A Proposal to Die For (20 page)

‘Wrong, my lady. I was already on the case before you even knew there was one. Remember? I do not owe you a thing.'

Alkmene felt like grabbing his lapels and shaking him, but she became aware the landlord was watching them curiously from behind the reception desk. She hissed, ‘We will have to decide about that later. I want to come. Pronto.'

Jake held her gaze a moment. ‘I suppose,' he said in a whisper, ‘that if I left you here you'd go out anyway and land in no end of trouble. I don't want to have your dead body on my conscience. So I will
have to take you so I can protect you.'

Alkmene snorted. ‘What will you do? Carry a gun?'

Jake smiled at her. ‘That is an excellent idea.'

She stared at him. ‘You own a gun? You brought it with you?'

He didn't reply, but strode to the desk where the landlord pretended to be engrossed in the ledger. ‘The ruins of the old keep…where would that be? I have heard it is a sight worth seeing.'

The landlord frowned. ‘It is nothing but what it says it is, sir. Ruins. There is nothing there like a real keep or castle. Just crumbling walls and weeds.'

‘I love weeds,' Alkmene said engagingly. ‘As I told your wife this morning over breakfast, my father is a botanist, a specialist on all kinds of plants. I am collecting some rare specimens for him. I am sure that he will be so grateful for your help. If you can point it out to us…'

She reached into her purse suggestively.

‘It is easy enough,' the man said at once. He opened the ledger in the back and tore out an empty sheet. Then he picked up his pencil and began to sketch. ‘The inn is right here. Now you round it and then you are here. There is an old track, wide enough for a cart and well used at that. You can follow it for about a mile…'

The explanations dragged on, and the drawing became more complex. Alkmene hoped Jake had a scout instinct that would get them there. All she wanted was lunch before they started out. She was pretty bushed after their first walk and now that a second was imminent…

She saw the innkeeper's wife appear and asked if she could pack a lunch for them. ‘Some bread, cold cuts, cheese. Oh, and the apple pie you were baking this morning.'

‘That is plum pie, but if you want some…'

‘If you please. You can all put it on the bill.' She batted her lashes at Jake, who just picked the sketch off the counter and put it in his pocket.

‘What?' he said.

‘Never mind. I am glad you are such a perfect gentleman who is taking such good care of me.'

Raising her voice, she added to the innkeeper's wife. ‘We will be outside in the square waiting for the lunch, thank you.' And she pulled Jake to the door.

‘What was that?' he asked suspiciously as they emerged once more into the sunshine.

Alkmene shook her hair loose and remodelled it. ‘Nothing. Lunch will be ready soon. Let's just have a look at the church for a moment. It looks old.'

It was old, as a plaque on the wall told them. Built in 1341, destroyed by war in 1414, rebuilt… Destroyed by fire. Rebuilt. Tower hit by lightning. Rebuilt…

Jake seemed intent on reading it all, but Alkmene's attention waned, and she walked away to the side of the church where old graves were. Family graves of the families who had lived in this town for centuries. The Dawsons, the Millers, the Smiths.

And the Sullivans.

She stared at their names and the dates on the large stone. There were Marys among them, but those had to be ancestors. The dates were not right to fit the mother of their missing heir.

She frowned as a cold draught that breathed around the church building kept hitting her exposed neck. Jake had to give that scarf back to her.

She looked up and saw a shadow slip away around the far end of the church. Just a hint of a dark sleeve, a shoulder maybe.

She walked a few paces in that direction, then halted, knowing she'd never catch up with whoever it had been. But they were still being watched. First this morning at Wally Thomson's place, now here. Why? And by whom?

‘Are you coming?' Jake called for her. ‘Your basket is here for you to carry along.'

He had to be kidding. He would carry it for her.

Right?

The wind tugging at everything loose and fastened made the basket swing and beat against her leg. She bet she'd have bruises there in the morning. But Jake refused to carry it. She had managed to persuade him to sit down and have the lunch before reaching the old ruins for the precious information, so the basket was considerably lighter now. The plum pie had been excellent, and the little flask of sherry the woman had included had warmed them inside and given them new energy to tackle the hike.

For a time they could already see the ruins in the distance, but the moor seemed to have an odd way of distorting proportions. The ruins seemed so close, within reach, and then as they ascended a new hill, the crumbling walls seemed to have stayed just as far away as before. Like the landscape shifted every time.

Alkmene halted a moment to wipe her right eye that kept tearing up from the wind. She had never walked this much across uneven tracks, rising and falling all of the time, and both her feet and knees were hurting.

Not to mention how sore her palm was from carrying the stupid basket. But she would never admit that to Jake. He was already convinced she was a prissy little lady who had no stamina. She would prove him so wrong.

Catching up with him, trying to sound level and not out of breath, she said, ‘What do you expect us to find there? Do we have to scour each crack in every crumpled bit of wall for the envelope with secret information?'

Jake shrugged. ‘I have no idea.' He stared ahead with a frown. ‘Aren't you tired?' He glanced at her. ‘You are welcome to stay here and wait for my return.'

Sitting and enjoying the sunshine for a while would be bliss. But no way was she letting him make the interesting discoveries alone.

‘I am fine.' She inhaled hard. ‘Healthy air, a nice brisk walk. What more can one want?'

Jake grimaced. ‘The whole invitation could be a trap. The person who sent us the note could be waiting on top of a wall to drop a stone on our heads.'

‘It would be kind of hard to harm both of us at the same time,' Alkmene said, although her heart was beating fast. ‘I think we are perfectly safe as long as we stick closely together.' She glanced at him. ‘Did you bring your gun?'

Jake patted his jacket. She didn't see anything particular there but…he knew what he was doing. It was kind of nice to know one of them did.

She studied the skies with the tiny white clouds. ‘It could have rained, you know. At least we are having a sunny day.'

Jake grunted. ‘I just wish that old keep had not been built so far away.'

She grinned. ‘Sore feet, huh?'

Jake poked her with an elbow. ‘Wanna compare blisters tonight? I bet yours will be bigger than mine.'

Alkmene wrinkled her nose. ‘No, thank you. And in case you are wondering, I do know how to treat blisters. My nanny always told me to prick them with a clean needle or pin.'

Jake grinned. ‘Right, and then pull a thread through so the liquid in the blisters can leak out.'

Alkmene winced. ‘Ugh.'

Jake laughed out loud. A bird took to flight nearby, diving into a clump of heather before she could discern what it was.

He took her arm a moment. ‘I think I saw movement behind one of those half broken walls. Somebody is there waiting for us.'

‘Maybe it is the man who has been watching us all day.'

‘What?' Jake asked.

‘I thought I saw somebody.' She shrugged. ‘You would probably have called it paranoia so I did not mention it before. But now that you say he is waiting, it makes sense he watched us first and when he believed we were getting closer to the truth, he approached us to give us answers.'

‘He?' Jake queried.

‘The figure I saw was probably a man. Rather tall and heavily built, you know.'

Jake nodded. ‘You could have said something.' He glanced at her. ‘Is it even possible he was watching us in the village and he is now at the ruins ahead of us?'

‘If he knew a short cut…' Alkmene shrugged. ‘Or he came on horseback.'

They should have looked into the possibility of hiring horses. She was a great rider and could have raced ahead of Jake instead of limping beside him on her tortured feet.

Jake said, ‘I wonder if our landlord wrote this note himself. Maybe he wants to meet up with us and tell us something his wife is not supposed to know. After all, his wife is Mary Sullivan's own sister and fiercely protective of her memory.'

‘Or her own part in the tragedy. If she hated Mary for being prettier and shovelled all the housework onto her, she might not have been eager to see her leave with this rich and handsome man who could offer her a better life in the city.'

Alkmene's right foot slipped on some mud, and she was swept off balance, barely managing to stay upright. After an undignified wave with her free arm and a stumble for a few paces, she continued as if nothing had happened, ‘She might have conspired to end the relationship, you know, leaking information about it, or something. But when her sister vanished and was presumed dead, she did blame herself for it.'

She was silent for a minute, wondering what it would be like to hate somebody and wish they were out of your life, and then they vanished and you wished they were back. That you could undo the damage, turn back time.

She said, ‘Wally seemed to blame the sister for a lot. His presence here in the village and at her husband's inn must be a constant reminder to her of that guilt.'

Jake nodded. ‘Perhaps you were right in your first assessment, Alkmene.'

Alkmene perked up, clutching the bothersome basket tighter. ‘I was?'

‘Yes. There is something sinister here in Cunningham. Not because there is a dark secret, but because people hated and manipulated each other and paid the price for that. They all wanted something – Mary her pretty things in the city, Mary's sister to be loved like Mary, Wally to be loved by Mary – but in the end nobody got what they wanted. They all ended up unhappy and bitter.'

‘Well, Mary had the worst lot,' Alkmene said. ‘She ended up dead.'

‘If we believe she is dead. Wally spread the tale, but is it true? If the man who appeared in London is her son, she did not die here on the moor.'

Alkmene nodded thoughtfully.

At last the ruins came within reach, and they walked up to them, just a few crumbling walls, old stones, covered with moss and weeds, weathered by ages of rain and hail and snow beating down upon them.

A raven rose from behind the walls, giving his ominous cry.

Alkmene shivered and inched closer to Jack. The basket banged against him, and she transferred it to her other arm.

Jake held her elbow as he ushered her through a narrow archway. Alkmene glanced up to see if there was a loose stone about to drop. You never knew…

Inside the circle of sadly decayed walls, grass grew and crinkled paper lay, suggesting people came here for sightseeing, or to picnic, and then left something behind.

Alkmene suppressed the urge to go pick it up and take it back to the village. Father had taught her to hate it when a pure landscape was desecrated by waste.

Jake halted and listened. Then he called out, ‘Is anybody there?'

His voice echoed away across the stones out into the open spaces of the empty moor.

The sun was vanishing behind some thin clouds, and the wind became colder, breathing down Alkmene's neck again. She shivered, narrowing her eyes.

‘I am here,' a voice said behind them.

They both spun.

The man was tall and blond, staring at them with a dispassionate expression. His feet were planted apart, his hands dangling loosely by his sides. But his stance crackled with tension. Alkmene noticed the redness of a scar snaking from his neck up behind his right ear. Someone who was not afraid of a fight.

‘What information can you offer us?' Jake asked.

The man shook his head. ‘No. You are going to tell me a thing or two. Why are you here? What are you after?'

Jake held his gaze. ‘You know my name, but I don't know yours.'

The man shrugged. ‘It would mean nothing to you.' He pulled back his shoulders. ‘I do know you, Dubois. I looked into you when you first appeared on the scene. You are a reporter, a bloodhound. You do anything for a story. You want something sensational to spread across the papers' front pages. I am here to convince you not to do that.'

The latter words were uttered calmly enough but with a hint of menace.

Jake held his gaze. ‘I have already had a soaking by the friendly villagers here. Do you have worse in mind?'

The man lifted a shoulder and let it drop again. ‘It depends on how much you want the story.'

Jake shook his head. ‘No, you are wrong. I do not want a story. I want justice for Silas Norwhich.'

The young man's face contorted. He pulled up his lip like a snarling dog. ‘For Silas Norwhich? That bastard?'

Jake didn't flinch. ‘He was killed in his own home. No man deserves to die that way.'

‘He had made other people very unhappy. He was living a lie, smiling like he was a happy man.'

Jake said, ‘So? Did he deserve to die for that reason?'

The young man shifted his weight. ‘We are not talking about his death here, but about what he was guilty of.'

Jake was unperturbed. ‘Isn't the one tied in to the other?'

The young man pursed his lips. ‘Maybe. But I asked you a question. How badly do you want your story? Will you take money to drop it?'

Jake laughed. ‘You are not the first to offer me money to drop it. If I play this well, it could make me a rich man.'

The young man stepped forward. ‘You toad! Using other people's hurt for gain.'