Then I hobbled into the pub across the way and bought a large glass of house red wine, any vintage, out of a box. “You can bring your guide dog in,” they said kindly. Word spreads fast. They gave Nutty a bowl of water and some biscuits. He was ecstatic with gratitude, then fell asleep at my feet.
I needed the wine. It went straight to where it was needed. I was short on courage. Somehow I had to get this all together and present it to DI James. My brain would not function and I was wary of getting head-bitten.
When I could drain no more from the glass, I knew it was time to walk on. Nutty was revitalized and as we crossed a field to the coastal path, I let him off the lead.
“But you must come back when I say so,” I said sternly before letting his collar go. “Understand that?” He agreed, tongue lolling with anticipation. Then he went mad.
It was wonderful to watch. This big dog racing and charging and leaping about with total careless freedom. He needed space and I had given it to him. He chased anything, bees, butterflies, his own imagination. I sat with my back against a fence, rubbing my ankle, which was still aching.
I didn’t need to call him. He came back of his own accord and fell against me, exhausted. I stroked his soft head. I couldn’t have a dog in two bedsits.
We walked along the coastal path, more sedately, Nutty sniffing the odd windswept bush. Then it was time to head back to the allotments, coming to them from the other end of the grassland. Nutty began to look quite excited but I kept a firm hold on the lead.
The Council had given over quite a generous acreage of land to the allotment holders. Arthur Spiddock’s plot was at the top end, out of sight. But Nutty was tugging on the lead and pulling me over to a single shuttered shed at the lower end.
Sheds are not high on my curiosity list but I allowed myself to be dragged over to this one, just to please the dog. Nutty sniffed at the door then sat down across it, looking even more pleased with himself. Then I remembered: he was a retriever.
Inside the shed were eleven hens and four rabbits. All in good condition, in runs, looking well cared for. Plenty of hay, plenty of fodder. I recognized two pedigree bantams and the lop-eared rabbits. They glared at me in a cross-eyed way.
I closed the door. “Bingo,” I said to Nutty.
Arthur Spiddock confessed all. He’d been turned out of his house because he couldn’t pay the rent. He’d reported his hens and rabbits as stolen in the hope that he could claim on his home insurance. But his home insurance did not include the contents of his allotment. Meanwhile, an absent friend, who knew nothing about the scheme, said Arthur could use the shed at the far side to store stuff. He had employed me to make the theft seem more authentic.
“I ought to be able to claim something,” Arthur wailed. “Other people do.”
Poor soul. I knew that there were people who claimed and got ridiculously high payments for so-called mental suffering, or were off work for months on full pay. Arthur Spiddock had endured mental suffering but he was not going to get a penny from anyone.
“Are you going to report me?” he asked eventually.
“No, of course not. You didn’t steal your own animals. You merely moved them to a different place. Of course, it was wrong to report them as stolen but you could say it was a temporary delusion on your part, due to the trauma of being turned out of your home.”
“Yes, I could say that, couldn’t I?” he said brightening. “It were a trauma.”
“So the case is now closed,” I said, going to leave.
“I suppose I ought to give you the reward money,” he offered. “For finding ’em.”
“Nutty found them.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. That’s why I tried to lose him. He kept going off down there. But what do I owe you, miss, for your detective work?”
“Well, I’ll have to sort it out,” I said, hours of complicated maths ahead. “Perhaps you’d let me take Nutty for a walk now and then, work it off like that.”
Or walk it off. I was a fool. But how could I charge this poor old man for doing practically nothing?
“Righto, miss. Any time. Nutty really likes you, I can see that. Would you like a couple of beetroots?”
I got on my bicycle and free-wheeled down the hill, bumping over the ruts. It was a great feeling. I had got myself a part-time dog.
I was also one muddy walker. I’d have to train Nutty not to jump up on me. Shopping list: book on dog training, washing powder and comfort rinse. I called in at Doris’s shop. She was stacking tins on the top shelves.
“So where have you been all this time? I saw your shop was closed. It was a bit of a worry, not seeing you. Mavis didn’t know where you were either. You could have been bumped off.”
“You’re almost right there, Doris,” I said, passing tins to her. “I could have been bumped off. One day I’ll tell you the whole sordid story. I had to go into hiding for a couple of nights.”
“It was three nights by my count. And there were police swarming all over your shop. I thought they’d found another corpse.”
“They didn’t find anything, which was a relief,” I told her. “And I’ve solved one of my cases. The hens-and-rabbits case up at Topham Hill.”
“So did you find them labeled on a counter at the farm shop on the main road?”
“No, I found them alive and well and thriving in a new environment.”
Doris looked at me with cautious admiration. “You having me on? You found them?”
“Yes, truly. The owner is well pleased.”
“So are you buying an extra pot of yoghurt to celebrate?”
“What a brilliant idea. I’ll take two.”
I went back to my bedsits to do a load of washing, and phoned DI James. There were several things to tell him. But he was not taking the call. I was rerouted to an answering service.
“James,” I said, “I’ve got a lot to tell you. I’ve found a poem that I want to read to you. Could we meet this evening? About seven? We could go for a drink or a hobble along the front. ’Bye now.”
The day’s aches and pains were soaked away in the bath and I washed my hair again, towelling it dry. I’d said nothing about a meal so I ate one of the yoghurts. The creases had hung out of my new white jeans and the red top was wearable again. I was still sporting the elastic ankle support but the jeans were long and covered most of it. I plaited my hair and fixed the end with a red flower. Tonight was the Spanish look. But no castanets.
Someone was ringing the front doorbell. It was time I got an intercom so that I could speak to whoever was there. I peered out of the window and saw a large maroon Daimler parked alongside the pavement. It was Richard Broughton’s car. I shrank back. No way was I answering the doorbell. It could ring till the entire neighborhood went deaf.
I spun-dried the washing and began hanging it around the bathroom. Not having a garden was a drawback. The bell was still ringing. I flung up the window.
“Go away,” I shouted. “I’m not coming down. If you don’t go away, I shall call the police.”
The chauffeur was standing on the pavement, leaning back and looking up. He did not look particularly threatening. He was holding a big bunch of mixed flowers wrapped in cellophane.
“Mr Broughton wants to apologize. He’s sent you these flowers from the garden. He said he’d like to talk to you.”
“No way. I don’t want to talk to him. They don’t look like garden flowers, they look like garage-forecourt flowers.”
“It’s very important. He wants to explain everything. Please come, Miss Lacey.”
“I have no intention of ever talking to Mr Broughton, not after what I’ve been through, and you can tell him that.”
“But your detective friend is coming, Detective Inspector James. He’s interested to hear what Mr Broughton has to say. He should be at Faunstone Hall by now.” The chauffeur placed the flowers on my doorstep. They looked like mourning flowers. It was creepy.
I wavered. I remembered the threatening way Richard Broughton
had behaved in my shop, the way he’d taken Holly to court after the knifing, the way someone had tried to get rid of me, not once but three times. Was he going to explain all that?
“Okay, I’ll come. But one nasty word from Mr Broughton and I’ll be on my phone to the police faster than you can blink. I’ll sit in the front with you so that I can see what you are up to.”
“It’ll be a pleasure,” he said.
The Daimler was such a comfortable vehicle. No wonder rich people buy Rolls-Royce cars and Bentleys and Daimlers. It’s like being transported on a big cushion with no noise, only a gentle purr in the background.
“Smashing car,” I said.
“You should see the back. It’s got a letdown desk for Mr Broughton’s laptop, a cocktail cabinet, phone links, stereo system and a small DVD and television screen. It does everything but fly.”
“And what about speeds?”
“She’s merely cruising at ninety. I don’t often take her over a hundred unless Mr Broughton is in a real hurry.”
“Wow.” I was impressed. Then I thought of my ladybird and hardened my heart. “That’s breaking the law.”
“So I understand,” he agreed. “Sometimes it’s necessary.”
We were soon approaching Faunstone Hall. The security gates swung open, recognizing the car or some code. I looked around for James’s car but the drive was empty. I felt a slight pang of apprehension but pushed it away. Perhaps he’d taken a taxi to save him driving. Bearing in mind the crutches…
The hall was bleak and untouched by anything except dust. I saw a black briefcase on a Dutch wheelback chair. It was probably Richard Broughton’s. It looked bulging and bankish.
“Would you go through to the study? You know the way.”
I did. It was in the oldest part of the house. I went along the hallway, down the three steps into the study, expecting to see Richard Broughton and James already there. The room was empty.
“Where is everybody?” I asked, alarmed.
The chauffeur was behind me. I could feel his breath fanning my neck. I felt both my hands suddenly yanked behind my back and my shoulder bag fell to the floor.
“You are very naive, Miss Lacey. There isn’t anyone here that you know.”
He was holding my wrists in an iron grip, wrapping adhesive tape round them. He knew how to do it and fast. He’d been in the army, hadn’t he?
Twenty-Three
I didn’t go on a police self-defence course for nothing. Although I was disadvantaged by having my hands tied behind my back, I still had my head and elbows, knees and feet.
Wilkes didn’t know what had hit him. I swung round on my heel, brought my knee up into his groin and head-butted him at the same time. As he staggered back, I kicked him hard on the softest part of the ankle, which really hurts. He went reeling.
But he was back in seconds, the pain hardening in his eyes like diamonds, and his mouth clenched. He grabbed my hair and jerked hard. My neck was nearly dislocated. He threw me to the floor, kneed me in the back and pinned my feet with one hand while he wrapped adhesive tape round my ankles. I was still struggling.
“You’ll be sorry you did that, Miss Lacey,” he said, fighting to gain his breath. A headbutt knocks the breath out of you. “You’re not going to like where you’re going.”
“Oh, but they’re c-coming,” I gasped. “I ph-phoned before I left h—” He cut off my
words with a nasty piece of wide parcel tape over my mouth. Dammit. He had me trussed up like a Christmas turkey. As he leaned over me, I managed to wrench off one of the buttons on his blazer, closing my fingers round it and cupping it from his sight. I had no idea what I could do with it.
I watched as he shifted a four-drawer filing cabinet away from a wall. All the study walls were paneled in oak, polished and with a patina of age. He seemed to know what he was doing. His fingers moved over the paneling to a corner spot. He’d made a mistake in not putting a blindfold on me. I could watch what he was doing. And I was watching.
It was not a simple press action, but a movement up and then abruptly sideways. Those seventeenth-century carpenters were wonderful. They didn’t need computers to work it out for them. A panel of the wainscoted wall slid sideways with barely a sound, revealing a dark space behind.
It was the priest’s hole.
The bastard’s intentions were clear now. He was going to put me in the priest’s hole and probably leave me there. Not a nice way to go, though there would be air. There was usually some sort of small hole where food could be passed to the hidden priest, whenever they remembered.
Wilkes turned to me, kicking my shoulder bag out of the way. “You won’t be needing your lipstick where you’re going,” he said. “I hope you’ll like your new accommodation.”
I closed my eyes as if in mortal terror and made terrified noises through the tape over my mouth.
“You started to know too much, Miss Lacey, too much for your own good,” he went on. “Sorry, and all that. But this time, it’s definitely goodbye to the nosy Miss Lacey.”
But this time… had he put the incendiary device in the ladybird, the drug in my coffee? Was he the sniper who’d almost hit my eye? My brain fast-forwarded each situation. Wilkes had had the opportunity. But what was the motive? Richard Broughton had all the motives. Wilkes had done it for money.
He started dragging me over the floor by my feet. My hands tried to grasp at anything around that would be useful but found nothing. Then he turned me over and pushed me head first into the priest’s hole. I turned my head so that my nose could still breathe. The darkness was all-absorbing, like a tunnel, like sliding into a nightmare. I was thinking, This’ll ruin my new white jeans.
In those first moments, I worked out the size of the priest’s hole. The three steps down into the study gave me an idea of the height of the hole. You could sit up but not stand up. It was the length of a man’s body, bearing in mind that people were shorter in those days. Width-wise, I didn’t know. I was about to find out. I guessed it was going to be extremely cramped.
The panel slid shut behind me. I could see nothing. It was completely black, an all-encompassing darkness. Like being down a mine when they turn off all the lights. But I had the strangest feeling I was not alone.
My hearing is good. I could hear breathing, then I felt a movement against my side. I nearly jumped, if I could have jumped. There was someone else alongside me, generating heat, brushing against me. Then I felt another movement, the other side, and heard a groan. It was horrendous. There were three of us in the priest’s hole, lying side by side like sardines. Surely not my James? No, I was sure it wasn’t James. I would have known, have sensed his skin, his presence, known it was him. He wouldn’t groan.
We were a sandwich and I was the filling. Pass on the mayonnaise.
They were both trussed up, like me. Movement restricted, no possibility of speech. I was not blindfolded so I could see, was beginning to see in the darkness. At the far end was a small access hole in the roof of the hideaway, where possibly food and water had been passed down. No such luck now. But air was filtering through and there was the faintest glimmer of light.
Whoever had made this hole was a master craftsman. Carpenters were really carpenters then, shaping the wood by hand and knowing what to do with notches, pegs, tongues and grooves. The sides were smooth panels, no rough earth. I wondered if I would find grooves where priests had scratched out their days in hiding. I wondered how long it had been lost to memory, before this lot discovered it again. It had probably been rediscovered when the modern central heating system was put in Faunstone Hall.
There was a pitiful, high-pitched weeping sound coming from the body on my left. And I could smell perfume, a heady penetrating perfume. Very expensive. Nothing light or flowery. From the shape against me, I guessed this was an older woman, well built, beautifully dressed, clothes rustling, in a state of total shock.
From the other side came the grunts and groans of someone straining against
the strapping. Waste of time. Struggling only makes the tape tighter. This was a man, trying to do something, but hopelessly ill equipped for the situation. I caught a whiff of expensive aftershave and the smell of fear, which no deodorant can disguise.
This was time for quick thinking and action. Action… that was a slight overstatement, when the only parts of me that could move were my fingers and my toes. I wondered if the woman knew Hoagy Carmichael’s song “The Nearness of You”. I wondered if I could hum it with tape over my mouth.
I began to hum quite softly, tapping out the tune on her bare arm, trying firstly to calm her panic. We couldn’t work together if she was in a state of panic. She froze, probably thinking I was a sex maniac and about to attack her.
The sounds in the study told me that Wilkes was moving the filing cabinet back against the paneled wall. I had not heard the panel close. I could hum a little louder. I hoped she knew the words: “… it isn’t your sweet conversation / …oh no, it’s / …just the nearness of you…”
She was calming down. The tapping on her arm had soothed her breathing and her brain was working in a bizarre way, remembering the words. Every time we got to the words “nearness of you”, I pulled on her arm till she was lying on her side and we were back to back. I was banking on her wrists being tied behind her back, the same as mine. They were.
My fingers found the sticky tape and tried to find the end. It’s hard enough to find it on a roll of new Sellotape. I always put a paperclip or hairpin under the end. The woman kept very still. She knew what I was doing and was making tiny encouraging noises. My nails found the end and prised it up. I started to pull it off, round and round, my own fingers getting caught up in the stuff till I could hardly move.
The woman pulled off the last bit herself, then ripped the tape off her mouth with a gasp. It had hurt. She was heaving and shaking, breath coming in gulps.
“Thank you, thank you,” she choked.
“Shsh,” I hissed against my mouth tape. “Shsh.”
She understood. “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered close, somewhere near my ear. Then she whipped the tape off my mouth. It was like having a full facial dilapidation. Very painful. It took all the fine baby hairs off my top lip.
Turn and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 7) Page 21