Folly (3 page)

Will did it for her, setting a full shot glass on the wooden sill beneath the upturned bottles of spirits. Stocky, balding and affable, he was the perfect pub manager. ‘This'll hit the spot,' he said to Alex.

She nodded and took a sip; the heat felt good going down. The police who arrived in response to Constable Frye's phone calls had kept her up on the hill for an hour, shivering and watching the clinical official activity around the body, intermittently peppered with questions or left alone to stare at the efficient activity at the death scene. She could have kissed both of the Harrisons when they had come to her rescue. What they had told the detective wasn't far from the truth. She wouldn't have been surprised if she had passed out or thrown up – or both.

Warmth from the fire, and from bodies pressed into the space around the bar, felt good to Alex. The smells of beer and piping hot meat pies were comfortingly familiar.

‘I say, Alex,' Major Stroud boomed. Foam speckled a mustache rolled out along his upper lip like iron-gray Velcro. ‘We're all on your side, y'know. Not one of us thinks you were more than an unlucky witness, but you do need to bring the rest of us up to date. Was there as much blood as they say?'

Cathy Cummings gripped the edge of the bar, her eyes filled with tears.

The brandy had already started to calm Alex down. She rubbed Cathy's back and shook her head at the major. ‘You don't know. Maybe my formerly secret hobby is knocking people off in the woods.'

Someone laughed – big Kev Winslet – and a communal snicker went up.

‘I shouldn't joke,' Alex said, embarrassed. ‘Some of us get shaken up and then we're silly at the most inappropriate times. Sorry about that. There's nothing for me to tell, Major' – the police had been sure she knew to keep her mouth shut – ‘we'll hear what the authorities want us to hear soon enough.'

Going to work beside Cathy, Alex served customers and kept pork pies, Cornish pasties and sausage rolls – standard pub fare – popping in and out of the microwave at a great rate. She forked pickled onions and Scotch eggs from giant jars filled with vinegar and pickling spices. But she repeatedly needed to pull her attention back to what she was doing, trying not to see images of the man with the terrible wound in his neck, or to think how he had bled out on the frozen ground, alone except for a little dog.

Goosebumps shot up her arms.

‘I say,' Major Stroud said. ‘Aren't you going to tell us at least something about it? Man or woman, that much at least? How was the killing done?'

Alex shook her head. ‘We'll all know more than we want to before long. I was told not to discuss anything. The police will be stopping by with questions soon enough, not that I can think anyone here knows anything.'

There, that was already more than she needed to report. Alex shut her mouth firmly.

‘I should think so,' old Mary Burke said from her chair beside her younger sister Harriet's. ‘Gossiping never did anyone any good.' Although Mary had been known to spill a few beans on occasion. The sisters, both retired teachers, ran a tea shop that also offered books and handcrafts for sale.

Through an archway into the small restaurant, Alex could see her mother at the reception desk. Lily met her daughter's eyes and smiled encouragement, then went back to poring over the reservation book and behaving as if nothing unusual had happened. Quietly turned out as long as Alex could remember, Lily was professional in her black dress, and in her manner. A handsome woman, statuesque beside Alex, with a light hand when it came to make-up, Lily knew how to manage any situation.

‘I expect they called Doc Harrison up there,' someone said.

‘Would that be James or Tony Harrison?' Major Stroud said, and looked put out at the laughter that followed.

Kev Winslet, who worked as gamekeeper on the Derwinter estate, said, ‘Doc James, I expect, unless Doc Tony is treatin' humans now.' He joined in the mirth.

Tony Harrison had, so it was told, disappointed his father by choosing veterinary medicine rather than joining the senior Harrison's practice. When they'd both been teenagers, Tony and Alex had become friends, two of a kind, both quiet and determined people. Tony was several years older and had left for university before Alex got a scholarship to prestigious Slade Art College in London.

Up on the hill that morning, both James and Tony Harrison had shown their quiet brand of compassion.

‘Alex,' Mary Burke's sturdy voice demanded. ‘Can we get some service, please?'

Mary was one of Alex's favorite people, as was Harriet, who sat with her at a table near the Inglenook fireplace. Flames reflected a glow on the women's weathered faces and white hair, and bounced off the polished horse brasses hung along the gnarled oak mantel.

‘Coming,' Alex said, forcing a smile, but as if he knew he'd been mentioned, Tony Harrison chose that exact moment to walk in with the gray and black dog from the woods in his arms. Tony's waxed green Barbour coat was open so he could hold the animal against the warmth of his body and wrap some of the coat over him. His rubber Hunters squeaked on the wooden floor and left muddy footprints behind.

That quieted the uproar.

‘Just passing through,' Tony said. ‘I've got to get this chap to the surgery and check him over. Thought I'd ask if anyone remembers seeing him before.'

Mumbles followed and a few pressed in for a closer look. Reverend Restrick from tiny St Aldwyn's church, rose from a settle with its back to the rest of the bar and came around to scratch the dog under the chin. A large man with a sweet smile, he said, ‘Someone's missing you, aren't they, little fellow?'

‘He's well fed,' Tony said, ‘although he's probably very hungry at the moment. Name on his collar is Bogie. He's not a stray.'

No one had any information but Alex lifted the flap in the bar and went to offer her hand to the dog. ‘Hello, Bogie. Poor boy.' A doggy tongue tentatively met the end of her fingers but an incessant, faint squeaking came from Bogie's throat and the animal trembled violently.

Alex looked at Tony. ‘I'm glad you've got him. He—'

‘Yes, I know,' the vet said, cutting her off with a warning glance. ‘I'll make sure he's OK. I'd better crack on. Give me a call if you hear anyone's looking for him.'

Tony's kind, dark blue eyes reminded Alex that he had always taken the side of any underdog kid, including herself, and what a good friend he'd been until he left home.

‘Does he belong to the murder victim?' Major Stroud demanded, jutting his considerable jaw toward Tony. ‘Or should I say,
did
he?'

Tony gazed from Alex's raised eyebrows to the major's pugnacious expression and said, ‘What murder victim?'

W
ithin the hour, two detectives arrived. Alex had already talked to both of them at the death scene, where they'd identified themselves as coming from Gloucester. Murder squad detectives, she was sure, which seemed unreal.

The darts cupboard wasn't locked; a point Detective Inspector Dan O'Reilly had been quick to criticize soon after he got there.

O'Reilly came to the pub in an unmarked car with a Detective Sergeant Bill Lamb and asked for the pub to be cleared until he said otherwise.

People shuffled out, grumbling, while Lily took the Burke sisters and a number of the regulars, including Major Stroud and Reverend Restrick, into the comfy private bar still called the snug in the old-fashioned way. They settled into worn tapestry easy chairs around dark oak tables. Silence lasted only long enough for the door to close behind Lily.

‘Thanks, Mum,' Alex said, smiling and inclining her head to the snug where low voices were already very busy.

Lily said, ‘Don't you worry. It's a terrible thing but people will lose interest soon enough.' A little gray streaked through hair which was as dark and curly as Alex's own. They both had the oval, greenish eyes Alex had been teased about as a girl when other children accused her of being a witch. Lily continued, ‘We don't want to put any regular customers' noses out of joint, though. They'll be happy enough in the snug. This is one of those times I'm glad we're among the few pubs that kept one. I'll be at the desk. Bad news travels fast. We've got a line-up for the restaurant – curiosity fills tables, I suppose. They're rushed off their feet in the kitchen.'

The Cummings had already left for their rooms. Reluctantly, feeling unsure of herself, Alex returned to the pub, where boxes of darts were being removed from their cupboard and dropped into plastic bags by a man in a blue jumpsuit that rustled like paper with every move. Very tall and thin, his head brushed the swags of dried hops that decorated exposed beams. He left without a word and with several yellowing hops stuck in his dark hair.

The detectives indicated a table and they all sat down. Both men were well dressed. Nothing said ‘detective' about this detail. Alex had the thought that O'Reilly's dark gray suit probably hadn't hung on any rack.

‘Did you know him?' he asked her without preamble.

‘The dead man?' Drawing away from the table a little, Alex went on: ‘No. I never saw him before, or I don't think I did. With all the …' She looked away and muttered, ‘I didn't get a really good look at his face. Poor man. No one should die like that.' A flash of anger surprised her. ‘No one should interfere with another life. It's sick and evil.'

‘Why aren't those darts kept locked away?' O'Reilly continued, ignoring her comments and repeating his earlier remark while the detective sergeant made notes. ‘Or are they normally?'

‘Never,' Alex told him. ‘The cupboard is high on the wall and children don't come in the bar alone anyway. With the scoreboard over it, most people wouldn't know there
was
a cupboard.' Chalked-up scores remained on the blackboard from a recent match. ‘The darts we keep here are for anyone who wants a casual game. Serious players bring their own sets. Do you know if it was one of our darts—?'

O'Reilly cut her off. ‘The Black Dog has a darts team, does it?'

‘Runner-up league champions,' Alex said. ‘We're proud of them.'

‘We'll have a list of their names later, right?' O'Reilly said. His Irish accent was pleasing in a low, quite soft voice. He had dark, thoughtful eyes and the hands he rested on the table were long-fingered and expressive. Alex realized he was the kind of man who inspired trust.

‘Would you go through the details of what happened this morning, please?' This was the detective sergeant. ‘Would you start with leaving home?'

‘I didn't find him till I'd already walked through the woods and turned back again.'

‘Sometimes it helps to start at the beginning and see if everything is exactly as you think you remember it. Little details can pop up. You live where?' He sounded unthreatening.

‘Lime Tree Lodge. In the Dimple. That's what we've always called it around here. Right on the other side of the big hill, like a shallow oval valley. I do have a room here, of course. Just in case.'

Alex heard her voice chattering about stuff no one wanted to know and cleared her throat. Composing herself, she rubbed the space between her eyebrows.

Lamb wrote as if he were taking lecture notes and falling behind. ‘Why did you decide to walk this morning?' he asked without looking at her. The top of his head showed off straight, thick sandy hair that was short enough to stand up all over – but tidily. ‘Miss Bailey-Jones?' he prompted.

‘Ms,' she corrected him automatically. ‘I walk as many mornings as I can – most mornings.'

‘Even in the snow?' Blue eyes, oddly innocent, suggested she couldn't expect him to believe her.

Flustered, Alex said, ‘The snow had almost stopped. I wished it hadn't. I love walking in a snowfall. Let me get you both something to drink.'

‘We're on duty,' Lamb said promptly.

‘I meant coffee,' Alex said, and felt a bit smug.

Both men shook their heads, no, and muttered thanks.

‘You own this place?' O'Reilly asked. He dug a crumpled white paper bag from his jacket pocket. It was obviously lumpy with the sweets inside.

‘I've already said I do.'

The man smiled slightly. A good face, lived-in in a nice way with laugh lines among signs of a lot of frowning. A crooked scar on his jaw didn't look very old. He offered the bag to Alex and the sergeant. When they both refused he fumbled inside, dislodged a sticky, yellow sherbet lemon and held it between his fingers.

‘So you left Lime Tree Lodge at what time?' he asked.

‘Just before seven. We usually open at ten but people were waiting outside today so we let them in early. Will and Cathy Cummings manage the place well – they live in – but there's a lot to do before we open and I like to be here. It's not that they need me, but I'm hands-on. I don't stay late.'

Both men stared at her until she began to think she'd said more than necessary again.

‘Is there a Mr Bailey-Jones?' Lamb asked.

Thinking about Mike still brought back the sadness. ‘We're divorced.'

‘I see,' Lamb said. ‘Do you always go through the woods? Seems a pretty lonely part of the route.'

‘The whole route is lonely. Quiet is a better word. This isn't a bustling kind of place.'

O'Reilly sucked the sherbet powder from the middle of his sweet and Alex's mouth watered just imagining the tartness.

‘The Cummings live here?' Lamb said.

Alex hoped they wouldn't want the same information twice on every topic. ‘They do.'

Lamb made another note and underlined it twice.

‘You said you went back into the woods because you heard a dog howl.'

‘Yes.' That had to be three or four times.

‘Not very cautious, are you?' O'Reilly tucked what was left of the sherbet lemon into a cheek. He tended to stare rather than look at you, and the sensation unsettled Alex. ‘All alone up there with an animal who could have been dangerous and you trotted back to do … what?'