Dying to Write (11 page)

‘OK. Look here, Ian, go and do a room-to-room check, eh? Ade, roust out a few more SOCOs. I want this room quadruple-checked as soon as they've finished with Kate's.'

Ade waited for Ian to go first, then left himself.

‘How would whoever it was get in, Chris? I shut the door, I know I did. Because of Sidney.'

Chris pulled out his wallet. ‘Probably used his flexible friend. Or maybe they take American Express. Oh, it's so bloody easy, Sophie. You could do it yourself with a lock this old. And don't take that as a hint to go and practise.'

I think the severity was genuine.

‘Are you sure you don't know more than you're letting on, Sophie? I hoped you'd be a source of useful gossip.'

‘Copper's nark?' I said nastily.

‘No, I know you won't talk about friends. But these aren't your friends. They're just acquaintances, surely?'

‘And one of them is missing, one I hoped might be a friend. Funny, I think one or two people have struck up friendships. But there's a singular lack of camaraderie, now I come to think of it. The only other person I've had more than a passing conversation with is the person I wanted to talk to you about.' Hell, I was letting him off far too lightly. I should have dropped coy hints, dropped my eyes a little. ‘Courtney, that Afro-Caribbean man. He's an ex-con. He left you a present last night. Here's the key for the padlock.' I fished in my pocket and dropped the key in his hand.

Most of my explanation was truthful. I told him I'd gone along to Courtney's room because I knew he was worrying about something, that he'd told me about the gun and then acted on my advice. Chris nodded gravely, then looked me for a moment in the eye.

‘You know he's violated the terms of his parole?'

I nodded.

‘Straight back to gaol. Loss of remission.'

I nodded.

‘Had a grudge against Kate – wanted her silenced.'

‘You've seen him already, then?'

‘He was sitting on the front steps waiting for me, Sophie. He wanted to keep you out of it, but there was the small matter of the key.'

‘He had every reason to want Kate alive, Chris. He's writing a screenplay and wanted her help.'

‘Have you seen it?'

Chris was vacillating: I could hear it in his voice. I was glad I wasn't in his position. If he ignored a very serious offence, and Courtney was eventually proved to be implicated, Chris would be in grave trouble. But his humanitarian instincts were proving very strong.

‘The screenplay? No. But I'm sure he could show it to you. Matt would be able to authenticate it.'

Chris walked over to the window. ‘I've got to bloody turn him in. Got to. Haven't I?'

‘You've certainly got to find out why he had a gun in the first place. I must admit, much as I like him, that's the thing that worries me. Eyre House didn't strike me as the sort of place you needed to carry a weapon. At least,' I added with gloomy irony, ‘not until one woman died and another disappeared.'

‘And what I now want to make sure,' Chris said, with no irony at all, ‘is that a third woman doesn't come to any harm.'

‘I'll look after myself,' I said. ‘I promise.'

I wanted to run.

But first I had to watch the scene-of-crime team go through my belongings: Chris had asked me to before he tactfully withdrew to the stables. He wanted to know at once if anything was missing, if anything had been disturbed. Something niggled at the back of my mind, but the whole scenario seemed more like a tableau from someone else's life – more and more I felt I should be watching from the ceiling, as Agnes had done. In the end, although I knew Chris would be irritated, I did grab my running things and set off to put as much space as possible between me and Eyre House. Perhaps I ought to have tried to make systematic notes. But I knew that my brain would simply not function for a while.

I'd never had the chance to ask Naukez why he wanted to keep me away from that patch in the woods, so I resolved to explore the area. I had no real reason to, except I'm naturally nosy and I suppose I wanted to prove to myself that Naukez was not a sinister, duplicitous man. In fact, I wanted Shazia's husband to be quite definitely on the side of the angels.

I forced myself to run slowly enough to have plenty in reserve. I took the shortest approach, retracing the route I'd taken back to the house yesterday.

No one intercepted me this time. I left the main path to follow a scarcely defined track down to a largish hollow. The terrain was oddly lumpy: something else I might ask Naukez about. Some bracken grew at such judicious intervals that I expected to find David Attenborough and a film crew lurking. I found no one. Since even I know that ten thirty in the morning is an inappropriate time for badgers, I shrugged, and headed off downhill to the corner of the park furthest from the house. There was a jumble of dilapidated buildings down there – the old home farm, perhaps.

Every instinct told me to give up. The traffic noise became a physical force pressing me back. It poured into my ears, of course, and then into my nose and mouth and chest. It resonated on my bones, like loud music at a pop concert.

I had to get away.

But I had to check first. OK, I was being totally illogical: how could I hope to find anyone, anything, a team of experts had missed? Nonetheless, I couldn't do what I wanted most of all to do, turn tail and bolt back to base.

I made myself follow the outlines of what I presumed was a farmhouse – square-built, and, you'd have thought, completely impervious to the elements. But it seemed to have been defeated by the noise of the motorway. I moved on. There was a well in the far corner. The cover – crisscrossed iron bars – was rusted too tightly for me to shift. I'd have to assume no one else had moved it. In any case, there was water only twelve inches down. Anyone down there would be dead.

Dead as George.

My stomach wouldn't take it. If I didn't get away from here I'd throw up. The only way I'd do it was by making my legs work again, but they were like jelly. At last I managed an extremely sedate jog. I'd got as far as a rotting gate when I realised I was no longer alone. Some three hundred yards away, a man was climbing a stile. Probably he'd wanted a pee and pulled off the road which crossed the motorway.

Surely he was walking too purposefully for that?

I dodged into a redundant pigsty. From its cover I watched him.

He jumped lightly from tussock to tussock as if he were enjoying himself. And he was heading towards me. He was probably my age or a bit nearer forty. An embarrassing encounter or a humiliating bolt? Neither – he struck off uphill towards a symmetrical hummock.

I emerged cautiously. There was a convenient mounting block on the barn wall. If I climbed that, it would give me an extra hundred yards' vision.

The hummock was the shape of a Christmas-card igloo. He approached it, then started to drop from view. Presumably there were steps down into it. For a moment he disappeared altogether. But then he reappeared, dusting his fingers together, and clambered to the top of the mound. King of the Castle. Monarch of all he surveyed.

I'd prefer him not to survey me.

I dropped from the block and scurried to the sty. Years ago I'd read about a murder – and surely it had been real, not fiction – in which the victim was fed to pigs. The thought made my stomach heave again. It would just have to heave. The last way I wanted to greet any visitor was on my hands and knees.

He was on the move again.

Back to my ruins?

No, he was returning whence he'd come. This time he did stop for a pee.

He vaulted the stile with panache, and that was the last I saw of him. I could only deduce it was his car I glimpsed through the gap in the hedge. Red and glossy. But more I could not tell.

The mound turned out to be a prosaic little ice house. It was locked, of course, and barred. I pulled meaninglessly at one of the bolts securing it. Then I too scrambled back up the steps, dusting rust from my hands.

I jogged back slowly, and was almost at the house when I was galvanised by the sight of a police tow-truck, with Kate's car perched apparently precariously on the back. Kate's car! I should have told Chris about Kate's car! Now it was too late. Any revealing footprints – if indeed there had ever been any in the coarse gravel – would have been well and truly messed up. To prove it to myself I went and had a look. Two constables were still there, talking loudly and derisively about a colleague who'd come out as gay. I had to remind myself it was none of my business, that I shouldn't say anything. And I didn't get the chance, anyway. They ordered me away – the only men in Chris's team who'd been anything other than courteous and pleasant. Since they were stamping all over the gravel, there was no point in arguing. I turned mildly and went to hunt for a second breakfast. I went via the stables but Chris was nowhere to be seen and I suspected if I told anyone else that I thought I might have heard a car door slam, they'd dismiss it as irrelevant and not bother to tell Chris anyway.

‘Out of training, Miss Rivers?' Gimson asked dryly as I pushed open the kitchen door. ‘You look very pale. Perhaps you went too far?'

I reached for the kettle and filled it before I spoke. I needed something sweet. Perhaps there was some drinking chocolate in the cupboard. And Shazia should have replenished the biscuit barrel by now.

‘A little further than usual, perhaps. I wanted to think.'

‘I trust you found a quiet corner?'

‘On the contrary, a very noisy one,' I said, foolishly. I rattled my way through the cupboard and came up with a jar of chocolate. I made it strong and milky, and added more sugar than I'd normally have gone through in a week.

‘Ah, down by the motorway?'

‘It was worse than being near the speakers at a pop concert.'

I burrowed in the biscuit tin. It was satisfactorily full.

‘An experience I have so far managed to avoid, Miss Rivers. And so should you, in future. Low-frequency noise is known to have unpleasant effects. Nausea, for instance.'

Smiling coldly in acknowledgement, I took my chocolate and four custard creams, and passed through the reception area, where I ran into a harassed Shazia.

‘We'll be having them by the coachload soon,' she said. ‘I'll have to get a guidebook printed, sell afternoon teas. You lot can be official guides.'

‘Or exhibits,' I said. ‘What's been happening, Shazia?'

‘Three more Japanese. And a very rude man who looked sort of Chinese. Fortunately Naukez was here.'

‘Have you told Chris?'

‘Oh, Sophie, for goodness' sake! I can't bother him with every chance visitor. You know the Japanese are obsessed with the Brontës – there are even signposts in Japanese on the moors round Haworth.'

‘Whom did they want?'

‘The Japanese? “Charrotte Brontë”, of course.'

‘And the rude Chinese?'

She looked distressed. ‘Nyree. I tried to explain that she was no longer with us. He didn't seem to understand – kept on asking where she was.'

‘I suppose you didn't happen to notice what sort of car he drove?'

‘Why should I?'

‘It seems to me that we should notice everything just now, Shazia. After all, there's one woman dead and another missing –'

Fortunately, just as I was getting pompous and didactic, Naukez put his head round the back door. The other three sighed in sympathy.

‘You OK now, Shaz?'

She nodded.

‘Great.'

He withdrew.

‘Did the Chinese hurt you?' I asked, sharply, because I ought to have spoken to Naukez and didn't for fear of upsetting Shazia.

‘No. Pushed me a bit. But I'm a bit off colour. I got all weepy.'

I nodded my sympathy. And, trying not to spill my chocolate, I legged it as fast as I could to Chris. Surely by now he'd be back in the stable block.

The stable door was the old-fashioned type. Someone had fastened back the top half. Chris was in a group of men and women near the door. He was bending over something I couldn't yet see, wearing the glasses that made him look like a desiccated schoolmaster. The sun faded his blond hair further and explored the tired lines of his face. And when he turned and looked up, it spotlit the expression of hope and joy he quickly suppressed.

‘Well?' he asked, in a strongly official voice.

‘Kate's car. You've had it taken away?'

‘I thought we ought to check it.'

‘Why only now?'

‘No reason to – if you don't suspect foul play.'

‘And you do now? You see, I think I might have heard someone using a car last night, very late, and I also think it was in a different position when I looked at it this morning. I'm sorry. I should have said.'

‘Pity you didn't mention it earlier,' he said, sounding parental. ‘Never mind, it'll be kept at Rose Road nick and given the most thorough going-over it's ever had in its young life.'

‘What will they be looking for?'

‘Anything and everything. Do I have to spell it out?' He looked at his watch irritably.

I shrugged and turned to the door. Then I stopped. It was as if my mouth spoke without my mind, and I was quite interested in what it had to say.

‘Chris, I have an idea that something might have been taken from my room.'

‘Might?' He was at his driest and most irritating.

I hesitated. I could be about to make an almighty fool of myself.

‘Sophie, what's missing, for God's sake?'

It was unfortunate that one of those random silences should have chanced to fall as I replied.

‘A packet of tampons,' I said, in my carrying, fill-the-lecture-room voice.

Ten assorted police personnel can laugh very loudly. He flushed. I didn't.

‘But surely you'd know for sure whether …' By now he was red to the ears. ‘Aren't they … monthly?'