Dead Woman's Shoes: 1 (Lexy Lomax Mysteries) (20 page)

“It’s OK,” said Lexy. “I can manage with just the one. The others are the same, anyway, aren’t they? Er, you haven’t got any change on you, have you, Hope? I need to get some dog chow and …”

“Not
completely
the same,” interrupted Hope. Her voice rose. “Come on, I
want
you to shee them.”

Now it was Lexy’s turn to look up and down the street. So the other letters were different? Hadn’t she suspected as much? Perhaps she ought to take a quick look, to see if they threw any light on Guy Ellenger’s parting comment.

“OK, OK,” she said soothingly. “I’ll come. Where do you live?”

“Jus’ up here.” Hope swayed off.

They walked a short distance along the road that led out of Clopwolde, and turned into an attractive courtyard of six terraced houses.

“Here’sh mine. Number three.” Hope pointed to a set of steps leading up to a wooden door. She began a wobbling ascent.

“Shall I take that for you?” Lexy indicated the clinking carrier bag, which was swinging recklessly.

“No. S’all right.” Hope and the bag got to the top and she fumbled in her handbag for the key. Lexy took a covert look at numbers two and four, to see whether any net curtains were twitching. They were. Both of them. This was obviously a regular source of entertainment. She couldn’t resist giving the nosy bastards the finger.

Inside the house was modern, with wood flooring and tasteful rugs and furnishings. But, like Hope, it looked a bit dishevelled. The recycling boxes in the open area under the staircase were overflowing with newspapers, and, not surprisingly, bottles. Gin and vodka mainly.

Lexy wondered if the drinking spree dated back to when Hope opened the first anonymous letter.

She glimpsed a pile of dirty plates in a small kitchen.

“I’m sorry, it’s such a messh,” said Hope. “I’ve been
sooo
tired recently. Jus’ been getting home and crashing…” She smiled beatifically, tottering sideways into the kitchen. “Go on, go through,” she said, waving her free hand.

Lexy and Kinky continued along the hall to a front room full of early evening sun. It contained a well-sprung sofa with a rumpled cover that looked as if it had been much slept on. Television and DVD player in one corner; in the other a circular dinner table bearing a tall, wooden candelabra streaked with magenta candle wax. Next to this was a bunch of decaying tiger lilies in a vase, spilling orange pollen across the table like powdered paint.

A bookcase contained a collection of popular classics, and framed prints from the Tate hung on the wall. There were no photographs on the mantelpiece, or clues to Hope’s hobbies or interests, unless you counted the collection of wine rings on the elegant coffee table.

Lexy watched Kinky undertake a detailed inspection of the skirting board.

A crash from the kitchen made them both jump. “You all right?” Lexy called. She went swiftly through.

Hope was perched on a stool, leaning heavily sideways, hair hanging over her face. She had broken a glass and the shards were scattered across the tiled floor. An open bottle of sapphire blue gin stood in front of her.

Lexy shut the kitchen door on Kinky, propped Hope up, found a dustpan and brush, and started to sweep up.

“Sorry ’bout thish.” Hope watched her dolefully.

“Don’t worry about it. Now, do you know where those letters are?” Lexy flipped open the bin and emptied the pieces of glass into it.

“In my bedroom drawer. Under my underwear.” Hope giggled.

Lexy closed her eyes briefly. “Would you like me to get them?”

“Yesh. And I’ll pour us both a drink while you’re gone.” Hope turned to the bottle again.

“I’ll have a coffee,” said Lexy. “Perhaps you should, too?” She filled a jug kettle. Hope watched her with exaggerated interest. Lexy took two mugs from a wooden mug tree.

She made Hope an extremely strong black coffee, then went to get the letters. Hope’s bedroom was as featureless as her living room. So was her underwear.

Lexy went back to the kitchen, placed the envelopes on the counter next to Hope, and pulled up a stool.

“All right if I have a look?” Lexy asked.

Hope stared at the envelopes and nodded.

Lexy withdrew a sheet from one of them. The letters were pasted on in the same style as the one she had seen previously.

I KNOW WHO PUSHED HIM

Lexy gave Hope a quick glance. “Was that was the second letter?”

Hope thought for a while, eyes shut, and then nodded.

“Same theme, then,” Lexy commented. She opened the remaining one.

WHY DID MUMMY KILL HERSELF?

Lexy winced. “She doesn’t beat about the bush, does she?”

“She?” said Hope.

“Or he,” Lexy amended. “I read somewhere that poison pen letters tend to be a woman thing.” Christ, what a slip-up. Hope was meant to be the inebriated one.

“I read that, too,” the receptionist said, unexpectedly. “I bought a book on it.
The Pshy... Psychology of Anonymous Letter Writing
. I read it in bed last night. That’s how sad I am.”

“Nothing sad about reading up on the subject.”

“Know your enemy,” Hope’s voice was harsh.

“So you were here last night?” Lexy asked. No harm in checking.

Hope became very still. She screwed her face up as if trying to think hard. “Ye…es,” she said. “I was here all night on my own.” She nodded emphatically.

Lexy mentally filed this away. Hope alone on night of murder. Almost certainly drunk. She could check this with the curtain twitching neighbours. She found herself regretting she’d given them the finger earlier.

“Do you know what this third letter means?” Lexy asked.

Hope looked at the words for what seemed like an age. Kinky, sitting at their feet, gave an impatient whine.

“Yes. I do know what it means.” She knocked the rest of the coffee back. She sounded like she was sobering up fast. “It means that this person knows what really happened that night. So we’re stuffed.”

“Who’s stuffed?” Lexy tried to keep her voice even.

“Me and Guy, of course.” She sounded almost petulant.

“Do
you
know what really happened?”

“I was there, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, but you said you were on the phone when your father… fell down the stairs. You had your back to him.”

“No. That was a lie. I was
facing
him,” said Hope, her voice rising to an uncontrolled shout. “I saw it
all
.”

“So you saw your mother do it? Push him, I mean?”

“Not my mother.” Hope Ellenger gave her a pitying look. “My brother.”

Lexy felt the blood drain from her face as effectively as if someone had turned a tap under her chin.

“Yes –
Guy
shoved my father down the stairs.” Hope gave Lexy a twisted smile. “That’s why Mummy killed herself.”

Lexy watched the seconds ticking away on a stainless steel kitchen wall clock in front of her.

“We don’t speak about it, me and Guy.” Hope’s words were coming fast now. “It’s like it never happened, but at the same time it’s always there. It means we can’t move on, not like other people. We can’t have relationships or be normal.”

Lexy didn’t trust herself to speak. She didn’t know what to say, anyway.

“But we got used to it,” Hope ploughed on. “We threw ourselves into the veterinary practice, and we’re doing the am-dram. It’s like – we’re… happy. At least I was until these letters started coming.” Her eyes shone with a sudden dark lustre. “I knew our sins would eventually catch up with us.”

“Not your sin,” Lexy croaked. “
You
didn’t do it.”

“We’re as guilty as one another.” Hope toyed with her coffee mug. “Anyway, I’ve told someone now. Broken the link. So what are you going to do?”

Lexy shook her head. “Right now, I don’t know. I’m going to have to go and think.” She stood up, rubbed her forehead.

“What about these?” Hope indicated the letters. “What’s the next one going to say?” Her voice had risen again. Lexy hoped the kitchen wall wasn’t too thin.

She stood in front of the receptionist, took hold of her shoulders, looked into her eyes. “There aren’t going to be any more letters.”

“What? How…?”

“You’ll have to trust me on this.”

“You’ve found out who it was.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes. And there won’t be any more letters. OK?”

“OK.” Hope’s eyelids fluttered. Lexy heaved her off the stool, half-carried her into the living room. After re-capping the gin, hiding it from sight and putting the letters back in Hope’s bedroom, she left her sleeping on the sofa.

Lexy strode back up Cliff Lane, but she couldn’t keep up with Kinky. He ran all the way back, and was waiting on the front step when she arrived.

As soon as the door was open he rushed into the kitchen and stood in front of his empty bowl. He had been getting pretty fond of those Doggy Chomps. Lexy swore under her breath. She’d forgotten to ask Hope again for some bloody change for bloody dog food before she left. For some reason it had gone right out of her mind. Perhaps it was hearing the news that her brother was a murderer. Yeah, that would have done it.

She put a pan of brown rice on to boil. Kinky gave a couple of light, joshing barks. She hadn’t overlooked something, had she?

He continued to issue increasingly shrill reminders during the forty minutes the rice took to cook, until Lexy almost lost her temper.

When she eventually forked a small pile of the stuff into his bowl Kinky sniffed at it and threw her a filthy look, then retired to the living room and lay on the sofa with his face turned into a cushion.

In this oppressive atmosphere, Lexy tried to come to terms with Hope Ellenger’s revelation about her brother. Talk about a curve ball. Lexy wished she’d never spotted the woman now, and gone through that whole grisly scene. But she had to know, didn’t she? As soon as she heard Guy Ellenger agree that perhaps he should do what his conscience told him, she had felt a strange compulsion to discover what that meant. He hadn’t killed Avril Todd, Lexy was sure of that. But it did sound as if he was on the verge of confessing to a murder he had carried out twenty-four years earlier.

15

The following morning Kinky remained cool with Lexy, especially when he found out what was for breakfast. He sat in a corner of the kitchen wearing a look that would have had people reaching straight for their cheque books if it featured on an RSPCA poster.

Lexy regarded him disagreeably. “Well, what do you want me to do? Go out there and bag you a couple of squirrels?”

She saw his ears prick up.

“Dream on.”

As she spooned down the remainder of the brown rice, Lexy peered out at the unkempt garden through one of the open windows. Ever since she got up that morning, she’d had an inexplicable feeling she was being watched.

A sudden disturbance made her stiffen.

But it was just a bird, a small pearl-grey one that fluttered out of the gorse and landed on a hawthorn tree near to the cabin. Lexy flipped through her mental list of species, but somehow she couldn’t get a fix on this one.

Curious despite herself, she dropped to all fours and crept through the kitchen, out of the back door, and around the veranda, in order to get closer without frightening it away.

Kinky accompanied her expectantly.

“No – I haven’t changed my mind about the squirrels.” Lexy hooked a finger in his collar.

The bird was still there, its back to her. She could now see its markings in more detail, a strikingly marbled grey and white effect. “What on earth are you?” she whispered to herself.

As if in answer to her question, it opened its beak and let forth a beautiful, confused babble of notes.

Ah – warbler. She listened with pleasure.

That was until Kinky wrenched himself from her grip and raced towards it, barking dementedly.

The bird dived into the undergrowth in a terrified blur of grey.

Lexy leapt up, shot through with rage. She was about to give the dog the biggest earful of his life when she saw the man.

He was crouching behind a clump of young birch trees just outside the garden. Kinky raced towards him with kamikaze abandon.

Lexy gave a piercing whistle instead of her intended barrage of expletives. The intruder scrambled up and backed away through the gorse and heather. Kinky slowed and turned back, short hair bristling, angry barks still escaping from him.

Lexy ushered him in and slammed the door, almost breaking it in two.

Storming through the cabin, she rifled through the pockets of Thursday’s jeans, left in a crumpled heap in the bathroom. She pulled out the now limp business card DI Milo had given her outside the vet’s surgery, then pounced on the telephone to punch out the number of his mobile.

“Milo.”

The voice sounded tired and irritated. Good. “It’s Alexandra Lomax.”

“Yes. Is something the matter?”

“Something the matter?” Her voice rose hysterically. “Listen – I’ve got some bastard reporter outside my cabin taking pictures of me. And you gave me your
word
you’d keep my name out of this business. I’ll tell you what – you can stick your dinner tonight. I don’t owe you anything now.”

There was a pause, then DI Milo’s voice, sounding both dignified and aggrieved. “I can assure you I’ve kept your name out of this, Ms... Lomax.” He emphasised
Lomax
. “I’ve got no idea how the press tracked you down. There hasn’t even been a press release yet. I’m very sorry if...”

“Yeah, well, it’s a bit late for apologies now,” she snarled, slamming the phone down.

Kinky watched her from the kitchen door as she stalked up and down the room. That was that, then. If the press were on to her already, she might as well go straight down to the local nick, find a proper policeman and own up to stealing Gerard’s ill-gotten gains. At least she’d have the satisfaction of landing him in prison, too, by going public on his little...

There was a knock at the door.

Lexy jerked the curtain back. An earnest-looking girl stood outside, dark hair tied back in a ponytail, camera around her neck. Behind her, on the veranda, stood three other people, carrying recording equipment. A camera crew, no less.