‘Then he could easily have done it,’ Alex said through her teeth. ‘Do you think I enjoyed what happened up there? I’m absolutely frosted with all this intrigue. You could grow up and start treating us as if we’ve got at least one brain between us. Then who knows how far we might get. It wouldn’t be the first time joint effort paid off.’
Tony watched her with admiring eyes but knew she’d regret the last comment.
Bill Lamb got up and went over to the desk officer. What he said couldn’t be heard, but the man swiftly moved to a computer and phones at a desk farther away from Dan.
‘While I’m thinking about it, I should have mentioned seeing a man walk beside the rectory the morning Laura died. I don’t know who it was, probably just someone using those lanes that go past there, but I keep forgetting to mention that.’
Dan’s lips parted. He looked incredulous. ‘Are you kidding …? Scratch that, you’re not. You took your time deciding to mention this.’
Alex swallowed audibly. ‘I wasn’t sure it was significant.’
‘I …’ Dan raised his palms. ‘I can understand you wanting to be careful about it, but it isn’t your place to decide you should withhold evidence. And, no, we don’t yet know who that was, but we will.’
‘Why does it always get ugly with us?’ Alex said. ‘It’s never been my choice to be embroiled in these cases.’
‘Nor mine,’ Tony said. ‘Let’s get to what you wanted to talk to us about. Alex is pretty shaken up and we need to get back to the dog.’
Dan slid open a bottom drawer. He withdrew a flask and an assortment of mismatched glasses – three of them and a plastic tumbler.
‘Brandy,’ he said without preamble, poured some in a glass and stood to pass it over to Alex. ‘It’ll do you good and I know you like it.’
He dispensed some to the three other receptacles and handed them around. ‘Not a peace offering. No need for that. It’s late and this is a can of worms we’ve landed in here.’
Tony swallowed from his glass. Not bad and it felt good going down. ‘Thanks.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ Dan said, ‘I agree that whoever tapped you up there, Alex, was trying to scare you off. What I don’t know is why and I think we’d better be finding out fast before whoever did that gets more aggressive. No more riding bicycles in the dark until you get the all-clear. You understand?’
She sipped brandy. ‘Understood. I didn’t like it, either.’
‘Where’s the file we brought back?’ Dan asked Bill.
Bill hopped up again, went to a desk behind Dan’s and returned with a heavy brown folder. ‘Guv,’ he said, giving it up.
‘I need to know if either of you knew any of the Quillams or their entourage before they came to Folly,’ Dan said.
Shaking their heads, no, Tony and Alex’s eyes met. They were both waiting for the next snippet they might get on the case.
‘Damn, this place is stuffy,’ Bill said. He got up and went around opening windows a fraction. ‘It could use a good clean, too,’ he called from the far side of the room.
No one responded.
‘Do you check the gallery up there?’ Tony asked. ‘I forget it’s sometimes but it wouldn’t be hard for someone to get up there without being seen.’
‘It’s checked,’ Dan said. ‘Bill, take a quick look in the gallery, just to make sure it’s empty.’
Tony thought he heard Lamb mutter, ‘Tosser,’ as he passed by.
‘We have a list of suspects,’ Dan said, shocking both Alex and Tony upright. ‘We’re still working on motives. Plenty of possibilities but nothing feels quite right. The thing is, you just might be able to help. These people are more likely to get careless and say something to you, than one of us.’
Bill returned and sat down again. He was obviously fit. Running up and down stairs didn’t as much as make him breathe harder. ‘Before we get any deeper in,’ he said. ‘Do—’
‘Okay, Bill.’ Dan cut him off. ‘Sort through that folder for the post-mortem report.’ He turned back to Tony and Alex. ‘Is there anything at all that you can think of? Come on, is there anything? Something you’ve been batting around. An idea? Something you’ve heard? These people around here are sharp-eyed and they don’t have much to do but watch other people.’
One of the windows rattled ferociously and Alex half closed her eyes. She gave her head a quick shake. But then she concentrated all her attention on Tony as if she was peering into his mind for an answer to what she – or he – ought to say.
He’d take over this one. It had to be worded with care and he could tell Alex wasn’t keen on saying much about it at all. ‘I think Sonia Quillam and Hugh Rhys may have known each other in the past. Could be they were quite close. But that’s conjecture.’
He had the two men’s full attention.
‘What makes you think that?’ Dan asked.
‘Just a very short conversation I heard outside the pub when they thought they were alone.’
‘I heard it, too,’ Alex said. ‘I’d come around from the inn but Tony was on the path beside the pub. It was dark and it was raining. Neither of us stayed very long.’
‘That’s a damn shame,’ Bill said. ‘It’s a good thing to know when honorable intentions are misplaced. If you’d stayed it could have been really useful.’
‘What did they say?’ Dan asked. He didn’t so much as look at Bill. ‘Anything you heard could be meaningful.’
Tony drank more brandy and put the glass on the desk. He propped his elbows on his knees and supported his head in both hands. ‘I don’t like this. It was obviously very private. You know Green Friday is Hugh’s.’ He didn’t look up. ‘Everyone in the village does. Could be Sonia used renting Green Friday as a way to get close to Hugh again. He doesn’t seem interested, or didn’t from the conversation they had. They were actually in the car park.’
Alex shifted in her seat. He felt her agitation.
‘What did you hear?’ Bill said.
‘The same thing. It was embarrassing. Perhaps Sonia had had too much to drink. She seems a reserved woman normally.’
‘We’ll have to follow that up,’ Dan said and Alex winced. ‘I doubt anyone will know we’ve been asking questions and if they do, they’ll have no way of connecting this to you.’
‘It’s horrible,’ Alex said.
Tony nodded agreement. ‘I doubt if it’s got any direct bearing on the reason you’re here in Folly.’
‘We’ll decide that,’ Bill said and Tony didn’t bother to indicate he had heard him.
‘Laura Quillam didn’t die of natural causes,’ Dan said, flipping pages in the file. ‘The police surgeon believes she was murdered and so do we.’
Turning in her chair, Alex gave Tony a pleading look. He heard her swallow, and swallow again.
‘Then there are a couple of questions I wish you’d answer for us,’ Tony said. ‘Did the blow to her head come from the music stand? And is that what killed her? I don’t see how someone managed to pick up the stand and hit her, then arrange her with her head on the base of the stand.’
‘That wasn’t what killed her,’ Dan said, looking at Bill who easily slipped into one of his absolutely blank faces. ‘She probably hit her head when she fell. From the evidence at the scene we know she was still alive when she went down but I doubt it was long after that she died. She would have passed out and slipped away. Too bad someone didn’t get to her a bit sooner.’
‘What killed her?’ Tears stood in Alex’s eyes but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Who would do it? I haven’t heard anything nasty about her.’
‘We don’t have the final results on some tests yet,’ Dan said, scrabbling for his bag of sherbet lemons and popping one inside his cheek. ‘The only people waiting for those results are Bill and me, forensics, and the killer. The killer doesn’t know quite as much as they think they do about what forensics can dredge up, although if everything had gone as planned, he or she might have got away with it.’
‘Did someone slip something to her?’ Tony said. He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his neck. ‘Enough to make her pass out? Enough to kill her?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ Dan said, staring at each of them by turn. ‘Laura was killed by someone who expected to get clean away with it. That’s what we believe.’
‘And now you two know,’ Bill said quietly. ‘So you’ll be waiting for the results, won’t you?’
Tony looked at him and didn’t hide his dislike. ‘And when the media get hold of it, as they will, and soon, everyone will know about it. You’ll be facing the press and they aren’t too polite to criticize police efforts.’
‘So, if it’s that important to keep the truth quiet until you know whatever bits are missing, you’d better get moving.’ Alex didn’t look anymore pleased than Tony felt.
TWENTY-TWO
Hardly speaking, Alex and Tony walked through the darkness toward the clinic. There was so much to talk about but Alex hadn’t the faintest where to start and Tony was obviously in the same boat.
‘Pretty night,’ he said when minutes had passed. ‘Hard to believe anything so pointless and so evil could happen in a place like this.’
‘Yes,’ Alex responded. ‘Again and again and again. I feel so angry and so helpless. You realize this is another time when the clock was against us? If I’d gone into the church as soon as the music stopped, she’d be alive now.’
‘You don’t know that.’
But he knew how she felt. The sky looked like a bowl filled with tiny glass shards. Out here, without city lights, stars could strut their stuff with abandon.
‘What did they mean when they said she hit her head but being hit on the head didn’t kill her? Was she pushed? Would they be able to find that out?’ She put an arm through his.
‘Beats me.’
They jumped the tiny stream that ran in front of the row of cottages where Tony’s clinic was housed and went around to the back where the garden had been turned into a car park. Tony’s Range Rover was the only vehicle there.
‘I hope I’ve got something decent to drink,’ Tony said. ‘Should have. I’m not here in the evening very often and I don’t keep enough personal supplies most of the time. There’s milk though. And tea. And biscuits. We can get our strength up before we sally forth.’
‘I just want to see Bogie now. My poor little boy goes through so much with me as his mum.’
Tony laughed. ‘At least you sound a bit less frazzled.’ He unlocked the door and shepherded her inside and through to the room that doubled as the office but also held several kennels. ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘They’re both asleep.’
He’d deliberately put a crate for Katie close to the one Bogie was using. Both dogs were breathing regularly. They lay, facing each other through the wire.
Tony backed out and pulled the door almost shut.
‘Waiting room,’ Tony said quietly and led the way into the next little room. ‘Sit. Kick off your shoes.’
When he located a bottle of whisky in a cupboard, he grinned and Alex was reminded of the boy she’d known. He used two teacups from a tray on top of a miniature refrigerator and poured more than she thought he should for each of them. She didn’t complain when she accepted the drink.
‘Do you think your father could find out more details about the post-mortem?’ Alex said and blushed a little. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t nice to suggest.’
‘It was perfectly nice to suggest if he can do it. I’ll call him first thing and ask. I wonder if Dan and Bill have talked to him again yet.’
‘Mmm. They’d be likely to give him more specifics than us, wouldn’t you think?’
‘Possibly.’ Tony set down his cup and hauled his jumper over his head. ‘Don’t need this on in here. It’s too warm. But that’s a good thought you just had. They could have said more to Dad. Or the pathologist might have talked to him about details relating to Laura when we found her.’
Tony’s mobile rang and he felt all of his trouser pockets. ‘Darn it, where have I put it?’
She reached over and lifted his sweater from the chair. ‘There.’ The phone was on the seat.
‘Sheesh.’ He punched it on, looked amazed and shook his head. ‘Just a sec, I need to tell Alex something.’
He listened. ‘At the clinic. Long story but Bogie broke a leg. He’s just fine. Yes, she’s here with me, I just said so.’
Alex watched him wait, saw him frown, ‘Are you still there? Good. It’s my dad, Alex, can you believe the coincidence?’
She shook her head, no, smiling and mentally reconstructing Doc’s reaction to her being with Tony in the early morning. He should have accepted that much by now.
‘That was the divisional surgeon who came to the church. Didn’t get her title until now. Unfortunately we’ve met her before. Seems like a nice woman.’
Tony stared at Alex and raised his brows. He sank slowly into an old, floral-covered armchair. ‘Professional courtesy? I’m glad she remembers the term. So … yes, I’ll shut up.’
With the mobile pressed to his ear with his left hand, he slowly located and picked up his cup of whisky. From time to time he shook his head or winced.
Doc James spoke for at least ten minutes. Alex began to feel she might shed her skin altogether, it felt as if it was shrinking to a tiny size.
‘I appreciate it, Dad,’ Tony said finally. ‘But … hell, I don’t envy the plods trying to sort this out. Of course I’ll keep it quiet. That’s understood. I will tell Alex and she’ll understand, too. Do you have any ideas? Yes, yeah, we’re all going to have to do that, but it does sound like a one-off.’
‘Of course, I hope I’m right.’ He swallowed too much of the whisky and coughed. ‘I’m fine. I hadn’t thought of that one yet but Alex probably has. This is like having a poisonous snake living in your herbaceous border. Thanks. Bye.’
‘I didn’t think I could be stunned by anything anymore, but I’m stunned,’ Tony said. ‘The police surgeon called Dad. She was looking for ideas, I think. That’s what we’re going to be doing.’
‘Will you tell me what he said?’ Alex almost shouted.
‘Laura died of an overdose of digoxin.’
It was her turn to frown. ‘How would that happen? She’d probably been on the stuff for years. She wouldn’t be likely to make a mistake.’
‘You’ve already got a bit of this in one go, or I think you do.’ He pointed at her, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. Taking a big breath, he added, ‘I think whoever did this hoped it would look like suicide.’
Alex got up and paced. She went to the tiny, high window and closed the chintz curtains. ‘Why do they think it’s murder rather than suicide?’
‘Apparently Laura had plans. She was getting away from the family. Moving on. There was a man in the picture. Don’t ask me who. I don’t know and neither did my father. I think that could have been one of the things on the police surgeon’s mind. Strictly speaking, that’s not her business, but we all get involved emotionally from time to time. I think with a young victim like that I can understand not finding it so easy to let go.’
A shiver ran up her spine. ‘How do they know about the man?’
‘Anonymous tip. Someone called and said Laura had every reason to live because she had plans. And she was leaving soon. Also she wasn’t feeling well the morning she died. I suppose that could have had something to do with too much digoxin in her system already. Mrs Meeker mentioned that. For all we know, she could have made the call. The operator didn’t get a name and didn’t remember if it was a male or female voice.’
‘What else did Doc say?’ She was too edgy to stay in one place. She kept seeing Laura on those cold stone flags – so pretty, so dead.
‘He said whoever made that call to the police used what they call a burner phone. Use once and get rid of it. And it sounds as if the person’s got detailed and intimate information about some of the family’s private business.’
‘I know what a burner phone i
s.’ She thought she sounded like a shrew and sucked in the corners of her mouth. ‘Sorry to be snippy. I’m trying to figure this out. Did someone up her dosage of digoxin? Wouldn’t she have noticed something like that? And the anonymous call. I think “why” is more important than “who”.’
Tony offered her his hand and she took it. He pulled her closer. ‘We need a different hobby.’
‘No kidding.’
‘Dad said they’re waiting for some final results but they think she was already taking more of the drug than she needed.’ He held up his free hand. ‘Don’t ask me why. They think the actual overdose that killed her was in liquid form. She drank it.’
‘And didn’t know? I don’t see how.’
‘The liquid is lime flavored, but it still tastes bitter. Mix it with something that masks the bitterness, the person would drink down and that’s how.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Tony, the thermos. That’s it, isn’t it? It was in there and she drank it in the church.’
He didn’t answer and she looked at him.
‘What the devil happened to it, Alex? We all saw it. Now it’s gone. How?’
She walked away from him. ‘I want to go back into the church and search.’
‘You think the police haven’t already taken the place apart? Someone took it away and it had to be after we were taken to the rectory.’
‘Tony, do you have any way of knowing it was still there then?’
He shook his head, no. ‘But it had to be. It’s got to be a mistake forensics made. It can’t have just disappeared. Evidence gets mislabeled or lost. If they can find it, they can test it and they’ll know what was in it. They are so much better at those things than people know.’
Her mind was blank.
Tony shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘It’s hard to get rid of something like that. It doesn’t burn well and if it’s been tossed, it’s likely to be found. And they’ll find any traces left behind. I’d like to look at one. They’ve probably changed. That was an old one but we could try finding one like it on eBay.’
‘You’re full of good ideas.’
Sebastian Carstens might have been the last person either of them expected to hear from, but the doorbell rang and when Tony answered, there stood Sebastian. One hand behind his neck, the other poised as if to push open the door himself, he took a step backward, perilously close to the stream that was barely visible in the darkness.
Melody of Murder Page 16