She dragged her swooning thoughts together. Swooning? Now she was thinking like some Victorian maiden, just because her nerves were reacting that way. And it was only a shadow, for God’s sake. There was probably nobody there at all. She glanced out of the window again. In those few minutes the breeze had dropped and all was still. Silent. Tranquil. She forced the more positive words to her mind and called herself an idiot all over again.
Even so, she thought angrily, there was nothing in any bloody manual that said a private eye couldn’t get as scared as the next person when it came to being threatened. Her breath caught in her throat, knowing it had better be mantra time again. Silent. Tranquil. Peaceful. All as before.
But once the panic had set in, she knew it was time to get out of there. She’d go for a stroll around the village like the tourist she was meant to be, then come back here later when her mind was fresher. And this time she might even force that desk drawer open. Courage, man, she thought, using some of Gary’s jargon.
***
The old men were gathered together on the village green now, sitting on the circular seat around the ancient oak tree as if they never moved, creating a rural tableau especially for the benefit of snap-happy tourists. The image was compounded by the wreathes of blue smoke that surrounded them from their foul-smelling pipes.
‘Good-afternoon,’ she called out. ‘Do you mind if I join you? I believe I saw some of you in the pub earlier.’
Actually, she didn’t have a clue if they were the same ones. They all looked the same to her, anyway. Creased and jowled cheeks, sparse to non-existent hair, crumpled jackets or knitted pullovers, and baggy work trousers. They shuffled around to make room for her, and she stifled the urge to cough as the strong tobacco smoke reached her lungs.
Having glimpsed the village churchyard with its ancient granite tombstones, the epitaph death from passive smoking didn’t escape her thoughts, but she ignored that too.
‘It’s a hot day today,’ she said encouragingly when nobody spoke.
“Tis summer, see, miss? That explains it,’ someone eventually replied, while the others either sniggered or grunted at this condescension to her city ignorance.
‘The village is a bit out of the way for tourists. Do you get many here?’ she asked next.
They looked at her vacantly. There were six of them, and none of them seemed willing to be the chief spokesman. Maybe she would have done better to wait until they had a jar of ale in their hands after all.
‘I’m staying at the inn. Perhaps we’ll meet there later. It’s more fun talking over a pint, I always think.’
She stood up, aware that the gnarled faces had brightened a little, but deciding not to push her luck right now. Then another one spoke.
‘Had another vis’tor passing through recently,’ he mused. ‘Fair gen’rous he was too. Most of ‘em just think we be quaint old codgers, but this ‘un wanted to know things.’
‘Oh really?’ Alex sat down again.
The man didn’t elaborate on the visitor’s generosity, but he didn’t need to. Pints of beer were obviously looming large in the consciousness now.
‘What kind of things?’ she said casually.
The old man rubbed the stubble on his chin that had the appearance and texture of wire wool.
‘Can’t recall none of it, what with me throat being so dry. It’ll mebbe come to me later, miss.’
They all agreed silently like so many nodding donkeys. She was right then. She’d get nothing out of them without showing the colour of her money.
‘Right then. I’ll see you all later. Is it a date?’
‘Oh ah. ‘Tis a date all right,’ he chuckled, while one of his cronies made a gesture that could only be considered obscene. Dirty old sods, thought Alex as she sauntered on her way, well aware that their eyes were following her movements, and thankful that she wasn’t wearing a short skirt.
Even so, her rear end was well outlined in her tight jeans, and she tried desperately to squeeze her thighs together as she heard a sudden raucous burst of laughter coming from the direction of the oak tree behind her. Though why the hell should she care? The resolve to take dieting more seriously flitted in and out of her head with its usual Concorde speed. Life was too short.
But the encounter with these good ol’ boys had calmed her down. Taking fright at a shadow outside the cottage was absurd, and she spent another lazy hour touring the village.
She took several photographs of the church, and on meeting the vicar in the churchyard, she casually asked him about newcomers to the village, with no joy. Caroline clearly wasn’t a churchgoer to be welcomed with open clerical arms.
‘I regret to say that most parishes are suffering the way ours is, miss,’ he told her, ready with a hobby-horse sermon especially for Alex. ‘Modern people simply won’t spare the time for worship these days, except when something happens to disrupt their busy lives, of course. It’s always convenient to turn to the church then. From the highest to the lowest in the land, they expect God to instantly forgive and forget any misdemeanours, and to give them some indication of what they should do next—’
‘I thought that was God’s role — to forgive and forget, I mean,’ Alex murmured, not sure whether this statement was blasphemy or not, but quickly tiring of his pomposity.
The vicar stared at her coldly. ‘I think you’re missing the point here, Miss— Miss—?’
‘Best,’ she said. A la George, Your Reverendship. At the thought she was caught by a long memory. Her dad never used to miss watching a match when Bestie was playing... but she doubted that this guy knew anything about football.
She began to feel slightly hysterical. Solemn and ponderous folk like this one always reduced her to the inane. She couldn’t take them seriously, which was just awful, considering the place where she was standing now, and with the graves of so many Wilsingham generations mouldering away beneath her feet. Without thinking, she stepped back a pace.
‘I’m sorry,’ she added. ‘It’s just that I’m trying to trace a — a friend of mine, and I seem to remember she mentioned this village once, and said something about maybe buying a property here, since old buildings are so pretty,’ she invented.
Her voice trailed away as the vicar shook his head, his voice a mixture of sad and severe.
‘That’s the way of things, isn’t it? People can be interested in the buildings, when they forget the true structure and foundation of the church itself. The Holy Trinity,’ he added, when Alex stared at him blankly.
‘Oh — yes. Yes, of course. Well, thank you very much for your time, Vicar.’
She backed away quickly, before he could expound still more. She was done with his stultifying talk.
And besides, she identified all too readily with something he had said. She, too, resorted to asking God for guidance when all else failed, even if it wasn’t quite in the way the vicar had meant it. She switched her mind to the more annoying frustration of not properly seeking his assistance, which she had now virtually rejected.
But she could have told him Caroline’s name. She could have mentioned the name of the cottage specifically. Weren’t vicars meant to call on new parishioners to check them out or something? And wasn’t she supposed to be the probing private eye, pursuing every lead? But she had her own methods, and so far she hadn’t mentioned Caroline’s name to anyone.
There was also a more personal reason for not enlisting the vicar’s help: she simply didn’t like him. She doubted that even God expected you to like every one of His stuffed shirts.
***
She felt more cheerful as she went back to the Little Harp Inn, deciding not to return to the cottage until tomorrow. She was at her sharpest in the morning, and it was already early evening now, and later she would interrogate the locals.
Some bright psychoanalyst had once told her she was a morning person, which presumably meant that she could shut up shop and sleep for the rest of the day once it struck noon, she had said breezily... but
not if she wanted that winter cruise that Father Price’s fat fee would bring her, she reminded herself keenly.
Which was why she found herself buying a hefty round of drinks for the good ol’ boys with their foul-smelling pipes later on that evening. And surely there were more of them now than there had been earlier? Word had evidently got around, and anyone who assumed that village folk were simpletons had better think again. This lot, at any rate, were pretty cute.
‘So come on, guys, tell me about this visitor who was asking questions recently,’ she began, softening her best Sloaney voice in the interests of friendliness. ‘Was he doing some kind of witch hunt, or something? I bet there have been plenty of old witch-craft tales down here in the past.’
And why the hell did she say such a daft thing, when such tales always scared the hell out of her?
‘You don’t want to listen to none o’ that nonsense, miss,’ one of them said, poker-faced and clearly taking her seriously. ‘And they that tell it should be careful what they say an’ all.’
Alex stared. The nodding donkeys were off again, and she’d only said it in passing. She didn’t want to know about witchcraft, anyway, and had always tried to keep well clear of any of that caper.
‘Don’t get ‘em started on all that, Miss Best,’ the landlady said as she brought the tray of pint jugs to the table. No tame glasses for these hardies, Alex noted. ‘You’ll never sleep easy in your bed if they do.’
‘Then I don’t want to hear it,’ Alex said, thinking there must be more than meets the eye in this sleepy little corner of the world that looked so sweet and so normal.
But they were just the places where you never expected anything sinister to happen, and she should be professional enough to know that by now. DI Nick Frobisher had told her some spine-tingling tales about covens and pagan rituals and gruesome animal sacrifices taking place in the most innocent-looking surroundings.
Such things had occasionally been uncovered during his own mundane police enquiries, and had turned up far more bizarre practices than any of them had bargained for.
For a moment Alex wished desperately that he was here now, with his big, comforting presence and his no-nonsense ways. Despite the sometimes unpredictability of his work, Nick could always be relied on to bring things down to earth. While here she was, letting her imagination run away with her before she had learned a single bloody thing. She drew a deep breath.
‘I was only wondering about any recent visitors to the area. I’m trying to catch up with an old friend of mine,’ she said, remembering what she had told the vicar. ‘So was your visitor a lady?’
Come on, her logical thoughts nagged them silently. Surely you know I mean Caroline Price? The recluse who lives in Greenwell Cottage?
But since Caroline had been living here for some time, they probably wouldn’t even class her as a visitor now, just an outsider who happened to live among them, but chose to keep herself to herself, as the saying went.
She decided to try another tack, but before she could speak, one of the old men spoke again, wiping the foam from his upper lip with his sleeve, then smacking his lips together in a perfectly disgusting manner before he belched loudly.
“Twere a man. Poncey-lookin’ feller an’ all.’
‘An older man?’ Alex said casually, thinking that for all their supposed verbosity, this was like pulling teeth. She took bets now that the man asking questions had been Norman Price. She certainly wouldn’t have called him poncey-looking, but these disreputable-looking guys might. If so, the news was disappointing. She already knew he came here occasionally.
‘Not old, nor ancient, like we. ‘Bout your age, I dare say,’ another one said, his head cocked on one side like a bird as he considered.
This was different. ‘Was he looking to buy some property down here? My friend was interested in moving out of London, and he might have been here on her behalf.’
She was floundering now and she knew it. She could only hope that they didn’t guess. There was no hurrying their replies, but Alex couldn’t believe the speed with which the pints of beer disappeared. Within seconds the landlady had put another trayful down on the table, and she had nodded her agreement to put the cost of it all on her bill. At this rate, she’d be putting in a hefty expenses bill to Norman Price.
‘Never said.’
‘Did you talk to the man then?’ she asked quickly.
‘Only when he asked the way to Greenwell Cottage.’
At last! If the stranger had asked the way to Greenwell Cottage by name, then he had been looking for Caroline. Bingo.
‘Is the cottage for sale then?’ she asked.
The earlier spokesman from the village green guffawed.
‘Not unless the cuckoo dame who lives there be thinking of moving out. And she never lets on about nothing.’
‘Well, just in case the cottage is for sale, perhaps you can tell me a little more,’ Alex persisted. ‘Is the owner an elderly lady or ill, or something?’
The old men stared her out. Just as if they could see right through the lies. Just as if they had second sight, the way certain strange village folk in isolated communities were reputed to have.
The smoke-charged atmosphere of the old inn was more thick and cloying by the minute — hadn’t they ever heard of a smoke-free area in this place? — or was it just in her imagination as the rheumy old eyes seemed to mesmerize her for a few breath-holding moments?
And now she was really letting this hint of witchcraft get under her skin, Alex thought crossly, and immediately wondered how Nick would have handled this. Nick, with his refreshingly prosaic, plodding logic, that was suddenly and so blessedly normal. She cleared her throat as nobody seemed inclined to give her any more information.
‘I’ve talked enough,’ she murmured. ‘It’s late, and you’ll excuse me, I’m sure.’
She got to her feet, and one of the men put a scrawny hand on her arm. She just resisted the urge to fling it away.
‘Folk don’t see much of the woman in Greenwell Cottage. Don’t want to, neither. It always had a bad reputation.’
Alex managed a short laugh. ‘What nonsense. As if a cottage could have a bad reputation.’
But as she almost flounced out, she could hear them whispering behind her, and she practically fled to her room. They were mad, the lot of them, she raged. It was all an act, anyway. Proving that for all the so-called sophistication of townies, country folk could still get the better of them in a macabre game of wits. And it worked, damn it. It worked.
Moments later, she jumped at the knock on her door. She answered it to find the landlady there with a steaming mug of cocoa in her hands.
‘I thought you’d appreciate a hot drink to help you sleep, Miss Best, and you musn’t pay any mind to their old teasing. They were just baiting you, that’s all.’
‘Thank you,’ Alex murmured. ‘You’re very kind. And perhaps I was being too nosy after all.’
‘Well, nobody likes to feel they’re oddities, do they? That’s the way a lot of city folk see us, and the old ‘uns play up to it. We get a coachload of Americans coming here from time to time, and you should see some of the wicked old tricks they get up to then!’
‘So they were just teasing about Greenwell Cottage having a bad reputation, were they? Just to get me going, was it?’
‘Oh, I dare say that’s all it was,’ the landlady said soothingly, and it was only a long while afterwards, when she had lain sleepless for hours, ignoring the cocoa, that Alex realized she hadn’t denied it either.
Maybe Caroline Price didn’t react to atmosphere in a place, but Alex certainly did. She shivered. But she still intended to go back there tomorrow morning.
***
Maybe she should have drunk the cocoa after all. It was three in the morning when she decided she’d had enough tossing and turning in the lumpy bed, and did something she always vowed she wouldn’t. She punched out Nick Frobisher’s number on her mobile phone.
It was pa
rt of her researches to know when he was on nights, and with his usual caring concern for her, he had told her she was to call him any time, day or night, if she had a problem. She knew very well he didn’t necessarily mean a professional problem. He almost certainly didn’t, and she knew he’d prefer it to be a personal problem that he would willingly solve.
‘DI Frobisher,’ she heard his voice say abruptly.
Her own voice stuck in her throat. Why on earth had she called, and what the hell was she going to say to him, when she didn’t even want him involved in her case?
‘Say what you want to say, because I’m hanging up in three seconds from now,’ she heard him say next.
‘Nick,’ she croaked. ‘Nick, it’s me. Alex.’
She heard the change in his voice at once, and knew he had recognized the desperation in hers.
‘Where are you? Are you in trouble? Give me the address and I’ll get there as soon as I can.’
‘No. No, I’m not in trouble.’
God, he was so sweet. He was big and brash and hopeless at times, but right now, he was the only sane voice in a world that for Alex seemed to be tilting sideways. Before she could say anything else, she seemed to hear Gary Hollis’s mocking voice in her head.
‘Are you sure you’re in the right business?’
And no, she damn well wasn’t sure. But she wasn’t giving up now, either. She pressed her mobile closer to her ear and made herself speak more moderately. If she could pick up the nuance of a telephone voice, so could Nick.
‘I just fancied a call to an old friend, that’s all—’
‘At three in the morning? Pull the other one, Alex. What’s up? Are you on a stake-out and feeling the need for company? Unless it’s business and you want to call us in, I can’t really oblige, darling, much as I’d like to—’
He gave her an unwitting lead. ‘I didn’t think you could, which is why I’m calling,’ she said lightly. ‘I just wanted to hear a friendly voice, that’s all.’
There was silence at the other end, and then: ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were in danger of becoming a teaser, Alex, and it’s not your style.’
Thicker Than Water (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 1) Page 7