A panicky tremor climbed up her back and she whispered to Tony, ‘Seriously, what better time to go and beard Venetia. I don’t know how deep she is in all of this but I’d bet she knows the lot. Honestly, well, I shouldn’t say it, but there’s something sick enough about her that nothing would shock me. I think she’d do anything to protect Harry.’
He surprised her by taking her hand and squeezing. ‘Humor me, Alex. I know it was my idea for you to go but we don’t know where Harry is. He could well be at that house. I can’t … Please don’t insist on going tonight.’
Their presence had been noted and the crush at the bar grew dense.
‘I don’t really want to anyway,’ she said with a sheepish smile. ‘Thanks for giving me a perfect excuse. I can’t go because I don’t want to worry you! Let’s get through this.’
‘Glad to see you,’ Hugh said with a genuine smile. ‘What can I get you?’
She should probably stay very sober, not that she wouldn’t like to anesthetize her brain. What the hell. ‘I’ll have a Courvoisier, please.’
‘Sounds good.’ Tony kept hold of her hand. ‘Make it two, please, Hugh.’ And Tony being Tony, he pulled money from his pocket and put it on the bar. ‘Have one yourself, Hugh, and Juste. And Lily, if you can find her.’ Lily had already slipped away and would be checking out the restaurant and inn. They had several guests and she insisted on giving them personal service.
The instant Alex eased from behind the bar, Major Stroud placed himself where she couldn’t avoid him. Tonight his eyes were clear, his face on the pale side, but he held himself rigid and a nerve beside his left eye jerked convulsively.
‘Evening,’ she told him, managing a smile.
He started to speak but was drowned out by questions on all sides. Wally – if people remembered the first name of Prue’s husband, they never used it – showed mellow but unsteady signs of having been at the Dog most of the day and planted his feet apart in front of Tony and Alex. ‘Is it true Harry Stroud made Jay Gibbon’s life so ’orrible he did for hisself? That’s what I’m hearin’. Harry thought Jay didn’t have no right to be in Pamela’s house and told him so.’
The major slammed a full glass on a table, slopping beer. ‘Keep your bloody mouth shut, Wally or I’ll keep it shut for you. Absolute tripe. When the wine’s in the wit’s out, or whatever else you’ve been tipping down all day. Another suggestion like that and I’ll sue.’
‘It was Harry who suggested Jay stay there,’ Tony said quickly before casting a questioning glance at Alex. He was wondering if he should have revealed anything at all that he knew. ‘Please calm down. We’ll all have to wait for the official notification. Now, excuse us, please.’
‘That’s right,’ Alex agreed in passing. ‘Harry’s a generous man. He knew Jay was related to Pamela. There was no one using the house and Harry couldn’t see any reason for Jay not to be comfortable.’
‘That’s Harry,’ Stroud said. ‘Always looking out for the other fella.’
Wally let out a deflated sigh. ‘If you say so. But summat made that Jay kill hisself.’
Under his breath Tony said, ‘It’s not up to us to give any details of the death.’
On their way to Harriet and Mary’s table, they fended off questions with noncommittal shakes of the head and mutters, keeping their faces bland.
Harriet saw them coming, looked at their joined hands and gave a beatific smile. Both sisters’ faces were highly pink from the fire to which they sat too close. Even on a warm night, everyone expected wood to be crackling away there.
‘We’ve saved these for you,’ Mary said, patting a dark wood captain’s chair. ‘Sit down with your backs to this gaggle. We need to talk to you.’
Before they could settle, Major Stroud arrived again. ‘Did you see Harry today?’ he asked, skewering Alex with a penetrating gaze. ‘Speak up, now. I won’t bite your head off.’
She squeezed Tony’s hand on the table to keep him quiet. ‘Why would you think I saw him?’
‘I asked you a question.’
‘Now I’ve asked you a question. Major, forgive me, but you don’t seem yourself lately. You keep suggesting I know things I don’t. And you don’t take my word when I give it to you. Tony and I have been tied up for hours.’
He moved closer and leaned over her. ‘A friend of mine saw you and Harry together at the Mount. Where is he?’
‘The local grapevine is a pain in the neck,’ she said. ‘That was early in the day. I happened to be there when he arrived and he had a beer. End of story.’
‘Did you leave together?’
‘No, dammit. I drove myself there and so did he. It was pure chance. Where he went when he left, I have no idea.’
‘That’s enough, Stroud,’ Tony said. ‘Why don’t you save your questions for your son? Now, if you don’t mind, we’re visiting with friends.’
The gray, bristling mustache over the man’s lip worked as if he were eating words he’d like to use. The irritated nerve by his eye rhythmically contracted part of his cheek. But he turned away.
‘Perhaps you should have suggested he ask his wife,’ Harriet said, demurely looking at her hands in her lap. ‘Don’t forget how she followed Jay to the tea rooms. She’s a strange one.’
An ache started over Alex’s brows, and a slight buzzing. She didn’t dare glance to see Tony’s reaction.
‘Look at this boy,’ Mary said in a loud voice, pulling a zipped bag with wheels and a handle close beside her and leaning it back. ‘He told me Oliver takes over the fireplace and won’t talk to him when we’re gone. So I got this handy thing so he can come about with us.’
Maxwell Aloysius Brady pressed his battle-worn orange face to a mesh window in the bag and looked at them with his one bright eye. He had curled himself into the bottom of the carrier and appeared more than content.
‘You don’t mind him being here, do you?’ Mary asked, not sounding as self-assured as usual.
‘Of course not. This was his first home, remember. Even if it was for a very short time.’ The dogs flanked the carrier and kept up a sniffing competition. Maxwell ignored them. ‘Tony, I do think I’ll get home now. This has been a long day.’
He downed his brandy. ‘Ready when you are.’
‘Just a minute,’ Harriet said. ‘We wanted to let you know Radhika comes to us tomorrow. We talked to her on the phone. That Detective Sergeant Lamb had been in to try to change her mind about staying with us but she’s going to anyway. Mary and I made sure of that. Lamb suggested she come here, but – and I say this as a woman who loves all the fuss and bother – that girl needs peace and quiet. She told us so. She’ll have that with us. You don’t hear the people downstairs in the tea rooms, not that they’re noisy.’
‘Is she coming by ambulance?’ Tony asked.
Mary cleared her throat. ‘Yes. And a police escort. She’s got to be watched is what Lamb says and we’re all right with that. But we thought you might like to know she’ll be there before lunch.’
‘She does need peace,’ Alex said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder what else she needs.’
Carrying a chair, Vivian Seabrook arrived at the table. ‘Is it OK if I join you?’ she asked, balancing the chair on its front legs. When they chorused that she was welcome, the rest of the chair hit the floor, Vivian slid to sit and scooted closer to the table. ‘Thanks. I haven’t been in since the night Pamela died. I want to be alone, but then I think I’ll go mad if I don’t talk to someone.’
‘How are you doing?’ Harriet asked superfluously. ‘Don’t be on your own. There’s always a pot of tea at our place, or coffee. And I know Alex would welcome you here.’
‘Indeed,’ Alex said. She didn’t know Vivian well. The woman was reserved but she always gave a pleasant impression and was well known for being a wonderful horsewoman and riding teacher. ‘This is a bad experience for everyone. We should stick together.’
‘Thank you.’ Her dark blond hair shone in its shoulder length bob. The much darke
r, arched brows were striking. ‘Did I hear Radhika’s getting better?’
‘Yes,’ Mary said at once. ‘She’s coming to stay with us tomorrow morning. We’ve got a pretty room for her. She needs rest and no worries.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’ Tony said.
She thought about it before saying, ‘Half of lager would be fantastic. Thank you, Tony. Are you coming up to look at the new little pony tomorrow. I think she’s going to make a good children’s ride.’
‘I’ll be up there.’ He stood and went to make little cheeping noises at Maxwell before going to the bar.
‘Damn good vet,’ Vivian said. ‘We’re lucky to have him.’
‘I was trying to remember how long ago you came to Folly,’ Alex said. ‘I think you’ve become a fixture at the Derwinters. Heather brags about you being a wonder. You’ve got quite an admiration society going up there.’
Vivian accepted her lager from Tony. ‘Thanks. Nice to hear a compliment or two. I’ve been here less than two years. I was another of Pamela Gibbon’s recruits. When the last boss at the stable left, she contacted me and put me in touch with the Derwinters. Thank goodness she did. Those people are terrific employers … and they’ve become friends. They’ve tried to step in and cheer me up over the last few days but I don’t like to impose. They’re such busy people.’
They all fell into a thoughtful silence.
Just as Tony started to say something about cows, Doc James walked in. He saw them and waved but went directly to the bar.
Close behind came O’Reilly and Lamb. Lamb remained hovering in the archway to the restaurant, or in their case, the inn, but O’Reilly walked straight to the sisters’ table.
He bowed over Alex and Tony. ‘We have to talk as soon as possible. By morning at the latest. Call me. In the meantime, if some big-ears tries to say Jay Gibbon was murdered, say you know nothing. And stick to that.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
Once Alex had seated herself on her favorite couch in Tony’s breakfast room and swung her legs up, he pulled a striped armchair close. The moment the front door opened, the dogs had taken off and thundered upstairs.
‘First question,’ he said. ‘Where the hell is Harry Stroud? When and where will he pop up and is he a killer? That seems to cover our immediate issues.’
‘And I can’t answer any of that,’ Alex said. ‘But we have to know why he was fired. Does that make sense to you? He was fired. Not a soul knew, or if they did they kept quiet. But he’s never short of funds as far as I know.’
‘Bet Venetia knew, you can bet on that. She probably keeps him in the ready.’
‘I didn’t know what you’d think when I didn’t immediately tell you about Pamela’s will. Radhika’s scared, terrified of something. If she’s not, her behavior makes no sense. I was hoping she might open up to me – since she’s appointed me her confidante.’
‘Let’s hope for that,’ Tony said, not commenting on the way she’d guarded information. ‘She’s going to be watched by the police and our budding lady detectives, so I think she’s as safe as possible.’
‘I was thinking,’ Alex said.
‘Wish you wouldn’t, at least for tonight.’
She plucked the afghan from the back of the couch and spread it over her legs. ‘Do you think you could pass for someone in Harry’s business, or something similar?’
Tony’s eyebrows rose in the middle – the picture of confusion.
‘If I find out where all the sharp young movers in the world of wealth management hang out after work, could you go in there – after the booze has flowed a bit – and see if some pretty lady feels like talking about him.’
‘I can’t just—’
‘No,’ she said, leaning to thread their fingers together. ‘You can’t just but if I call Lark Major in the morning and pretend I’m a breathless young thing looking to meet up with a guy from the firm who invited me for a drink, I could get lucky. ‘Y’see, I can’t remember the name of the place we were supposed to meet and I don’t want to make a fool of myself by calling him up to ask.’ They may or may not give me a name, or even a name or two of local drinking holes. Who knows, if I say I used to go out with Harry Stroud, she might feel like sharing some dirt.’
‘Good grief, Alex. Don’t you ever slow down? You do know you’d have to use a burner phone in case someone ever tries to trace you.’
She smirked. ‘Listen to you. Yes, I intend to get a one-time use phone and toss it. You could wear a suit in the good of the cause, couldn’t you?’
He didn’t quite hide a smile.
‘I’d like to see that. Sounds sexy.’
‘In that case I’ll go up and put one on right now.’ His blue eyes glittered with mock lasciviousness. At least, she thought it must be mock given how tired they were.
‘I’d like to duck out on talking to O’Reilly until we’ve given this idea a try.’ She pulled on his hand just a little, but he immediately slid to his knees beside the couch. ‘If I make the call early and we can get up to London and stake out any leads I find, we might have some interesting answers.’
‘Or we might have nothing but an angry chief inspector.’ He sat back on his heels and regarded her through narrowed eyes.
‘I do have a theory,’ she told him, looking at the ceiling where sounds of racing dog feet beat a tattoo. ‘And I want to know if he was advising Pamela Gibbon on what to do with her wealth.’
Tony said, ‘We should look into that later.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
Air from an open window slipped across his bare skin. Tony opened his eyes to the sound of Alex’s voice. She’d gone to the next bedroom, the dogs’ room, as they called it, and was in animated conversation on the phone.
He checked his watch and swung his legs out of bed. Well after nine. He never overslept. His breathing slowed again, his eyes closed and he fell back among the tangle of sheets. For a wounded woman, Alex had showed no signs of handicap last night. Her body bent to his and the lady had a wonderful, wild side.
Her voice continued in the next room. With both hands, Tony pushed his hair back from his forehead. What was she thinking about them? She never mentioned the sadness he knew she felt over the loss of an almost full-term baby girl, or the former husband who had been in bed with another woman while people looked for him and his wife went through the worst moments of her life.
The past months since he and Alex had become close had been a helter-skelter. With her he had known happiness and confusion – even fear. Fear of losing Alex.
His own marriage had ended in deep waters off Australia when Penny went scuba diving alone and didn’t return. Her body was never found and she was presumed dead. They hadn’t been happy for a long time but still he wanted closure and it didn’t look as if that was likely.
Galloping paws approached and the two dogs burst in. They jumped on the bed with enough force to bounce the mattress and went to work on his face with their tongues. He wrestled with them, but wouldn’t allow them to stay.
‘Good morning!’ Alex appeared in the doorway. ‘Those two have been outside. Are you ready for coffee? We’ve got places to go and people to see, or I think we will have. I talked to Harriet but I want to make sure Radhika’s settled safely, too.’ She still held her mobile. Her black curls were mussed, her face flushed – he suspected from beard burn. The old T-shirt she wore, one of his, clung to the most interesting parts of her body and started another reaction he couldn’t afford to indulge immediately.
‘O’Reilly expects to see us, and I think we’d better mull over your very good idea from last night because it could get us way out of our depth.’
She held up a hand and limped to the bed where she climbed awkwardly onto the mattress and propped herself against a pillow.
‘I’m going to make another call. They should be in at Lark Major by now. Don’t make a sound, please.’
‘You said you’d get a burner phone.’
‘I’ve decided it doesn’t matter,’ Ale
x told him. ‘I’m not doing anything illegal.’
He turned up his palms and slid back down in the bed. A sharp crack on the window startled them both. A cuckoo’s long beak had connected with the glass. The bird wobbled its blue and red body for an instant, recovered and flapped away.
‘Hello,’ Alex said into her mobile. ‘I hope you can help me. I feel really silly but I met someone from your firm and arranged to meet him after work for a drink. But I don’t remember the name of the pub, if you can believe that. Can you give me the names of your favorite locals? Favorites with the firm, I mean?’
Tony closed his eyes. As perky as she sounded, he couldn’t imagine anyone falling for her line, and the slightly cockney accent she put on shouldn’t fool anyone.
‘This is so embarrassing,’ she said. ‘We’ve walked together on our way to work but we’ve never exchanged names, like. He seems nice and I really want a chance to see him – when we can actually talk, I mean. If you think there’s someone else I should talk to …’
A pen hovered over a small notepad on Alex’s knee. Tony took in her serious face and shut his eyes again. He should be on his way to some of the outlying farms and there was the mare and a pony at the Derwinters’ place.
‘That’s good of you, Angela. I love that name. Anyway, what can it hurt? Even if I don’t know his name I can take a look around and hope I see him. I must sound like a clot … Oh, thank you. You’re a gem. Hey, want to get together for lunch one day? Or a drink?’
With difficulty, Tony stopped himself from shaking his head, no, at her.
‘Half a mo’, The Globe? ‘Course, I do. Who doesn’t? London Wall, right? I thought that was all wrinklies nowadays. Yeah, yeah. What’s that? Bust? No, I haven’t been there. Right off Fleet Street. A club?’ She laughed. ‘What sort of club?’ Alex rolled her eyes.
‘You’re the best, Angela. Why is it … I get it. Their new local. Really, thank you.’ She switched off the mobile. ‘We can find that. The in-group – that’s what she called them – the in-group goes to a club called Bust on Bride Lane. I think she was trying to say, without actually saying, that it’s a bit raunchy.’
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