Downward Facing Death (10 page)

“Well, I believe DC Taylor attempted to talk to you yesterday, but you weren't very forthcoming,” Kate replied, looking less than happy herself. No doubt she disapproved of Ben taking a former suspect out to lunch. Keeley was immediately apologetic, remembering the way she had rushed off yesterday and then ignored a call from him later on in the day.

“I wasn't feeling very well,” she muttered. The policewoman looked unconvinced, and after asking her a few questions, really just going over the same ground she had covered with Ben, asked to see the back garden.

“Why? The letter came through the front door.”

“I know that”—Kate looked cross at Keeley's statement of the obvious—“but the sort of person who sends nasty anonymous letters is just the sort of person who snoops through windows.”

Keeley tried to push away the thought of someone spying on her as she went about her daily routines. She really must stop wandering around in her yoga pants and remember to pull the curtains, she admonished herself. As she let Kate in through the back gate, she looked around at the small garden warily, half expecting an intruder to jump out of the bushes.

“It's funny, though,” Kate went on, her earlier hostility seemingly forgotten, “but you could say the same about the victim.”

“Sorry?” Keeley felt confused, having a sudden mental image of Terry Smith wearing her yoga pants and wondering if she had spoken aloud.

“Terry always struck me as that sort of person. You know, the type to go snooping through windows. He always seemed to know things about people; nasty stuff, you know. Dirty laundry.”

“He doesn't sound like a very nice man,” Keeley said, wondering if there was anyone in Belfrey who had something nice to say about the unfortunate Terry Smith. It seemed almost sad that the man should meet such an abrupt end and yet have no one grieve for him. “Did he have a girlfriend or anything?” she asked, thinking back to her suspicions concerning Raquel.

“Not that I know of. I don't think he had anybody, really. Which makes things a bit harder for us, considering that people are most often killed by someone close to them. In any case—” she frowned at Keeley, looking suspicious, “—why do you want to know?”

“Just curious.” Keeley shrugged, looking away. She sensed the other woman looking at her; then Kate turned away and finished her cursory inspection of the back door.

“Nothing looks out of place or unusual?”

“Nothing.”

“I didn't see anything by the front door either. Oh well, I suppose it was too much to expect the anonymous author to leave a calling card. And looking for things like fibers or hairs on bushes by the front door is fairly pointless; lots of people could pass by.”

Keeley thought again of all those episodes of
CSI.

“Isn't forensic evidence crucial, though? If you could match something to the murder scene?”

Kate gave her a withering look and seemed on the verge of rolling her eyes.

“This isn't
CSI.
”

Keeley blushed.

“We have no real evidence that this is even connected to the murder as yet. Who owns the cottage—you?”

“Annie Rowland.” Keeley hoped that the WPC wasn't planning on telling her landlady. Although she felt sure the older woman would be concerned on Keeley's behalf, she didn't want her thinking that she had brought trouble with her to Rose Cottage. Although it was probably a little late for that, being that half the town seemed to think she had something to do with the murder.

Thankfully, Kate seemed to decide there was nothing more to be gained here and took her leave, telling Keeley as she got into her car, “DC Taylor advised you to be careful, he said something about you having a friend over? And to call him—”

“If I think of anything else,” Keeley finished for her. “Got it.” Kate smiled tightly and drove away while Keeley glanced up and down the hill, hoping none of her neighbors had seen the police car parked outside the cottage. That would hardly lift the finger of suspicion from her.

As for Carly staying, the truth was that Keeley had all but forgotten the idea. Thinking through her theories about Terry Smith's demise had indeed proved a distraction from her own fears. So much so, she decided there was no better time than the present to begin asking a few questions. After a belated breakfast of her own apple and cinnamon smoothie and a large portion of tofu scramblies, she changed into her jeans and left for the town center. This time, she took her umbrella.

As she passed the inn, she remembered Norma and Maggie, the voracious gossips, and wondered if they should be her first port of call. Then she remembered their almost predatory manner the other evening and decided against it. Perhaps as a last resort. Although Keeley didn't doubt that the pair would be more than happy to let her in on any juicy bits of information they may have at their disposal, she was also under no illusions that they wouldn't then do exactly the same to her, wasting no time in letting the other residents know that she was asking questions. No doubt with an embellished spin on things. No, she would need to be feeling a little sharper and more self-assured before she tackled those two.

Her first potential informant, as she had decided the previous day, would be Jack. She had thought of Annie too, but remembering the landlady's valiant attempts to be diplomatic when it came to discussing the personalities of both Terry Smith and Keeley's own mother, she thought Jack her best bet. He wasn't one to mince his words.

For once, though, he wasn't alone as she stepped into the dingy half-light of the Tavern, but sitting with two other men, both as craggy and hard-bitten-looking as Jack himself. He looked up and nodded at her as she came in, his nicotine-stained fingers clutched as ever around his pipe. The other two men eyed her with a curiosity that didn't seem entirely friendly, but Jack's dog at least was pleased to see her; sitting up and wagging his tail in an excited motion that caused his whole body to shake—no mean feat, given the size of him. Again Keeley thought about the fact that if it wasn't for the wolfhound, the arson attempt on her café may well have succeeded. She crouched down by the dog and rubbed behind his ears, and he rewarded her with an affectionate butt to the side of the head that nearly had her sprawling on the floor. Jack tutted and yanked the dog away.

“Behave yourself, now, Bambi,” he admonished, the name eliciting a surprised squawk of a laugh from Keeley as she stood up.

“Bambi? That's his name?”

“Aye. It were the wife's idea. When he was a puppy, he had these long spindly legs and these big eyes, see. And she always was a soft 'un, so Bambi he became. She had just gotten ill then, and the dog was a comfort to her like.”

“It suits him,” Keeley said kindly, remembering Jack's wife had died just a year before her father, of a cancer that had taken a long, painful time to reach its inevitable end. Jack had been by her side throughout.

“Can I get you a drink?” she asked him, glancing at the other two men, who had made no move to introduce themselves. Jack shook his head and Keeley made her way to the bar, ordering a tonic water from a vacant Tom. As she walked back over to the table, she realized that Jack hadn't actually invited her to sit with him and hesitated, wondering if she was interrupting something.

“Jack, have you got a minute?” She hovered uncertainly at the edge of the table. Jack looked up at her, frowned for a moment, then waved his hand toward a free stool.

“Sit down. This is the Carpenter girl,” he said to the two men, who gave her a brief nod in unison. They looked alike, one just being a little fatter than the other, with a red nose that spoke of a life spent working outdoors and a touch more homemade liquor than was healthy. Brothers, perhaps.

“Ted and Dan Glover,” Jack introduced, confirming her assumption. “They own the big farm at the top of the hill.”

“Oh, of course, I remember,” Keeley said, giving them a warm smile. “We used to get our milk and eggs from you.”

The skinnier of the two men—Ted, she remembered now—regarded her with an even look that froze the smile on her face. Definitely not friendly.

“That's right, and your father got a lot of his meat from us, too, you know, just over the road.”

Keeley nodded in encouragement but felt her stomach sink a little. She had a feeling she knew where this conversation was going.

“I hear you've got plans to turn it into a vegetarian café now,” the brother chimed in, saying “vegetarian” the way another person might say “cockroach.” Trying to pretend she hadn't noticed their obvious hostility, Keeley nodded, her smile now not so much frozen as having succumbed to rigor mortis.

“That's right.” She sensed that launching into her usual mini sales pitch about a healthy diet and lifestyle wouldn't be advisable in the face of the Glover brothers.

“You don't think that's a bit of a daft idea? In a farming town?”

Keeley took a long, slow swallow of her drink, her smile finally wiped off her face, and eyed Dan calmly, although inside she was cringing. Jack sat silent beside her, making no move to defend her. Not that she really expected him to. He had made his own dismissal of her business just as apparent, if not quite so rudely. Bambi at least offered some support, pushing his great head into her lap and looking up at her with his mournful eyes. She combed her fingers through the fur between his ears, grateful for small comforts. Perhaps she should get a dog—she had read somewhere that people with pets showed decreased stress levels and better immunity to disease.

“I'm sure Belfrey, and Amber Valley as a whole, is big enough for us both, Mr. Glover,” she said politely. The conversation reminded her of her earlier one with Raquel. She wondered if every newcomer who tried to set up a local business that was perceived as a bit different from the norm was treated like this, and made a mental note to ask Megan how Crystals and Candles had first been received.

Dan Glover nodded curtly, as if the matter was settled, but his brother wasn't done. He leaned over the table toward her, a mean glint to his eyes that Keeley thought looked almost fanatical.

“Do you know what people like you have done to the business of farming?” he demanded, each word rapped out sharply like a strike against her. “As if things aren't bad enough, what with the floods and the bloody economy.” A drop of spittle had gathered at the corner of the man's mouth as he spoke. His brother had nodded along throughout, his piggy eyes fixed on Keeley.

She sucked in a deep breath before she answered, trying her best not to show she felt intimidated. Bambi had raised his large head and was looking at Ted Glover from under his shaggy fringe, his large body tense. No doubt he too had picked up on the man's barely contained rage.

“I'm sorry if you're having problems, I really am, but they're none of my making, Mr. Glover. And I'm not sure what you mean by ‘people like me.'”

“Bloody do-gooders!” he snapped, the whole of his face now as red as his nose. “Traipsing around the countryside, moaning about the way things are done, letting out the livestock, damaging machinery. Going on about animals' rights as if we don't have any ourselves.”

“I don't reckon Keeley here's into any of that,” Jack cut in. His tone was amiable enough, but Keeley was sure she detected an edge of steel to it. Bambi must have sensed it too, for he let out a soft growl and narrowed his eyes at the farmer, who sighed and finally sat back on his stool.

“Sorry,” he said grudgingly to Keeley, not looking or sounding one bit sorry, “just a sensitive subject, that's all.”

“It's all right,” she said stiffly, sipping her drink—though it wasn't, really. How on earth could her opening a little café have any impact, in the larger scheme of things, on the Glovers and their livelihood? She suspected Ted Glover was, quite simply, a bit of a bully, and his brother not much better. She should ask her mother about them too. Assuming her mother would tell her what, if anything, she knew.

Thinking about Darla brought her attention back to the real reason she was here: Terry Smith. Now, though, she didn't want to ask Jack questions, not in front of these two, who clearly thought her a blight on the local community, in any case.

To her surprise, however, right on cue, it was Dan Glover who brought it up, but without the hostility she might have expected.

“How's the police getting on with finding the killer, anyway? They must have some idea by now who it is, surely.”

Keeley shrugged, not wanting to share any confidences with this pair. Or to admit that she didn't think Ben had any more idea than she did.

“Bloody useless, the local police. Can't find their arse from their elbow,” Ted muttered sullenly into his beer. Clearly a man angry at the world, Keeley thought, still trying not to take his comments personally.

“It's not like it's any great loss, though, is it?” his brother said, and Keeley looked at him, interested now.

“Did you know him?”

The Glovers shrugged, again almost in unison.

“Only for the betting,” Dan said.

“But he would always try and cheat you, if he could. Never liked paying up, either.”

“Though he was quick enough to complain if you owed him money.”

They both nodded at Keeley, her sins obviously forgotten for the moment while they had a new target. Then Ted, clearly the more dominant of the two, drank back his beer in one long gulp and nudged his brother.

“We need to go. Be seeing you,” he nodded to Jack, not even bothering to address Keeley. Dan at least nodded at her before he drank back his own beer and left. Keeley watched them go, suppressing a shudder of distaste.

“Don't mind them,” Jack said, as if reading her thoughts, “they don't like most folks.”

Keeley turned to him, placing her palms flat up in her lap as if beseeching. Bambi sniffed them, licked one of them, and then looked disappointed when he realized she wasn't offering a tasty tidbit.