Downward Facing Death (26 page)

Jack stood up, Bambi lying lifeless and limp in his arms. The boy appeared again, holding something in his hands.

“Bambi was in the yard,” he said, holding up what looked like a choice hock of ham, “and he was chewing on this.” He held it up.

“Who gave him this?” the vet said, looking at Jack and his sister. His sister had gone white.

“It's not mine.”

“He's been poisoned,” Jack said, his voice hollow with pain. “Some bastard has poisoned my dog.” He followed the vet out, not even looking at Keeley, who leaned against the doorframe, her legs weak. The sight of him carrying the huge dog, cradling him in his arms like a baby with now silent tears flowing down his craggy features, made Keeley look away, unable to bear the anguish in his face.

Jack's sister turned to Keeley, her face white. The young boy was crying too now, hanging on to her arm.

“Will Bambi be all right, Nana?”

She patted him on the head and hushed him even as she turned unbelieving eyes to Keeley.

“Who could do such a thing?” she said, echoing Keeley's own thoughts. “My brother adores that animal. Who could be so cruel?”

Keeley couldn't answer her, at least not to give her a specific name, but she had a horrible feeling that the same person who could be cruel enough to poison a beloved pet was the same person who had been interrupted, by that very pet, burning the evidence of their deeds. Keeley looked at the hunk of meat, now dropped at the boy's feet. The woman followed her gaze.

“Wash your hands, Robbie, right now,” she said in a shaky voice, then looked at Keeley. “I think I had better call the police.”

Keeley nodded, and took Robbie into the drawing room while his grandmother did just that. Kate was there within ten minutes, having obviously been over the road at the station. She raised her eyebrows as she saw Keeley.

“You again?” she said, though her tone wasn't exactly unfriendly, more puzzled. “You seem to be at the center of everything that happens around here lately.” At the policewoman's words, Jack's sister shot Keeley a curious look.

Kate asked her a few questions, then went out to the yard with Robbie and his grandmother. There was nothing else she could do, so Keeley made her way back to the stall. Annie would be wondering where she had gotten to.

Her landlady knew at once there was something wrong, for all Keeley's attempts to arrange her face.

“What is it?” she said, coming out from behind the stall and guiding her to the back of the room, away from interested onlookers, “You look as white as a sheet!”

“Jack—I was going to the café—” Horrified, Keeley heard her breath catch on a sob, and her vision went blurry. She turned her face away, fighting tears. Annie stared at her for a moment, then patted her arm briskly.

“Right. You compose yourself and I'll pack up. You've done a fair day's trade as it is.”

Keeley gave her a grateful nod, watching as her landlady bustled around, a model of plump efficiency. Her limbs felt weightless, as though they would float away if not tethered to her body. She looked around for a chair and found a wooden stool by the window, sat down, and leaned forward, feeling a wave of nausea as though she had been poisoned herself.
You seem to be at the center of everything lately.
Kate's words scuttled round in her mind like blind mice, trying to find something solid to hold on to. It didn't make sense. Bambi's poisoning couldn't have anything to do with her, yet she couldn't shake her initial thought that it had only been Bambi raising the alarm that had saved her café. She had to stop skirting around the issue: this didn't just involve her—she was, at Kate had stated, at the very center of things.

The trouble with being in the middle of it all was that she couldn't see the woods for the trees, couldn't fathom any logical path from A to B. She felt as though there was something right under her nose, that she was missing, and now that
something
was affecting the people around her. Like a bad luck charm, she thought morbidly.

“She's over there,” she heard Annie say, and looked up to see Ben approaching, a worried look on his face. In spite of herself, she found herself jumping up and quickly smoothing her hair, a sensory recollection of last night's embrace heating up her skin. At the same time, she felt an overwhelming desire to throw herself into his arms and sob on his shoulder, pride be damned. Instead she heard herself ask, “How is he?” not sure if she was referring to Jack or the dog or both. Ben shook his head, his face grim.

“Not sure yet. I think it much depends on whether he makes it through the night. Jack's taking it hard, as you would expect.”

“He thought it was me,” Keeley said, her voice bleak. When Ben looked quizzical, she added, “My food, I mean, making him sick. Until we realized it was poison.” Her words sounded as though they were coming from very far away.

“I'll take you home,” Ben said, his voice brooking no argument.

“I came with Annie, and I need to clear up,” she protested. Annie looked over at the mention of her name.

“I can clear up here, and I'll sort the pots and things and bring them over. You go on now.”

There didn't seem much point in arguing, and indeed, Keeley found she couldn't wait to retreat to the relative safety of the little cottage. She went with Ben, then remembered she had left appliances on in the café and went over to turn them off and lock up, Ben close behind her. She avoided looking up as she went past Jack's front door.

They drove back to the cottage in silence, though Ben kept shooting her little concerned looks. The spare dish of her curry sat in her lap, and Ben sniffed the air as he opened her car door and took it from her.

“Smells good. Maybe you could heat us up some?”

Keeley stared at him. How could he think about food right now? But her stomach betrayed her, giving a low grumble, and she recalled she had had nothing to eat since a muffin and orange juice first thing that morning.

“Good idea; come in, then.” She reached for her keys, then noticed a small parcel sitting by the front door. Thinking her napkins and menus for the café had come to the cottage by mistake, she picked it up and put it under her arm. As they went in the door, she smelled a bad odor, like decaying food, and eyed the pot of curry Ben held in trepidation, hoping there wasn't something wrong with the second batch. Then as she began to untie the parcel in her arms, the smell grew stronger. With a creeping terror, she looked at the label on the parcel, which stated her name and address, but with no stamp or postmark. It had been hand delivered, and the small black type used for the lettering was all too familiar.

“What is it?” There was a urgent note to Ben's voice as he realized something was very wrong.

Keeley pulled at the strings, then at the neatly taped package. As she pulled it away, the odor was so strong, she gagged and her eyes watered, so that it took her a moment to understand what she held in her hands. Chunks of rotting flesh tumbled from the package as Keeley threw it away from her and ran into the bathroom, retching. Behind her, she heard Ben cursing in shock.

The rotten smell permeated the small cottage, even though by the time she had freshened up and emerged from the bathroom, Ben had taken everything outside. He was on the phone, ordering a constable to come at once, and when he saw Keeley, he ended the call and came to her, pulling her into his arms. Only then did Keeley notice she was trembling.

“Who is it? Are they … human?” A visible tremor went through her, and Ben clutched her tighter.

“No,” he said quickly, in soothing tones that she suspected he used on victims and their families during the course of his work. He guided her over to the sofa and sat down with her, holding on to her still shaking hands. “It stinks too much for me to get a proper look and be sure, but I think it's just pieces of pork. Rotten meat.”

Keeley felt sick.

“Why would someone send me that?” But then she knew, of course: it was to thoroughly upset her. A jab perhaps at the fact she was a vegetarian and had taken non–meat stuffs to the traditional food festival. It was such a horrid, disturbing thing to do that Keeley felt her blood chill in her veins. Someone, for some reason, really hated her.

They sat in silence, Ben rubbing her hands, until a police car pulled up outside and Kate got out. Ben had left the parcel of rotting meat on the porch, and the wind must have been carrying the smell downhill, as Kate grimaced as soon as she was out of the car, then held a hand to her nose as she walked past the offending flesh and into the cottage. Ben let go of Keeley's hands and stood to greet the young WPC as though it were perfectly normal for him to be comforting a female that way, but Keeley didn't miss the way Kate's eyes flickered over the spot he had been sitting, or the way her mouth pursed in obvious disapproval. Or more likely, remembering the way the policewoman had simpered over Ben the first time Keeley visited the station, with jealousy.

Kate asked her questions and inspected the exterior of the cottage in a way that gave Keeley a distinct feeling of déjà vu. Really, this was becoming a commonplace event, although her tormentor had been rather more imaginative this time. Kate took a statement, then helped Ben place the offending article in a secure Baggie. She left without barely a glance at Keeley, though she murmured to Ben on her way out, “He's stepping up his game, isn't he?” to which Ben gave a curt nod, then looked at Keeley with concern. They meant, she knew, the person who had sent her the parcel.

Ben made her a hot drink and heated her up some of her own curry, which she stared at listlessly, thinking that after today, food was the last thing she wanted, taking only a mouthful when Ben said “Eat,” in tones that brooked no argument. Even through her haze, she knew it was good, and the taste and aroma of the spices helped inure her senses against any lingering rotten odors, soothing her queasiness rather than adding to it. Ben ate his with unabashed gusto, but then, she supposed he was used to seeing—and even smelling—unsavory things.

“This is damned good,” Ben confirmed as he tucked in. After finishing, he took the bowls in to the kitchen, and she couldn't help a smile as she heard him running the tap to clean them. He obviously had no aversion to cleaning up after himself. She wondered what his own house was like, thinking that although she knew him from childhood, knew his parents and his childhood home, she really knew very little about Ben the man, other than that he was a dedicated professional and an exceptionally good kisser.

When he came back in the room, she looked at his face and thought he looked weary. This case was a strain on him too, she reminded herself, and thought about Kate's parting words with a shudder.

“You said the murderer was stepping up his game?”

Ben drew his brows together and didn't answer her, but Keeley guessed at his train of thought. “You're still not sure it's the same person, are you?”

Ben leaned back and sighed, shaking his head. His earlier reticence to share details with her had largely gone, and although in some ways that pleased her, she feared that was as much to do with Ben and the local police being at a total dead end than a growing closeness between them.

“On the face of it,” he said, “they could be separate events. Your poison pen, the murder, Jack's dog. It's like trying to put a jigsaw together when all the pieces of different puzzles are jumbled up and you're not sure what goes where. It
feels
like it's all related, and yet, where does the dog fit in to all this?”

Keeley remembered her initial reaction to the dog's poisoning, and suddenly it made perfect sense.

“It was Bambi's barking that prevented the fire getting any worse, and possibly destroying evidence of Terry's murder. I mean, if the body had been badly burned, you might not have known how he died, right?”

Ben frowned.

“You think Bambi was poisoned out of revenge for interrupting the arson attempt?” Ben didn't look as if he bought that theory, but as Keeley pointed out, what was the alternative?

“It's either that, or you've got some other psychopath running around Belfrey.” Or Jack's somehow involved, she thought but didn't want to say. Remembering the old man's face when he had lifted his dog in his arms gave her a tangible ache in her chest. Following the death of his wife, the wolfhound was obviously his closest companion. To target the dog seemed somehow more shocking to Keeley than the murder of a man she had never met and would most probably, by all accounts, not have liked. She felt uncomfortable with that knowledge; all life was precious, and Terry's murder should be no less a tragedy than anyone else's. Yet Bambi's near brush with death had pained her far more.

Ben's thoughts were following a different track, it seemed, as he regarded Keeley with his head tilted to one side, looking as though he were puzzling something out.

“What is it?”

“I was just thinking it's interesting how, apart from Gerald, every person you've suggested as the culprit is a woman. To be honest, initially I was looking at a man for this. It takes a certain amount of strength to hit someone hard enough over the head to kill them. But I'm starting to wonder if you might be right.”

“Oh?”

Ben gave a brisk nod. “Yes, it's a possibility. Assuming it's all the same person, it all smacks of a certain kind of pettiness, even though there should be nothing petty about murder. Vindictiveness, that's a better word.”

Ignoring the slight to womankind, Keeley thought about his words. There was only one person she would automatically apply that word to. Rotten meat through her door. It had been just a few hours earlier that Raquel called her rotten, snarling the word at her. She didn't voice her suspicions, mainly because she didn't want Ben to think she was unhealthily fixated on the idea of Raquel as the culprit, but Keeley couldn't help feeling that if the shoe fit, then Raquel was most certainly wearing it. Even though she had to admit it all seemed somewhat over the top for the sake of covering up her cosmetic surgery. But then, Raquel had deeper secrets than that.