Demon on a Distant Shore (7 page)

“Perhaps you should let us get those,” Royal said solicitously.

“No, no, it’s my job to see you to your room, Sir. I’ll get there in a minute, don’t you worry.”

He bent a fraction nearer the floor and I thought he would collapse to his knees, but he grasped the handle of a bag in each hand and came upright. Or tried to come upright. He couldn’t seem to get our little carry-ons off the floor. His breath came out in small, panting gasps.

Royal took my case from Malcolm’s hand, leaving him to tug away with both hands at Royal’s case, which being a guy case, held practically nothing. I could have picked it up with two fingers.

Malcolm groaned again, but managed to get the bag two inches off the floor. “An old injury; plays up in damp weather,” he gasped.

I glimpsed the leaden sky through a window. Wasn’t the weather always damp in England?

“But I like to stay active and the extra cash comes in handy. A pension doesn’t amount to much these days.”

Poor guy. What were they thinking, making him carry bags? Surely the inn could assign him a lighter task. I looked toward the desk, but the man and woman were no longer there.

I took Royal’s bag from Malcolm’s limp fingers and helped him upright.

“That’s kind of you, Miss.”

With Malcolm now erect, we followed him past the front desk and along the passageway, Royal’s hard-soled shoes tapping the tiled floor. We passed doors labeled
Ladies
and
Gentlemen
and reached a staircase. Malcolm led us up, giving out a low, pain-filled grunt with every other step.

Our room
had
to be on the third floor, the last door at the end of the landing. Malcolm opened up and preceded us inside.

We dropped the bags on the floor. Royal beamed at Malcolm. “Thank you.”

“Anything else I can do for you?” Malcolm nodded at the small fireplace with its narrow mantle and blue-and-white Delft tile border. “Evenings are getting nippy; I could bring up some firewood.”

Royal’s voice held a hint of desperation. “No need.”

If anyone brought up wood, I bet it would not be Malcolm. Royal held his hand out, which Malcolm took in his, and I realized Royal had passed the man a tip.

Long and narrow, our room covered the breadth of the inn, giving us a view of both back and front through windows veiled by filmy white curtains. The plastered ceiling hung low and carpets with a tapestry look mostly covered the well-worn, scuffed floor. A fringed, off-white Candlewick bedspread draped the double bed, which matched a big old dresser and free-standing wardrobe. A fat cushioned armchair with a cream and green floral pattern and nightstands either side of the bed filled the rest of the space. Perfume intensified by the day’s heat, lavender in a small lead-crystal vase sat beside a radio-alarm clock on one nightstand.

“Why would anyone give the man a job he cannot perform?” Royal asked once Malcolm had gone.

I went to the west window and countered, “Why would anyone give him a tip for a job he didn’t perform?”

The window looked over a flagstone yard bound on three sides by the inn and outbuildings. A waist-high white wood fence separated the yard from a large green paddock, or meadow, or maybe just a field. More fields, hedges, two narrow lanes and a few cottages climbed a ridge beyond.

Two young men below were putting up tables and covering them with white cloths. A woman wheeled out a trolley laden with covered platters and dishes. It looked like they were setting up a lunch buffet.

We went in the en suite bathroom together, if you could call it that. Tiny, just big enough for a shower, washbasin and commode, I think it started as a closet. We tried to freshen up, but after knocking elbows and generally getting in each other’s way, Royal backed out so I could go first. Done with that, I went to our room’s east window. I folded my arms as I gazed out. “Something’s wrong.”

Royal spoke from the bathroom. “You always think that.”

“And I’m usually right.”

You can tell a lot from expressions and gestures, and I’m very good at interpreting them. If I was not mistaken, mention of Sylvia and Paul Norton put the guy at the desk on alert.

“The guy I was talking to in the lobby. . . .”

“Greg Short. He and his mother Sally run the inn.”

“Did you hear what he said?”

“Is that what makes you think something is wrong?”

“Not so much what he said, but you didn’t see his face when I said their name.”

He sighed as he came behind me. “Could it not be this is just a minor setback? The Nortons lived here, they moved away. We will track them down.”

“You don’t think it’s odd they conveniently disappear just when we’re looking for them?”

His arms came around my waist. I folded mine over his and let my head rest back on his shoulder. His lips touched the side of my face. “There is such a thing as coincidence.”

“Nope, don’t believe in it.”

Royal was probably right and I read too much in the Nortons’ departure from Little Barrow. Nothing odd in a young couple leaving for a new frontier.

I revolved in his arms, and spotted a piece of paper on the floor, as if it had been pushed under the door.

“How long has that been there?”

He frowned. “I do not know.”

“Wasn’t here when we came in.”

He let go of me, went over and picked up the paper. I joined him, peering over his shoulder as he unfolded it.

Talk to Peter Cooper
.

The ruled paper had been torn from a ledger and hand-writing in blue ink . . . well, I’m no expert, but from the way the letters angled, I thought the writing looked feminine.

“Someone slipped it under there while we were freshening up,” I suggested. I snagged the paper from his hand and waved it under his nose. “Still think everything here’s hunky-dory?”

“Where do you come up with these phrases?”

“Peter Cooper, huh? I suppose now you’re going to say a breeze blew this under our door. It has nothing to do with our reason for being in Little Barrow. We should ignore it.”

He plucked the note from my hand as he spoke in a kind of exasperated monotone. “No, Tiff. You were right all along. This case is not clear-cut and straightforward. Mysterious note slipped under door - is someone trying to help us on the sly?”

“Or point us in the wrong direction.”

“Either way, all is not right in Little Barrow.”

I tried to look inscrutable. “My thoughts exactly, Watson.”

“Why am I Watson?”

“We can’t both be Holmes. I called dibs.”

Royal coughed out a little chuckle. “All right,
Holmes
. Your lowly assistant suggests we pursue this with caution.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Watson was too useful to Holmes to be a lowly assistant.”

“Useful?”

I beetled my eyebrows up and down. “In many and varied ways.”

“I would rather be indispensible,” he said huskily.

I shifted my arms from his waist to his neck, pulled his head closer and told him what he wanted to hear, and meant it with all my heart. “You
are
indispensible, and don’t you forget it.”

Chapter Six

“Are you ready for lunch?” Royal asked.

I should have been dead on my feet, but I’d got my second wind and after all those hours sitting on my butt in planes, airports and cars, planting it on another chair was the last thing I wanted. “Can we go for a walk first?”

“Fine by me.”

We grabbed light jackets, went downstairs and through the front entrance.

The inn sat on one side of the village square. Except the square was oval, and paved over, and a road ran through it. But from the way other buildings were positioned, I bet it started as a village square. A long, low ancient building with white walls, sagging thatched roof and small windows squatted across the square almost opposite the inn. A large, faded sign on the wall beside the door, sporting a grubby-white duck with feathers in disarray and an oversized yellow beak, named it The Ugly Duck Tavern. I spotted a square, white building on our left with a sign identifying it as a shop and post office. Apart from shop, inn and tavern, this part of the village was a huddle of small cottages with brick or white-washed walls, tile or thatched roofs.

A muddy yellow light, which I took to be the sun, hung in the sky. The air was calm, unmoving, warm and humid. We didn’t need our jackets; I tied the sleeves of mine around my waist to leave my hands free; Royal draped his over one shoulder. We would not need a fire in our small fireplace and I bet Malcolm knew it.

We crossed the square to where an alley ran abreast of the Ugly Duck. Lights burned inside and through the windows we saw a crowd of men and women at small tables and a long bar in the back of the room. Voices chatting up a storm came through the open door, laughter rising with their conversation. Low ceilings, exposed beams; golden light made copper and brass gleam. The old pub shone out a welcome.

We went on down the alley, which snaked between tiny brick cottages with garden plots in front.

I looked back at The Hart and Garter before we walked between the first cottages and lost sight of it, picturing the small, rotund couple who ran the place. Recalling Greg Short’s response to my questions, I frowned, convinced he knew something about the Nortons which we, as yet, did not.

The alley took us back to the Pewsey road, which cut through the square on its way to Salisbury. The road widened and after a walk of two minutes we came to a crossroads. A sign pointed to Devizes in the north, Pewsey to the east, Salisbury to the south, and Old Church Lane to the west. Sure enough, a church spire stuck up through the trees farther down the rough, poorly paved, potholed lane. We headed that way.

The sun disappeared behind an unbroken gray bank so high it was barely recognizable as clouds. I’m accustomed to clear blue summer skies which seem to go on forever. The gloom above my head now made me feel penned in.

Four large cottages sat on the left side of the lane. On our right, a grass verge turned into a steeply sloping bank thick with nettle and cowslip topped by a low, untidy hedge, then flattened to a big field of long grass. A couple dozen brown and white cows contentedly grazed near a line of trees which hid whatever lay directly behind them. Past there, a few houses perched atop a hill, and the land rose steeply to the Salisbury Plain beyond.

The brick wall which breasted the first cottage hid all but the roof. A tiny iron gate barred entrance to the front yard; next to that the wall stopped at the end of a narrow driveway where a kid sat on a metallic-blue scooter just in the lane. A motor came to life and a car backed from a garage and down the driveway of the next house. The boy glanced at me. I smiled. He looked back at the car. He must be waiting for the car so he could follow it, or it could follow him.

The car reversed until the rear wheels hit the uneven paving. The driver looked right and left. It happened fast. She put her foot down and shot out into the lane. She didn’t check her rear-view mirror; she didn’t see the boy. I stepped off the curb, threw my hands in the air and shouted, “Look out!”

The car went right through him, straightened out and came to a sudden, grinding stop.