She called Nick several times, just to hear a normal voice and talk about normal things. It didn’t matter that he knew she’d found Lennie Fry, since it was no concern of his, anyway, but she played it down, realizing she had played a very bad hand in asking Lennie so little about Steven Leng.
Somehow she hadn’t felt able to, with the thought of Big Brother Lord listening or watching. But she knew she hadn’t done her job properly, and that annoyed her. If the snow hadn’t been so thick now, drifting and piling up against doors and virtually covering her car, she would have accosted Lennie in the street, and forced him to answer some questions, but the weather had put paid to that. She doubted that even the saintly Followers would be busking in these temperatures.
‘I’d come down and keep you company if I could, babe,’ Nick told her. ‘I could just fancy a few days — and nights — holed up in a little hotel together. But I couldn’t get away at the moment, though the weather’s not as bad in London or anywhere else as it sounds down there. But you know I’ll be with you in spirit, babe, even though I’d much rather be with you in body.’
‘Yeah, I know all about that,’ Alex said with a grin. ‘Goodnight, Nick.’
She called him every night, knowing she was using his friendship unfairly to stop her being lonely, when he wanted far more than friendship. So did she — often — but on her terms.
*
‘Thaw’s coming,’ the old boy called Mr Horsey informed her knowledgeably on the sixth night. ‘My rheumatics are a sure sign of a change in the weather. You mark my words, me dear, tomorrow morning they’ll be sending out for plumbers to mend burst pipes and sending out for sandbags to stop the sewers overflowing and sending rivers of muck through the streets —’
‘Stop that talk now, Mr Horsey,’ Mrs Dunstable told him. ‘You’ll be worrying Miss Best. It won’t be anything like that.’
‘Well, if it means I can get back to Bristol, I shall be thankful,’ Alex said.
‘Will you, dear? Oh well, I suppose you will. There’s no place like home, of course, but it’s nice having you here. You brighten up the place, and I know we all think the same,’ Mrs Dunstable told her.
Maybe they did, but Alex felt the need to get back to her office and start putting everything together she had done so far. After six days of suffocating small talk and assessing what information she had gleaned for Jane Leng, she was at the point of telling her she wasn’t sure she could logically do anything else.
Ten years ago the police had been satisfied that there was no crime to answer. Steven Leng had been the victim of accidental death, and the ferocity of the fire at the old hut in the woods and the desperation with which the firemen had fought to put it out and prevent it from spreading, had almost certainly dispersed any possible evidence of a body. Except for the horrific discovery of the disembodied hand that the unfortunate Bob Leng had found some weeks later.
Gran Patterson had even made the gruesome comment that maybe the reputed beast of Exmoor had mutilated and eaten any remains that there were — even though the woods were nowhere near Exmoor, and that was merely the boys’ camping destination. Gran was a glutton for embellishing the dramatics, thought Alex with a shudder, and the bloodier the better.
But despite her longing to finish with the whole affair now, there was still one more of Steven’s friends she hadn’t interviewed yet. She still had to go to Bath to see Keith Martin, and in all conscience she couldn’t leave it half-done before she gave Jane her final report. But once that was done, perhaps it really was time to call it a day.
The thaw came just as Mr Horsey had predicted from the ache in his bones, sheeting with rain, and sending rivers of slush through the streets.
‘You’re never driving back in this, are you, dear?’ Mrs Dunstable asked her. ‘At least wait until the streets have sorted themselves out,’ she added, as if they chattered among themselves and had physical properties.
‘I really must,’ she said, but then came the news of an horrific accident on the M5 that stopped the traffic in both directions with a colossal tailback, and made her decide otherwise.
*
‘It’s bloody fate,’ she fumed to Nick, when she answered his call on her mobile that evening. ‘First it was the blizzard and then the thaw, and now this terrible accident. They still haven’t opened the motorway, and heaven knows how many people have been killed and injured. I know I’ve got to be thankful I wasn’t on it at the time, but I’ve had it up to here with the old darlings at Dun Roamin’, and I just want to get back home now —’
‘Alex, will you shut up for a minute?’ he broke in almost savagely. ‘I’m not calling you just to get a bloody accident report.’
She was suddenly aware of the tension in his voice, and it wasn’t like him to be so dismissive of an RTA. She could usually tell when something was wrong, but she hadn’t picked it up until now.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Brace yourself, kid,’ he said brutally. ‘We got the news late this afternoon. Jane Leng’s been shot.’
She couldn’t take in his words for a moment, and she sat down heavily on her bed, every nerve-end prickling.
‘What? How? Where? Is she badly hurt?’
‘In her cottage. The police doctor says it must have happened last night, and she probably disturbed the intruder after he had ransacked the place. Unfortunately nobody identified the noise as a shot at the time, and neighbours thought it was a car backfiring. Her brother-in-law discovered the body’
‘The body? Are you telling me she’s dead?’ Alex said, her skin beginning to crawl.
‘I’m afraid so.’
Chapter 15
‘It can’t be true,’ she stuttered, her head whirling with the news.
‘Believe it, Alex. And sit down, for God’s sake.’
‘I am sitting down,’ she snapped. ‘Is that supposed to make it easier to take in? If so, the bloody shrinks have got it all wrong, and you can tell them that from me.’ She was starting to babble now, and she clamped her lips together to stop them shaking. But this was definitely not on the agenda, she thought wildly.
‘Stop talking, Alex. Do as I tell you and take some long, deep breaths,’ Nick ordered. ‘And then drink a glass of water, unless you’ve got some of your favourite vodka handy.’
‘Funny you should say that — all right, I’ll stop talking,’ she said quickly, hearing him give an impatient sigh. She made him wait while she did exactly as she was told. Took some long, deep breaths, and then drank a glass of water.
‘Right, I’ve done all that,’ she said to Nick. ‘And Jane Leng’s still dead. Right again?’
‘That’s right, darling,’ he said more gently.
She gave a great swallow, still finding it hard to take in. ‘Do they know who did it?’ Oh God, not one of Steven’s friends?
But if it was, then maybe that proved something after all — that Jane was on to something, via Alex Best, PI, and that they wanted to silence her and her stupid letter-writing ... and maybe Alex would be next. Before that thought could take hold, she heard Nick’s voice again.
‘Oh yes. they’ve got him all right. It was a bogus window cleaner.’
‘Oh.’
‘What do you mean, oh?’
‘I mean she had a window cleaner there when I went to her cottage. He must have been looking the place over’ — she just managed to resist saying casing the joint like some pseudo-American TV cop — ‘if it was the same one, that is.’
‘Apparently, the regular one in the village is somewhere in Ibiza on his annual holiday. The suspect reckoned he was a temp, but they found the gun with his fingerprints all over it, and some of Jane Leng’s property in his possession. There’s no doubt at all who it was, but since you saw him at the cottage you may still be called to identify him, Alex.’
She realized he had swung straight into copper mode now, and she stared resentfully at a peeling patch of wallpaper on her bedroom wall, as if she personally had it in for the
flaw in Mrs Dunstable’s immaculate B&B.
‘Why should I, if the police have already got him?’
‘Just for confirmation. You know that. I’ll have to get on to DI Gregory about it. You know that too. He’s got your number, hasn’t he?’
‘Oh yes, he’s got my number all right,’ she said bitterly, wondering how the hell she had let herself in for this.
‘Don’t let all this upset you, sweetheart. As soon as I can get some time off, I’ll get down to Bristol. I’ll certainly try to join you for the funeral, anyway.’
‘You think I’ll be going to it?’
‘Well, won’t you?’
Of course she would. He knew it and she knew it. If anything was guaranteed to bring Steven Leng out of the woodwork it would surely be the news of his devoted mother’s death. But of course, in reality, it wouldn’t do any such thing. Alex knew that too.
When they finished the call, Alex helped herself to the miniature vodka the landlady had left with her. What the hell? She needed it. And although she would even have preferred the oldies downstairs for company right now, she stayed where she was, awaiting the inevitable call from DI Frank Gregory once Nick had informed him that Alex Best could identify the bogus window cleaner. Just her bloody luck.
‘You’ve heard the news, I take it, Miss Best?’
‘Yes thank you,’ she said, as graciously as if it was some spectacular event.
‘So when can you get back here? I gather you’re in a water-logged Exeter right now, but the motorway should be open tomorrow, and if not, there are other roads.’ And he was taking no prisoners, she thought sarcastically.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ she said in a clipped voice.
Bastard, she thought as she switched off her mobile. She had hardly been fond of Jane Leng, but he must know that she’d be shaken by what had happened to her. He was as unfeeling as they all were, despite his fatherly appearance.
When she could start to think more clearly, she reasoned that Jane’s death almost certainly had nothing to do with her obsessive belief in her son’s survival. It was an isolated incident made possible because Jane herself had sent all those wild letters to the press, and then practically broadcast her subsequent pleasure in coming into Bob’s money.
A fat lot of good it had done her, Alex thought, suddenly guilty that it was the first stab of compassion she had felt since hearing the news.
She was becoming harder and more cynical than ever — but if she didn’t keep those feelings intact, she knew she would just crumple up and die right now. Like people in the medical profession, you couldn’t afford to get personally involved with your clients, even the likeable ones. Jane had hardly been that, and Alex wasn’t hypocritical enough to pretend that she was, just because she had been shot dead. But even so, she had known the woman, and now the woman was dead.
She ran down to reception, ignoring the slow-moving lift, and told Mrs Dunstable that whatever the weather, she had to get back to Bristol tomorrow — even if she had to walk.
‘Are you sure, dear? It’s such a gloomy start to February, and I’m sure a few days more wouldn’t do you any harm. You look very flushed now, if I may say so.’
It’s the vodka, Alex told her silently. She was tempted to say her imminent return home was for a funeral, but that would invite questions and sympathy she didn’t want. Aloud she said: ‘I’m perfectly well. Actually, I’ve heard from my young man, and I really do have to get back to see him.’
‘Oh well, that’s understandable then,’ Mrs Dunstable said, beaming, and went back to her sitting-room and the romantic tear-jerker she was watching on TV, well satisfied.
*
The local TV news didn’t cover the same area as Bristol here, so there was no report of Jane Leng’s death. It was just another statistic on a police murder file, which was a terrible way to look at it, but sadly true in these violent days. There was no solemn-voiced comment that it was an unrelated incident to the woman’s obsession about her son; no identification of the killer; no face flashed on the screen for Alex to remember as that of the bogus window cleaner, who had looked like any other window cleaner as far as she could remember. Just an ordinary bloke doing an ordinary job.
She shivered, thinking that perhaps if she hadn’t been there that day, Jane would have been killed all the sooner. It may have been her presence that had deterred him from his intention that same day. Instead of that, he had gone back. It was a sobering thought. He may not have had killing in mind, of course. He might have just had the gun as a frightener, only it had all gone wrong. Maybe Jane had braved it out. Maybe she had taunted him, threatened to call the police, pretended a caller due at any minute. Whatever the circumstances, it hadn’t changed the outcome.
She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind while getting her things ready for an early start tomorrow morning. She couldn’t wait to get out of here now. She needed the familiarity of her own things around her. She needed her own space. She needed Nick.
‘Don’t be a wimp,’ she told her reflection in the dressing-table mirror as she emptied the drawers of her stuff and flung it in her tote bag. ‘You started this thing against his advice, and now you’ve got to see it through.’
She paused because, of course, she didn’t. Her involvement with Jane Leng was now at an end, apart from attending her funeral and identifying her killer, and seeing the sister and brother-in-law, who would presumably be distraught. She prayed the sister wasn’t as mad as Jane, and wanted her to carry on as some kind of memorial to her. God, what a thought.
Her next thought was to consider whether to call round to the Old Mission building and inform Lennie or Drew or whatever he called himself about Jane’s death, and see what reaction she got. She quickly decided against it. She might get in touch with Roger Fry though, and ask him to let her know if any other communication came through to him because of this latest development. If it did, if Lennie sent more money for more flowers, then she’d know that somebody else was well aware of where he was, and was keeping him informed.
In the end, she couldn’t resist doing it, assuming that Roger Fry would have heard the news about Jane. It would assuredly be in the local evening paper.
The housekeeper answered her call.
‘I’m sorry, but Mr Fry has gone away for the winter. He left for the Bahamas yesterday. If you want to leave a message I will see that he receives it in due course.’
‘No. No message,’ Alex said, and switched off.
So much for his need to know about his son. She doubted that his plans had been made instantaneously, which meant that whatever she had found out, the parent Fry would have gone off for his winter sunshine, and wouldn’t have waited for news if she hadn’t responded so promptly. She had been repelled by Lennie, but she realized she hated his father with a passion.
*
Next morning she was on the road early, having said her goodbyes to the regulars and promising to call on them if she was ever this way again. The motorway had been cleared by now, but traffic was moving more carefully than usual, with memories still fresh with all that had happened here, and the fact that a blinding drizzle of rain was impairing visibility.
By the time Alex got back to Bristol she felt as if she had been wrung out through her Aunt Harriet’s wringer. She stumbled over the small pile of letters inside the door and ignored the flashing answer machine until she had made a good strong cup of black tea, since she hadn’t milked the cow, she thought facetiously, and laced it with sugar for once.
Nerves were funny things, she reflected. You could go for weeks or months blithely thinking you didn’t have any, and then one single thing, or a sequence of things, could set them prickling through your body like needle-points.
She jumped again when her phone rang. She picked it up quickly, and heard the annoying sound of her voice message as the answer machine kicked in before she switched it off.
‘Sorry about that —’
‘Just a reminder, Miss Best,
’ came DI Gregory’s voice. ‘Shall we say about three o’clock this afternoon?’
‘You don’t mind if I get in the door, do you?’ she snapped back, biting her lip and knowing she was sounding petty and shrewish. And sure as eggs made omelettes he’d be putting it down as PMT.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be there,’ she said coldly, and put down the phone before he could say anything more.
It wasn’t something she relished, even though she knew it had to be a formality. Identifying someone, even a villain, always felt like a betrayal. But the guy had shot Jane Leng and had to pay for it.
In any case, when she saw the man later that day, there was no doubt that it was the bogus window cleaner she had seen at Jane’s cottage. And once she had affirmed it, the police let her go.
When she thankfully returned home and turned the central heating up high to ward off the frozen feeling, she discovered a letter from Jane’s sister, Grace, among the pile of mail she hadn’t read.
‘I know Jane would appreciate you being at the funeral, Miss Best. She always spoke so highly of you, and me and hubby know you did your best for my sister. We never thought Steven was still alive, but we couldn’t ever say so, for fear of sending her right over the edge. It was all she had to hold on to, especially with Bob the way he was. He was always a trial to her. Me and Jane were never close, mind, and those newspaper letters of hers were an awful embarrassment. Anyway, this is just to say that we don’t expect you to carry on looking for clues now she’s no longer with us. It’s far better that it’s all laid to rest now.’
And so say all of us, thought Alex. Except that there was still Keith Martin to interview, and she had promised Jane to check out the list of boys. Just that, and no more, she vowed. But since he’d have no idea that she was on his trail he was hardly going to go away, and it could wait until after Jane’s funeral, which she noted from the rest of Grace’s letter, was to take place at the end of the week. And reading between the lines, she got the feeling that Grace wouldn’t be too sorry that the troublesome relatives were no longer around.
Deadly Suspicions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 3) Page 20