Demon on a Distant Shore (13 page)

He stood and held the clippers in front of his face. “I got metallic blue paint.”

He dusted off his knees. Right then the church door opened with a low creak. We exchanged looks and backed across the lane. A stile in the hedge behind us made an ideal seat, so we sat on it, Royal on the top crosspiece and I on the step. What could be more natural than two tourists resting on a stile after a nice, healthy country hike? Tall as I am, my feet were inches off the ground.

I braced my palms on the board either side of me and swung my legs as the vicar came from the church, down the path and stood at the open gate. A skinny little man on the far side of sixty with a bald head, bushy white eyebrows meeting over his nose and thin, lined face, he nodded at us pleasantly before turning sideways to speak to his choir members.

We watched them trail out. Each one looked us over before speaking with the vicar and going on their way. Some nodded and smiled at us. A couple waved and sang a hello across the lane. Three young men walked back toward the village and a family group went in the other direction. Four people got in a car. Meagan walked out with a handsome young black-haired man, their hands clasped. She gave me a tiny faltering smile and looked away.

Did she leave the note for us? I could ask her, except whoever left it did so secretly. She could deny she left it. Or ask what it said. Even if I prevaricated, she would still know we had a note and maybe tell someone else. Safer to say nothing.

My instincts identified Darnel Fowler as he walked from the church.

Fowler was a big man, tall, sandy-haired and thickly built, and I don’t think flab made up his bulk. Slightly tip-tilted pale-brown eyes stared at us over a thin nose with flaring nostrils. The laugh lines around his wide mouth indicated he smiled a lot and his pronounced wedge of a chin put him in the nice-looking class instead of out and out handsome. The buttons of his brown tweed jacket strained to hold it together.

He crossed the lane to us. Royal kept the hand holding the clippers behind him as if braced on the stile.

“Darnel Fowler,” Fowler said in a rough voice like the other villagers’. “A very good morning to you. You must be our visitors from America.”

He didn’t offer his hand, we didn’t offer ours. I did not like the way his gaze traveled up my body, then tracked back down. “What brings you to Little Barrow of all places?”

Royal answered him with a cheerful smile. “I passed through last time I was in England, in 2007, and liked the look of the place. This is an interesting area.”

Darnel shrugged, his mouth hitched at one corner. “It is that.”

“And Little Barrow is central to the sites,” Royal went on. “Stonehenge, Salisbury, Bath.”

“Oh, aye. And don’t ignore our smaller towns. Devizes and Marlborough are worth a visit.” He smiled again. “Best be on my way. Nice meeting you.”

Royal nodded. “Likewise.”

Darnel Fowler went to his Bentley.

“He didn’t ask our names,” I commented as we watched him turn his car in the lane and drive toward the village.

“I am sure every person in Little Barrow right down to the children knows our names.”

Finally the only people in the lane, we hopped off the stile and peered at the clippers. To our relief, miniscule flakes of paint still adhered to the nail file.

We started back to the village. Royal handed me the clippers as we came abreast of Johnny.

As I crouched beside his scooter, Johnny asked, “What you doing?”

I squinted at the bike and the nail file. The paint could be a match, but we couldn’t be sure without the actual scooter and access to a lab. “This paint was on Fowler’s car. Looks like it came off your scooter.”

You don’t know how strange it is when a shade hoots out yet his expression does not change. It’s quite unsettling. “You got the bastard!”

I handed the clippers to Royal who dipped in his pocket, pulled out a plastic baggy and inserted the clippers. Keeping a supply of baggies is an old cop habit, although these came from a supermarket, not police-issue.

“Not yet, Johnny, but we will.”

Royal got on the phone again and tried the truck rental companies. These calls were more difficult. He again pretended to be Paul Norton, with the story he left something in the moving van. On the third call, to Pegasus Van Lines, the receptionist sounded angry and resentful when she asked what Royal was playing at. Royal hung up.

Tomorrow we would take a look at Pegasus Van Lines just outside Devizes. Peter Cooper’s office was in the same town. We didn’t need the Internet to locate Peter Cooper, we found him in the regional telephone directory. Peter Cooper was a private investigator.

Chapter Eight

Another day in Little Barrow and we actually made it to the restaurant in time for breakfast ala Hart and Garter. Meagan put a plate before me. “Bacon, and scrambled eggs American style.”

Thick bacon, well-cooked but not crispy. What did she mean by
American style
scrambled eggs?

“They generally eat their scrambled eggs moister,” Royal said from the corner of his mouth.

I resisted scowling at him. The Brit-English tutoring was wearing a bit thin. He meant well, but couldn’t he give me a break? So I was ignorant of British words and customs, so what? I didn’t need instruction or information on every little thing. Other visiting Americans got along just fine.

“You are so seductive when you pout.”

I swallowed my mouthful. “I do not pout.”

I felt Carrie nearby. Why did I only now sense her? Could English shades mask their presence?

I made a mental note to call Lynn when I got home. She is a telepath who sees shades, although not in the way I do. Lynn considered herself an authority on the dead; I would enjoy blowing her mind.

We headed for the rental car.

“Off on a drive?” Carrie asked.

I almost tripped over my feet. Where did she come from?

“Sorry, did I startle you?”

“Yes you did,” I hissed, wary of anyone in earshot but out of sight.

I rolled my eyes at Royal. Realizing what was happening, he rolled his back.

“Where are you off to?”

“Someplace called Devizes.”

“Haven’t been there in an age. Mind if I come?”

“Yes we do.” I did a double-take. “What do you mean, come?”

“Your car has a back seat, doesn’t it?”

Getting in the face of someone so much shorter isn’t workable, so I loomed instead. “You can move
away
from the inn?”

Not at all intimidated, she put hands to hips. “How could I go to Devizes with you if I couldn’t leave the inn?”

“You can leave your place of death?”

“Didn’t I just say I can? I go anywhere I want. I’ve been all over the British Isles and farther. I went to France last year.”

I put one splayed hand to my forehead. This wasn’t right. She could leave the inn, which was why I didn’t always sense her inside, but she must be restrained by certain boundaries and they surely did not stretch to Devizes. She definitely couldn’t jaunt all over the world. “I don’t believe you.”

“I have! Paris. Rome. Berne.” She shrugged her little shoulders. “One way to find out.”

“Go on then, get in the car. It’s the blue one over there,” I challenged, pointing.

“I have to go with you.”

Yeah, I bet.
I folded my arms and tapped the fingers of my right hand on my left shoulder. “How do you do it?”

“Do
what?
”

“Go wherever you want. France? Huh!”

Her chin jutted. “Perhaps your American insubstantials can’t, but we British are obviously more advanced in that respect.”

I tossed my head. “Yeah? I doubt British
insubstantials
are any different from their American counterparts.”

“What do you mean?”

“On one end of the scale, they can move around a large area, for example an entire building. On the other end, they can’t move at all.”

“Well, there you are.”

What did
that
mean? My frustration level rose. “Answer me, Carrie.” I set my lips in a tight line and waited.

She hefted a sigh. “Everyone has a colored glow round them. I latch onto it.”

“A glow? You mean their aura?”

“Is that what it’s called? Well then, I latch onto a person’s
aura
. It’s how I travel. It’s the only way I
can
move from place to place. After you left so abruptly, I was stuck in the loo for half an hour until Pauline Cox came in for a pee.”

Unconvinced, I stared at her, fingers doing double-time on my shoulder.

“Don’t feel bad. I get stuck in places all the time.”

“I don’t feel bad.”

“Don’t look at me like that.” She stamped her foot and wailed, “I am
not
a freak!”

“Why would I think so?”

“As far as I know, I’m the only one can do it.” She threw her hands out. “Every insubstantial I meet thinks I’m abnormal! They hate me!”

If she
could
go anywhere at will, she had the freedom every shade craved. Recalling Mel and Jack’s predominant emotion concerning the living - envy of their mobility - I imagined how it could backfire on her. The ability to find other shades, friends with whom to spend the lonely decades, only to be shunned instead of welcomed. They’d be jealous, and angry they couldn’t roam as she did.

I changed the subject. “You see auras?”

“You’re changing the subject,” she grumped, now surly rather than pathetic.

“I know you can leave the inn, because I couldn’t find you earlier, but - ”

“You were looking for me? How sweet. Isn’t it strange how you meet a person and instantly know you’ll be best friends?”

“I wasn’t looking for you. I often sense when a shade is near and I didn’t sense you.”

“And sometimes you instantly take a dislike to them. Shade? You call us shades?”

Posture stiff, lips a tight line, Royal waited near the rental, looking across the fields at the rising Downs. I knew a vexed demon when I saw one. “I gotta go,” I told Carrie as I swung around.

“Please, don’t be angry.”

I sighed and stopped with my back to her. “I’m not angry.”

“I’m so glad!” she said perkily. “Let’s go then, shall we?”

She definitely shared one thing with Jack and Mel: mood swings. Shades are temperamental, up one moment, down the next, like they are manic depressives and off their meds.

I started off. “You are
not
coming with us.”

“How are you going to stop me,” she said at my elbow. “Have some magical, spirit-banishing powers, do you?”

I put on a spurt of speed.

“Won’t work!” she declared gaily. “I have you now.”

I stopped again. I had to get rid of her before we got in the car. Royal would
not
appreciate an extra passenger.