Sophie took his keys and opened the door while the rest of us carried Amanda in and up the stairs. We managed to get her onto the bed, took off her shoes and the trailing scarf that was threatening to strangle her and left her to Digby’s tender and well-practised mercies.
Morris drove us back to Druid Lodge, which was where Sophie and I had left our clothes.
‘Nearly time for breakfast,’ Ricky announced along the way.
We both groaned. ‘I think I’ll sleep all day,’ Sophie yawned. I was just grateful that it was Sunday and I wouldn’t have to get up to walk the dogs.
‘Nah, a couple of hours’ nap and you girls will be fine,’ Ricky insisted, ‘ready for a nice fry-up.’
When we staggered from the car it was close on five. It wasn’t yet dawn, a bleary-eyed moon was still visible, and the remnants of the night were grey. We tottered indoors where Sophie and I retired to the spare room, took off our finery and collapsed onto the spare bed.
I don’t know how long I slept. When I awoke, my sandpaper tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth, Sophie was still sleeping, snuffling gently into her pillow and I decided not to disturb her. I pulled on my sweater and jeans and let myself quietly out of the bedroom, in search of a drink of water.
Ricky and Morris were already up, in their dressing gowns, sitting at the breakfast table with the Sunday papers and a large pot of coffee. ‘Haven’t you two been to bed at all?’ I asked.
‘We just had a nap for an hour,’ Ricky answered, yawning and stretching his long arms.
‘The best thing, when you’ve been up all night, is to stay awake till bedtime, if you can. It’s like coping with jet lag.’ Morris lifted the pot and pointed, but I shook my head and reached for a glass before pouring myself water from the cold tap and taking a long glug. I sat down at the table with a sigh.
‘Sophie still asleep?’ Morris whispered and I nodded. ‘Tea?’ he asked and I gave him a grateful thumbs up.
‘Aspirin?’ Ricky enquired softly, raising his brows.
‘I’m OK.’ I hoped I looked better than he did. His pallor had not improved overnight. Perhaps it was just the morning light, but he was still recovering from his chest infection and he’d certainly overdone it last night with all that wild dancing.
‘I think what I could really do with is some air,’ I told him. ‘I might take a walk down to the lake.’
‘Good idea,’ Morris nodded. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ He poked Ricky on the arm. ‘You too, go on! Go with Juno! A few lungsful of air wouldn’t do you any harm!’
‘I’m in my slippers!’ he protested.
Morris pointed at his boots, placed by the garden door. Ricky rolled his eyes and muttered, but didn’t argue, pulling the boots on over the legs of his pyjamas and shrugging his overcoat on top of his dressing gown, and winding his blue scarf several times around his neck. I opened the garden door and we trudged down the sloping lawn together. The sky was overcast, grey, threatening more rain and the grass was wet.
‘You can actually see the lake from here now,’ I said, as Ricky vaped, sending a ribbon of white smoke rippling along behind him like a scarf.
He stopped suddenly, pointing at the water. ‘Hello? Is that a swan?’
I stared for a moment. There was something white floating on the surface. ‘No,’ I breathed, my heart starting to pound. ‘No, it’s not.’ And I began to run.
Ricky came stumbling after me, coughing. ‘Wait, Juno!’ I heard him call out, but I couldn’t stop. I kept running, my trainers slipping and sliding on the wet grass. I crashed down onto the path, and began stumbling along the water’s edge, picking my way along the lake’s edge until I reached the spot that brought me closest to the pale form floating on the dark surface, all the time praying that it wasn’t real, that what I was looking at was just another effigy. I stopped, my heart throbbing in my chest. I didn’t have the breath to cry out, to give voice to the moan I felt welling up deep inside me. There was no point in wading into the water, in trying to save her. It was too late. I sank to my knees on the muddy path.
Her body had come to rest at the water’s edge. She floated on her back, her fair curls slicked back by the water, her pale dress shimmering just beneath its surface. Her dead blue eyes were wide, gazing sightless at the willow branches above her. Around her slender neck was tied a scarlet ribbon.
Ricky caught up with me at last. ‘Oh God!’ he cried, gulping in breath as he doubled over, his hands on his knees. ‘It’s Verbena Clarke.’
‘She’s dead,’ I said needlessly. Ricky sank down next to me, folding an arm around my shoulders.
‘The ribbon,’ he breathed, his voice still coming in gasps. ‘She wasn’t wearing it before …’
‘It’s a message,’ I told him numbly.
‘Message?’
‘Don’t you see who she’s meant to be?’ I gazed at her face, her lips parted, eyes staring upward, the weight of her silvery dress gradually dragging her down in the water. ‘She’s meant to be Ophelia.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘I might be wrong,’ Dean Collins said uncertainly, glancing from me to Inspector Ford, ‘but Ophelia didn’t get her throat cut in Hamlet, did she? She drowned.’
The inspector nodded. ‘The scarlet ribbon is significant in that it’s an apparent reference to the mark made on the picture in Miss Browne’s shop.’
The three of us were sitting at the table in the breakfast room. In another part of the house Ricky was being interviewed by Det. Sergeant DeVille and in the living room Morris was comforting a distraught Sophie.
We had all been interviewed already about the ball and our last sightings of Verbena. We could remember her on the dance floor with Daniel Thorncroft and Meredith during the disco, but none of us were sure if they were still dancing when we left. We’d had our hands full with Amanda. Through the garden door I could see a police car parked at the bottom of the lawn, near the lake, the comings and goings of police in uniform, men in white suits under a grey sky. It all seemed unreal.
‘But why the ribbon?’ Dean persisted. ‘Why not cut her throat?’
The inspector rubbed his brow and sighed. ‘Why indeed?’ he asked softly.
‘And why no postcard?’ he asked. ‘There’s no mention of Cutty Dyer this time.’
‘Because the ribbon is the message,’ I said. ‘It’s telling us that Verbena was killed by the person who made that mark on the picture, someone who must have been in my shop.’
Dean frowned. ‘It still doesn’t make sense to me. Is the killer taunting us?’
The inspector leant forward, his elbows resting on the table. ‘Juno, this is very important,’ he said slowly, ‘I want you to think back to the day you discovered Jessie’s body … I know we’ve been through it all before but bear with me … You met Luke Rowlands for the first time that morning, here by this lake. Who suggested you go for a drink?’
‘He did.’
‘And who decided on the Victoria pub?’
‘Luke.’
‘And when you got into the pub,’ he went on, with deliberate slowness, ‘why didn’t you use the front door? Why did you decide to use the back entrance, by the river?’
‘Um, because we’d parked in Mill Meadow.’
‘There was nowhere to park on North Street?’
‘I don’t really remember. I was following Luke’s pickup in my van.’ I frowned. I wasn’t sure where all this was leading. ‘I parked where he did.’
‘So, the decision to park there was his?’
‘Yes.’ I wished he’d get to the point. My head was beginning to ache and I was finding it hard to answer with patience. I didn’t understand why we were revisiting all these questions when Verbena was lying dead in the lake just a few yards away.
‘Tell me what happened then.’
‘I started to cross the bridge and saw there was someone lying on the ramp, so I pointed it out to Luke …’
‘And you’re absolutely certain,’ the inspector said, �
��you saw the body first and that Luke Rowlands did not draw your attention to it in any way?’
‘Yes, I’m certain.’ Exasperated, I raked a hand through my hair. ‘Look, what is it you’re trying to make me say?’
‘I’m not trying to make you say anything, Juno,’ he said abruptly, ‘but there’s a murderer out there trying to tie us in knots and what I’m asking you to do is help me tease out a thread.’ He sat back. ‘We’re just exploring an idea, that’s all.’
I was tired, slightly hungover and beginning to lose it. I rubbed my aching forehead. ‘You think Luke killed Jessie and took me to the Victoria pub and parked by the river deliberately to show me her body?’
‘That’s not as incredible as it sounds,’ he answered steadily.
‘And you think he marked the painting?’ I asked. ‘And then killed Verbena? Well, I certainly didn’t see him come into the shop that day.’
‘But it was very busy in the shop. You didn’t see who marked the painting.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ I admitted in exasperation. ‘But Luke couldn’t have crept in and out without being noticed. Pat was there, for God’s sake!’
There was a knock on the door at that moment and a uniformed officer looked into the room. ‘We’ve picked up Rowlands, sir, and Miss Giddings. They’re both at the station.’
The inspector nodded in Dean’s direction and he stood up, following the officer out.
‘Miss Giddings?’ I repeated, my voice rising in astonishment. ‘Pat?’
‘Miss Giddings’ sister is related to Rowlands by marriage. They all live in the same house. He’s part of their family,’ the inspector answered calmly. ‘Pat was involved in a quarrel with Jessie Mole over Rowlands – a fact you neglected to mention …’
‘I didn’t think it was relevant,’ I protested. In fact, I’d forgotten about it to be honest. ‘How did you find out about it?’
‘Miss Sophie Child let it slip when we interviewed her just now. Pat Giddings was alone in the shop when, she claims, the picture sent to you anonymously was delivered by this mystery man. She could have marked that picture as easily as anyone else …’ He lifted a hand to silence me as I opened my mouth to tell him what garbage he was talking. ‘Wait a moment! A dead woman is found here, with, apparently, a reference to that painting tied around her neck – here, in a lake that probably few know exists but where Luke Rowlands has been working − a place you often visit.’
‘You’re not suggesting that Pat killed Verbena?’
‘No, I am not. I just want to ask her and Rowlands a few questions,’ he replied. ‘That’s all.’
I bit my lip, too angry to speak.
‘Listen, Juno.’ As the inspector stood up, he came closer and laid a hand on my arm. ‘Let’s assume, for the moment, that Jessie and Ms Clarke were killed by the same person. We don’t know if the killer originally put the dummy in the river, but you’re the one who found it. The publicity in the paper focussed the killer’s attention on you. He’s playing games, Juno, with you and with us. Just be careful.’
‘And where does the murder of Dave Bryant fit into all this?’ I asked him.
He turned at the door and sighed heavily. ‘It doesn’t,’ he said.
The most terrible thought, the one that kept returning to me, was that Verbena had been murdered at the lake while the four of us were sleeping soundly inside the house.
We’d discussed it, over and over. The police left us alone, but they were busy at the lakeside for hours before they took poor Verbena away. We watched them through the French windows, her covered body carried up the grass on a wheeled stretcher as the grey sky wept and tears ran down the glass.
‘She’s got two teenage girls,’ I said. ‘What will happen to them now?’
No one spoke. I supposed they would go to live with their father.
‘Do you think that’s where she was killed?’ Sophie’s voice was hushed and fearful, her dark eyes fixed on what was happening across the lawn. ‘Down there by the water?’
‘I think she must have been,’ Ricky answered softly. ‘It wouldn’t have been easy, getting a dead body down there.’
There were no traces of any tyre marks on the lawn. If Verbena’s killer had murdered her elsewhere, he must have parked near the house and carried her body across the grass to the water’s edge. A strong man could have done it. She couldn’t have weighed much. But a dead weight is a dead weight. There was nothing to Amanda Waft, but it still took the efforts of four of us to get her up the stairs, although it was mostly Digby and I who did the carrying. Ricky was right, it wouldn’t have been easy.
I went home and crawled into bed early, and although thoughts of Verbena kept me awake for what seemed hours, it wasn’t yet midnight when the ringing phone startled me into wakefulness and I realised I must have drifted off to sleep. I dragged myself into the living room, swearing I would commit murder if it was Sandy Thomas from the Dartmoor Gazette.
It was Dean. ‘Look, I know it’s late,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got a bit of good news, and after a day like today, I thought you’d want to hear it.’
‘Yes, please.’ I yawned and rubbed my face, trying to wake myself up.
‘Forensics have found traces in Bryant’s car and at the crime scene of our two friends—’
‘The men in the pub?’ I asked, suddenly alert.
‘Yes. It places them at the scene of the murder. There’s evidence on Bryant’s body—’
‘But do you know who they are?’
‘Oh, yes. After you and the girl behind the bar had identified the photographs we showed you, we knew who we were looking for. They’re well known to the force in London as members of a criminal gang. It’s likely they recruited Bryant to help smuggle stuff into the prison − phones, drugs, weapons, that kind of thing.’
‘Have they caught them?’
‘Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time.’
‘So Bryant’s murder isn’t linked to Jessie and Verbena?’
‘The only connection is the note about Cutty Dyer, which was almost certainly a sick joke, intended to have us running around chasing our tails, thinking that we were after a serial killer. It was also probably a warning to other gang members – this is what happens to you if you step out of line.’
‘Does this mean Luke is in the clear now?’
He hesitated a moment. ‘Where Bryant’s murder is concerned, possibly, yes.’
‘But?’
‘Well … there’s been a big spread of the illegal drugs trade out of big cities and into rural areas. I expect you’ve heard of it – county lines, they call it. Scotland Yard are very excited about establishing this link between Dave Bryant and these criminal gangs in London, because they think a lot of this drug trafficking is being masterminded from prison. Basically, they’re reluctant to close the book on Luke Rowlands while there’s any possibility he might have been involved.’
‘Involved in drugs?’
‘He’s only recently out of prison. And there must have been some reason why he and Bryant quarrelled.’
‘But he told me—’ I began.
‘I know what he told you, that he complained about Bryant and was beaten up as a result, but you’ve got to face the fact, Juno, that Rowlands may not have been telling you the truth.’
I bit my tongue. I believed Luke, but I couldn’t come up with a reason, just instinct.
‘And there’s too much coincidence for my liking,’ Dean went on. ‘There’s a connection between Rowlands and each of these killings. He knew Bryant, he found Jessie—’
‘We found her together,’ I objected.
‘True, but then Verbena’s body, dumped in the lake at Druid Lodge, the place where he’s been working …’
‘Perhaps someone is trying to frame him.’
Dean was silent a moment, as if he was giving this idea consideration. ‘What we have established,’ he continued, ‘is that Verbena left the ball at around 2 a.m. We talked to Ms Swann and Mr Thorncroft …
and we’ll be speaking to Verbena’s ex-husband today.’
‘The millionaire has-been rock star?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘That reminds me, when I danced with Daniel Thorncroft at the ball, he said that Verbena was supposed to have been accompanied by some boyfriend who had let her down at the last minute.’
‘He mentioned that to us too. He also admitted that he wasn’t sure this bloke of Verbena’s existed. He didn’t think she had a boyfriend at present, and perhaps she invented him to save face. Anyway, he couldn’t give us any details about him, and neither could Ms Swann. The three of them were supposed to be spending the night at Meredith’s flat to save driving home, but she had a headache – so they took her home first, then Thorncroft dropped Verbena off on his way back to his own place …’
I had a sudden peculiar vision of Daniel Thorncroft wandering around that derelict farmhouse in the early hours of the morning, sleeping on a sofa with Lottie while his white tie and tails hung on a hanger from a scaffolding pole.
‘He was probably the last person to see her alive,’ Dean went on. ‘Verbena’s place was empty. Both her daughters were at a sleepover with friends. He said he offered to see her safely inside, but she didn’t want him to, so he just waited till he saw lights come on in the place and then drove away. He went back to Ms Swann’s place, apparently, to check on how she was. He reckons it was three o’clock by then. But as all the lights in her flat were out, he assumed she was in bed and he didn’t want to disturb her, so he went home again.’
‘So Meredith can’t confirm any of what he says?’
‘No.’
‘And how was Verbena killed?’ I asked. ‘Did she die at the lake?’
From Devon With Death Page 17