Spoken Bones

by N. C. Lewis

  Ben hurried forward, wrapped an arm around Safiya and tried to ease her back into the chair. "Don't get excited, honey."

  "Get off me!"

  "Please sit down," Ben said, the smooth tone still in his voice. "The police are trained to find deviant fiends. They'll get the killer. Now think of the baby and sit and rest."

  Safiya slumped back into the chair. "I'm sorry. The baby makes me moody."

  Fenella sensed a deeper tension between the couple. It simmered just beneath the surface. Maureen or the baby or something else? She wished she were a fly on the wall so she didn’t have to speculate. Perhaps with a gentle prod it would all come out.

  "Let's talk. We want the person who hurt Maureen caught, don't we?"

  "I'd like to strangle the bugger who did that to her." Safiya tugged at a strand of hair. "Ben, fetch me a coffee."

  "But the doctor said—"

  "Coffee!"

  Ben rose and strode to the coffee pot. He poured and walked back slowly holding a diminutive china cup and saucer with both hands.

  "Here you go, honey."

  "A bloody doll's thimble! I want a mug. Strong and black."

  "How about I get you a glass of lemon water? It will help with your digestion, good for the baby too."

  "Stop trying to control me! You are always trying to box me in. I'm not a robot. I'm a woman who wants a bloody mug of coffee, okay?"

  "We don't want a caffeine-addicted baby, do we, honey?"

  "You are freaking me out." She was almost screaming now, her voice hissing like an angry goose. "And with Maureen dead, our world has turned upside down."

  "Things will work out, honey." Ben kissed Safiya's cheek. "I promise."

  "I've so many questions running around my head, Ben." She stared at her husband with pleading eyes. "You heard what they said on the news? A blunt instrument to the—"

  "Hush now," Ben said and gave her another kiss.

  "Why was it so brutal? I mean, I want to die in my bed."

  "Okay, okay. I hear you. We'll talk later, but please drink the coffee slow."

  Musical chimes rang out—the opening bars of Mendelssohn's Wedding March.

  "Doorbell," said Safiya. "Quick, it might be a guest,"

  Fenella wanted to hear more. If only she could continue to listen like a fly on the wall. But the solid chimes brought an end to the couple's argument. The detectives were back in the room.

  "Detectives, will you please excuse me." Ben flashed his charming smile, smooth radio voice back. "I'll only be a moment. No more questions until I return, okay?"

  Chapter 15

  After the door closed, the dining room was still. The coffee pot gurgled in a low hiss. Safiya stared through the window at the sands and the flat sea beyond.

  Fenella's lips curved into a minuscule smile. "I'll top your coffee up when you are ready, luv."

  "Ben fusses," Safiya replied. She made a face and gave an eye roll. "Since I've become pregnant… well things have changed. Now with Maureen gone, I suppose they'll change again."

  "Happen you are right about that, luv. Best not to sugar-coat these things, eh?" Fenella made a sympathetic murmur. "Tell me about your relationship with Miss Brian?"

  "Ben said not to—"

  "It's okay, pet. We are here to help."

  Safiya gazed at her china cup and she gazed at Dexter who hunched over his empty mug, and she gazed at Fenella with a sad frown. "Maureen lived here before we took over the place, five-going-on-six years now. A very nice lady, quiet, respectful, and she got on very well with our guests."

  "She rents a room?" asked Fenella.

  "Oh no, we didn’t charge her rent. We couldn’t. She came with the place… a fixture, I suppose."

  "I'm not with you, luv." Fenella took another sip of coffee.

  "Maureen is… was our landlady. She owns the building. We sublet and run a bed and breakfast." Safiya closed her eyes. "Ben and I run our dream business and Maureen got to stay in the home she loved. We considered her a member of the family. Our own fairy godmother."

  Fenella took in Safiya's long gooselike face. Unusual and lopsided with those fat lips, wide eyes, and patches of ashen skin surrounded by dark. And trusting. For an instant she wondered how she and Ben had met: Safiya short and plump and Ben tall and handsome. Opposites, she thought with a sly glance at Dexter, attract. Her mind began to click through eligible opposites for her sergeant, but she forced it to stop and said, "And Maureen lived here?"

  Safiya's eyes opened. "In the dormer. Would you like me to take you to her room?"

  "There is no rush," Fenella replied. Her mind went back to the steps at the front door and she wondered how many to the dormer. "There are one or two more questions we'd like to clear up first, just routine you understand. It won't take long and once we are done, my colleague and I will take a little look around Miss Brian's room. I hope that is okay?"

  Safiya fiddled with the china cup. "Sometimes I forget my limitations. I couldn’t climb the steps to the dormer if I wanted too." Her left hand fluttered over her mouth as if dusting crumbs. "I'll have Ben take you. Now, what do you want to know?"

  Fenella said, "Let's start with a list of people who recently visited Maureen. What can you tell us?"

  Safiya shook her head. "Maureen didn’t invite guests here. She met her friends at the Grain Bowl Café in town or on the pier by the lighthouse. She allowed no one into her quarters."

  Fenella considered that and said, "But you've been inside her room recently, right?"

  "It's been a long time. A year ago, Maureen came down with the flu. I took soup every day and left it on the dormer landing."

  "You haven't entered her room since she was reported missing?"

  "Like I said, I can't make the stairs, and Ben's not visited yet either. But now she is gone, we've a good excuse for poking around but we don't want to be the first to breach Maureen's privacy. That is for the police; we think too highly of her to nosy around her private belongings."

  Fenella gave her an inquisitive look. Did she really mean that?

  Safiya turned to stare through the window.

  "We are trying to trace Maureen's movements up until the moment she died," Fenella said. "Let's go back to Bonfire Night; did you see her that evening?"

  "No. But Ben did. He bumped into her near the lighthouse. Maureen was with Audrey; that is Mrs Audrey Robin. They chatted for a couple of minutes, then he came back to the car to sit with me."

  "And you watched the fireworks from the car?"

  "Quite honestly I don't like flashing lights and the noise. I go for Ben."

  "And what time did you get home?"

  "Oh, I don't know, a little after ten."

  "I see." Fenella paused, knowing it would prompt Safiya to continue.

  "I had a shower. Ben gave me my sleeping pills and I went to bed."

  "And Ben?"

  "He sat with me for a while, as he always does these days. He is a wonderful husband, wonderful. My Ben idolises me and the baby. You passed our rooms on the way in here. No stairs, Ben insisted, and he always gets my medicine from the chemist."

  "You are a lucky lass," Fenella said.

  Safiya ran a hand over her protruding stomach. "We are all Ben lives for. It scares me sometimes, how much he loves me and the baby. On Bonfire Night, he held my hand as I drifted off to sleep. He always does that because he loves me."

  "I know," Fenella said. "And what time was that, approximately?"

  "I don't know, but he spoke to me as I drifted off. Told me how much he loved me. But I didn’t look at the clock."

  "That's all right; not to worry," Fenella placed her hands flat on the red-and-white tablecloth. "What else do you remember?"

  "Not much, really. I woke up around one, bad dream. Can't remember what it was about, but I heard the front door click shut."

  That would be Maureen. Fenella reworked her theory. If Maureen Brian came home and went back out, that placed her death closer to 2:00 a.m. She watched
Safiya with keen eyes. "So, Maureen came back home after the fireworks?"

  "It was only my Ben," Safiya said. "He went out for drinks with his friends. He's been restless since we discovered we are having a baby, and he works so hard with so little reward." She paused and looked around the tired outdated room. Her eyes glistened. "This place is too far off the tourist path. Money has been difficult and I don't want to be an old nag and spoil his one night of fun. I'm so lucky to have a man as gorgeous as my Ben to love me. I know which side my bread is buttered on."

  Fenella took Safiya's hand. Warm, hard. A woman used to manual work. "It has been tough for you, hasn't it, luv?"

  Safiya winced, and for a moment Fenella thought the baby had kicked. On her own third child, it had been terrible. Would they have to help her back to her room or call for an ambulance?

  "Are you okay, luv?"

  Safiya winced again, and Fenella realised the sound conveyed an unburdening: more psychological than physical.

  "It has been a tough year," Safiya began. "A wet summer, few visitors, and now Maureen. The only bright spot is the baby."

  "Go on, luv, I'm listening."

  Safiya's hand reached out for the cup, hovered, then withdrew and fell to pick at imaginary lint on the tablecloth. "This place is losing money. It was Ben's dream, really. It's sucked up all my inheritance and now needs more. But Ben, well, he is not great with business." She looked up with a sad smile. "We are scraping the cash together to buy a doughnut cart. Ben borrowed a cookbook from the library and sold me on the idea. We'll sell them on the shore front during the summer season. The extra cash will make a big difference."

  Fenella didn’t have the heart to tell her they'd need a licence to sell food. The council charged double for vendors selling on the beachfront and they'd have to get in a long line. The wait was a year at best. She switched the conversation back to the reason for her visit. "Tell me about Maureen's friends."

  Safiya sniffed back a tear. "It's awful. Our landlady is killed on the beach on Bonfire Night. I can't stop thinking about it." She burst into tears. "I don't know why it happened or who would do such a terrible thing."

  "That's what we are here to find out," Fenella said and gave her a tissue. She waited until Safiya blew her nose and gave a weak smile. "I'd like you to tell me about her friends."

  "Maureen mixed with all ages. I think she had a special gift with teenagers, but everyone loved her. Not a mother figure, more a wise companion." She squeezed Fenella's hand. "Her death has torn a hole in my heart, but it is going to hit Elizabeth and Audrey the hardest."

  Dexter's pen moved swiftly over his notebook. The faint scrape filled the temporary quiet. He glanced at Fenella and nodded.

  Fenella said, "And who is Elizabeth?"

  "Elizabeth Collins."

  Fenella recalled the name. "Are they close friends, then?"

  "Aye. We called Maureen, Elizabeth, and Audrey the Port Saint Giles Trinity. You never saw one without the other." She dabbed at a tear. "Those three women hung together like chain-link rope."

  Chapter 16

  Ben Griffin didn’t return to the dining room, so Safiya waved them up the stairs to Maureen's room with a long iron key.

  "Right at the top, as far as you can go. If you need me, I'll be resting in my room."

  Fenella waited in the eerie dull of the landing while Dexter searched for a light switch. The smell of boiled cabbage hung in the motionless air. It stirred memories of school dinners. Sloppy brown gravy over tough leathered beef with bland pink blancmange for dessert. It was hotter up here. The heat of the climb brought warmth to Fenella's cheeks and beads of sweat to her forehead.

  "Found it," Dexter said.

  Moments later came a sharp click. A weak orange glow shone from a single light bulb to reveal a red-bricked wall with an arched oak door. It was secured with great iron hinges and had a huge keyhole, the type you'd find in a castle. Ornate panels ran in vertical slats with diagonal iron strips overlaid for support. A dungeon door. The detectives stared in silence. Was it there to keep folk out, or protect what lay within?

  "Solid," Dexter said, rapping the wood with his knuckles. "A sodding vault door like that bloody crypt in the village of Irton."

  Fenella remembered the grim case. They'd worked it years back. She stared at the locked door and wondered what lay beyond.

  Dexter said, "Shall I call it in, Guv?"

  His words hung like particles of dust in the stale cabbage air.

  Fenella sniffed. "We believe Miss Brian lived alone?"

  "As far as we know."

  "No visitors either?"

  "Aye, Guv, that's what Safiya Griffin said."

  The Irton case called from the edge of Fenella's mind. It turned her blood stone cold. What would they find behind Maureen Brian's solid oak door? A hint, perhaps, about her secret life. Maybe a diary on a bedside cabinet with a clue about the murderer. What were the odds they'd find a pile of partially decomposed bones like Irton?

  Fenella said, "We'll call in the crime scene techs after we've had a good look. Superintendent Jeffery's been going on about costs. We don't want to upset her with a large bill."

  "Aye," Dexter said. "Right you are, Guv."

  Fenella heard the hesitation in his voice. For a fleeting instant she considered changing her mind. But she was curious. Her job was to find the killer of Maureen Brian, not to worry about events from the past. No matter how much they haunted the quiet corners of her mind.

  Dexter's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, let out a soft groan, and shoved it into his jacket.

  "The library about your overdue books?" Fenella asked, prying. "Or have you upset the new love of your life?"

  She didn't like to interfere in his private life. Neither could she help doing so. She wondered whether her obsession was an addiction or just part of her genes. Whatever the reason, she'd played matchmaker since Dexter's last divorce. Alas, Cupid's arrow had always fallen short. Not an easy man to pair. Still, if there was a new love in his life, she wanted to know. That way, her brain could switch off its matchmaking circuit.

  Fenella said, "I'm betting it's from a lovely lass who enjoys walks on the beach and jars of home-brewed beer."

  Dexter cracked his fingers. "Nope."

  "Well then?" Fenella knew her question wasn’t subtle or discrete or professional, but she had to know now. After all, he brought up the subject, didn’t he?

  Dexter pulled out his mobile phone, gazed at the screen and said, "Superintendent Jeffery wants to see me." He turned to look Fenella directly in the eyes. "Any idea what about?"

  Fenella didn’t respond. How would Jeffery start the retirement conversation? Like a politician, she thought. A disarming compliment and mention of Dexter's heroic past. Then she'll stick the knife in and twist. Jeffery will get what she wants. She always gets what she wants. And she wanted Dexter out.

  Dexter was talking. "It smells fishy and you know Jeffery has it in for me. If you hear anything, you'll let me know, won't you?"

  The noise of a soft shuffle caught Fenella's attention before she answered. It sounded like footsteps creeping along the stairs below. She raised her hand and listened, then turned to look down the stairs but saw only shadows. Dexter strode by her and sped down a handful of steps.

  "Everything all right up there?" Safiya asked. She sounded out of breath.

  "Fine," replied Dexter.

  "Give me a shout if you need anything." Safiya's footsteps retreated. This time firm and solid.

  Dexter returned and said, "And Jeffery?"

  "Whatever she wants, say no." I'll put up a bloody good fight before I let my detective sergeant go. "Or ignore it."

  "Guv, I'll keep my head down for now, hope she forgets and moves on to her next victim." Dexter laughed without mirth.

  They put on shoe protectors and gloves in silence.

  Dexter took a step towards Maureen Brian's sturdy oak door. A hollow pang buzzed in Fenella's gut. It hovered like the slow be
at of a kestrel's wings—the thrill of anticipation intermingled with deep sadness. Always the same feelings as she prepared to cross the threshold into the living quarters of the recent dead.

  "Ready, Guv?"

  As Fenella nodded, she recalled an article about Egyptian archaeologists. They had discovered a trove of treasures in an ancient city buried deep in the sand. We are tomb raiders, she thought. On the search for clues rather than gold. And once again she wondered what awaited them beyond Maureen Brian's sturdy arched oak door.

  Chapter 17

  Audrey Robin did not know what persuaded her to do it. After all the publicity, she should have known better. But she climbed into her car and drove to Miss Maureen Brian's house on Seafields Lane that morning. If she were caught or seen, how would she explain herself?

  They'd even filmed her for the television news. She tried to cover her face and hide, but they took pictures anyway. She should have stayed at home.

  But another force pulled at her, an unseen power she could not resist. If she had to guess, one word would suffice—routine. Routine made her feel alive, gave her strength. It got her up at the crack of dawn to walk the beach. It brought her back home for a quick read over a milky coffee. And earlier, routine had pushed her, hurried and flustered, out the door and into her car for the drive to work. When the engine turned over, she remembered with a nauseating jolt her time off.

  The morning before, at the library, they'd been ever so understanding. Audrey smiled when she thought about the sympathetic voices. She played them over in her head. It seemed everyone knew Maureen Brian. They knew she was friends with Audrey.

  "A terrible shock."

  "Must be distressing for you, luv."

  "Who'd do such a wicked thing to such a wonderful person?"

  The gaggle of chittering co-workers around Audrey's desk brought the head Liberian scurrying.

  "I've seen the television pictures. It was your friend who was beaten to death, wasn't it? Oh my God! What are you doing here? Grab your handbag, leave now. Go. Go now. I insist."