by Lily Ashton
“I’ve always said that dog owners are mad!” Roddy laughed. “She can’t be serious?”
Alice took the picture of Wilson from Roddy. “Deadly, it would appear. I’ve no idea what she means and this is the only dog I’ve seen around Renton Hall. Though I find it hard to believe that this little fella was the cause of a fatal dispute.”
“Believe it. Somebody once threatened to kill me over a pineapple!” Roddy waved a finger at Alice. “Don’t ask. Though in my defence, we had started by arguing about a woman!”
“That I can believe.”
Roddy pointed at a second picture. “Jeremy Evans?”
“His murder is a bigger mystery than Nick’s. According to Eleanor, he was Mr Congeniality. So why would anyone want to kill him?”
“Oh, there is a reason. We just have to find out what it is.”
Alice sat in Great Wheaton Police Station’s interview room, staring at a grey wall, as she had done for the past fifteen minutes. A long time to stare at a grey wall. When she had arrived to give her statement, she was ushered into the room, invited to sit on an uncomfortable plastic chair and told to wait.
With no windows and a shut door, the walls closed in. Alice paced around the room. Four strides across the width. Four down the length. Moisture gathered at her throat and she pulled at the neck of her t-shirt. After what seemed ages but was probably only two minutes, the door clicked open. DI Nathan Salisbury strode in.
Nathan sat opposite Alice, hands on the table, palms down. His broad shoulders were hunched over and a cloud shadowed his handsome face. “I wanted to have a quiet word with you, Alice, before DS Riley comes in to take your full statement.”
Heat rushed to Alice’s cheeks. She patted a palm on one side of her face, as if to push the heat back inside.
Nathan looked over Alice’s shoulder. “I know you’ve had a preliminary interview with DS Riley. Thank you for answering his questions. There are a couple of points I want to clarify with you. Firstly, let’s go back to when you discovered Jeremy Evans in the hayloft.” Nathan’s grey eyes darkened. “You said that you went into the downstairs area of Mr Evans’ house. You were looking for some sculptures. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Alice’s voice cracked. “Yes. Eleanor Carberry told me that Jeremy, that is Mr Evans, had found some ceramics in his snug and she wanted me to have a look at them.”
“So, you were in Mr Evans’ snug because Eleanor Carberry had asked you to look at some ceramics?”
“That’s correct.”
“And there was nobody else in the building when you got there?”
“No.”
“Or while you were there? You didn’t see anybody else at all?”
Alice shuffled on her seat. “No.”
“And what about outside the building? Did you see anybody in the fields as you walked from Renton Hall? Or in the wooded area?”
Alice went back to Tuesday afternoon and pictured herself as she left the conservatory. She walked over the little bridge and alongside the paddock. She would have easily spotted someone across the open landscape, but the nearest she had seen to a person was Nick’s sculpture on the decking. She had not seen or heard anybody, though it would have been easy enough for somebody to remain hidden in the wood.
“No. I didn’t see anybody else from the time I left the Hall, until I saw Mr Evans.”
“Thank you. Now if I could take you back to when you discovered Mr Evans. You told DS Riley that you wanted to have a nose around the hayloft. Earlier, you had seen some old furniture that was being readied for auction and you wanted to have a proper look. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right. I … yes.”
Nathan smiled. Was he trying to reassure her? “And when you found Mr Evans, you were alone?”
“Yes.”
Nathan formed a steeple with his fingers and tapped it against his nose. He looked down at the table for a moment, then he fixed his eyes on Alice’s.
“We found the gun used to shoot Mr Evans. It was an old service revolver, part of the gun collection kept in Renton Hall’s attic.” Nathan linked his hands. “Luckily, we found a clear fingerprint on the grip, which we have been able to identify. So we now have a suspect for Mr Evans’ murder.”
Alice wondered which of the suspects it was. Simon Newgate, Harry Horton or Cheryl Horton?
“You. The fingerprint on the gun, Alice, is yours.”
Chapter 15
Livvie Manners unwrapped a double chocolate brownie and handed it to Alice. “You said it was an emergency and that means brownies, right?”
“Not that sort of emergency,” Alice said sitting up on the sun lounger on Daisy’s deck.
Alice could not get Nathan Salisbury’s face out of her mind. Once Nathan had told her that her fingerprints were on the gun, Alice had not heard another word he said. Though she did notice his serious expression. She was aware of him helping her up and guiding her out the door. She knew that he had handed her a card. The rest was a blur.
As she walked back to Daisy, Alice pictured the gun collection in the attic at Renton Hall. She watched the glass shelf crash, she saw herself collecting the pieces from the floor. And then she remembered picking up the service revolver.
She, of all people, should have known better. Art and antique collections often contain fragile or priceless pieces. And handling, or even touching them could cause irreparable damage. All Alice’s training and experience screamed that she should not have touched anything without protective gloves and the utmost care. In this case though, far from damaging the gun, she had damaged herself. She was a murder suspect.
Alice closed her eyes and flopped back on the lounger.
“Okay, so … a different sort of emergency.” Livvie rustled through her canvas bag. “Let’s see, you call me at the café, tell me to come over immediately and then you just sit there and don’t tell me what’s happened. No really, it’s fine. I’ll just guess.”
Alice opened her eyes. Livvie was holding a small bottle of whisky. “This sort of emergency?”
Alice nodded. Livvie poured a measure into Alice’s coffee. “There you go.”
Alice sipped her drink. An instant hit from the water of life cleared her head.
“Feel better?”
“Thanks Livvie, that was just what I needed.”
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on? You’re starting to scare me.”
Alice told Livvie about her meeting with Nathan.
“But he doesn’t suspect you, right? Nathan knows that you just touched the thing by accident. I mean you picked up loads of pieces, right?”
“Yes. No. Actually I’m not sure. I think he believed me. But he also said he had to corroborate my story.” Alice put both hands around the mug. “Though I don’t know how, there was nobody else in the attic at the time.”
“Nathan’s a smart man and he knows you Alice. Having a former boyfriend who still holds a torch for you, well that’s got to count for something.”
“Nathan will be his usual diligent self. He won’t jeopardise the investigation because of his feelings for me. Which, by the way, are not what you think they are. Nathan and I split up years ago.”
“Okay, you think what you want, but that man still has the hots for you.” Livvie shielded her eyes with her hand.
“Like me or not, Nathan has me down as a suspect until he can prove that I didn’t kill Jeremy Evans.”
“Nathan will quickly eliminate you from his incident board; meantime, you should find out who the real killer is. My customers at The Coffee Pot can’t talk about anything else.”
“One of three people killed Nick Carberry and Jeremy Evans. Though I’m not sure I understand why.”
If Jeremy Evans’ widow was right, the only unexplored motive for the murders, unlikely as it seemed to Alice, was
Eleanor’s Yorkshire terrier. Alice had to find out why the dog was so important. And fast.
Alice found Sarah Evans in her garden, picking strawberries. She popped one in her mouth before dropping another into a basket, taking off her gloves and shoving them into her trouser pocket.
In the kitchen, a large pot bubbled on the hob, steaming the windows despite the open back door. Sarah made a pot of tea and carried it out to a bench in the garden.
“So, you’ve come about the dog,” said Sarah. “I suspected you might, though I’ve not much more to tell you. Jeremy said it was just an ordinary statue and he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.”
“A statue? So it’s not a real dog?”
“Heavens no.” Sarah cracked a smile. “And there you were, thinking I was talking about a real animal. No, it’s one of those ornamental things that people put in their gardens. Can’t see the point of them myself, but Jeremy said he was very attached to it.”
“He? By which you mean Nick Carberry?”
“Oh no, the man next door. Bill Trevelyan. It was his dog.”
So, Nick Carberry had argued with somebody over a statue of a dog?
“Are you sure, Sarah? I don’t mean to be dismissive, but I’m finding it hard to understand why Nick could fall out with someone over something so … ordinary. Why the dog would be the cause of two deaths.”
“Well as they so wisely say, there’s none as queer as folk.”
“Indeed. So who was doing the arguing? I’m assuming that both Nick Carberry and Jeremy were involved?”
“Nick was most upset about it. Got quite agitated, so Jeremy told me. But goodness, what is the point of getting in a state over a silly statue. And Nick was always such a sensible boy.”
“Have you seen this dog yourself?”
“No. Jeremy said it was nothing special and not worth a visit.”
Special or not, Alice had to see it for herself.
Waiting at Narebridge Road T-junction, Alice glimpsed her brother. Christian was in the back of a taxi chatting to Devi. Alice’s heart skipped. She had not heard from Christian since he had left Daisy. Reluctantly agreeing with Roddy that she should give him time to calm down, she had not contacted him. She hoped that he would get in touch when he was ready. But he was clearly not ready yet. And Alice was missing him.
She debated whether to give him a call. She did not want to pester him and if he ignored her call, she would be hurt. On the other hand, Christian himself might be upset if she did not at least try to make contact. Brothers were complicated creatures!
At Renton Hall, the decorators had moved their paraphernalia into the sitting room and were painting the walls lemon. The colour lifted the dimmest and least attractive of the downstairs rooms. But Alice had a dog to find, so she walked over the bridge and up the track beside the wood to find the dog statue. At Jeremy’s snug, she followed the path into the wood.
Sunbeams flashed between branches of soaring trees, flaming the leaves. Underfoot, the narrow path was carpeted with vegetation damp from the night’s rain. Alice slipped a couple of times, her fashionable Vans not designed for rural conditions. She was through the woods sooner than she expected and found herself standing in a field. A large farmhouse stood about fifty metres away. Bill Trevelyan’s home.
A Land Rover was parked beside the front door. In the centre of the turning circle, water spouted from a silver dolphin in an elaborate stone fountain. A gravel driveway, with several potholes, led down to the main road. There was no ornamental dog.
It was likely to be in the back garden, so keeping close to the wood, Alice tracked left. A high, raggedy privet hedge ran from the edge of the house, separating a paddock from what Alice assumed to be a private family garden. Walking across the exposed paddock would be risky; she might be seen from one of the house windows. She shaded her eyes with both hands, but could see no movement. Taking a chance, she jogged across the grass.
At the house, she put her back to the brickwork and peered around the corner. All clear. She crept along the towering privet hedge, until she reached a patch of thinning shrubs. Finding a gap, she peered through. Four square flowerbeds were separated by a gravel path in the shape of a cross. Rampant bushes of rosemary and mint scented the sultry air. Fingers of peas and plump tomatoes ripened on the vine.
A woman with a scarf tied under her chin knelt at one of the squares. Digging out potatoes with a trowel, she brushed off the earth with gardening gloves that almost reached her elbows, and threw the vegetables into a wheelbarrow. Mrs Trevelyan, presumably.
Alice scanned the kitchen garden, but there were no dogs, ornamental or otherwise. She turned back again and checking that the woman was occupied, she crept to the corner of the privet hedge, jogged back across the grass and into the trees.
Now in a different part of the wood, Alice walked straight through assuming that she would still end up back on the Renton Hall estate. She found a path by a holly bush. Treetops met and the wood darkened as Alice picked her way along the path until it disappeared. She pushed a branch away from her face and climbed over an uprooted tree trunk. Alice stopped and peered through the bushes, but could see nothing other than more vegetation.
The wood grew gloomy but Alice pressed on. She stubbed her toe on a plank, hobbled to one side, tripped over a wire and fell to her knees. She put one foot on the ground and held onto a large stone to lever herself up. She rubbed her hands and as she bent down to brush the earth from her trousers, she noticed the markings on the stone.
Alice took out her phone and switched on the torch. She ran the beam across the engraving and made out the words, ‘Charlie 1984–1990’. A headstone! There was another one next to it, this one reading, ‘Felix 1976–1980’. Gosh, some poor woman had buried two children. A rustle from the bush behind her made Alice spin around. She moved the torch from side to side but could see nothing other than foliage.
Not wishing to go back the way she had come and risk tripping on the wire again, she edged around the two headstones. On the other side was a wrought iron bench with ivy growing along one armrest. And lying on the seat was a cat. Alice hesitated. The cat did not move. Alice shone her torch in its face and when it still did not move, she bent down to touch it. It was made of stone.
On the ground beside the bench was a greyhound, sitting straight and tall and staring with sightless eyes into the gloom. Two animals on the edge of a cemetery? It must be a pet cemetery!
Alice patted the greyhound’s head. “And you, my friend, must be the stone dog.”
Chapter 16
Two men were dead over a statue of a dog. Alice was no nearer to understanding why, even after seeing it. A stone dog, in a pet cemetery, in a wood. It did not look as if anyone had visited the site for years. Why would anybody care about it?
Alice manoeuvred the Defender into a tight spot on Great Wheaton high street and began walking. The Town Hall clock struck five, so she picked up speed and darted into the framer’s shop.
Terry Conrad had begun his working life as a carpenter until he realised he could make more money, more easily, with a framing service. He had opened his shop thirty years ago, framing expensive paintings, school photographs and amateur watercolours for local residents. Alice supposed that Terry could tell a lot about people from the images they brought him and she wondered what he thought about Emilio Gambi.
“That’s a fine collection of photographs.” Terry rubbed his stubbly chin. “I haven’t framed a family of Italian pizza makers before. They’re a good looking lot, especially that Dean Martin. What relation is he?”
“He’s an imaginary cousin! I’m not sure how he got there, but I’m told he’s a permanent part of the collection.”
Terry’s smile was wide enough to reveal a gap where a molar should be. “Well they’re all done for you. It’s at the higher rate, if that’s okay, since you needed them done quic
kly.”
Bandy legs took Terry to a back room and he returned with two of the pictures. One was a black and white photograph of Emilio with two young boys. An ivory mount with a thin red frame complemented the smiling family.
“Fantastic,” said Alice. “I’m really pleased with that. How did you get on with the others?”
Terry turned towards the window and the light caught a diamond in his ear. “All good, expect for the really old one.”
“Yes, Nonno’s picture is the one I was worried about. How did it work out?”
Terry handed over the second picture. “See for yourself.”
This photo was smaller than the previous one. It was double mounted and had the same red frame. Nonno Gambi was laughing as he shook the mayor’s hand. The photo looked clearer than Alice remembered.
“This is terrific, Terry. You’ve cut off the damaged bottom section, but you don’t notice that this photo is smaller than the others because the double mount gives it more body. In fact, it will stand out on the wall, which is exactly what Emilio wanted. That’s clever.” Alice lifted the image closer. “But you’ve done something to the surface. It looks newer. What is it?”
Terry tapped the side of his nose. “Terry’s secret.” He laughed. “Glad you like it.”
“Emilio will be delighted.”
“It’s Sunday, the opening, isn’t it?”
“Yes, so I’ll be hanging these tomorrow.”
Terry took the photo back. “I’ll get them wrapped up and delivered to Emilio’s first thing.”
Alice opened Daisy’s hatch door, turned on the deck light and leaned over the barge’s side. A demure moon cast shimmering lines across the river, broken by Mr and Mrs Swan gliding towards their nest on the old wooden jetty. Opposite, cows packed together underneath the big oak tree, water caressing the bank beneath them. An owl hooted from the barn at the riding stables behind.
Alice closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She lifted up her face and a cool breeze stroked her cheeks. Opening her arms wide, she stretched to the tip of her fingers.