Folly

by Stella Cameron

  Alex went in, immediately relieved to feel both warm, since she’d hurried over without a coat, and closed away from the world outside. When the Burkes said afternoon tea, that’s what they meant, and nothing was served before three. Until then, this would be a peaceful place. At the Black Dog, continual chatter about the murder had been too much strain to bear. That and following O’Reilly’s instructions not to spread around what had happened last night.

  ‘Someone may be watching you,’ he’d said. ‘They want to frighten you and we need to know where you fit in. If you don’t say anything he may get rattled and do something to give himself away.’

  Alex swallowed several times. Do something …

  ‘Take your time.’ Harriet’s voice floated down the stairs this time. ‘We took in a few Enid Blytons yesterday. You might like to look at them.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Alex said.

  ‘And there’s a sweet old copy of Heidi.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely.’

  She collected children’s books. On her library shelves were some beautiful, classical books, but she also gathered in childhood favorites recommended by older or even current generations, even if the condition was far less than fine. She loved the charming illustrations, especially the line drawings in so many of them.

  As expected, a pile of books was stacked against the wall at one end of a dark wooden counter. Alex skirted the tea room tables, no two alike, sniffing appreciatively at the warm smells of fresh cakes and pastries in large white boxes from George’s Bakery. Leaves of Comfort used the village bakery shop rather than have their goodies made on the premises. Not needing a large kitchen made space for at least two or three more tables in the tiny establishment.

  She saw how torn the top book’s cover was. Torn and taped together. But she also saw it was an original cover on a copy of The Circus of Adventure and swept it up. This was the only one missing from the books she already had in that series.

  Johanna Spyri’s Heidi had a slightly faded blue leather binding and Alex shivered a little with anticipation.

  She would examine the stack more closely later.

  Books crowded every available space in the shop, including a shelf that ran around both of the downstairs rooms just above eye level. Here and there hand-made tea cozies and teapots were on display and for sale like the jars of homemade jams and chutneys, tins of biscuits, packages of loose tea and bottles of sweets; all of these worked well as bookends. A pelmet of heavy, homemade lace hung in points from a rod along the edges of the shelves and lavender vied sweetly with the scents of delectable food.

  Each table was covered with a white lace or embroidered cloth and among the china settings of various patterns were one or two strategically placed books. Village women, in both Folly and Underhill, made the cloths and similar ones were for sale.

  Harriet and Mary couldn’t have chosen a better outlet for their so-called retired energies.

  ‘Doc James says Mary’s under the weather,’ Alex said loudly as she started up the stairs. ‘Thought I’d better get over here to offer comfort and solace.’ And snatch the first chance of the morning to get away from Major Stroud’s prodding for ghoulish information on the murder victim.

  Being exhausted and scared had nothing to do with anything, she told herself, trying to lift her spirits with sarcasm aimed at herself.

  ‘There you are,’ Harriet said when she saw Alex. ‘Where’s that Bogie? We heard you’ve taken him in.’

  There were no secrets about inconsequential details in Folly-on-Weir and the local mouth-to-mouth was fast and efficient.

  ‘I left him with Cathy. She already loves him.’

  ‘How is Cathy?’ Harriet said. ‘Someone said she was very upset yesterday.’

  ‘Still not good.’ Alex suppressed a smile.

  The kettle whistled in the kitchen and Harriet got up from a hugely overstuffed chintz chair. With the window behind her, open to frigid air, light turned her almost white hair into a silvery aura. ‘We already have our delivery of pastries. I brought up some pieces of Battenberg cake, just in case you came by.’ She rolled her eyes as she passed Mary, indicating, Alex assumed, that she was irritated with her sister. They spent a considerable amount of time being tetchy with one another.

  ‘Sounds heavenly,’ Alex said. ‘I didn’t finish going through the books because I wanted to come up, but I’ll take the Blyton that was on top and the scrumptious Heidi for sure.’ And probably the rest. She usually did.

  Mary, wrapped in a shawl apparently crocheted from odds and ends of mismatched wool, didn’t turn around, so Alex went to the other side of the woman’s spindled rocking chair and looked quizzically at her.

  Once the kitchen door closed behind Harriet, the elder of the sisters said, ‘You know cats don’t agree with me.’ Mary’s hair was pure white, thick, and pulled up into a bun at the back of her head. She favored various decorative combs and wore a tortoiseshell one inlaid with ivory today. It stuck up in the manner of a Spanish dancer’s, minus the mantilla, which might disconcert some.

  ‘Well,’ Mary said, ‘you do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Um – no,’ she answered succinctly.

  ‘Of course you do. I’ve told you before.’

  The kitchen door opened a few inches and Harriet called through: ‘Are you hearing about Mary’s newly acquired allergy to cats? Don’t believe a word of it.’

  Alex narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. ‘Honestly, Mary, I don’t recall anything about a cat allergy, but so what? Stay away from them.’ There wasn’t a person in the village who would forget how upset Mary had been over the loss of a beloved old cat but Alex wasn’t going there.

  Mary shook her head and pointed.

  A skinny, scraggly tabby sat tucked into a corner by the fireplace, watching them with disconcerting suspicion. An electric fire burned in the grate and the animal clearly sought out the warmth.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Alex said. ‘It doesn’t look very well. It’s so thin.’

  ‘Then it should go to someone who’ll get pleasure from fattening it up. Could you take it to that nice Tony Harrison for us?’

  ‘Oliver isn’t going anywhere,’ Harriet said, marching across the room with a laden tray in her hands. She put it on a drop-leaf table polished to a glassy shine. ‘He’s doing beautifully. He particularly likes whitebait. I got some at the fishmonger’s and popped it under the grill – made it all crispy, curly, and he ate every bite.’

  ‘Fish isn’t good for cats,’ Mary said, her eyes closed. Her softly lined, deceptively sweet-old-lady face had a touch of rouge and powder, and she looked the perfect grandmotherly type. What a laugh.

  ‘Of course it’s good for them,’ Harriet said.

  ‘No, it isn’t. They get eczema from it and their fur falls out.’

  Alex’s glance settled on the pink and yellow squares in some tender-looking slices of Battenberg cake, a sponge checkerboard held together with raspberry jam and all wrapped in a thin skin of marzipan. It was her favorite and she realized she was hungry. ‘This looks good,’ she said. ‘I’ll pour the tea.’

  ‘You don’t look good,’ Harriet said, deliberately not giving Mary any attention. ‘This nasty death is too much for you. It would be too much for anyone. What’s going on about that? Is that policeman still being hard on you?’

  Alex had a reason for coming, other than seeking out a haven, but before she launched into her own questions she supposed she’d have to give the Burkes some of the information she’d rather they got from her than the village gossips who were bound to find out eventually.

  ‘She’s forgotten I had Rupert for eighteen years,’ Mary said, still eyeing the tabby. ‘I’m an expert.’ Rupert had been Mary’s cat.

  ‘And you haven’t got over not having him any more,’ Harriet said sharply. ‘Five years and you’re still grieving. Well, Oliver showed up in our garden and now you’re going to live with him. Like it or lump it. He’s mine. I found him shivering in the snow. And
you weren’t allergic to Rupert so stop being so selfish. Getting Doc James over here like that with some silly tale about cat allergies. Shame on you.’

  ‘The doctor said I had a cold,’ Mary pointed out, managing a couple of dry sniffs.

  Alex cleared her throat and sat in a red velvet slipper chair in need of reupholstering. ‘The police were at Lime Tree Lodge half the night,’ she said. ‘But you mustn’t tell a soul until I give you the word. You’d get me into trouble with the police if you did.’

  She had the full attention of two bright-eyed women instantly. Mary enjoyed a good gossip but she was devoted to Alex, who knew she could trust her.

  ‘Somebody’s playing games. Trying to frighten me. It worked. I spent what was left of the night in my room at the pub.’

  Harriet gave her a skeptical look. ‘What happened?’

  Another thought grabbed Alex’s attention. ‘Mary, you won’t be able to play in the darts match tonight. I’d better make a quick call and have a replacement found.’

  ‘I will be playing,’ Mary said imperiously. ‘It will do me good to get away from the source of my misery.’

  As if called, Oliver got up, stretched his long, thin body, and strolled to rub himself back and forth on Mary’s legs. She put a handkerchief over her nose and mouth and shook her head.

  Exceedingly short-sighted, for dart matches she donned heavy glasses with lenses the thickness of the bottoms of Coke bottles but tended to wipe out all competition. Since she was arthritic and walked with a cane, she had given in a couple of years earlier and agreed to stand within the safety shield of a walker for matches. She couldn’t play with a cane in one hand, but with the promise of grabbing the walker in an emergency, she was fine – more than fine. Mary was an ace darts player.

  Alex noted that the woman didn’t try to stop the rangy tabby from leaning on her and rubbing his face against her shins.

  ‘What happened last night?’ Harriet’s thin patience was well known. ‘If we’ve finished pandering to Mary’s eccentricities.’

  Pouring more tea, Alex said, ‘It sounds silly when you put it into words. Someone fooled with the motion sensor lights. Whoever it was turned them on and off till I thought I was going mad. Must have been moving in and out of their range, which wouldn’t be easy unless you figured it out first.’

  ‘Horrible,’ Harriet said, aghast. ‘That’s mean, if not evil.’

  ‘And they let the air out of one of my tires,’ Alex said, leaving out the bit about a dart.

  ‘You shouldn’t be up there on your own at all until this mad person is caught,’ Mary said at once. She hadn’t touched her tea and it must be cold. ‘If I were your mother, I wouldn’t allow it.’

  ‘Alex has been married and divorced,’ Harriet said, exasperated. ‘She owns a pub and she won’t see thirty again. She makes her own decisions. What are you talking about, Mary?’

  ‘If you get tired of staying at the pub, and if your mother doesn’t want you, we do. We can make room here.’

  ‘Stop, stop.’ Alex laughed and scooped up another piece of cake. ‘I’m fine where I am and I can get what I want from the lodge in the daytime. No way will I let a bully completely get the better of me.’

  Mary gave her an arch, nursing sister look, ‘Not even a murderous bully?’

  A lull in the conversation didn’t last. Harriet said, ‘We all know something’s wrong with Cathy Cummings. What is it? Is she looking for attention? Why would she get hysterical about a stranger’s death?’

  ‘The past,’ Mary said under her breath.

  Alex waited for more and when it wasn’t forthcoming, said, ‘What about the past?’

  ‘I think everyone’s just about forgotten what that woman went through. People hardly knew her then. But you don’t get over things like that.’

  Harriet frowned and then looked chagrined. ‘The son,’ she said. ‘You’re right. It’s so long ago I tend to forget the Cummings lost a child.’

  It didn’t seem the right moment to probe, so Alex waited.

  ‘He drowned,’ Mary said. ‘In the Windrush down that back way in Bourton-on-the-Water. I think he was about four.’

  Alex set down her cup and saucer with a clatter. She got up and went to the windows. Moss-covered gravestones in the churchyard, mostly very old and leaning this way and that, accentuated the silence everywhere. In early spring there would be snowdrops, bluebells, then daffodils beneath ancient trees to soften the scene. But in winter it was stark, like that place in her heart that waited to ache at inconvenient times.

  Black mould stained the church walls but some of the original stained-glass windows remained to brighten the chilly building.

  ‘Alex?’ Harriet said quietly after a while. ‘What is it? I’ve seen you go off into yourself like this before. You never did it before you went away.’

  Alex put on a smile and turned around. ‘I feel bad for the Cummings,’ she said. ‘What a horrible thing. I don’t remember anyone drowning in the Windrush. It’s so shallow.’

  ‘The boy hit his head,’ Harriet said. ‘That’s what they said at the time. Slipped and nobody saw him until it was too late.’

  ‘Poor Cathy and Will.’

  ‘Cathy hasn’t had it easy,’ Mary said, ‘what with—’

  ‘No point in gossiping about old things,’ Harriet interrupted.

  Mary set her creased mouth. ‘I think Will still has his moments. Likes the horses too much. That’s how they ended up selling the Black Dog, or so it’s said. And it makes sense.’

  The gambling problem was something Alex already knew about but Will seemed to have himself under control these days. ‘Let’s hope he’s put all that behind him,’ she said. ‘Doc James said something about Cathy overreacting to someone else’s tragedy. I can imagine how all the recent police activity and the horror of what happened in the woods up there could upset her badly.’

  Harriet gathered the three cups and went to the kitchen to empty the cold dregs. She returned and poured boiling water to top up the pot.

  Someone rapped on the front door.

  Harriet beat Alex to the window, leaned out and said, ‘Must be our day for visitors. In you come.’

  She poured tea, making no attempt to say whose feet they heard on the stairs. When Tony Harrison came into view she scurried off, muttering about getting another cup.

  ‘Hello, Tony,’ Alex said.

  He didn’t smile, but spread his feet and put his hands behind his back in a stance that was becoming familiar. Then he saw Oliver. ‘New family member?’ he said, and his features softened a little. ‘Looks like he needs some meat on his bones.’

  ‘I’m making sure he gets it,’ Harriet said, returning with a cup and saucer. She buttoned the cardigan to her beige twinset but Alex thought it was more to have something to do with her hands than because she was cold.

  ‘I’ll take a look at him,’ Tony said and gently lifted the cat from his warm spot. Kneeling, he put Oliver on the soft if worn silk rug in front of the fire. ‘Welcome, fellow,’ he said, palpating his body while the cat looked up at him, unblinking, and made no attempt to escape the intrusion.

  ‘I came looking for you, Alex,’ he said, continuing to examine the animal. ‘I heard about last night.’

  Wishing she could warn him off talking in front of the Burkes, Alex didn’t answer. They already knew too much. Who had told him, anyway?

  ‘If I’d had any idea, I wouldn’t have left you. It’s not safe up there on your own.’

  ‘Bogie came up trumps. He alerted me.’ Being cared about might be nice, but all this interference grew tiresome.

  ‘Did he catch and kill the murderer?’

  Alex groaned. Both sisters had sucked in noisy breaths and slapped hands over their mouths.

  With Oliver happily purring on his shoulder, Tony got up. ‘This boy is in great shape, or he will be once he’s had some TLC and his shots. He’ll also have to be neutered.’

  Harriet and Mary weren’t listening.
They looked at Alex with wide eyes.

  ‘It was a silly prank last night, that’s all,’ Alex said. She pulled down the hem of the baggy gray T-shirt she wore over a thin sweater and realized she was doing exactly what she did as a girl when she was uncomfortable. She stopped tapping her feet on the floor and let go of the shirt. ‘That’s all it was. But I did come down and stay at the Black Dog for the rest of the night.’

  ‘I think it’s time everyone in this village was warned to take security precautions.’ Tony repeatedly ran his hands over the cat. ‘I’d like you to come with me to talk to O’Reilly, or his boss if that’s what it takes. We need more patrol cars, particularly at night. There are too many people around here who aren’t capable of defending themselves.’

  ‘Tony—’

  He cut her off. ‘Just listen. I was up at Derwinters earlier, looking at a filly. It was Leonard who told me what went on last night.

  ‘While I was there, Heather wandered in on foot, without her helmet, covered in mud – and blood. All scratched up and she was probably lucky it wasn’t a lot worse. She’d been riding and her horse got spooked and threw her when she was about to jump a hedge.’

  Now Alex really wished he’d waited until the two old ladies weren’t around to hear. They were both pale but, oddly, appeared more quizzical than frightened. They wanted to hear the rest of the story.

  ‘She must have been thrown,’ Alex said quietly. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Her horse came in fifteen or so minutes later. He’d been riding hard and was screaming and bucking. Good job I was there. Also a good job the dart had landed in a fleshy part of his rump.’

  NINE

  Heather Derwinter beat Tony in stirring up the police and local attention. He and Alex had just got into his car when she got a call from O’Reilly with the news that, at Heather’s insistence and with the backing of the mayor, there was about to be a police briefing in Folly-on-Weir.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ Alex said after repeating O’Reilly’s message. She pushed the phone back into her pocket. ‘Do you?’

  He had expected something like this. ‘Yes, I do. We need to know what’s being done and said publically.’