White Lies (2 page)

The second, main bedroom used to be their mam’s. Jimmy reached in and switched on the light. The same built-in wardrobes with the mirror in the middle, the same dressing table, the same wicker chair covered by the same crotchet blanket their Aunty May had made before she died. Different bed, though. Jimmy wasn’t surprised. Their mam had died in that bed, cutting her wrists the day after Faye’s funeral, unwilling to face life after her daughter had been killed. John had gone for a simple divan. Probably from the first shop he’d gone to after the house had fallen to him. Jimmy took a step further in. There was a family portrait in a frame next to the bed. A photograph of Dad and the three of them taken in Torquay when he was ten, John twelve and Faye five. His mam would have taken the picture. Happier times.

He pulled open a drawer. John’s things. Cufflinks, an old watch, a tie pin. The wire for a mobile phone. Nothing of Mam’s. The same with the wardrobe and dressing table, although the top drawer still held a trace of her perfume. Jimmy closed his eyes and inhaled, a memory of her in her best coat on the way to church coming unbidden to his mind. He opened his eyes again. There was a faint layer of dust on the remote control for the television. It hadn’t been touched for a while. When he crossed to the bed, the sheets felt vaguely damp from disuse.

The last room–more the size of a large cupboard built out over the stairs and barely able to house a bed and overhead clothes rail–used to be Faye’s. The bed was still here, as well as a framed picture of her with the horse she used to ride once a week at the stables, but the room was otherwise bare and covered in dust. Jimmy was probably the first to go inside in years.

He backed out and returned to the top of the stairs. He could see no evidence of a crime. Had the place been burgled? Had John done something and been arrested for it? That would explain the air of neglect the house had suffered. Surely John would have called him, though, or had his solicitor do so.

Perhaps he’d been hurt.

Jimmy clattered back downstairs to the sitting room and picked up the glass of scotch, taking another gulp as he carried both it and the bottle into the kitchen. He put the bottle down on the table and opened the fridge. Bacon, cheese, eggs, margarine. A four-pint plastic bottle of milk in the door. He unscrewed the lid and took a cautious sniff. It was only just on the turn, indicating John hadn’t been away for more than a few days and expected to return. He was always careful about perishables.

Jimmy found bread in the cupboard and made himself a cheese sandwich, heedless of using a cutting board and ignoring the plates in favor of clasping the uncut round in his hand and wolfing it down, savoring the taste of the sharp cheese against the slightly stale bread. Funny. Before he’d left he’d have turned his nose up at a cheese sandwich. Now it tasted like a meal fit for a king. He opened the freezer compartment and pulled out a frozen curry, glancing at the cooking instructions before slamming it into the microwave oven.

A sudden banging at the front door startled him, but not as much as the muffled shout of “This is the police. Open up.”

He bolted for the back door but found a copper there as well. The man held a baton in his right hand. “Good evening, sir. Can you explain what you’re doing at a crime scene?”

“This is my house.” Jimmy looked behind the copper trying to see if his brother was there. “What do you want?”

“We had a call alerting us of suspicious activity. Can I have your name, sir?”

“Jimmy–James–Fenstone. Where’s my brother? What’s happened to him.”

“Your brother, sir?”

“Yes. John Fenstone. He’s lived here for years.”

“Oh, right.” The copper looked uncomfortable. “You don’t know then?”

“Everything all right, Perce?” A second copper appeared behind the first. Probably the one from the front door.

“This here’s Jimmy Fenstone. The brother. He doesn’t know.” PC Perce slid his baton into a loop on his belt.

“Oh dear.” The second copper sucked his cheeks in, shaking his head.

“Know what?” Jimmy looked from one to the other. “Where John? What’s happened to him?”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, sir, but I’m afraid your brother’s dead.”

“No.” Jimmy half laughed, searching their faces for a sign they were pulling his leg. “You’re having me on.” Their faces only tightened, and as they shared a glance he felt a lump of grief growing to the size of a golf ball in his throat. “Please tell me this is some kind of joke.”

“I’m afraid not, sir. Hung himself last Friday. Upstairs. Tied a rope around a roofing beam and dropped himself through the loft hatch.”

The microwave oven pinged.

Chapter 2

Meinwen Jones shifted her leg an inch or two and tilted her head to the right, relieved to hear a crack as the bones realigned from her hour of motionless vigil. She pulled her cape around her, trying and failing to close the gap where her belly had outgrown it. At least the dawn had crept slowly over the chalk, backlighting the heavy clouds that had poured rain onto her for the past thirty minutes.

She looked up into the dome of her umbrella, the rainbow segments barely visible against the sky. She’d rigged it to a tripod with a series of adjustable clamps, figuring that if the Goddess wanted her wet, she wouldn’t have given her the idea. Meinwen rubbed her face and yawned. She’d also had the idea of using a tent, one of those fisherman’s tents with an open front the garage sold at a discount with a tenner’s worth of petrol. Would that be cheating? Would the Goddess deem her an unworthy supplicant and send a cat to piss all over the carpet like last time?

It hadn’t really been fair. She’d researched the ritual carefully, piecing it together from clues scattered in half a dozen seventeenth century texts. It was supposed to grant clear vision to one’s heart’s desire which at the time had been to lose forty pounds and about ten years but she’d had to substitute five pink candles for a hand of glory because honestly, where could one get the desiccated hand of a hanged man these days? The substitution had sent her an incontinent tomcat instead. She wouldn’t have minded so much if she didn’t rent the house. She’d had little to offer a cat and it had soon stalked off to find easier pickings at the Catholic priest’s house next door.

“Christians have it easy.” She spoke the thought aloud, momentarily tempted to convert from her fifteen-year practice of Goddess worship to the simpler once-a-week luxury of an indoor church. It would make vigils a damned sight easier. She’d have to be Anglican, though. Her only other choice would be Catholic and she couldn’t be doing with feeling guilty about everything. St. Jude’s wasn’t as fancy as St. Pity’s but it was more in touch with the life of the town.

It was also drier than sitting out here on the top of a hill.

Meinwen checked her watch. Eight twenty-three was long enough after sunrise to have officially done her duty to the spirits of Nature and the Sun. She’d kept the vigil all night and the sun had officially appeared on the autumnal equinox. She was cold, tired and very hungry. The cheese sandwich and thermos of nettle root coffee hadn’t lasted past midnight.

She stood, pulling the hood of her parka tight over her curls and stamped her feet against the wet earth to get the circulation going. Christianity was becoming more attractive by the minute. She stretched her fingers and made fists several times before packing up her supplies in her voluminous bag, taking the umbrella off the stand and dismantling the tripod. The little fire had gone out ages ago, a victim of the sudden downpour at two in the morning. She folded the blanket and slung it over the top of her bag. She’d give it a wash and sell it on as a genuine prayer blanket. Couldn’t get much more genuine than an all-night vigil for the Holly King.

She stumped down the hill past the waterfall known as Lover’s Leap. People really had jumped into the foaming depths but it was rare for any of them to survive. There had been a warning sign here, once, but the enamel had chipped off and all it notified passersby of now was “Gazza” in yellow spray paint.

The path dipped steeply, as if it was racing the river to the bottom of the hill, leaving Meinwen grateful for the flint and tree roots that made natural steps every few yards and the occasional handrail that served to curtail the gradual increase in speed the slope encouraged. Without them she’d have been running pell-mell down the slope and come to a sticky end in the river at the bottom.

Meinwen was just passing the plunge pool, where the waterfall crashed and roared into depths it had cut from the rock over the course of the centuries when she slipped on a patch of slick, wet mud, falling on her ample posterior and releasing her hold on her bag. The contents scattered across the path but the tripod, weighing more than anything else in the bag, seemed to make a willful beeline for the water’s edge.

Its suicidal plunge was stopped by the leather-clad foot of Mr. Jasfoup, one of the gentlemen from Laverstone Manor on the other side of the river. He leaned to pick it up, then held out a hand to Meinwen. “Are you quite all right, Ms. Jones? That was quite a tumble you took. Alas that I was powerless to prevent it.”

Meinwen accepted the hand and hauled herself upright, looking down at her mud-encrusted form in dismay. By contrast, Jasfoup looked immaculate in his gray suit with hardly a speck of mud on his soft leather shoes. He looked to be out for a stroll on a sunny afternoon in Provence rather than tramping through wet fields in Wiltshire. “Thanks. I got all the way down without so much as a slip and go head over heels on the last part.”

“The last bit is always the hardest.” He handed her the tripod and stooped to gather the rest of her belongings. “What have you been up to? Making sure the sun comes up?” This last said with a smile, his tone mocking but a twinkle in his eye suggesting a tease.

“What if I didn’t keep a vigil and it didn’t come up? What would you have to say then?”

“I’d apologize from the bottom of my heart and offer you a candle to light the darkness.” He offered her a short bow. “Then I’d pull all my investments out of solar energy.” He smiled. “I need you to keep the sun rising, Ms. Jones. It makes me a goodly sum in dividends.”

“Perhaps you should give me a proportion then.” Meinwen couldn’t help smiling back.

“Ha! Very good. May I think about it?” He stooped again to pick up her thermos. His face fell as he rose and he shook it experimentally. “I’m afraid your flask has warmed its last. I hope no tea was wasted?”

“No. I’d finished it.” Meinwen took it from him and stowed it in her bag. “It was nettle coffee, anyway.”

“Marvelous. Two of my least favorite things in the world combined into one disgusting concoction.” He shuddered. “Chances are the flask committed seppuku rather than risk carrying such a dreadful brew again.” He looked her up and down. “Oh, dear. You are exceptionally muddy, you know. Would you like to come back to the house to wash up? Perhaps Julie could do something about the dirt. She’s a marvel with Marigolds and a wet sponge.”

“No, that’s fine, thanks. I’ll scoot home.” Meinwen pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at what she could see. “I’d rather just get out of these wet things and into the shower.” She looked up, momentarily unnerved he was still watching her. “What brings you out here?”

“Me? I was walking the dog.” He looked about and whistled, then shrugged apologetically. “She’s probably found a rabbit trail and hared off.”

“Ha-ha” Meinwen forced a smile. “Thanks for the help, Mr. Jasfoup.”

“My pleasure. Can I give you a hand with your bag at all?”

“No. I’ll be fine.” Meinwen gave him a final nod and walked on, soon passing the little bridge marked Private that led to Laverstone Manor. The dog Jasfoup had referred to, a breed that looked more wolf than dog, lay on the bridge, rain pelting down onto its fur as it worried at a bone between its paws.

Meinwen swallowed and hurried past. The bone looked fresh enough to be a kill and large enough to be human. She could feel the animal watching her as she headed between the sheltering oaks.

The path took her to a point where she could turn left to come out on Oxford Road or right to enter the park. She took the latter fork without pausing, for beyond the park stood the spire of St. Pity’s and just past the church was home. The spire wasn’t much more than a shadow against the dull gray of the mist and the clouds beyond.

The park was quite busy for a wet Thursday morning, mostly with mothers leading children to Pity’s infant’s school, dog walkers and people hurrying to jobs in town. Margaret Holdstock was just opening the Museum Café as Meinwen walked past and she waved a greeting.

“You’re out early.” Margaret stood in the shelter of the porch, her arms folded and clasped against the chill. “You been out researching?”