Fortunately, the reporters’ room was empty. Tony had already left for an action-packed Saturday of soccer and rugby matches before the season ended and cricket began.
Back at my desk Tony had scribbled Call Lieutenant Berry. Urgent! on a Post-it.
Even though I was having serious second thoughts as to Robin’s romantic viability, dialing his number still gave me the butterflies.
Robin picked up on the second ring. “You’ll need to go to Dairy Cottage and pick up Auntie’s statement,” he said briskly.
My heart sank. “She’s written one already?”
“It’s very detailed. I want you to read it and add what you saw, too.”
“I. Can’t. Hear. You,” I said, bursting into a series of guttural sounds simulating radio static—a trick I’d learned from Dad. Of course I could hear Robin but I needed time to think.
“Hello? Vicky, are you still there?”
“Hello? Robin? Yes. Awful line.”
“I took photographs of Auntie last night,” he said. “She’s got a nasty bruise on her shoulder and practically cracked her skull open on the toilet bowl. We’ll go for a charge of aggravated assault.”
“Sorry. Didn’t. Catch. That.” I launched into the static routine once more and slammed the phone down. Blast! He couldn’t be serious! It rang again immediately but I let the call go through to the answering machine.
After counting to sixty, I tentatively replayed Robin’s message. It was a long one.
Basically my instructions were to drive to Dairy Cottage “on the double” and collect the statement and a series of photographs illustrating Eunice’s “injuries.” Apparently Eunice was expecting me. I was then to call on Olive Larch and, showing her the evidence—but “don’t leave the photographs or statement”—suggest she consider making an offer so the charge would all “go away.”
I was to stress that aggravated assault was a “very serious offense” and imply that it was distinctly possible Olive might go to prison. I wasn’t to worry about the specifics of monetary compensation since Robin would be home next Saturday. He then rang off without so much as a thank-you.
Frankly I was disgusted and had no intention of doing his dirty work. I was also bitterly disappointed. I’d wasted weeks of my life, yearning after a man who turned out to be nothing like Prince Charming after all. On the bright side, at least Robin was out of circulation all week, which gave me some time to sort out the mess Topaz had left in the ladies’ loo that night.
Of course, I’d have to question her again. Caped Kitten or not, she was going to have to come clean but first things first.
Since Eunice was expecting me this afternoon. I’d have to start with her.
I phoned Dairy Cottage armed with the very real excuse that I couldn’t come over today because I was working.
“Don’t bother,” said Mary. “She’s asleep and I can’t wake her up.”
My stomach turned over. Robin mentioned Eunice had cracked open her skull. Good grief! What if she died? Should I call 999? I tried to keep my voice steady. “Mary, Robin said she had a head injury. It’s important she’s kept awake.”
“I gave her a sedative,” said Mary calmly.
“Her medication, you mean?” I said. “From Dr. Bodger?”
“No. The vet.”
“The vet!” I shrieked. “What was it?”
“Acepromazine,” said Mary. “For the cows. Don’t worry, dear. I pop it in Eunice’s bedtime cocoa all the time. Good-bye.” And with that, she put down the phone.
A quick Google revealed acepromazine’s principal values lay in “quieting and calming frightened and aggressive animals.” Perhaps Mary had the right idea, after all. At least she hadn’t mentioned the statement or photographs. That was something to be thankful for.
I bit my lip, perplexed. I was beginning to think Probes had a point. The entire family spelled trouble.
Speaking of trouble, I needed to track down Dave Randall. I knew he’d been held at the station overnight and couldn’t reach him on his mobile. In the end I left a message to the effect that the Gazette was one hundred percent behind him.
Dave called me straight back. “I’ve got caller ID,” he said gloomily. “I recognized the Gazette number and thought your editor was going to give me a bollocking.”
“No. I got that. We need to talk.”
“I can’t face anyone. Did you see the Bugle?”
“You’re jolly well going to see me,” I said firmly. “I’ve really put my job on the line for you and this wretched Larch Legacy. I’m coming over now.”
“I’m in hiding,” whined Dave.
“Nonsense!” How could someone who showed such bravery out in the field, be such a coward! And to think I’d considered him as my once-in-a-lifetime seducer! “Where are you?”
Dave gave a heavy sigh. “Do you know the Nobody Inn in Doddiscombleigh, near Exeter?”
“That’s miles away,” I said with dismay. It would take me at least an hour by moped. I really must buy a car. “I’ll meet you somewhere in the middle.”
“I can’t drive,” he said. “I’ve been drinking.”
“You do have definite proof?”
“In writing. Signed by the great man himself.”
“I’m on my way.”
I’d no sooner put the phone down when it rang again.
“Vicky? Colin here,” said Probes. Little butterflies fluttered around in my stomach. “Any chance of a drink tonight?”
“Can’t. Sorry. I’m working.”
Probes laughed. “Okay. I get the hint.”
“No. Really. I am.” I found myself grinning, too.
“Look, I made a few inquiries about Spain—”
Blast! No! “You didn’t have to.”
“It was just a few phone calls,” Probes said. “Scarlett Fleming never left the country.”
“Are you positive?”
“I checked with all the port authorities and passenger manifests. Over the past few weeks there has been no record of any car accidents—fatal or otherwise—within a one hundred mile radius of Perpignan in the Pyrenees or Barcelona and the Costa Brava.”
“That’s very thorough,” was all I managed to say as I struggled to make sense of this astonishing development.
“What’s happening? Is this a police matter?”
“I’m not sure. . . .” I said slowly. My heart was doing all sorts of funny leaps and jumps. “I need to check a few more things out first.”
“Let me know if I can be of any more help. Remember, you owe me a favor now.”
I put the phone down and grabbed my moped keys, trying to make sense of what I’d suspected deep down, but hadn’t really wanted to believe.
Mild-mannered Douglas Fleming had murdered his wife. He’d picked a time when Whittler was away, fabricated a bogus trip to pretend she was out of the country, killed her, and then organized rent-a-thug to transport her body into the family vault.
How unbelievably convenient and to think that nobody would have been any the wiser had it not been for that phone call I received on Thursday morning.
The problem was how could I prove it.
I hurried to fetch my moped and began to curse Dave. I really didn’t have time to trek all the way to Exeter. My thoughts were consumed with Neil Titley—not the Larch Legacy.
Yet, I reminded myself, as things now stood, it was imperative that Dave and I salvage our tarnished reputations. Dave had better have proof and it had better be good.
As I sped north on the dual carriageway toward Exeter, I hoped the Nobody Inn was still serving food.
I was absolutely starving.
23
It took me nearly three hours to find Doddiscombleigh. Tucked away near Belvedere Castle on the outskirts of Exeter, it was a tiny hamlet nestling in acres of forestland.
Devon was famous for its lack of signposts. At crucial crossroads and T junctions, picking the right road was more a case of trial and error. As the afternoon wore on,
I began to worry that Dave would be plastered by the time I found him or thrown out for drunk and disorderly behavior. Fortunately, when I finally pulled into the car park, I was relieved to see his old Land Rover was still there.
A traditional Devon longhouse with whitewashed walls and a slate roof, the Nobody Inn had been built around the mid-sixteenth century. Despite the May afternoon, a log fired burned merrily in the grate. The public bar and lounge was still packed thanks to the all-day drinking hours.
Dave was seated on a stool slumped over the counter at the end of the bar. He was nursing a pewter tankard and stared moodily ahead. At least he was still conscious and hadn’t passed out. That was something to be grateful for.
Grabbing the empty stool next to him, I sat down.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” he said.
“It’s not the easiest of places to find.”
Dave turned to me, bleary-eyed. His dark curls were flattened against his head. He smelled rank and clearly hadn’t bothered to wash, let alone shave, after a night in the cells. “It’s all over, Vicky. I’m finished.”
“What’ll you be having, my lovely,” said a buxom woman in her fifties. She had sparkling brown eyes and wore her long gray hair piled on top of her head. “The kitchen’s open all day. Fancy some homemade soup?”
“Yes please.” I realized I was starving.
“You’re Vicky, aren’t you?” the woman said. “I’m Hilary. Dave told me you were coming. Soup is on the house.” She leaned across the counter, lowering her voice. “He’s in a dreadful state.”
“We’ll sort it out.”
“Awful business, old Larch reneging on the deal,” she said. “I know all the details, dear. Dave and my lad Toby used to go to school together. He’s like a son to me. I’ll get your soup.”
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
Dave drained his pewter tankard and slammed it on the bar followed by a highly unattractive belch. How could I ever have found him sexy? He fumbled in his moleskin jacket pocket and brought out a crumpled scrap of paper. Carefully, he smoothed out the creases and gave it to me.
Written in spidery scrawl, I carefully read the contents. This confirms my agreement with Dave Randall of Cricket Lodge, that the Gipping Hedge Jumping Society will receive the Larch Legacy for 2010 and a sum of five hundred pounds. It is understood that a new jump, the Larch Leap, will be named in my honor. The paper was signed Sammy Larch and dated a full month before he died.
“This is fantastic!” I impulsively gave Dave a hug and then wished I hadn’t. He clung to me and his foul-smelling breath literally took mine away.
“It’s still too late,” he said. “Webster has the money now. There will never be another Larch Legacy. It’s over.”
“Who cares about Webster,” I said waving the paper at him. “This is all the proof we need.”
Hilary returned with two bowls of chicken soup and homemade crusty bread. “One for you, too, my lad,” she said, removing Dave’s pewter tankard. “No more ale.”
Dave and I tucked in. It was delicious. He began to perk up. “What are we going to do?”
“As I told you on the phone, the Gazette is behind you, so let’s see what we can salvage.” I took out my notepad. “You mentioned you’d drummed up some corporate sponsorship.”
“Leviathan tractors said they’d chip in some cash but only if it tied in with the Larch Legacy.” He slumped over once more. “See? It’s all her fault.”
We were back to Scarlett Fleming again. “Why did you think Mrs. Fleming made Sammy change his mind?”
“Let’s just say we had a falling out a few months back over her maze.”
“Not the one in the formal garden, surely?” Headcellars boasted a magnificent miniature box-hedge maze that always drew a crowd at the annual Gipping Garden Open day.
Dave had the grace to blush. “One of the lads was getting married and we’d had a few pints.” He stared wistfully off into space. “Rows and rows of neatly clipped privet. Beautiful—green and tight.” He sighed. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“I daresay she didn’t, either.”
“She went spastic,” Dave recalled. “Ran out of the house screaming and hit me behind the knees with a cricket bat. It’s a miracle I can still jump. I’m telling you, she might seem all Ms. Nice on the outside, but she’s got a vicious temper.”
Perhaps Fleming killed her in self-defense?
“I’m surprised she didn’t sue for damages,” I said.
“She did. But the magistrate’s a jumper and chucked out the charges.”
“So you think it was revenge?”
“Yep,” Dave said. “I had a feeling she’d try something when I went to Sammy’s the night he died.”
A peculiar tingle came over my nether regions and it had nothing to do with sitting close to Dave Randall. I liked to call it my Romany alarm. Mum claimed we had gypsy blood and I believed her. “Go on.”
Dave shrugged. “I got there around seven and Scarlett answered the door. I’d written a list of sponsors for Sammy and wanted to go over the new jump but she just snatched the paper and slammed the door in my face.”
“Maybe you interrupted something?”
“Yeah. Exactly.” Dave leered. “Old Scarlett looked all flustered. Her hair was a mess and her shirt was torn. If you ask me, there was a bit of hanky-panky going on.”
“Don’t be silly. He was ninety-five and besides, weren’t Olive or Douglas Fleming there, too?”
“That’s what I thought until I went to the Nag and Bucket afterward,” Dave said. “Guess who was up there hiding in a quiet corner having a basket of scampi?”
“Please don’t play guess who with me, Dave.”
“Olive Larch and Douglas Fleming.”
“Alone?” I said sharply. This did seem odd. Why would Olive and Douglas be alone? Why would Scarlett want to stay behind with Sammy? Hadn’t Pam Green said Scarlett refused to be on her own with him because he was such a lecherous old sod? If Dave’s claim were true, it sounded like the two could be indulging in a bit of hanky-panky, after all. I tried hard not to think about it. On the few occasions I’d met Sammy before he died, he never wore his false teeth.
“I went over and said hello,” said Dave. “Told Olive I’d just popped in to see her dad. She got all jumpy but Fleming pointed out that Scarlett would take good care of him. When I left around ten, they were still there.”
Catching sight of the time, I realized I had to leave if I was to get back to Gipping in time for tonight’s adventure with Annabel. “Can I keep this paper for a few days?”
“Will you print it on the front page?” said Dave hopefully.
“That’s Wilf’s call but I suspect he’ll want to talk to you first.” I got to my feet. “Don’t worry. We’ll sort it out.”
Dave jumped up—somewhat unsteadily—and pulled me into a bear hug. “Thanks, Vicky. You’ve saved my life. You know that, right? Any time you’re in trouble, just come to me, right?”
“Right. Thanks. Bye.” Extricating myself, I thanked Hilary for the soup and headed home.
Yet again, I took a wrong turn and ended up practically in the next county of Somerset, mainly because I wasn’t paying attention to the road. I couldn’t stop thinking about Scarlett Fleming’s unsavory tryst with Sammy Larch—the tryst that ended with him lying dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck while her husband and his daughter ate a basket of scampi at the Nag and Bucket.
Perhaps there had been some weird foursome going on? Maybe Douglas Fleming was content to turn a blind eye to his wife’s dalliance with Sammy because he had already started his affair with Olive? It would certainly explain his sudden romantic interest in her.
According to the coroner report, there had been nothing suspicious about Sammy’s death but, if something fishy had been going on, I knew just the person to ask: Steve Burrows. I was positive he would have been called to the scene first and much as I hated to admit it, he h
ad proved to be a very astute informant in the past.
As I turned into Factory Terrace, my heart plunged into my boots. Annabel’s BMW was parked outside number four. How long had she been there? Please God don’t let her be snooping in my bedroom.
I practically hurled my moped into the carport and hurried indoors.
Mrs. Evans was covering a small box with brown paper. “You’re late. We were just getting worried,” she said. “This is for Sadie and—”
“Where’s Annabel?”
“She wanted to wait in your room.”
Even though my laptop was password protected and I always made sure I hid anything distinctly incriminating,
I still felt consumed with an irrational fear. Would Annabel find the photographs of my parents and their postcards in a shoebox under the floorboards?
There was only one way to find out.
Heart in mouth, I raced upstairs.
24
Annabel was lying on my bed with her eyes shut. She was wearing low-rider jeans, a black tube top, and high-spiked strappy sandals. Gold chains and heavy bangles completed her ensemble.
She threw her arms over her head, yawned, and gave a seductive wriggle. “Where have you been?”
“Sorry, got held up.” I looked anxiously around the bedroom for any signs of disturbance.
Dad used to play “Trenchers” with me after dinner. He’d place a dozen small objects—thimble, matchbox, trinket, and etcetera—on a wooden tray for me to study. Then, whisking it away for a few moments, he’d return it and demand to know what was different. Sometimes, items were missing. Sometimes, he just rearranged the order.
Tonight, my room was different. One wardrobe door was ajar; my nightstand drawer wasn’t closed properly. My laptop lay open, too.
Annabel had been snooping.
“I’m afraid I was a bad girl,” she said, getting to her feet and went straight to my wardrobe. “I had a look through and honestly, you’ve got no clothes at all.”
“I’m not great at shopping.” I said heaving a sigh of relief.
“We’ll go soon, I promise. But right now”—she checked her watch. “We need to leave in ten minutes. No time to shower.”
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