The Green Remains (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father’s house.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson,
Kidnapped

2:15
PM

Daniel Rowley blended in with the small crowd that gathered outside Ramsey Lodge. People were so involved in everyone’s business. It drove him crazy, but sometimes it was useful. The place teemed with police and crime lab techs. A tourist stepped on his foot trying to get a better view. Daniel yelped and pushed the burly man back, then crossed the street before a confrontation broke out. He had better things to do with his time than get involved in a fistfight, deserved or not. In broken English, the German traveler shouted out an apology that Daniel ignored.

  He recrossed the street near the back of Ramsey Lodge, walking past Kate’s studio and through the garden to the lodge kitchen. A quick glance inside revealed it to be empty; he used his key to let himself in. He saw a few plates in the sink and knew Agnes would raise a stink about them if she saw the mess. He walked briskly to the far wall and hung the master key on its hook after remembering to wipe it clean. Daniel heard voices coming from the dining room and heading in his direction. In a few steps, he was back at the kitchen door; it clicked shut as he hurried away.

*

Kate showed Higgins through the dining room and into the lodge kitchen. She thought she heard the click of the kitchen door shutting, and she felt Ian’s colleague inspect her from the back. He must be aware of her engagement to his superior, even though they hadn’t formally announced it in the papers. With Simon under scrutiny, their discretion had proven to be a good thing, as Kate believed it had helped avoid Ian being removed from the case. At least, Kate hoped it was a good thing Ian was still on the case.

  The kitchen was empty, and Kate led Higgins to the back stairs leading to the second level, explaining, “Simon, Agnes and I have our own master keys. We keep the spare here for the Barnum girls … ” Her voice trailed off as she reached the hook at the bottom of the staircase where the key swung on its peg.

  Higgins raised an eyebrow at the key in motion, and Kate watched him spring into action. “Sit there.” He pointed to a stool at the table, and Kate sat down. Summoning a constable from outside, Higgins had the perimeter of the house closed down and instructed a canvas of the crowd outside. “I want to know who was seen in the area recently.” The constable hurried out.

  “Who was on the premises during the critical period?” Higgins asked Kate.

  “I already told you: me, Simon and Nora Tierney were here when we found poor Agnes. I thought she’d gone home.” Kate’s clipped tone showed her frustration.

  “What about those girls giving tea to my staff in the dining room?” he asked.

  “The Barnum sisters arrived with the ambulance; they had car trouble this morning, which their brother can verify.” A thought struck Kate. “They would have seen anyone who entered by the front door to return the key.”

  Higgins waved her statement away. “I’ve had a constable on that door since we arrived.”

  Kate shrugged. What more did he want? She wasn’t a mind reader, and it was obvious they’d just missed seeing who had taken the key.

  The constable stood in the door. “Sir—” he consulted his notebook. “Locals seen in the area in the last hour are Jack Halsey, Daniel Rowley, Robbie and Gillian Cole, and the butcher’s delivery boy.”

  “Who arrived just after the ambulance; I watched him leave after I stowed the order,” Kate clarified.

  “Stay here,” Higgins instructed and left the room.

*

2:25
PM

Higgins separated Nora from Simon. Nora waited for the SOCO to finish in her plundered bedroom, where Higgins questioned her.

  “Simon was in my company all morning,” she insisted.

  Was that the truth or an alibi? Higgins had been surprised when Ian Travers had brought in his fiancée’s brother for his statement but not when he’d read the report that indicated the presence of the plant implicated in poisoning their victim. There was that time that Ramsey and Keith Clarendon had had a dust-up at the pub with a few punches thrown, although neither had pressed charges. Could Ramsey have held a grudge all this time and gotten his own back in a horrific way? Wouldn’t that be a kicker if Ramsey were involved in Clarendon’s murder?

  Higgins called Clarendon Hall next and spoke with Cook, an acquaintance of his mum’s.

  “Mr. Hackney arrived just after 11 and stayed to lunch,” she reported. “And of course, none of the Clarendons have left the Hall.”

  “What about the Coles?” he asked.

  “They’re still out,” Cook explained. “On her day off, Gillian gets the men ready in the morning, and the rest of the day and the putting to bed are down to the district nurse. Gillian and Robbie were to eat out and go to the cinema today, but I don’t know where.”

  Higgins left a message on the Coles’ phone, asking them to call when they returned. Everyone seemed covered, then, but of course, Higgins reasoned, it was just as likely it was someone who had not been seen who was the culprit.

  Higgins thought of himself as a methodical policeman. Slow and steady gets the job done, he reasoned. He dispatched a constable to scour the pubs for Rowley and Halsey, starting with The Scarlet Wench. He enjoyed being in charge in Travers’ absence and decided this was nothing to bother the bereaved parents with; a call at the back door of Clarendon Hall would be appropriate to cross the Ts. After all, no one could be certain there was a link between the assault and ransacking and Keith Clarendon’s death.

  And if he timed his visit right, Cook would give him a tasty pudding.

*

2:45
PM

Tony Warner lingered at Ye Olde Sandwiche Shoppe, hoping to overhear a snippet of local conversation that would allow him to insert himself in a genteel way. Most small towns had their own coterie of rampant gossips.

  He’d enjoyed a brief but easy hike. Not one to overly exert himself, Tony had driven south from Bowness-on-Windermere
on the
A
592 toward Ulverston. The walk he’d found in
Cumbria
magazine had taken him over good paths and tracks for just more than two hours, following a pretty walled lane at one point. He’d had a coffee in one of the many cafes and had bought a new badge for his walking stick before returning to Bowness.

  The sandwich shop was the third place he’d visited after returning, studying the people eating and drinking and those waiting on them. He fancied he could distinguish between visitors and locals—and not just due to the absence of trainers and a backpack. The locals knew the name of their waitress, for instance. And there was the Scots influence in their dialect. So far, the few locals he’d exchanged pleasantries with had been polite but distant.

  Tony decided he gave off too much of a cosmopolitan air to be taken quickly into anyone’s confidence and returned to Ramsey Lodge to rest and meditate.

  As he parked, he saw people walking away from the building, leaving a small pack at the front entrance. There were several police cars nearby, and Tony hurried to the front door only to be told by a dour constable on duty that he could not enter until his credentials were checked and one of the Ramseys verified that he was a guest.

  “What’s happened?” Tony asked.

  “An incident on the premises,” the close-mouthed policeman replied. He spoke into his radio, asking for an identification of a guest.

  An attractive woman caught Tony’s eye, and he stepped down closer to her. She happily told him that he’d missed an apparent assault, and someone had been taken away in an ambulance. When Simon Ramsey appeared in the doorway, he nodded to the constable, who admitted Tony.

  Lingering in the hallway, Tony tried not to grind his teeth. Simon stood at the door, talking quietly to the constable, and from what Tony could overhear, he was waiting for other lodgers to appear. Tony thought hard. His next installment on the Clarendon murder for the local papers would have to come from information gleaned from others when he could have been an on-the-spot correspondent—or even have been interviewed by the police himself. If only he’d been on the grounds at the height of the excitement. He wondered how he could quote himself while worrying how he would explain to Old Jenks that he’d missed this scoop. His irritation was high, and he blamed Nora Tierney.

  The tall man he’d seen this morning appeared and was cleared to enter. Tony corralled him with an outstretched arm and a wide smile, introducing himself as another patron who’d found himself caught up in “this mess” that had occurred at the lodge that day.

  Glenn Hackney accepted the hand and the introduction.

“Tough to be on-site with all of what’s been going on in this little corner of the world,” Tony speculated, hoping vagueness would cover real information.

  He saw Glenn draw himself up. “Actually, Keith Clarendon was a co-worker. I’m here on business for the Worth Travel Agency, representing the owner at the funeral. Just came from visiting the bereaved parents.”

  “You don’t say?” Tony leaned in and lowered his voice. “Don’t let this get around, but I’m here on business, too. I’m a journalist. Nora Tierney is a former—colleague.” He couldn’t bring himself to say “boss.”

  Glenn nodded. The two men appraised each other.

  “The administrative centre at Oxford is called the Clarendon Building,” Tony ventured. “Wonder if Keith’s family is related?”

  “Quite,” Glenn replied ambiguously. “How long have you known Nora Tierney?” he parried.

  “Long enough,” Tony answered.

  They exchanged broad smiles of kindred spirits

  “How about a nice lakeside stroll before dinner?” Glenn suggested.

  “You’re on,” Tony replied.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Night is the time to escape from the past, for then all illusions of safety are most easily created, most easily believed, and a secure future beckons as it does not in the harsh light of day.”

— Albert Halper,
The Fourth Horseman of Miami Beach

4
PM

A rosy glow lit the afternoon by the time Nora was allowed back into her room to sort her belongings. She surveyed the damage. Silver fingerprint powder coated surfaces. Agnes’ blood had dried on the bathroom floor in a mahogany splatter.

  A heavy brass vase that had stood on a side table had been found on the floor in one of the heaps of Nora’s clothing that had been pulled from her armoire. As the suspected implement of the cook’s injury, it had been bagged carefully and taken away by the forensic tech.

  Simon appeared in the doorway with a few baskets. “Higgins says material doesn’t hold prints, so we can wash all your clothes, Nora.”

  “Sounds good to me. The whole world has seen my underwear today, anyway.” At least she’d resisted maternity baggies with the elastic panel and wore bikini panties under the rise of her belly. She took a basket and started to sort darks and lights into piles. Simon followed her lead. They were halfway through when Kate arrived, back from the hospital.

  “Agnes has a concussion. They’re keeping her overnight for observation,” she told them. “She’s also sporting a row of stitches in her scalp, and they gave her medication for her headache and nausea. Her sister is coming down from Scotland tomorrow to
stay for a few days. I left her asleep.” Kate approached the dark walnut armoire, its warm patina glowing with age and use. The doors were flung open; hanging clothing inside was half on and half off hangers. “I’ll tidy these. At least whoever did this had the good grace not to damage the furniture.”

  The laundry baskets filled quickly. Kate offered to get the first load started and left for the machines that they all used under the stairs from the kitchen. Nora rubbed her back and walked over to her set of French doors to gaze out to the flower garden she had sat in this weekend.

  She turned at the sound of dragging to see Simon moving the large trunk from the foot of her bed over in front of the doors. “I’m not taking any chances,” he said. “I want you to feel safe in here at night.”

  A chill came over Nora. It hadn’t occurred to her that whoever had attacked Agnes might return. Whom had she hurt or offended that made this attack personal? Or did someone know she’d copied Keith’s work and was desperate to get it back? What could Keith possibly have unearthed that couldn’t be known?

*

4:30
PM

Higgins sat at Cook’s table, waiting for Gillian and Robbie Cole to return. The cottage they inhabited was just at the end of the kitchen garden; they would have to pass the kitchen door on the lane to get home. It didn’t seem that they’d been involved in the assault, but he wanted to check on whom they’d seen at Ramsey Lodge before leaving the area.

  “How’s your mum, Stephen?” Cook asked as she poured him a second cup of tea. Higgins’ mother and Cook met often in the
library’s romance section.

  “Good, quite good. Doting on my sister’s kids up in Penrith this week,” he replied. He watched Cook slice a thick wedge of almond pound cake and pile on a hearty scoop of berries before setting the plate before her admiring audience of one. If the expectant detective thought Cook was on edge, who wouldn’t be with the death of the house’s heir?