A Date With Death: Cozy Private Investigator Series (Flora Lively Mysteries Book 2) (3 page)

‘Alberto’s wife …?’ Flora put down her sandwich. ‘Celeste, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me and Marshall to stay in the same room. I can commute from Shrewsbury, you know. It’s under an hour. I told you on the phone, there’s really no reason for us to stay here.’

Celeste stopped laughing. She wound her fingers in her hair and looked up at Flora with a hurt expression. ‘But you promised,’ she said. For a moment or two she looked much younger than her thirty years. Her eyes were pink in the corners, her skin was pale, and there was a slight rash under her jaw line that the heavy make-up couldn’t quite conceal. Flora thought back to the scene in the garden. Celeste still hadn’t explained what had been going on out there between her and the director.

‘Look,’ she said, her tone mollifying but firm. ‘I can still be here early every morning. You know I won’t let you down. And it won’t hold up the filming if I’m not on site twenty-four hours a day, will it?’

It had been a sticking point with Marshall, staying away for an entire week. But Celeste had made it a condition, and as Flora had pointed out repeatedly, they really, desperately needed the work. Not that moving a film crew around the south Shropshire countryside, ferrying them from location to location and erecting scenery, was in Shakers’ usual remit. It would be a new direction, Flora had asserted. It might even lead to other contracts. Marshall had remained non-committal, but at least he’d agreed to give it a go.

Celeste got up and walked over to the window, rubbing her hair distractedly. Then she swirled around and faced Flora, planting her hands on her hips. ‘You promised, Flora. You said you’d stay here with me so that’s what you should do. I need you to be here, all the time.’

‘Why? I don’t understand what difference it makes.’

‘I just do!’ Celeste’s voice had progressed from whiny to irritated in a matter of seconds. In a minute, Flora thought, she’ll be stamping her foot. ‘Okay, look, it’s Alberto. He’s … he’s been making a nuisance of himself. That’s what you saw earlier. In the gardens.’

‘You mean, coming on to you?’

Celeste nodded.

‘Yuk.’ Flora made a disgusted face.

‘Right. So, I need you around to watch my back. And, in case you’ve forgotten, you did agree – it’s part of your contract to be here twenty-four-seven.’

‘I haven’t forgotten.’

‘So you’ll stay?’

‘Doesn’t look like I have much choice, does it?’ Flora picked up her holdall. ‘Won’t you tell me what this Nook is like? Just so I’m prepared?’

Celeste laughed, clearly more relaxed now she’d got her own way. ‘Oh, you’ll soon see. And don’t worry – it’s cute.’ She eyed Flora speculatively. ‘It’s very “you”, actually.’

There was a knock at the door. Celeste skipped across the thick carpet, smiling.

‘Eduardo!’ she said, throwing her arms around a tall, broad-shouldered man and dragging him into the room. ‘Come and meet Flora.’

Celeste’s boyfriend had wide brown eyes and white, even teeth. His hair was light brown, thick and curly but cut fairly short, and he wore a denim shirt over striped Bermuda shorts. The shirt was unbuttoned to the middle of his smooth brown chest. He looked exactly as Flora had expected.

Celeste and he spoke for a minute in Spanish, then he turned to Flora and smiled.

‘Flora,
encantado de conocerte
.’ Eduardo lifted Flora’s hand to his lips, never taking his eyes from her face. She blushed, then shrugged and looked at Celeste.

‘I’m going to have to learn some Spanish, aren’t I? Otherwise I’m going to look very stupid.’

‘Oh, Eduardo speaks English quite well. He’s just trying to charm you.’

‘And you speak Spanish really well,’ Flora said. ‘Did you learn in the few months you were there? You weren’t this good at languages at uni.’

‘God, no. I’ve been having lessons since we got back to the UK. Jack’s been helping me.’

‘Jack?’

‘Jack Harding, of course. He’s our very own language consultant.’ Celeste paused as Eduardo spoke in Spanish again. She said, ‘Well, yes. He hasn’t only been helping with the language barrier. But you’ll find out about all that later,’ she told Flora. ‘At the gala dinner.’

Flora was still processing this new information. ‘Jack Harding is here? At Hanley Manor?’

‘He’s not staying here, he lives just down the road. You look stunned. Didn’t I mention it on the phone?’

She hadn’t, and she knew perfectly well she hadn’t. And Flora knew why. Celeste had wanted to retain the element of surprise.

She’d certainly managed that.

***

Flora said goodbye to Celeste and Eduardo, then headed back down the main staircase, her hand trailing along the polished curved banister, enjoying the feel of the old wood under her fingers and imagining the countless hands that had done the same over the last two hundred or so years. She figured she’d retrace her steps to get back out to the garden, then head across the lawn and go into the trees at the same point Sidney and Marshall had disappeared from view. This Nook place couldn’t be that difficult to find.

At the bottom of the stairs she saw Sidney heading towards her. He was carrying a large silver tray piled with dirty dishes and muttering to himself. Flora, on an impulse she didn’t understand or analyse, ducked into a recessed doorway next to a huge Chinese-patterned urn. Sidney strode past, still muttering. He stopped across the hall in front of a closed door, then reached into a deep pocket with his free hand, pulling out an enormous ring of keys. He rattled it like a jailer, then grabbed a key and jabbed it into the keyhole. As he swung the door open and hoisted the tray through it, Flora caught sight of another long corridor, dimly lit and narrow. Then the butler kicked the door closed with his heel, and Flora heard it being locked again from the other side. She frowned. Odd to keep a service door locked like that. Wouldn’t it make life difficult for him and the other staff? Every one of them would have to have a key, for a start, and locking and re-locking doors all the time didn’t seem very safe from a fire safety point of view. Wouldn’t it be simpler to put a No Entry sign up and leave it at that?

She stepped out of the doorway. Weird. Maybe the family who owned Hanley Manor insisted on keeping doors locked, to stop prying eyes. A shuffling sound to her left caught Flora’s attention, and she turned to see a young woman step out of an alcove only five or six feet from where Flora herself had been hiding. The woman’s eyes flashed in alarm when she saw Flora; she whirled around in a mass of wild, dark hair and fled into the music room. Flora followed, but there was no sign of the woman in either the music room or the next room along.

‘Hello,’ Flora said. Her voice sounded hollow and too loud in the vast space. Every wall was crammed with ancient paintings, some so dark and discoloured it was impossible to discern colours or features. She turned in a circle, wondering if the woman was hiding in here. Which would be ridiculous, of course. The faces on the closest paintings stared back at her, their expressions either bleak or sneering. The silence felt so absolute it was almost a noise in itself.

Flora retraced her steps, and found her way back to the small lobby area with the benches and the coat racks. She stepped out of the dark house into the sunlit gardens with a sense of pure relief. And there was Marshall, slouching on the lawn, kicking at something in the grass, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his cargo shorts, familiar and incongruous as hell. Flora smiled, then headed over to greet him.

‘Hey, Lively,’ he said, looking up and shielding his eyes from the sun. ‘You are gonna love where we’re sleeping.’

Flora pulled a face. ‘As bad as that?’

‘Worse. Brace yourself, boss. Your so-called friend has really done a number on you this time.’

Chapter 2

‘Oh, come on, Marshall. It’s not that bad.’

Flora was sitting on a rug on the floor with her back propped against a low coffee table made from railway sleepers. She had to lean against the coffee table because the room had no proper walls. In fact, it wasn’t a room at all. It was much, much better than a room.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’ve always wanted to sleep in a yurt. Don’t you think it’s cool? Celeste said it was cute, and she was right.’ Flora thought for a minute, then grinned. ‘She also said it was very “me”. She was right about that, too.’

‘How wonderful for you, to have a friend who knows you so well. Sure wish I had one of those.’

‘Give it a rest, why don’t you?’

Flora was too excited to let Marshall’s grumbling bring her down. He was sitting in the only chair – a brown leather button-back number that was probably worth a fortune – glaring at her and at the sheepskin-strewn beds and the tiny shabby chic table and chairs, and the chipped stone basin that sat by the entrance. He’d find something to moan about, whatever the situation. If they’d been housed in the manor he’d be complaining it was too grand, or too hot, or too crowded. Or something. In Flora’s opinion, a yurt in the grounds was perfect. She’d always wanted to give glamping a try. The roof was amazing, she thought, tipping back her head to avoid looking at Marshall’s sour expression. The way the thin strips of wood rose up from the lattice-patterned walls, self-supporting – almost defying gravity – with that lovely skylight effect at the very top. The thick, stretched canvas felt cosy and safe, but Flora thought the effect could be improved with the addition of a bit of bunting and some carefully-chosen decorative touches. It was far, far better than she’d expected.

Even if she did have to share it with Marshall.

‘So,’ he said, eyeing her carefully, ‘you don’t mind the fact that we’ll be sleeping in here … together?’

Flora could feel her cheeks begin to burn again, but she turned her head away and adopted a nonchalant tone. ‘There are two beds and they’re both huge and spaced well apart. And look – there’s that curtain there for privacy. It doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you.’

‘Doesn’t bother me any. So long as you don’t snore.’

‘I can assure you, I do not snore.’

‘How would you know? Far as I can tell, you’ve been sleeping alone for a long while now.’

He was trying to get a rise out of her, that was all. Flora caught her bottom lip between her teeth and said nothing. She looked around again, then got onto her knees to reach for her holdall.

‘There’s no bathroom,’ Marshall said. ‘No kitchen.’

‘We can wash and clean our teeth in that basin. And there’s a shower and a toilet in a kind of shed over there, just behind those trees. And that’s our kitchen.’ She pointed through the rolled-up canvas door to the covered area outside, where a barbecue rack had been set in concrete blocks. ‘It’s like camping,’ she added.

‘It’s not like camping – it
is
camping.’

‘Well, that’s fine with me. It’s the middle of August so it won’t be cold, and there’s plenty of –’

‘Midges and wasps,’ Marshall finished.

‘I was going to say, plenty of food up at the manor house, so we don’t need to cook here anyway.’

‘Speaking of food, did you have a nice lunch? With your wonderful friend who knows you so well.’

‘I’m sorry I left you to fend for yourself,’ Flora said. ‘Did you meet the others?’

Marshall shook his head. ‘I had my lunch in the van.’

‘Why?’ Flora frowned. That wasn’t like him. ‘Were you feeling shy? Overwhelmed?’

‘Yeah, right. Just didn’t feel like company, was all. And I guess …’

Flora pushed him on with her eyes. ‘You guess what?’

‘I guess I was looking forward to meeting them with you.’

She threw a floor cushion at him; it missed, but he smiled. ‘You are such an idiot,’ Flora told him. ‘I was hoping you could give me the low-down. Now we’ll have to wait until the gala dinner tonight.’

Marshall groaned. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

‘Well, I’m not going on my own.’ She pulled her one good dress out of her bag and shook out the creases. ‘Not with that Alberto creep around. Celeste says he’s been coming on to her – yuk! I met her new boyfriend, Eduardo. I bet he wouldn’t stand for any messing around with Alberto, all that hot Spanish blood.’ She stood up to hang the dress on a hook made from pine cones, then caught Marshall’s expression. ‘What?’

‘Hot Spanish blood? Have you been reading
How To Stereotype and Insult People
again?’

Flora ignored him and finished unpacking, ramming her few clothes into a carton next to the bed she’d decided would be hers. It was the biggest, and the softest. The beds were just mattresses on the floor, but the floor was made from wooden boards, covered with rag rugs and an enormous kilim in faded blues and reds. While she unpacked she thought about Celeste, about how odd she’d been. Her friend had changed, that was for sure. She’d always been brittle, and a touch self-obsessed, but now there was something else. A harder edge. It was difficult to put your finger on. She seemed almost afraid of something.

But that was crazy. Celeste had never been afraid of anything.

Flora watched Marshall stretch out on the other bed, his body long, his legs tanned and muscular. He laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes. Typical. She wanted to talk, to tell him about the woman she’d seen watching Sidney – she was sure it was the same girl who’d driven off in such a hurry earlier. But then, he’d probably just quiz her on why she was spying on Sidney, and then he’d bring up the whole “investigator” thing again. She sighed and took a paperback out of her holdall, then leaned against the cushions to read. But her eyes kept flitting back to Marshall’s prone form. And her mind kept flitting back to the name Celeste had dropped into their conversation earlier. Jack Harding. Said so casually. Blasé, even. Flora shook her head and forced her tense shoulders down. Jack Harding was a complication she hadn’t bargained on. And the timing for her and Marshall couldn’t be worse.

***

By the time they headed back across the gardens, Flora’s stomach was starting to rumble – a hollow, bubbling sound she tried to cover up by clearing her throat. Maybe she should try and grab a pre-dinner snack from the kitchens. She cleared her throat again to mask another rumble, but if Marshall heard it, he gave no sign. They’d dressed for the gala dinner on opposite sides of the privacy curtain, Flora in her green silk vintage tea dress with the lace hem, which she thought set off her red hair pretty nicely, Marshall wearing a black dinner jacket and bow tie. The tie was undone – his personal snub to ceremony. Flora thought he looked like he was coming home from a party, not on his way to one. She also thought he looked stunning.