by Fay Sampson
As the constable headed off, PC Watkins came hurrying back from the house, alone this time. She carried her own coil of tape in her hand.
She checked when she saw the man with Aidan. “What are you doing here… if you’ll forgive me asking, Sergeant? I was the one Newtown sent. It’s my shout.”
“We were nearly as close, Constable. And this looks like more than a girl can handle on her own.”
The small policewoman drew herself up to her full height. “For your information, I’m twenty-nine, Sergeant. And I’ve been through the same training as you.” The dark eyes took on a metallic glint. “I know the drill for being the first on a murder scene. If it is murder, and not an accident. But you wouldn’t want to miss out on your bit of excitement, would you?”
“I suggest you get back to whatever you were doing before that call, Constable. Let the big boys handle this one.”
“I’ve called in CID. I’ll be here when they come.”
Roberts came loping back across the range with a coil of police tape.
“Right. Fence off this area, will you?”
Watkins watched them. “You don’t suppose he was shot in the eye from point blank range, do you? Shouldn’t you be preserving evidence back there?” She nodded towards the other end of the range, where Jenny had positioned herself this morning.
This recollection jolted Aidan out of the stupor he had felt since the police arrived and took matters out of his hands. Jenny, so happy with that golden yew bow, recovering some of the joy she had felt in the sport when she was well. And someone else who must have been standing there not long after her, drawing back another bow, loosing it at the unsuspecting figure of Thaddaeus Brown.
Meanwhile, over his head, the uniformed police manoeuvred for professional advantage.
He was startled when a hand tapped his shoulder. “It’s all right, sir. You can go back to the house now. We’ll handle this.” Constable Watkins’s eyes were more sympathetic for him.
Aidan rose stiffly to his feet. He had not realized how long he had been kneeling beside the body. He felt a little unsteady now.
“You all right, sir? Shall I walk you back?”
“No, thanks.” He managed a shaky smile. “I guess I could do with the obligatory hot cup of tea.”
“Don’t leave the house, sir,” Sergeant Morris ordered. “We’ll want to question you.”
“I was going to take statements from everyone,” muttered Watkins as she steered him away.
“I’m not going anywhere. We’re staying at the house.”
A darker shadow fell over his mind. He had been sustained by that self-righteous feeling that he was doing his citizen’s duty. Guarding the body until the police arrived. Shielding young Harry and Debbie from staying longer with this sight. Now he had moved into a different category. A witness to be questioned. Even, judging from the sergeant’s severe tone, a possible suspect.
As he walked back across the lawn, he was belatedly aware that he was still in his hiking socks. His boots were back on the patio with his rucksack.
More alarming facts were slowly sinking in. Pennant Melangell was a small and remote place. There were only a handful of people here who could have shot Thaddaeus Brown.
Suddenly he was jolted out of his thoughts. Seemingly out of nowhere, there was a camera in front of his face. Even in that moment of shock, Aidan recognized its professional quality. The large lens was trained on his face. His image snapped.
“Who the…?” Aidan shouted, overcome with anger.
The camera dropped from a round, almost boyish face. Fair, wavy hair was combed up above his innocent blue eyes.
The younger man held out a hand. “Marcus Coutts. I gather we’re in the same line of business.” His voice had a nasal twang.
Aidan’s outraged eyes took in the high-end Leica camera, the tan leather jacket, beige trousers and floral shirt.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Come now. I should have thought that was obvious. Don’t tell me you haven’t got a shot in first. Over there, is he? The body? They tell me this is a juicy one. Arrow in the eye. Like it! You’ll need to be quick off the mark to beat me to the dailies. They’re going to love this.”
With a wink at Aidan, he went almost running across the grass to the path that led to Thaddaeus’s corpse. Aidan heard the shout of fury from Sergeant Morris.
Still shaking with anger, Aidan picked up his own camera case from the terrace. It did not help that he had imagined himself taking photographs of that grisly scene.
He went through to the lounge to meet the shocked and silent faces of Jenny and Melangell.
Aidan looked round at the sober gathering in the lounge. Like him, they were all waiting to be questioned.
The uniformed police had already taken brief statements of their whereabouts that afternoon. Aidan was aware that his own replies to Sergeant Morris had been terser than they would have been to PC Watkins.
Now the investigation had switched to a higher gear, with the arrival of the CID. Chief Inspector Denbigh and his sergeant, Lincoln. They had been followed shortly by a forensics team. Out there, on the edge of the archery range, expert minds, gloved hands, protective-suited bodies, would be examining Thaddaeus’s corpse. Meanwhile, the inspector had taken over Sian’s office as an interviewing room.
It seemed incongruous that the sun was still shining out there on the lawns. That they were all sitting here in their leather armchairs, in this pleasing room Thaddaeus had designed for their comfort and enjoyment. What would happen to the House of the Hare now?
His eyes went to Lorna. Oddly, she seemed less upset now than she had been when he saw her before her uncle’s death. Her small figure, in sober black and grey, was half lost in the deep armchair. She looked pale but composed, unlike the distraught figure in torn shirt and jeans they had encountered near the waterfall. Euan looked the more nervous of the two. His shaggy dark hair fell over his downcast eyes. He sat on the very edge of his seat, as though he felt he did not deserve the greater comfort of the cushions behind him. Clearly, he was longing to be out of doors, more at ease with his tools and wheelbarrow.
The Ewarts looked bewildered. They had arrived back at the house after Aidan and Melangell. They seemed like two innocents caught up in a horror for which they could not possibly be responsible. Aidan could not imagine Rachel, small and pain-wracked, even attempting to draw a bow. And the precision required to send that arrow through Thaddaeus’s eye seemed out of place with Colin’s blustering.
Harry and Debbie were still clearly frightened by their experience. Harry’s white-knuckled hand was gripping Debbie’s.
Josef, the chef, Aidan had barely glimpsed before. Just a figure in a long white apron and black-and-white checked trousers, busy in the kitchen preparing mouth-watering food. Now he sat, still and tense, awaiting his turn with the rest of them. Had he other things to be nervous of? Was he really from Poland? If not, did he have the necessary work permit?
Sian herself seemed the calmest of them all. Aidan guessed that it must help that she was in charge now. Her head must be full of all the practical things that needed to be done in the wake of her employer’s death. It was like the busyness of a family before a funeral, for whom the full impact of the loss would only hit home after the necessities of death certificates and funeral teas were dealt with.
Did Thaddaeus have any family besides Lorna?
His questing eyes and questioning mind had passed over the only other two people in the room. Jenny, still and pale. Melangell, who was lying on her stomach behind the sofa, intent on her jigsaw.
The door opened. The lanky form of Constable Roberts appeared. He was visibly swelling with the importance of being involved in a murder enquiry.
“Mr Townsend, please.”
With a startled look at Debbie, Harry rose from his seat and made his way across the rugs, watched by all those other pairs of eyes.
Chapter Nine
DETECTIVE CHI
EF INSPECTOR Denbigh had the world-weary air of an elderly schoolmaster, who has seen all the tricks adolescent boys can play and is impressed by none of them. Aidan was aware of the balding DS Lincoln in the corner of Sian’s office, watching him over his notepad with sharp black eyes.
The office surprised Aidan. The computer desk might have been cleared to assist the police, but the shelves of colour-coded, neatly labelled files were meticulously tidy. The bushranger outfit Sian habitually wore had led him to think she might be an outdoor type who spent as little time as possible on the minutiae of office work. But perhaps he was wrong. PE teachers would be particular about playing by the rules. And the House of the Hare showed every sign of being a well-run establishment.
The inspector’s voice called him back to the serious task in hand. “Now, Mr Davison, if you’d like to give us an account of your movements, leading up to the time when Mr Townsend told you he had found the body.”
“I’d come back from a walk, about three o’clock.”
“A walk, Mr Davison? Could you be more precise?”
Aidan hesitated, then launched into an account of their ill-advised expedition to reach the foot of the waterfall. He passed over their fleeting encounter with Lorna Brown without mentioning it. There had been something too disturbing, too unexplained. He was not sure he had the right words for it.
But it clearly mattered that he tell the inspector where he had last seen Thaddaeus Brown.
“I was sure I’d seen a short cut back, so we set off down the valley, and then we heard these voices.”
The heavy grey eyebrows rose, waiting.
“It was Thaddaeus Brown and a man I hadn’t met before. Caradoc Lewis. They were arguing about something.”
“Something, Mr Davison?”
“I heard the word ‘hang-gliding’.” Aidan felt the colour in his cheeks. How much was it right to pass on hearsay? “I’ve heard that sort of thing before. People expressing fears that the House of the Hare might not be just for those who want to come on pilgrimage to St Melangell’s shrine, or enjoy the peace of the mountains. That he might want to make it more of an extreme sports centre, to make it pay.”
“People. Now that’s not very precise, is it?”
“Sian,” he murmured, feeling guilty now. “She used to teach PE, so she’s keen on sport for keeping people fit. Like archery…”
He saw the sergeant’s balding head jerk up.
Aidan rushed on. “I mean, I don’t know whether she shoots herself. But you’ve seen the butts. It’s for guests. That’s the sort of thing Sian’s promoting. Not waterfall walking or bungee jumping.”
The inspector’s voice pressed relentlessly on. “What time was it when you saw Mr Brown?”
“About two, I think. We’d had our lunch. He drove away towards Pennant Melangell. We talked to Caradoc Lewis after he’d gone, and then walked back along the road to here.”
The steady grey eyes regarded him. “You’re a photographer, I hear. A man whose sharp eyes notice things. What else have you seen or heard while you’ve been here that would give you the feeling that there was animosity towards Thaddaeus Brown?”
Aidan was growing increasingly uncomfortable. It was one thing to give an account of his own movements. Another to implicate other people. It seemed unlikely that the eccentric Caradoc Lewis could have followed them to Pennant Melangell unnoticed, in time to shoot Thaddaeus. But he felt guilty that he might have cast suspicion on him. And Sian.
It seemed better to cast the net wider.
“Mother Joan at the church didn’t seem to want Pennant Melangell to be overrun. But I don’t remember her saying anything personal against Thaddaeus. Harry and Debbie were worried that the House of the Hare is a bit too expensive for people like them, but that’s hardly a motive for murder. Colin Ewart was upset because the place doesn’t seem to be doing anything to help his wife’s back. He blamed Thaddaeus for misleading advertising. But the Ewarts got back after we found the body.”
“Anyone else?”
Conscience hammered at Aidan’s sense of honesty.
He lowered his head, addressing the hiking socks, where leaf mould from the shrubbery still clung. “We were nearly at the foot of Pistyll Blaen-y-cwm,” he muttered. “Someone appeared from the direction of the falls. Lorna Brown. She was… crying. Her shirt was torn. She wouldn’t say what was the matter.”
The sergeant’s voice came from the corner. “And that was how long before you saw Mr Brown with Mr Lewis?”
“About an hour, maybe less. We stopped for a picnic and a rest.”
“How far would it be from this waterfall to Caradoc Lewis’s place?”
“Capel-y-Cwm? A quarter of a mile, I should think.”
“Was she heading that way?” the inspector asked.
“She was walking beside the stream when we met her. Almost running. But on the left side. The path we took veers off to the right. I don’t think she took it, but I’m not sure. But we’d seen her earlier on that path, coming from there towards the falls with someone else.”
“Who?”
“It was too far away to see. We were up on the hill. But I saw Lorna’s white shirt.”
“Now I wonder whether Miss Brown knows how to use a bow.”
Aidan felt his heart sink lower. “Sian said she does.”
There was a long silence. Aidan raised his eyes. There was a shaving cut on the inspector’s chin. He looked like a man who used an old-fashioned razor.
“Thank you, Mr Davison. You’ve been very helpful.”
Aidan’s panicked eyes met the inspector’s. He rose. “If it was Thaddaeus who upset Lorna, ask Euan Jones.”
The inspector’s brows lifted again. “Really, now? I think I shall.”
Aidan turned at the door. “Could I ask a favour? Would you see my wife next? She’s unwell, and this is very distressing. She needs to rest.”
Inspector Denbigh glanced down at the list on the desk. “Jennifer Davison. Writer. Suffers from cancer.”
Aidan’s heart felt more hollow. Was nothing secret? He supposed Sian had supplied details of the guests and staff.
The inspector’s eyes softened a little. “Tell your wife she can go upstairs and rest. We’ll see her later.” He gave a weary smile. “I don’t expect she’s letting fly with arrows these days, is she?”
Someone was rocking her shoulder. Aidan’s voice said gently, “Jenny, love? It’s time to wake up. The police want to talk to you.”
She sat up slowly, fighting off the grogginess of sleep and drugs.
Aidan’s bearded face looked anxious. “Are you OK? If not, I’ll tell the inspector. They can see you some other time.”
“No.” She made an effort to swing her feet to the floor. “I’ve got to do this. A man is dead. Let’s get it over with.”
He helped her find her shoes. She rearranged her headscarf. The face that looked back at her in the mirror was paler than she would have liked, the eyes darkly hollowed. She looked more ill than she wanted to admit yet. For a moment, she thought of accepting Aidan’s suggestion and going back to bed.
Instead, she stood, unsteadily, and let Aidan take her arm.
She smiled at him ruefully. “Thanks. Perhaps the people who told us ‘Don’t go back’ were right. We could have kept our memories intact.”
Entering Sian’s office, her senses came more keenly alert. Chief Inspector Denbigh rose to greet her with old-fashioned courtesy. He held out his hand.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs Davison. We’ll try not to keep you long.”
“That’s all right. I understand. Mr Brown is dead. If I can help in any way, I will.”
“That’s very understanding of you. Please. Take a seat.”
The smile withdrew. The look was steadier now. “If you could just take us through your movements this afternoon…”
“There’s not much to say. I had lunch with the Ewarts. Then I went back to bed. I’m afraid I spend a good deal of the time resting these days
. Then I took a book down to the patio. I was sitting reading when Aidan and Melangell got back.”
“What time would that be?” asked the plain-clothes sergeant with the notepad.
She turned a confused face to him. “I didn’t notice. Around three, I think. We’d only been talking for a few minutes when Harry came running across the lawn shouting that they’d found a body.”
Inspector Denbigh tapped the desk with a fingernail. “I understand your room is at the back of the house.”
“Yes.”
“Did you, by any chance, see anything, anyone at all, in the grounds before you came downstairs, or after?”
Jenny frowned. Aidan had shared with her the guilt he felt that he had told the police about his meeting with the distraught Lorna at the waterfall.
“I didn’t want to give them the impression that she had something against Thaddaeus,” he had said.
Now she felt the same sense of betrayal.
“I saw Lorna come back,” she said, reluctantly.
“Alone? Or with Mr Brown?”
“I don’t know how she got here. I might have heard a car. No, that was earlier. The Ewarts going out after lunch. And two men coming in. I didn’t know them.”
The sergeant consulted his notes. “Mr Secker and Mr McCarthy. We know about them. They left around three.”
“It was earlier than that when I saw Lorna. About twenty to three. She was on foot then. I don’t know how she got back.”
“Would you mind telling me where you saw her?”
“There’s a sort of stable-block. Old outbuildings, beyond the archery butts. She came running past that side of the house. And met Euan Jones.”
“The gardener.”
“That’s right.”
“How did she seem? I know it’s a long way from your window, but was there anything you noticed?”
“Yes,” she said, unhappily. “She seemed… distressed. She ran straight to Euan. He put his arms round her.”
There was a long pause.
“Thank you, Mrs Davison. That’s very helpful.”