Folly (15 page)

‘Such a good idea?' she finished for him. ‘I've had worse ideas. This one isn't hurting anyone. C'mon. Let's get this over with.'

They turned right out of the path leading to the tea shop and went in the direction of the church. ‘Are you OK?' Tony asked. ‘I can feel your mood going down – not that I expect you to be singing and laughing.'

‘There's nothing wrong with my mood,' she told him sharply. ‘There's nothing wrong with me at all.'

He glanced sideways at her. Of course she was upset, but he sensed something else. He'd felt it before – sadness that ran deep. When she had first returned to Folly she'd avoided conversation almost completely, but there had been a gradual thaw and he had hoped they were closing in on the easy friendship they'd once had.

Several police vehicles were parked in the driveway to the church and another could be seen squeezed into the small parking area in front of the rectory.

Alex touched his arm. ‘I'm not being very nice,' she said. ‘It's nothing to do with you. Thanks for being with me.'

When she smiled at him he warmed up more than he should.

So be it. He was human and he was a man. ‘Forget it. Do you want to go in here now, or not?'

‘O'Reilly's car is unmarked,' she said. ‘A navy blue Volvo saloon. It's not here.'

‘Should we call him?'

She shook her head. ‘He said something about setting up an incident room at the parish hall. Let's take a look there.' Putting a hand on his arm again, she said, ‘You don't have to come, Tony. I've taken up enough of your time.'

‘I think we're in this together,' he told her. ‘Which is the way I want it to be.' And he approached the side of the parish hall without checking for her reaction to that statement.

‘No cars in the parking lot,' she said.

But there were a number in front of the hall, including a dark blue Volvo. ‘Is that O'Reilly's?'

‘Yes.' Alex dragged her feet even slower. ‘I've got to do this but I don't want to. What was I thinking when I ducked out like that this morning?'

It hadn't been a good idea but she was going back in now. ‘Let's just do this. He didn't tell you not to leave, did he?'

She shook her head, no, and they approached the hall. Another vehicle arrived, a van, from which two men emerged, carrying in computer equipment.

‘Have you ever wanted to run, Tony? As far and as fast as you can?'

‘I know what you mean,' was all he said, but he thought considerably more. He had run from Australia the moment he'd been free to leave.

‘Did you think they
would
just tell you anything you wanted to know?' O'Reilly's voice reached them from somewhere to the left of the open doors. ‘You know better than that.'

‘We can get the rest when we need it,' Lamb said. Tony could see the man leaning back in a chair, his sandy crew cut as thick and neat as ever.

‘If there's any point to it,' O'Reilly said. ‘I'm not sure there is.'

‘She attacked her husband,' Lamb said, letting the front legs of his chair slam to the floor.

‘Where did you get this from?' O'Reilly asked.

‘Witnesses. She was hysterical and said it was her husband's fault their baby was dead. She went for him right there by the grave. Then she went for the minister when he tried to stop her and just about scratched his eyes out.'

‘Grief can make people irrational.' O'Reilly didn't sound too sure of himself now.

‘I'm just telling you, boss. Maybe it doesn't mean anything but it's out there. Alex Bailey-Jones ended up having what they called a nervous breakdown and she admitted herself to some sort of loony bin.'

F
ight or flight?

One of a number of useful things she'd figured out in the ‘loony bin', known to her and thousands of others as a stress recovery spa, was how to deal with her automatic reaction to threat.

Running away only made you look weak.

‘That does it,' she said, not trusting herself to look at Tony, or anything other than the back of Lamb's head. ‘I'll call you later, if that's OK.'

She was on her way into the parish hall by the time she heard him say, ‘I'm right behind you.'

‘Hello, gentlemen,' she said evenly to O'Reilly and Lamb, who faced each other across the pock-marked folding table someone had requisitioned from the Women's Auxiliary supplies to use as a desk. ‘I thought I'd check in. With all the commotion at the rectory this morning I decided to get out of the way, but I'm sure you'll want some sort of statement from me.'

Lamb drew down his brows and gave her a closed look but – and she could have imagined it – she thought O'Reilly smiled slightly before wiping his expression clean.

‘Leaving the scene this morning wasn't a good idea,' he said to Alex. ‘You've slowed us down.'

She heard Tony mutter what sounded like, ‘Is that possible?'

‘We've wasted manpower looking for you,' Lamb said.

‘You're joking.' She widened her eyes. ‘I haven't left Folly. If you can't find someone in this little village—'

‘We just came from the Burke sisters' place,' Tony broke in, not particularly smoothly. ‘We saw all the palaver still going on by the church from one of their windows. We wondered how things were going.'

She wasn't ready to skate past what she'd heard a few minutes earlier. ‘Have you heard of the East Anglia Stress Recovery Center, Detective Sergeant Lamb?'

O'Reilly reached absently for one of his lumpy bags of sweets, this one from beneath a stack of unpleasant-looking photos. Alex tried not to look too hard but saw enough to know they were of Brother Percy – after his death.

‘Have you heard of it?' Alex pressed.

‘No,' O'Reilly said for both of them, dislodging a bright yellow sherbet lemon from its sticky partners and putting it in his mouth. A bump appeared in his cheek.

‘Well established,' Alex said. ‘Emphasis on healthy living. Diet, exercise, rest, meditation, massage – the holistic approach. You get the picture? They definitely do not cater to loonies. I imagine the other paying guests would take a dim view of loonies wandering around. I'm not sure that's an appropriate term for anything these days, by the way. But that's where I went after a bad time in my life. Have you ever had a bad time in your life, Detective Lamb?'

His gaze slid away from her face. There was a stain of color over his cheekbones.

‘We all have,' O'Reilly said. He made an attempt to shuffle the photos under a folder. His dark eyes weren't happy and his naturally soft Irish voice got even softer. ‘You do know you shouldn't have left this morning?'

‘Of course I do.' Her mother used to tell her to reason unreasonable people into submission. ‘It's not every day I'm asked to help cut down hanging people. I couldn't do anything to help him and I didn't want to stay there. And to be completely honest, I panicked. I'm not proud of that but it isn't unreasonable.'

‘No, it isn't,' Tony said.

She was grateful to have him at her shoulder. Even his presence felt solid.

‘Did I hear you say you'd spoken to people about me, Detective Lamb?'

‘That's right.' At least he had the grace to sound slightly subdued. ‘That's a normal part of an investigation. You do seem to be involved in what's been happening here.'

O'Reilly cleared his throat.

‘What the hell does that mean?' Tony said. ‘Involved? She's been unlucky enough to come upon two dead men. Does that give you the right to go digging for dirt in her past? You won't find any. Take it from me.'

Alex began to feel warm. Tony was a good man to have around when things got tough – at least for her. She gave him a quick smile.

‘You may walk on puddles around here, Dr Harrison,' Lamb said, heavily sarcastic, ‘but what you think won't go far outside your little village.'

‘Bill,' O'Reilly said, ‘could you get back to the other thing we talked about? Did the search team arrive?'

Lamb said, ‘Yes, boss,' stiffly, and gathered up his gloves and notebook from the table. ‘They're combing the hill. They've got dogs too, which may not be useful but it can't hurt.' He nodded and left.

‘I'll get another chair,' O'Reilly said, hopping up.

The hall looked foreign to Alex. Transparent panels had been hung from an overhead beam and these already had a smattering of photos on both sides and a lot of undecipherable notes, arrows, rough charts and diagrams drawn in glaring orange.

Two other tables stood, one behind the other, with uniformed police working at computers. Phones rang intermittently. She hadn't realized what a lot of activity there was, but hearing about reinforcements coming in to help with the investigation alerted her to just how much activity there was in the hall.

Tony took the second chair from O'Reilly and they all sat down.

‘So they're searching the hill?' Tony said. ‘What are they looking for?'

O'Reilly's secret little smile returned. ‘That's what we're hoping to find out. Unfortunately we haven't had any useful information from anyone who might know.'

Alex sighed. ‘Brother Percy could have been able to help with that.' She didn't elaborate and Tony avoided adding anything. ‘Too bad he wasn't taken seriously when he tried to talk to a policeman yesterday.'

‘More than too bad,' the detective said. ‘But I still wish you hadn't run off this morning. It didn't look good when we realized you'd gone. Why do you think darts from your pub have been used?'

The swift change of topic startled Alex. ‘How would I know? It doesn't make any sense.'

‘I had to ask. I don't want to scare you but it does seem that someone wants to connect you to these crimes.'

‘There wasn't a dart this morning,' Alex said.

‘How do you know that?'

‘I … well, I don't know. But I didn't see one. Do I need a lawyer?'

‘This isn't an official interrogation,' he said, ‘but you're entitled to representation whenever you want it. Not that I have more questions at this point. I remind you that you came to me and initiated this conversation. That's a good thing.'

‘Would I leave darts from my pub lying around at crime scenes?' Alex said and heard Tony clear his throat. She met his eyes and saw a warning. She was saying too much.

O'Reilly propped his elbows and steepled his fingers. ‘I might be able to think of a reason why you'd do that.'

She was more rattled than she wanted him to see. Having to listen to Lamb trot out the things she wanted to forget had unbalanced her. Now she wanted to get away from here and not think about what O'Reilly was suggesting.

‘The first victim didn't kill himself,' he said. ‘The pathologist has demonstrated that there appears to have been a surprise attack and the victim couldn't have had much chance to defend himself.'

‘That's what we expected,' Tony said.

Expecting to be stopped, Alex reached for the top photo of Brother Percy's body. O'Reilly let her pull it in front of her. She stared at the full-color horror of it. At least the monk's face was turned from the camera.

Without looking away, Alex pulled the kitchen knife from her pocket and placed it on the table. ‘I took that without knowing what I'd done,' she said. ‘It's what I used to cut him down.'

The man didn't say a word.

‘Why are there bruises down there?' Alex asked, pointing at marks above Brother Percy's collarbones. ‘Shouldn't they be up here where the cincture tightened … around …' She covered her mouth.

‘Since this is going to get out anyway, you might as well get it from a reliable source,' O'Reilly said. ‘He didn't kill himself either. He was strangled then strung up. I'll want to talk to each of you more later on. Please make sure we know if you decide to leave the area.'

‘Y
ou're not going up there.' Will Cummings' raised voice carried through to Alex before she'd had time to close the front door to the Black Dog. ‘She asked you to go riding with her? Why would Heather Derwinter want you to go anywhere with her, did you ask yourself that? That woman's nothing but trouble. If she wants you up there she's got some motive we haven't figured out.'

‘You're hard on Mrs Derwinter.' This sounded like Kev Winslet. ‘She's all right. She treats the people who work for them well.'

Cathy said, ‘Excuse us, Kev. Will's decided to have a domestic in public. In case you've forgotten, Will, I went to the same school as Heather Derwinter.'

‘Toffee nosed, aren't we?' Will said. ‘So you think she'd want you as a member of any club she belongs to? Wake up, Cathy. How long d'you think it was after you left the school before she even got to the place? It was years. She found out you went there and now she's pretending that's a reason to be your friend. What a load of tripe.'

This didn't sound like Will, who usually treated Cathy with respect.

‘What school was that then?' Kev Winslet asked.

‘Drop it,' Will said. ‘That was before Cathy's parents decided I wasn't good enough for them and—'

‘Shut up!'

Alex hurried into the bar before things got any more out of hand. She glared at Will, who still had his mouth open from being barked at by his quiet wife. She was relieved there weren't more customers.

‘You and Cathy used to live up there,' Kev said to Will. ‘Heather would have known Cathy.'

‘That was probably before Heather was born. Leonard was just a little nipper. By the time Heather and Leonard got together we were long gone. And by the way, Cathy, you didn't even finish at the academy so you and her aren't sister alumnus or whatever rubbish you're spouting about.'