Thicker Than Water (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 1)

by Jean Saunders

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ Gary said, shaking her as her eyes blurred. ‘You’re not going to pass out on me, are you? You’re as pasty as an uncooked tart.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, starting to laugh. ‘I needed that to make me feel really attractive!’

  He grinned. ‘You’ll always be beautiful to me, doll. So why don’t you show me these sexy kecks of Caroline’s? If they really exist, that is.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they? Come on then.’

  He followed her upstairs, his hands cupping her backside, and she couldn’t be bothered to tell him to stop it. Just moments ago she had had such a weird presentiment of doom, that it was reassuring just to know that she was living and breathing. and that a man found her desirable, and alive.

  And it would be far better to spend their time in the bedroom, where they could see who was coming down the lane from the window — as long as Gary didn’t get the wrong idea about it, of course.

  Just imagine being found in a compromising position with her lover in Caroline Price’s bed. It would put her at a distinct disadvantage, she thought, with a nervous giggle. And that must be the biggest understatement of the year.

  Chapter 8

  Watching and waiting was always a tedious part of the job. Alex knew it, and accepted it. Gary didn’t. Nearing the end of the afternoon he fingered the pile of soft satin lingerie for the umpteenth time, and finally threw it on the bed in a sulk when Alex flatly refused to model it for him.

  His voice was truculent. ‘Why the hell not? This is a bloody good waste of a day, if you ask me.’

  ‘Give it a rest, Gary, and put those things away before somebody comes — oh, let me do it,’ she said, bundling them back in the dressing-table drawer when he didn’t move.

  There was something stuck at the back. Maybe it was another diary, she thought hopefully, with even more clarifying material, but it was merely a small bundle of papers in a plastic wrapper. She couldn’t afford to miss anything, especially something stuffed in the back of a drawer, so she pushed them in her bag to study later.

  ‘Nobody’s coming here today, including—’

  ‘Oh, do shut up, Gary. It’s getting boring, and I’m jittery enough without you keeping on. We are not going to bed and that’s final.’

  ‘Why not? If anybody did turn up, it would probably give them a thrill to watch.’

  Alex glared at him. After today she was going to be very unavailable as far as he was concerned, she told herself. He had outdone his usefulness, and she wasn’t apologizing to anyone for thinking that way.

  He was boorish, and he only ever had one thing on his mind. It might be great — was great — but it didn’t have to be top priority every minute they were together. Whatever happened to conversation?

  ‘I brought a bottle of wine, and I suppose you’re not interested in that either,’ he sulked.

  But Alex was no longer listening to anything he had to say. Conversation was the last thing on her mind now as she saw the man walking very cautiously down the lane towards the cottage. He was keeping well in to the hedgerow as if trying to keep out of sight until his presence was unavoidable.

  But it was a man she recognized all too well. A man with gaunt Romany features, mesmeric eyes and collar-length hair. Jeremy Laver — Caroline’s cousin.

  She turned to Gary in a panic, her throat like chaff.

  ‘Do you still want to go to bed?’

  ‘Hey, is it my birthday or something?’

  Her words fell over themselves as she tried to get her thoughts in order, and to force him to follow them.

  ‘Shut up and listen. Jeremy Laver’s out there, so either he’s here quite innocently, which I don’t believe for a minute — or he sent the letter. God knows why, but there’s no time to think about that now. He has to keep believing I’m Audrey Barnes from Ohio, and we have to pretend we know Caroline and that we assume she’s on holiday, so we’re having a bit of a ding-dong down here, right?’

  The words raced as fast as her thoughts. If this was thinking on her feet, she knew damn well it was better to be seen on her back. She groaned, knowing it all sounded so bloody feeble and so humiliating. Would Jeremy even go for it? Would anybody with half an ounce of intelligence? But that depended on what the other person had to hide as well. She counted on it. And she knew she could count on Gary.

  ‘Get on the bed and start kissing me,’ she hissed, as she heard the front door open.

  ‘Anything to oblige, lady,’ Gary said with a grin.

  He pinned her down beneath him and slid his hand up her skirt as she kicked off her shoes and let them slip silently to the carpet.

  A few minutes later they heard someone prowling about in the rooms below, and then footsteps coming up the stairs. Alex held her breath and pulled Gary more closely to her, winding her legs around him as if they were in the throes of foreplay.

  ‘What the hell’s going on in here?’ they heard Jeremy’s outraged voice say a moment later. He couldn’t immediately recognize the two bodies so thoroughly intertwined. And then:

  ‘Who — good God — what do you think you’re doing?’

  Alex struggled up. It was almost comical to see the flickering thoughts and emotions passing over Jeremy Laver’s face. They were transparent to her in those moments. She was sure he had sent the anonymous letter. He’d never admit it without incriminating himself though, so how was he going to get out of this one? But he certainly hadn’t expected to find her here like this, in flagrante delicto, so to speak.

  Presumably he would have drummed up some good reason to confront her here, and she knew she’d been right in trusting her instincts one hundred per cent in bringing Gary along. Her insurance. Her safety-net, she thought fervently again.

  But the next second she had to give Laver every credit for being so quick-witted.

  ‘I don’t know what the devil you’re doing here, Miss Barnes. This cottage belongs to my cousin. While she’s away I make it my business to check it out for her now and then. The police reported a break-in recently, and I just hope you’ve got a good explanation for being here with your... friend.’

  Oh, he was good, thought Alex. If he hadn’t pre-planned this defensive attitude on his cousin’s behalf, then he was very resourceful, and there was no way he was letting on that he’d sent her an anonymous letter.

  He had just the right amount of indignation and suspicion in his voice — and the reference to a break-in recently was interesting, especially the police being informed, which Alex knew was a downright lie.

  But how did he know about the break-in unless he had done it, or knew who did? She sat up quickly and managed to look suitably aghast at being caught like this.

  ‘This is really awful, Jeremy,’ she said, remembering the Midwest accent. ‘I know Miss Price slightly through some magazine features, but I had no idea of any connection between you and her. Gary and I thought we’d call to surprise her, but as you rightly say, she’s not here. We shouldn’t have taken advantage of her absence, but it’s such a darling little place, we couldn’t resist it. We’ll tidy up in here and leave at once.’

  He fixed her with that penetrating gaze as she surged on. She didn’t have a clue whether or not he believed her; it was all a double bluff, anyway. He had sent the letter to her post office box number, so he must have suspected her of something, but what? And now that she was here, he must know she had picked it up and knew of Greenwell Cottage.

  If he had nothing to do with Caroline’s disappearance, and just had an inkling that something was wrong here, he might even think Alex was a villain. It was totally unfeasible that he had come here on the off-chance on this day of all days. No, he had to have sent the letter, but he evidently didn’t intend to give himself away, nor could she think what he had hoped to achieve by luring her here. If he hadn’t sent it, and this really was just a hideous coincidence, then somebody else was probably lurking in the hedgerows by now... her wretched imagination was soaring in leaps and
bounds, and her head was throbbing fit to burst.

  ‘So just who are you really, Miss all-American Barnes? And don’t give me that guff about doing a feature on me for some rag. There’s more to it than that—’ he said at last.

  ‘Why the hell should there be?’ Gary spoke aggressively now. ‘We just came to see this friend of — uh, Audrey’s, and decided not to waste the afternoon. Do you have a problem with that... mate? Or is it out of your range of activities?’

  Laver would know it wasn’t the case. But it seemed that he wasn’t prepared to pursue it with Gary here, ultra-macho now at being disturbed in his little love-nest. Thank God for Gary, Alex thought, brushing aside her previous uncharitable thoughts about him. She had done right to follow her instincts in making him her insurance, her safety-net. She couldn’t get the words out of her head now. If he hadn’t been here, things might have been very different. She moved closer towards him, making them a complete unit. And it was pretty obvious that whatever else Jeremy Laver was, he was no match for a powerfully made younger man. He wouldn’t want to get his precious features roughed up, and especially not his hands.

  She pressed on, with that thought very much in mind. She was off the bed now, and smoothing down the rumpled covers.

  ‘Look. I’ve already apologized, Jeremy, and now we’re leaving, OK? I can’t do more. But I assure you we haven’t touched anything of Miss Price’s. You can check, if you like.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said coldly. ‘But in England we go about things differently, and we don’t enter other people’s houses without their permission.’

  He was so pompous and self-righteous now it wasn’t true. What was he doing, if he wasn’t entering Caroline’s house without her permission? But Alex wasn’t waiting to find out. All she wanted was to get out of there and assess the situation back home as quickly as possible.

  Thank God he didn’t know who she really was, and after Gary’s aggression he hadn’t pursued his questions. But when he had time to think about it, his pride and ego would probably be mortally offended that she wasn’t going to write him up after all. Write him off, would be more like it. But unfortunately she couldn’t do that either.

  ***

  Jeremy Laver was not the brightest of men. Despite his passion for his theatre and his creative talent, he was oddly lacking in any other kind of perception. He was not susceptible to atmosphere in buildings or picking up nuances. He called a spade a spade.

  Or, in more modern jargon, What You See Is What You Get. And what he had seen was the red-haired tart who called herself an acquaintance of his cousin’s, making out with that greasy lout she called her friend. He ignored his affronted reaction to that for the moment.

  But he was also completely averse to doing anything nasty, unlike Daneman, who he was sure wouldn’t hesitate in slitting someone’s throat if he was threatened.

  Jeremy preferred to take the easy way out. To believe that Audrey Barnes was who she said she was, and had met Caroline at some time. She may even have heard about himself through Caroline. His ego wouldn’t quite be squashed on that score, though there wasn’t much chance of the woman writing him up in her American rag now. He’d killed that for good and all, he thought with a scowl.

  But for all Daneman’s suspicions in seeing her at the cottage once before, he supposed it was reasonable that she had come to Wilsingham expecting to visit Caroline then too.

  Rather than have to do anything at all that was unpleasant, Jeremy put his own interpretation on the fact that Audrey Barnes had responded to his anonymous letter. It was just the kind of thing journalists did, for God’s sake. They had a nose for everything, and she wouldn’t have been able to resist. She may even have thought it was Caroline playing a trick — not that he could ever remember his cousin playing many tricks. He let that pass.

  No, the more he thought about it, the more obvious it became. There was no funny business going on here. Audrey Barnes was just a slick American, from her sleek red hair down to her toes and everything in between. Daneman had got it all wrong, and he would call him on his mobile as soon as he returned to London, and tell him everything was sorted. He could always manage to sound more forceful on the phone. Trusting that Daneman wouldn’t ask for details, he closed the cottage door behind him with a sense of relief. He was in it up to his neck in what he called their little collusion, but the less he was physically involved, the better he liked it. That had been part of the deal.

  ***

  ‘Are you all right?’ Gary asked Alex, as she drove away from the village far too fast and crunched the gears every time she changed up or down.

  Her voice was clipped. ‘I will be when I get home and take a shower and have a gallon of coffee and think.’

  ‘In that order?’

  ‘In that order. I just don’t know why he wanted to get me down there at all. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Perhaps he fancied you, and he sure as hell didn’t expect to see me there, so it put him off.’ He cracked his knuckles in a pseudo-mafioso gesture.

  Alex glared at him. ‘You would think that, of course. I’m glad you were there, as it happens, but maybe I’d have got to the bottom of it if I’d been on my own.’

  She shivered, knowing she hadn’t wanted to take that chance. She might have been at the bottom of a deep ditch by now. Some private eye she was turning out to be. It was part of the job to take chances, and she knew she’d flunked it. It was depressing her more by the second.

  ‘Do you want company for the rest of the day, or do I take it that you’d prefer to be alone for this thinking process?’ Gary asked, with more insight than usual.

  ‘Alone — if you don’t mind.’

  She didn’t need to apologize, but everything seemed so topsy-turvy today. In fact, the only sane thing was Gary, who hadn’t sent the letter, and hadn’t let her down when she needed him. She put her hand on his arm.

  ‘I do appreciate what you did today, Gary. I mean it. But I need to get my head together on this one, and I can’t do it with anyone else around.’

  ‘OK, doll,’ he said. ‘You know how to find me when you want me.’

  ***

  By the time she closed the door to her flat, it was early evening, and Alex felt as if she’d been driving for ever. It had rained steadily all the way back, making the journey slower than usual with the Sunday nose-to-tail traffic into London. The gloom of the sky and the incessant swishing of the windscreen wipers only added to her downbeat mood.

  But, thankfully, Gary had respected her need to be alone. Instead of the promised shower she took a long soak in the bath, hoping it would help her unwind, then wrapped herself in her towelling dressing-gown for comfort, put on the kettle for the coffee she hoped would revive her spirits, and refused to answer the persistent ringing on her doorbell.

  If it was Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses she didn’t want to know, she thought savagely. And who else would come calling on a wet Sunday night without an invitation?

  ‘I know you’re in there, Alex,’ she eventually heard a disembodied voice say through her letter-box. ‘I’ve got some news that may interest you.’

  She certainly didn’t want to talk to Nick Frobisher. In her present mood she was in danger of blabbing everything, just for the comfort of having someone else take this whole Caroline business off her shoulders.

  And IT WOULD NOT DO. The self-help detective manual continually told her so in large letters.

  Once you started on a case, you had to see it through. Once you took on your client’s problems, you had a duty to him or her to respect their privacy and their confidences. She could recite it almost word for word, blast it.

  But the longing to confide in someone was sometimes very strong, and the puffed-up author of the manual hadn’t taken any account of that feeling. In fact, she doubted if the author had any normal feelings at all or else he/she/it was just a robot. That would be it. A robot had rattled off the necessary rules and instructions... she was
getting more light-headed by the minute.

  ‘It’s to do with our mutual friend at the factory, Alex. Let me in and I’ll tell you more.’

  Her hand froze over the kettle, knowing that Nick had to be talking about Norman Price. And he couldn’t have said anything more likely to entice her to open the door. She did so suspiciously.

  ‘Are you sure this isn’t just a trick to get a free cup of coffee while you’re in the area doing the business—’

  He put one hand over hers. His large, comforting, brotherly hand that had the instant effect of reducing her to infuriating tears. She was so blinded by them for a moment that she was almost unaware that he was coming inside the flat, closing the door behind him, and holding her fast to his chest. His voice was low and caring. She could feel its deep vibration against her body.

  ‘Hey, what’s wrong. sweetheart? This isn’t like you at all. Where’s my tough girl?’

  She snuffled, knowing she was dampening his rough jacket. She was overcome by his concern, and even though his words would be thought sexist and patronizing in some quarters — including her at any other time — they were exactly what she needed to hear right now.

  ‘I’m not feeling very tough at this moment,’ she mumbled against him, ‘and I’ve got the mother and father of all headaches.’

  He steered her towards her sofa and sat down beside her, his arms around her so that she leaned back against him.

  Without another word, his fingers began to caress her temples — those fingers that could seize a villain around the throat when necessary, and almost — but not quite — choke the life out of him.

  Large, gentle fingers that were doing the most amazing job of soothing and relaxing and easing away the tension that had been gripping her so viciously for so long.

  ‘That’s good,’ she whispered. ‘That’s so good.’

  ‘All part of the service, ma’am,’ he said, causing her to react by sitting up swiftly, simply because they were the same words that Gary sometimes used.