by Jo Allen
One of life’s pleasures was keeping people on their toes, and this wasn’t the kind of welcome he’d expected. His eyes widened slightly.
‘It’s okay.’ The smile was genuine. Cody’s dealings with Seb Mulholland had never brought her anything more sensual than the peculiar and unique pleasure that came from finding something new. His reality was trapped between the pages of old books and, though most of what it revealed was barely even humdrum there were gems to be had and he knew where to look. Her heart skipped at the thought. ‘Just black humour. British humour, I thought, but likely I got that wrong?’ She stood aside to let him in. ‘Come on in and tell me all about whatever you’ve come to talk about. Brandon’s going to make us a lovely cup of tea. I don’t think you’ve met Brandon. He’s my brother. Brandon, this is Seb.’
‘Hello, Brandon. Delighted to meet you. I’m sure we’ve met. St Andrews? No? Edinburgh? New York?’
Balanced in the hallway, feet braced apart like a cowboy ready to draw, Brandon was looking the newcomer up and down with suspicion, as the two of them rumbled through two unconnected lists of places where they hadn’t met. Jealousy, totally unjustifiable, bubbled out of his every pore, heightening her delight at seeing Seb so that she almost giggled.
‘Seb. Darling. Come through to the sitting room.’ Seb was anything but her darling, and Brandon must know that, but there was something about him that made her suspect he regarded her as an eccentric, and she played up to it. It never did you any harm in life for your closest associates, as well as your enemies, to be just a little bit wary of your unpredictability.
‘I won’t stop long.’ This was unusual. Seb was normally gregarious to the point of being unshiftable and she’d become skilled at manoeuvring him off her territory. ‘It’ll have to be a quick cuppa. I’m on my way to London. But I was passing and I called in. I have something you might be interested in.’
She’d hoped it was that. Her heart gave a little kick, the same sort of excitement she’d felt the last time she’d given herself to Lynx to have the wickedest of wicked ways with her. The memory of his death dampened her enthusiasm, but only for a moment. ‘Of course I’m interested. Come in. Sit down. You’re lucky to find us here. Someone died in the lane outside and the police had us out of here last night.’
‘Someone died?’ Seb handed his coat to Brandon and plucked nervously at his scarlet silk tie, a warning light that promised danger where none existed. ‘Oh my.’
‘Yes. Some poor girl killed with a rock. A jealous boyfriend, I expect.’ She was being ridiculous. If Seb had seen the news he’d know what had happened, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself prattling on, her voice pitched higher than usual, her speech more rapid. ‘We were allowed back into the cottage this morning. I was surprised it was so quick, but they seem to be getting good at going over a crime scene. I should write to whoever their chief is and tell him he’s got at least one satisfied customer.’
Even she thought her laughter was a little bit forced. Under Brandon’s warning gaze, she wrestled back control. ‘Sit down. Seb likes his coffee with sugar, Brandon. And bring the last of those chocolates. Now, Seb, tell me what you’ve got. Did you get lucky again?’
He sat and placed his bag on the sofa next to him, looking hurt. ‘It’s not luck. I remember everything. It’s a question of finding the right information at the right time and tracking things down.’
‘Maybe the police could use you.’ Cody shivered. Jude Satterthwaite and his team might be good at getting a crime scene cleared but they seemed less than efficient at catching a killer.
‘Maybe I should offer.’ It was the closest she’d ever heard him come to a joke. Without looking at her, he undid the clip on his bag and took out a brown A4 envelope.
She wasn’t the only one with a wicked sense of humour, a need to exert her power. He held the envelope on his lap between the finger and thumb of each hand, and smiled.
Cody cracked. ‘May I?’ She held out a hand.
He slipped a hand inside the envelope and withdrew a second packet, wrapped in acid-free paper – letters, tied with a faded red ribbon. ‘I don’t know, and it’s subject to verification. But I believe these are Dorothy’s letters to Mary.’
The missing half of the correspondence that would tell a perfect story. For a moment, he held a hand over the letters in the same way she’d seen Raven hold them over her tarot cards, before extracting the top one from the slim packet and handing it to her.
The scent of old paper filled her nostrils and the powdered skeletons of two and a half centuries of dust mites clung to her fingertips. The writing was thin, the paper crazed with age, the ink fading, so that even Cody, skilled in the interpretation of Dorothy’s script, struggled to see it, but she could read enough. My dearest, my darling, my own love…your William and I miss you so much… Her pulse raced. ‘Seb. How did you find these?’
‘A little bit of detective work.’ Returning the other letters to the envelope he sat back, folding his hands over them with a self-satisfied smile. ‘I remembered a property prospectus I saw when I was looking for a little place in the country a few years ago. It mentioned that it had been the country retreat of William Knight – the academic who had the previous letters,’ he added, for Brandon’s benefit. ‘I visited it at the time and there was a study full of his books and papers that had been there for years.’
‘You have an extraordinary memory.’
‘It’s served me well in the past. Hopefully it’ll serve me well in the future. I went back hoping against hope that the study hadn’t been emptied. It had, but the contents were in boxes in the garage.’
‘And you bought it all?’
‘Yes. I had to pay a little more than I did last time. My reputation preceded me.’
‘Maybe someone else remembers everything they read in the newspapers, too.’ Cody’s heart had stilled a little, enough for her to remember that you achieved more by playing it cool. Dealing with Seb was like playing saloon bar poker with a plumply smug devil. ‘How much?’
‘I paid five thousand. I’ll be looking for a substantial profit.’
The letter she held in her hand contained nothing more than a few endearments, but he’d have chosen it as the least exciting one, the teaser. What did the rest hold? ‘You’ve read the others. Are they worth my while?’
‘That’s something for you to decide, but having read them I’m prepared to offer you a fair deal.’ He tilted his head to one side. ‘I’m looking for fifty thousand.’
She wanted those letters, wanted them so much, but not enough to make a complete fool of herself. ‘Fifty thousand? Are you mad?’
‘Aren’t they worth that to you?’
‘The principle isn’t worth it. Why should you make ten times what you paid for them?’
‘Because I can sell them to someone else. More, possibly, if it goes to auction and you find yourself bidding against a collector.’
‘They’re Dorothy’s letters, not William’s. He has the market value.’
‘Shall we test that?’ His wit was as dry as his heart. ‘You can afford it. I know how much you made from the first half of the correspondence.’
‘No doubt you read about that in a newspaper, too.’
‘I read an article estimating how much money you’ve made from your research into the Wordsworths, yes. And your colourful friend down in the field seemed to know a lot about it, too.’
‘Oh, so you’ve been talking to people about me?’ Desperate as she was for the letters, she wouldn’t humiliate herself for them. She’d spent her childhood and her adolescence being bullied by a man and she’d vowed when she escaped him that no one would bully her again. People had tried. Owen, fatally, had tried. Even Lynx, whose bullying was welcome in its own, delicious, way, had overstepped a mark, but she’d never expected anything of the sort from Seb. ‘I know you’re trying to rip me off because you think I’m a weak and feeble woman, Sebastian, but you have a lesson to learn. It won’t work.’
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‘Of course, you can keep that letter. It’s the others which are interesting.’ He folded down the flap of the envelope, dropped it in the case and clicked it shut.
For a second Cody’s blood took control of her rational mind. She could seize the letters. Somehow she and Brandon would persuade the police that they were hers and he’d stolen them. Or if the worst came to the worst—
But the place was crawling with police. She subsided into her chair, her frenzied brain calculating. Were the letters worth the money? Were they worth the humiliation?
‘I’m sure we can work something out.’ Brandon put a tray of tea things on the table, poured the tea and offered Seb the box containing the solitary remaining chocolate she’d had from Lynx.
Cody loved marzipan. On another day, irritated with him, she’d have had no qualms about snatching it from under his nose but she controlled herself, watching him lift it out of the box. ‘Oh, lovely. Thank you. Handmade.’
She accepted this minor defeat with grace, but on the major battle she still fought. How was she to get the letters without being made to beg for them like the worst kind of addict? This was why she tried never to reveal her weakness. People took advantage of it. The gesture of donating the journals to the Wordsworth Trust might have been designed to deflect from her need to keep Mary’s letters, but Seb, who knew about it, had seen through it. ‘Obviously I want the letters,’ she said, forcing herself to sound casual. ‘But not at any price.’
Seb sipped his tea, devoured the chocolate, sipped again. Standing at the window like his sister’s bodyguard Brandon maintained that interested smile, but she had no idea whether he understood how important it was to her. Hating herself, she opened her mouth to accept Seb’s offer.
‘Tell you what,’ Brandon suggested, coming and positioning himself between the two of them so that she couldn’t see the expression on Seb’s face. ‘Why don’t we take a little time to think it through? When do you have to leave for London?’
‘I was going straight there.’ Seb got out a crisp white handkerchief and removed a smear of chocolate from his fingers.
The plan was a good one. She knew she could rely on Brandon. With an effort, Cody pretended to consider it for a moment before she agreed. ‘Can you give us an hour or so, Seb? Go down to the village. Have a walk round the lake, or another cup of coffee or something. Then we’ll see. If I decide I’d like to buy I’d need to make a couple of phone calls. About the money.’
‘That sounds like a plan.’ Seb got up, seizing the briefcase in both hands as if he feared being mugged for it. ‘Call me when you’ve decided. You have my number.’ He wriggled into his overcoat without letting go of the bag, obliterating the scarlet flame of his tie and becoming once more a grey and unthreatening nonentity. ‘One other thing, Cody.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve enjoyed working with you.’ He shuffled towards the door. ‘But I don’t feel it’s a workable relationship any more.’
Not when you rip me off. ‘Oh, really? And where have you gotten a conscience about working with me? I’ve always been honest and open with you.’
‘But the people I deal with are very—’ He struggled for the right word. ‘Fastidious. I can’t afford to be associated with anything questionable. And some of your reputation inevitably sticks to those you deal with.’
‘Right. And if there’s any doubt about those letters, you’re in as much trouble as I am, right?’
‘Your reputation will be more damaged than mine if those letters are fake.’
But he’d always said he didn’t believe they were fake. He must be cutting their relationship short because she’d become too toxic for him to know. ‘Exactly what are you implying?’
‘Well.’ Usually urbane, he looked a little flustered. ‘What happened to poor Owen, for example. And the gentleman in the field. And if you go back a bit there’s—’
She held up a hand before he could turn his knowledge into a threat. ‘Stop right there. Don’t ever suggest—’
Brandon overran her fury, stepping past her and urging Seb out of the door and onto the path as if he were flicking dust out through the kitchen door. ‘See you in an hour or so, Seb.’
‘He won’t get away with this.’ Her blood throbbed in her ears as she watched him bouncing his way down the path. ‘I’ll kill him. I swear I will.’
‘Cody. Stay calm. Lashing out won’t help anyone.’
‘But he’s going to tell. It doesn’t have to be the truth. He’ll say anything. If we don’t pay up, he’ll ruin my reputation. I have too many enemies.’ And too many secrets. And if they came out and she was ruined someone else would get the letters and build upon her years of research to snatch the glory. That was what she couldn’t bear.
‘We’ll think of something, honey.’ Brandon seized her hands and held them between his, looked into her eyes. Her breathing slowed. It would be all right. He’d take control. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll think of something.’
*
‘Okay.’ Jude had managed to catch Doddsy before the inspector headed back down to Grasmere. ‘Let’s take a few moments to run through this. We’ve got as much information about two murders as I think we’re going to get. Now we have to start putting it together.’
‘Do you want anyone else to sit in on this?’ Doddsy took a quick look around the incident room. ‘Tammy might have something to add.’
‘I think I’ve got all the information she can give me. You could round up Chris. He usually has something to contribute.’ Ashleigh had headed down to the village – a pity, because he could have done with her intuitive thinking at that point, but although Chris wasn’t a man to think out of the box his thoroughness left nothing to be desired.
While Doddsy threaded his way through the desks of the others working away on the backgrounds, the contacts and the movements of Lynx and Fi Styles, their friends, enemies and associates, and summoned Chris from where he’d had his head down over his laptop, Jude sat back, tapping his pen thoughtfully on his pad. He turned to look at the whiteboard where a picture was building up, piece by piece, a spider’s web of conflicting information with Cody at the centre of it. But was she the spider or the fly?
‘Busy?’ he asked, turning back, alerted to something by Chris’s slightly creased brow.
‘No more than usual. But I might be onto something.’
‘Okay. I’ll let you get back to it in a minute, but I value your input. I wanted to bounce some ideas around. We know what happened, we know where, we know when, we know how. I want to think about who might have killed Lynx and Fi Styles and why.’
‘I’ve been thinking about it.’ Doddsy scrawled a list on his pad. Cody. Brandon. The Gordons. Storm. Raven. ‘Where do we start? With the obvious?’
‘Yes. Cody. Because as far as I can see she has the best reason and the best opportunity for killing both Lynx and Fi Styles, even though there isn’t any compelling evidence to prove it.’
‘There’s forensic evidence to place her at both sites.’
‘Not where Lynx’s body was found. The tests only show she was in his tent, and she’s admitted that. There’s nothing to link her to the murder weapon.’
‘It had been cleaned.’
Jude turned to the board once more, where an image of the broad-bladed knife overlapped a picture of Lynx’s sprawled, bloodless body. ‘Not well enough to remove all traces of Lynx’s blood.’
‘Blood’s more pervasive than fingerprints. It doesn’t clear her.’
‘That’s right. And while we have no one who saw her there at the time of the murder, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. She claims to have been up at the cottage and her brother confirms that, but what was to stop her nipping down, committing the murder and coming back?’ The killer would have been covered in blood. Briefly, Jude wondered whether he could persuade Detective Superintendent Groves to authorise a thorough search of Cody’s cottage but he knew in his heart that the grounds were still too weak. He’d been lucky t
o persuade him to support a request for surveillance. ‘Has anyone managed to find where the knife came from?’
Chris shook his head. ‘I’ve got someone looking at that, but it could take a long time. It needn’t have been bought locally, and it could have been bought online. Or someone may have had it for a long time, in which case we may never find out.’
‘Okay. And let’s bring in what we have from Tammy. It’s incomplete, because there are plenty of tests still going on, but we know for sure what killed her.’ The slab that had shattered the journalist’s skull had come from the top of the wall. ‘From behind, again, so either she was taken completely unawares or she had no reason to worry about turning her back on whoever she was with.’ But the stone troubled him. It was a handy weapon – too handy, and its use pointed at opportunism rather than premeditation, though the latter couldn’t be ruled out. Cody, he was sure, was capable of either. ‘Unlike Lynx, she was struck from the side rather than above. The back of her head was smashed in. The blow didn’t require particular strength. In some ways it might have been a lucky strike. But that’s all we know.’ He sat back, hands flat on the table.
‘I had someone check her phone records.’ Doddsy chipped in. ‘There are a couple of calls from Cody, presumably to arrange the interview that Ashleigh was at, but there are no calls between them after that. So if Cody did attempt to lure Fi Styles into some sort of a trap, she almost certainly didn’t do it by phone. We’ve been through the B&B where she was staying and there are no notes or anything to suggest a reason why she went there at that time of the morning.’
Jude thought of Fi – naive and ambitious, not getting the information she wanted from Cody. ‘An idea of a meeting might have been floated by Fi herself. Cody quite often went for an early walk, I believe. So it might also be that Fi tried to doorstep her, and perhaps threatened her. I don’t know what with. Exposure?’