Deadly Thyme (2 page)

A walker with a dog came up the street and Ruth stopped him.
“Do you know Annie Butler?”

“
No.”

“
A girl, have you seen a girl with a pink jacket?”

“
No, no sign of anyone. Sorry.”

Ruth nodded, numb with anxiety. In the ten years they had lived here, hadn
’t they always been safe? She caught up to Dot. Couldn’t Annie have stopped by another friend’s house? No, Dot explained, all of their other friends lived too far away to walk.

Ruth didn
’t scream bloody murder. She didn’t beat doors down. She didn’t stomp her feet and throw things because the world hadn’t produced her daughter immediately. But all the worst questions came full circle in her mind: What if? What if? Could it be happening again? She couldn’t stop checking her phone. Why didn’t Annie answer?

At the beach, sheer rock rose from the sand in a jagged edge of land as if the Almighty had used a saw to sever the coastline from the sea.

“Annie!” she called.

The cliffs cast her cries back at her. Gulls screamed, darting up from their perches.

Dot returned from the other end of the beach. The thought crossed Ruth’s mind that she would hear bad news. But the child said, “No one’s seen her, Mrs. Butler.”

“
Why, Dot? Why did you leave her?”

“
I just ran round the other side of the rock there for a second. I thought there might be prettier shells closer in.”

Ruth took a deep breath
while staring at the jutting, sheer wall of rock. On the other side were the stairs.
Be patient with Dot, she’s just a child, too
. “Where was Annie?”

“
I thought she was behind me, but then she wasn’t there. But she had said she would get more shells farther down, while the tide was out. Then I couldn’t find her. She didn’t go to the water.”

“
How do you know?”

“
She wouldn’t have wanted her shoes wet. Her footprints stopped at the bottom of the steps. That’s why I thought she went home.” Dot’s china-doll face glistened with tears. “I don’t know why she left me.”

“
Go tell your mum. Run!” Ruth heard the panic in her own voice and wondered,
When should the official time for panic begin?
Her life wasn’t what it appeared to be, and she could never talk about it.

Annie was old enough to walk with a friend without her mother
hovering like a crazy. She didn’t want Annie to grow up afraid of her own shadow. She trusted Annie to know what to do in a bad situation. Hadn’t she taught her?

The morning sun had hardly moved. How could that be? She stood on the beach and stared back up at the village sprawled up rolling hills away from the sea. The River
Perrin cut down between the cottages with their higgledy-piggledy roofs and tumbled into the surf.

She and Dot must have caused a stir running around and yelling because two couples and several teens came scrambling over the rocks from different directions.

Many voices blended into the beat of surf. Ruth heard, “… looking for your daughter … called police …” Her legs went wobbly. She sank down on the cold sand.
Oh Lord! Don’t let me fall apart. I’m overreacting. Surely, I’m overreacting
.
There is no way he could have found us.

2

T
he Mini Cooper zipped along the road between brown hedgerows, popping into view occasionally like a white rabbit with a propensity for tardiness. The car left a hint of music in its wake coming from its barely open windows. Inside the car, Detective Inspector Jon Graham gripped the wheel, one finger tapping out the rhythm coming from the radio.

He braked as something tiny started across the road ahead. The little creature stopped midway across the road. Jon slowed to a stop. The young fox stood upright like a rabbit, stared at his car, then turned and bounded back up the steep incline to the hedge. Jon pressed on
, thankful there was one less dead fox in the world.

The opportunity to travel south had come as a relief. His job in
the fraud division of Complaints usually involved sifting paperwork and unbearable bureaucracy, so he’d grabbed the chance at this assignment. He shifted his legs in a cramped stretch. Wrapping up the investigation of a corrupt police officer shouldn’t take long. He figured to have the fellow in custody within a week—two, at the outside.

The West Country coast curved along dramatic cliffs that were wrapped in white streamers of surf. The sun grew bright with the promise that today might develop into a lovely day which meant that
, if the stars were aligned correctly, it might not rain much.

Perrin
’s Point boasted a legend that had proven lucrative to the spotty village. Four centuries before, Douglas Perrin, a bloodthirsty blackguard, walked into his castle fortress and vanished. Jon wondered how the pirate might have felt about the tourist industry that was captivated by his disappearance.

A distant foursquare church tower showed well against the verdant green hills. There was a gap in the hedgerow
, and the sea view flashed past again, closer this time. Jon observed striations of deep amethyst in the pale gray water.

His mobile sang out its own beat
, and he switched his satellite music over to the phone.

Superintendent Bakewell
’s voice blasted, “Well, Jon, hope you’re getting on with that little trip to the south. How’s the weather?”

“I haven
’t actually arrived. The sky is only partly cloudy this morning. Maybe it’ll clear before long. You’re up early, sir.”

“What is your scheme of action for today?”

“I’ll settle in and get the lay of the land. Then tomorrow when the shops and local savings and loan are open—”

“Hold on. You don
’t have tomorrow, you have today.”

“Are you seriously telling me I have one day in Cornwall?”

“Your man should have all the particulars in order for you. You’re to be done and dusted by day’s end and back in London by tomorrow. See you then.”

“Super, the officer assigned to this nearly died.” Nothing
’s as dangerous as a half-cooked micro-dish of fish.

No reply.

“Sir?”

Jon was listening to phone air, so he disconnected. “One day here? He
’s daft as a brush
.
”

It was a distasteful mess when one got right down to it, having a DCI involved in scandal
—with the officer’s savings account suddenly filled with riches (and with no explanation, according to the anonymous bank official’s complaint). Direct questions would create more problems, the Higher Powers decided. So for the general morale of the police force, the investigation would be kept low-key. And because broadcasting such an investigation would alert the DCI, and he would likely find a way to hide the money.

Jon had one day to play catch
-up and come to a conclusion. But he intended to stay until the job was complete, so Bakewell and his “one day command” could jolly-well stuff it.

He reached to switch to the radio again. Being Sunday, not many people would be out and about. His assignment demanded he act as any other tourist, and that meant getting in and out without anyone taking much notice.

Just as his Mini swung into a blind curve, a dark blur of a car shot out straight at him.

In the second before Jon swerved and rammed his car up against the hedgerow, he heard the ear-splitting squeal of two vehicles make paint-scraping contact. The car sashayed as the tires slid across a muddy verge. It stopped short and sudden. Earth
’s longest minute was over, and then silence. He took that first, deep breath, and another breath, remembering then that it was okay to unclench his fists from the steering wheel. He set the handbrake and switched off the motor.

And
then he thought with regret,
So much for a quiet entrance into the village.

8:00
a.m.

Shit!

Charles rammed his car forward to get away from the car he
’d just sideswiped. It would take some time for the other car to shift round and come after him. The grumming hum of his car assured him that the car could carry him away. If it would only go faster.

Some miles later, he zigged left into a narrow lane and rolled to a stop in a dip of land behind some trees to wait. The adrenaline rush subsided
, but the pain in his stomach remained. What next? This girl, this bold chit of a girl, had stood up to him, challenged him, like the others. His gut burned when he thought about the others. He’d naught to do but implement damage control. Unless—unless he could talk her into helping him.

He tugged on the rearview mirror. Blood dripped where he had bitten his lip through. What else?
He imagined his wide eyes were those of a stranger caught in headlights before the car’s wheels thumped over him. He must calm down.

He exited the car and opened the boot, reaching in for the girl, holding his breath so he wouldn
’t have to smell her. Still as death, yet a pulse. Why did this have to keep happening?

“
It is your eternal punishment before your eternal punishment.”

No! It must be that the girl was his salvation. But could she save him
—save him from … from being overwhelmed with the terrible tortures that pressed against his life at every turn, the burning hell that seared with every breath? Could she bring back his life with Cecil?

He didn
’t want to kill the girl. He wasn’t like that, not really. He only wanted the peace he’d had when he was young. Before his mother ruined his life.

The girl
’s mother would surely come to save her. She would come and he would make her tell him what she was supposed to tell him. She would say it.

He didn
’t want to kill the girl. Death was messy and he hated messy. Her living blood would take the place of the blood he couldn’t have any more. But the child’s mother—he would have to kill the woman after she said what needed to be said.

He used an old cord to bind the girl
’s hands and feet so there would be no mistakes. After securing her, he climbed back into the car.

“
What’s wrong with you, Chubby? Why didn’t you do that earlier?”

Charles jerked. He muttered, “Whatever I do, it
’s useless!” With barely restrained anger, he answered, “I didn’t carry string with me to the beach, Mummy.”

Propping his head on the steering wheel, he moaned, “Crying peace. When there is no peace.” He lifted his eyes, seeing nothing.

The girl had recognized his proclivity, fascinated as he had become with her mother. His world had begun unraveling when he spotted the woman at the fete and knew her for what she really was. His mother had come back. This time he would be more thorough, wringing the confession from her before he killed her a second time.

He ducked, holding his hands up like a shield. “Shhhh. Mother, don
’t say it. I know I should have gotten it right the first time. I never did anything right, is what you always say. But I
have
changed, you’ll see.”

The asthmatic wheezing in his head quieted. He could feel her still there, watching.
Oh God!
Perspiration soaked his shirt. He struggled out of his coat and glanced at his watch. Forty-three minutes since he’d first spotted the girl. The white motorcar hadn’t come after him. It was a reprieve.

After a few moments, he reversed the old car and drove back up onto the blacktop.

The dark car gone and away, Jon Graham sat, dazed. Why hadn’t the other motorist stopped? Must have been drinking and driving—on a Sunday morning and all. Pushing his car door open, he set his feet squarely into a trough of liquid black mud. He leaned back and rubbed away the tiredness from five hours of driving. He could easily have gone over the side of the cliff, never to be seen again. There likely wasn’t anyone about to hear the gut-wrenching scrape of his sweet little car tear through the gorse and fly into space to be squashed on the rocks below. He was thankful.

He picked his way out of the mud and shook what he could off his shoes so he wouldn
’t feel weighted down. He detailed what injury his car had sustained. A smear of purplish paint from the crash-derby car was etched into a dent along one fender. A razor line of silver sliced through to bare metal. It could be easily remedied. He walked around to the hedgerow side. There was a dent the size of an orange and quite a few scratches from bracken. Fortunately the impact was not great enough to cause his air bags to deploy. That would have required immediate assistance.

He
’d pinched, scraped and sacrificed to purchase this, his first car, a year ago. Though not a new car, it had been so well kept as to be beautiful. Here he’d been driving in London, with its racecar taxi-drivers, without a scratch. And then the first day in peaceful Cornwall and BOOM!

He looked around for CCTV possibilities and saw none, so the accident wouldn
’t have been recorded. The sun was under a misconception of cloud but still made for dazzling morning light. The breeze from the sea was brisk. He checked the condition of his books, which he had packed loosely. He started up, pulled the car to the road and once more drove toward the village.

His baby was bruised. Everything would be fine. Hindsight being what it is, Jon honked his horn before he came to the next turn in the lane.

“Mrs. Butler …”