Christmas is Murder (10 page)

The Swanmere Arms faced
the green and boasted a beer garden with trestle tables overlooking the pond, no doubt making it a pleasant spot in summer. Rex tried to envision it without snow on the tables. Frozen reeds fringed the ice-crusted surface of the pond, the few beech trees all but stripped of their leaves.

“Oh, look.” Helen tugged his arm and pointed.

A pair of swans floating in the center of the pond created a lovers’ heart with their graceful necks curved outward and heads bowed toward each other, orange beaks pointing to the water.

“Damn, I wish I
had
brought my camera. Aren’t they beautiful? They’re very loyal. They mate for life, you know.”

“Aye, I think I heard that somewhere.”

“And if they lose their mate, they go through a grieving process just as humans do.”

“What sort of swans are they?”

“Mute swans, introduced to Britain in medieval times from the Black and Caspian Seas. All mute swans are owned by the Queen.”

“You seem to know a lot about them.” He turned toward the pub in pursuit of beer, gray snow crunching beneath his boots.

“I read up on them at the hotel. There are some nature books in the library.”

Rex stacked the skis and poles around the side of the entrance and opened the half-glazed door, glad to feel the warmth of the interior. As he’d hoped, a fire crackled in a huge brick hearth. Bing Crosby crooned the lyrics of “White Christmas” from a speaker overhead.

“Oh, I love this song,” Helen said.

The mahogany bar shaped in a horseshoe gleamed like glass, while red padded pews and brass fittings completed Rex’s idea of how an English pub should look. He took a couple of seconds to savor the pungent smell of old beer wafting around the rafters strung with multicolored paper chains—and gave the Swanmere Arms an “A” rating.

A handful of people congregated around the dartboard at the far end of the bar, but this side was empty. Helen perched on a stool and unzipped her anorak.

“Merry Christmas,” the barman said. “And what will you be having?”

“Vodka and tonic,” Helen replied, unwinding the scarf from her neck. “And a packet of salt and vinegar crisps.”

“Right you are, love. Sir?”

“Pint of Guinness.”

“I thought you would order an Arran Blonde or a SkullSplitter,” Helen joked.

“And how do you know so much about Scottish beer? Or have you been researching that as well?”

“I’ve been to Aviemore a few times with my on-off-again boyfriend and he likes to try the microbrews.”

She must be referring to Clive. Rex contemplated the creamy white head at the top of his glass, wondering if she wanted to talk about it. Presumably she did or she wouldn’t have brought him up. “
Sláinte,
” he said, raising his glass and clinking her vodka and tonic.

“Bottoms up.”

When they had taken a few long draughts, they both sighed in bliss.

“This is heaven,” Helen remarked. “Just to be away from it all …”

“You mean your boyfriend?”

“Actually, I meant Wanda. But, yes, him too. I needed a break. Clive has been pushing for a decision I’m not ready to make. I’m pretty tied up with my job, which can get quite stressful on occasion, and when I get home I just want to relax and have time for myself. Does that sound selfish?”

“Not at all.”

“Clive is a bit needy, a bit like Wanda, in fact. He teaches mathematics at the school. Not that he’s boring or anything,” Helen added a bit defensively, which Rex took as meaning he probably was.

“Wanda does seem to demand a lot of your time.”

Helen pulled open her packet of crisps. “Well, we go back years. We were at university together, actually. She stole my boyfriend in our first year, the man she just divorced.”

“Poetic justice.”

“You can just imagine how angry I was at the time. I didn’t speak to her for ages, avoided her in the Students’ Union and everywhere I went. Fortunately for me, she dropped out. She married and I got on with my life, and then it didn’t seem so important anymore. A year later we bumped into each other at a party. I suppose we were both a little drunk, and anyhow we just started laughing, and after that we were back to being best friends. I think it pissed Paul off.”

“Is that what drove them apart?” Rex signaled to the barman for another round.

“A little, maybe. There’s usually more than one factor involved. Wanda is basically insecure. I think that’s why she made a play for Paul in the first place. Anyway, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown after the divorce and needed a change of scene, somewhere peaceful where she could re-center herself, so I brought her here.”

“Very understanding of you.”

Helen dipped into her anorak pocket, opened a compact and repaired her lipstick. “What about you?” she asked, checking her handiwork in the mirror.

“Me? I’m probably not even as interesting as Mr. Algebraic Equation.”

“Falsely modest,” she said snapping her compact shut and jabbing him playfully in the shoulder.

“Tell me other things about myself.” Rex was enjoying himself. The first Guinness had taken the edge off his thirst, the second was beginning to make him feel mellow.

“Well,” Helen said matter-of-factly as she rolled back the sleeves of her white sweater. “The way you place objects so they don’t touch one another … See—you moved the ashtray away, but not as far as the bar mat. You set the dish of peanuts out of the way of your notebook and left a space between it and your glass. You’re a separatist, aloof, preferring your own company to that of others, and you shy away from physical contact.”

“Not always.”

“I’m speaking generalities. The interesting question for me is why?”

“Well, you’ve got me interested too. Why, doctor?”

“We’ll get to that. I need to finish my character assessment first. You are intelligent, analytical—that’s what makes you a good barrister—”

“How do you know I’m a good barrister?”

Unabashed, Helen told him that she had Googled him on Miriam’s BlackBerry when he first arrived and found that he’d successfully defended the Crown in the vast majority of his cases.

“What else? I’m warming to me.”

“You’re very ethical. And respectful of women in an old-fashioned sort of way. Are you very close to your mother?”

“Aye. I lost my father when I was seven. My mother raised me with a blend of kindness and strict moral values. Whenever I misbehaved she beat me over the head with her bible.”

“Women intimidate you.”

“Argh, I wouldna say that.”

“Well, maybe I’m reaching. But you’re not a flirtatious man. I don’t know what you think of me. I’d like to think you were attracted, but holding back for some reason.” She rattled the ice in her vodka-tonic.

“There are plenty of reasons, Helen, not least of which being that I have two murders on my hands. But I find you bonnie enough, I’ll give you that.”

Helen blushed and stared into her glass. “But it’s not going anywhere, is it?”

Rex felt some of his warm humor slip away. “I too have someone at home. She’s a good woman—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Helen interrupted. “I knew you were ethical.”

Rex bowed his head. Although the widow he’d been seeing in Edinburgh had gone overseas for an indefinite period of time, they had made a commitment to stay in touch and see where things led. “If I was free and there was not all this mayhem going on at the hotel, ah, lassie, I’d be on you faster than a speeding bullet.”

She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head gently. “Sorry to put a damper on our jolly outing.”

He took her hand briefly. “You didna do that. Perhaps you can lend me your professional expertise. What’s your take on the others?”

“Ah, let me see now.” Helen stared ahead at the liquor bottles on the shelves behind the bar. “Anthony, a man of fine taste and acerbic wit … He could be our dastardly killer. Patrick’s an odd duck—I think he’s more likely. Charley comes off as all matey-matey, but there’s something going on, and Yvette is obviously manipulated. I can see that ending in an abusive relationship. I hope I’m wrong.”

“Wanda?”

“Wanda as in a serial killer? Hardly—although I’m no expert in psychopath profiling. She’s emotionally fragile, but not insane.”

“You think the murderer is insane?”

Helen assumed what Rex guessed was her professional look with students—an expression that suggested she was prepared to consider anything without prejudice. “I think the person is under severe stress,” she said carefully.

“What makes you say that?”

“The behaviour seems erratic—first planned, then erratic, I mean.”

“How do you know the first murder was planned?”

Helen offered him her crisps. “Sorry, I’ve been hogging these.” He declined with a wave of his hand. “I heard you discussing the cyanide outside Charley’s door,” she told him. “I didn’t catch much of what you were saying. I came upstairs for a ball of wool and slipped away before you saw me.”

“You weren’t alarmed?”

“At the time I thought it was a theoretical conversation, maybe to do with one of your cases.”

“And the erratic behaviour … What do you mean by that?”

“Well, the candlestick was carefully wiped clean of prints. But the way the BlackBerry and manuscript were got rid of point to hasty and possibly irrational acts.”

“Aye, I considered that myself. What about the staff? Any suspicions?”

“An old lady, a cranky old man?” She laughed. “I’d be surprised, but when it really comes down to it, I can’t imagine it being any of the people at the hotel.”

“It has to be one of them. What about Rosie?”

“I’d say not, but then one of my students at school got in trouble with the law. Pauline’s a good girl really, but she has problems at home.”

“Mrs. Bellows?”

“Least of all. Salt of the earth type.”

Rex sighed ponderously.

“I wasn’t much help was I?” Helen said. “What about me? How do you know it wasn’t me who killed Henry and Miriam?”

He looked into her unwavering blue eyes. “I had to eliminate a few people, but if you turn out to be the murderer, Helen, my last shred of hope for humanity will go up in smoke.”

With a sharp intake of breath, Helen looked away, and then back at him. “So, why did you never get married?” she asked with a forced lightness.

“I was. I’m a widower.”

“Oh, I missed that one, didn’t I? And there I was going on about your feelings toward women. You must think me an utter fool.” Her head tilted forward, hair falling across her face concealing her expression. “How did she die—if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Breast cancer.” The lump grew in his throat. It had been four years since he lost Fiona, but the pain and injustice of her death lurked beneath the surface, a rip tide ready to drag him under when he least expected it.

“Rex, how awful … Children?”

“A boy. Eighteen. I even have the requisite photo.” He reached into his pocket for his wallet.

“Ready to settle up?” the barman asked.

“No hurry.” Rex extracted a head and shoulders snapshot of his son taken during his last term at school. “This is Campbell.”

“Handsome,” Helen said, scrutinizing the picture in her hand, “though I don’t see much of a resemblance.”

“No, he got his blonde hair from his mother. And he’s lanky, not stocky like meself.”

“He looks very formal in his tie.”

“Aye, he looks like it’s choking him.”

Helen laughed, and Rex was glad to see the tense mood between them broken. “So, is he a chip off the old block? Planning to go into law?”

“Noo. He’s not really one for the books. He’s studying marine science in Florida. He decided he wanted to save the dolphins.”

“That’s very commendable.” Helen returned the photo.

“It would be, but I think it was more a question of sun, surfing, and scoping out girls in thongs. Anyway, he’s staying with his roommate in Miami for Christmas.” Rex drained the last of the Guinness and wiped off his mustache with a paper napkin.