Dovecote

by Oleson, Anne Britting;

  But Gwynn remembered how Giles’ body had lain, his arms thrown wide. “He didn’t try to catch himself. He didn’t try to break his fall. He wasn’t clutching his chest.” She tried to convince herself that what she had seen was something else, that what Penny suggested was believable. She couldn’t shake her own conviction. “Someone hit him, Penny. I’m sure someone did. Someone killed him.”

  44

  HAVING EMAILED OFF the drawings with a sinking heart, Gwynn found herself pacing through the cottage. From the dining room through the sitting room, into the kitchen, back. Waiting for the disappointed rejection and probable dismissal from the project that was bound to come. It couldn’t be helped. No matter how hard she had tried, no whimsical woodland creatures had erupted from her pencil, no fairy princesses. Only brooding broken-down buildings, lonely doorways, fog, drizzle, leafless and lifeless trees.

  The car slowing to a halt in the street before the house drew her attention. Gwynn saw two men climbing out of the dark blue Vauxhall. One of them pushed back his tan coat and tucked his hands into his pockets, leaning back on his heels to look up at the cottage appraisingly. The other, in an almost identical raincoat, came around to join him. Gwynn drew back from the window, letting the curtain fall back into place, knowing they’d probably noticed her watching.

  She had never believed what she’d read in books, that it was impossible to mistake detectives for anyone else. Now she saw that it was true. She felt her chest constrict. Police detectives. She’d expected them, of course, especially after she’d been warned by Constable Collier, up at Trevelyan Court Farm, that they’d need to speak to her again in the morning.

  Two men who had become surprisingly important to her: one hospitalized, one murdered. And police on the terrace. Frantic for a moment, she wondered whether she needed a solicitor. She only knew James Simms. What were the chances that the brother-in-law of the dead man would represent her? Dead man. Her breath caught in a small sob which surprised her. Murdered man. She was certain of it. She closed her eyes against the vision of Giles’ blank surprised face, but it was no use. She only imagined it more clearly.

  Gwynn distracted herself with the small courtesies: what did one offer the police for refreshment when they came calling? The knock was so sharp that, even though she knew it was coming, she jumped. She took a deep breath before unlocking and opening the door.

  “Miss Forest?” the man in front asked. He flipped open his ID card; the second policeman did the same. “Detective Inspector Barrows, Detective Sergeant Laundryman. Could we have a word?”

  Gwynn stepped back. “It’s Mrs. Forest, actually.”

  “Your husband is here?” The voice was neutral, not even curious. His eyes flickered to her hand on the door and up again.

  “I’m a widow.” She led them into the sitting room and indicated the sofa; she claimed the wing-backed chair for herself with a hand on its high chintz back. “Can I offer you something? Coffee? Tea?”

  A glance passed between the policemen, so quickly she might have missed it had she blinked. “Sergeant Laundryman will get it, if you tell him where the things are.”

  “On the tray, on the counter. There’s only one cup. There are others in the cupboard overhead.”

  Laundryman disappeared into the kitchen, and she could hear him opening and closing doors. Gwynn sat, and in her distraction, noted that Barrows tugged at the knees of his trousers before sitting, just as Martin had.

  Detective Inspector Barrows cleared his throat, taking a small notebook from his inside jacket pocket and flipping through the pages, a thin line between his pale brows. He found the page he wanted and looked up. “We need ask you about yesterday. At Trevelyan Court Farm.”

  Gwynn nodded. “Of course. Though I don’t know what I can add to what I told the policemen who were there last night.”

  “We sometimes find that people remember things later, Mrs. Forest,” Barrows said noncommittally. He waited as Laundryman returned with the tea tray. “And I’d like to hear your story firsthand, if you wouldn’t mind going over it again with me.”

  It didn’t really sound like a request, but probably she was just being paranoid and melodramatic. Gwynn picked up the teapot and held it aloft. Barrows and Laundryman held their cups out to her, and she filled them wordlessly, then poured the steeped black tea for herself.

  “Sorry,” she said as she set the pot back on the tray. “I always pour the tea backwards—my friends keep saying I’m doing it the wrong way.” She flushed, snapping her mouth shut against her own babbling. She lifted her cup and blew on the steaming tea.

  “You were up on the footpath?” Barrows prodded. Laundryman produced his own notebook and pen from an inside pocket and scratched at a page.

  Still Gwynn held her cup, but did not sip. She stared down at the steam rising from the surface. “I’d gone out for a walk. I went up that way, toward the top of Eyewell Lane, took a couple of turns, and ended up on that footpath.”

  “You were going to the farm?”

  She shook her head. “Not at first. I really didn’t know where I was going. But I didn’t think I could get too badly lost, and if I did, I could just walk back the way I’d come.”

  “Not at first, you said. I’m afraid I don’t quite know what you mean by that.”

  “I finally figured out I was up in the fields above the farm when I came out of the trees. So I thought it might be nice to go down and visit with them.” Gwynn fought back another surprise of a sob. “With Giles. And Bel.”

  “You knew them well?”

  Without thinking, she raised the cup now to her lips. The tea was scalding hot. “Yes. Well enough, I suppose. I’d met them before. We’d brought brambles up for the bonfire, and we were up again for Bonfire Night.” She raised her eyes to the two impassive faces. “How is she? Bel? Do you know?”

  This time she could not mistake the look that passed between the detectives. She had trouble reading it, however. Compassion? Concern? Something else?

  “Mrs. Trevelyan,”Barrows said, “is doing as well as anyone can, under the circumstances.”

  “Which isn’t well.” Gwynn thought of the poor woman’s face, the shock, the inability to respond. The untouched cup of tea near her hand. Her brother Jamie kneeling by her chair, trying to coax words out of her which would not come.

  “You said ‘we,’ Mrs. Forest,” the inspector said. “Who is ‘we’?”

  She set her own teacup and saucer on the low table. “Me, and—the handyman. The wood man. Colin Moore.” My lover, the one I threw out of the cottage. She leaned back in the chair, trying to feel her great-aunt, trying to find courage. “I hired him to help clear out the back garden. It was—is—quite overgrown. We took a load of brambles up to throw on Giles Trevelyan’s bonfire up in his field. That’s when Giles invited me to the craic for Bonfire Night. Colin Moore took me back up to the party when the day came.” The detectives shared a look again. “I have no car.”

  “This Colin Moore is a special friend?”

  “He’s one of the friends I’ve made since I’ve been here,” Gwynn answered stiffly. She wished they’d stop looking to each other like that, as though they didn’t quite believe her and were telepathically sharing impressions. She felt her face warming. Special friend. Everyone knew what that meant. And she’d made more friends since she’d been here? That made her sound like one hell of a promiscuous woman. I’m not sleeping with him anymore, she wanted to protest, but knew that would only make things worse.

  Worse? Things weren’t bad, she admonished herself. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Damn these police detectives for making her feel guilty for—for what? “So I thought I’d just walk down to the farm and see them in passing. Giles and Bel.” She glared at the detectives defiantly. “They were nice to me, both times I’d been to the farm.” That made her think of Bel’s ministrations with the bruising on her arm, and she touched the place Paul Stokes had grabbed with his large hand. Paul Stokes, who was not one of th
e friends she had made since she’d been here.

  “Something wrong, Mrs. Forest?”

  The detectives were watching her intently. She pulled herself together sharply. “No. Upset, that’s all.”

  “Did you notice anything else before you found the body? Anything that struck you as strange or out of place?”

  Body. Not Giles Trevelyan. There was no sympathy in Barrows’ voice. If he had noticed she was still shocked by Giles’ death, he wasn’t letting on. All the more reason, she told herself sternly, to get a grip. She took another deep breath, cupping her face in her hands, thinking hard. The dull November light, the brooding clouds. The barking sheepdog. The walking stick under Giles’ leg. Dropping to her knees, turning over Giles to find his blank stare. Her fingers, finally, curling over the short stem of the unlit pipe. “Other than Star barking, it was quiet. So quiet. No birds in the thickets. Nothing.”

  “You didn’t see anyone?”

  Gwynn shook her head again. “The field was empty. Only me. And the dog Star. I didn’t even see Giles until I followed Star over the little hill.” Her voice was shaking, her hands, too, and she reached out again for the teacup, to keep those hands occupied. She picked it up, and the cup rattled in the saucer. Tea splashed out over her hand. It was lukewarm now. How quickly it had cooled. She set the cup down.

  “You’re here on holiday?”

  Gwynn was momentarily taken aback by the sudden shift in the questioning. Detective Inspector Barrows, she noticed, had not drunk his tea, either.

  “Or are you renting?”

  Her neck prickled. In her parallel internal conversation, Gwynn told herself that, as policemen, they had to ask these questions. They probably had to speak to her as a suspect: she had found the body, after all. She was, to use the parlance, in the frame.

  She caught herself in that train of thought and looked up sharply. “My great-aunt willed me the property. I’m trying to decide what to do with it.” Her lips felt numb now, and she couldn’t hold back the question. “It was murder, then? I mean—you’re detectives.”

  The scratching of Laundryman’s pen stopped for the smallest of moments, then resumed. Inspector Barrows met her eyes, but his expression was inscrutable. “Early days yet. We’re awaiting test results.”

  The awfulness of the situation, which refused to be held at bay, struck her fully. “Postmortem,” she whispered, and the words tasted foul in her mouth. “Autopsy.” Again she closed her eyes against the visions the words conjured up. “Poor Giles.” But the old farmer was dead, and could suffer no more indignity. “Poor Bel.” She looked up. “There was so much blood on his head. On his face. Someone hit him. Do you know—with what?”

  “You don’t think he fell?” The question was an evasion, but it was more than that at the same time. She felt the probe.

  “He didn’t look like he fell,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” The tone was so calm, the man might have been remarking upon the weather.

  “His arms spread out like that. Thrown out. He didn’t try to catch himself. He would have tried to catch himself if he’d stumbled, don’t you think?” Gwynn wasn’t having any luck controlling herself. Her voice was rising again; she took a deep breath, and another. “I said this all before. I told Constable Collier up at the farm. One of the policemen took notes.” She looked pointedly at Detective Sergeant Laundryman’s busy hands. Surely they shared notes. Surely that policeman had reported to his superior officer. Surely this wasn’t necessary.

  “Yes, and we’re sorry to have to make you go through it again.” The soothing words sounded like a rote recording. “But it’s a necessary evil, as we’re sure you’ll agree.”

  “Yes.” She sighed after a moment, exhausted. “I know.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “You’re expecting someone?”

  “No—no.” Gwynn started to rise, but Sergeant Laundryman waved her back down.

  For such a heavy man, he moved with a surprising speed and lack of noise. She found herself thinking she should resent the way the two detectives were manipulating the interview, not allowing her to leave the room, vetting her visitor—but she was too tired to worry about it. She listened dully to the voices in the entryway; across from her, Detective Inspector Barrows was listening as well, his eyes half-closed in concentration.

  “Good afternoon, Gwynn,” Mary said formally from the doorway. “I’ve come to work on clearing out that upstairs bedroom, as we’d agreed.” Her voice was stiff, as though she were reading from a script. Lying did not come easily to her.

  Gwynn quickly looked away to hide her surprise. They hadn’t agreed. She didn’t think they had agreed. Had they?

  “Yes,” she said, sounding wooden to her own ears. “I’d forgotten.” She’d already told the two officers that she wasn’t expecting visitors. Perhaps Mary didn’t qualify. “Yes. Go on up, why don’t you, and I’ll join you when I’m done here.” She nodded, hoping Mary understood: I’ve got this under control. Hoping she did, actually, have this under control. “Do you know Detective Inspector Barrows? DS Laundryman? This is Mary Tennant.”

  Mary tipped her head in acknowledgment. “We’ve met,” she said tightly. “When they asked me a few questions earlier.” She nodded to each of them in turn.

  “Mrs. Tennant,” Inspector Barrows greeted. He got slowly to his feet. “It’s all right. We’ve mostly wrapped things up here. Unless there’s anything else you need to ask, Sergeant? Anything I’ve forgotten?”

  DS Laundryman held up a hand and shook his head. “No, no, thank you, I think I’m set here.” He snapped his notebook shut and pocketed it.

  “Right, then. We’ll be off. We’ll type up a statement, and then perhaps you’ll come along to the station and sign it. In the next day or so—we’ll let you know.”

  The detectives thanked her for the tea, the general dogsbody Laundryman carrying the tray through into the kitchen before taking leave. Gwynn shut the door behind them gratefully and returned to the wing-backed chair, where she slumped without grace.

  Mary handed her a shot glass which she seemed to have conjured out of thin air, her lips pressed thin.

  “Drink this. You look like you need it.” She lowered herself to the edge the seat so recently occupied by the inspector, her back straight. Everyone, it seemed, thought Gwynn looked like she needed a stiff drink. “Was it bad?”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I saw the car. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Checking in on her. Despite being rebuffed. Just as she had all those years for Mrs. Chelton. Gwynn told herself she didn’t need anyone to check on her. She sipped the whisky cautiously, tasting sudden irrational anger, and something else—fear?—at the back of her throat. “They were polite. But cagey. Evading my questions. Wanted to know why I thought Giles hadn’t fallen. Why I didn’t think it was an accident.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “About the way he was lying on the ground.” The whisky, as always, burned on the way down; she would never get used to it. Gwynn realized she was close to tears. She thought of the last time she’d drunk too much and hurriedly put the shot glass down. She tugged at her hair. “I keep thinking of the blood.” Her voice was losing strength.

  “I’m sure you do.”

  The kindness in Mary’s voice was Gwynn’s undoing. She pressed her fingers to her eyes to prevent the tears from falling.

  “Blood. It’s what happens,” Mary said with surprising bitterness, “when you get clubbed in the skull with an enormous rock.”

  Gwynn met her eyes in shock. Mary’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “Who told you that?” Gwynn’s glass still contained most of the two fingers of whisky, but her ears rang almost as if she’d downed the entire bottle. “About a rock? No one said anything to me.”

  “Evan Collier let it out to me. This morning. At the shops.” Mary shook her head. “Foolish lad. Never could keep his mouth closed.”

  “S
o they knew.” Gwynn wanted to spit. “They knew all along that it wasn’t an accident.”

  Mary leaned forward, almost as if to offer comfort, but thought better of it and sat back again. “I wonder why they wouldn’t have said anything to you about it.”

  “Bastards,” Gwynn said darkly. Then the thought struck her. “You don’t think that they knew about Paul Stokes?”

  “What about him?”

  “About me, hitting him with a rock.”

  Mary’s lips thinned once again. “Quite a coincidence, they might think.” She wiped a hand at a phantom crumb on the table “But who would tell him? And why would they keep the information about Giles being hit from you?”

  “Too much of a coincidence,” Gwynn muttered. “Because if they know I hit one man with a rock, it’s only a small step to thinking I hit another. That’s my modus operandi.”

  45

  “I UNDERSTAND,” DETECTIVE Inspector Barrows said as he lowered himself into the chair behind the desk, “that there’s some bad blood between you and your cousin, Paul Stokes.”

  Even though she had prepared herself for it, the baldness of the statement knocked Gwynn back. “Who told you that?”

  “I don’t think that’s important,” Barrows said. He leaned back in the chair as though uncomfortable. “Is it true?”

  Gwynn studied her hands. “I don’t know if bad blood is the right term. He’s angry with me because our mutual great-aunt, Gwynn Chelton, who died last spring, left me her cottage. I guess he’d hoped she’d be willing it to him at her death.”

  “You make it sound rather tame.”

  She glanced up. Barrows had his fingertips pressed together, a steeple, before his lips, as though concentrating hard on her answer. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m sorry he feels that way, I suppose.”

  “Sorry enough to attack him? Sorry enough to hit him with a rock?”

  Gwynn caught her breath. So it had come to that. “Did he leave out the part where he threatened me first? Because it sounds like he did.” It sounded as though Stokes had tailored the story to make her into some kind of raving lunatic, randomly swinging stones at people.