Time Enough To Die (28 page)

"Yes, yes, quite. Please sit down."

Matilda could feel her cheeks glowing in the anxious warmth of the room. The hot tea didn't help. The food was delicious but heavy. Beside her on the couch Gareth inhaled cucumber sandwiches and talked. Part of his police training, perhaps, was how to dispense with chewing.

Led by Gareth's smooth voice through a discussion of the weather, the agricultural prospects, and the market for collectibles, Della blushed and stammered and rattled the crockery. If she's so frightened of us, Matilda asked herself, why ask us to tea? Perhaps something else frightened her more.

Gareth finally broached the subject of the murder. “I thought it would be an interesting addition to my article to mention the illegal antiquities trade, and how the girl murdered on Durslow Edge seems to have been involved in it."

Della's eyes glinted so sharply that Matilda's own eyes narrowed.

"The girl was killed on a stormy night?” Gareth went on.

"No,” replied Della, “it was a stormy night when Adrian and I heard that her body had been found. She was killed two days earlier, wasn't she?"

"I believe so."

"That night was clear and cold. Adrian went out in his MG—to Liverpool, he said. He didn't get back here until very late. Or so I suppose. You remember the night Dr. Sweeney was attacked, I'd taken my sleeping tablets—migraine, you see. I had migraine that night, too."

"You knew Linda, the murdered girl. You must have done, she worked at The Antiquary's Corner."

"We met, yes. That's all, though. I had no idea she was—well, whatever she was doing illegally. Celia wouldn't dream of doing anything illegal, but, if you'll pardon my saying so, I'm not so sure about Adrian. He met Linda at the Green Dragon more than once, to talk antiquities."

"Weren't you—not to put too fine a point on it, Mrs. Reynolds—weren't you a bit jealous?"

"Oh no, no, they were talking business."

"Of course, you've seen the receipts."

"Oh no, there were no receipts, just amounts entered in the checkbook."

Della hadn't blinked once during her testimony, Matilda noted. Her skin had gone so pale her modest application of lipstick and eye shadow seemed clownish. Her hands were knotted in her lap.

Gareth settled back on the couch, his cup balanced on his knee. If he'd been a cat, thought Matilda, he'd be licking his whiskers. “Celia Dunning is an old school friend of yours?” she asked.

"A teacher, actually. In British history, which I went on to teach in turn.” Della's gaze fell to her lap. Deliberately she loosened her fingers and spread them on her knees.

"Your book collection is very impressive, too,” Matilda said. “With the Romans ruins next door and Durslow on the horizon, the past must seem very close."

"There's the Festival tomorrow. I always enjoy that."

"Beltane. Aren't there other celebrations in the area, as well? A couple of traveler girls were talking about one in the chip shop the other day."

"Oh that,” Della said faintly.

"It must be helpful,” said Gareth, “to have the travelers nearby, always ready to do the mucking out on the cheap. Adrian doesn't like them, but I imagine Jimmy's only too ready to share the labor, isn't he?"

Della gulped, looking as though she'd suddenly swallowed a frog, and color flooded her face. “Jimmy's been with me for years. I'm loyal to him and him to me. The work gets done and Adrian's none the wiser. It doesn't hurt."

"Of course not,” said Matilda. She could hardly breathe in the hot, airless room. No wonder she'd felt so hot last night, in anticipation.

"I'd like to interview the travelers,” Gareth went on. “Perhaps you could arrange an introduction. They seem so completely divorced from the past...."

"Not a bit of it,” said Della. “They've returned to the past, to the ways of the ancient Celts, living off the land, rejecting the materialism of the modern world."

"Drinking,” Matilda added, “listening to music, and fighting. It's very good of you to lend them your books. You might inspire some to continue with their educations."

"Ah.” Della lifted her cup. Her hand was trembling and tea slopped into the saucer. Her face went a rosier pink than her dress.

Whatever Della's motive had been in inviting them to tea, she was now desperate for them to go away. Matilda took pity on her and glanced at Gareth. “My goodness, look at the time. We have to meet the students at six. Mrs. Reynolds, thank you so much, everything was lovely."

Gareth took the hint. Murmuring appreciation, he and Matilda edged toward the entry. “Thank you for coming,” said Della by rote. “Please come again soon.” She shut the door behind them.

Matilda lingered on the doorstep just long enough to hear the woman burst into sobs inside. “I'm sorry,” she said over her shoulder.

Gareth stood on the gravel driveway, mopping his forehead and gazing upward into the clearing sky. “What was all that in aid of?"

"I was afraid if we stayed any longer she was going to faint. In the car, come on, I don't want to talk here."

They opened the windows and luxuriated in a cool breeze. The lights of the hotel made a cheery contrast to the dark, almost menacing bulk of the ruined fort. Gareth parked the car and stopped the engine. A strain of sappy music—violins playing “Tomorrow"—emanated from the back door of the bar.

Gareth propped his left elbow against his headrest and turned to Matilda. “I expected her to cover up for Reynolds. Instead she shopped him good and proper. Why? And why tell us?"

"To answer your last question first, she might be worried that with Reynolds such an influential landowner in Corcester Watkins wouldn't pursue the issue. So she tells a nosey reporter who would love to blow open the case. I bet it was when you pointed out that Linda was murdered two days before the stormy night that Della realized what she knew.” Matilda licked her lips. They were still layered with cloying sweet cream and jam. “When we first arrived she was nervous, like an actor before the curtain goes up. But she went through with it. Damning Adrian is probably the bravest thing she's ever done."

"She's easy to read, is she?"

"I think she was telling the truth, if that's what you're asking."

"So then, why expose her husband?"

"We've been wondering all along why Della would protect him when he treats her with such contempt. And she told us tonight that he's even spent a lot of her money,” Matilda replied. “Well, we were wrong. Remember what she said to you about Boudicca? How she has the travelers in behind Adrian's back? She hates him. It's payback time. You saw how cool she was as she turned him in—except for her hands knotted in her lap."

"She wasn't telling us everything she knows,” Gareth said.

"She has another motive, yes. We were getting too close to it when we stopped talking about the murder and started talking about the travelers. She didn't deny she'd been hiring them and lending them books. But there's something else about them she doesn't want us to know.” Matilda set her hand on Gareth's arm. “The woman you saw in Nick's caravan. Was it Della?"

In the shadows Gareth's face was a mask, eyes opened wide, brows arched. “I don't—I wasn't.... It could have been, couldn't it? She could have seen the yob cut Caesar, and knew I'd bring him round straightaway. So she rushed back here by car to meet me. I thought she seemed feverish that day, and Reynolds said she was ill."

"It's faster to go from Corcester to Durslow across country,” said Matilda, visualizing a map, “but you can get to the traveler's camp faster by car. And you were nursing Caesar along. She had time."

"She wants to get shut of Adrian so she can have Nick,” Gareth stated.

"This is looking more and more like a French bedroom farce, isn't it? Now I'm even more interested in meeting Nick. His androgen levels must be off the scale."

"Androgens?"

"Sex appeal, basically."

"I've never understood why women fancy berks like him."

Matilda shook her head. “The thrill of the forbidden, I think, along with a female genetic attraction toward the self-confident, and, one assumes, strong man. Remember the old ballad, ‘Blackjack Davy'? ‘Late one night the squire came home, inquiring for his lady. Some denied and some replied, she's gone with Blackjack Davy'."

"Oh, that one. He catches up with her and she ticks him off."

"'What care I for your goose-feather bed, the sheets turned down so bravely, when I could sleep on the cold, hard ground along with Blackjack Davy.'” Matilda smiled impishly. “And then there's the male genetic attraction toward the bimbo, something
I've
never understood."

"No brains, no backtalk,” Gareth told her with a grin. Sobering, he went on, “It's no farce. Della might not be jealous of Adrian, with Linda or with Celia Dunning, for that matter. I reckon she's right jealous of Nick, though. And if she's not telling us everything she knows, he's not telling us anything, is he?"

Several human shapes loomed out of the dusk, cat-calling to the couple in the parked car. Matilda turned around so that the light fell on her face. “Sorry,” said Bryan. “We thought we had an X-rated movie here. Didn't realize it was just a study hall.” Jennifer and Manfred grimaced in embarrassment, Ashley winked conspiratorially, and the students strolled on by.

Matilda turned back to Gareth. She heard her own voice saying, “I think I've been insulted."

For a long moment he looked at her, expression impenetrable. Then his lips parted and softened into a wry smile. “And me, as well.” His fingertips stroked the angle of her jaw, his touch as light and curious as a butterfly's kiss.

Shivering with delight, she leaned toward him. For a long moment his warm breath bathed her face. Then, just as his parted lips were closing in on hers, she caught herself and turned aside. “No. Not now."

"No.” His mouth closed and tightened. He glanced toward the hotel door, which was just swinging shut behind Ashley. “We have several things that need doing."

"Like phoning Emma,” said Matilda.

"Right. I'll make the call from my room, less chance of anyone overhearing.” With a strobe-like flash of the ceiling light, they climbed out of the car. “Are you coming?” Gareth asked.

"In a few minutes."

"Stay nearby.” He headed toward the hotel, his stride measured and purposeful, his body straight but far from stiff.

It's not, Matilda thought, as though she were robbing any cradles. Gareth was an adult, even if the inner child still wriggled through his defenses from time to time. Fewer years separated her from him than separated Marcus from Branwen.... That was another time, if not another place.

Matilda crossed the street in front of the hotel and stood on the sidewalk that ran beside the cottages and the bowling green. She put her hand in her pocket and closed her fingers around the spindle.

She saw the fort, its walls almost complete behind their scaffolding. In the setting sun of her vision, their shadow stretched far across the green turf. Beyond the shadow stood two tall men. Their long blond hair was stiffened by lime, so that it resembled the tail of the horse whose halter one of them held. Their cloaks fluttered in the breeze. Atop the walls several guards leaned on their spears and watched.

The gates of the fort opened a crack. Branwen stepped outside. She was pushing a small handcart, an ancestor of a wheelbarrow. Upon it sat a wicker basket apparently filled with soiled linen. But if the basket held laundry or cast-off garments, the cloth was oddly heavy. Branwen had to throw her entire weight against the handles of the cart to move it down the muddy path.

Without a backward look at the fort she joined the men. One of them relieved her of the cart. The other boosted her onto the horse's back. They led her away from the eye of the sun, toward the night....

The countryside plunged into a darkness cut only by torchlight within the fort and starlight overhead. Voices came to Matilda's ears, at first faintly, then more strongly, until she felt as though the speakers stood next to her, invisible in the night.

"The sentries saw her leave,” Marcus was saying.

"You told them to let her come and go as she pleased,” said Claudia. “She left of her own will. She's returned to her people."

"The lock on the temple treasury was broken open by a chisel. The torcs have been stolen."

"They've returned to their people, too."

Silence, strumming with tension. Then Marcus said in a strangled voice, “The Brigantian envoy tells me that tomorrow is a Celtic holy day. That tomorrow there will be a great sacrifice. That it is not for us to interfere."

"It isn't. The gold doesn't belong to Rome, any more than Branwen belongs to you. Let this savage land claim its own, Marcus."

"As you claim me?"

"If God wills it. If He will forgive us both."

Marcus sighed, the breath as long and agonized as the last breath of a dying man. Or as the first breath of one re-born.

The breath dwindled into time past. The night thinned into dusk. Matilda was standing on the sidewalk. The momentum of a passing truck tugged at her skirt and its roar deafened her. Watkins walked by and said, “Good evening, Dr. Gray."

Her throat was too clogged to speak. Her shoulders were bowed beneath the burden of sacrifice. A white horse, she thought, picking its path from Durslow Edge to Shadow Moss. A pale horse, with its pale rider named Death.

Stooping, she buried the spindle in the mud beside the gate. Even as she turned toward the welcoming lights of the Green Dragon, Matilda wondered if there would be space on Durslow tomorrow for not only the warm bodies of the living but for the wraiths of the immortal dead as well.

The telephone went several times. Gareth was about to give it up when Emma's breathless voice answered. “Yeh?"

"Gareth March here. Good evening."

"Hello, luv!"

"My appointment in London tomorrow's been canceled. Is the ceremony still on?"

"Oh yes, that it is. Where shall I meet you—at the Green Dragon?"

Let's not set Emma down in Clapper's vicinity, Gareth told himself. “I need to photograph the church. I'll meet you there at half past four. Can you leave work early?"