Time Enough to Die

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Good show. “I’ll fetch my camera,” Gareth said. “A few snaps of the students in costume. . . .”

  Watkins burst through the front door of the hotel looking less like the cavalry coming to the rescue than General Custer at his last stand. He seized Gareth’s arm and in a husky whisper said, “The peat cutters found a body at Shadow Moss.”

  “That’s Dr. Sweeney’s department,” Gareth began, but Matilda interrupted.

  “Who is it?”

  “From the description, it’s Adrian Reynolds. His head’s been bashed and his throat cut. It’s another murder, right enough.”

  “Have you told Della yet?” Matilda asked.

  “W.P.C. Innes went to collect her.”

  A house of cards collapsed in Gareth’s mind, thoughts skittering to and fro and landing in a messy pile. Reynolds? But he was the murderer himself, wasn’t he? Bloody hell.

  Watkins coaxed Gareth toward the door. “I rang Manchester, you’ll be wanting to have a look before they arrive.”

  The crow had flown toward Fortuna Stud. . . . No, no, no, Gareth told himself. He hurried out the door and into Watkins’s orange-striped squad car. It wasn’t until the constable sped away, siren blatting, that Gareth realized Matilda was sitting in the back seat. He turned round, mouth open to speak.

  Her level gaze intercepted and blew away any protest he’d been intending to make. Closing his mouth, he faced front again. The countryside streamed by in a green blur. A bit of forest momentarily compressed the sound of the siren. The car sped down Racecourse Road and turned onto a muddy track that bumped and shivered across open heath dotted with birch scrub.

  Even in the sunshine Shadow Moss seemed like an otherworldly place. The air was heavy with a musky, weedy smell. Amidst their green mosses and reeds and white-tufted bog myrtle the dark pools reflected no light. The smudge that was Durslow Edge loomed like a thunderstorm on the horizon. Gareth’s head spun. He was caught in a weird time conversion not of past centuries but of his own life. He had been here before, squelching with Watkins across the boggy ground. No matter that it had been chill and damp then, not warm and sunny. He and the constable had only to say the same words, in the same order, and it would all happen again, time repeating itself, Linda Burkett dying and Matilda sitting in Forrest’s office. . . . Steady on, he ordered himself.

  The peat-cutting machine was a mud-stained metal contraption on the opposite side of a black sheet of water. Two workmen lounged beside it—the rest, Gareth assumed, were spending the day dancing and drinking in Corcester.

  Judging by his wilted suit and tie, it was the foreman who was waiting beside a patch of stone that shouldered through the tussocks of grass and shrub. The man twitched aside a tarpaulin, then fled upwind. What lay beneath the cloth was not a brown severed hand, both horrible and beautiful. There was no beauty in Adrian Reynolds’s corpse.

  Matilda sighed. Watkins swore quietly under his breath. Gareth knelt down and made a quick inspection of the remains.

  Reynolds was lying face up. His open eyes were beads of jet. They didn’t reflect any light either. His face was blank, wiped clean of expression. The back of his head was crushed. Dark crimson blood stained the rock on which it rested. A gaping wound sliced across his throat, exposing the severed ends of trachea and esophagus. Flecks of blood spattered Reynolds’s white shirt. . . . No more than flecks. Gareth lifted and jiggled Reynold’s limp arm. He replaced the tarpaulin, stood up, and caught Matilda’s eye.

  “It was violent and sudden,” she said. “He was angry, and then he was dead. I can still feel his fury, thwarted now, unfocused. How sad, to die angry.”

  “It’s better than dying scared.” Gareth turned to Watkins. “It was the blow that killed him. Since there’s very little blood on his clothing his throat was cut some time after his death. He’s been dead about two hours, I’m estimating. The medical examiner can give you the details.”

  Watkins stopped looking dubiously at Matilda and started looking quizzically at Gareth. “Someone cut his throat after he were already dead? That’s a bit of devilish jiggery-pokery, isn’t it?”

  “It looks that way.” Matilda frowned. “What was used to hit him, Gareth?”

  He scouted the area. The stone where the body lay was an outcropping of the same red sandstone that formed Durslow Edge. A few loose pebbles lay scattered about, but none were large enough to have made such a crushing wound. The flat of a shovel might have done, although its edge would have left a relatively well-defined furrow. “The killer must have taken the weapon away with him. I don’t know what it was. Something large and slightly rounded.”

  The wind lifted Matilda’s hair from her furrowed forehead. “Like the Earth?” she asked.

  Gareth knew immediately what she meant. “Yes, that’s it. We saw Reynolds ride out on Gremlin this morning. Gremlin can be as skittish as a colt. He threw Reynolds on his head.”

  “He were thrown off his horse,” said Watkins, pulling out his notebook.

  “Caesar almost had me on my head when the berk at the traveler’s camp stabbed him,” Gareth added. “If—someone—saw how effective a move that was . . .”

  “One of the nutters stabbed the horse, causing it to throw Reynolds onto the rocks,” Watkins stated, writing busily. “The fall killed him. Then the nutter cut his throat.”

  “So that his death would resemble Linda’s?” Matilda asked. “It’s no coincidence to find him here. One of the most persistent local legends is of the goddess riding a white horse down from Durslow Edge to Shadow Moss.”

  The nutters aren’t supposed to be dangerous, Gareth shouted silently. If she heard, she didn’t reply.

  He inspected the rock beneath the body. Except for a few muddy scuff marks it held no footprints. There were no tire tracks closer than the road. The boggy ground was like a sponge—except for the clear print of a horseshoe on a patch of moss, it revealed nothing. “One of the travelers might have thought of this method of murder,” he said. “Nick Veliotes. Maybe he planned it with Della Reynolds.”

  “What about Celia Dunning?” asked Matilda. “She’s probably too cold-blooded to fall for Reynolds’s Lothario routine. I bet she’s been using him just as much as he’s been using her. Whether she’s cold-blooded enough to kill someone who was attracting too much attention to the operation is another matter. You’ll have to see if Emma can alibi her.”

  “Emma Price?” Watkins asked. “Who’s this Lothario?”

  Quickly Gareth put him in the picture, concluding, “At least that’s what we decided after we talked to Della last night.”

  “Right,” Watkins said faintly, and licked the point of his pencil.

  “I’m afraid we might have inadvertently encouraged her to this,” said Matilda. “Or at least into taking some action that led to this. It’s more fate than coincidence that Reynolds died on Beltane, May Eve.”

  “Because Beltane was our deadline,” said Gareth, “and that caused us to press Della. Yes, I follow that.”

  Watkins apparently didn’t. He was still gamely writing, but his eyes were starting to cross. “Della might have caused Reynolds’s horse to throw him. So then she cut his throat because Linda Burkett’s throat. . . . Here!” The constable gestured with his pencil toward a track that skirted two pools.

  Down the path came Della Reynolds, riding not Bodie but Great Caesar’s Ghost, leading a lathered and mud-spattered Gremlin. She drooped over the saddle, her eyes red-rimmed and her face ashen. She didn’t falter when she saw the police car and the tarpaulin on the ground.

  The horses’ hooves plopped through the mud, slower and slower. Gremlin snorted and shook his head, jingling his bridle. Caesar stopped, nostrils flaring. Della’s dismount was a boneless slither. If Matilda hadn’t stepped forward and caught her arm she would have crumpled like an empty sack to the ground.

  Gareth took both sets of reins from Della’s unresisting fingers, patted the blaze on Caesar’s nose, and took cautious note of the white rims round G
remlin’s dark eyes.

  “Mrs. Reynolds,” Watkins said. “You’ve not been at the farm, I take it.”

  The heavy breathing of the horses didn’t quite conceal Della’s quick, shallow gasps. She reeked of patchouli and sour sweat. “It was an accident,” she murmured, her voice so thin Gareth had to lean forward to hear her. “He was shouting, slapping the reins against Gremlin’s neck. Gremlin—just shrugged him away, like a fly. I touched him. There was nothing I could do for him. I couldn’t—I couldn’t bear to touch him any more. It was so quiet, just the wind in the reeds.”

  Gareth’s skin crawled. Matilda closed her eyes and opened them again. Watkins turned to a new page in his notebook. “So it weren’t murder after all, then.”

  “Gremlin ran away,” Della said. “He’s always been the nervy sort, but Adrian liked his spirit. . . .” She swayed. Matilda held her up. “I went after him, I was afraid he’d fall into a pool, break his leg, do himself damage. There was nothing I could do for Adrian, at least I could save the horse. When I caught him I just—I just sat there, for a long time.”

  “Why are you riding Caesar?” Gareth asked.

  “Adrian wouldn’t let me ride him. He said he was a man’s horse. He let you ride him, not me. He said I wasn’t good enough. But I did Adrian over yesterday, didn’t I? This morning I felt, I felt. . . .” She licked her lips. Her eyes swam from side to side, as though the word were hiding in the peat. The wind rippled the tarpaulin.

  “Strong?” Matilda suggested with a sharp look at Gareth.

  “Yes,” whispered Della. “Strong. So I took Caesar. Adrian had already left. But he’d forgotten something and he came back and saw that Caesar had gone missing. He threatened to sack Jimmy if he didn’t tell him where I was. Where would the poor man go if Adrian sacked him? It’s not his fault. He didn’t know. . . .”

  “Didn’t know what?” Gareth asked. “What would happen? Or who you were meeting here at the Moss?”

  The gray color drained from Della’s face, leaving her skin almost green. She sank into a crouch. Matilda went down with her. “It’s all right,” she said quietly. “How you feel about Nick is your own business. We just need to know what happened to Adrian.”

  With an exasperated frown, Watkins turned to the next page.

  “Della, we haven’t been quite honest with you.” Gareth hunkered down beside her, so he wouldn’t appear quite so threatening. “I’m only pretending to be a reporter. I’m Detective Inspector March from Scotland Yard. I’m trying to find out who killed Linda Burkett.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Della gasped, shaking her head convulsively. “It could have been Adrian. I told you that. I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” said Matilda. “Do you think Adrian killed her?”

  “He’s—was —a selfish man, a fearfully self-centered man, but. . . .”

  “But?” Watkins prompted.

  “But he’s never been at all interested in religion, old, new, any kind. If he killed her—I wouldn’t put it past him, mind you—if he killed her he’d simply bash her one and throw her in a ditch, wouldn’t he?”

  “He could have been trying to make it look as though someone else did it,” offered Matilda. “He could have been trying to frame one of the travelers. So many people in Corcester were gossiping about ritual sacrifice and devil worship, he would have known what to do.”

  “Nick is interested in the old religion, isn’t he?” Gareth asked, as softly as he could. “He knew Linda.”

  “They were lovers,” whispered Della. “He’d talk to me about her. He didn’t like her doing business with Adrian. When she died he cut up rough. I tried to help him.”

  You couldn’t have picked a better method, Gareth thought acidly. Aloud, he asked, “Did Nick tell you he suspected Adrian was the murderer?”

  “No. I hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t wanted to think about it, not until you told me about the clear night, and the stormy one, and I realized. . . .” She stopped, biting her lip. The tears leaked slowly, painfully, from her eyes.

  Matilda rocked Della’s head against her shoulder. “Go on. Tell us. Share it, so it won’t hurt you as badly.”

  “I was to meet Nick here, this morning,” Della whispered. “He said this is a place of power. I suppose it is, isn’t it? He wasn’t here when I arrived, I swear it. He wasn’t here whilst Adrian was shouting at me. He wasn’t here when Gremlin—when Gremlin ran away. I don’t know where he is.”

  Watkins shouted toward the hovering workmen. “Any of you lot see a black-haired traveler here this morning?”

  “Yeh. Driving an old banger that way, right smart-like.” The foreman gestured toward Corcester. The horses moved restively, breathing steam down Gareth’s collar. He stood up and made reassuring noises at them.

  “Adrian was so still,” moaned Della. “So still. There was nothing there any longer. One moment he was tearing strips off me and the next he was gone. All gone.”

  Whatever Matilda was hearing she kept to herself. Gareth could hear a distant siren. He took Della’s hand, hardly less cold and limp than her husband’s, and drew her to her feet. “We need an official identification, next of kin and all that. I know it’s difficult. Just a quick look, please, and then P.C. Watkins and Matilda will take you back to town.”

  Della wobbled, as though the bog were hiccuping beneath her feet. Matilda took her arm and shot Gareth a resigned glance—all right, we have to know. Watkins folded his notebook, tucked it in his pocket, and lifted one corner of the tarpaulin.

  Della went stiff. She stared. A shudder racked her body. She screamed.

  Watkins dropped the tarpaulin. Della kept on screaming, even as Matilda tried to soothe her. The sirens grew louder and louder. The horses started tugging at their reins and prancing backward, dragging Gareth with them.

  Thank God some level head amongst the Manchester lads thought to turn off the sirens once the cars turned onto Racecourse Road. With a gurgle and a wheeze Della stopped screaming. But she was trembling so violently it took Matilda several minutes to ease her into Watkins’ car.

  “Do you believe Della’s story?” Watkins asked Gareth.

  “Yes, I do. She didn’t know his throat had been cut, did she? She’d already seen him dead, but not like that.”

  “It were Nick taking a bit of revenge, weren’t it? A shame I can’t charge him with murder. Interference with a dead body should do, though.” He clapped Gareth on the shoulder. “You’ve solved the murder and a mysterious death as well. Good show, Inspector.”

  Matilda closed the door on Della and looked back at the two men.

  “I’ll take Mrs. Reynolds to the station” Watkins went on, “so’s she can make a statement. You as well, Mrs. Gray. No need to put it about the town what’s happened. Might spoil the festival.”

  “Don’t let Ashley out of your sight!” added Gareth to Matilda. “She mustn’t go anywhere with Nick, not after this.”

  “You’re right. He must be half out of his mind with fear and grief. I’ll call her and tell her to cancel our plans.” Matilda paused whilst Watkins walked round to the driver’s side and opened the door. “Gareth, did Reynolds kill Linda?”

  “I was afraid you were going to ask that,” Gareth returned. “Nick thought he did do.”

  “Nick’s attitude toward Reynolds was colored by—what? Resentment of the man’s wealth and arrogance? Jealousy of his relationship, whatever that was, with Linda? Anger at his treatment of Della?”

  “If Reynolds didn’t kill Linda, who did? You thought she went to Durslow with a man.”

  “Yes, but. . . .” She shook her head. “Della’s out of contention, I think. Dunning? Nick himself? Emma’s boyfriend Clive? Clapper? Zondor from Planet X?”

  “Matilda, we’re at the end of the case, not the beginning. Reynolds must be the killer. All the evidence points that way.”

  “Does it? We’re at the end of the case, all right. I just wish I felt more confident w
e’d solved it.” She threw Gareth a rueful salute, climbed into the car beside Watkins, and pulled her mobile phone from her bag.

  Here came the other cars, their blue lights repeating the blue of the sky. And of Matilda’s eyes, Gareth thought irrelevantly.

  Watkins’s car backed and filled and, its wheels spinning in the mud, started back the way it had come. The cars and vans from Manchester skidded to a halt and deployed a dozen people of various races, genders, and uniforms.

  Gareth felt numb inside. Not elated, not proud, just numb. Damn Adrian, for coming to such a banal end. Damn Della, for taking away the pleasure of arresting him. Damn Matilda for nobbling this moment of triumph. Well, he’d get the proof he needed from Emma. It was all academic now. Wasn’t it?

  “March?” called someone from the crowd gathered round Reynolds’s body.

  He went forward, made his own statement, and then turned the crime scene over to the experts. “I’ll take the horses back to the farm.”

  “Ta,” said one of his colleagues. The others were busy.

  Gareth pulled himself onto Caesar’s back. Della’s saddle was a bit too small for him, but it wouldn’t be a long ride.

  He peered at the looming, lurking horizon. At Durslow Edge. What if Matilda was too late to stop Ashley? What then?

  Gremlin jerked at the reins. Caesar tap-danced away from Adrian Reynolds’ all-too-mortal remains. Turning toward Fortuna Stud, Gareth gave the horses their heads. The sooner he got back, the better.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A siren yowled suddenly in the street below her window. Ashley jumped. Her heart pounding, she looked out. A police car, lights ice-pale in the bright sunshine, took off up the street. Maybe there’d been a car accident, with all the people coming to the festival. Jeez, she told herself, you’d think they were coming after you.

  The sound of the siren wobbled into the distance and died. Ashley turned back to the little mirror over the sink and inspected her own image. She was wearing her best jeans and a nice cable-knit sweater over a T-shirt, which would be easy for Nick to get off, if it came to that, not that she was sure she wanted it to come to that.