by Marni Graff
2:25 PM
Higgins separated Nora from Simon. Nora waited for the SOCO to finish in her plundered bedroom, where Higgins questioned her.
“Simon was in my company all morning,” she insisted.
Was that the truth or an alibi? Higgins had been surprised when Ian Travers had brought in his fiancée’s brother for his statement but not when he’d read the report that indicated the presence of the plant implicated in poisoning their victim. There was that time that Ramsey and Keith Clarendon had had a dust-up at the pub with a few punches thrown, although neither had pressed charges. Could Ramsey have held a grudge all this time and gotten his own back in a horrific way? Wouldn’t that be a kicker if Ramsey were involved in Clarendon’s murder?
Higgins called Clarendon Hall next and spoke with Cook, an acquaintance of his mum’s.
“Mr. Hackney arrived just after 11 and stayed to lunch,” she reported. “And of course, none of the Clarendons have left the Hall.”
“What about the Coles?” he asked.
“They’re still out,” Cook explained. “On her day off, Gillian gets the men ready in the morning, and the rest of the day and the putting to bed are down to the district nurse. Gillian and Robbie were to eat out and go to the cinema today, but I don’t know where.”
Higgins left a message on the Coles’ phone, asking them to call when they returned. Everyone seemed covered, then, but of course, Higgins reasoned, it was just as likely it was someone who had not been seen who was the culprit.
Higgins thought of himself as a methodical policeman. Slow and steady gets the job done, he reasoned. He dispatched a constable to scour the pubs for Rowley and Halsey, starting with The Scarlet Wench. He enjoyed being in charge in Travers’ absence and decided this was nothing to bother the bereaved parents with; a call at the back door of Clarendon Hall would be appropriate to cross the Ts. After all, no one could be certain there was a link between the assault and ransacking and Keith Clarendon’s death.
And if he timed his visit right, Cook would give him a tasty pudding.
*
2:45 PM
Tony Warner lingered at Ye Olde Sandwiche Shoppe, hoping to overhear a snippet of local conversation that would allow him to insert himself in a genteel way. Most small towns had their own coterie of rampant gossips.
He’d enjoyed a brief but easy hike. Not one to overly exert himself, Tony had driven south from Bowness-on-Windermere on the A592 toward Ulverston. The walk he’d found in Cumbria magazine had taken him over good paths and tracks for just more than two hours, following a pretty walled lane at one point. He’d had a coffee in one of the many cafes and had bought a new badge for his walking stick before returning to Bowness.
The sandwich shop was the third place he’d visited after returning, studying the people eating and drinking and those waiting on them. He fancied he could distinguish between visitors and locals—and not just due to the absence of trainers and a backpack. The locals knew the name of their waitress, for instance. And there was the Scots influence in their dialect. So far, the few locals he’d exchanged pleasantries with had been polite but distant.
Tony decided he gave off too much of a cosmopolitan air to be taken quickly into anyone’s confidence and returned to Ramsey Lodge to rest and meditate.
As he parked, he saw people walking away from the building, leaving a small pack at the front entrance. There were several police cars nearby, and Tony hurried to the front door only to be told by a dour constable on duty that he could not enter until his credentials were checked and one of the Ramseys verified that he was a guest.
“What’s happened?” Tony asked.
“An incident on the premises,” the close-mouthed policeman replied. He spoke into his radio, asking for an identification of a guest.
An attractive woman caught Tony’s eye, and he stepped down closer to her. She happily told him that he’d missed an apparent assault, and someone had been taken away in an ambulance. When Simon Ramsey appeared in the doorway, he nodded to the constable, who admitted Tony.
Lingering in the hallway, Tony tried not to grind his teeth. Simon stood at the door, talking quietly to the constable, and from what Tony could overhear, he was waiting for other lodgers to appear. Tony thought hard. His next installment on the Clarendon murder for the local papers would have to come from information gleaned from others when he could have been an on-the-spot correspondent—or even have been interviewed by the police himself. If only he’d been on the grounds at the height of the excitement. He wondered how he could quote himself while worrying how he would explain to Old Jenks that he’d missed this scoop. His irritation was high, and he blamed Nora Tierney.
The tall man he’d seen this morning appeared and was cleared to enter. Tony corralled him with an outstretched arm and a wide smile, introducing himself as another patron who’d found himself caught up in “this mess” that had occurred at the lodge that day.
Glenn Hackney accepted the hand and the introduction.
“Tough to be on-site with all of what’s been going on in this little corner of the world,” Tony speculated, hoping vagueness would cover real information.
He saw Glenn draw himself up. “Actually, Keith Clarendon was a co-worker. I’m here on business for the Worth Travel Agency, representing the owner at the funeral. Just came from visiting the bereaved parents.”
“You don’t say?” Tony leaned in and lowered his voice. “Don’t let this get around, but I’m here on business, too. I’m a journalist. Nora Tierney is a former—colleague.” He couldn’t bring himself to say “boss.”
Glenn nodded. The two men appraised each other.
“The administrative centre at Oxford is called the Clarendon Building,” Tony ventured. “Wonder if Keith’s family is related?”
“Quite,” Glenn replied ambiguously. “How long have you known Nora Tierney?” he parried.
“Long enough,” Tony answered.
They exchanged broad smiles of kindred spirits
“How about a nice lakeside stroll before dinner?” Glenn suggested.
“You’re on,” Tony replied.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Night is the time to escape from the past, for then all illusions of safety are most easily created, most easily believed, and a secure future beckons as it does not in the harsh light of day.”
— Albert Halper, The Fourth Horseman of Miami Beach
4 PM
A rosy glow lit the afternoon by the time Nora was allowed back into her room to sort her belongings. She surveyed the damage. Silver fingerprint powder coated surfaces. Agnes’ blood had dried on the bathroom floor in a mahogany splatter.
A heavy brass vase that had stood on a side table had been found on the floor in one of the heaps of Nora’s clothing that had been pulled from her armoire. As the suspected implement of the cook’s injury, it had been bagged carefully and taken away by the forensic tech.
Simon appeared in the doorway with a few baskets. “Higgins says material doesn’t hold prints, so we can wash all your clothes, Nora.”
“Sounds good to me. The whole world has seen my underwear today, anyway.” At least she’d resisted maternity baggies with the elastic panel and wore bikini panties under the rise of her belly. She took a basket and started to sort darks and lights into piles. Simon followed her lead. They were halfway through when Kate arrived, back from the hospital.
“Agnes has a concussion. They’re keeping her overnight for observation,” she told them. “She’s also sporting a row of stitches in her scalp, and they gave her medication for her headache and nausea. Her sister is coming down from Scotland tomorrow to stay for a few days. I left her asleep.” Kate approached the dark walnut armoire, its warm patina glowing with age and use. The doors were flung open; hangin
g clothing inside was half on and half off hangers. “I’ll tidy these. At least whoever did this had the good grace not to damage the furniture.”
The laundry baskets filled quickly. Kate offered to get the first load started and left for the machines that they all used under the stairs from the kitchen. Nora rubbed her back and walked over to her set of French doors to gaze out to the flower garden she had sat in this weekend.
She turned at the sound of dragging to see Simon moving the large trunk from the foot of her bed over in front of the doors. “I’m not taking any chances,” he said. “I want you to feel safe in here at night.”
A chill came over Nora. It hadn’t occurred to her that whoever had attacked Agnes might return. Whom had she hurt or offended that made this attack personal? Or did someone know she’d copied Keith’s work and was desperate to get it back? What could Keith possibly have unearthed that couldn’t be known?
*
4:30 PM
Higgins sat at Cook’s table, waiting for Gillian and Robbie Cole to return. The cottage they inhabited was just at the end of the kitchen garden; they would have to pass the kitchen door on the lane to get home. It didn’t seem that they’d been involved in the assault, but he wanted to check on whom they’d seen at Ramsey Lodge before leaving the area.
“How’s your mum, Stephen?” Cook asked as she poured him a second cup of tea. Higgins’ mother and Cook met often in the library’s romance section.
“Good, quite good. Doting on my sister’s kids up in Penrith this week,” he replied. He watched Cook slice a thick wedge of almond pound cake and pile on a hearty scoop of berries before setting the plate before her admiring audience of one. If the expectant detective thought Cook was on edge, who wouldn’t be with the death of the house’s heir?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“My regret
Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.”
— Lord Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam
7 PM
It was with a deep sense of misgiving that Jodie Halsey watched her father-in-law, Jack, walk down the hill, clutching the hand of her young son. Jack constantly complained the boy was too attached to her and needed toughening up.
“He’s not a mot, he’s a boyo,” Jack had explained in his Cumbrian dialect. “An hour at the most.”
“But no pubs!” she’d admonished. She could just picture Jack and his pal Daniel Rowley having a few too many whilst they forgot her boy altogether.
“On me t’ol lass’s grave, I’d never drag a bairn into the pub.”
After Jack swore on his mum’s grave, Jodie had relented. Her husband traveled frequently for work and wasn’t around tonight. The child seemed so anxious to go with his grandfather, too, clearly sensing an adventure, that it was hard to turn him down.
Jodie decided it wouldn’t hurt for her to have an hour or two for herself. Maybe she’d take a hot bath and shave her legs for a change.
She wanted to believe Jack’s promise, but as she ran the bath water, Jodie wondered how long it would take her father-in-law to find a way around his oath.
*
8:20 PM
Sommer Clarendon put his book down on the night table. He supposed it was too early to go to sleep, but he seemed to lack any stamina these last few days. Leaning heavily on his hands, he tried unsuccessfully to lift his hips enough to shift his weight. He reached for the bedside call button before remembering the district nurse had signed off and he was on his own for the night.
It wasn’t usually a problem. The bag attached to the catheter that drained his bladder had been emptied; it meant his sleep was never disturbed. No, he thought wearily, his problem wasn’t sleeping through the night. His problem was fighting down the swarming images that kept him from falling into that blessed state of unawareness when white space surrounded him. He still remembered the time immediately after his accident, when he fought sleep for fear he wouldn’t waken. Now the sense of oblivion he equated with death would be most welcome.
He heard Antonia in their bathroom, running water and closing drawers, and he called out to her. “Darling—could you help a minute, please?”
The taps shut, and a moment later Antonia came to his bedside. Her face seemed composed, her hair brushed out around her face. The tie to her robe had come undone; the ends dangled at her sides. Just like my legs, Sommer thought. Aloud, he said: “Would you rearrange my legs for the night?”
“Of course.” Antonia brought his covers down to the foot of the bed and raised each leg by the heel, slipping on sheepskin heel cups to prevent bedsores. She smoothed the crumpled linen beneath him while Sommer flattened the bed using the control clipped to his pillow. She lowered the rail at the side of the bed while Sommer used his trapeze to lift his weight. She untucked the draw sheet and pulled it tightly to eliminate creases, the bane of skin care. Sommer tugged the large reading wedge from behind his shoulders and slid it onto the floor, adjusting the pillow at his head. Antonia covered him and competently tucked in the sheet.
“Thank you, my dear. You are my angel of mercy tonight.” His lips brushed Antonia’s forehead in their usual goodnight ritual when she leaned over him. Instead of raising the railing, Antonia climbed into bed next to him and rested against his chest as she had done in the wheelchair the day they’d been told Keith was gone. He could smell the jasmine shampoo she always used.
Sommer closed his eyes, remembering when her hair fell to her waist, blonde and shimmering. He knew that if he were capable of achieving an erection at will, the memory of that scented hair would be all he needed. He longed for the intimacy they’d shared before her pregnancy and his accident. It had been so long, yet on occasion he could still summon the sweetness of those moments together when he woke up early.
Sommer caressed his wife’s back, running his hand up and over her shoulders in soothing circles. Her silent tears wet his nightshirt.
“I love holding you in my arms like this,” he murmured. She nodded and clung harder to him. “I’m so sorry this has happened,” he continued. “This is so very difficult for us, but we have to get through it, darling, and we will if we stick together. We’ve gotten through rotten times before, and we’ll do it again.”
Antonia lifted her head from his chest, her wet eyes seeking his. “Children aren’t supposed to die before their parents. It’s unnatural.”
He ached for her then more than ever, recalling the other tragedies they’d shared. “You have had to endure too many losses, my love.” He couldn’t ignore the pangs of guilt he’d felt since realizing the poison for Keith’s death might have come from one of his plants. Had the hobby he loved resulted in the death of his beloved child?
He brushed his lips against Antonia’s hair. Her breathing slowed, and she fell asleep in the narrow hospital bed, clinging to Sommer, curled up under his arm.
Chapter Forty
“On an April night almost midpoint in the Eighteenth Century, in the county of Orange and the colony of Virginia, Jacob Pollroot tasted his death a moment before swallowing it.”
— Steve Erickson, Arc d’X
8:40 PM
At The Scarlet Wench, Nora stared in awe at the manifestation of Simon’s ravenous appetite. Some people ate less when under tension; Simon was clearly one of those who ate more. She enjoyed her fish and chips but couldn’t finish the large serving. Simon ate his and the rest of hers. He eyed Kate’s remaining chips before paying the check and returning to the lodge to relieve Maeve, on desk duty.
Nora and Kate stayed on at the pub, the cheerful noisiness a distraction, and watched a boisterous dart tournament to its end. Nora moved around the pub, straining to overhear any conversation regarding Keith. The dart game proved to be more popular.
“Any movement on the nam
e game?” Kate asked. “I’ve always liked the name Miles.”
“Oh, dear,” Nora replied. “I remember a Disney cartoon I watched growing up, and I’m afraid I’d keep seeing Elmer Fudd!” The two women laughed.
Kate took a call on her cell phone from Ian. He would be back in the area shortly and would stop at the station before dropping by the lodge. Nora saw Kate’s face tighten; her voice grew tense as she spoke to Ian. She shook her head.
Nora hoped Kate and Ian would find a way past all of this. She knew how much they loved each other. It gave her more resolve to do something to unravel the mystery surrounding Keith’s death and release Simon from suspicions. Her mind went into overdrive. Surely there was something she could do to crack the case?
They left the pub, and once outside, Nora groaned. Her legs felt cramped from sitting, and her son was particularly active.
“You go ahead, Kate. I’ll walk slower and don’t want to hold you up. I need to get some of these leg cramps out.” Kate hesitated. “There are street lamps all the way to the lodge and tourists everywhere. I’ll be fine. Go.” She shooed Kate away and watched her disappear down the road.
When she was certain Kate was out of sight, Nora took off her earrings, pocketed one, and stole back inside the pub. She approached the bar away from the tournament action and snagged an empty stool while she waited to catch the barman’s attention.