind and I don’t suppose the Evans-Williamses will tonight, though I’d rather you didn’t tell them. I owe David a good turn. He’s saved my life twice. I’ll look after him.’ Her eyes widened, but she was clearly relieved not to have to add to Nick’s problems. ‘If you’re sure ‒ I’ll just tell Nick.’

  ‘Thanks. And tell Angie ‒’

  ‘Not tonight. She’s not with us now.’

  ‘I guess not.’ I still couldn’t take it in. ‘Renny dead. Just like that.’

  ‘Nick says that’s how it happens with a bad heart attack. Too quick even for pain.’

  ‘That’s something. He was sweet. I’m so sorry.’

  She said flatly, ‘He could be sweet sometimes. I’d better get back. I’ll tell the others you know and are all right.’

  ‘Thanks. If I can help, give me a shout.’

  ‘There’s nothing anyone can do for Renny now, and we’ll cope with Angie and ‒ things. Good night.’

  ‘Good night.’ I closed and locked the door as David got off the bed.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ I demanded under my breath.

  ‘Dirty,’ he muttered succinctly, thrusting his room key into my hand. ‘Beat it to my room, get my airline bag and leave both doors open while you’re in there.’

  He was neither drunk nor crazy so I did as he said. The passage was empty, all the other doors were shut, and the fire doors muffled the much more subdued rumble of voices coming up from the hall. My hand rattled David’s key in the lock and, irrationally, since the passage was empty, I was profoundly thankful David was behind my open door. I turned on the light before I crossed the threshold of his room, grabbed the bag from the bedside table, shot out and relocked the door as if the room were on fire.

  He closed my door but didn’t lock it. ‘Go into my bathroom?’

  ‘God, no. I’ve seen enough of that rug and the door was closed.’

  I could have said the bathroom was on fire from the speed of his reactions. He seized the bag from me, threw it on the bed, pushed me back into the corridor. ‘Unlock mine but don’t turn on the light. Coast clear?’

  I was wrong. He was crazy. And I was a robot. ‘Yes.’

  The next second he was beside me and pushing me into his darkened room. He closed the door behind us and without turning on the lights groped his way to the bathroom, kicked open the door that was now ajar, before switching on and off the bathroom lights so quickly that I was still blinded when they went out. He said calmly, ‘If he was in here he could only have got out of the window and if he did the latch’ll be open. You can only open it from inside and I shut it when I nipped up for fags earlier.’ We groped to the window. The curtains were closed, the window shut, the latch open, and I hadn’t an inch of skin that hadn’t risen in goose pimples. ‘Yep,’ murmured David, moving the curtains a fraction apart. ‘Not much of a drop from here. I could use it if I were in a hurry. Far too dark to see anything out this side now. Might have more of a chance if we stuck our heads out for a good look, but that’ll advertise the fact that we know he’s been in here. If he saw the bathroom light going on and off it was just you charging for that drunken sod’s box of tissues as he’s started throwing up. Let’s get back.’ We moved to the door more easily as our eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. ‘All clear?’

  ‘No,’ I said without moving my lips.

  ‘Great. You’ve tucked the sod up in here. Tell whoever’s there,’ he breathed down the back of my frozen neck.

  Nick McCabe had come out of the le Veres’ room and seen me. I got through the fire doors first. ‘Nick, I’m so desperately sorry about all this.’

  ‘I guess that goes for the most of us, Rose.’ His pleasant face was creased with genuine distress. ‘Renny was a real nice friendly guy and for his sake I guess we have gotten cause to be grateful his passing was real quick and came about while he was still way up on top of the job and the life he most cared to live. It’s kind of hard for Angie to appreciate right now how much he would have resented having to quit shooting, the job, and so on and so forth. Many times of late I have had to warn him that time would be real close if he did not slow down, and so has the specialist in London who has been treating his diabetes these many years. He would not pay heed. Maybe he would take the few hours off like this afternoon, but he was all set to be up early again in the forenoon. He would not stop, so a half-hour back his heart did that job for him.’

  ‘Linda said a heart attack. That mean a coronary?’

  ‘Surely. As classic a one as I have seen, but as I am more a friend of the family than his regular medical attendant, I have already called the local doctor in Harbour and asked him to come right here as I have to have a second opinion. I have no objections to treating the minor injuries of my living friends,’ he added gravely, ‘but when one passes away I go by the book.’

  ‘Very wise.’ I glanced at the le Veres’ door. ‘Still in there?’

  ‘Yes. After the local doc has been we will move his body to the cold store to rest there until such time as the proper arrangements can be made. As of now Angie is with Linda in our room. We have gotten her quietened and are hoping to persuade her to stay with Linda for the night’ ‒ he jerked his head at the door ‒ ‘and I will sleep right there. We may have ourselves quite a problem as Angie is real set to sleep in there on her own.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  He gave me a blank professional look. ‘I guess so. You okay, honey? And David?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ I gestured towards David’s open door and darkened room. ‘I’ve got him to his own bed. He just needs to sleep it off.’

  His eyes smiled slightly. ‘He’s a great guy and he sure knew what he was doing when he picked on you. When do you two plan to get married?’

  ‘We’re still arguing over the date.’

  ‘Don’t leave it too long.’ He sighed. ‘Nothing lasts. For good or bad. You kind of think it will, but it does not. Oh, my. I guess I must get back to the girls.’

  ‘Yes, Nick. When you see the Evans-Williamses will you give them my sympathy and say I haven’t gone down not to get under their feet.’

  ‘Surely. Goodnight, Rose.’

  ‘’Night.’ I backed through the fire doors and, when he had disappeared into his own room, beckoned David. He vanished while I locked his door and, after I had locked mine, handed me a whisky. ‘You rate that. Knock it back.’

  ‘I’ll say I do!’ I dropped into one armchair. ‘Being a tethered goat is bad for my vibes.’ I took a drink. ‘How did you know someone was skulking in your bathroom and w
ho in hell was it? Fancy man?’

  He grinned and sat on the edge of the spare bed. ‘Nick’s right. I’ll have to let you pressure me into wedding you. You’re the only woman I’ve ever met with the nous to act first and ask questions second.’

  ‘Flattery,’ I retorted, ‘will get you this glass in your face regardless of your glasses. Stop being so bloody evasive. How and who?’

  ‘I just thought I heard someone pussy-footing in there a second or so before I heard Angie’s trips and then her blasting off. I wasn’t sure I did or who it was, but fancy man’s my calculated guess. If it’s right ‒ Christ, he sweated when you went in for my bag.’

  I said coldly, ‘If he was there, him and me, both. Thanks very much.’

  ‘It was only a guess.’

  ‘That latch was open.’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I’m personally convinced it was a right guess, but one of the staff could’ve come in and opened the window to let out the smoke. Every room I use reeks of nicotine. Nevertheless, I’m sure I heard someone creeping in there and, if he was around with Angie’s blasts bringing everyone from the bar into the hall and the McCabes into the corridor, he couldn’t get out by the main or attic stairs. We were in here so he had to use my room.’

  ‘Which was locked.’

  ‘So what? The helps have pass keys, and the spares are just inside the office door below. Anyone could get hold of one any time, and if he knows his way round this joint, as I’m inclined to think he must,’ he went on reflectively, ‘then he could be in the habit of using that way out. If so, my moving in there can’t have pleased him any and could ‒ just could ‒ account for his wanting Johnnie out.’

  I stared at him as my mind ran on the same lines. ‘Maybe he fixed your bathroom not to kill anyone just to mess it up and keep the room empty? You said those screws could have been loosened intentionally?’

  ‘And the beams were rotten An idea. I’m not sure I’d bet on it.’

  I let it go as I’d had another. ‘Think he’s one of the staff?’ He shook his head. ‘I thought of that. And of the heavy mob. No. The pieces don’t fit.’ He rang a finger round the rim of his glass. ‘Nor does Renny’s death.’

  ‘Even though it was ‒ convenient?’

  His abstracted eyes looked up slowly. They didn’t see me. ‘It looks that way and things are often what they look, but even if Renny wanted to tell you something fancy man didn’t want you to hear, I can’t figure how in hell he knew that. Renny spoke as quietly as we are now. I couldn’t hear us from outside that door. If ‒ and God only knows why ‒ fancy man was fool enough to risk hiding out in the le Veres’ room ‒ and of all rooms I’d have said that would be the last he’d choose ‒ he couldn’t have been anywhere in the bedroom or Renny would’ve spotted him. The bathroom was his only hope. I don’t think he could’ve heard from there. Nor can I figure why he should kill Renny. Angie’s no cop without the backing of her old man’s lolly and, as I’ve said, I’ll lay a year’s pay she ain’t a wealthy widow now.’

  I was too shaken by something else he had said to be interested in Angie’s attractions. ‘ “Why he should kill Renny”? So-so ‒ you think like me that, despite what Nick says, it wasn’t a coronary?’

  ‘It was a coronary all right! I heard what Nick told you. I believe him. And when they open Renny up at the PM I’m sure Nick’ll insist on, I’m sure they’ll find he died of a massive great cardiac clot.’

  ‘Then he can’t have been killed and if he died at the right moment for someone that was just someone’s luck.’ He was looking at and seeing me. ‘Must be. You can’t give someone a coronary to order, can you?’ It was a rhetorical question until I saw his expression quicken. ‘Can you?’ I repeated in another tone.

  He blinked at me over his glasses. ‘If you know the highly specialized tricks of a highly specialized trade, adrenalin would do the job.’ He gave me the details. ‘Kills’ ‒ he snapped his fingers ‒ ‘like so. It produces a condition called arrhythmia. Can’t ever be proved as it leaves no trace apart from a bloody great coronary.’

  ‘My God, I never knew that.’ I lay back in my chair. ‘How do you?’

  ‘One of the blokes with whom I got most friendly in Australia was a pathologist who did a lot of forensic work for the cops. He told me.’

  ‘I see.’ I blinked. ‘No, I don’t! That is, I don’t see any simple Harbour lad or Angie having that sort of knowledge or knowing how to use it if they did. After all that gin she couldn’t have held a syringe steady enough’ ‒ I shuddered. ‘God. What a thought.’

  ‘A thought’s all it is and will have to remain as it can never be proved. Be laughed out of court. There was old Renny in his mid-fifties, overweight, flogging himself to keep up with a young wife, at the end of a long day that finished with a knees-up and while he was still dead chuffed about becoming a grandad, sitting down in his chair, giving himself his insulin and out like a light. Classic, as Nick and the entire medical profession would agree. The poor bloke was a bloody sitting duck for his fatal coronary.’

  I remembered his using that description in another context two evenings ago and, from the way he gulped some whisky, so did he. We didn’t refer to it. I said absently, ‘Of course, if you could’ve picked up that trick at second hand, possibly ‒’ Then I remembered what we had both forgotten and leapt up. ‘David! The rug!’

  ‘Cool off, it’s safe.’ He stood up, and heaved back the mattress of the spare bed to expose the mohair rug neatly folded in two between the mattress and the canvas cover over the bedsprings. ‘I shifted it in here when I nipped up for those fags while you were outside with Walt. I still had your key as I’d forgotten to give it back before tea. The rug had stopped dripping. That’s an obvious hiding place but, as there’s often the chance that the obvious gets overlooked, I used it. And take that dirty look off your face! I’d no idea then that fancy man would turn up ‒ if he did. If he did, I’m damned glad I brought it in here though I still stick by my original theory that neither he nor anyone else would have come looking for it as no one knows we got hold of it. Right bonus for him had he seen it in my bathroom.’

  I recovered my breath. ‘If so sure, why bring it in here?’

  ‘You. You’ve changed much more than I thought. In the past what you call your instincts and I prefer to call your judgement was so lousy that every time you made a forecast I knew I’d only to reverse it to get close to the right answer. Not now. You’ve either acquired, or allowed to come to the surface, the handy if disturbing knack of being right far more often than wrong. I decided to back you on this one, and if fancy man was here I sure put my money on the right horse.’

  I could have done without the compliment. It reminded me too disturbingly of my reaction to Walt’s visit. ‘The fundamental reason for the big drunk scene?’

  ‘You could say that. A greater love hath no man than he who risks lumbago ‒’

  ‘I thought paddling was the ultimate sacrifice?’

  He smiled quickly. ‘Neck and neck. Sit down, love.’ He pushed me gently back into the chair, sat on the arm and rested one of his along the back. ‘Tell me properly what Walt said to you outside.’

  I told him in detail and that took time. During that time we heard a car drive up, and not long after, driving away; and then the sound of the men carrying Renny’s body down to the cold store. Slowly the footsteps, many more footsteps, came quietly back up, and doors were closed carefully and the lights went out below, and appeared in the flat opposite, but no voices reached us. The silence of death shrouded the inn more tangibly than the darkness of the night. It did not silence us as we weren’t there, we were in Astead woods, but it made us lower our already low voices.

  David said, ‘That kid must’ve seen more than the empty parked car.’

  ‘I think so too, though Walt didn’t say more. But he didn’t even spell out the blunt instrument they must be looking for.’ Our eyes met. ‘You must be right about her having the wrong head injury. Can’t have bee
n the tree.’

  ‘Probably a heavy spanner. That would do it, but they won’t find it if they search the woods till doomsday. It’ll be down at the bottom of a dyke and it won’t float off through the outlet and come back with the tide.’ His gaze had moved to the spare bed. ‘They can’t dredge every dyke on the marsh.’

  ‘No.’ I looked at the bed. ‘That rug must’ve got out just as the tide was on the turn ‒’ I broke off. ‘I mustn’t let that confuse me. It’s nothing to do with Sue. Or’ ‒ I smiled without humour ‒ ‘are you going to suggest Gordon’s fancy man?’ I answered myself. ‘Of course, he can’t be. He was fighting it out with Sue at Midstreet, while Angie was keeping a date with hers outside here our first evening. But if Sam Parker’s already on to Gordon, I can’t follow why the cops haven’t checked that phone call with me.’

  ‘They will. Like the mills of God they may grind slow but they grind exceeding small.’

  ‘I suppose so. Hell.’ I rested my head against him and closed my eyes. ‘Probably tomorrow. And probably tomorrow I’ll have to have with Angie a variation of the heart-to-heart with Francis this morning ‒ God! Was it only this morning?’ I looked up at him. ‘I am a nutter, David. I can’t stop wondering ‒ who’ll I have it with the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re no nutter. Just whacked and getting carried away again, love.’ He kissed me gently. ‘Let it go for the night. Not that there’s much of it left.’

  I looked at his watch. ‘Nor there is. Going back to your room?’

  ‘No. You don’t like my pyjamas and I’m not unpacking another pair tonight. Do you want the bathroom first or can I have it?’

  ‘You have it first,’ was all I said. He disappeared into the bathroom and for the first time since Walt drove off I felt safe.

  I felt safe for a full five minutes, as that was the length of time he took in the bathroom. He had just turned off the taps when Angie simultaneously called and knocked softly, ‘Rose, as your light’s on ‒ still up? Can I come in? Please? Just for a few minutes?’