Time Enough To Die (27 page)

Gareth had uncovered quite an array of stones—building, inscribed, and rubble. Raindrops sparkled on his hair. His cheeks were pink from the chill. When Matilda slithered through the mud to his side he looked around in weary resignation rather than rage.

"I'm sorry,” she told him. “I was making decisions about the case without consulting you."

One brow and the corner of his mouth lifted in a shrug. “Decisions have to be made, don't they? Do you think Ashley will talk to me?"

"Yes. Just be your usual charming self."

"I don't want to give her any ideas."

"Don't worry. She's pretty well disillusioned."

Groaning, Gareth hoisted himself up on a column drum. “Ashley, would you be so good as to bring the sketchbook?"

"Oh,” said the girl's voice. “Oh, yeah, sure."

Matilda turned to the ancient stairway and the monogram of St. Peter. If for nothing else, she told herself, Corcester would be remembered by the history books for that. And remembered by the popular mind for the gold torc. A shame the other torcs had been stolen long since, carried away and melted down.

With a muddy squelch, Ashley arrived in the trench. She eyed Gareth with a mixture of caution and anticipation, as though expecting him to rip open his shirt and display a badge tattooed on his chest. “Do you really want the book,” she asked in a stage whisper, “or do you want to see me?"

"You,” Gareth told her. “I—ah—I'm sorry—last night—I meant well."

"I know,” she returned, with a shrug that was more of a spasm. “It's okay."

"I need to know what Nick told you about Linda."

"Nothing much,” Ashley said to her feet. “She'd been at the camp, and Nick was going to drive her back into Corcester, but his car broke down. It was a nice night, cold and clear, so she hitchhiked. That's all."

"He didn't see who she hitched with?"

"No. I mean, he couldn't have seen, or he'd know who killed her."

"Not necessarily,” said Matilda. “but we need to locate the driver of that car. I bet it was someone Linda knew."

"Unless Nick killed her himself,” Gareth said. “He was the last person to see her alive. That doesn't look good."

Ashley's chin went up. Her eyes sparked. “That's exactly the reason Nick won't talk to the police. To you. Why even mention Linda to me if he was guilty? But you wouldn't believe him if he said today was Thursday. He says toffs—rich people—commit crimes and the police look for poor people to blame."

Gareth winced.
Whoa,
Matilda thought, suppressing a grin,
the kitten has claws.

"Nick says Reynolds has been scavenging here at the fort,” Ashley went on. “He's been watching him, trying to catch him."

"Or helping him,” Gareth said, and added grudgingly, “How better to keep an eye on him?"

Rain ran down the back of Matilda's neck. She turned and looked at the stairway and the rubble-filled treasury. Gold. The gold of the gods. The gold of misers. Greedy gold. Sacred gold. No, the palms of her hands didn't itch, but something in the back of her mind did.

"The travelers were camping along the Manchester road beyond Shadow Moss when Linda died,” Gareth was saying. “Somewhat closer to Durslow than they are now. What else did Nick tell you?"

"Nothing more about Linda,” Ashley replied. “He talked about mythology and history and weird religious stuff."

Matilda eyed the stairway. In the rain the coping stone was the deep crimson of old blood. Very old blood, she thought. With her forefinger she traced the line of the monogram. It was rough to her skin and to her thoughts as well. Claudia had scratched the rock. Branwen had left the temple.

"Are you going with Nick to the—ah—ceremony tomorrow night?” Gareth asked Ashley.

"Yes,” she answered, without adding,
so what?

Gareth shot a troubled glance at Matilda. “We'll be there, too. Give us a shout if you—well, if there's anything we need to know. I'll make sure you have a mobile phone."

"If anything seems even the least bit wrong to you,” Matilda added, “call. Or better yet, bail out. Don't worry about looking stupid."

"I won't.” Ashley offered them the artless smile that Matilda had often seen on Patrick's face. It said, “No problem,” “What me worry?” and “Get off my back,” and was guaranteed to drive an adult bonkers. “Do you want the sketchbook?” she asked.

Matilda took the book. Ashley clambered out of the trench. Gareth looked after her as though he wanted to spank her.

"Well done,” Matilda said. “You didn't spook her."

"Excuse me?"

"You didn't scare her away."

"She ought to be scared. Linda was murdered on some old Celtic holiday, another holiday's come round, Nick's keen on mythology, and yet she thinks
I'm
after doing
him
over? I don't like it."

"Neither do I. She's feeling some purpose that I didn't sense in her last night. Stubborn purpose, excitement, and anxiety. I'll bet half the reason she's going is because she wants to help us."

"Super."

Matilda sighed. “What I don't like the most is the feeling that I'm missing something. The one thread that's knotted into every other one."

"The Antiquary's Corner?” Gareth suggested.

"It could be. Isn't it time to enlist Emma?"

"I'll ring her this evening, after she gets off work."

Kneeling down by the stone, Matilda turned the pages in the book until she came to the sketch of the monogram. The scratches corresponded perfectly with the drawing. But did they correspond with her memory of the scene? No, she decided. The two horizontal marks, the ones that made an “E” from the stem of the “P,” were cut deeply into the stone, too deeply to have been scratched by Claudia's little knife.

Matilda frowned. Again she touched the stone. It was gritty and damp.... That was it. Branwen had returned to the temple and had deepened the scratches. Enough construction work had been going on at the fort for her to have obtained a chisel. Why? Had she intended to emphasize her own religious vision at the expense of Claudia's?

"Ogham,” Matilda said aloud. The ancient Celts, the Druids in particular, had used a system of writing in which each letter was indicated by parallel marks to one side or another of a line. Many stones with ogham inscriptions, trailing like tooth marks down the edge of the rock, were still extant, especially in Ireland.

Irish gold, she thought. Irish gold brought through Anglesey and northern Wales, through the country of the Cornovii to the Iceni....

"Now what?” Gareth said in her ear, and she jumped.

"Something I'll have to look up,” she replied, and tried to explain.

"But how do you.... “he began, and then shook his head. “Never mind. I don't want to know.” He picked up his shovel and started scraping away at his pile of rocks.

The rain stopped. Sweeney led everyone across the street for lunch, where he announced tomorrow's holiday. “It will be one long Kodak moment,” he concluded. The students emitted a cheer and went back to devouring all the hot potato and leek soup Clapper's kitchen could produce.

Matilda slipped upstairs and checked one of her reference books. Two short lines perpendicular to the long ground line indicated a “D.” And, in the Celts’ tree-symbol alphabet, “D” was also “Dur,” or “oak.” The name “Druid” supposedly came from the same root. Not to mention, Matilda thought, the name of Durslow Edge with its primeval trees.

She no longer doubted that Branwen had died at Durslow Edge. Willingly, as a very special sacrifice. And had the death of Boudicca's grand-daughter, with her Roman blood and her Roman lover, achieved its magical ends? Matilda thought that, on the whole, it had. Almost all of Britain had in the end been subdued by Rome, but Ireland had never fallen. At least, she thought with a smile, Ireland had never fallen to political Rome. Its conquest by Roman Catholicism was another story.

Thoughtfully Matilda returned to the dig, and puttered about in the trench beside Gareth but not really with him. He, too, kept his silence. By late afternoon the sky thickened again, and the rain fell. Sweeney called it quits just before four. He supervised the unrolling of the plastic ground sheets, said to Matilda, “Enjoy your Mad Hatter's tea,” and headed toward Manchester behind the wheel of his white BMW.

Watkins and Clapper huddled beneath the eaves of the hotel, muttering about the rainy weather cutting down attendance and where the Morris dancers could go to practice. From the hall window Matilda saw a squad of workers struggling to erect the Maypole at the bottom of the slope behind the church. She smiled ruefully, acknowledging its ancient symbolism. The male member could be a finely-tuned instrument of pleasure. It was shame so many men used it as a bludgeon.

Quickly she tidied up, going so far as to put on a skirt and stockings. Gareth was heading toward the stairs when she emerged from her room, and they shared an umbrella across the parking lot. The workers had left the may-pole drooping disconsolately. Gareth's gaze touched it and moved on. He was either unaware of or stoically ignoring any anatomical references.

His Rover made fast work of the short distance to Fortuna Stud. Two or three horses stood in the pasture. Gremlin, his gray coat appearing silver-white in the rain, peered hopefully over the gate. Light streamed from the stable, and as Matilda shut the door of the car she heard the clop of hooves, the occasional snort, and Jimmy's cracked voice soothing his charges. Gareth looked in that direction, wanting to visit the horses more than he wanted to visit Della. But he squared his shoulders, unfurled the umbrella, and soldiered on.

Della opened the door. “Filthy weather."

"Isn't it just?” Gareth agreed.

"A holiday in Ibiza or Majorca would go down a treat,” Della said. “Adrian now.... “She fluttered around relieving Matilda and Gareth of umbrella and coats, leaving her sentence dangling. After the cool rainswept outdoors, the house seemed as warm and still as a greenhouse. A couple of potted palms stood wilting in the entryway.

Although Della was wearing a pink satin dress that made her complexion resemble a porcelain doll's, her perfume was patchouli, the old hippie favorite that reminded Matilda of mosquito repellent. Gareth's coat and tie and Matilda's plaid skirt would have seemed clumsy next to Della's fancy dress if Della herself hadn't been moving as awkwardly as a marionette on strings. Her agitation made Matilda's teeth hurt.

"Adrian sends his apologies. He had business somewhere—Derby, Sheffield.” Della ushered them into a wood-paneled and stuffed-leather sitting room that had obviously been furnished by her husband. That was no doubt his desk against the wall, its shelf displaying photographs of horses and jockeys but not one of Della. Books on a variety of historical and mythological topics lined one wall—in spite of the gaps opening here and there, several lay horizontally on top of the others. Some of the books were gone, Matilda told herself. Della had told Gareth the travelers were actually quite pleasant. Ashley had seen books piled up in Nick's caravan.

On the opposite side of the room gleamed a display case. “Is this your collection?” Matilda asked.

"Those are Adrian's things. He's done a nice job of tidying them up, hasn't he? Please have a look. I'll put the kettle on."

He'd done too nice a job, Matilda thought as she peered through the glass. He'd not only cleaned the artifacts, he'd touched up some of their cuts and bruises. No wonder Sweeney thought half of them were fakes. The strainer with its coy Victorian-era image of Bacchus probably was, and she had her doubts about the vaunted glass vial. But the rest of the plates, cups, lamps, necklaces, and assorted votives radiated authenticity. She would have to actually touch them to be positive, which would mean asking Della to open the case. There was, however, no point to touching them. The authenticity of these artifacts was not the issue.

Gareth stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “So Reynolds couldn't be here. He's probably with Celia Dunning."

"Or other collectors and horse people,” Matilda replied. “He seems to spend most of his time schmoozing."

"Schmoozing?” asked Gareth.

"Chatting people up. Making deals. Earning social points with people he hopes can help him. Schmoozing is like gambling, you can hit it big or you can spend a fortune on nothing but glamour."

"If he put as much effort into working he wouldn't have financial problems, would he?"

Della's voice came from behind them and they both jumped. “It was my inheritance that bought Fortuna Stud, Mr. March, as well as quite a few of the items in our collections. Adrian rather resents that, I'm afraid. He does work, very hard, to keep up appearances. It's not his fault he has very poor business judgment and has made some bad investments."

"I beg your pardon,” Gareth said.

"That's quite all right. You're a reporter aren't you?” Della took a deep, shuddering breath, as though her assertive speech had exhausted her. “Please, come through, let me show you my collection."

Matilda signaled Gareth with a tilt of her head.
All right, you've been authorized to ask questions. Go for it.

Della led them to an identical display case in the dining room. The Portmeirion vase occupied a place of honor amid several Caithness Glass paperweights. Hummell and Lladro figurines stood next to Limoges snuffboxes. Every facet of the Waterford crystal gleamed, as did the Lalique, but the antique Staffordshire displayed its cracks and discolorations proudly. The case looked like a miniature of Dunning's shop. “Very nice,” said Matilda.

"Brilliant,” Gareth added with an ingratiating smile.

"Thank you.” Della trailed a hand affectionately down the side of the cabinet. From the next room came the whine of a boiling kettle. “I'll bring the tea to the sitting room,” she said, and hurried away.

In her absence Gareth showed Matilda the magazines on the sitting room coffee table: several treasure-hunting rags and a Sotheby's catalog. “Reynolds sees himself as a real wheeler-dealer,” she said.

"Above the law, perhaps?” Gareth returned.

Della pushed her way past the door carrying a huge tray, and laid out a meal that wouldn't have been out of place in Buckingham Palace. Sandwiches, scones, and petit-fours filled a three-tiered serving plate. Dishes of butter, jam, and clotted cream surrounded sugar bowl, cream pitcher, and steaming teapot. Each cup and saucer nestled on a linen napkin. “What lovely china,” Matilda said. “Crown Derby, isn't it?"