Death on Coffin Lane

by Jo Allen

  He fidgeted, picking his phone out of his pocket, looking down at it, turning it over in his hand. ‘No, honey. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why not? Doesn’t your new girl approve of me?’

  His silence answered the question.

  ‘Are you a yellow-livered coward?’ she challenged him. His betrayal was bad enough, but the fact that he was pandering to the misjudgement of some woman who’d never met her hurt more. ‘Really? You’re cutting me off because some girl who’s never met me has decided the media are telling the truth about me?’ But the media probably were telling the truth. Controversy was one thing, and courting it was supping with the devil, so in the end she had no grounds for complaint but for all that, Brandon had no right to walk away. ‘Why didn’t you tell her what I’m really like?’

  ‘It ain’t like that.’

  ‘Then what is it like?’

  ‘She’s got plans. Big plans. She’s a smart girl and she wants to change the world.’

  ‘You mean she wants to go into politics?’

  ‘Cody. Honey. You gotta understand.’

  ‘Understand what? That I’m not good enough for her?’ But she did understand. No one would support a candidate whose political ambitions would be sunk the moment someone set to looking over her sister-in-law’s Twitter feed. ‘That you’ve chosen someone so small-minded she can’t bear someone who has a different opinion?’

  Silence.

  ‘Brandon Wilder. You’ve shacked yourself up with a bleeding heart liberal and you’re doing what she tells you? And giving me up, after all we’ve been through?’

  ‘Quit me the political lecturing, Cody.’ He thrust the phone deep in his pocket and stood there, scowling and immovable, daring her to come closer. ‘You won’t change my mind.’

  ‘We’ve been through too much together for you to walk away.’ Her heart jumped up to her throat in fear at the thought of isolation, of bearing their secret alone. ‘We stood by one another. I was always there for you. You were there for me. I need you now and I’ll need you again. And you’ve lost your head over some stupid little rich girl—’

  ‘She isn’t a stupid kid. She’s a smart, tough cookie, like you. She’s president of MarCo. A tech firm in Silicon Valley. That’s why I’m moving to her. She’s got prospects and I have a ranch. You can sell that.’

  Had he taken leave of his senses? She laughed out loud. ‘It’s the only life you’ve ever known. Have you ever even been to LA? You’re a cowboy, a real one. The city will drive you mad. What if there are kids? Will you be the one staying at home wiping their butts and cleaning their snotty noses? Will you be the dude with the plastic smile, three steps behind her? Is that your ambition? To hold the Bible at your wife’s inauguration?’

  ‘Guess it is,’ he said, through thin lips, ‘if that’s what suits us best.’

  She stared. ‘Not so much the wild man, eh? Not so independent after all. When a woman whistles—’

  ‘I always came when you whistled.’

  Until then. She walked over and stood as close to him as she dared, toe to toe so they almost touched and his breath was hot on her forehead. When she looked up at him his eyes were as hard as the diamonds that were rumoured to lie under the ranch. What they’d done in the bleak Wyoming midwinter lay between them like a sword in a stone, waiting for one of them to draw it and strike. He knew as well as she did that neither of them could survive the truth unscathed. ‘Then listen to me now. No one tells me what to do. I don’t stay away when any man tells me to, any more than I come running when they call.’

  ‘I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what I’m going to do.’

  Love made people soft, or so she’d always thought, but Brandon was different. Love had tempered his roughness and steeled his resolve. ‘You’ve got to choose. Take a risk on your wife’s political career. Let her make a sacrifice for you.’

  ‘Honey,’ he said, pretending to sigh. ‘I know you’re stressed. I know it’s a shock. I can forgive you the overreaction. But I’m in love with Laura. Do you begrudge me that?’

  ‘If you’re that much in love with her, why are you here?’ More silence, threatening her. ‘In your own interests, obviously.’

  ‘In our interests,’ he corrected her. ‘I didn’t want to cut you off. I didn’t want to make a big deal. I want us to part as friends. But there wasn’t a right moment.’

  There never would be. She drew in a long deep breath, waiting for the sting in this scene that she knew would come. He was as ruthless as she and once he ceased to be her only ally, he’d quickly become her deadly enemy. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘I want you to destroy your letters.’

  ‘My letters?’ She stared at him in stupefaction. ‘Jeez, Brandon. Those letters are all I have left.’

  ‘You’re hiding them. You told me so. But hiding them isn’t good enough. I want you to destroy them.’

  When the shock passed and misunderstanding turned to clarity, Cody burst out laughing. Stepping away from him, she crossed to the bureau and, taking her keys from her pocket she opened the drawer and took them out. ‘Here.’ The packet was reassuring between her fingers, but it came with a twinge of anger. She should have given Seb the money and taken the rest of Dorothy’s letters. He’d still have died but she’d have had a legal claim on them and now they belonged to someone else.

  Resisting the temptation to fan them out and wave them in front of him, she treated them with appropriate care, sliding them out of the packet. ‘See for yourself. There’s nothing in here of interest to you. Pretty damning evidence for the whole Wordsworth family, perhaps, but nothing you need to worry about.’

  He took them but didn’t look at them, and as he did so she realised he’d already seen them, that the person who’d disturbed them in the drawer of the bureau was no intruder but Brandon himself. ‘Where are the others? The ones I wrote you when you went to Laramie.’

  ‘The ones you wrote me and boasted about what you did to Daddy?’ The emphasis on the last word was sick with mockery. ‘Those ones?’

  ‘I couldn’t find them in New York. Tell me where you put them, and if you don’t burn them, I will. Because if those ever come out—’

  He’d been to her apartment? Wheedling his way in through the concierge, no doubt. She snatched three sharp breaths like a boxer throwing a series of punches, and regrouped. ‘Oh God. You thought I was talking about those? No, it was Dorothy’s letters I care about.’

  ‘Give me the Laramie letters.’

  He clenched a fist, just like their father had done, until what was left of Cody’s courage curdled in her heart but she dared to stand up to Brandon in a way she’d never done to an older enemy. ‘Why? Because you think your sweet little liberal will throw you over in favour of her career, huh? Doesn’t she love you for what you are, Brandon? Is this all about what you’re pretending to be? If she knew the truth about what you are, you’d be finished.’

  His eyes narrowed, lips folded together, and in his cold anger the resemblance to their father was complete. ‘Yes. And so will you. You think you’ll survive in that shark pool you call academia when you’ve given all the people who hate you a reason to destroy you? We’re in this together, Cody. Give me my letters and I’ll destroy them. It’s best for both of us.’

  Her heart hammered in her chest. He was like his father in another way, too. He was a fool. ‘You’re a simple soul, aren’t you? Don’t you know me better than that? I got rid of them.’

  ‘What?’ When he clenched his fist again the memory weakened her, and she stepped back out of his reach.

  ‘Why would I keep them? You’re right. They’d have damned us both.’ The speculation had been bad enough, and it was only the community’s fear and hatred of their father that had saved them from too close an investigation. ‘Do you think I could risk someone finding them?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Why should I?’ It had been the obvious thing to do.
>
  ‘Because then I wouldn’t have—’ His face was white, beads of sweat standing out on his brow. ‘I wouldn’t have worried about you.’

  He should have branded the word LIAR on his forehead with one of his own cattle irons. ‘You wouldn’t have come to see me, either.’ Now she understood that her triumph had been irrelevant to him and he’d had no intention of coming to her talk. His only care was for himself. ‘You’d have slunk off to California and I’d never have seen you again. But you won’t get away with it.’

  ‘You’re a bitch.’ His voice rose. Even the intonation was an echo from the mountains of hell.

  ‘And you,’ she cursed him in defiant reply, ‘are just like your daddy. Go back to your pretty little Democrat. But always look over your shoulder, baby. Because one day I might get angry with you and then… I’ll tell the world what we did and we’ll go down together.’

  She had the satisfaction of seeing a light go out in his eyes, an acknowledgement of the power she’d always have over him, but his fist clenched around Dorothy’s letters. ‘Be careful with those! They’re precious!’

  His eyes met hers for a second, then he laughed. ‘All’s fair, Cody. You won’t tell. You’ve got too much to lose. But I’ll teach you never to threaten me.’

  ‘No!’ She was too slow. Instinct, and an understanding of how his vengeful mind worked, how he could be faithful to only one person at a time, showed her what he was going to do but Brandon the cowboy was as swift as a snake and as strong as a steer. Her snatch for the Wordsworth letters connected only with thin air. With his right arm, he blocked her way and with the left he thrust the papers into the fire.

  ‘Stop it!’ She struggled against him, but he held her back, dragging her away from the hearth leaving a trailing boot poking the letters into the heart of the blaze. Flames licked around the edges of the paper, gobbled them up. ‘No!’ Her moan, another echo from the past, cried out against her own impotence, and just as she had done then, she closed her eyes in submission. Brandon’s strong hands clung to her wrists like unbreakable chains while the fire hissed and sighed and crackled, and then it was done.

  He released her with a laugh of contempt and, ignoring him, she stepped past him to the fire. Reaching for the poker, she tried to pull the last of the letters out, in vain. Mary Wordsworth’s signature disintegrated into flakes of ash and the evidence of an incestuous relationship went with it.

  Still clutching the poker, she turned to face him. One swipe and she could hurt him, but the damage he’d inflicted upon her with that rash, angry action deserved so much more than pain. Her brain was already calculating her revenge. ‘Get out.’

  ‘Gladly.’ Backing away from her without taking his eyes off her, he reached behind him for his coat, flung over the back of a chair.

  ‘And don’t come back. If you do, I’ll kill you. I swear it.’

  ‘You’ll keep your mouth shut, Cody Wilder, or I’ll kill you.’

  ‘You’ll regret choosing her.’

  ‘I regret standing by you. I should have let the old man do what he wanted. I should have let him finish teaching you the lesson he started. Because you’re a bitch and you need to be broken.’

  Lifting the poker, she moved towards him, but he read no menace in it. He turned his back on her as he left, as if to show the extent of his contempt, and the temptation to smash it down and split his skull threatened to overwhelm her, but she resisted it. ‘You didn’t come here to see me at all, did you? You came to make sure your secret was safe.’

  He carried on putting on his coat.

  ‘You came because I told you Owen was threatening me. You thought he’d found out about Pop, didn’t you? And you killed Lynx because you thought he had those letters. And Fi, because she knew.’ Seb, too, because he had the misfortune to have a connection with that past, a photographic memory that might be triggered by the wrong thing. ‘But you were wrong! The letters I was talking about were the Wordsworth letters, not the freaking Laramie ones!’

  He stalked towards the hall.

  ‘And Owen.’ She ran after him as he flung open the door and disappeared down the path. ‘I don’t understand. How did you manage to kill Owen?’ But his tall figure disappeared down the path and out of sight down Coffin Lane.

  Numb, Cody turned back to the hearth. The fragile notepaper had survived for over two hundred years in a dusty box of books, but it had no chance against the chemistry of fire and air. The last gasp of the Wordsworth letters disappeared up the chimney, final victim of Brandon’s villainous acts of self-defence.

  She’d made so many mistakes, either trusting Brandon too much, or not trusting him enough, keeping those treasured letters with her as a talisman instead of leaving them somewhere where they would have been safe.

  Violence bred violence, one betrayal only led to another. Whatever it cost her, Brandon would pay.

  *

  Jude was thinking about heading down to the canteen for a sandwich, and then going to his car to retrieve the box of cakes he’d picked up on the way in and releasing them to the hungry hordes in celebration of his birthday. Ashleigh, at least, had remembered and shuffled a card among the papers on his desk. He paused to smile across the room to her and saw she was taking a call and looking particularly interested in whatever she was hearing. Always alert to that kind of thing, he waited until she flicked off the phone and crossed the incident room towards him. ‘That was Tyrone.’

  ‘Any update?’ He frowned. Since the previous meeting he couldn’t quite rid himself of the frustration that came with his certainty. If Cody was the killer, he wanted her arrested, but if he couldn’t justify it to himself with the evidence, there was no way he could justify it to someone else.

  ‘Not exactly. But it appears there’s been some sort of domestic fallout up at Coffin Lane.’

  Jude groaned.

  ‘It’s all right.’ She was quick to reassure him. ‘No one’s hurt. But apparently Brandon stormed out of the cottage in some kind of huff and Cody was standing on the doorstep shouting at him.’

  With an eye for the importance of the smallest thing, Tyrone was going to be an excellent policeman one day. Jude sat back and chewed the end of his pen. ‘Any idea what she was shouting?’

  ‘Something about Owen.’

  Jude stayed still for just a moment longer. Getting the audio monitoring looked to be a good call. The only pity was that he’d have to go through so many hoops to find out what had been said. ‘Bear with me a moment.’ He pushed back his chair and strode out of the office and along the corridor to Detective Superintendent Groves’s office, rehearsing what he would say. Groves was increasingly tetchy with his male colleagues these days, almost as if he had to compensate for being particularly careful in what he said to his female ones, and Jude, who he’d never particularly liked, was accustomed to being on the sharp end of his superior officer’s tongue.

  The door to the office was closed. He stood there for a moment in perplexity. For all Groves’s faults, he was available whenever he was required and punctilious about letting anyone who wanted to know where he might be. Jude turned back and headed into the office again.

  Something had happened in the moment of his absence. There was an air of anticipation about the room and a quick glance showed him that Aditi Desai was looking as if all her Christmases had come at once. He crossed over to where Doddsy and Ashleigh, heads together, were looking at best taken aback. ‘Have I missed something?’

  ‘I’ll say.’ Doddsy gestured towards his desk. ‘Check your emails.’

  Jude sat down, flipped up the screen.

  Notification re D/Supt Groves.

  He opened it up.

  For information. D/Supt Damon Groves has taken leave for an indefinite period. All inquiries will be directed to…

  Jude stopped reading. He could quite see why the incident room was rippling with merriment, because he’d seen for himself, once he’d started to look, just what kind of a negative influence the man had had
on those he worked with, but it left him with a major headache. Without Groves’s authorisation, he had no way of accessing the audio recordings from Cody Wilder’s cottage. ‘Great.’ He managed a smile for Doddsy, who had been so quietly hard done by, and he had no sympathy for Groves, but it didn’t solve his problem. Questioning Cody would have to wait, after all.

  Ashleigh drifted over and perched on the edge of his desk in a familiar, Friday-evening kind of way. ‘Yeah, the place will be a whole lot nicer to work in.’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘But?’ She could sense there was something wrong.

  ‘Nothing.’ Intelligence was intelligence, and it had to be controlled. He had no idea whether anyone was listening in live to the goings on at Coffin Lane, or whether they’d just skim through the audio later for anything interesting. It was the mention of Owen that bothered him, something that sounded as if it might be the tail-end of a conversation that had ended in acrimony and accusations.

  But accusations of what?

  ‘Jude.’ Ashleigh had been speaking to him and he hadn’t been listening. ‘I’m going down to the canteen. Come down with me and get something to eat. It’s way after two o’clock.’

  He pushed back his chair. ‘Sorry. I’m just trying to get my head around something. About what Cody might have said about Owen. As far as I know, Brandon didn’t even know Owen, and he couldn’t have killed him.’

  She pulled a face. ‘I know. It’s weird. I remember when Raven was telling the cards for me, and she was so determined to point out the strange man who’d travelled a long way. I wonder if she tried that trick on Cody, too.’

  ‘Hardly. She’ll be even more sceptical than I am. And anyway, Brandon wasn’t there when Cody died.’

  ‘No. But do you know something? I don’t think everything Raven told us was a lie.’

  Jude sat still for a moment, like a cat outside a mouse hole, trying to sort out the truth from the lies. He was as bad as Ashleigh when he’d criticised her so heavily for her intuition and now had fallen victim to it himself. No matter how obviously the evidence contradicted him, he couldn’t believe Owen Armitstead had committed suicide, but neither Cody nor Brandon, the obvious candidates, could have killed him.