“You are. I can tell by your voice. It goes all tight and cool when you’re angry.”
“Adam—”
“I’m sorry if I betrayed your trust, if I said something my parents had no need or right to know. I guess I blundered in my haste to get our wedding planned and us married. Mum and Dad have the best intentions, Brenna. They just want to make all this easier for you. For us. They don’t mean to shame you. They already love you. Well, not to the degree that I do, but…”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ve got to get back.” I rang off not knowing how I felt.
“Trouble in paradise?” Mark asked the question seriously, his lips not smiling in a mock of my situation, his eyes steady and hinting at offered help. When I took a forkful of salad, he said, “Everyone I ever knew who was about to take the plunge had pre-wedding jitters, Bren. Had to sort things out and learn what was acceptable and what wasn’t. You’ve known Adam for years but you haven’t been close for that long. It’s new, this diary-like confiding in someone. Especially when you want two different types of weddings.”
“I never said—”
“You don’t have to. I know you. I know Adam. I can imagine your back-to-nature insistence and Adam’s equally resolute insistence on a church wedding.” He looked at me from over the rim of his coffee cup. “Well?”
The salad got the brunt of my anger. I stabbed a chunk of tomato, piece of hard-boiled egg, lettuce leaf and crouton. “Stay out of it, Mark. I know you mean well. Everyone means well. You, Adam, his parents…” I stuffed the salad into my mouth and wiped the bit of salad cream dribbling down my chin.
“Just as you say, Bren. But don’t be too hard on the chap. He loves you; he’s only trying to ease your burden. No matter if you’re standing under a tree or in front of a church altar, the stress is similar. Just hang on to your love and nothing else will matter much.”
We finished the rest of our meal in silence, letting the conversations from nearby tables grab our attention.
On the way out, Mark asked the publican if he remembered Clayton Warson being in the pub the night of Reed’s disappearance. The publican said yes. He recalled it because Kevin’s burglar alarm had sounded and he and most of the other pub patrons had gone to the windows to see what was happening. Clayton came over to the pub, had a beer and played a game of darts until closing time.
“That takes care of that little loose end,” Mark said as we made our way back to the incident room.
“Handy, isn’t it, to have such a memorable alibi?”
“You thinking Kevin set off the damned alarm to give himself an alibi?”
“Either that, or Clayton needed one.”
“Why? You heard the publican. Clayton was there from just after the time that meeting at the church broke up and then stayed until much later.”
“Ahh, but we don’t know what time Reed really disappeared, Mark. Maybe Clayton met him somewhere after the pub closed.”
“Then Clayton’s pub stint doesn’t mean a bloody thing.”
* * * *
Clayton’s wife, Lynn, ushered us into her office at the tourist center, stating it was less disruptive. I thought, however, that she merely didn’t want others overhearing us. She shut the door, leaning against it so it clicked firmly closed, and motioned us to the chairs by the window. We sat in the sunlight, warm and intense, asked her about the night of Reed’s disappearance.
“I was at the meeting in the church,” she said, leaning back in her desk chair. The blonde streaks in her dark hair shone like gold in the light, underscoring the yellow and tan in her print blouse. “I guess you know that.” She paused, perhaps wondering what we wanted to hear.
Mark asked about the order in which people left the church.
“Yes, that is pertinent. Well, Jenny left first. Earlier than the rest of us, in fact.”
“How much earlier?”
“Can’t say precisely, but I would think by a few minutes. Not more than five. I doubt if it was five. Probably more like one or two minutes.”
“Did she leave before the actual meeting had finished?”
“No. We were just talking. You know how you do when you’re winding down and the talk’s turned to chitchat—and Jenny mentions she has to get home. So she left.”
“Did she drive or walk?”
“Drive. She lives on the north side of Cauldham Hall, where Miners Road curves into the village proper. Her house is just a mile from the church, but she usually didn’t like to walk that upper stretch of Old Church Lane after dark.”
“Why is that? Nervous, is she?”
Lynn paused, perhaps wanting to phrase her response in a kind way. In the brief quit I glanced around the room. Nothing much cheered it or imprinted personality onto it—it wallowed in the nondescript tan, cream and white hues of an unimaginative worker. White Venetian blinds clanked at the open window; the desk and bookcases were painted tan; the area rugs by the desk and window held nothing more than a rectangle of tweed-flecked browns. In addition to the usual office furniture and supplies the room also served as a sort of closet, for stacks of brochures, books and picture postcards filled many bookshelves and the tops of a filing cabinet and small table near the door. The towers of literature and books all appeared to be on sites and history of the region. I noticed the book of Derbyshire customs I had first seen while on a case in December, and wondered how the book was selling. When Lynn cleared her throat, I glanced back at her.
“Not particularly. But she’s young, about twenty-five, and she said she had to get home. Probably something she needed to attend to promptly, so she drove.”
“How about the others who attended the meeting? Did everyone else drive? Did you and your husband?”
“Jenny was the exception. The rest of us walked. The vicar, of course, had only to walk across the churchyard. Reed is the next closest, a quarter of a mile from the church, so he walked.”
“That leaves you, your husband, and Angela.”
“Yes. Clayton and I walked Angela home. We’re neighbors, on the eastern side of Miners Road. We all left the church at the same time, a few minutes behind Jenny. Harding and Reed were talking. I think by the lych gate. I’m not certain. I do recall Harding telling Reed that he must hurry to his home, so perhaps he left next. Does it matter that much if Reed or Harding was the last to walk home?”
“And the meeting broke up…when?”
“Half past nine, give or take a few minutes either way.”
“After you and your husband got home, did you two go out again?”
“I was too tired to do much of anything but have a cuppa and read a bit. Clayton said he wanted to talk to Kevin Harper, so he walked down to Kevin’s gift shop.”
Mark and I exchanged glances. I said, “At that hour of the night? He couldn’t talk to Kevin Harper the next morning?”
“I guess not. Clayton didn’t come into our house, he just unlocked the front door and saw me safely inside, then he went to see Kevin.”
“Why did he think Kevin would be at his gift shop? Quarter to ten is unusually late to be working.”
“Kevin was doing shop inventory. He does it the same time each year. It’s common village knowledge. I suppose Kevin needed to know something, so Clayton dropped in to talk to him. It’s not that far of a walk, anyway.”
“Had Reed mentioned anything, maybe offhand, about another meeting he might have that night?”
“Because he went missing, you mean.”
“Yes. Since he was such a successful businessman, plus directed the well dressing and fete, perhaps he had an appointment with someone after your meeting broke up. Did he say anything?”
“That’s why he may have been the last to leave.”
“Doesn’t seem unreasonable, does it?”
“He may have said something to Harding. I thought they were talking when Clayton, Angela and I left.”
“But you didn’t hear anything specific about him having something after your meeting had finished.”
&
nbsp; “No.”
“You mentioned Jenny, Reed’s assistant, driving home. Even if she wasn’t particularly nervous after dark, that’s a dark, deserted stretch of road near the church and Hall. Did anyone in the village—and I don’t mean the fete committee—anyone at any time in the recent past have trouble at night?”
“You mean go missing?”
“That, certainly, but is there a history, however minor, of attacks or robberies in Cauldham?”
“You’re thinking Reed’s disappearance is linked to something else, then.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “But if someone else had been attacked…”
Lynn shook her head, her mouth a thin, bloodless line in her ashen face. “I don’t know your definition of ‘recent past,’ miss, but nothing like that’s happened here.”
“What about that woman who went missing twenty-two years ago?”
She sagged against the back of the chair, seeming to deflate like a witness who’s lost her bluster. Giving a look at the closed door, she said in a faraway voice, “Vera Howarth has nothing to do with Reed. You can’t possibly connect two incidents so distant in time.”
“It’s taken on a local mystic, though, hasn’t it? Almost a ghost story.”
“Don’t make a common event into something it’s not. She disappeared, yes, but after leaving a note.”
Mark leaned forward in his chair, and I caught a whiff of his aftershave before he said, “What sort of note?”
“I don’t know. I never saw it.”
“But you know about it. You heard about it from someone. What kind of note was it?”
“A note of farewell.”
“She left this person, walked out of his or her life?”
“Yes. She left the village to start a new life.”
“Did she mail it or hand it to the person?”
“I believe she mailed it.”
“How long before she went missing did she send it? Did she post it locally or somewhere on the road, perhaps?”
“Locally. Not from her new address. I suppose she didn’t want to be found, and the postmark would give a clue as to her new residence. The recipient got the note two days after she left Cauldham.”
“This recipient…who’d she send it to?”
Lynn stared at her hands, clasped and sitting in her lap.
Mark repeated the question and Lynn’s eyes met mine in a look of pain. Her words came out slowly, as though each one tore out a piece of her heart. “Please don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not as damning as it might sound. She sent it to my husband, Clayton. But he never saw her again.”
“When was this?”
“Years ago. Twenty-two years ago.” Her eyes turned defiant and she said rather sharply, “If you think Clayton killed her because they had a falling out or she was pregnant, you’re daft. Reed Harper’s the only womanizer around here—is now and has been for years. More than twenty-two years.”
ELEVEN
Marian Harper quickly “straightened us out,“ as she put it, about her husband’s supposed indiscretions. Coming as no surprise to us, she denied the accusation. Being married for twenty-five years, she would know about any affairs Reed might have—and he hadn’t. She also declared that Lynn Warson was a woman frustrated with her mid-life crisis, declining youth, and a husband who worked such erratic hours that she needed a hobby other than storytelling.
“She should keep her rocks to herself, instead of flinging them at others’ houses,” Marian said, then hinted that either Lynn or Clayton spent enough time alone that they could have affairs and the other spouse would be none the wiser.
“Sour grapes,” Mark said as we stopped at the vicarage.
“She might be lashing out in her grief,” I suggested, but I made a notation anyway.
Harding Lyth, the vicar of St Paul’s Church, talked to us in the lounge of the vicarage, a squat, gray stone house roughened by weather and age. Yews and oaks, nearly as tall as the church steeple, hugged the house. A patch of yellow daylilies bracketed the front walk and spilled into the nearby churchyard. I wished some of that brightness were inside the vicarage walls, for the interior of the room was dark and somber with brown, black and purple.
We sat around a low coffee table, the top of which nearly drowned in books and albums. Harding grabbed a few of the heftier volumes, piled them on the floor, and set the tray of coffee things in the cleared space. I took a seat on the brown velvet sofa, next to Mark. A photograph of a woman in her thirties had a prominent place on the fireplace mantle. I commented on how beautiful she was.
“Th-thank you,” Harding stammered.
“Your daughter?”
“No, my wife.” My look of surprise no doubt prompted him into adding, “She died twenty years go.”
Mark and I murmured our apologies.
Harding said it was quite all right. “To every thing there is a season. Some seasons don’t last as long as others, unfortunately.”
I glanced at Mark, wondering how to ease the situation, when he asked Harding about the fete meeting.
“Yes, I left Reed at the lych gate that night,” Harding said, his coffee mug resting on his knee. He appeared to be nearly sixty, yet his tall frame still had the muscular tone of someone half his age. A thick head of grey-streaked hair contrasted dramatically with his piercing blue eyes. He took another sip of coffee before adding, “He didn’t seem concerned being the last one. But I wouldn’t expect him to be.”
“Never known him to be frightened of anything, then,” I said.
“No. But, then, there’s no reason to be frightened in Cauldham. We’ve no problem with serious crime.”
“Do you know if Reed planned to meet anyone after your fete meeting ended?”
“Because he seemed to linger behind, you mean?”
“Yes. Since he didn’t walk home right away, leaving at the same time as everyone else.”
“He didn’t say anything about that to me. Perhaps he just wanted to smoke. I don’t allow it in the church, you know.”
“He smoked cigarettes?” Mark asked, interested in this new information.
“Yes. Marian, his wife, didn’t allow smoking in their house. She said it damaged the furnishings and her fine paintings. She had too much money tied up in those things to see them ruined. A lot of the better pieces were family heirlooms, so of course she’d be careful about them.”
“Reed always smoked outdoors, then.”
“Oh, yes. Winter or summer, day or night. He’d stand outside their home, by the edge of the garden to have a cigarette, or walk down the lane. Especially Old Church Lane, where the church and his house are located. He liked that better than Miners Road, which curves through the business section of the village. So you see, I didn’t think a thing about his lingering by the lych gate after we’d all parted. He’s stood there many times before, having his cigarette before going home.”
“Is that the only place he smoked? I don’t mean the lych gate—outside. Not even in pubs or restaurants that allowed smoking before the national ban was implemented?”
“Not to my knowledge. Marian is allergic to cigarette smoke. If he sat in the smoking sections of those establishments he would come home reeking of smoke, and that was about as bad as if he smoked in their home. No, he always had his cigarettes outdoors.”
“He couldn’t have been waiting for someone…a woman, perhaps?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Just asking. We have to eliminate scenarios and suspects.”
Harding shook his head. “Nothing like that, sorry. Reed and Marian enjoyed a strong marriage. You’ll have to search elsewhere for a mysterious woman…if there is one.”
The clatter of the back door closing and an inquisitive “Dad? You got a minute?” barged into the room. Seconds later Harding’s daughter, Angela Ellis, came in.
As tall as her dad but with the looks of her mother, Angela came across like the pop star she yearned to be. Long, dark hair fell freely dow
n her back and her eyes shone with an exuberance for life. She’d look good on television, I thought, but also thought her far too thin. Still, she seemed the right age for pursuing the career, probably around twenty years old with a flawless complexion. I glanced at Mark, knowing his penchant for dark-haired women. He was looking out of the window.
“Sorry, Dad,” Angela said, looking at Mark and me. “I didn’t know you had a counseling session. Pardon me.” She shot me a tentative smile. “You getting married?”
Observant. Sees no wedding ring on my finger.
“No, dear,” Harding said, putting down his coffee mug. “These are the police. They’re asking questions concerning Reed’s…uh, disappearance.”
Instead of leaving or stammering an embarrassed excuse, Angela settled on the arm of a chair. “Like when you saw him last, that sort of thing?”
“Yes,” I said, standing up. “If you have a minute, would you mind talking to me? We’ll leave the men and go outside, shall we?” I led the way outside and we strolled among the tombstones as we talked. “You were at the meeting that night, weren’t you, Angela?”
“Since I’m the master of ceremonies for the fete, I had to be.”
“And the well dressing and all that is a week from today, correct?”
“Next Friday, twenty-ninth of June, yes.”
“St. Paul’s Day.”
“Unless we can’t go on…” she said, hesitating. “I’ve heard where the police shut things down. Events and concerts and things. You know, to find the criminal.”
“With Mr. Harper’s disappearance and subsequent murder, I don’t see what we could gain by shutting down the well dressing.”
“Good. We’ve worked so hard on this, for one thing. And for another, all the food’s been ordered; we’ll start putting together the panels Sunday. And there’s the disappointment to the kids and all. Though I doubt,” she added, “all those things matter that greatly when the police are trying to solve a murder.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but we don’t like to disrupt community life if we can help it. Unless Detective-Chief Inspector Graham says otherwise, I don’t see why we’d have to close the fete.”
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