WADING INTO MURDER: Book Two of the Laura Morland Mystery Series

by Joan Lambert

  Sergeant Prescott frowned skeptically and began to pepper her with rapid-fire questions like who had hidden the child in the Baths and why, and whether the cleaning woman had been the baby’s mother or the woman in the square. When she didn’t get the answers she seemed to want, she asked the questions again from a different perspective, until Laura felt dizzy with denials. Clearly, the policewoman didn’t believe she was just an innocent bystander.

  “I saw an article in the newspaper about an international organization that steals babies, and I wondered if there’s a connection with this baby,” Laura said finally, hoping the comment would divert suspicion from her. “I also wondered if there could be a connection between the baby’s presence in the Bath and the bomb scare.”

  “What makes you think that?” Sergeant Prescott snapped.

  Laura shrugged. “It’s such a coincidence that both should occur on the same day. I thought the bomb scare might have been a way to make sure no one was in the Baths until… Well, I suppose until the baby had been picked up by whoever was supposed to take it away, but then I came along and fouled things up.”

  The Sergeant looked thoughtful, and for a moment she seemed to forget her interrogator role. “That is certainly possible,” she murmured, more to herself than to Laura. “I wonder…”

  Her thought was interrupted by knock on the door. A young constable who looked no more than fifteen came in, expertly cradling a now contented baby. It was sucking greedily at a bottle. When it saw Laura it promptly spat out the nipple and began to scream again.

  “After all I did for you,” Laura joked to the child. The comment fell flat. Neither the constable nor the Sergeant smiled.

  “Made an appointment at the clinic,” the constable informed Sergeant Prescott. “Just in case. Had a hard time, poor little mite.”

  “I thought the baby might have been drugged,” Laura volunteered, and could have bitten off her tongue. The police would probably think she was trying to disclaim any responsibility if drugs were found in the baby’s system.

  To her surprise and the Sergeant’s obvious disapproval, the constable agreed. “I thought that myself,” he told her. “What made you think so?”

  “The baby seemed to fall asleep at odd moments,” Laura answered. “It would start screaming, a normal reaction considering what was happening to it, then fall asleep as if it couldn’t help itself. I also wondered if the drug had affected its stomach. The smell seemed unusually strong.”

  “Yes, that’s what I noticed,” the constable replied. “She was quite a stinker. Still, I think most of it has come through, if you take my meaning.”

  “She? It’s a girl then? I wonder if the other one is too,” Laura mused.

  Sergeant Prescott resumed control of the interview. “I believe we have all the information we need for the moment, Dr. Morland,” she told Laura. “You can leave the matter in our hands now. We may have more questions for you, however, and I need to know how to reach you.”

  Laura provided the necessary information and left with a sigh of relief. They hadn’t taken her fingerprints or kept her passport, so maybe they didn’t really suspect her of stealing the baby. Regardless, she intended to leave the puzzle in their competent hands and get on with her trip.

  She consulted her watch. In a few hours she would meet her fellow travelers on the bus tour she had decided to join after she finished the Cotswold Way. Walking trips left no time for sight-seeing, she had discovered - unless one could walk at the marathon pace of British ramblers, who were reputed to manage three castles before lunch. She could not. Besides, sitting peacefully on a bus while someone else drove and handled the logistics sounded wonderfully peaceful. All she had to do for the next few days was watch scenery and enjoy the sights.

  After that, she would head for Oxford to teach her seminar. Recently, she had compiled a series of lectures on the effects of religious and political turmoil on women’s status across the world today. Since her field was the evolution of gender stretching back more than a million years, this was a more contemporary issue than she’d tackled before and she was anxious to see how the material would be received, particularly its most tragic aspects like slavery and the excesses of fundamentalism like stoning women to death for presumed adultery.

  A more pleasurable interlude would follow – a long weekend with Thomas, her co-adventurer from last summer.

  An old man with rheumy eyes and shabby clothes came up to her as she passed the Baths again on her way back to the B&B. Laura was almost certain she had seen him before, crouched against the stone wall that bordered the Baths.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” he murmured.

  Laura hesitated, torn between an urgent desire to get out of her still soggy clothes and a long-standing inability to be rude to panhandlers. Reluctance to walk away won, and she reached into her pocket for some spare change. Even if it went for a drink, it would make him happy for a bit at least.

  “No,” he said clearly, “not money. It’s about the ba -”

  A middle-aged woman ran up and grabbed his arm before he could finish his sentence. “Come along now, Joe,” she instructed. “No talking to strangers, you know that. Time to go home.”

  The apologetic smile she gave Laura was conspiratorial, as if they shared an understanding of how peculiar old people could become. Laura was irritated. All her sympathies were with the old man. Besides, he clearly knew something about the baby and she wanted to hear what it was.

  “It’s all right,” she told the woman stiffly, and turned to Joe with a smile. “I’ll be glad to hear what you have to say, Joe,” she assured him. The woman looked appalled and hustled him away before he could reply.

  Laura followed at a discreet distance and made a mental note of the house they entered. She would come back and talk to Joe when he was alone.

  This was the same area where the mother had disappeared, she realized. Maybe she could find her again and get her to talk – this time without a policewoman on her heels and a howling baby in her arms.

  A lanky figure turned into the street ahead of her. William?

  Laura hurried after him. Definitely William. She saw him stop in front of one door, then another, and try to open them with the key he’d found in the Baths.

  “William!” she called. He turned and smiled.

  “Hi, Laura,” he said cheerfully. “My grandmother and I heard you say the woman in the square was the mother, so we followed her. I’m pretty sure she went into one of the houses on this street, so I thought I’d try the key I found in a few doors. It’s the wrong kind, though. Too old-fashioned.” He held it out.

  Laura smiled back, delighted to know that he and Lady Longtree hadn’t deserted her but had instead been trying to help. “Thanks!” she said. “I wonder what the key goes to,” she added, examining it.

  “I think it’s for that rusty door at the back of the springs you couldn’t open,” William said. “That’s the only door I can think of that’s old enough. Someone has cleaned up the key, too. See those scrape marks, as if they did it with steel wool or sandpaper?” William pointed to some vague marks that Laura discovered she could barely discern without her glasses.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” she told him. “Your eyes are a lot better than mine.”

  “Maybe the person oiled the door, too,” William went on. “It would be interesting to find out. Doors can look rusty and old and still work.”

  Laura nodded. “Worth a try - unless we have to climb back down that wall to get to the door,” she amended hastily.

  “I know how to get to it from the other side,” William assured her. “If the key works, we can get in that way.”

  Abruptly, Laura remembered the paper in her pocket. “I found this piece of paper near where you found the key,” she explained, pulling it out. “I think the cleaning woman I saw running away might have dropped both of them. Maybe they fell out of her pocket but she was in too much of a hurry to stop and look for them.”

  She s
moothed out the paper. “It looks like a sketch of the underground space in the Baths, and there’s some writing. Not English, though.”

  William peered over her shoulder. “Definitely the Baths,” he pronounced. “That black dot probably marks the place where you found the baby. And I think the writing is Arabic – all drawings and squiggles. I’ve seen it before.”

  A door opened further up the street and a man stepped out, cigarette in hand. His eyes flicked in her direction and Laura drew back hastily. “I think that’s the baby’s father,” she hissed. “I don’t want him to see me. He might remember me from the airport and wonder why I’m prowling around.”

  William reacted instantly. Taking her arm as if they were out for a casual stroll, he led her in the other direction. “Let’s duck into that alley and watch,” he whispered.

  The man stood on the doorstep smoking. Definitely the father, Laura saw from her hiding place. He didn’t look again in her direction but she had the impression that he had indeed seen her, perhaps recognized her from the airport.

  She watched as he ground out his cigarette with one heel and sauntered toward a woman who had just turned the corner into the street. For a moment Laura thought she was the mother. The resemblance was very strong. Then she realized that this woman was much younger, more girl than woman. A niece perhaps?

  The girl’s steps slowed as the father came closer, and Laura thought she looked frightened. Then, seeming to regain courage, she thrust her chin in the air and nodded coolly at the man as they passed. He reached out to touch her and made a remark Laura couldn’t hear, though she suspected it was lewd. Shrinking away from him, the girl walked quickly up the house he had just left.

  “I’m going to try to talk to her,” Laura whispered. “A woman is better, I think.”

  William nodded. “I’ll watch from here.”

  As soon as the father was out of sight, Laura ran up to the girl and touched her lightly on the arm. “Excuse me,” she said politely. “I wonder if you know the woman whose baby I found…”

  The young woman whirled. “You are the one who found her!” she breathed, and her hands flew to her face. “May Allah bless you for what you have done. But you must not be here, he must not see you.”

  “The father you mean?”

  The young woman looked alarmed. “How do you know…” she faltered.

  “I saw them in New York, at the airport,” Laura explained hastily. “That’s how I knew who the baby was, and I wanted to return it to its mother.”

  “Allah is with us, that you should see them even there,” she girl said brokenly. “But you must not speak. Please, I beg you, they must keep her. She cannot return, not yet…”

  “The police must keep the baby, you mean?”

  The girl looked down the street the other way, and her eyes widened with fear. “I must go inside! She is coming.”

  Laura followed her gaze and saw an older woman in a black headscarf and long coat coming around the corner. Not the father, but perhaps his mother. Matriarchs could inspire fear too.

  “Thank you for telling me how to get to the square,” she said loudly to the girl as the older woman approached. “I will remember your directions. Goodbye.” The girl sent her a grateful look and turned to go inside.

  Nodding pleasantly to the older woman, Laura walked back to the alley. She heard the old woman question the girl sharply in a strange language and the younger woman’s placating reply, and hoped her ruse had worked. The girl had been brave to talk to her at all.

  “What did the girl say?” William whispered as she approached.

  “That the mother wants the baby to stay with the police. I think it’s because they’re terrified of the father.”

  William’s face lit up. “Let’s watch until he comes back and see if we can find out,” he said eagerly. “I’ll pretend to be a salesman of some kind and get him talking. I’ll bet he’s the type of man who loves to boast about himself.”

  Laura was impressed. For someone so young that was a perceptive observation. The salesman idea was another matter.

  “You don’t look much like a salesman,” she objected with a dubious look at William’s soggy trousers and spiky hair. “You haven’t got anything to sell, either. Besides, I don’t like the look of that man. There’s a predatory feeling about him.”

  She shivered. “I’m too cold to stand here much longer, anyway.”

  “I’m cold too,” William admitted, hugging his arms around his chest and jumping up and down to get warm. “I’ll dream up a good costume and come back later. I’m quite clever at foreign accents and disguises. They’ll never know who I am.”

  Laura forced back a laugh. William in disguise, rings, hair, studs and all, would make an interesting sight. “For now, let’s just get warm,” she said.

  William nodded. “Maybe we can get together later, so my grandmother can see that paper you found,” he suggested as they headed for the square. “I know she’d be interested. If you can make it, that is,” he added politely. “We’re staying at the Royal Hotel.”

  “Easy,” Laura replied. “I’m coming there anyway. My tour group meets at the Royal for lunch at one o’clock.” She consulted her watch and was surprised to see that it wasn’t yet noon. She felt as if a whole day had passed since she went into the Baths.

  William looked delighted. “Our tour has lunch there too, so maybe we’re on the same one.” He grinned. “That would be great! Make it easier for us to do more detecting. I’m pretty sure they’re taking us to the Baths this afternoon, so we could try out the key.”

  “Mine is too,” Laura confirmed, “so we must be on the same one. That’s why I went to the Baths this morning,” she confided. “I wanted peace and quiet to absorb the atmosphere and get my own impressions before hearing all the facts from a guide. Things didn’t work out exactly as planned,” she added ruefully.

  “Guess not,” William agreed. “We had a great time, though. It’ll be even better this time, now that we have the key. I’ll do that part. I already know all the stuff the guide will tell us, so I’ll sneak away from the group and try the key while you listen and distract the others. My grandmother knows that stuff, too, so she can help. No one ever dares to stop her from doing weird things,” he said with a grin.

  Laura laughed. “I bet they don’t,” she agreed. “The place I’m staying is around the corner, so I’m off. See you shortly.”

  Waving goodbye, she hurried back to her B & B and headed at a trot for her room on the second floor. Fortunately her landlady was out, so she didn’t have to explain why her clothes and boots were once again wet and filthy despite the clear weather.

  At the top of the stairs, she almost collided with a tall and very elegant young man. His manicured appearance made Laura feel like a drowned rat.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, squeezing past him in the narrow space. His smile was polite, but she could see that he was annoyed. Leaning down, he wiped pointedly at his elegant pinstripe suit and the perfectly pressed shirt cuffs that extended from it.

  Probably got a spot of wet on them, Laura thought sourly. “Fell into a puddle,” she snapped, and stomped down the hall. He stared after her, shook his head as if to clear it, and proceeded down the stairs.

  “Snob!” Laura muttered to herself as she unlocked her door. The room had a medicinal smell, irritating her further. The maid must have used a disinfectant spray when she straightened the room. She hadn’t done a very good job, either. The coverlet looked rumpled and one pillow was on the floor.

  Now for a hot shower and some clean clothes. Laura went to the closet, glad she had taken the time to hang everything up neatly last night. She felt bedraggled enough as it was, and going to this first meeting of the tour group in crumpled clothes would only make her feel worse.

  She opened the closet door and gaped in dismay. Shirts, slacks, skirts and everything else – even her favorite outfit, the multi-colored jacket and flowing skirt she had planned to wear tonight - lay in a
tangled pile on the floor.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Laura shook her head, unbelieving. It looked as if someone had searched through her clothes and been interrupted before managing to hang them up again. But who would do that? Someone who knew she’d taken the baby and didn’t like it? But she had only found it a few hours ago. No one could find out where she was staying and get here that fast. How could they get in anyway? The front door was kept locked and only guests were given a key.

  It was more likely that a maid or other employee had been looking for valuables, Laura decided. If so, the thief was out of luck. Her passport and money were in the pack on her back, and there was nothing more valuable in the room than a few pieces of costume jewelry. None had been taken, which suggested the burglar had given her up as a bad bet and gone on to the next room.

  A long hot shower improved Laura’s mood considerably. She slipped on a black pant and tunic set of non-crushable fabric that had survived its time on the floor best and twisted her tenaciously curly auburn hair into a pile on her head. Adding a brilliant scarf and some small but dangly earrings so she wouldn’t look impossibly conservative, which wasn’t at all her style, she headed for the Royal Hotel.

  The first person she saw was Lady Longtree, standing near the hotel door in another even more improbable hat, this one a wide-brimmed floral affair.

  “We followed the mother but as you know, she eluded us,” Lady Longtree confided in a husky whisper. “Still, you and William seem to have found the right house since you saw the father and a young woman who knows the mother.

  “William adores detecting, if not babies, so I left him to it,” she added. “I rather like it myself.” She frowned. “I am also quite curious about that particular baby.”

  “I am too. The Baths seems such a strange place to leave it.”

  “I suppose it’s because of all those women,” Lady Longtree said vaguely. “They clean the bathrooms in tourist attractions and can get in. I cannot help but wonder -”