A Nice Place to Die (10 page)

Rachel Moody took the note with her and escaped to the women's room. There she checked her immaculate make-up. It was time she touched up the colour on her hair, she told herself, even her ash blonde tint didn't cover signs of grey at her temples. Stray strands of damp hair had escaped from her rather severe French pleat and she scraped them back off her face and pinned them firmly in place. Then she went into the corridor where a group of her colleagues was gathered round the coffee machine.

‘Come with me, Jack,' she said to the burly Sergeant Reid. ‘I may need muscle on this. I've had a tip-off on that vicar killing in Catcombe Mead.'

‘You mean you want to get out of the office till the boss has had a chance to cool down,' Jack Reid said. Everyone in the group laughed. They knew what the Super could be like on a bad day.

‘Soon would be good,' Rachel Moody said.

She saw the laughter wiped off their faces at her tone. Damn, she thought, I always seem to say the wrong thing.

‘Do you want me to drive?' Jack said as they walked down to the car.

‘No,' Rachel said, ‘you may have to jump out in a hurry and tackle this thug if he sees us coming and makes a run for it. Horses for courses.'

But as she turned the car into Forester Close, DCI Moody had a sudden flashback to that first time she'd been here. The body in the gutter, a fat woman, green with shock, visibly shaking on the grass verge, and an unnatural silence in the Close from which all residents seemed to have fled.

‘I don't like this place,' she said, thinking aloud.

‘What's wrong with it?' Sergeant Reid said. ‘It looks like a nice place to live.'

‘There's something about it,' Moody said. ‘Spooky, like it's somewhere that's going to be haunted one day.'

Jack Reid laughed. ‘You women and your fancies,' he said.

Then he flushed with embarrassment at what he'd said. He had enough experience with women to suspect what was making his boss strangely illogical these days, and he was afraid she'd fly off the handle at his remark.

He added quickly, ‘These houses won't last long enough for that. The wife's brother worked on the site when they were building this estate and you should've heard what he said about the way the houses were thrown together.'

‘This is us,' Moody said. ‘Number Two.'

‘Want me to go round the back in case he makes a run for it?' Jack Reid said, flexing his muscles as he locked the car.

‘It's probably not really that kind of visit,' Moody said. She wasn't sure why she wanted him to stay close to her, but she did. ‘The whole thing could be a bum steer.' She stepped aside to avoid the motorbike propped against the front step.

Donna Miller answered the door. She had just got out of bed and was wearing only a tight T-shirt and a rather tatty pair of pants. She looked startled when she saw DCI Moody. She knew immediately who she was. She'd thought that awful business was over with, and at once she felt at a disadvantage because, compared to herself, the policewoman looked expensively dressed and carefully made-up. Donna resented this. It seemed to her that any woman police officer should look more like a downtrodden servant of the public and not like a successful businesswoman.

‘What do you want?' Donna said.

Moody showed her ID. ‘And this is Sergeant Reid,' she said, indicating Jack.

‘I know what you are,' Donna said. ‘You're the cop who came when the vicar was beaten up. I told you then, I didn't see anything.'

‘I know,' Rachel said. ‘It's not you we want to talk to. Is Kevin Miller in?'

‘What do you want with him?' Donna said.

Jack pushed himself forward. ‘Just answer the question,' he said.

Donna shrugged. She turned and shouted, ‘Kevin, someone to see you.'

Kevin Miller, too, looked as though he had just got out of bed. He was wearing jeans and a dirty vest and he stank of stale beer.

‘They're cops,' Donna said. She stood aside as Kevin came to the doorway, then pushed the door shut behind him.

‘Hey,' Kevin said, ‘it's cold out here.'

He turned to Jack, ignoring Moody. ‘What you want?' he said.

‘Nice bike,' DCI Moody said.

‘What's this about?' Kevin, still blanking her, addressed Jack.

Moody said, ‘We want to ask you a few questions about an incident here recently. A man was beaten to death in the street.'

‘Oh, yeah, the vicar from the village, wasn't it? I heard about that.'

‘It would be easier doing this inside,' Jack said.

‘Yeah, I know, but Dad's out and she can be funny about the cops. She won't let us in.'

‘You remember the incident, then?' Moody said.

‘Sure, Mum found the body. It's her you should be talking to. I wasn't even here.'

‘Where were you?' Jack took out his notebook and pen and prepared to write down the details.

‘I stayed over with a chick I picked up in a bar in Weston. Didn't get back till after it was all over,' Kevin said, and grinned at them.

‘Name?' Jack asked. ‘What was the girl's name?'

‘Dunno,' Kevin said. ‘Didn't ask. We didn't do much talking.'

‘Where did you pick her up?' Jack sounded resigned.

‘Some bar, mate. Weston's full of bars. I don't remember which one.'

‘Why Weston? There's places nearer than that you could pick up a girl.'

Moody was floundering and Kevin knew it.

‘Her? I didn't go to Weston for that. The chick just happened.'

Moody and Jack both knew that Weston was somewhere it was easy to get drugs.

‘Can your mother confirm all this?' Moody asked. She was trying to retain some dignity.

‘Sure she can,' Kevin said, giving the policewoman what he thought passed for a charming smile. He turned and shouted through the letter box, ‘Mum, you're wanted.'

Donna opened the door. She had obviously been listening. She avoided their eyes, keeping her gaze fixed on the ground.

‘They want to know—' Kevin started, but Moody interrupted him.

‘Yes, thank you, Kevin, I'll ask the questions.'

Moody began to go through the motions. Donna confirmed that Kevin hadn't come home till late in the evening of the day the vicar was killed. More like the next morning. She didn't know he'd been in Weston with a girl, but he hadn't been here, she was sure of that.

‘Too bloody sure,' Moody said to Jack as they got into the car and drove away.

‘Let's face it, Boss,' Jack said, ‘we haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of pinning this one on that poisonous bastard and he knows it. They'll be having a good laugh about making fools of us back there.'

But in the kitchen of Number Two Forester Close Kevin Miller was not laughing.

‘Why did they come here?' he shouted at Donna. ‘Someone must've tipped them off.'

Donna was scared. He thinks it was me, she thought. Who else would he think it was?

‘They've gone away, they've nothing on you,' Donna said. She spoke to him in a soothing, caressing tone because she was trying to persuade Kylie to eat. ‘It must've been chance. No one knows you were there.'

Donna deliberately said ‘You were there.' She couldn't bring herself to say ‘You did it.'

‘That old bitch Alice Bates next door does,' Kevin said. ‘Jess says she spies on us all the time. It must be her.'

Donna said, ‘Alice Bates? She wouldn't do a thing like that.' Donna couldn't hide that she felt relieved because Kevin wasn't blaming her. ‘She wouldn't dare,' she said.

Kevin sat hunched at the breakfast bar glowering at Kylie, who began to cry.

At last he said, ‘It must've been her. That old bitch. I'll make her sorry she didn't keep her mouth shut. I'll kill her for this.'

TWELVE

P
arked in a lay-by on the main road between Old Catcombe and Catcombe Mead, Jess Miller sat rigid beside Mark Pearson in the front of his pickup.

She was wearing a new top which had given up trying to contain her breasts. Mark's face, occasionally lighted by the headlamps of a passing car, was smeared with her lipstick.

Now they had nothing to say to one another. Jess had been crying, and her smudged mascara made her look, in the light of her cigarette when she inhaled, like something out of a Dracula movie. Mark gripped the wheel with both hands and scowled at the traffic.

‘What are we going to do?' Jess said at last. She knew very well that Mark couldn't answer her question. She got a certain satisfaction from fuelling the fire of their thwarted passion.

Mark said nothing.

Jess found a tissue and wiped away some of the condensation on the windows of the pickup. She opened the window a crack and tossed out the pulpy paper.

‘Where can we go?' she said, staring round as though the bleak lay-by or the traffic on the main road could offer a solution. Jess looked at the empty beer cans and discarded cigarette packs scattered across the grass verge and thought, lots of other couples have stopped here like me and Mark with nowhere to go. She said, ‘We could get in the back and do it. The traffic's going too fast for anyone to notice.'

Mark sounded angry. ‘Someone might recognize the pickup,' he said. ‘It'd be just our luck for my Dad to come by.'

‘We could go into one of your fields,' Jess said. ‘Where there aren't any cows. Please, Mark, just for a little while. I'll keep you warm.'

‘Bullocks,' Mark corrected her automatically, ‘not cows, bullocks. I'm not doing it in a field like an animal. And if my Dad . . .'

‘If your bloody Dad spends so much time out and about, he's not in the house much and I don't see why we can't go to your bedroom,' Jess said.

‘Oh, lay off, Jess. We can't go anywhere near the farm.'

‘I don't see why not,' Jess said in a sulky tone.

‘Oh, Jess,' Mark said.

She could tell that he was getting irritated with her. She knew she was being childish, but like a kid picking a scab, she couldn't let well alone.

‘Why don't we tell them?' she said. ‘There's nothing they can do to us, really, is there? The worst they can do is throw us out, and then we're together which is what we want. Oh, Mark, why don't we stop hiding and come out with it?'

‘We can't do that,' Mark said, and his knuckles were white on the wheel. ‘You know we can't do that.'

He was thinking, she always does this, she always starts trying to force the issue. Why doesn't she see that I can't just up and leave and start over somewhere else? What would happen to the farm?

He said, ‘I don't see why we can't go to yours. We can tell if there's anyone there . . .'

‘No,' Jess said, ‘we can't.' She thought, Kevin and Nate might not be there, but Donna and Kylie would be. Mum might not turn us out, but she could easily say something about Kylie. She's always telling people the kid's mine. That's the last thing I want.

‘I share a room with my little sister,' Jess lied.

‘So?' Mark said. ‘We'll be careful not to wake her.'

He knew as he said it that this was no good. Jess could never keep quiet in the act of love.

‘Can't we drive somewhere outside the area where no one knows us?'

‘Dad would know from the mileage I'd gone outside the village. He checks the diesel.'

‘Well, fill the tank so he can't tell,' Jess said. She felt that Mark was trying to make difficulties.

He shouted at her suddenly, ‘I haven't got any money, all right? Don't you understand anything? I can't even afford to take you out for the day down to the coast or spend a night together at a bloody bed and breakfast.' Then, more calmly, he said, ‘How do you think that makes me feel, Jess? It isn't as if I don't want to fuck you.'

Jess was disarmed. ‘I love you too, babe,' she said. ‘I'm sorry.'

She lunged towards him, her hand searching his crotch for the zip of his fly. The lights of an oncoming car picked them out.

With an enormous effort, he pushed her back into the passenger seat. ‘No,' he said, ‘not here.'

A lorry drove into the lay-by ahead of them.

‘Quick, I know where we can go,' Jess said, ‘we can go round the back of Alice's house. She lives next door to us, but no one ever goes out there at night. There's a sort of covered lean-to where she keeps deckchairs and things. We'll be OK in there.'

Mark hesitated. He didn't want to go anywhere near Jess's family, but she was hot for him and he was hot for her and she seemed to think it was all right so it was worth the risk.

‘Who's Alice?' he said. He wanted Jess so much now that his own voice sounded funny to him, hoarse and thick.

‘No one,' Jess said. ‘Please hurry, Mark, or I'm going to come off all over this seat and your effing Dad's going to see the stain. Drive faster, babe, I'm on fire.'

Jesus, Mark thought, swerving across oncoming traffic into Forester Close, this girl's really something.

He tried to ignore the small voice in his head asking him, this isn't right. It isn't what she thinks, I've got to tell her. One day. Soon.

THIRTEEN

F
irst thing in the morning Alice came downstairs to feed Phoebus.

He wasn't in the kitchen where he usually waited for her, marching up and down on top of the kitchen table with his tail erect and twitching like a water diviner's rod.