‘No, you don’t,’ he said agreeably. ‘So what shall we do tonight? Go on a pub crawl and get quietly drunk?’
She should have been prepared for his quick change of mood. It was the standard way of taking a suspect off guard. But she wasn’t a suspect, damn it, and she was quick-witted too, and after the trauma of meeting up with Leanora’s acquaintances, she latched on to his suggestion with relief. Besides, anything was better than having him probe her every move, and finding out just why Moira had called her. She put up a token resistance all the same.
‘Since when did you coppers get quietly drunk on a pub crawl? I’ve been there, remember?’
‘Well, I promise not to make a noise when I go sneaking into your room after hours, babe.’
She laughed. ‘Get lost, Nick!’
All the same, she couldn’t resist the picture of the buxom Mrs Dooley, snooping about the guest house in the wee small hours in a voluminous nightgown, her rigid hair spiked with rollers, hoping to catch any shenanigans among her house-guests. It was such a ridiculous image, smacking of boarding-school/house-mistress stuff, but it was a hell of a turn-on.
‘Well, Alex?’ she heard Nick say softly. ‘Do we go out and paint this town red tonight, or what?’
‘Why not? Why bloody not? I could do with a few laughs,’ she said recklessly.
***
They walked, of course. It wouldn’t do to be hauled over by some earnest-faced young copper for drunk driving. She could imagine the hoo-hah at the local nick when their identities were discovered. And the field-day the local rag might have.
So they walked, which was good fun in itself, discovering the local pubs, some stuffy, others raucous with karaoke singing, and finally stepping out into the chill of the night air with Nick Frobisher’s arm wrapped tightly around her waist, and her own clinging to him. Holding each other up, virtually, and the incongruity of it didn’t escape her.
It was a good thing the gen pub couldn’t see them now, she thought, abbreviating everything in her head because she wasn’t capable of stringing long words together right now…
‘We’d better creep into the guest ho so we don’t shock the natives,’ she stuttered.
‘Guest ho? Whassaguest ho?’ Nick said solemnly.
He was far more sober than she was, she registered. But he had drunk as much, or more, than she had. He was clearly able to hold it better. Or else he had a bigger gut capac — capas whatever.
Bully for him, she thought, automatically tightening her stomach muscles for a moment before she let them go in uncaring abandon. So what? It wasn’t as if she was going to sleep with him. He wasn’t going to know the extent of her thighs…
Alex choked again as the image of a seaside postcard came into her mind, her own head superimposed on the vast buttocks of a squat fat lady.
He chuckled with her, even though he wasn’t following her thoughts, and then a sudden downpour of rain sent them racing towards the guest house, arms still melding them together like Siamese twins, until Nick managed to fumble the outdoor key in the lock, and they crept upstairs to their rooms like two conspirators.
‘I’ve got a bottle of vodka in my room. Your drink, I believe, ma’am. One for the road?’ he whispered.
‘What road?’ she giggled.
‘I’ll bring it in two shakes,’ he said, almost pushing her inside her room.
She was still giggling when he returned, a bottle in his hand. She hadn’t moved away from the door, which seemed to be holding her up, and he had to push it open. She stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.
‘Time for beddy-byes, I think,’ she heard him say, and before she could ask him if he thought this kind of infantile talk attracted the opposite sex, he had scooped her up and lay her on the bed. and was proceeding to undress her.
‘This wasn’t part of the plan, Nick,’ she mumbled.
And she should be drying her damp hair…
‘I know. Trust me. I’m a—’
‘You’re a rat,’ she said, and then, unable to resist the erotic touch of his hands on her bare flesh, she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him on top of her. ‘But a very nice rat, I must admit. One of the nicest I know—’
‘Did anyone ever tell you you talk too much?’ he said, his mouth so close to hers she could feel the roughness of his evening stubble on her skin. She could breathe his breath. She could feel him hardening against her softness, and she needed to be loved, to be safe and wanted and loved... and she knew he had wanted her for so long…
***
She awoke with what the boys at the nick would call the mother and father of a hangover. The room smelled stale, and for a few moments she couldn’t remember where she was. It wasn’t the bedroom at her flat, that was for sure.
There was a kind of screaming in her head that she finally identified as the noise of seagulls, which definitely wasn’t part of the London scene. There was strong sunlight streaming in through a gap in the curtains and she winced as she turned away from it too quickly.
Her eyes focussed on the bottle of vodka beside her bed. Unopened. And she couldn’t imagine what it was doing there…
Memory of the night before rushed at her so fast that she gasped with the shock and fury of it. She ran her hands down her body, knowing she would be naked, but still hoping against hope that she wasn’t, and that it was all a bad dream.
She hadn’t actually let that love-rat Frobisher screw her... had she? Once that happened, she would be vulnerable and he would know it. She groaned, sitting up carefully, then immediately pulling the duvet back over her when she glimpsed the love-bites on her breasts. Oh God.
She leaned over, hugging the mound of her knees, her red hair spilling like fire over the duvet, as she unwillingly recalled what had happened.
Picturing herself giving in so wantonly to DI Nick Frobisher. No, not giving in, she admitted with brutal honesty. Not that old virginal chestnut. Taking all that he had to offer... demanding it... and getting it…
She heard a gentle tapping on her door, followed by the land-lady’s voice. She grabbed her kimono and slid it around her shoulders, quickly pushing the vodka bottle under the bed, knowing Mrs Dooley would definitely not approve.
‘Please come in,’ she called as normally as she could, considering how her heart was pounding. Ridiculously, she wondered if she was about to be ordered out of the house as a scarlet woman.
Mrs Dooley walked into the room with a tray of tea and toast, despite the fact that there were tea-making facilities in the room. This wasn’t normal treatment from a guest ho landlady, was it?
‘I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling well, Miss Best. Your friend has had to go back London urgently but he said he’d be in touch and he knew you would understand.’
Oh, she understood all right, Alex thought. It was just as she always thought. Nick was a charmer of the first water if he could persuade that old harridan to bring her tea and toast in bed. But apart from that he was a gutter-rat. The worst kind.
She knew she had to keep up the anger as long as possible, simply to ward off the blow to her ego. Keeping at bay the knowledge that she felt used and stupid. She had let this happen after all her efforts to keep things between them on a professional basis and not allowing personal feelings to intrude, other than having him as her best friend. Which he was, but which certainly didn’t include having him…
She pushed down the maddening little burst of memory that said it had been good though. Bloody good. Stupendously good. The best.
But since Mrs Dooley seemed inclined to linger and chat, she decided it might be useful to get her version of the poor lady who had recently been murdered in the town. And Mrs Dooley proved to be very talkative indeed.
She was still pondering over what she had learned after the landlady left her, and then spilled half of the over-sweet tea on the duvet as her mobile phone shrilled out. She almost fell out of bed, grabbing the phone quickly and spitting out her name.
‘Did I wake you?’
She stared into space for all of ten seconds while that obnoxious phrase ‘running the gamut of her emotions’ raged through her mind. Seeing the man behind the voice. Feeling the man.
Being warmed and caressed and loved by the man... drowning in him and becoming part of him.
And just as quickly hating him and despising herself for letting him make her feel so vulnerable — and alive.
‘You’ve got a hell of a nerve,’ she snapped.
‘I know,’ said Nick. ‘It’s part of my charm.’
For the first time since she had known him, she sensed a faint note of uncertainty in his voice. Disembodied voices on the phone did that. Revealed things about a person they weren’t aware of. She hardened her heart. Nothing could make Nick Frobisher uncertain. Certainly not the thought of seducing her in a Worthing guest house. She’d just be one more notch on his proverbial belt.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped again.
‘Just to check that you’re all right. darling. You went out like a light last night, and I knew you’d have a hell of a head this morning. Sorry about that. Maybe the pub crawl wasn’t such a good idea after all.’
‘That wasn’t the only thing,’ she muttered. None of it was a good idea. It changed things between them, and that was something she hadn’t had time to contemplate yet.
‘What? I can’t hear you, babe. All hell has broken loose here. There was a vicious racial attack in the early hours. The owner of one of those twenty-four-seven shops is in intensive care, and it’s dodgy whether or not he’ll make it.’
‘And that’s why they called you back?’ she said sceptically, her selfish anger overcoming the swift wave of sympathy she felt for the shopkeeper. Racial attacks were the dregs, and it was one thing they were completely agreed on.
But was it a genuine call back to the station to head up the enquiry, or was it just because you couldn’t face me this morning? Her thoughts ran on.
‘It’s my patch, Alex. And you know what I think of these bastards. But I’ll look up that major bloke for you when I’ve got a spare moment. Give me a call when you get back to town.’
She cut him off without answering. All right, so it had been her intention to ask him to do a bit of checking on the major’s credentials, but she honestly couldn’t remember getting around to it. Presumably she must have done, but much of last night was just too hazy in her memory. And that made her angry, because God knew what else she might have told him that was none of his business.
She groaned, knowing she had been even more stupid than she realized. During the pub crawl Nick had undoubtedly winkled out of her far more than she had intended.
But then she began to think more logically. What did it matter? She needed to know if the major was all that he said he was, and Nick had been her quickest means of finding out whether or not he was on police files as a con man, or if he was exactly who he said he was.
She finished her tea and toast and began to feel slightly human again. A quick shower helped to clear her head marginally more, and although she was more fragile than usual and the dark circles under her eyes weren’t exactly flattering, she answered the next call on her mobile less aggressively.
‘Miss Best — Alex — oh dear, I do hope you haven’t gone back to London yet. I need to see you urgently. Can you call round to the house again this morning?’ came Moira Wolstenholme’s agitated voice.
‘I’m still here. Moira. What’s wrong?’
‘I’d rather tell you in person. Well, show you. It’s sick, it really is. These people don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re playing with. It’s not a game. If mother were here now—’
‘I’ll be with you in half an hour,’ Alex said, as the words became more disjointed. ‘Keep calm, Moira. Whatever it is, I’m sure we can sort it out.’
She certainly wasn’t sure. She wasn’t God, but she had to keep up the facade of being ultra-professional, which seemed the most unlikely thing in the world this morning.
She felt far less like Alexandra Best, sophisticated private eye, and far more like Audrey Barnes, country-girl from the wilds of Yorkshire, watching too much television and dreaming of living in London where the streets were paved with gold. More like crap, she thought grimly.
But she wasn’t doing anybody any good by wallowing away in this bedroom. She had a client to see who needed her help, and even though she wished she’d never set eyes on either of the Wolstenholme women, she was still intrigued by the thought of dun-coloured Leanora turning out to be something of a Mystic Meg, and inciting some unknown person to murder her.
***
Fending off Mrs Dooley’s fussing, now that she had apparently decided to treat her like an honoured guest, Alex slid thankfully behind the wheel of her car and found her way back to Moira’s house. In sunlight it looked even larger and far more imposing than it had the first time she’d seen it, shrouded in misty rain on the day of a funeral.
Well, come on, they were the worst of circumstances, Alex told herself, fighting back the irritating apprehension she still felt at having anything to do with the Wolstenholme women at all. She knew she shouldn’t feel this way. PIs were meant to be able to cope with all situations.
But she’d never had to contend with this type before, and she doubted if even Mr all-seeing all-knowing DI Frobisher would feel as comfortable with a pair of psychics as with a common-or-garden murderer. She caught her thoughts up short, appalled at herself.
What had happened to sensitivity? Where was the tender-hearted little Audrey Barnes who had once wept into the night over a stray hedgehog that had got caught and strangled itself in a fence on the moors?
She hardly noticed she had stopped the engine of the car and was sitting there motionless, lost in a kind of time-warped misery, until she saw Moira come hurrying out of the front door.
‘I’ve been watching for you, Alex. Do come in, please. The kettle’s just boiling.’
So this was just a morning tea-party after all, was it? Alex thought indignantly. Moira certainly didn’t seem flustered now. Well, if she thought she could treat Alex as her personal slave, to come running whenever she called, she could think again. Except that she was paying her a fat fee for the privilege. At the thought Alex bit back the stinging comment she had been about to make and followed the woman into the house.
‘What do you think of that?’ Moira asked, her voice a mixture of triumph and excitement bordering on hysteria, as she pointed to the dining-room table. ‘Take a look while I bring in the tea.’
Alex looked. A large piece of paper was spread out, covered in the kind of magazine cut-out letters many anonymous letter-writers used to disguise their identity. She sighed. There was nothing new in this.
‘It must have been delivered by hand sometime during the night,’ came Moira’s voice from the kitchen.
She came in with a tray of tea and biscuits and dumped it near the offending missive.
‘I’m not bothered by insults, Alex, I’ve heard them all before. But this is new. What worries me is how they say they came about this information. It worries mother too. These people don’t know what they’re doing.’
Alex tried to ignore the reference to mother’s part in the proceedings. She read the haphazard message aloud, keeping her face and voice as impassive as she could.
‘Co-operate, Miss W. or your days are numbered. We need something from you, slag, and the Ouija board reveals that another bitch has it. Get it back from Miss B, or else.’
Alex felt her face flood with colour as she got the full impact. She was so dizzy for a moment that she felt the room spin. Her senses instinctively backed away from anything to do with Ouija boards or any of that occult nonsense, but she knew that whatever else the message meant, Miss B had to be her. And the sender of this garbage had meant her to know it. Which meant she was involved in a far more sinister way than she had had any intention of being.
‘Are you all right,
Alex? Drink this.’
In those moments she hadn’t been aware of Moira leaving the room, but now she felt a glass being thrust against her lips. She drank automatically, and felt the sting of the brandy slide down her throat.
‘I’m quite all right,’ she said huskily. ‘But you don’t believe this tripe, do you?’
She bit her lips as she spoke, knowing she was probably offending her, because presumably Moira did. It would be all part and parcel of mystic Leanora’s stock-in-trade that Moira had been weaned on.
‘No, I don’t,’ Moira said vehemently. ‘Mother believes in the Ouija’s powers when it’s expertly handled, of course, though when she was on this side she never deigned to use it herself. The charlatans and fairground fortune-tellers who did so gave genuine psychics a bad image.’
Alex decided they were getting away from the main purpose of this meeting. And she had no wish to hear more of Mother Wolstenhome’s theories. She wished she need never hear anything of her again. But now she was involved. Personally. And she didn’t like it.
‘So you think this came from your stalker?’ she said now.
‘Oh yes. It’s his trademark. It’s similar to all the others, except for this reference to the Ouija board.’
And to me, thought Alex.
‘Then we must track him down,’ she said, pushing all other anxieties aside. ‘What about his previous letters? If he always uses the same newspapers and magazines, we can at least identify the kind of person he is. Forget about class for the moment, and accept that a Guardian reader wouldn’t be in the same social scale as a Sun reader for instance—’
Moira shook her head. ‘He’s too clever for that. Sometimes he uses complete words, and I’ve recognized some of them as the names of women’s magazines, and from fishing magazines as well as various other newspapers.’
‘So he’s playing with you. Teasing you.’
‘That’s not what I’d call it,’ Moira said resentfully. ‘He’s scaring me, that’s what he’s doing. And what’s this thing that he wants, that you have? If it’s you.’
Illusions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 2) Page 9