Docketful of Poesy (15 page)

I peeked at my wristwatch. “I think we’re leaving
now,” I told him. “But if you ask Mrs. Zinn, I’m sure she’ll wrap
something up you can eat on the drive.”

He nodded and continued through the doorway. I headed
along the corridor. Lost in my own thoughts I noticed too late that
I was about to walk in on an argument between Miles and someone
else in the anteroom off the lobby.

“What exactly are you insinuating?” Miles was saying
in a dangerous voice.

“’
s not like you ’aven’t ’eard it
all before, mate.” Todd. I’d recognize those dropped aitches
anywhere. Though that was the first time he’d used that insolent
tone.

“Yeah, I’ve heard it,” Miles said. “But not from
someone who wants to remain part of any project I’m directing.”

I stopped outside the anteroom. I was actually trying
to think of another way upstairs, because I really didn’t walk into
the middle of that scene. But Todd chuckled, and something in that
laugh raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I found myself
listening closely.

“I’m not worried, mate. We both know who’s callin’
the shots. Or rather, we both know who
isn’t
callin’ the
shots. And that would be
you
.”

He was coming my way. I backed up quickly, stepped
into the nearby alcove, and picked up the phone as though I were
making a call. And because Todd did indeed walk into the hallway, I
started dialing.

He walked past me and nodded pleasantly. I nodded
back. A couple of numbers later, Miles strode past me with a curt
inclination of his head. I bobbed my head in acknowledgment—but
inattentively. I had automatically dialed Peter’s number, and the
phone was ringing.

And ringing.

Four rings. He didn’t pick it up, the machine did—and
I hung up softly.

*****

To everyone’s relief the day’s shooting was
uneventful.

Somehow Roberta had wrangled permission to shoot in
the old graveyard outside Innisdale, and it actually made for a
wonderfully eerie location—although I felt they were spoiling that
ambiance by staging a shoot-out between Lady Ree, Gerry Salt,
Faith, and David.

I watched Tracy and Todd darting from behind
headstone to headstone exchanging shots with Mona and Norton—there
was a great deal of running and jumping and shooting. I told myself
that it was better than listening to the dialogue Walter had cooked
up, but a morning of watching Tracy play
Charlie’s Angels
was wearing on my nerves.

In fairness, though, she did run well—and she handled
a gun like she meant business. Mona also displayed a casual and
convincing familiarity with firearms. Todd, on the other hand,
seemed uncomfortable brandishing weapons, and Norton dropped his
pistol several times, resulting in Miles repeatedly having to yell,
“Cut!”

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Edam?” he
bawled finally. “Do you think you could manage to run from point A
to point B without your pants falling down?”

“Not
a line of discussion I’d open if I were
Miles,” Roberta, sitting next to me on a folding chair, commented
lightly.

“Is Miles really that bad?”

Roberta’s smile was definitely strange. “Miles is
really that
good
.” Meeting my stare she said, “Very like
your own Mr. Fox.”

I considered this unemotionally. “But Miles was
married at one time?”

“According to Mona. And I suppose she’d know. She and
Miles were together a long time—considering Miles’s record with
relationships. And they’ve managed to stay friends, which is even
more rare. Especially considering everything that happened between
them.”

Naturally, I wanted to ask about what that
everything
was, but I had a feeling Roberta would close up
if I showed too much interest. I said instead—taking a shot in the
dark, “You’ve stayed friends.”

“For the most part. It hasn’t always been easy.” She
glanced at me. “At least I never tried to kill him.”

My jaw dropped. “Who tried to kill him? Not
Mona?”

She laughed. “It was before she started on the path
to spiritual enlightenment.”

“What did she do?”

“She tried to shoot him. With one of his own hunting
rifles.” The lenses of Roberta’s glasses were glinting; I couldn’t
read her eyes, but she was smiling.

Late morning, the rain began to fall. It was one of
those fleeting Lake District showers. One minute the sun was
shining; the next, low clouds seemed to catch on the tree branches
and tear open. The daffodils around the lake bent and bobbed
beneath the wet breeze while the water grew dark and choppy.
Filming halted while we broke for an early lunch supplied by the
Hound and Harrier.

We crowded into the trailers for sandwiches made of
ham and pickle or cheddar and chutney, crisps, apples or grapes,
and spice cake—all washed down with strong, hot tea. I’m not sure
why, but the tea is better in England. The quality of the tea
doesn’t matter or how you prepare it, it just tastes different over
here.

About forty-five minutes later the rain stopped and
filming resumed, the moors and dales ringing with the sound of
gunfire.

An hour later the rain started again.

“How the hell long is this going to keep up?” Miles
asked me.

“All year,” I said. And I wasn’t completely joking.
After all, the Lakes are the wettest part of England, with
something like eighty inches of annual rainfall. March is one of
the drier months, but even so, rarely a day passes without some
precipitation.

Cast and crew grew restless waiting for this shower
to pass, which it did—only to resume twenty minutes later. It began
to feel like Mother Nature was giving us a gentle raspberry. Miles,
Pammy, and Roberta held another of their conferences, and we were
all finally excused for the day, packing into cars and vans and
driving back to the village.

Not wanting to spend another afternoon in the bar of
the Hound and Harrier, I walked down to the library, stopping in to
say hello to Roy Blade, the librarian. I found him typing
energetically away on a post to the popular Annoyed Librarian
blog.

“Are you causing trouble again?” I said, poking my
head in the door to his rabbit warren of an office.

Blade looked up, his piratical countenance
lightening. “Librarians
are
trouble,” he informed me. “Just
ask any Conservative.”

Despite the Oxford accent, Blade certainly looked
like trouble—black leather, tattoos, and an eye patch. Most of the
librarians I knew were more careful about their camouflage.

“So you’re back then?” he remarked. “For good?”

“Or evil,” I agreed. Nodding at the computer screen,
I said, “Still rousing the rabble?”

“We wouldn’t want them oversleeping,” he said. “Well,
Fox must be pleased. Are you staying at Craddock House?”

“The Hound and the Harrier,” I admitted. “Perhaps
he’s not as pleased as you might think.”

His smile was twisted. “Now you’re fishing, Ms.
Hollister.”

“I know, but they don’t seem to be biting.” I sighed.
“Any gossip you’d care to share?”

He treated me to the news that the coppers had
arrested some local hellions for drinking and vandalism, that my
dear friend Sally Smithwick had soundly trounced all comers in the
local flower show, and that MP Angela Hornsby—whom he strongly
disapproved of for a number of reasons I got to hear in detail—was
planning to marry. Same old, same old.

“And there were the two shoot-em-ups at Craddock
House,” he added as an afterthought.

“Oh, yes. I’d heard.”

“Once upon a time this was a quiet little village.
Then you came along.”

“Ah, memories. Speaking of which,” I said,
inexplicably cheered by this attack, “have you got Swaab’s new
collection of Sara Coleridge’s poems?”

Blade assured me the library did indeed own the
latest collection of Coleridge’s work. For many decades Sara
Coleridge, Samuel Coleridge’s daughter, was chiefly famous for her
work as her father’s editor and archivist. A sensitive and complex
woman, Coleridge wrote and published fairy tales, essays, and poems
for children. It was widely believed that her addiction to
opium—and the legend of her father—prevented her from realizing her
own potential as a poet. But when going through Sara Coleridge’s
papers, Dr. Peter Swaab, a professor at University College, London,
discovered one hundred twenty previously unknown poems in a bound
volume Coleridge had called “The Red Book.” The poems dealt with
everything from love to nature and religion, and elevated
Coleridge’s status to that of minor poet and an important link
between the Romantics and the Victorians.

I left Blade typing to his Internet cronies and spent
the rest of the quiet, rainy afternoon reading Coleridge’s work.
Especially fascinating were the poems to the young Irish poet
Aubrey de Vere following the death of her husband, Henry. Sara’s
guilty struggle to reconcile her attraction and liking for the much
younger de Vere made for fascinating reading, but I wondered what
she’d have thought of her private reflections—poems she had chosen
not to publish—being puzzled over by future academics and
scholars.

It was after teatime and during one of the infrequent
pauses in the rain that I started back to the inn, stopping off at
the old vicarage where I had formerly rented the Gardener’s
Cottage, and spent a few pleasant minutes chatting with Sally
Smithwick.

Naturally Sally wanted me to see the prize-winning
roses, so we stepped out into the damp garden for a short time. I
admired the roses—and they were truly lovely: old-fashioned cabbage
roses in a pale, sugary pink—and I stared at the burnt ruins of the
Gardener’s Cottage.

Catching my gaze, Sally said, “Will you be moving in
with Peter?”

“As soon as he feels things have settled down.” I
hoped that was true.

Sally was too polite to comment one way or the other.
She reminded me that the battered Citroen that Lady Vee had loaned
me the previous summer was still sitting in the stable. We walked
down the long garden, with the primroses just coming into bloom,
and ducked into the stable.

“I take it for a spin now and then,” Sally said, “to
keep the battery alive.”

It took a few minutes—and I nearly asphyxiated Sally
and myself, but I finally got the old car started and drove back to
the inn.

The girl at the desk informed me that Detective
Inspector Drummond had phoned while I was out. “Any other
messages?” I asked hopefully.

She shook her head apologetically, reaching for the
ringing telephone.

I told myself that it was silly to fret because Peter
hadn’t called me first thing—or left any messages—or appeared to
have any burning desire to get together anytime soon. I reminded
myself that I could always call him.

I went upstairs and called Brian instead.

He was reassuringly happy to hear from me, and
invited me to dinner once again—and this time I accepted.

*****

“
We’ve got a lead on the gunmen,”
Brian informed me over carrot, courgette, and dill soup.

I reached for the salt shaker. “Do you know who they
are?”

We had driven into Kendal for dinner at the Garden
House. The hotel restaurant was in the conservatory of an old
Georgian house set in two acres of a secluded garden. Though it was
still far too chilly to eat on the restaurant patio, the long
dining room with its lovely mural and view of the wooded garden was
very pretty, very romantic—and not at all crowded at this time of
year.

“They sound like a pair of local bad boys—twins by
the names of Barry and Barney February. They were overheard talking
at their local by a couple of neighbors.”

“They actually admitted shooting up the movie
set?”

“They were drunk, and our informant didn’t hear the
entire conversation, but what he did hear certainly seems
promising. The Februarys have form—criminal records—as long as your
arm.”

I said reluctantly, “Do you know why they want Peter
dead? What motive they might have? Is there some reason to believe
they’re connected to him?”

“Other than the obvious connection: they’re all
felons?”

I said, a little irritably, “You know, Peter was
never convicted of anything in this country.”

Before Brian could respond, the waiter appeared. I
ordered the trout and Brian opted for the pork fillet. Our soup
bowls were removed, our wineglasses replenished.

Privacy restored, I asked, “
Do
the Februarys
have a motive that you know of?”

“That’s why we want to talk to them.”

“So you haven’t arrested them yet?”

“Not yet. They weren’t at home when we came calling
this afternoon.”

“Do you think someone tipped them off?”

Brian shook his head. “I doubt it. They’re not
popular people. No, they were probably busy going about their
business.”

“Their business? Do they keep regular hours? Or do
they actually have day jobs?”

“Not as you or I would recognize them. They’re the
usual bad lot. Barney is just out of stir.” His smile was wry.
“I’ll let you know when we have them in custody, shall I?”

“Yes, please.”

The rest of the meal passed agreeably enough. I
enjoyed Brian’s company—other than when he was complaining about
Peter. He laughed as I filled him in on my adventures in
movie-making, he listened patiently as I enthused to him about Sara
Coleridge and Laetitia Landon and Ann Radcliffe. The evening passed
quickly, and before I knew it, it was nine o’clock and Brian was
driving me back to the Hound and Harrier.

“Feel like a drink in the bar?” he asked as we walked
into the lobby.

“Thanks, but I don’t think so,” I said. “We start
shooting at the crack of dawn.”

Which was certainly true, but I couldn’t help but
notice—after Brian kissed me good-night on the cheek and
departed—the noise level in the bar as I passed on the way to my
room. I poked my head in, and as usual, most of the tables seemed
to be filled up with members of the Kismet Production Company.