by Carrie Marsh
He waited until the car was confirmed as staying where it was, the ambulance had left, and Denton and Ginsberg had, together, put enough red tape round the scene to deter even the most determinedly curious, before heading to his car.
When he slid in, slamming the door against the weather, he did not hurry away as he had planned to. Exhaustion hit him and he leaned against the steering-wheel, feeling drained. “It all reminds me too much of Laine.”
He had hoped to lose himself in work, hoped to forget. He had never thought that work might produce a perfect reminder of all he had lost, simply, it seemed, to torment him. He sighed. He was not sure how he was going to work on this case. He had failed to save Laine from the insidious death that had crept up on her, and now he had to do better. He had to find out what had happened here.
He sighed again and switched the car on, feeling it pull smoothly away below him. There was only one thing to do and that was to talk to Eustace. If anyone could help him understand the case, and himself, it would be him.
Cursing the rain, the cold, and his frozen fingers on the steering wheel, he drove quickly and smoothly back to town.
An hour later, he was in the cold-room with Eustace.
“...and blood alcohol is non-existent,” Eustace was saying, writing something down on a piece of paper.
“Mm?” Gilding, sitting on a high lab stool, felt as if he was merging with the furniture. He could not, nor did he want to, move. He hated the smell of swabbing alcohol and resin, the cold, and the bright lights. He hated the sight of blood, if he was honest, though he had seen so much of it in his lifetime. He especially hated sitting here while Eustace made himself busy with the bodies of the dead. He could not help it, though – he had to be here.
“No alcohol in the blood, I said,” Eustace said brightly. “As I said, you never listen...”
“Oh.” Gilding was surprised. He had expected there might have been: the way he pictured the accident was that the deceased had been in the wrong lane, perhaps, going slowly, without the headlights on, and someone had slammed into her car as they went along the Stowe Road, forcing it off the road and down the slope to land on Lytchwood.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am,” Gilding said. He was too tired to be surprised, even if Eustace had suddenly turned into Santa Claus and given him a present. Which he hadn't. Not yet, anyhow.
“Change any of your ideas?”
“It does. I thought she might have been in the middle of the road, going slowly. It would also have explained why the man wasn't wearing a seat-belt – if he was under the influence it seems more likely. Still could have forgotten, of course. We'll need to check the car – see if anything happened to it. And I really should get some boys to patrol that road – if everyone in the village has been forgetting to wear seat-belts, well...I feel responsible.” He sighed.
“We could all blame ourselves,” Eustace said gently. “Doesn't make it true.”
He was bending over now, carefully examining the bruises on the scalp. The way he brushed the long, dark hair back from the deceased brow with such gentleness moved Gilding. It was yet another thing he liked about Eustace.
“The way I see it now,” Gilding said quietly, “is that perhaps her tail lights were off. That way, whoever was behind her would have come roaring up at full speed, hit the car, and sent it over the edge of the road. Any corroboration for that statement?”
“Nothing we can see here,” Eustace said quietly. “Except the pattern of injuries confirms it, of course. The fractures of the skull, the glass cuts to the head. The fractured cervical vertebrae...” Eustace was making notes, cataloging the wounds. Anyone else would have been cold and clinical, but somehow he was not. He was too gentle, too respectful, for that.
“So she went through the windshield, yes?”
“Mm,” Eustace nodded. “Poor lass was dead before she hit the ground. No need for Gibbs from the paramedics to castigate himself like that...”
“He always does.”
“Sensitive fellow, our Gibbs.”
“He is.”
Gilding ran his tongue around his teeth thoughtfully. “It's odd she wasn't wearing a seat-belt.”
“It is,” Eustace agreed.
“We should check her car. See if it was working.”
“I agree.”
Eustace spoke without looking up. He was looking carefully at something he could see on the skull of the deceased. Again, Gilding was impressed by the care he showed while doing his work.
Gilding sat while Eustace logged the injuries to the young woman and tried, desperately hard, not to look at her. To see her there, her long dark hair spread out around her tranquil, bruised face, pale in the harsh light, was to see an image of Laine.
And that was something he wanted to forget.
CHAPTER FIVE
HEARING THE NEWS
HEARING THE NEWS
The walk up to the gentleman's club was exactly as it always had been – the cobbled path winding sedately between tall conifers toward the stone building with its ornate gables. Harry winced as he stepped heavily on his right foot, thinking ruefully that over the years that was one thing that had changed, if nothing else.
He paused in the doorway, his friend behind. The usual customers were there, but the atmosphere was tense and strained. The television was off and the five men sat stiffly on bar stools, not talking above a soft murmur. No one greeted him as he walked in.
Feeling baffled, Harry looked across the silent, subdued room at Albert, the barman.
“What's the matter?” he asked, voice strained. “I been sent to Coventry or something?” he chuckled nervously.
Albert blinked at him. “No, Hal. You're not in Coventry.” He sounded grave.
“Am I?” Darrell asked, grinning amiably.
The barman didn't even look at him. He turned back to Harry. “You seen Janet Fleet?” he asked baldly.
Harry blinked. He and Darrell had just been discussing her, it was true – but surely no one thought he had anything to do with her disappearance?
“No,” he said slowly. “Why do you ask me that?”
Albert shook his head as if Harry was being unusually slow witted. “No reason, only Gilding was just here, and...” he cleared his throat uncomfortably.
Harry felt worried. “What is it, man? You don't think I ran off with her, do you?”
Albert breathed out a sigh. “No, Hal. I wish you had, at that.”
Harry noticed several people shaking their heads.
“What's happening? Please, Bert. I need to know.”
Albert cleared his throat. “Gilding said they found her car.” Albert was busily polishing a non-existent stain on the bar with his cloth. “She...she was inside. She was dead. Very dead. Cracked skull, broken neck. There was a lot of blood...” he shuddered and looked away again.
Harry stared. Memories of Janet Fleet washed across his mind. Her dark red hair loose in the breeze, laughing as she waved to him across the street. Janet dancing at the village market at Christmas time, making some joke in the queue at the post office. Or carrying Tamsyn on her way back from a picnic. She couldn't be dead! Of everyone in the village, she was so unbelievably alive.
“She's dead?” he asked stupidly.
“Yes,” Albert replied.
“In a car accident?” Harry asked. Nothing was making sense. He felt as if his head was full of wool, dulling his mind. No one had died violently in Stowe in his lifetime and the shock of it was huge.
“I wish it was that simple,” Albert replied slowly. “But it doesn't have to have been an accident. She was pushed off the road, over the embankment where the road rises above the field. Could have been on purpose. Probably was.”
Harry felt sick. He reached for a stool, lowering himself into it heavily. “You mean...someone murdered her?”
“Yes,” Albert said bluntly. “At least, it could have been that way,” he demurred. “No one knows yet.”
�
��But why?” Harry asked. The others in the bar were strangely quiet.
Harry looked around, trying to make sense of their faces. “You mean...you think Richard did it? Because she left him?”
Six blank faces met his. Harry sighed. He had assumed that everyone already knew. “Yes,” he explained wearily. “ She ran away from home yesterday. At least, Marcie saw her yesterday morning with her suitcase. And she said, she looked scared. Like she was off somewhere in a hurry. Did anyone else see her?”
Someone nodded and there were a few noises of assent. Darrell raised a brow at Albert and ordered their usual pint during the confusion.
While the barman and his friend served them their drinks, Harry listened to the talk at the tables. He watched the subdued mood slowly thaw and the groups around the club discuss the latest information while Darrell and the barman chatted.
“I can't say that's surprising,” someone was saying beside him. “That she left Richard, I mean.”
Harry turned to face the speaker, a younger man called Will. “Why isn't it surprising?” he asked frankly.
“Well,” Will looked into his beer, seeming suddenly shy. “Janet was...not exactly faithful to her husband, now was she? I mean, everyone in the village knew that. And I always thought she would leave him, and...”
One of the others chuckled. “You thought she might look your way, eh? That it?”
Will looked pointedly at his hands and Harry made his own conclusions. The bar fell into an embarrassed silence.
“Well,” Alfred, another club member, added after a moment, “He's right about her being unfaithful. She was spending time with Nick for a while, and lately she was hanging around with Grant a lot, wasn't she?”
Harry blinked. “Really?”
Grant Hiddingh was a local New Age hippie. A graduate from Cambridge, Grant lived in a small cottage in someone's garden, wrote poems, and had no other employment besides making wooden cabinets that he sold at the local craft shop. If he thought about it, Grant was rather a good match for Janet. They were both free spirits and a part of him was sorry she had not run off with him. He knew she hadn't, though.
“I don't think she could have run off with Grant,” he informed the club, “If anyone thought that. I saw him yesterday afternoon around six o' clock. If they had run off, surely he would have left with her?”
“True,” the barman replied. Several other people nodded.
“Okay,” Alfred said from the back. “So whoever did her in, it wasn't Grant. If you saw him round three, I mean. The police guessed her time of death to be not more than an hour later.”
Everyone muttered about that. Will, Harry noticed, looked upset. He smiled inwardly. It was plain to see that he had been jealous of Grant. Harry wouldn't have been surprised if he had hoped to accuse him of her death. Not that he could imagine Will as the vindictive sort, mind: he was a gentle soul who ran the village post office.
“But if it wasn't him, then who?” Dennis spoke up from the back. Harry nodded to him.
“Good question, Dennis.”
Will spoke up hesitantly. “If it wasn't Grant she was going to meet, then who was it? That's what I want to know. And did Grant know who it was?”
Six pairs of eyes turned to stare at him. He looked down again nervously.
“Now, that,” Bert said sonorously, “is something no one thought of. If she was running off, Grant would have been jealous, like. And Nick. And Richard.”
Harry tensed. “We'd do better not to wave accusations around,” he said cautiously. “Let's let the good detective do his work for a change, eh?” he grinned a watery grin, hoping to make light of the sudden tension. The whole club deciding to accuse Grant Hiddingh – or anyone else – of murder could only make a bad situation get worse.
Albert huffed in assent. “True, Hal, true. Stop chin wagging about Grant, blokes,” he said loudly. “And let the detective do the guessing, eh?”
Conversation seemed to settle back down to normal after that.
Harry turned to look out of the window. The talk rose and fell, a slow, burring murmur that seemed as peaceful and mundane as usual. At least it was, until Dennis, the village mechanic, piped up. He was having a discussion with Will and Alfred relating to the latest revelation, and the debate was getting heated. Harry and Darrell looked at each other uncomfortably and Harry tuned in.
“...I know cars, and that's the only way! I tell you!” Dennis was saying excitedly. “Only if you push from the front.”
“Oh, come on, you! Stop making up stories. It still could have been an accident!” Alfred said back scornfully.
“I'm a mechanic!” Dennis said, clearly offended. “I know cars. If I say you can only push a car like that if you get behind them and shove, I know what I'm talking about!”
“Nah,” Alfred sighed. “Stop telling stories, Dennis. You're full of it sometimes.”
Dennis sat up to his full height, which was impressive. He glared at Alfred. “Who are you saying talks trash, Alfred?” he said, very quietly.
Harry leaned in at that moment, fearing bloodshed. “Sorry, Dennis?” He addressed the man. “I couldn't help overhearing. What's up?”
The other men at the table looked embarrassed and Dennis flushed.
“I'm sorry, Harry. I was just saying that I know cars. And I know that road past the common. It's a mess! All rough and gravelly. You would need a big force to push a car off that surface and over onto the common. Not just a side swipe from a fast car. You'd have to get behind and push. No one can tell me that was an accident. It was murder. Sure as I know anything.” He paused, breathing heavily, and reached for his beer.
Harry raised a brow. Someone else chuckled, as if he thought it was silly, but Harry had respect for Dennis. He had curated Harry's own collection of vintage cars with expert care for years and Harry knew that if he said something about cars it was more than likely right.
“That so, eh?” he asked levelly. “Any idea of what sort of car you'd need?”
Dennis looked up morosely. He blinked, clearly surprised to be taken seriously. “No, Hal. Sorry. Not a clue.”
Harry sighed. “Well, thanks anyway,” he said quietly. “And you might want to discuss that with Gilding. Your idea about the car, that is.”
Dennis blinked at him. “No, sir! I'm not mucking about with the police. Stay on the good side of the law, that's what my dad taught me. And that's where I'm staying. I won't go courting those people if I can manage it. No offense,” he added, seeing Harry frown at him.
“No offense taken,” he said evenly.
The talk died down after a while. Harry reached for his drink. He stared into its amber depths, feeling sad. The scents and sounds of the place were exactly as he remembered – the vague whiff of centuries-old tobacco – it was now forbidden indoors – the scent of good brandy and the soft rise and fall of talking voices. His family had been the caretakers of this small village since the sixteenth century and he himself had played the role for more than forty years. He felt responsible for it in some strange way. Every villager mattered to him. The death shook him badly.
“Do you want to leave?” Darrell asked from beside him. The two had known each other for so long they could sense each other's moods.
Harry nodded gratefully. “I'll just finish my drink, then we can head back.”
As he sipped his beer, Harry found himself looking around the club. He saw the indignant mechanic, the stony silence of the barman, and the sadness of Will, the young man who had clearly fancied Janet.
I wonder, Harry thought sadly, if any human being knows the gap they will leave when they go? Janet had not really been part of any of these lives. Yet she had touched all of them. And she had fled the village thinking that no one even knew she existed.
I wish she could have known, Harry thought, gulping down the last sip of his beer, that her loss would leave such a gap. If she had known that, would she still be alive?
Shaking his head, feeling suddenly old, he t
urned to Darrell and together they walked, quietly and slowly, down the stairs and out into the growing night.
In the parking lot, they saw the police car, stopped outside the grocery shop. Harry blinked as a man raised a hand to them, waving. The man was tall, with dark hair and a straight posture.
“Inspector Gilding?”
“Sir,” the man nodded respectfully. A newcomer, by village standards, he was the only villager who still showed Harry any deference for the title. Harry remembered when the young officer had arrived in Stowe five years ago, silent and stiff, and studied his face, noticing how drawn and tense the man was.
“I heard about the...case,” Harry said cautiously. He and Darrell shared a glance. The policeman bit his lip, handsome face drawn.
“Horrible business, sir,” he agreed. “A real mess...” his voice trailed off and he looked at his hands, clearly lost in his memories. He looked tense, and miserable and alone.
“I know,” Harry said gently.
When the officer looked up at Harry again, his brown eyes were deep pits of torment. Harry knew some of the man's story – enough to know he had lost his own wife several years ago. The death of this young woman had brought it back.
Surprising himself, Harry reached out and patted his shoulder. “Anything you need help with, Randal, just call the manor. Even if you just need somewhere to get away. We're always there.” Gilding swallowed hard. “Thanks, sir.”
At that moment, a young, sandy haired man walked out of the shop. “Inspector? I got sandwiches. You ready to go?”
“Yes, Ginsberg,” Gilding said thinly. He sounded mildly annoyed with the young man and Harry guessed it was a habit between them. He turned back to Harry. “Thanks,” he said again. “I might take you up on it.”
“Do that,” Harry said gently.
He and Darrell watched as the two younger men got into the car and drove away, the blue light still blinking lazily through the hazy darkness.
“That poor fellow,” Harry sighed. “I wouldn't like to be him.”