Lovers and Liars Trilogy (112 page)

“She’s turned over.” Charlotte smiled. “Now she’ll sleep. That’s the usual routine.”

“She?” Gini withdrew her hand. Envy, and a longing so intense it stifled her, gripped her heart. She turned quickly away to the stove.

“I believe Rowland.” Charlotte gave a low laugh. “I know he was teasing me, but I still trust him. Rowland’s so odd—he might well have magic powers.”

She stopped speaking abruptly and swung around.

Gini, turning, heard the sound of pounding footsteps, a voice calling frantically. A woman was running across the terrace outside. Without knocking, she flung open the kitchen door. It was only when she began speaking, and Gini heard her accent, that she realized this white-faced, disheveled woman was the smart, overdressed Susan Landis, whom she had met and disliked the night before.

“Please,” she said. “Oh, God, Charlotte—please, you’ve got to help me. I’ve been calling and calling—I just went up to the manor. There’s police everywhere…”

She swayed, grasped a chair back, and made a choking sound.

“Please help me. Something terrible has happened. Cassandra’s dead—and Mina’s disappeared. She’s such a good girl—she’s only fifteen. Charlotte—please. I can’t make the police understand. Mina’s gone!”

At nine-thirty Rowland was sitting in a small interview room in the main Cheltenham police station. The room was tiny and smelled of stale nicotine. He had been sitting there since six-thirty that morning. He had not eaten, washed, shaved, or slept. Max, who had driven him there, was in the interview room next door. It was he who had made the preliminary identification of Cassandra Morley’s body. Now, presumably, he was doing what Rowland had been doing for the past three hours, going over the events of the night before.

Rowland had given a statement, been questioned on the statement. What time, when, how: why had he been up there, alone, at that time of night? Why had he moved the body?

“Because I didn’t know she was dead,” Rowland had replied. “She was lying awkwardly. I checked for neck and spinal injuries, then I moved her. Then—”

“Are you a doctor? You have medical qualifications?”

“No. But I’ve had some paramedical training.”

“You have? Why?”

“Look, I climb. In Scotland. I’ve climbed in the Alps. I know how to check for those kinds of injuries. It was automatic to do that. I suppose—I was also looking for other obvious signs… a head wound—I don’t know.”

“Did you attempt resuscitation?”

“No. There was no pulse—”

“You’re sure?”

“For God’s sake!” Rowland lost his temper. “Rigor mortis had set in. It was—what? Minus five degrees? By the time I found her, she’d been dead several hours.”

And so it went on. An interview with one officer, then a second. The gradual and unpleasant realization that because of the circumstances, because he was a man, he might not be believed. Eventually their interviewing tactics changed and their tone became less hostile—presumably because they had received an interim medical report, and Max had corroborated his story. But Rowland was left with a sick sense of their distrust. He felt guilty by gender, a feeling he had never experienced before.

The statement was taken down, revised, amplified, then taken away to be typed. From outside the interview room came constant noise. Some of the travelers from the barn were being brought in, presumably questioned, perhaps busted for possession: Rowland had no way of knowing, and no one was likely to inform him. Around nine someone brought him tea he didn’t want, and half an hour later the more senior detective returned. He was a middle-aged man who had already mentioned the fact that he had two teenage daughters. He looked as weary and sickened as Rowland felt. Passing his hand across his face, he sat down and gave Rowland the statement to sign.

“One thing.” He indicated its first paragraph. “Your emergency call is logged at two-eleven
A.M.
What time was it when you got back to the body?”

“Around two-thirty. Maybe two thirty-five.”

“And you noticed the music had stopped—when?”

“Maybe five minutes later. I’m not sure. I wasn’t really thinking about it, not to begin with. Is it important?”

“It helps.” He gave a sigh. “By the time our cars got up to that barn, the travelers were already packing up. The ringleaders had already left—or so the others claim. Usually those affairs go on all night. I’d like to know why they broke up early, that’s all.”

“There are ringleaders, then?”

“Oh, sure. The travelers will feed you any amount of crap. Claim they were just following ley lines, took tarot readings, make out they just all happened to congregate in that one place at one time. In this case, a girl’s dead. So they’re prepared to be that bit more cooperative. Nothing to get excited about. They know who the suppliers are—but they won’t name names.”

“Was it drugs?” Rowland looked at him. “Is that what killed her?”

“We’ll have to wait for the autopsy report, obviously. It’s probable, I’d say. We’ve had stuff flooding into the area recently—Ecstasy, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines. People think rural areas are safe. They think drugs are a big-city problem. They’re wrong. I try to explain to my daughters—they listen. Then they laugh the second I leave the room. You have children?”

“No.”

“Wait until you do. It’s as easy to score around here as it would be in London. Pubs, clubs, discos, parties, raves—grass, Ecstasy, over the course of an evening, it’s cheaper than beer. Sometimes they’re buying garbage, sometimes they’re getting something very pure. It’s a kind of Russian roulette, and the kids like that. Adds to the thrill, maybe. Who knows?” He tapped the statement. “If you’re happy with it, sign. I expect you’d like to get out of here.”

Rowland signed.

“This is the second death of this kind in four weeks,” the man went on as Rowland rose. “The last one was a girl too. It was just before Christmas. She was Dutch, a runaway. She was fourteen years old, good family, plenty of money, no problems there. She hadn’t been home in nine months. Her parents identified the body Christmas Day. It wasn’t the best Christmas I’ve ever known.”

“She was Dutch?” Rowland said. “From where?”

“Amsterdam, I believe. Needle tracks on both arms. The amphetamines she’d taken didn’t mix too well with the heroin. And the heroin was unusually pure. The dealers introduce high purity consignments from time to time—when they need new clients, and need to hook them fast.”

He opened the door. “Thank you for your help. Your friend should be through soon. You can wait out there.”

Rowland returned to the lobby. He felt angry and dispirited and on edge. He had been too late to save Cassandra Morley, and the information he had given was unlikely to be of great assistance. He sat down beneath a poster warning of the perils of drunk driving, and resigned himself to waiting for Max.

There was no sign now of the travelers. The lobby was deserted except for the constable on duty at the desk, and a plump, belligerent young man with a South London accent who was wearing an expensive suit and a loud shirt: the two were having an altercation that had clearly begun some time before.

As Rowland entered, the man raised his voice.

“Look,” he said. “Can I get this through your head? I’m here to report a stolen vehicle, not answer damn stupid sodding questions. It’s a top-of-the-range five series BMW. Silver. Leather upholstery. Alloy wheels. We’re talking almost thirty thousand quid…”

“I have those details. I have the registration number. Are you the owner of the vehicle, sir?”

“No. I’m not. For crying out loud. My name’s Mitchell—you’ve got that? You can spell that okay? The car belongs to a lady friend of mine. I just had it for the weekend. Is that a crime now? Anything else you’d like to know? My blood group, maybe? My mother’s birth date? I mean, if that’s what it takes to get some action around here—”

“Was the car locked when you left it, sir?”

“Yes. No. Look—I’m not sure. I already told you…”

“You’re not sure? Had you been drinking, sir?”

“No. I goddamn well hadn’t been drinking. What is this? I already told you. I was driving back to London, from here, and—and I got taken short. I needed to take a leak. L-e-a-k—you’ve got that?”

The constable made a note of this information, his face impassive. Rowland listened with closer attention. This was a war of attrition, and he knew who would win.

“So I get out to take a quick piss, okay?” Mitchell went on. “I’ve driven off the main road. I’m on this track, in the middle of nowhere. Up ahead of me is this barn. I can see lights, hear music—so I think I’ll check it out, see what’s going on. What do I find? The place is crawling with hippies. I take one look—I’ve left the car maybe two, three minutes—and what do I find when I get back? The sodding car’s gone. So I do the obvious. I go back. I ask around. I make some
inquiries
—like have any of you deadbeats seen a thirty-thousand-quid BMW recently? I get nowhere. There’s all these bleeding kids milling around. I give up, start walking back down the track, and what do I find? They’ve pinched my sodding wallet as well. No money. No plastic. Put it this way—it didn’t improve my mood. So, what I’d like to know now is—are you going to report this vehicle as stolen, or piss around—”

The constable made a note. He said: “Time, sir? This would have been when exactly?”

Rowland, watching with keen interest now, knew the question was not idle. Mitchell sensed it as well. His manner at once became evasive.

“Time? I’m not sure. Midnight—maybe a bit before.”

“It’s past nine now, sir.”

“So?”

“Why didn’t you report the matter earlier?”

“Because I was stuck miles up some sodding track, in the dark. Because I had to damn well walk miles, because when I got here, when I
finally
got here, a whole lot of jerks kept me hanging around—”

Mitchell stopped. During this last peroration, the constable had picked up a telephone and said a few words. Replacing the receiver, he emerged from behind his counter and took Mitchell by the arm.

“If you’d come through here. One of the detective sergeants would like a word.”

Mitchell began protesting loudly. Rowland saw him eye the door, as if wondering whether to bolt for it. Clearly, he thought better of it. He disappeared into an adjoining room. Through the closed door his voice could be heard for a while, blustering. Then he fell silent. Rowland thought: they’re telling him about the girl.

He leaned back against the wall and stared dully at the posters. Mitchell had been lying, that was obvious. He wondered whether he would prove to know anything useful, but his mind would not fix on that question, or any other. He felt a deepening black despondency, and he knew where this would lead his thoughts next if he did not guard against it: back to Washington, D.C., to a street near Dupont Circle, and to a different kind of drug killing that had happened six years before.

He passed his hand across his face and tried to force his thoughts elsewhere. Some five minutes later Max emerged. He looked gray-skinned and exhausted. Pulling on an old Barbour shooting jacket, he took Rowland by the arm.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Come on, Rowland. I need to think. I need some air.”

Max’s first action, when they returned to his Land Rover, was to try to call Charlotte on his car phone. Both numbers were busy. He tried several times, then gave up.

“Let’s get home.” He glanced at Rowland. “Look, would you mind driving? I’m feeling—I feel like hell.”

When they were in the car, neither spoke for a while. Max lit a cigarette.

“You don’t mind?”

“No. I don’t mind. In fact, you can give me one.”

“You don’t smoke. You haven’t smoked for years.”

“Come on, Max. Just give me one, okay?”

Rowland drew on the cigarette, which Max gave him without further comment. Instantly, the nicotine steadied him; it was as familiar, and welcome, as it had ever been before.

“The thing is,” Max began in an abrupt way a few miles farther on, “I’ve never seen a dead body before. Not even a stranger’s, let alone someone so young, someone I knew. Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No. And it’s not unusual now.” Rowland kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Your parents are still alive. So are Charlotte’s. Besides—these days death gets tidied away. It takes place in a hospital, behind a screen. Don’t feel guilty, Max. What are you supposed to do? Take it in your stride?”

“I’ve led a sheltered life,” Max replied. “I suppose that’s what I’m saying. Just now… I rather despise myself for that. You wouldn’t understand. It doesn’t apply to you.”

Rowland said nothing. He was thinking of his father, then of his mother dealing with her death as grimly as she had dealt with her life, in a North London hospital cancer ward. He thought of the two climbing accidents he had witnessed in the Cairngorms, of the drug murders he had covered in Washington. He did not think, would not allow himself to think, of a summer’s day in the chill of a Washington police morgue.
If you could just make the identification, Mr. McGuire. She’s… you’re prepared?

“Do you know what they told me?” Max still had his eyes on the road. “They said they’ve had drugs flooding into this area recently.”

“They told me that as well.”

“Jesus Christ, Rowland. Ten years from now, it could be my children buying that stuff. Ten years? It’s even less—Alex is eight. Cassandra was just sixteen years old.”

“I know.”

“When we bought this place, we thought—” Max gestured angrily at passing fields. “We thought, bring them up in the country, keep them away from London. Give them an old-fashioned upbringing—dogs, walks, a village school, fresh air… We thought it was
safe.
We thought—I suppose we thought values were different here.”

“Nowhere’s safe now, Max. You know that.”

“There’s too much money around here. Large estates, private schools, second homes. Too many rich children, too many careless parents. Cassandra Morley’s damn mother was never there half the time. Her father swans around Europe with a new wife half his age.”

“Come on, Max. There’s plenty of victims from very different worlds. Visit a few housing projects sometime. Rich, poor—it doesn’t make any difference these days.”