Folly (7 page)

Clinging to the banisters, she ran downstairs but stopped by the front door. ‘Who is it?' she cried, and her voice broke.

‘Police, Ms Bailey-Jones. It's Dan O'Reilly.'

The detective inspector? She let him in, stood there on bare feet wearing her flannel pajamas.

What felt like hours later, Dan O'Reilly came through the back door, passed through the little mud room and met Alex where she paced in the kitchen.

At least the inspector didn't look either annoyed or disbelieving, but she knew before a word was said that the men who had been searching her gardens hadn't found anything to put her mind at rest.

‘Coffee smells good,' O'Reilly said. He picked up a mug, raised it and waited for her invitation before filling it from the percolator. He drank, looking from her to the kitchen over the rim of the mug.

‘So, nothing?' she said. ‘It's weird to hope there's a maniac found in your garden while you also hope there's no one at all out there. I feel like a fool.'

He shook his head slightly. There were strands of gray in his wind-ruffled dark hair.

Alex looked away. She'd already drunk too much coffee. At least she'd been able to pull on clothes, jeans and a sweater that felt comfortable.

‘I don't understand how you were the first to get here,' she said.

‘I was at Constable and Mrs Frye's. They were good enough to insist I stay when I said I wasn't comfortable getting too far away at this point.'

Alex's mix of relief and self-consciousness evaporated. His simple statement creeped her out.

Snow had turned the shoulders of his tan raincoat dark and wet. ‘It's not unusual to block reality when you're faced with death. Particularly sudden and violent death.'

Without looking, Alex found the back of a chair and scraped the legs away from the table. She sat down and propped her elbows.

‘We're glad you called,' the officer said. ‘I wouldn't have wanted you to do anything else.'

‘But there wasn't really a reason to be scared,' she told him. ‘Now I almost wish you'd found him out there. This would all be over then.'

‘Are you sure you saw the lights go on?'

Anger flashed at her, stiffening her body and making blood rush to her face. ‘You think I imagined it? I didn't imagine it. It was like being played with, like someone trying to frighten me. And the dog barked, too.'

O'Reilly had already expressed his surprise at finding Bogie there. ‘Dogs are sensitive to human moods, or some of them are. He could have felt your anxiety.'

Staying in her seat was an effort. ‘OK, I made it all up because I wanted to feel like a fool. Sorry I bothered everyone.' She sounded childish in her own ears.

‘No,' he said quietly, and his dark eyes held hers steadily. ‘You're in the middle of an unsolved murder case. I don't say that to worry you even more but you have to be careful, very careful.'

‘The next thing you'll say is that I should move out of my house. I'm not going to. If someone wants to find me badly enough, they will. Wherever I go, I'll be vigilant. OK?'

He smiled and sat opposite her at the table. ‘We'll all be more comfortable if you're down in the village. You included.'

Bogie sidled up beside her and rested his head on her thigh. If she didn't believe dogs got sad, she'd tell herself she was making it up. He was sad and lost and she was the only thin thread he had to safety. She considered what O'Reilly was suggesting. It was time to stop proving how independent she was. Staying here tonight would be stupid.

Alex scratched the dog's head. ‘OK, I can go to the Black Dog.' She
would
feel better with people around.

‘Looks as if you've found a friend,' O'Reilly said.

‘He's my kind of fellow,' Alex responded. ‘What are you trying to find from the crime scene?'

The blank look she got was completely convincing but she wasn't one to give up so easily.

‘You were looking for something in the woods where the man died. I watched your men. And you asked me if I'd found anything.'

Mentioning the ring theory didn't feel right. Let him tell her.

He smiled at her and drank more coffee.

There were digestive biscuits in a tin on the counter. Alex got up, thought about putting some on a plate but opened the lid and set the tin in front of him instead. O'Reilly promptly took out two biscuits and demolished the first in three bites.

‘You're stalling,' she said while his mouth was full. ‘I bet you've had people searching for something all through daylight hours. What?'

He finished the second biscuit with more coffee.

‘Had enough time to think of an excuse not to answer?' Alex said.

O'Reilly laughed. ‘You almost think like a detective. We may make one of you yet.' He held up a hand. ‘Forget I said that. The question was routine.'

‘You didn't have anything specific in mind?' She wouldn't mention she knew Tony had been asked the same question.

‘We would be interested in anything that caught your attention.'

How to deny the truth without telling a lie?

She'd leave it for now. ‘Do you know who the man is yet?'

‘No.'

‘No wallet or anything?' Tony had said there wasn't, but …

O'Reilly let out a long breath. ‘Not a thing.'

‘Can anyone tell what order he was from?'

‘Not so far.'

‘Couldn't you have someone go through descriptions of the habits different orders wear?' She leaned toward him.

‘Thanks for the tip.'

There was laughter in O'Reilly's voice. He thought she was playing amateur detective, but she didn't regret the question. She would see if there was a way to find out the details of that habit. If she could find out something useful, where was the harm?

A rap at the back door preceded the entrance of a uniformed policeman. ‘Sir,' he said. ‘Could you come and have a look at this, please?'

On his feet immediately, O'Reilly said, ‘Stay here.'

Ignoring the order, Alex followed as closely as she could without running into his back.

Several officers stood at the back of her Land Rover, parked beside a dry stone wall that ran from the front of the property to disappear behind the garage.

‘I asked you to stay put,' O'Reilly said, still striding purposefully toward the vehicle.

Alex didn't answer, just kept on following.

Flashlights illuminated the Land Rover and she saw one policeman kneeling to train his light on a wheel. ‘There,' he said, pointing.

Then she saw the way the whole vehicle canted to one side. The right, rear tire was flat.

‘He was out here,' Alex exclaimed. A deep slash from some sort of sharp knife or tool must have done the job, but another dart with a yellow flight had been embedded in the tire.

‘Shit,' said O'Reilly. ‘Window dressing. He's into games.'

T
he Burke sisters' tea room and book shop, called Leaves of Comfort (to the overt disgust of Harriet Burke), took up two terraced cottages on Pond Street, just around the corner from the Black Dog and butted up against the churchyard of St Aldwyn's plain little Victorian church.

Shortly after eleven in the morning, Alex knocked tentatively on the dark blue front door at the rightmost cottage. Although the entire lower floors of both cottages were used for the business, when the shop was closed this side was where the sisters came and went to their upstairs living quarters. Customers used the left door, although both accessed the same space.

From a window over Alex's head, a voice called, ‘Come on in, Alex. Unless you'd prefer not to catch whatever Mary says is wrong with her.' Harriet smiled down at her. ‘It's not locked.'

Alex went in, immediately relieved to feel both warm, since she'd hurried over without a coat, and closed away from the world outside. When the Burkes said afternoon tea, that's what they meant, and nothing was served before three. Until then, this would be a peaceful place. At the Black Dog, continual chatter about the murder had been too much strain to bear. That and following O'Reilly's instructions not to spread around what had happened last night.

‘Someone may be watching you,' he'd said. ‘They want to frighten you and we need to know where you fit in. If you don't say anything he may get rattled and do something to give himself away.'

Alex swallowed several times.
Do something …

‘Take your time.' Harriet's voice floated down the stairs this time. ‘We took in a few Enid Blytons yesterday. You might like to look at them.'

‘I'll do that,' Alex said.

‘And there's a sweet old copy of
Heidi
.'

‘Ooh, lovely.'

She collected children's books. On her library shelves were some beautiful, classical books, but she also gathered in childhood favorites recommended by older or even current generations, even if the condition was far less than fine. She loved the charming illustrations, especially the line drawings in so many of them.

As expected, a pile of books was stacked against the wall at one end of a dark wooden counter. Alex skirted the tea room tables, no two alike, sniffing appreciatively at the warm smells of fresh cakes and pastries in large white boxes from George's Bakery. Leaves of Comfort used the village bakery shop rather than have their goodies made on the premises. Not needing a large kitchen made space for at least two or three more tables in the tiny establishment.

She saw how torn the top book's cover was. Torn and taped together. But she also saw it was an original cover on a copy of
The Circus of Adventure
and swept it up. This was the only one missing from the books she already had in that series.

Johanna Spyri's
Heidi
had a slightly faded blue leather binding and Alex shivered a little with anticipation.

She would examine the stack more closely later.

Books crowded every available space in the shop, including a shelf that ran around both of the downstairs rooms just above eye level. Here and there hand-made tea cozies and teapots were on display and for sale like the jars of homemade jams and chutneys, tins of biscuits, packages of loose tea and bottles of sweets; all of these worked well as bookends. A pelmet of heavy, homemade lace hung in points from a rod along the edges of the shelves and lavender vied sweetly with the scents of delectable food.

Each table was covered with a white lace or embroidered cloth and among the china settings of various patterns were one or two strategically placed books. Village women, in both Folly and Underhill, made the cloths and similar ones were for sale.

Harriet and Mary couldn't have chosen a better outlet for their so-called retired energies.

‘Doc James says Mary's under the weather,' Alex said loudly as she started up the stairs. ‘Thought I'd better get over here to offer comfort and solace.' And snatch the first chance of the morning to get away from Major Stroud's prodding for ghoulish information on the murder victim.

Being exhausted and scared had nothing to do with anything, she told herself, trying to lift her spirits with sarcasm aimed at herself.

‘There you are,' Harriet said when she saw Alex. ‘Where's that Bogie? We heard you've taken him in.'

There were no secrets about inconsequential details in Folly-on-Weir and the local mouth-to-mouth was fast and efficient.

‘I left him with Cathy. She already loves him.'

‘How is Cathy?' Harriet said. ‘Someone said she was very upset yesterday.'

‘Still not good.' Alex suppressed a smile.

The kettle whistled in the kitchen and Harriet got up from a hugely overstuffed chintz chair. With the window behind her, open to frigid air, light turned her almost white hair into a silvery aura. ‘We already have our delivery of pastries. I brought up some pieces of Battenberg cake, just in case you came by.' She rolled her eyes as she passed Mary, indicating, Alex assumed, that she was irritated with her sister. They spent a considerable amount of time being tetchy with one another.

‘Sounds heavenly,' Alex said. ‘I didn't finish going through the books because I wanted to come up, but I'll take the Blyton that was on top and the scrumptious
Heidi
for sure.' And probably the rest. She usually did.

Mary, wrapped in a shawl apparently crocheted from odds and ends of mismatched wool, didn't turn around, so Alex went to the other side of the woman's spindled rocking chair and looked quizzically at her.

Once the kitchen door closed behind Harriet, the elder of the sisters said, ‘You know cats don't agree with me.' Mary's hair was pure white, thick, and pulled up into a bun at the back of her head. She favored various decorative combs and wore a tortoiseshell one inlaid with ivory today. It stuck up in the manner of a Spanish dancer's, minus the
mantilla
, which might disconcert some.

‘Well,' Mary said, ‘you do know that, don't you?'

‘Um – no,' she answered succinctly.

‘Of course you do. I've told you before.'

The kitchen door opened a few inches and Harriet called through: ‘Are you hearing about Mary's newly acquired allergy to cats? Don't believe a word of it.'

Alex narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. ‘Honestly, Mary, I don't recall anything about a cat allergy, but so what? Stay away from them.' There wasn't a person in the village who would forget how upset Mary had been over the loss of a beloved old cat but Alex wasn't going there.

Mary shook her head and pointed.

A skinny, scraggly tabby sat tucked into a corner by the fireplace, watching them with disconcerting suspicion. An electric fire burned in the grate and the animal clearly sought out the warmth.

‘Oh, dear,' Alex said. ‘It doesn't look very well. It's so thin.'