Folly (16 page)

‘That's mean,' Alex said, going to stand beside Kev Winslet at the bar. ‘Whatever's going on here is none of my business – or anyone's but yours and Cathy's.'

‘Sorry,' Cathy muttered. ‘I used to love to ride when—'

‘When you lived with Mummy and Daddy and had your own horse?' Will broke in. ‘Know what I think? I think that woman wants to find out if there's any gossip down here about the murder and she knows you're in the middle of things. She just wants to use you.'

Cathy was pale but seemed resolute. ‘Thanks for the advice, Will. Maybe she's got a right to be interested in anything that happens right now. She did get thrown from her horse and nobody's said much about it but there was a dart involved. Heather said that.'

‘Good excuse for a so-called wonderful horsewoman taking a fall, if you ask me.' Will threw down a tea towel and crossed his hefty arms. ‘Maybe she stuck it there. Have you thought of that?'

‘Oh, Will.' Cathy shook her head. There were tears in her eyes.

‘You worked for Cornelius Derwinter,' Kev said. ‘You had a good cottage on the estate to bring Cathy to after you were married. The Derwinters were good to you. Old man Derwinter even paid for you to take courses when you wanted them. And you used to say how cushy it was. Whatever the old man wanted, you did, and gladly. But it wasn't enough for you, working for other people. You couldn't wait to get to this place and run things. What was that all about – impressing Cathy to try to show you were as good as her and her family? Anyways, I didn't intend to interfere. None of my business.'

‘What's the harm in wanting to better yourself?' Will said, clearly past caution. ‘We were only managers to begin with but I came into money. This was a good investment.'

‘Cathy, could I have a Britvic orange juice,' Alex said, just wanting to stop this back and forth. ‘It's been a difficult day.'

‘Now you're back to being managers.' Kev nodded around the bar. ‘You couldn't hang on to this. You lost it. You're lucky to be here at all. At least you've still got a chance to dig yourself out of debt.'

‘Kev!' Alex shoved her face in front of him so he had to give her his attention. ‘Stop. Now. That's history. We're all very happy with the way things are.'

While Will continued to fume silently, Cathy emptied a bottle of Britvic orange into a small glass and put it in front of Alex.

Kev turned his back on Will. He nodded toward the front of the building. ‘Flies on a jam pot up on the hill,' he said. ‘Never saw so many plods in one place.'

Alex had seen the swarm of police fanned across the hill, searching, and dared to hope they'd find something to make all this go away. ‘I wish them luck,' she said. ‘I don't see how they'll find anything new, though.'

‘If we knew what they were looking for we might be able to help,' Kev said, his florid face thrust forward and pugnacious. ‘Too much secrecy. It's not as if we aren't all involved – or our lives, anyway. Has anyone said what it is? The man's wallet, maybe?'

‘They're not saying anything. We probably won't find out until it gets leaked to the press.' This wasn't a conversation she wanted to continue. ‘I'll take this upstairs with me, Cathy. See you later.'

‘The coppers were by earlier looking for you,' Will called after her. ‘I didn't know you were out so I sent them up. It's too bad you found that body.'

Alex raised her glass and said, ‘I think so, too,' without turning around.

First she wanted to go to her rooms, take a bath and change her clothes. She had been a bit short with Tony when she said she was coming here before picking up Bogie from her mother. He hadn't deserved that, but he'd heard what she'd heard before they'd gone into the parish hall and she owed it to him to give some sort of explanation. She wasn't ready for that yet.

Halfway up the stairs from the closed restaurant, Alex paused. If she never said another word about her baby, or Michael, Tony wouldn't ask. Darn it, if he didn't have other plans already she'd invite him for dinner although it would have to be at her mum's, which would probably thrill Lily.

Carrying on slowly, she balanced the glass against her chest while she punched in the number on her mobile. ‘Hey,' she said when he answered on the first ring. ‘We need some downtime. I thought I'd ask my mum if I could have you to dinner at her house this evening. Sounds funny but I think O'Reilly would have a cow if I went back to the lodge at this point. Mum'll be here working and she likes me at her place anyway.'

‘Sounds great,' Tony said. ‘What time?'

Her key locked rather than unlocked her door. Alex reversed the process and went in. ‘Around seven?'

She didn't hear his answer. Impotent rage threatened to choke her. ‘Tony,' she managed to say, ‘they've bloody well turned my room upside down. They've searched it.'

T
he policeman who tapped on her doorjamb looked about eighteen, if that. His helmet under his arm, he showed his warrant card and said, ‘Constable Smith. You called in about some trouble.'

Alex walked toward him, deciding what to say. She gave a shaky cough. ‘I take it your people did this? Ransacked my room?'

His brown eyes got very round. ‘Excuse me?'

‘This.' With one arm she took in sheets tossed on one side of the bed, the mattress thrown off so it came to rest against an easy chair missing its cushions and a chest from which all five drawers lolled open and the innards were scattered and trailing.

‘It's a good job I don't have any more personal things here than I do. If you'd waited until tomorrow, I would have made a run up to my house for more supplies – then it would have been more fun for you. What did you people think you were, kids in a sandbox?' As seconds passed she became more furious. ‘What were you hoping to find?'

‘Fuck!'

Tony's arrival and opening salvo struck her momentarily dumb.

He didn't apologize. ‘What a damn nerve. And the police did this?'

He advanced on the much smaller copper.

Katie, grinning as only she could, turned her ears into pointed wings that stood straight out to the sides of her head and started sniffing around the room.

‘Sir,' said the red-faced young man, his blush quite fetching on dark skin. He sounded very Welsh. ‘I don't know what any of this is about. I came in response to this lady's request. I'm on loan, out of Broadway. We're helping out. If you have any complaints about the department, I suggest you contact them. Under the circumstances, I'm calling for back-up.' He worked a police radio from beneath the heavy yellow slicker he wore over his uniform and pressed buttons.

‘
Back-up?
' Tony sputtered. ‘Is that because we're so bloody terrifying? Do you think we're going to beat you up? Look at this place. Why throw the few bits and pieces off the desk? It's just vandalism. You broke a bottle of perfume. Yes, that's what we've got here, Alex,
vandalism.
'

Constable Smith had stepped past him on to the landing and continued talking without apparently hearing a word Tony said.

The mentioned perfume, the Je Reviens she favored, overwhelmed everything.

‘Right then,' Smith said, facing them again. ‘Someone's coming right away. They'll be here quick enough. I'm sorry you're upset. You should be, of course. I expect you'll want to check for anything missing.'

‘Police,' a very recognizable and officious voice said from the stairs. Detective Sergeant Lamb came into view, two steps at a time. ‘What's all this, then, Constable Smith?'

‘Room break-in is what it looks like, sir. Lady came back and found it like this.'

Alex began to have a nasty feeling she was making a fool of herself. She cleared her throat, half watching Katie curl up on the pile of discarded bedding. ‘I was told you – or some of your people – came up here looking for me earlier,' she said. ‘Why would you do this? If you'd asked to look around I'd have let you.'

Glancing at the room, Lamb smirked and, from the corner of her eye, Alex saw Tony make fists. She rushed to stand beside him and hold his arm.

‘When you ducked out of the rectory early this morning we wanted to know where you were. A couple of our officers checked here. I assure you they were never in this room. We would have needed a search warrant for that and we hadn't had time to get one – even if we wanted it. You can get back to the parish hall,' he told the constable, who left without another word.

‘Maybe I made a big mistake,' Alex muttered. ‘It seemed so obvious. But someone's been in here. Why, Sergeant? Can you think why someone would search
my
room?'

He rolled from his heels to his toes, not settling his baby blue eyes on anything in particular. ‘Whoever it was could have made pretty certain you wouldn't even know they'd been here,' he said. ‘But this was done so it would be obvious.'

Tony muttered something under his breath and got the detective's full attention. ‘You have something to add, Doctor Harrison?'

‘I said, no shit, Sherlock. Seemed appropriate given what I'm looking at.' He showed no remorse. ‘I think you should be thinking about who's trying to frighten Alex. So many things point to an effort to scare her off. The darts from her pub. What happened up at Lime Tree Lodge when she was on her own. Now this. Don't you think someone wants to frighten her?'

‘Could be. Could be they even want to make her decide to leave.' A flicker in his expression suggested Lamb hadn't intended to say that much.

Alex wandered past him to the landing and held on to a railing over the stairs. Her legs didn't feel steady and her heart beat too fast. ‘Why?' she asked herself more than the men.

‘That's what it's all about, isn't it?' Lamb said. ‘An endless string of why questions. We shall just have to keep on asking. For now I don't want you to touch anything until our people have had a look.'

‘To check for fingerprints?' Alex said.

‘Among other things. Someone may be along today but more likely tomorrow. This room will be taped off and someone stationed here to make sure it stays off limits. That needs to be taken out of here.' He pointed at Katie.

Before Alex could tell Sergeant Lamb how much she disliked him, Tony picked up Katie and carried her out of the room.

Hurrying footsteps came up the stairs behind them and Lamb said, ‘Hello, boss,' at the same time as Alex and Tony turned to watch O'Reilly, an unexpected smile on his face, coming to join them.

The instant he saw the room, he said, ‘This needs to be taped off.'

‘It will be,' Lamb said.

‘You have residents or guests at the moment?' O'Reilly said to Alex.

‘Two rooms occupied tonight,' she said. ‘It's slow in winter.'

‘Get someone up here with that tape,' O'Reilly said, and paused while his second-in-command made his way down for reinforcements.

‘Don't you wonder what happened to Reverend Restrick?' O'Reilly asked without preamble, addressing Alex. ‘He just about ran into you leaving the crime scene this morning. Didn't you tell me that?'

She rubbed her forehead, trying to unscramble her thoughts. ‘I forgot,' she told him honestly. ‘It's been a weird day. Did something happen to him, too?'

‘Wouldn't it be reasonable for him to just come back when he recovered from the shock?'

‘Of course.' Relief flooded Alex.

‘But you immediately think of something happening to him.' O'Reilly didn't sound aggressive but he was a master at planting seeds of doubt – at least about her.

‘Wouldn't that be a reasonable assumption, Inspector?' Tony said. ‘From the way you phrased your question.'

O'Reilly gave a short laugh. ‘Next you'll be accusing me of leading the witness. Everyone watches too much TV. This isn't a court of law and you're a vet, not a barrister.'

A nasty feeling intensified in Alex. ‘The reverend – is he all right?'

‘No, he's not all right. He was plainly upset when he ran out of his house. He must have gone to the church looking for some sort of sanctuary, I suppose. Then it seems he fell down the stone steps into the crypt. He's in hospital with a serious head injury. He may not live.'

Alex's hands felt frozen. She clasped them together and stumbled to sit on the top stair. ‘I don't believe this.'

‘May I take Alex somewhere more comfortable?' Tony asked.

‘In a moment. I want you to take a look at this first, Mrs Bailey-Jones.' He had been holding a plastic bag behind his crossed forearms and he gave it to Alex. ‘Don't open the bag. Just tell me if you recognize what's inside.'

She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Here it was. It did exist. A man's heavy gold ring, dulled by mud and with sundry pieces of debris stuck to it.

Tony crouched down behind her and muttered, ‘That has to be it. Looks expensive. Even under the mud.'

It was a signet ring but larger than would fit on most men's small fingers the way they were usually worn. She held it up to the light and pulled the plastic tight against the flat side so she could see any engraving.

She heard Tony's indrawn breath behind her and shook her head.

‘This can't have belonged to the monk,' she said. ‘It's got the Derwinter crest on it.'

C
orner Cottage was as inviting on the inside as it was on the outside, but tonight Tony was most aware of tension in the small sitting room.

He stuck his head out of the door to look into the kitchen where Alex was clattering among pots and dishes making them ‘something easy' even though he had tried to insist she let him drive them into Bourton-on-the-Water to eat.

After a horrible day, she needed to catch her breath, but she wouldn't hear of going back on her invitation.