Grace stood, Canon poised, on the tiny flagged patio outside the French windows. A few metres away, dangling by one back foot from the peanut feeder on the cherry tree, was one of the red squirrels Angela Inglis was so keen to protect.
The cottage was an outbuilding conversion that barely allowed for the frivolity of garden space. Grace had utilised every inch and now, with the early dew still misting every leaf, was the time she loved best.
My own work, Grace thought. Not just the design, but the actual digging, the planting. All of it. Her eye absorbed its every nuance and she smiled faintly as she carefully lifted the camera. The squirrel, alerted by the slightest movement, catapulted back into the branches and darted away.
“Bad luck.” Behind her, Max Carri’s voice contained the same lazy amusement it always had, back when they were still married and Grace’s photography was a hobby he indulged. “The amount of food you put out, I’m amazed you’re not beating them off with a stick. There’ll be other days.”
“Perhaps.” Grace flipped the lens cap into place. She slid the Canon back inside the open bag on the wrought iron garden table and closed the lid. At one time Max’s refusal to take seriously anything she did had infuriated her but she’d learned to be impervious.
Max took a sip of his coffee and smiled over the rim of the plain white bone china mug, the action crinkling the skin around the corners of his eyes. It was the only noticeable sign, she thought, studying him with a dispassionate eye, that her ex was just a couple of years away from fifty.
He’d always taken great pains over his appearance, but she’d never considered him outright vain. Sprawled in one of the uncomfortable chairs that went with the table, he managed to look relaxed and totally at home.
And she didn’t want him to be.
The cottage was her home, not his. He hadn’t been able to impose his choices, his tastes—his will, even—on any of it. Simply having him here felt like an imposition.
She allowed nothing of that irritation to show on her calm features, although she carefully remained standing because she knew he expected her to join him, acquiescent, and sit.
“You’re looking well,” she said politely.
He shrugged. “Business is good,” he said, which was about as much as he’d ever deigned to tell her about the intricacies of worldwide property development.
In his beautifully tailored black suit, he looked smooth and slick and successful. The suit, like the startlingly white shirt underneath it, was made-to-measure rather than off-the-peg, and everything about him reeked quietly of money.
Grace knew, without undue conceit, that she had played her part in helping Max acquire that gloss. Her family came from money they no longer possessed. Max’s origins were diametrically opposite. He’d fought his way up from nothing and was justifiably proud of the achievement. Her biggest achievement, as she saw it, was stopping him from becoming too smug.
Besides, it wasn’t Max’s money that had attracted her in the first place, but his sense of grounded stability. Her own father had never seemed to be there. Max, as it turned out, was there too much.
Grace was never much interested in her husband’s finances while they were married, and even less so when the relationship was being legally dissolved. Her solicitor had almost wept when she’d told him she had no wish to lay claim to half of her husband’s fortune as recompense for twelve years of matrimony.
After Max’s initial anger and surprise, theirs had been an amicable split. Civilised. He prided himself on his urbanity and secretly it pleased him, she knew, that three years on they didn’t snipe and bicker at each other like so many of their friends whose marriages had come unstuck.
And that brought her back to the reason for his unexpected early morning visit.
“I can’t go to Florence with you in a fortnight, Max.” She managed to sound suitably regretful. “It all sounds lovely, but my work—”
He gave a slight flick of annoyance with one hand. “You know you wouldn’t have to work if you’d let me make proper provision for you.” He leaned forwards a little and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “That legal man you hired was a fool.”
“He was only following my instructions. I don’t want more than I have.” Except, perhaps, my privacy. “And, besides, I enjoy my job.”
He sat back in disbelief. “Poking around at crime scenes, photographing rotting corpses? How the devil can that be classed as enjoyable?”
“I make a difference,” Grace said quietly. “I find it…satisfying.”
Most of the time. And I have amends to make, still.
“There were other things you could have involved yourself in—schools, charities.” He waved vaguely. “You didn’t have to take up something so gruesome, darling, just so you can feel useful.”
Grace paused, surprised at the vehemence, the plaintive note that she should prefer the company of the dead. How can I explain it, why I need to do this, when I never entirely confided in you at the time?
Max glanced away, put his cup down very precisely.
“In a few weeks it’s our anniversary—or would have been,” he said with dignity, eyes fixed beyond the hedge at the bottom of the garden, on some distant point away across the fields. “Fifteen years. I thought you might like to mark the occasion.”
“We’re not married any more, Max,” she reminded him gently. “It’s a kind and generous offer, but I’m sorry. I can’t go.”
“Can’t or won’t?” While his tone was light, Grace caught the sulky thread beneath it.
“Can’t, Max.” She smiled to soften the blow. “My life is very different now.”
He shrugged, scowling at the bulky camera bag.
“Ironic, isn’t it? When you first told me you were interested in photography, I assumed you were thinking of modelling,” he said, wry. “I wasn’t sure whether to be delighted or appalled.”
Grace lifted an eyebrow. “And now?”
“Oh, appalled, definitely.” He broke into a full-blown smile that showed off his white teeth against the natural tan of his skin. He rose, buttoned his jacket, shot a cuff to glance at his watch.
“What time is your flight?” Grace asked to cover the relief that he was leaving.
“I’m using up some of my hours on the jet. They’ll wait,” he said in a tone that suggested they better had. “I’m only away a few days. I’ve promised to be back for some local show next Saturday.” He grimaced. “I was browbeaten into being their main sponsor by a fearsome woman who’s the wife of our local MEP.”
“Not Angela Inglis?” A picture of a furious icy blonde in a field of dead lambs sprang into Grace’s mind. “I can’t imagine you letting her bully you into anything.”
Max turned. “You know her?”
“We’ve met only once. I don’t think we really hit it off.”
“Her husband is someone it’s unwise to annoy,” Max said. “Worth a day spent at some local shindig, anyway. Otherwise, I might be tempted to extend my trip and give it a miss.”
“And where is it you’re jetting off to this time?”
“Oh, somewhere I can hardly pronounce in Kazakhstan.”
She paused, frowning. “Is it likely to be dangerous?”
“Worried about me, darling?” He smiled at her again, a little patronising this time. The old Max. “Don’t be. I’m taking every precaution. And they’re so desperate for Western investment I very much doubt my hosts will let anything happen to me. They’re the kind of people who take their security very seriously.”
“Ah,” she said, grave. “I do hope you’re not getting mixed up in anything I should be taking a professional interest in.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but something in his face hardened. “I’ve always played fair, Grace—hard, but fair. In business and always with you.”
Grace saw him to his car. Watched silently while he reversed the big Mercedes out of the driveway and listened to the opulent note of its exhaust fade away down the lane.
Her thoughts turned unbidden to the detective, Nick Weston. He had something of the same intensity about him and, knowing she found the characteristic attractive, Grace made a mental note to be wary in his company. Perhaps inviting him into her home had been a mistake, she admitted.
Grace knew that she was the subject of some speculation around the station and had gone to some pains to keep her private life just that—private. If he chose to use the knowledge he’d gained to imply any kind of intimacy, it would be round the place faster than any schoolyard rumour.
But it was difficult to discount his compassion—his attitude towards the girl, Edith, for instance. He’d been unmistakably angry at what might have been done to her. An anger which transcended any feelings of foolishness that he’d been taken in, however briefly, by her act with the stripped-down rifle.
Interesting.
The awkward loneliness of the girl spoke to Grace in ways she found difficult to ignore. But as to Edith being capable—physically or psychologically—of carrying through such an act was another matter. Nick had called her a recipe for disaster and he was probably right.
Edith’s Gaucher rifle had been taken away for comparison, of course, but Grace already knew its .22 calibre could not have inflicted the injuries she’d documented.
So, what did?
Collecting her camera bag and the empty coffee cups, she moved inside, latching the French windows behind her. Tallie, lying with her back against the bottom step, raised her head briefly and huffed out a breath.
Grace moved through to the small study and booted up her MacBook, inserted a thumb-drive to make another pass through the crime scene pictures she’d downloaded the night before. She did so with an impartial gaze, disconnecting her emotional response from the scenes of slaughter.
Just as she was about to close the program down, something caught her eye. It was in the distant background to one of the overall shots she’d taken from the position of the body. Little more than a smudge of pale colour in the upper left-hand corner, near the top of Orton Scar.
Grace zoomed in as far as the resolution allowed. The shape solidified into a definite mass. There were no houses, so it could only have been a vehicle. Something square and blocky, like a delivery van.
She recalled a rough lay-by at the top of the hill affording a clear view out over the valley. It had been early morning, but perhaps this unknown driver saw or heard something?
Perhaps I’ll suggest to Nick that he follows it up, she thought. A faint smile hovered on her lips. Carefully.