Alex sat on the ground, cradling Bogie in her lap. Having Tony down there where she couldn’t see him was too much. Anything could happen to him. She heard him scuffling against the brick lining of the well.
Maybe it wasn’t a well. But it was a deep hole in the ground and whoever lost the ends of their fingers to the kind of ghastly pain that made Alex shudder, could be at the bottom. She prayed it wasn’t the case, that the police would check hospitals and find the person who mangled his or her fingers.
She hadn’t looked down the shaft, hadn’t wanted to. Tony’s torch sent up a sickly, jiggling light that sometimes grew paler, as he had it pointed down, sometimes brighter when he palmed it to keep climbing.
The emergency dispatcher kept her on the phone but Alex had stopped trying to talk to him. She wanted to be sick and if she moved much she feared she’d faint. The breeze kept wafting an odor of animal dung.
‘Tony?’ she yelled when the waiting grew too long. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ came a short, hollow echo.
The wind blew in circles now, ladling up leaves and dancing them around as if this was a jolly celebration of the season.
Bogie leaned closer and licked her chin.
Shuffling sideways, Alex got close enough to lean over the edge of the hole. ‘Are you at the bottom yet?’ She kept her eyes averted from the mutilated fingertips.
‘Yes.’
A distant siren sounded. ‘I hear the police or someone coming. How can they be here so fast?’ She was almost weak with relief at the sound of the sirens.
No reply came from below.
Tears stung Alex’s eyes. ‘Tony, is there someone down there?’
‘Yes, Alex.’ His echoing voice had an extra hollowness. ‘I think it’s Pamela Gibbon.’
Alex’s mind didn’t want to work. She glanced at the three black ends of fingers, nails jagged and caked with dried blood. ‘No, no, no. Why?’ What kind of hate made one human being do this to another. It couldn’t be a mistake Pamela had made on her own.
‘The sirens are getting closer,’ she called out. ‘There’s nothing you can do …’
‘Nothing, but try to find the bastard who did this.’
She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Come up. Please, Tony.’
His boots rang on the ladder rungs again, at the same time as the splitting sound of sirens and the scorching flash of red and blue lights arrived on the abandoned road a few hundred yards above the mansion ruins.
Figures running in her direction quickly took shape. She flashed her torch toward them. Detective Inspector Dan O’Reilly and Detective Sergeant Bill Lamb were easy to pick out. They were familiar and brought with them the kind of feelings Alex had hoped never to experience again. Uniformed officers fanned out behind them, making Alex feel trapped. Someone headed into the tower at a run and she wondered at the efficiency these people could show.
‘That’s O’Reilly and Lamb,’ Tony said, making her jump. ‘I hoped we’d never see them again. What do they do? Sit around in some dingy office in Gloucester waiting for a call about Folly-on-Weir?’
Before she could answer, Lamb steamed up with O’Reilly at his shoulder. The two men stopped short to survey the whole scene.
‘Hugh told me Constable Frye said they might come to the village,’ Alex said quietly.
The detective inspector had good ears. ‘We got into the area a couple of hours ago,’ he said. ‘They needed help. Things didn’t look good.’
Alex remained sitting, and holding Bogie. Had the police already expected to find Pamela dead? If so, why? Surely a village with a history of two murders only months earlier wasn’t marked as a likely spot for more atrocities. Tony’s head stuck out of the hole in the ground.
Both policemen put a hand over their noses.
‘What happened?’ O’Reilly said, sounding as Irish as Alex remembered.
‘Do you know about a woman called Pamela Gibbon being missing?’ Tony asked.
Lamb’s face grew red. ‘The Detective Chief Inspector asked you a fucking question,’ he snapped.
Alex wondered if his last job around here had helped with O’Reilly’s promotion.
‘Bill, help Dr Harrison out of there,’ O’Reilly said. He didn’t look happy.
‘Pamela Gibbon lives in Folly-on-Weir,’ Alex said, stiff-lipped. ‘She’s been missing for several days. Tony and I came up here to have a look around and found bits of fingers there.’ She pointed. ‘Tony went down the shaft and found Pamela. She’s dead.’
‘We already know all about Pamela Gibbon going missing,’ Lamb said, with no sign of a thaw in his manner. His sandy crew cut was just as it had been the last time she saw him. Thick and not a hair out of place. ‘Why would we be here if it didn’t look as if—’
‘Come on out, Dr Harrison,’ O’Reilly said, sounding pleasant enough, although the last time they’d all met, they’d been on Tony and Dan terms by the time it was all over.
Bill Lamb offered him a hand, which Tony ignored, vaulting out under his own steam. Bill turned to Dan O’Reilly. Alex couldn’t see his face but imagined he was looking to his boss for instructions.
More vehicles arrived at the top of the acreage.
She recognized pale blue SOCO uniforms, rapidly being pulled on over other clothes. Scene of Crime types weren’t her favorites. They went in for black humor that might help them but did nothing for her.
‘Pathologist is on her way,’ one man said, already completely suited, his head and feet covered and gloves in place. ‘You want to go down and take a look?’ he asked Dan O’Reilly.
‘Not before Molly gets here. She hates it if she isn’t first.’
‘Bit late for that,’ Bill said without looking at Tony.
Tony ignored him. ‘There’s not much room down there. You won’t both be able to be with Pamela at the same time.’
‘Don’t worry about us,’ Bill said. ‘We work out our own logistics.’
Alex wondered why the detective sergeant was trying to bait Tony, not that it got any reaction from him.
‘Tell your people to seal off everything,’ the inspector told the SOCO team member. ‘Hold off on tenting until Dr Lewis gets here and gives you the word. Plan on securing a large area. We could have a big crime scene.
‘There’s evidence right there beside the shaft opening. Bag it and say we want the area under lights. Until then, they snap on their wings and don’t touch a thing, including the ground if they can get enough loft. You never know, we may have more fingers to come, among other things.’
‘If I know Molly she won’t be long, unless she’s driving herself,’ Bill said.
‘She doesn’t do that much anymore, and almost never at night.’
O’Reilly planted his feet apart. Alex couldn’t see his dark eyes but his wavy hair tossed in the wind. ‘Our Molly is a whiz. Just can’t find her way out of a paper bag.’ His casual approach was something Alex liked, although she remembered well how tough he could be. ‘Why don’t we get preliminary statements from you and Tony?’ he asked Alex.
What she really wanted was to get away from here and fast.
Spotlights were quickly put into place. They bathed everything in a sickly, blinding white that felt intrusive.
With Bill Lamb taking notes, Tony and Alex answered questions rapidly, those they could answer at all. She was aware of the silent row of police slowly covering the ground, their torches brilliant and each with a stick they occasionally used to move something aside. An officer had arrived with a dog.
‘We came straight up here when we got to the village,’ O’Reilly said. ‘We’ll need a lot more from you two. Want to toss in any ideas about who might have had a grudge against Pamela Gibbon?’
Alex and Tony looked at one another with matching frowns. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘This is … damned if I know.’
The sound of another engine got closer. Alex shuddered again, tried to calm herself. There was no need to fear the kind of hateful events that closed in around her the last time someone was murdered in Folly. Anyway, Pamela might have had an accident.
In your dreams.
Tony’s hand, closing around hers, steadied her, and Alex didn’t hesitate to lace her fingers with his.
A small, blond woman, already suited for business, strode toward them. When she got close enough, Dan O’Reilly said, ‘Molly Lewis, this is Alex Duggins and Tony Harrison. They found the body.’
The woman, pretty and slim, but older than her initial impression suggested, snapped on her gloves and made for the open hole without more than a nod at Tony and Alex. She slid a light on a band over her head and settled it on her forehead, before disappearing down the ladder with sure, rapid movements.
‘At the top of that drum tower, you’ll find what looks like a bunch of supplies for people who plan to return, possibly regularly. It probably means nothing, but—’
‘When did you intend to mention that?’ Bill Lamb asked, his chin thrust forward.
Alex squeezed Tony’s hand. ‘You can be such an idiot, Bill Lamb,’ she said. ‘You think it’s easy to get everything straight and in order on a night like this? I think I’m just going home. Hope you’ll come with me, Tony. You people know where to find us.’
‘Would that be at his place or yours?’ Lamb said. ‘Not that you’re going anywhere until we say so.’
‘Asshole,’ Tony muttered, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
‘I’ll need to interview both of you,’ Dan O’Reilly said. ‘When we’re finished here for tonight, where can I find each of you?’
‘I’ll be at the Black Dog,’ Alex told him without hesitation.
‘I might as well go there, too. Easier on everyone,’ Tony said.
Lamb snickered.
‘When did you say you thought the victim fell in here?’ The pathologist, Molly something, popped her head just out of the shaft.
O’Reilly said, ‘We’re thinking as long as three days.’
‘I thought that’s what I heard,’ the woman said, starting down again. ‘Tell them to get the tent up. And we’re going to need lights down here and some fast work. Poor thing could have been there a while. Looks like several blows to the head, but she may only have been dead hours.’