Out Comes the Evil Page 19

  ‘Well it wasn’t. I blew it. Simple as that. I want to make it right with you, Alex. And I want you to help me out – there, I’ve said it.’

  Skin across Alex’s back tightened. Her scalp prickled. It was nothing – she must remember that these sensations came when she was upset and in an unfamiliar situation. Like when she was closing in on the body of a dead man in the snow last winter, and listening to that man’s dog howl the death wail she could not mistake …

  A premonition of danger.

  ‘Is there anything else you want to say?’ Alex stared at him, watched the pupils of his eyes contract and a pulse beat visibly at his temples. He might not be lying, but neither was he telling all of the truth. He wanted far more than to tell her he regretted that nasty night.

  ‘You were with Radhika at the hospital yesterday. I saw you go in with Harrison. How is she?’ Muscles in his jaw flexed.

  If there were such things as warning bells, they would be jangling. One of the reasons for her slipping away from the village was to allow her to decide how to tell Tony what Radhika had said without sending him directly to the police. And the will … the woman had begged her not to tell anyone about the will.

  Harry had followed her purely to ask about Radhika, she was sure of it. What she didn’t know was why he would have any interest in the other woman. It even seemed a stretch that he’d care about her or the attack on her at all.

  Damn it, she must be losing her mind. He wanted to know if Radhika had seen Pamela’s will by last night and mentioned it to Alex.

  He wanted to find out if she knew what was in that will.

  ‘Alex?’ Harry prompted. ‘How’s Radhika. How are her eyes? I wasn’t allowed in to see her. They said it was too late.’

  ‘She’s not in the best shape but she’ll be OK.’

  ‘Pamela thought a lot of her, y’know. She helped her get started in Folly. Is it true she’s probably going to move away? I’d like to help her – for Pamela.’

  Keeping him at bay without giving away how much she knew could get sticky. ‘I don’t believe so. She likes it here. She has friends.’ He was being fed information by some source that wasn’t obvious – how else would he know Radhika Malek was talking about leaving Folly?

  ‘When will she get out of the hospital?’

  The arrival of his beer and sandwich was a welcome break to let her collect her thoughts a bit.

  ‘Good beer, Donnington’s,’ Harry said after a first, long swallow. ‘When’s Radhika going home?’

  He wasn’t going to let it go. ‘I don’t know. She’s pretty badly banged up.’

  ‘You were in there with that detective. What did he ask her, apart from the obvious?’

  ‘He didn’t question her much in front of me.’ That much was true. ‘He left pretty soon after I got there.’

  ‘Will she go back to her cottage when she’s discharged?’

  Didn’t he realize his blunt questioning sounded suspicious? ‘If she does she’ll need help for a while. Her fingers will be splinted and bandaged for some time.’ There couldn’t be anything wrong with saying that.

  ‘Poor girl,’ Harry said, shaking his head slowly. ‘Who would do a thing like that to her. She’s … she isn’t anyone you’d even notice. Why her?’

  Harry obviously hadn’t really looked at Radhika Malek when she was her exotic self.

  ‘What are people in Folly saying about me, Alex?’ Harry asked, leaning toward her earnestly. ‘You wouldn’t say anything to hurt anyone. But people talk to you. When I turn up, they stop talking. I want to know what they don’t want me to hear.’

  From the next room came the unexpected sound of a fiddle, played well. Grabbing an excuse to turn away, Alex saw people move toward the music. She recognized the piece. An old Scottish folk song, ‘Lassie Wi’theYellow Coatie,’ or that was what she remembered. It sounded so right here and some customers started to sway to the sound.

  ‘Alex?’

  Reluctantly, she turned back to Harry. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is if you like that sort of thing. I asked you a question. Please, Alex, you were always the one who understood.’

  And he had been decent enough to her as long as that didn’t include taking her to his home. Childhood was gone, and it needed to be forgotten. ‘I understand that I can’t tell you what you want to know.’

  ‘You had a reporter staying at the Dog,’ he said. ‘Name of Patrick Guest. He’s tried to question me several times. I’ve avoided him. He’s been given reason to think I’m worth questioning.’

  Guest still hung around, sometimes taking off in his car for hours but returning eventually. It surprised her that there had not been more media interest, but Folly was tiny and Pamela had not been a celebrity.

  ‘Harry,’ she said firmly, ‘I came up here to get away. These have been awful days for a lot of us. I can’t tell you what you want to know. But I will mention that you ought to think twice the next time you’re tempted to thump a woman’s shoulder.’ She shouldn’t have said it, but she had.

  His eyebrows rose. He glanced at the sling and blinked several times. ‘Oh, come on. Don’t try that on me. You can’t blame me for something that happened to you when I wasn’t even around. You said you got hurt falling down some steps somewhere.’

  ‘In the dark. At your parents’ house. And that was after you whacked a hand down on top of my shoulder. And having too much to drink won’t excuse you. I haven’t told anyone what really happened and I don’t intend to. Neither will I forget. I don’t owe you anything, Harry, so stay out of my way.’

  ‘But—’ his mouth fell open – ‘but you said you understood that I’ve been badly treated. You came to the house to offer support. Now I’m asking you to support me. You’re in the loop, I know you are. You could help me be prepared to deflect the lies they’re cooking up against me.’

  The tightening of her skin was familiar, nothing to do with the temperature, just detachment, and in this case, disgust.

  ‘Will you do that, Alex? Will you help me? They say justice always gets served but we both know that isn’t true. I know you could stand up for the man I really am.’

  ‘Harry,’ she said quietly, ‘I’ll never do anything to hurt you, but I don’t know what kind of man you really are.’ Except scared.

  He looked at her, long and silent. ‘You and Tony Harrison found Pamela’s body.’

  ‘If I could forget it, I would.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  Hysterical laughter at the next table gave Alex a momentary sensation of the world gone mad. A spray of beer droplets from a man’s wide open mouth had her looking for a way to escape.

  ‘You know where she was.’ Alex clenched her hands in her lap. ‘The whole village knows where she was.’

  He remembered his beer, took it halfway to his mouth and put it down again without drinking. ‘I was just checking you out in case they’re keeping back the truth.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘To see if someone puts a foot in it by letting on where she really was.’

  His forehead shone with sweat. If this was when he’d decided to crack up, at least they weren’t alone the way they had been the last time he went over the top. ‘I was there, Harry. Unfortunately.’ She swallowed. ‘Pamela’s body was at the bottom of that horrible shaft.’

  Harry covered his eyes with both hands and rested his elbows on the table. The fiddle music continued only Alex didn’t know what the fiddler was playing anymore.

  She touched Harry’s arm tentatively, tempted to console him by saying no one suspected him, but she didn’t know that, didn’t know if she believed it herself.

  ‘There was stuff in the old tower,’ he mumbled indistinctly. ‘Vivian was asked about it when they took her in. They told her not to say anything but she told me that much. We hardly know each other but she’s decent to me. Anything could have been put there if someone’s trying to frame me.’

  ‘
Harry!’ She tugged on his rough sleeve until he looked at her with reddened eyes. ‘You’re driving yourself insane. You’ve been questioned haven’t you?’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘Did the police say you were a suspect?’

  ‘No, but they said I couldn’t leave the area. They told Vivian that, too. And my mother, for all the sense that makes. We’re being victimized for being Pamela’s friends.’

  ‘In that case a lot of us are. The plods want to be able to get hold of any number of us. Was your mother one of Pamela’s friends? She didn’t make it sound that way when I spoke to her.’

  Harry glanced at her sharply. ‘Mother likes to test the waters. She’s always looking for reactions to what she says. I think she liked Pamela well enough.’

  That was a great big porky, and only raised more questions.

  The barmaid came to the table. ‘Can I get you something else?’

  They both shook their heads and Alex didn’t react to the woman’s significant glances at people waiting for tables.

  ‘Tell me what Radhika said last night.’ The abrupt belligerence was ugly.

  ‘Don’t try pushing me around,’ Alex said. ‘It won’t work.’

  ‘Did she show you something – something she got yesterday?’

  She scarcely dared breathe. If he came right out and talked about the will would she be more likely to think he was innocent of any wrongdoing?

  ‘What is she supposed to have got? All these hints are ridiculous.’

  He regarded her closely. ‘All right. Forget it. What was in that tower?’

  ‘Stop it, Harry. If you want to know that, ask the police. I didn’t take an inventory and I’m not in charge of the case.’

  ‘You’re not going to help me, are you?’ His lips turned down in a sneer. ‘You want to get back at any of us who know what you are. You’re enjoying this.’

  Someone bumped into the back of her chair. She winced at the jolt to her shoulder. ‘I think you should go,’ she said. And for some crazy reason she wanted to laugh. ‘You are so narrow, so small. And you’re a snob, Harry, you must be to suggest something like that. What I am? Disgusting, that’s what you are.’

  ‘Did you see—’

  ‘Please go away.’

  ‘Alex, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I feel helpless, that’s all. Did you see a bag in the tower – with a bunch of things in it? Binoculars, maybe?’

  This conversation needed to end. ‘There were lots of things up there.’ A lie was her only option unless she wanted to risk saying something she shouldn’t. ‘I don’t remember anything in particular except a tarp covering a pile of stuff.’

  Harry breathed in and she saw his shoulders relax a little.

  The noise level grew. A big group of backpacking walkers clomped in, walking canes in hand, their faces ruddy from the sun and air. They ordered beers, laughed, rocked on their heels discussing the latest rambles and the energy they gave off brought out smiles in all directions.

  ‘Have you lost your binoculars?’ Alex asked. What could it hurt? He’d mentioned them first.

  He darted a look around the bar and back to her. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. Let’s have a real drink.’

  ‘No, thanks, I’d better be off,’ she said.

  ‘What does that tosser want?’ Harry said, surprising her with his vehemence. In seconds she was taken aback to see Dan O’Reilly approach, a grim line to his mouth. His dark, curly hair standing on end from the wind gave him a less world-weary look but from Alex’s angle, the scar she’d noted months ago caught the light and still looked quite new.

  He nodded at Alex and she expected him to make a crack about her not answering her phone. Instead he gave Harry his attention. ‘Good thing that car of yours is hard to miss.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Harry asked with slightly bared teeth. ‘Put out an all points bulletin?’

  ‘You’re watching too much TV, Stroud. I need to talk to you and I think you were told to make sure we know where you are.’

  ‘You told me to stick around and I have.’

  ‘Enough of that. Alex, excuse us, please.’

  She almost said, gladly. ‘I need to get back anyway,’ she said, making to get up.

  ‘If you don’t mind, you and I will have a few words. And this would be as good a place than any. Mr Stroud and I won’t be long.’

  What choice did she have? She watched O’Reilly lead Harry toward the back entrance of the Mount and ordered coffee. O’Reilly wanted to get her on her own, away from Tony, that much was obvious.

  Just out of her grasp, barely hanging onto the edges of her mind, was something she needed to recall, something she’d missed. The harder she concentrated the more tenuous and out of reach the recollection became.

  Was it something someone had said?

  Harry was the only one she’d really spoken to today. Alex went over their conversation but she couldn’t find the trigger she needed.

  THIRTY-THREE

  If Lily Duggins’s car hadn’t still been parked out back, Dan might have thought Alex had run out on him. A party of four men in work overalls sat at the table where he’d found her with Stroud.

  He searched around and saw her through the front windows, apparently happy to prop herself against a wall and reach down to rub the nose of a damn great horse. Its rider, a strapping young chap in a body hugging navy blue jumper that showed off his flexing muscles, talked to Alex but when Dan went outside to join her, the man raised a hand in a wave and ambled off, casting a grin at her over his shoulder.

  ‘Who was that?’ he asked, and wondered why he had.

  ‘Just an old friend,’ she said. The crutch rested beside her, she kept her weight on the good foot and turned her face up to the sun.

  Of course she had friends. Men who admired her. He looked to the right in time to see Stroud’s Maserati whip from the parking lot. There was a muddled up chap. Muddled, mad and arrogant. Dan had already warned Bill Lamb to expect a belligerent Harry Stroud.

  When O’Reilly first met Alex he’d kicked himself for being smitten. Later, when he saw how it went between Alex and Tony, he reminded himself of his less than wonderful record with the opposite sex and convinced himself he’d had a lucky reprieve.

  He might need to revisit that decision. She and Harrison were close but he felt tension there on occasion.

  Alex swiveled toward him and crossed her arms. She smiled, but he didn’t see her heart in it. He couldn’t help it if he found her a very good looking woman. Last time he’d checked, he’d still been human.

  The bound ankle had led to her wearing skirts. Today a denim one that hit above her knee. Nice legs, really nice legs.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Lamb tells me you spent time with Ms Malek at the hospital last night.’

  ‘I’d like to sit down.’ She got to a nearby wooden picnic table and sat on the end of one bench. The lunch throng had dwindled and they had the table to themselves.

  Dan slid onto the opposite bench with a futile thought about how nice it would be if they weren’t about to spar – and they would spar. Alex Duggins wasn’t deliberately obstructive but neither was she an easy interview.

  He pushed away a heavy glass ashtray brightly advertising Cinzano on all four sides. ‘I heard you had a dust up at the Dog last night,’ he said. ‘Sorry I wasn’t there to referee.’

  ‘It was nothing.’

  She wasn’t a good liar. ‘Never hesitate to get official help when someone gets out of line.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said.

  Which probably meant that as far as she was concerned, what happened in the Black Dog would stay there. This might be too important not to pursue. His newfound local friend had called, anxious about some of the threatening comments made by Jay.

  ‘Did you feel … uncomfortable with whatever Jay was saying?’

  Predictably, she looked at her hands. ‘No. Not really. He was just blustering. He likes being at Cedric Chase. Seems to make him feel
important although …’ He could tell she was thinking over the previous evening and kept silent. ‘There was a sort of bravado this time.’

  She turned pink. There was more she wasn’t saying. He could wait to press her, but not for long, not from the way things were going.

  ‘Bill Lamb left you with Radhika Malek early last evening. I wouldn’t like to think you would withhold any pertinent information.’

  Her color deepened but there was more anger than embarrassment in her expression. She didn’t answer.

  ‘I think I know what you found out. Bill said something was delivered to Radhika while he was there. Did you see that?’

  Her lips, pressed together, were pale.

  Despite the warmth, a cooling breeze slipped by. He vaguely thought he smelled scented stocks. ‘Alex, you do realize I know what was in the envelope?’

  Her green eyes rested on his, but briefly. ‘This seems like game playing. Or a fishing expedition. Why ask me what you already know?’

  ‘I don’t know who else you’ve told about what Radhika shared with you.’

  ‘You and I seemed to have built up a little trust and understanding of each other the last time you were here. Do you think I’ve turned into an irresponsible big mouth?’

  That stung, but he had work to do. ‘Let’s assume you know what was sent to Radhika. You do know what it means – other than there being a bigger pile of questions about some people around here than there already were?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  He almost grinned. ‘You’ll never be a pushover, my girl. I do think we have a little list of suspects in the murder of Pamela Gibbon, don’t you?’ Which again was more than he should say although, if by some unlikely chance, Alex had any involvement in the crime, and she knew they were closing in, it might shake something loose.

  A long sigh and she said, ‘You’re good at what you do, Chief Inspector. I’m sure you’re closing in on the murderer. Thank God.’ She paused, picking at splinters in the old wooden picnic table. ‘Is the post-mortem report finished?’

  Few questions surprised him but he hadn’t expected that from her. ‘Yes.’ It couldn’t hurt for her to know but that would be the extent of it.