Marshall started getting changed into warmer clothes, but he hadn’t bothered pulling the curtain across. Flora sat by the doorway, looking out at the hills. Suddenly she couldn’t face hauling scenery, those huge cardboard blocks of orange painted sky and rooftops and church bells. And she couldn’t face being stuck in the van with Marshall going over and over this mess again.
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘do you mind if I duck out today? I’d like to go and visit Stiperstones while there’s still a chance. A bit of hill walking, clear my head. Is that okay?’
‘Sure. You go ahead.’
Flora pulled on her walking boots, grabbed another layer and a beanie hat, then slipped into the red anorak. When she turned to say goodbye, Marshall was sitting in the chair, watching her.
‘See you later,’ she said.
‘You’d better. And Flora,’ he called as she stepped out into the rain, ‘you be careful, you hear?’
***
Flora found Celeste getting into her hire car, heading into town. After a brief negotiation, Celeste agreed to let Flora take the car, dropping her off in Ashton Castle on the way.
‘Will you get a taxi back to the house?’ Flora said. ‘Or do you want me to meet you later?’
Celeste murmured something about sorting herself out, don’t worry about it. She seemed preoccupied, happy to let Flora drive, content to stare out of the window at the fields and the hedgerows. Flora let her out by the town square, and watched her friend dash across the street in the direction of a cafe. It would do her good, she thought. Getting out of there, away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the manor house, would do them both good.
She parked at the visitors’ centre at the bottom of the Stiperstones ridge and picked up a guidebook and a map for a five mile trek along and around the ridge. She’d brought a bottle of water and a cereal bar from the yurt, and had packed them into her rucksack along with dry socks and her phone. Her dad had instilled the walking code into her from a young age. She still missed him every time she set off on a new trail.
The countryside was beautiful in that spare, bleak way Flora appreciated. She trudged on with her head down, stopping occasionally to tilt her face to the sky, to scan the horizon for other walkers. The rain had died off a little, but once she was up on the ridge there was enough of a breeze to whip the anorak around her thighs, making slapping noises in the otherwise silent air. After a while, Flora took out the map and worked out her location. She was about halfway around the loop. She looked about for somewhere to sit, settling on an outcrop of stones, about five or six metres below a tor called the Devil’s Chair. Behind her, the rugged tors towered majestically, the way they had since the Ice Age. Below, the landscape stretched out, on and on, misty and blurred under the low cloud, but still green and reassuringly English. She reached inside her rucksack for the water and took a long drink.
Before her legs got too comfortable, Flora pressed on, ready for the challenging part of the walk – up to the trig point on Manstone Rock, and then a steep descent back to the visitors’ centre. It was on her way down, following a faint path that led over a lumpy hill, that Flora caught her first glimpse of a fellow walker. There was a flash of green to her left, an unnaturally bright green, and she turned automatically. The man – she was sure it was a man – seemed to be on a different path, about halfway up the hill. He was heading away from her, moving quickly. She turned and continued, but when she looked back again he had gone. Which was weird, she thought, as there was really nowhere for him to go. The hillside was spotted with low bushes, and the odd forlorn-looking tree, but nothing else. Maybe he had reached the summit already and was out of sight behind one of the rocky tors.
She took another drink, then moved on, pulling her anorak around her more closely as the rain began to come down harder. The wind picked up, shoving against her, making forward progress an effort. The path wound to the right, then uphill again. She huffed out a breath and bent into the climb – it wasn’t that steep, and she was fit and fairly bursting with energy. This was it, she thought. This was what she needed. She smiled, her cheeks tight in the cold and the rain. This was the very thing to be doing right here, right now.
Then she saw the flash of green again. It was closer now. Flora had to turn her whole body around to see the man because her hood made peripheral vision impossible. He was about fifty feet away, or maybe more, it was hard to tell, hard to get a sense of scale up here. She carried on along the path, waiting for him to catch her up and pass her. He didn’t pass her. She looked again, surprised to see that he was still the same distance away. Not moving fast anymore. Virtually matching her pace now. She stopped and took out her water bottle. This was a good place to have a quick rest, anyway. A few more minutes and she’d be in the wooded area that would eventually bring her out by the car park. She wanted to make the most of being outdoors, and she would prefer to do that entirely alone. She drank and waited for the man to pass.
He didn’t pass. When she looked back again he was gone.
A twinge of fear pressed at the corners of her mind. Not real fear – there was nothing to fear – just the shadow of the possibility of fear. She laughed at herself, and shook her head. Well, she’d been stuck in a falling-down, rat-infested manor house for days, with a murderer still at large, living on a film set in some kind of time vortex with people who lived and breathed the over-dramatic. It was no wonder she was easily spooked. He’d taken a different path, was all. Or perhaps he, like her, preferred not to have contact with other walkers so he’d headed off in another direction to avoid her. Yes, that was the most likely explanation.
She put the water bottle back in her rucksack, had one more glance around – nothing – then set off down the hill. The trees soon closed in around her, but they were thin trees, upright and sparse, so the rain continued to hammer down on her hood. She made good progress, enjoying the scent of the pine and the spongy feeling of moss beneath her feet. The noise of the rain was a constant, along with the rustle of her anorak around her ears and the swish, swish of her arms at her sides. Occasionally she thought she heard a twig snap behind her, an animal perhaps, but she forced herself not to keep turning around. Besides, every time she did turn around there was nothing there.
And then there was. She had no idea where he had come from, but suddenly the man in the green jacket was behind her, only twenty or so steps behind her. His hood was pulled low over his face, so she couldn’t see it, but then her glance had been fleeting because she was worried about her footing on the uneven path.
Silly to be worried. He must have joined the path from another direction, that’s all. He wasn’t following her, and if he was following her that was completely normal because this was the direction of the visitors’ centre. But why didn’t he pass her, or speed up or slow down – why match her pace? Why didn’t he call out a greeting, which would be normal for two walkers on the same path in a situation like this?
Stop and turn around, she said to herself. Face him head on. Keep walking for ten more steps, count them, then stop dead and turn full around. No more glancing like a frightened child. Just turn around and say hello. She couldn’t do it. The rain beat down on her head and the swishing of the plastic anorak filled her ears and she knew, she just knew, that the man was right behind her now. She was too terrified to turn around and face him. It was ridiculous, she kept telling herself it was ridiculous, but still she couldn’t make her head turn, couldn’t make herself stop. Her legs kept moving, her heart banging against her chest, her breath coming out in bursts of hot air. On and on. Around a couple of thick oaks, past a boggy ditch, the path wound on. She heard another twig crack and it was right behind her. She felt as though she could see him, as though she had eyes in the back of her head and she could see him bearing down on her. His arm was extended, reaching.
Around another bend in the path and Flora saw another walker ahead. Two walkers, in fact, a man and a woman. They were peering at a map, and when they saw her they looked up
and waved. She broke into a run.
‘Are you okay?’ the woman said when Flora drew near. Flora stopped, her hands on her thighs, panting. She braced herself, then turned around. The path behind her was empty. She looked again, searching the trees for the tell-tale green jacket, but could see nothing other than brown trunks and brownish grass and dark spaces in between.
Your imagination will be the death of you. She could hear her father’s voice in her head. She smiled. She had been an over-imaginative child, and it was true that nothing had changed. Some things never changed.
Then the woman said, ‘Where did your friend go?’ She was looking over Flora’s head, also scanning the woods.
‘Probably taking a leak,’ said the man, grinning. He held up the map to Flora. ‘Maybe you can help, though. We’re trying to work out the best route to –’
‘What did you say?’ Flora rounded on the woman. ‘What did you say about my friend?’
‘Erm, nothing.’ The woman was backing up now, clearly discomforted by the crazed look in Flora’s eyes.
‘Did you see him?’ Flora asked, trying to calm her breathing. The woman nodded, still wary. Flora let out a strange sort of half-sigh. ‘You saw a man? Behind me?’
‘With you. Well, we thought he was with you.’ The woman seemed to realise what Flora was saying. Her hand shot up to her mouth. ‘Oh, my. You mean he wasn’t with you? He was … Was he following you?’
Her companion stepped forward. ‘What? Someone was following you?’ He put his arm around the woman’s shoulders and pulled her close, as though the mystery stalker might suddenly emerge from the trees and attack her. Flora’s heart was beginning to slow. She said,
‘Look, let’s get out of here. Out of the rain. I need to get back to the visitors’ centre, anyway. Is it this way?’
‘We’re coming with you. We need to report this.’
‘Did you get a good look at him?’ Flora asked, walking ahead. All she could remember was the green jacket, the hood pulled low. Her imagination could provide a lot more detail if she let it, but she had to focus on the facts.
‘Not really,’ said the woman. ‘He was kind of behind you, and it’s raining and all. We were looking at the map.’
Her husband held out the laminated map again, then shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘That’s okay.’ Flora was so grateful to the couple for even being there she could have hugged them, regardless of what they had or hadn’t seen.
As the car park and visitors’ centre came into sight, Flora began to wonder if she had really been in any danger at all. Down here everything was so normal, so everyday – cars in their multicoloured rows, signs telling people to take their rubbish home, to keep dogs on a lead, to stop at the tea room and visit the gift shop – that she couldn’t quite believe she’d been followed at all. He was probably just on the same path as her for a while, just shy, not wanting to talk, and then he had slipped off onto another path just at the point the couple came into view. A coincidence. And wouldn’t the distance, the perspective, have made it seem as though he was right behind her when really he might have been five or ten feet away? Flora said as much to her companions, and was rewarded with a considering nod from the woman.
They insisted on taking her into the centre to report the incident, but Flora played it down. She didn’t mention seeing him on the hillside earlier, or how frightened she’d felt on the path through the woods. You made yourself frightened, she thought. She extricated herself finally, and headed back to Celeste’s car. But in the car her hands started shaking. When she tried to turn on the engine they shook so badly she dropped the keys twice. She sat back and closed her eyes, then opened them again and checked the central locking was engaged. Then she closed her eyes and laid her head on her arms on the wheel. She stayed like this until the tears stopped, then she wiped her face and started the engine.
***
Hanley Manor sat at the end of the drive, reassuringly solid and safe, despite what Flora knew about the rats and the damp and the house’s uncertain future. She pulled into a parking space, happy to see that Shakers’ van was back. What she really wanted more than anything was to find Marshall, tell him about her adventure on Stiperstones, then slip into a hot bath. She wondered whether Sidney would find her a bath to use. Or maybe she could ask Celeste for the loan of her bathroom for an hour or so. Showers were great, the yurt was fab, but nothing could beat a hot bath.
First, she had a job to do. Flora had decided to check in the house and see if anyone was missing. It would need to be someone with access to transport. Vincenzo had his motorbike, of course, which Flora could see parked in its usual place next to the van, but that didn’t mean anything – on a motorbike he could have got back to Hanley Manor before her, easily. Nick’s car wasn’t in view, but Flora remembered that he let Gabriella use it sometimes – she’d seen her driving away in it the day she and Marshall arrived. Celeste would still be in town, unless she’d got a taxi back already, but Flora knew it hadn’t been Celeste out there on the hillside. She was still half convinced that it was either just some random stranger acting weirdly, or nothing at all, but a tiny part of her mind kept insisting that it might have had something to do with Alberto’s death. What, she didn’t know. Maybe she knew something, something she wasn’t fully aware of, or had seen something, or had said the wrong thing to someone. To the murderer. Maybe the murderer had followed her, thinking she was going to meet with Jack, to share what she knew. Her imagination was working overtime, but she was certain that she needed to see for herself that Nick and Vincenzo were here, and hadn’t been out of Marshall’s sight all afternoon, to feel completely reassured.
She spotted Vincenzo at once. He was in the music room, seated in front of the grand piano with Raquel on his lap. When she saw Flora, Raquel scowled and slipped off his lap and onto the piano stool by his side, then she turned and whispered something in his ear. Vincenzo lifted the piano’s cover and began to play. Flora had nearly reached the other end of the room, intending to carry on through the house in search of Nick, but she stopped in her tracks to listen. The music was delicate, haunting, rising and falling as if on a breeze, filling the space with a vibration that seemed to go beyond the scope of the notes themselves. If she hadn’t seen for herself that it was Vincenzo playing, Flora might not have believed it. Raquel listened with her eyes closed, her hand resting on his thigh.
Marshall was in the third room along, the drawing room, sitting in front of the open French windows reading the sports pages of a newspaper. ‘The food of love,’ he said, tipping his head in the direction of the music.
‘Play on,’ she answered, smiling. ‘Twelfth Night, the perfect love triangle.’
‘Huh?’
‘Shakespeare. You just quoted it.’
‘Did I?’
Flora picked up Marshall’s paper, then gave it back to him. ‘You should read something more cultured. Your mind is going to mush.’
‘It’s the company I keep.’
‘Ha. Funny. You know, you really are the light of my life at the moment.’ She meant it to come out sarcastic – it was the way they usually related to each other, after all. But somehow her words, layered over with the romantic music, took on a meaning of their own. Marshall fixed his eyes on hers. Neither of them moved.
‘Ha,’ Flora said again, breaking the spell. The music stopped, leaving in its wake a swelling silence. She cleared her throat. ‘Have you seen Nick today? I mean, is he here?’
Marshall lifted his shoulders up and down. ‘He was here a while ago. I think he said something about going to get a new suit. It’s this memorial dinner thing tonight, isn’t it? I’m not sure how sober he was. Gabriella offered to drive him, but he said no.’
‘Did she help you with the scenery?’ Flora said. She hadn’t seen the wardrobe girl around much since Alberto’s murder, although she knew Jack had told her not to leave until he said so.
‘Kinda,’ Marshall said. ‘Mostly s
he was packing up her props. Messing about with Eduardo’s sling, that kind of thing. Nick told her to put it all in the props room for now, he said Jack wanted it locked up in case it was evidence.’ He made a kind of humphing sound, but Flora didn’t know whether it was being reminded of the props room or just the general thought of Jack Harding that had got him riled.
Flora was about to tell Marshall about her adventure on Stiperstones when she was interrupted by loud voices coming from somewhere back in the house. Marshall looked at her and pulled a face.
‘Your admirer,’ he said. ‘PC Plod. He’s been throwing his weight around this afternoon. Well, he’s too high and mighty to do it himself, it seems. Sent his team over here this afternoon to find Eduardo. Celeste’s really pissed.’
This wasn’t the time to call him out on his Americanisms. Flora knew what he meant. She checked the time on her phone. It was later than she’d thought, but she was still surprised that Celeste was back already. She said, ‘I’d better go and see if she’s okay.’
‘Sure,’ Marshall said, standing. ‘You go ahead. I’ll see you back at the –’
But Flora didn’t hear the rest of his sentence, she was already jogging out of the room. She could hear Celeste’s voice, high-pitched and full of emotion. And another voice, unmistakably Spanish, shouting over the top of Celeste. She reached the main hall, practically skidding to a standstill. It took her almost a minute to process the scene in front of her. The first person she saw was Sidney, standing by the door that led to the props room, clutching his oversized bunch of keys. Then she saw Celeste, dressed in a thin pink slip, and by the looks of it, not much else. Celeste was gripping onto Eduardo, who in turn was being pulled towards the door by a uniformed policeman. Eduardo was also barely dressed, wearing boxer shorts and sandals but no top or shorts. Another policeman stood by the door, speaking on a mobile phone. Celeste was demanding they let Eduardo go, and Eduardo was still shouting in Spanish. Flora couldn’t understand a word of it, but she could guess pretty well. Over by the staircase, Vincenzo and Raquel looked on, Raquel with a kind of flown-open expression on her face, her hand resting just above her breasts. Flora rushed forward and slipped around the back of the policeman who was trying to restrain Eduardo. She caught hold of Celeste’s other arm and gave it a shake.
A Date With Death: Cozy Private Investigator Series (Flora Lively Mysteries Book 2) Page 14