A Question of Guilt (14 page)

She didn't ask me how I'd got on last night, but given she was so busy, that wasn't surprising. I knew she'd be giving me the third degree as soon as the opportunity arose, and, sure enough, as soon as we were installed in the car and on our way, it was the first subject she raised.

‘You weren't late last night.'

I smirked. ‘What does that mean?'

‘It doesn't mean anything,' Mum said, affronted. ‘I'm just saying, that's all.'

‘How do you know what time I got in?'

‘I was still awake. I heard the car.'

I had visions of Mum peeking through her bedroom curtains, seeing me pinned against the car, and Josh kissing me, and felt as guilty as if I were a teenager again.

‘Well?' she pressed me. ‘Are you going to see him again?'

‘Yes. Tomorrow, actually.'

‘Oh, that's good. Just as long as you don't get too involved too soon, Sally. You've only just broken up with Tim. I don't want to see you hurt again.'

‘It'll be fine, Mum,' I said. But for just a moment I did find myself wondering – was she right? Might I be feeling this way about Josh because I was on the rebound from Tim? And was Josh just that little bit too keen for it to last?

For the first couple of hours Mum and I were kept very busy. Invariably the people who came to buy eggs, cheese and vegetables were early birds – they liked to make sure they had the pick of the stock. But towards midday things were quietening down.

‘Could you manage without me for a bit if I went down to Compton Properties?' I asked. ‘They're sure to be open on a Saturday, and I need to talk to them about the things I took in for the auction.'

I didn't mention that I was anxious to see Alice, and perhaps find out if she'd been trying to phone me. If I told Mum about the silent phone calls it might worry her. But we had talked about the reserve price we should put on the items I'd taken in for auction, and that was my excuse now to return to the estate agent's office.

‘I'll be fine,' Mum said. ‘Off you go.'

I set out in the direction of the Square, hoping Alice would be in the office. It could be they operated on a skeleton staff on Saturdays, with the girls working alternate weeks. When I pushed open the door, however, I was relieved to find Alice at her desk. She looked up, and the welcoming smile froze on her face when she saw it was me.

‘Good morning.' There was hesitancy in her voice too.

‘I've come to kill two birds with one stone,' I said cheerfully. ‘First – the candle snuffer and the teaspoons. We'd like to put a reserve price of fifteen pounds on each.'

‘Let me get the paperwork . . .' Alice rose and crossed to the filing cabinet. I waited while she wrote on the hard copy and pulled up what I presumed was the relevant file on her computer and tapped in an entry.

‘Did your colleague pass on my message yesterday?' I asked when she finished.

‘Your message?' Alice might be stalling, I thought. But actually she did look genuinely puzzled.

‘Yes, I left the number of my mobile with her and asked if you could ring me.'

‘You spoke to Sarah?'

‘Yes. Didn't she tell you?'

‘She didn't say anything to me about it, no. Why did you want me to ring you? Sarah was dealing with your items.'

This was it.
Go for it.

‘I was hoping to talk to you about Dawn. But are you sure . . .?' I broke off. I'd been so certain my mystery caller must have been Alice. But I didn't want to alienate her now by pressing the point.

‘Look, I'm sorry, but really there's nothing I can tell you,' Alice said. ‘Dawn and I worked together, that's all. She wasn't even here any more when she was killed.'

‘But she was here at the time of the fire. Did she ever say . . . did she think Brian Jennings was responsible, or . . .'

I got no further. ‘Of course he was responsible!' Alice interrupted sharply. ‘Who else could it have been?'

The vehemence of her response struck me as being somehow an overreaction. Or maybe, once again, I was imagining things.

‘That's what I'm trying to find out,' I said quietly. ‘Whether Dawn or Lisa . . .'

Again she interrupted me before I could finish.

‘They'd hardly be likely to start the fire themselves, would they?'

What an odd thing to say!

‘Of course they wouldn't,' I said. ‘I'm not suggesting that for one moment. I just wondered if there was anyone . . . anything . . .?'

‘No, there's not. There was just Brian Jennings. Isn't one stalker enough?'

‘But he couldn't have been the hit-and-run driver who killed her.'

‘That was an accident!' Alice protested. ‘And I already told you, I don't want to talk about any of this. I'd appreciate it if you stopped asking all these questions.'

‘Is everything all right, Alice?' Lewis Crighton had appeared on the stairs, obviously alerted by Alice's rising voice.

‘Yes, fine, Mr Crighton.' The colour had risen in her face, turning her pale complexion a rosy pink. I'd get no more from her, I knew.

‘Perhaps you could give me details of where and when the auction will be,' I said. ‘I'd like to come along and see if our things sell.'

Alice gave me a leaflet. I thanked her, and left. I hadn't learned a single new thing, but the feeling that I was on the brink of something sinister was stronger than ever.

As for the silent telephone calls . . . I still couldn't be sure if Alice was telling the truth when she said Sarah hadn't passed on my number to her. But if it wasn't Alice, who had it been? Was it a prank – or something more sinister? I thought again of Josh's warning that I could be getting myself into something very dangerous indeed, and shivered. But there was no way on earth I was going to give this up now. If there was some kind of cover-up, or worse, I was determined to find out what it was.

It was almost two by the time we got home from Stoke Compton. Mum had sold out of eggs and most of the vegetables, and got rid of quite a few pots of freshly made marmalade. We grabbed some desperately needed lunch – onion soup with cheese-topped croutons floating on it – and I was hoping to be able to get on to Dad's computer to update my notes, but he was using it to pay bills and enter the details into his account files.

‘How the devil Jeremy can work with this rubbish day in, day out, I don't know,' he said. He looked utterly stressed out. Dad, who could deal with all kinds of practical crises on the farm, could be turned into a nervous wreck by his computer.

‘D'you want me to help you out?' I offered.

‘Oh, go on then.' Dad relinquished his chair and stood over me issuing instructions while I took over the keyboard and mouse.

‘I really do need a computer of my own,' I said, when I'd finished. ‘Trouble is, I suppose I'll have to go into Porton to get one. There's a PC World there, isn't there?'

‘Yes, but you'd do better to go to the place I use, on the industrial estate,' Dad said. ‘If anything goes wrong you can always call on them to sort you out. We'll give them a call on Monday, see if they've got anything in stock that would suit you.'

‘Good plan.' I was really missing my laptop.

I jammed the memory stick Dad had lent me into the computer port and worked for an hour or so on my notes before a dinner of one of Mum's casseroles and an evening spent watching yet another re-run of
Dad's Army
,
The National Lottery Show
and
Casualty
on the television.

Perhaps because I'd recently been so badly let down by Tim, I couldn't quite shake the irrational fear that Josh would stand me up on Sunday, so when the doorbell rang just after half past two my heart leapt as if I was a teenager on a first date.

‘Where would you like to go?' he asked when I was installed in the passenger seat of the Peugeot.

‘I really don't mind.' It was true, I didn't. Just being with Josh was enough.

‘I was thinking about Longleat Safari Park,' he suggested. ‘It shouldn't be too crowded at this time of year, and we could be there in an hour or so.'

‘Sounds good to me.'

Josh was right; the long summer queues were missing and we were able to drive straight into the estate, and then through the checkpoint into the safari park.

It was a pleasant afternoon, chilly but fine, with clear patches of blue sky between some heavy clouds that might portend rain later. We stopped to look at the giraffes and zebras and Josh took a load of photographs through the open window of the car.

We bypassed the Monkey Jungle – ‘No way am I going through there,' Josh said.

‘Oh why not? They're so funny!'

‘And very destructive. When I brought my sister's kids here they pulled every bit of beading off my windows and demolished the wipers and the aerial too. If you want to see the monkeys, you're going to have to get out and walk!'

Since that was not an option even if I hadn't been on crutches, I reconciled myself to missing the monkeys.

‘Let's feed the deer instead,' Josh suggested.

The road curved up and round a bend to where a wooden shack stood at the edge of a parking area. A whole herd of deer surrounded the cars that had stopped there, and gambolled eagerly between them. Josh found a pound coin in the well of the car and I used it to buy a cup of food pellets. Immediately the deer honed in on us, jostling the car and poking their heads right through the open windows to take the pellets from the palm of my hand. Some were fully grown and quite tame, others were little more than babies, and more nervous. As I fed them, Josh snapped away with his camera, and at one point I turned to find it trained on me.

‘Hey!' I objected. ‘It's the deer you're supposed to be photographing!'

He grinned. ‘Thought I'd get one of you too. Nose to nose with a deer.'

When the food had all gone we shared the disinfectant wipe the shop girl had given us and set off towards Lion Country.

It was a slightly scary moment as the first set of security gates closed after us and we waited for the second set to open. I've always been a bit claustrophobic, and I didn't much care for being trapped with goodness only knew how many big cats on the loose just the other side of the fence. But the moment the ranger let us through I forgot my fear, sitting forward in my seat and eagerly scanning the woodland for my first sighting.

We were in luck; as we rounded a bend we saw several cars stopped at the roadside, a sure indication that there was something to see. And there was – three females and a male, lounging in the grass. As we watched, one got up and loped off into the trees, and another strolled in front of our car, so close that she brushed against the bonnet. Further on was another pride, gathered around a shelter, and then we were out of the lion enclosure and into the one that was home to the tigers. We must have seen at least half a dozen of the magnificent beasts before we passed through yet another set of security gates and into the domain of the wolves.

‘Which do you think are the most dangerous?' I asked.

Josh was driving a little faster now; he'd seen enough wild animals for one day, I guessed.

‘Let's say I wouldn't want to meet any of them on a dark night,' he said lightly. ‘Time to get out of here before we get locked in, I think, don't you?'

‘I suppose.' I was enjoying myself here, but dusk was beginning to fall.

‘Plus,' Josh said, ‘I could do with a pint.'

We had a drink and a bite to eat in a country pub somewhere between Longleat and home, and for all that I'd eaten a fair helping of Mum's roasted lamb at lunchtime, I still managed a delicious lasagne and garlic bread.

‘I seem to be doing nothing but eating these days!' I groaned, mopping up the last of the sauce. And it was true! Where my appetite had come from I hadn't a clue, and didn't much care. All I knew was that I felt better and happier than I had done in a very long time, and that was partly down to having something to occupy me, and partly down to Josh.

Only when he raised the subject of the silent phone calls, asking if I'd had any more, did the niggling discomfort shiver through me.

‘No, it hasn't happened again,' I said, neglecting to mention the fact that I'd thought my phone had rung some time during the night. ‘I still think it must have been Alice, though she denied it . . .'

I went on to tell him how I'd called in to see her this morning, and once again come up against a brick wall.

‘You're still determined to go on with this, then?' Josh said.

‘Too true! And I plan to go to a meeting of the Compton Players tomorrow evening, too.'

‘Sally, I really wish you'd think again about this . . .'

‘Don't start that again!' I warned, and managed to change the subject.

When we finally made it home, Josh once again refused my invitation to come in for coffee, but he did kiss me very thoroughly whilst sitting in the car, and again when he helped me out. And it felt every bit as good as it had last night – better!

‘You fascinate me, Sally Proctor,' he whispered into my ear, and I stretched my neck in what felt to me like a very sensuous way so that he could nuzzle into it.

‘Are you going to take me out again then?' I asked cheekily.

‘What do you think?'

‘I think you might ask . . . and I might just say yes.'

‘Oh do you now!' He was nibbling my ear, his tongue flicking. Then he drew back, becoming more serious. ‘It won't be until the middle of the week. I've got assignments tomorrow and Tuesday. How would Wednesday suit you?'

Wednesday. One week from the day I first met him. One week! I could hardly believe it. The days had flown by. But at the same time I felt I'd known Josh forever.

‘Wednesday? Just let me check my diary,' I joked. ‘No, I don't think I've got anything on . . .'