Dead Woman's Shoes: 1 (Lexy Lomax Mysteries) (15 page)

“I decided to go and see the ex.”

Lexy raised her eyebrows. “At the memorabilia shop?”

“Yes,” Edward went on blithely. “Thought I’d face up to the situation instead of skulking about the village trying to avoid him, which is ridiculous. I mean, we’re both in the am-dram for starters. And we’re meant to be rehearsing
South
bloody
Pacific
today.”

“What…” began Lexy.

“Not the Nellie Forbush role, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he interrupted, reprovingly. “No – Sheri-Anne Davis beat both me and Tammy Caradoc to that one. Can’t think why. But I’m Stewpot – which is almost as good. I get to wear a sailor suit and sing
There Is Nothing Like a Dame
. He demonstrated, ringingly.

A few people looked around the sides of their windbreakers.

Lexy cut him off. “So what happened at the shop?”

Edward sighed. “Well, let’s just say that Peter has a few less items of memorabilia than he started with yesterday morning.”

“You mean you nicked them?”

“No,” said Edward indignantly. “I smashed ’em. Then I got arrested and driven off to Lowestoft police station.”

“Seriously? You know, I was…”

“But Peter agreed not to press charges.” Edward smiled complacently.

Lexy eyed him. “So… everything is sorted between you?”

“Well – we’re talking, even if it is only in expletives. Should make for an interesting rehearsal.” Edward picked up a pebble and turned it over in his hand. “Anyway, I’ve been down the shop this morning, cleaning up. It’s open for business again now.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “And I think Peter and I are too.”

So that’s two members of the am-dram lot to cross off the list of suspects, mused Lexy. If Edward and Peter were having a gay calamity at Gentler Times yesterday evening, they couldn’t have been murdering Avril Todd.

Edward squinted at Lexy. “Are you all right, sweetie?”

Lexy drew a deep breath. She couldn’t keep this thing to herself any more. “I had to go to the police station last night as well.”

Edward gazed at her in sudden interest. “You did? Why? What on earth can you have been up to? You only just got here!”

Lexy hesitated. “I was out with Kinky yesterday evening and I… well, I stumbled across a corpse.”

Edward stared at her in astonishment, and then gave a peal of laughter. “A corpse? What, just lying there?”

“It certainly wasn’t strolling around admiring the view.” Lexy began to laugh herself.

“Did you actually fall over it?” Edward snorted.

“No. I climbed over a stile, and there she was.” Lexy’s laugh faded. “With her head smashed in. Murdered.”

Edward’s smile snapped off. “You poor girl.”

“It had just happened. The killer was driving off when I got there.”

“That’s… that’s terrible.” Edward had gone grey. “Did you see…?”

“No. I called the police,” she fibbed, wanting to skirt over the DI Milo detail, “and suddenly the place was crawling with uniforms, and I was bundled down to a local nick to give a statement.”

“Did you find out who it was? The victim I mean?”

Lexy hesitated.

“You did, didn’t you? Was it someone from the village?” Edward was looking at her like an expectant baby seal.

Lexy guessed there was no real harm in telling him. In confidence, of course. “Yeah. It was Avril Todd.”

Edward gave a high-pitched shriek. More faces looked around striped wind-breakers.

Lexy made urgent shushing movements.

“No!” Edward shook his head, his round brown eyes enormous. “Avril? Dead? Murdered? I can’t believe it! I just cannot believe it. I mean, I spoke to her only yesterday afternoon at the village hall. She was ordering someone around, as usual. She was an insufferable old cow, of course, but that’s no reason to kill her.” A look of delicious anticipation suddenly passed across his face. “Just wait until I tell the rest of the cast about this!”

“Ah, no – you can’t,” said Lexy at once. “It hasn’t been made public yet.”

“Please don’t tell me I have to keep this secret,” implored Edward. “I shall implode.”

“Look – R… her husband doesn’t even know yet,” said Lexy, urgently. “If you give one hint that you know what’s happened to her, I shall get into serious trouble with the boys in blue. They’ll hang me out to dry.”

“Here – you’re not a suspect, are you?” Edward looked mouth-wateringly scandalised at the thought.

“Probably,” said Lexy. “But only because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Grief, darling – wouldn’t it be absolutely awful if it got pinned on you?”

“Yes,” said Lexy. “But that won’t happen, because I didn’t do it.”

“Where did it happen, out of interest?”

“In a field off the A12. Near a place called Nudging.”

“What was Avril doing over there?”

“No idea.”

“What were you doing over there?”

Lexy groaned. “You sound like Inspector Morse. I just fancied going for a drive, checking out the scenery. I lost my way. Saw her car parked and went up to ask her for directions.”

“You need sat-nav, lovie.”

“Now he tells me.”

Edward put his head on one side, observed Lexy sympathetically for a moment, then pushed himself up and held out a hand.

“Come on – I’m taking you to my place for a drinky-poo. I know I need one after hearing all this. It’s just over there – no excuses, now.”

“Yes, but…” Lexy allowed herself to be pulled upright, with only slight resistance. After all, there might be something to eat with the drinky-poo, even it was only an olive.

Edward headed purposefully for a ramshackle set of steps leading up the cliff side, nothing like the sturdy ones that Lexy had recently descended. A single metal bar wound with barbed wire hung across the bottom step, bearing a sign which read DANGER – KEEP OUT.

He ducked airily under it taking care not to snag his shirt, and held out a hand to Lexy.

“You sure?” she said. “They’re not going to collapse or anything?”

“Of course not, sweetie. I’ve been using them for years. They’re a short-cut to my place.” He grinned impishly, as if concealing a secret joke.

Lexy slid under the bar and stared up at the rotting steps.

“It’s much safer than it looks.” Edward started upwards, two steps at a time. Kinky scampered ahead of him, his eel-like tail whipping from side to side.

Lexy shrugged and followed, squinting up into the glaring sun.

High above them a dark oblong shape protruded over the crumbling cliff edge like a single rotten tooth. As they approached it, Lexy thought she could make out marks on its flat surface.

“What the hell’s that?”

“Great-uncle Cornelius’s tombstone,” replied Edward, promptly, as if he had been waiting for her to ask. “And I’m expecting the old bugger to appear any day now.”

“You what?” Lexy threw him a startled look, but Edward didn’t look in the grip of denial. He was inspecting the cliff face dispassionately.

Lexy clambered up the last steps, feeling faint with hunger and trepidation, and found herself looking at a further dozen tombstones, overgrown and crooked, surrounded by a tumbledown wall.

Edward smiled sadly. “And to think that a hundred years ago this graveyard was half a mile back from the sea. Not any more, as you see. The last remains of the old church fell into the sea fifty years ago. And since then, in really high tides, we sometimes get a skeleton or two from this graveyard washed down on to the beach. Or a skull appearing in the cliff face.”

Lexy felt herself shudder. Even on a guileless, sun-filled day like this, the ivy-covered graveyard looked dank and menacing, as if the dead were awake and waiting silently for this last indignity.

“So what do you think?” Edward was saying, his impish grin suddenly back.

“About what?” asked Lexy, confused. “Great-uncle Cornelius?”

“No. About my humble abode.” Edward had turned away from the graveyard and adopted a pose reminiscent of a magician’s glamorous assistant. “Ta-da!”

Lexy turned round. “Bloody hell.”

Set back in the trees, in a golden hollow, lay a small mansion. It was built of honey-coloured stone, with Dutch gables, mullioned windows and a long portico supported by slim columns.

“So – you don’t live in a log cabin, then?”

“No,” he admitted. “Although I thought I might have to eventually.” He grinned. “My father, God bless him, wasn’t exactly keen to leave the de Glenville ancestral home to such an unsuitable son. There was a nasty moment when I thought it might go to my cousin George, but he turned out to be even worse than me. Member of the Labour Party, for a start. Come on,” he added, “don’t be shy.”

Finding it hard to believe her eyes, Lexy followed Edward across a lawn, already yellowing in the heat, to a large, studded front door. It opened with an atmospheric creak into a shadowy entrance hall. Kinky’s claws clicked loudly on the marble floor as he trotted in.

A huge Victorian coatstand stood in one corner, overhung by a set of enormous stag antlers and complemented by a grotesque elephant’s foot umbrella stand. In the other corners, ghost-like figures stood in various affected poses.

“It has statues,” said Lexy, gazing around in awe.

“Oh, yes. Statues and busts galore. I talk to them.” Edward patted the alabaster head of the Emperor Claudius affectionately.

He gave a sudden small squeal. “Post! I completely forgot to check the letterbox when I got home yesterday. Must have been the jet-lag.”

He let himself out of the front door, and reappeared moments later with a big sheaf of letters and plastic-wrapped magazines.

“Ruddy National Trust,” he snorted. “I keep telling them father’s dead. Come through to the kitchen and I’ll organise a couple of large G and Ts.”

The kitchen was as big as a barn, and very clean and tidy. On the walls were framed photographs of Edward through the years, in various poses with dogs and horses and cars. A smiling woman with a maternal air appeared in many of them. Over the huge butler sink was a long black and white photograph of an assembly of bowler-hatted men sitting in three ordered rows, leaning on canes and smoking curly pipes. “Clopwolde village committee 1953” said Edward, seeing her eyeing it. “That’s father bang in the middle. Big moustache.” He gave her a knowing grin. “Not something he’d want to be wearing in this day and age.”

Lexy peered at the stern-faced figure. Edward had inherited his mother’s features.

She sat at a vast oak table, scarred and bowed by what looked like centuries of use.

Kinky wandered over to a long, well-chewed stick propped up in the corner and sniffed at it appreciatively.

“Have you got a dog?” Lexy asked. Edward followed the direction of her gaze. “Not any more, sweetie. The stick used to belong to Nimrod, my father’s retriever. I keep it for old times’ sake.”

Lexy watched him flip through his post.

“Do any other de Glenvilles live here?” she asked, curiously.

“Nope, I’m the last, except for Cousin George,” Edward replied cheerfully. “After Dad popped off last year.”

He gave a sudden exclamation. “Not another one of these!”

It was an oddly familiar-looking plain white envelope. He ripped it open, and gave a sudden shout of delighted laughter.

“Can you believe this?” he grinned, sliding it over to Lexy, whose expression had frozen.

It contained a statement made from a combination of letters cut from a newspaper.

HE WAS PUSHED, WASN’T HE?

“
Two
poison pen letters! Now I really know I’ve arrived!”

Lexy felt her heart quicken. Avril had been quite busy recently, by the looks of it, and she obviously had a bit of a theme going. “Any idea who might have sent this?”

“Nope.”

“What does it mean?”

He snorted. “I can only assume that someone thinks my old man was pushed when he had his accident last year. Ridiculous.”

“Accident?”

“He had a fall. From the cliff. Rather unpleasant.”

“Are you going to do anything about the letter?”

“Like go to the police?” Edward shook his head. “I’m going to completely ignore it. Whoever’s sending them will get bored eventually. It’ll be someone with a sad little life and a chip on their shoulder, whose only kick is trying to bring down people who are happier than they are. Why give them the satisfaction?”

“What did the other one say?” asked Lexy.

“The first one? It just said,
I know who killed your father
.”

“Did you keep it?” Lexy asked, quickly.

“Yeah – I framed it and hung it up in my living room.” Edward giggled at her expression. “No – of course not, sweetie. I tore it up and binned it. It was weeks ago, before I went to the States.”

He glanced down at the letter he had just opened. “Don’t know why they’re banging on about this – the old man wasn’t killed. He just fell.” Edward’s face became serious for an instant, and he picked up the letter, tore it into pieces and dropped the resultant confetti carelessly into a bin. “I can’t wait to see what the next one’s going to say! The de Glenville family had so many skeletons in their closet – and a few out of it, dear – that your friendly local poison pen writer could keep himself amused for years.”

Lexy sensed that Edward was more rattled than he let on, and was glad he wouldn’t be receiving any more, although she couldn’t tell him that.

“Right – time for refreshments.” She watched him open an enormous fridge and take out a litre bottle of gin, twisting the lid as he did so. He poured generous measures into two tall glasses and delved back to get tonic water and ice. Lexy caught a glimpse of a pie with a latticed pastry top. She came very close to drooling. Kinky’s nose twitched compulsively.

“
Voila!
Get on the outside of that!” Edward handed her the glass, pushing the fridge door shut with his hip.

Lexy gazed at the drink. She’d rather get on the outside of that pie. Should she ask Edward for something to eat? She cringed. No – she just couldn’t. It would be too embarrassing for words. She sipped her drink gingerly.

Edward sat opposite her and cupped his chin in his hands, gazing at her. “Now – what’s the matter, sweetheart?”