Time Enough To Die (24 page)

"What do you expect, with them murdering travelers hanging about.” The innkeeper eyed Matilda's and Gareth's glasses. “Another round? No? Righty-ho.” He retired to the bar, poured another drink for Sweeney, and laughed perfunctorily at several more of the professor's jokes.

Gareth reconstructed his conversation with Emma. Matilda tried to draw out his impressions, but other than his admission that he believed what she'd told him, he steadfastly refused to concede he had any. “Then she invited me to a rave-up Friday. Not the loud music sort of rave, I gather. She called it ‘the rites of spring'."

"Friday night is Beltane,” said Matilda. “Both Clapper and Emma were right about one thing—there is a pseudo-neo-pagan group operating in the area. The group might not have anything to do with Linda's murder or with the thefts, either, but it's the only lead we've got and I can't help feeling that it's important."

"What?” Gareth asked.

She scooted her empty glass across the table so that it pinged lightly off his. “I went into town at lunchtime and followed two traveler girls, Wendy and Shirl, into that little chip shop. I got them to tell me about what I assume is the same party Emma invited you to—the rites of spring, they used the same words. But they're not confirmed members of the group—they kept giggling about it. I doubt if the group consists entirely of travelers."

"It's a convention of nutters like Nick?"

"The girls kept talking about
him.
I suppose they meant Nick—they said he liked ‘a bit of skirt'. They called him ‘the Druid'."

"But Emma didn't recognize Nick."

"If he appeared in costume she might not have gotten a very good look at him."

"Sounds like play-acting to me."

"It is. So is the Christian rite of communion, if you squint and look at it sideways."

"Emma said it was ‘the real thing'."

"To her it is. Reality, like magic, is in the eye of the beholder. You don't have to actually summon the devil to do devilish things. You don't have to actually consort with angels to be virtuous."

"It was real enough to Linda Burkett,” Gareth agreed. “You mustn't go to the party alone, it might be dangerous."

Matilda shook her head. “Some groups, the more manipulative ones, can be vile, but those also tend to be very secretive. That we're able to get into this one so easily is a good sign.” Gareth didn't seem convinced. Matilda plunged on. “Shirl and Wendy didn't say where the party was, just that I should come to the camp an hour before sunset. I'm betting it's at Durslow Edge—a place local people are more likely to know."

"Nick is local, isn't he?” Gareth said with a sigh. He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and inspected both sides for nonexistent clues. “Emma gave me her telephone number, said to ring her if I wanted to come to the party. I can just about stick it, I reckon. Anything else?"

"Yes. On the way back from town, I ran into Della and Bodie. I got us an invitation for tea tomorrow afternoon."

Gareth's face went lopsided with rue. “I'm glad you decided to work for the law instead of against it. You'd make a brilliant confidence artist."

"No I wouldn't. I don't enjoy lying. My stomach was sick all afternoon, and not from the fish and chips."

"I became a policeman because I valued honesty, didn't I? We're for it now."

"We're in over our heads, no doubt about...” Matilda's thumbs pricked. She raised her hand to warn Gareth and looked toward the door. Adrian Reynolds stood there. His black pellets of eyes fell on their cozy corner table and he sauntered toward them.

He started talking while he was still twenty feet away. Every face in the room turned toward him. Ashley ducked. “Hullo, hullo! My wife tells me she invited you to tea tomorrow. I'll try to be there, she doesn't know the first thing about my antiquities, she collects these frightfully twee dishes and vases.” He pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Do you have business interests other than Fortuna Stud?” Matilda asked.

"Just a bit of investing here and there,” Reynolds replied. “I say, March, sorry about ticking you off Sunday. Caesar's a pet of mine, you know. He came close to winning the Grand National, but it just isn't on to pass the Queen's horse, is it now?"

"I suppose not,” said Gareth politely.

Sweeney advanced toward the table. So did Clapper, since Reynolds hadn't ordered anything at the bar. Matilda felt as though her picnic was attracting ants. A trickle of sweat started between her shoulder blades and ran down her spine, making her wriggle uneasily.

"The usual,” Reynolds told Clapper.

The publican turned and trudged away.

"And you,” Reynolds said to Sweeney as the professor took the remaining chair. “Come to tea tomorrow. I've some new items in my collection—a Roman glass vial, for one, dreadfully expensive but a one-off, of course, positively unique."

Except for the one in Dunning's display case, Matilda told herself. The last thing she wanted was Sweeney absorbing all the air in Reynolds’ sitting room tomorrow. She tried beaming words to him—
no, thank you, I can't come....

"Thank you, no,” Sweeney told Reynolds. “I must run into Manchester after work tomorrow. I have to attend to some laboratory work—you can't imagine what a trial it is having an incompetent assistant."

"Quite difficult, isn't it?” Reynolds returned.

"As a matter of fact, I'm giving the students a holiday on Friday. Let them enjoy all the quaint local festivities, eh?"

This was news to Matilda. Obviously Sweeney included her in the incompetent-assistant category.

Clapper appeared at Reynolds's shoulder. He set a glass of beer on the table and said to Matilda, “P.C. Watkins is in reception. He says they've found the bus what almost ran you off the road, and he needs you to sign a complaint."

"Certainly.” Matilda extricated herself from her corner seat. Gareth made some excuse about interesting sidelights to his story and followed.

Watkins was waiting in the thankfully cool lobby, his hat tucked beneath his arm. “The bus were found abandoned in a quarry beyond Macclesfield,” he announced. “The fresh scrapings on its drivers’ side wing and wheel arch match the ones we took from your car. It's a right mess inside, bedding, bits of food, the lot. Probably belonged to some travelers, but which ones, we don't know."

"No proof,” muttered Gareth. “There's never any proof."

"I finally laid Nick Veliotes by the heels,” Watkins went on. “He's a greasy one, ain't he? Says he didn't cosh Dr. Sweeney and Miss Rossi. He wouldn't even admit being in Corcester that evening until one of the lads at the bus station said he'd seen Nick snogging a lass in the car park. You're not going to like this, Dr. Gray—it was one of your American students."

Matilda's heart sank. “Blond hair, right?"

"Spot on. Pretty and blond."

Gareth's face flushed the color of his hair.
Great,
Matilda thought.
Now he gets protective.
“Not Ashley,” he said. “There are other blond girls."

"She'd been drinking with someone that night,” Matilda told him. “She came walking down the hill from town with the other students and I thought she'd been with Bryan. But her attitude toward Bryan is friendly, not romantic, and he feels she's way out of his league."

"Stupid little...” sputtered Gareth. “That's just what Emma Price did to herself, isn't it?"

"Hardly to herself,” Matilda corrected.

Watkins's round face settled heavily into a square. “It was Emma's family put it about that Nick was the father. She never named names. I reckon it was Clive Adcox myself, before he went north. No matter now."

Matilda gave Gareth a significant look. Clapper's testimony about Emma and Nick had been simple transference, then, removing a misdemeanor from a family member and dumping on an annoying stranger.

The flush leached from Gareth's complexion. “What else did Nick tell you?"

"He says he never met Linda Burkett, he don't know anything about devil-worshippers, and if he was in Corcester the night Sweeney was coshed it's no business of mine. Since I couldn't charge him with anything, I let him go."

"Nothing for it,” Gareth told Watkins, and stood silent while the constable left the hotel.

"Ashley hasn't gone overboard with Nick,” Matilda told Gareth. “Not yet."

"How can you tell?"

"Because she's still cherishing her romantic illusions.” Matilda left Gareth working that one out and walked back into the bar.

"...drugged-out criminals moving about the countryside causing trouble for the law-abiding citizen,” Reynolds was saying. “Like the berk—excuse me, Mrs. Gray—the bloke driving that bus. You could have been killed. There ought to be a law that these layabouts can only draw benefits in the town where they were born. Keep them away from us honest people, eh?"

"Like some of the travelers aren't local people?” muttered Ashley.

Matilda, slipping back into her seat, heard her. The girl was thinking of Nick. That everyone was speaking against him probably made him all the more attractive. It'd certainly kept her from revealing their acquaintance. And, Matilda supposed, it was only fair that someone took Nick's side.

There was the classic parental dilemma for you, whether to rush around with a safety net extended or to avert your eyes when the kid comes plummeting past.

Sweeney looked as though he smelled something bad. “If you'll excuse me, I'm turning in. I have a busy day tomorrow."

"Haven't we all?” Reynolds smiled liplessly, like a snake.

Gareth returned to the table just in time to catch that smile. He shot Matilda a told-you-so glance. She started sweating again. The currents of hostility swirling about the room seemed like hot desert winds.

Sweeney wafted away, but the room didn't grow any cooler.

Gareth glanced over at Ashley. “I'll sort her out,” he muttered beneath his breath.

"Gareth, don't...” Matilda began, and then stopped. He would only convince Ashley she couldn't confide in them. But telling him that Ashley might be going with Nick because she couldn't go with the detective himself wouldn't help.

"...not as much progress as I'd hoped on the dig,” Reynolds was saying. “Dr. Sweeney has his methods, I suppose."

Matilda said something appropriate to Reynolds and beamed calming thoughts toward Gareth's scowl.

"As do you,” Reynolds went on. “Fascinating, how you turned up that gold coin the first day you were here. Would you say there was a bit of—well, the old country people call it second sight, but I suppose educated people like you and I should say...."

Ashley, Bryan, and Jennifer stood up and headed for the lobby. Gareth launched himself from his chair and followed. Matilda turned to watch him stride, coiled with self-righteousness, toward the door.

"...does the gold cause an itch in your palms?” Reynolds asked.

I didn't come here,
Matilda told herself,
to babysit either a twenty-year-old student or a thirty-year-old detective....
“What did you say?” She spun back toward Reynolds so quickly she gave herself whiplash. He was looking at her, his black eyes glittering, like a cobra swaying gently before its prey.

He knew about the gold torc. And he was daring her to do something about it.

Jennifer yawned. Bryan waved Ashley through the doorway ahead of him. “End of another day. Who had the bright idea of our paying them to work our butts off?"

"Look at the bottom line, Bryan. The lines that are on your resume.” He was a nice guy, Ashley added to herself. A shame he didn't have an exotic bone in his body.

Just beyond the door Ashley stopped, letting the others go ahead. She wondered if she dared go back in the bar and sit down with Matilda and Gareth. But Reynolds gave her the creeps. He was like a pterodactyl, eyes cold and shoulders sloped, watching for prey in the jungle below.

Sweeney, now, Sweeney was okay, even though he sure liked to play the lovable English eccentric. Well, not entirely lovable. Maybe geniuses—genii?—didn't have to follow rules or be politically correct or whatever.

Matilda was a genius, and that didn't keep her from being considerate of other people's space. She wouldn't make me feel guilty about Nick, Ashley thought. As though there was anything about Nick to feel guilty about. He was pretty darn bright, he just didn't have it together yet. Being with him was like being on a roller coaster, both scary and exciting.

Gareth wasn't scary. He was a strong, silent type who needed a woman to warm him up. Not that Ashley was likely to be that woman. It wasn't that she wanted to get anything going with him—he was way out of her league. She just wanted him to notice her. She turned back to the door of the bar, encouraging herself with expressions about birds in the bush and pushing the envelope.

Gareth was walking directly toward her.
All right!
She inhaled to say something, anything—letter-writing, the dig, his newspaper article.

"Here,” he said. “I need a word with you."

She exhaled. “Sure."

"One of Watkins's men saw you with Nick Veliotes Sunday night. He's a bad lot, Ashley. You'd better leave him be."

What?
Her heart went into free-fall, diving through shock, embarrassment, and hurt into a loud splash of anger. How could he? This wasn't what she wanted from him!

"There's no saying what sort of jiggery-pokery Nick's involved in, but it's nothing good, I promise you that. If I were you I'd give him a miss."

"You're not me, are you?” she retorted.

Gareth leaned forward patronizingly. “Now, now, I'm only trying to protect you."

"I don't want you to protect me. I want you to get off my back!” Ashley turned on her heel, sprinted up the stairs to her room, and slammed the door. A picture fell off the wall.
Shit,
she thought.
Shitshitshit.

Courtney had gone home. Jennifer's make-up case and robe were missing. She must be in the bathroom. Ashley hung the picture back up and braced herself on the window sill, scowling at her reflection in the glass. For a few moments she tried desperately to shape Gareth's condescension into jealousy—he wanted her for himself, that's why he was down on Nick....
Yeah, right.
All the time he'd been smiling at her he'd thought she was just another stupid kid.