Memory and Desire (13 page)

Richard was saying something. “...a priest's hole. Some day I'll ask Trevor about the religious tenacity of my ancestors. I don't recall them being devout enough to keep a priest, let alone hide one from the authorities. This priest's hole might be a status symbol, like a moat around a manor house."

“Artillery made moats useless,” said Claire. “Religious prejudice is perennial, I'm afraid. What's that on the table?"

“An embroidered cloth."

“May I look?"

“Have a care, it's very old."

She didn't remind him that that's why she was here, to handle old textiles. Gingerly she unrolled the fabric. It was a long linen panel, a little dusty, embroidered with trees and plants, stars and mythological figures. “It's like that altar cloth Trevor was showing me—the one that was saved from the Puritans. Similar shape and fabric. And the border is the same pattern, a Tudor barley-sugar twist. But that one was stitched with religious symbols. This can't be seventeenth century, it's in way too good a condition. Look at these leaves, they're a little frayed, and yet..."

Richard leaned over her shoulder. She could sense his breath on her cheek, making her skin thrill. She went doggedly on. “...the natural dyestuffs used to color early yarns contained chemicals that eat away the fibers of the cloth as they oxidize. But some of these greens have faded to blue is all."

“Did Trevor tell you the altar cloth in the church was stitched by Elizabeth Spenser?” Richard asked. “Cecil wanted to burn it, saying it was blasphemous, but one of the villagers hid it. It was passed down in the family, and given to the church around 1800 or so. After the beginning of the Age of Reason."

“You think this cloth is her work, too?"

“Yes, I do,” he told her. “I know its provenance."

“The villager hid this one, too? His family deserves a reward for keeping it dry and out of the air—they even knew not to fold it...” She turned around, almost knocking her nose on Richard's. He took a hasty step back. “Or are those ‘villagers’ named Lacey? Is that why you're keeping this room—Elizabeth's room—as a museum, some sort of multi-generation guilt trip?"

Richard's body stiffened. “You're the canny one, aren't you?"

Not really, she thought. But she wasn't going to get in his face about his sensitive under-belly, either.... Floorboards creaked in the room outside. Light footsteps came toward the door. As one Claire and Richard spun toward the sound.

The steps stopped in front of the closet. The sunlight reflected through the closet door darkened slightly and then brightened again, as though something not quite substantial had walked through it. This time we're going to see her, Claire thought. This is Elizabeth's room and we're intruding and we're going to see her.

She could feel dust settling on her eyeballs, but she couldn't close her eyes. A breath was caught in her chest, but she couldn't exhale. Richard's arm was pressed like a live wire against her shoulder, but she couldn't inch away. The walls of the room seemed to cave slowly inwards. The air was cold, as stiflingly cold as the grave.

Something moved in the doorway. Several dust motes, maybe, or a reflection from an old window with warped glass ... Or nothing. Claire deflated. She ordered herself not to grab Richard's arm and cling like some stupid soap opera heroine.

He jerked himself away from her and strode across the room, peering from the door like a soldier from his bunker. “There's the cat,” he said, somewhat breathlessly. “Sitting in the sun ... No. It's gone, too."

“Oh,” Claire croaked, for lack of anything better to say. She rolled the cloth and set it respectfully down. She wiped her clammy palms on her jeans. The room was warm again, and yet she hadn't imagined the cold.

“Well then,” Richard said. “We should be going."

“Yeah. I think so.” Brushing by him, Claire stepped through the opening. She walked on into the hall, where she waited while he replaced the secret panel and shut the closet door. “Melinda,” she said deliberately as soon as he caught up with her. “Melinda said something about a ghost at Somerstowe. She would've made one up, if necessary, for her book."

“She'd have made up quite a bit, I daresay,” Richard returned, and at her quick look up at him raised both hands to fend her off. “All right then, we'll have us a chat about Melinda. But not now. Not today."

What? Claire asked herself, you need to get your story straight? Planning to skip town tonight? And yet the more she saw of Richard the less she saw him as a criminal.

In silence they walked back down through the house, Claire, at least, stepping as lightly as possible so as to make no noise. If the house decided to play any more numbers from its temporal and spatial hit parade, she wasn't up to hearing them.

Richard locked the front door of the Hall behind them. When they reached the Lodge he excused himself and went inside. With a long look at the blank face of his front door, Claire walked on toward her flat.

The worst thing about this—this case, she thought, is what it's doing to me. The lie to Sarita, small as it was. The sarcasm. The irritability. The paranoia, for God's sake. Being with Richard in particular was like walking a tightrope, a constant struggle to keep her balance, energizing and exhausting at once. Her quest for Melinda threatened him, didn't it? He was afraid, and like any frightened man he'd come out fighting. The question was, why was he threatened?

And the second question was, was her own hormonal flux blinding her to Richard's possible guilt?

Muttering four-letter words, she unlocked the door of her flat, stepped inside, and stopped, her hand still on the knob. Some instinct even deeper than the one that responded to ripples in time and space was now responding to an almost palpable scent of danger.

Leaving the door open behind her, Claire picked up the furled umbrella and rushed the bathroom. No one was there. She threw open the doors of the wardrobe. No one was there. No one was crammed into the kitchen cabinet or was huddled behind the neatly folded sofa bed. She even looked out all the windows, but none of them was close enough to a drainpipe or a roof for anyone to hide outside.

Shaking her head, Claire released the umbrella and flexed the blood back into her whitened knuckles. Now who was being hyper-vigilant? Nothing was wrong, nothing was disarranged...

Wait a minute. She'd left the doors of the wardrobe open. Now they were closed. She'd left Melinda's letters stacked to the right of the desk blotter. Now they were stacked in its center, next to her notes.

Claire ran to the wardrobe and groped in its back corner. There was the box with Melinda's ring, safe and sound. There was her own jewelry case, holding a pearl necklace and earring set and a pair of tiny diamond studs. Theft, then, was not the motive.

As if she didn't know what the motive was. She spun around to the desk and sorted through the letters. One dated June 10 was in an envelope postmarked June 17. The second page of her notes was on top of the first. Someone had searched the apartment and read everything. Someone wanted to find out how much Claire knew, just how much of a threat she was.

Everyone in town knew she was looking for Melinda. God only knew how many people in addition to the Nairs had keys to the flat. She hadn't seen Richard all afternoon ...
Don't get fixated on Richard.
Only Alec, for example, knew about the letter beneath the carpet.

Except for the person who'd sent it.

She couldn't trust anyone, she reminded herself, not even the Digbys. Who else was more likely to know which village closets were rattling with skeletons? Or the Nairs, who from their shop-and-post office nexus would know everything the Digbys didn't. And Alec and Richard were childhood buddies, weren't they? Not that she was ready to indulge in conspiracy theories. Not yet, anyway.

So now what?
Running away wasn't an option. She had to tell Alec someone had searched her room. Even if he'd done it himself he'd expect her to report it. She had to keep one jump ahead of the evildoer, whoever it was ... Right, she thought. One jump ahead, where she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck.

Claire was frightened. And she was sure as hell going to come out fighting.

After the evening sunlight outside, the pub seemed murky. So much smoke hung in the air Claire wondered if Rob and Diana were grilling sausages over an open fire. But no, the smoke was from several burning cigarettes. Since she could hardly ask for scuba gear, she told herself she was sacrificing her lungs for a good cause and waded in.

Tonight the huge animal, part dog, part Shetland pony, was lying at the foot of the stairs. He looked up as Claire passed. His morose brown eyes reminded her of Fred Siebold. No, she thought, Fred wasn't Melinda's lover, actual or projected. Just not her style.

Alec was sitting near the bar, idly watching a soccer game on the TV. Claire zigzagged among the tables, said hello to several volunteers, and sat down beside him. “Hello, Alec."

He looked up with a smile. “Hello there. Fancy a Taddy Porter? Have you eaten?"

“I'll try the porter, thank you. And yes, I've eaten.” She'd heated up a can of soup and crumbled crackers into it, if you could call that eating. But she wasn't going to let Alec pay for another meal.

He made arcane gestures at Rob. Rob drew off a glass of rich brown liquid topped by creamy foam. Without waiting for Diana to bring it—she was flirting with someone on the far side of the room—Alec reached a long arm to the bar and handed Claire the glass. With a beetle-browed glower at Diana's back, Rob moved on down the bar and greeted Fred and Janet with a, “What'll you have, then?"

Claire took a deep drink of the porter. Its sharp and yet sweet tang scoured her throat of dust, mold, and acid. False courage, maybe, but she'd take any she could get. “Alec, when I got back to my room tonight I found some things disarranged—mainly my letters from Melinda and some notes. Sarita says she didn't see anyone go inside."

“Bloody hell!” Alec's face went from sociable to steely. He enveloped her hand with his own and squeezed. Her bones squealed. “I'll get on to Blake so as he can lay on some more constables. Can't have you in danger."

“I don't know enough to be in danger,” Claire asserted, with more conviction than she felt. She only had to be perceived as a threat to be in danger. Melinda's disappearance might have been forgotten if Claire hadn't come to Somerstowe, asking questions and finding letters beneath the carpet.

If Alec had put the letter there himself he was a superb actor ... That's just it, thought Claire. Everyone in town is an actor. She was just going to have to play along.

She extracted her hand from his and wrapped it, too, around her glass. “What did Blake say about the letter I found?"

“No joy. Both envelope and paper were covered in too many fingerprints, in too poor a condition, to identify any one in particular. The paper itself is nothing special. The flap was sealed with water, not saliva. The letters were cut from the Derby daily. The last I saw the snap it was on the notice board at the Hall—anyone could have taken it. The letter is helpful, Blake says, but what needs finding is Melinda's body."

“Then we need to look for it. Blake wasted a lot of time and effort searching the reservoir where her car was found. I think she's here."

“Blake had his lads going door to door,” Alec pointed out.

“Did he bring in dogs? I have a friend at home who works with search and rescue dogs—they'll turn up human bones that are fifty years old or even older."

“No, no dogs. You're right, Claire. We should have another shufti round the village. And I might could...” Alec frowned. “Well, no, not that. I'll get on to Blake about another search."

She tilted her head quizzically. Whatever he'd almost let slip, it was gone now. Hoping it was nothing significant, she went on, “I'm sure y'all checked out the cellars of the Hall. What about the crypt of the church?"

“We searched the cellars, right enough, though another go wouldn't hurt. They're a proper maze, they are. But the crypt, well then..."

“Everyone in town knows about Trevor opening the crypt to install central heating. Where else would you hide a dead body except among other dead bodies?” Claire saw Richard's sketches of the crypt superimposed on the drifting smoke in the room like a cinematic dissolve effect. “I just thought it'd be worthwhile looking. No stone unturned, and all that."

“I'll get on to Trevor, too, then,” said Alec, his firm nod indicating that matters were well in hand.

Claire only hoped they were. If the truth be told—not that it was being told, not by a long shot—she didn't want Alec to be the murderer any more than she wanted Richard to be. She didn't want any of these people to be a murderer. She didn't want Melinda to be dead, period. But she was.

A flat American accent whined beneath the British-inflected babel. Janet and Fred were still leaning on the bar. Fred's face was even longer than usual, while Janet's was slightly shriveled. “Come on,” Fred said to her. “I was only making conversation."

“He didn't mean it,” Janet said to Rob, who was hovering nearby rinsing glasses. His face looked like a garden gnome's, round and blank. No telling what Fred had said or why Janet was defending Rob. He was short, and yet he was broad enough he could probably pick up a battleaxe and defend himself with one hand tied behind his back.

No, he wasn't Melinda's type either. Even if he'd been, she'd never have gotten it on with a married man, no matter how rocky the marriage.

Diana worked her way through the crowd and wedged herself between Alec and Claire. “You'll be needing a refill then, eh, Alec? All the better to sort out our Yank invaders.” She jerked her head toward Fred and Janet and managed to include Claire in her gesture. Claire smiled, taking her comment as a joke even if it probably hadn't been meant as one.

“Yes, thank you, Diana,” said Alec. “Claire?"

Knowing she couldn't afford to get fuzzy headed, she said, “I'll have lemonade this time, please."

“Right.” The bottom hem of Diana's crop top hung like a curtain several inches from her midriff, exposing its gentle bulge over the waistband of her stretch pants. The woman was solidly built, Claire thought, but it was the tight, clingy clothes that made her look overweight. Although if Diana was typical of her sex, buying something in a larger size was the equivalent of pulling your own teeth.