Femmes Fatal (24 page)

Heading downstairs, I said, “About that salmon … I didn’t cook it. The vicar brought it round; her husband had prepared it for their evening meal, but he was unexpectedly called away and she wanted to be neighbourly.”

“Very kind.”

“You sound peeved.”

“Not a bit of it.” Ben snorted a laugh. “I’m delighted to have the chance to sample another of the chap’s blue-ribbon recipes.”

I had feared this reaction, but I’d had to tell him. I wasn’t prepared to live my life skirting the word salmon whenever we were in the company of one or another of the Spikes. My existence was already chock-a-block full of things I hadn’t told Ben. And as I stumbled down the last stair, one of them caught up with me.

“Ellie, I found a packet of Healthy Harvest Herbs in the pantry.”

“Really?”

“A nice blend.”

“You don’t say.”

His dark, enigmatic glance confirmed my worst fears. He had read the label from front to back and was about to accuse me of being a covert member of Fully Female. Standing as still as the twin suits of armour positioned against the staircase wall, I braced myself for what was to come. “Ellie, I don’t quite know how to put this …”

“Please, just spit it out.”

“Very well, but bear in mind my intent was not malicious. Far be it from me to attack the culinary integrity of Mr. Gladstone Spike.”

“What are you talking about?” My heart was lifting even as I sank down on the bottom stair.

“I used the packet of Healthy Harvest Herbs to make a glaze for the salmon which naturally I thought you had prepared.” He paused to look at me suspiciously. “Why are you smiling?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Ellie, I am not for one moment suggesting Mr. Spike made a bland and boring job of that fish.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“Within his limitations …”

Oh, bother! The rest of Ben’s charitable commentary was forestalled by Freddy opening the hall door and carolling, “Mary Poppins reporting for duty. By the by, which one of you bright souls left that salmon alone and unattended on the kitchen table?”

“Don’t tell me you helped yourself?” I tried to sound severe.

“Not me, Your Honour, but you might want to have a few words with Tobias Cat. He just skulked out with half a pound of fish on his whiskers.”

“I’ll kill the varmint!” Ben’s shout tore through the rafters.

Moonlight painted pictures on the courtyard worthy of the niftiest pavement artist. And within moments of exiting the house I could tell from the quickening of Ben’s stride and the airy way he swung the picnic basket that his spirits had begun to lift. He had made a halfhearted attempt to persuade me there was no earthly
reason why we should not finish off what was left of the salmon, but the look in my eye must have made clear that even for the privilege of sampling the Healthy Harvest glaze, I would not partake of my cat’s leftovers. Halfway down the gravel drive I caught a glimpse of Tobias browsing among the trees. Oh, goody! From the droop of his furry head I suspected the wretched feline was already ashamed of himself.

“May you have indigestion,” I bellowed through cupped hands, before hastening to keep pace with Ben. Rather than returning upstairs to fetch my duffle coat, which I had forgotten when Ben burst into the room and told me about Mrs. Malloy, I had grabbed an old cardigan coat hanging in the alcove by the garden door. The wind nipped through it, but it was a teasing, almost sensuous type of nipping, and suddenly I couldn’t wait to be camped out on the travelling rug, watching Ben uncork the wine with those elegant, dexterous fingers while I ached to have him touch me even if only to place a brandied cherry between my parted lips.

We passed Freddy’s cottage and went through the iron gates, so solidly familiar in daylight, but now with a magical, fantasy quality about them, as if they, like the shadows in the courtyard, had been painted by some phantom artist of the night. Only when we were on Cliff Road, walking in the direction of St. Anselm’s church, did I say, “Ben, I thought we were going to picnic under the beech tree in the garden.”

“Changed my mind.” He put his arm around me. “Since Jonas hung the rope swing from that old tree, I’ve thought of it as the twins’ special place.”

“Even though they’re still too little to swing?”

“Ellie, it’s out there waiting for them. An integral part of their childhood. You and I must find a new special place. All suggestions are welcome, but I thought of that little knoll next to the churchyard.”

“The one with the grotto of silver birch trees that looks as though it is just waiting for a miracle to happen?”

“Right.” Ben’s smile, captured in the beam of the torch, was golden. Without another word, we followed our lighted arrow up the rocky incline, which in summer would be ablaze with wildflowers. Halfway up I sensed, rather than heard, the pad-pad of paws behind us, but if Tobias were tagging along I chose to ignore him. I had yet to forgive his bad table manners; besides, two’s company and any third party, even a cat, would be an intrusion.

“Here we are.” Ben set the picnic basket down on a moss-grained rock; the silver birch trees encircled us as his arms closed around me. We might be only a few yards above the road, but we were king and queen of the castle. Ours was a veritable fortress, a place where no evil could touch us, because love was our shield. There! I had finally dared think the word that had been lurking in the shadows of my mind all night. And I was still afraid. The feeling was so fragile, like a ballgown worn and loved, then put away in a dark trunk until one day the lid is lifted, and there it is—more beautiful, more shimmering, more radiant than remembered. But have the moths been at it? Will it crumble to dust when touched?

“Look at the moon,” said my love.

“Yes!” I whispered.

Pure as the dreams of childhood, perfect in its symmetry, it appeared to be elevated directly above the church—God’s very own Eucharistic wafer. And when my eyes returned to Ben’s, I knew with a quiet, luminous certainty that love is more than satin sheets and a pair of Viking horns. It’s a gift that is not ours for the grabbing. Try, and it will slip through our fingers like a handful of water.

“Hungry, sweetheart?”

“Passionately.” I stepped away from his arms and in a dreamy haze watched him spread the travelling rug on the ground and start unloading the picnic basket. The air smelled of cowslip wine. Just breathing could make me drunk.

“How do Cornish pasties, spinach salad, grapefruit mousse, and a mature Camembert grab you?”

“Delectably.” Out the corner of my eye I noticed one of St. Anselm’s stained-glass windows blaze into jewelled light. Emerald, ruby, sapphire. Was the vicar prowling her domain? Or did a ghost walk?

Ben’s hand reached up to draw me down onto the blanket, but I resisted. To our right, down on the road, two amber orbs pierced the dusk, a throaty growl tore at the night, and a car came around the curve at what seemed to my pastoral state of mind a fearsome speed. A scurry from the bushes directly below our birch grotto, and I saw the dark shape of an animal glide toward the road. My torch was in my pocket, but a chill crept up my sleeves and clutched its icy fingers about my throat.

“What’s wrong, Ellie?” Ben was on his feet.

“Tobias!” I was already stumbling over rocks and honeysuckle briars in a desperate race to scoop up my pet before he was crushed under the wheels of that chariot of death. Too late! I hit the road on my heels in time to see my darling furball lurch, mesmerized, toward that rush of lights. Before I could hurl myself forward, Ben grabbed me from behind and a second—a century—later, there was the hideous squeal of brakes as the car slammed to a standstill.

I saw Tobias lying inches from the front wheels, I saw his tail flicker then lie still. To hope was fairy-tale folly … The door opened and out stepped the dark figure of a man wearing a Dick Tracy hat.

“Murderer!” I screamed.

“Ellie, you wait here.”

“Please, keep holding me.”

The man in the hat was opening up the boot of his car. Was he getting out a spade? No! He … oh, my heavens! This was worse than Tobias. Indeed, poor Tobias, R.I.P., faded from memory when I saw Mr. Road Hog lift out a body … the body of a human. Then, knees bent, he hoisted its sagging weight over his shoulder.

“By Jupiter!” Ben muttered. “Something fishy going on here.”

“You don’t say!”

The man was across the road on the brink of our vision, a creature distorted by horror and distance into the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The realization hit me and my spouse simultaneously: we were about to witness the horror of a dead body being hurled over the cliff edge—down, down, to bounce off the jagged teeth of the rocks below into the foaming mouth of the sea.

“Stop!” Ben took leaps that never touched the ground. “In the name of the law! This is a citizen’s arrest!”

Only the sea answered, in a surge of crazy, crashing laughter, and then … the villain of the hour turned around and even in the partial darkness I recognized his face.

“Oh, no!” I cried. “Not you!”

“Why, Dr. Melrose!” My torch picked off his buttons on its way up to a face shadowed by the brim of his hat. “What brings you here?”

A bloodless smile creased his lips, and while the night crouched down like a patient policeman to wait and listen, he shriveled before our eyes until he was no more than an overcoat blowing in the wind. “Why, Mrs. Haskell … and Mr. Haskell … this is a pleasant surprise. I was out for a moonlight drive when I decided to stop and smell the roses … I mean, the seaweed,” he said with a hollow laugh.

“And who is your charming companion?” Ben placed himself squarely in front of me although I do not think the folly of intercepting a murderer had occurred to either of us. “Could it be your wife Flo?”

The wind pitched a mournful sigh, echoed by our quarry. “Astute of you, sir.” The doctor shifted his burden so that the dangling foot whopped him where I
hoped it hurt the most. “She suffered an attack of car sickness, to put it in layman’s terms, and …”

Ducking my head around Ben’s, I spoke in tones of dulcet bitterness. “Flo has my sympathy. Travelling in the boot of the car does that to me every time.”

“Oh, dear God!” Dr. Melrose stepped backwards and might have ended the discussion there and then by taking a flying leap over the edge of the cliff had Ben not lunged to the rescue.

“Not so fast!” He grabbed the doctor by the scruff of his coat collar. “My wife and I would like to pay our respects to Mrs. Melrose.”

All fight, all hope had gone out of the beleaguered man. He laid his burden down on the cold, dark sod and stood, head bowed, while the trees closed in like a troop of professional mourners. Garbed in black, they writhed and moaned and lifted their rended tresses to the unfeeling night.

“They’ll bring back hanging just for me.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” I said nastily, afraid to look, yet irresistibly drawn to Flo’s shuttered face. Friar Tuck fringe smooth on her brow, she lay feet together, arms straight at her sides, as if ready to be boxed up by Walter Fisher, Undertaker. And yet I didn’t feel that Death was present in person as I had when gazing down at Norman the Doorman. Maybe it was the way the wind pinched her nostrils, but I could have sworn she breathed.

“Believe me, I never meant to kill her, but ever since she joined that crazy organization, Fully Female—”

“That what?” Ben asked.

“A health club,” I said, informing his feet.

“Oh, yes, I saw the name on the packet of Healthy Harvest Herbs.” The lift of his left eyebrow chilled me to the bone.

“Mrs. Malloy is a member.” A lie by omission spoken
within the shadow of the church, but one could only pray God had bigger sins on his mind.

Dr. Melrose drew a shuddering breath. “Mrs. Haskell, I told you when you brought little Tabby and Tom in for their checkups that I was being driven to madness by my wife’s awakened sexuality. Never a moment’s peace. Never knowing when she would pounce upon me next. The other day it was in the men’s room. Last evening when I got into my car to drive home, there she was on the backseat, wearing only her safety belt. And then this morning! I was summoned to the morgue to identify a patient, and when I pulled open the drawer, I couldn’t believe it—there was Flo twinkling up at me and moving over to make room for two.”

“Unnerving.” Ben looked at me. Was he calling up the memory of his wife in a pair of Viking horns, bent on seduction?

“You can’t know what it was like.” Dr. Melrose wrung his hairy hands.

“True enough. My wife and I are too recently married and far too deeply in love to have need of the artificial stimulus provided by this Fully Female place.” Ben paused. “I do vaguely remember seeing something about it in
The Daily Chronicle
, but it didn’t register because it didn’t apply.” A half-smile touched his lips like the imprint of a remembered kiss, and I knew with dreadful certainty that my spouse did not suspect my personal involvement with Fully Female. But if he were to find out, would things ever be quite the same between us?

“Are you telling us, Doctor”—Ben spoke with utmost contempt—“that you
killed
your wife because you could not keep up with her sexual demands?”