Two

The following Saturday, Rex took the early morning train from Edinburgh to London. At St. Pancras he boarded the High Speed Link to Canterbury West Station, which arrived less than an hour later.

With only his weekend bag to carry, and the weather mild and dry that day, he decided to walk to St. Dunstan’s Terrace, where Phoebe resided in one of the late Regency townhouses.

Pausing briefly on the pavement, he admired the spacious white residence adorned with grey shutters and a wrought-iron balcony running along the entire upper storey. He mounted the short flight of steps to the varnished red door and rapped on the heavy brass knocker.

A sturdily built woman in a plain black dress and black compression stockings answered the door. Rex was taken aback. Had Phoebe aged so much since he had last seen her ten years ago?

“Mrs. Wells is expecting ye,” the elderly woman informed him. “Please come this way.”

“Ehm, thank you,” he said, instantly disabused of his misconception. This must be the housekeeper. He followed her into the hall where he deposited his bag and removed his coat. “You’re from Edinburgh?” he asked. Her accent, thicker than his, was unmistakably Lowland Scots. “Do you get back much?” he enquired.

“Not as much noo.”

“And how do you like Canterbury?”

“I like it jist fine.” She led him into an elegant drawing room overlooking the quiet residential street.

Phoebe Wells, much as he remembered her, though now with wisps of grey threaded through her mass of dark hair, rose from an armchair. “The tea, Annie,” she instructed the older woman, who immediately left the room.

Phoebe welcomed Rex with a soft kiss on the cheek, stretching up on her tiptoes to accomplish the gesture, owing to his above-average stature. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you accepted my invitation. Have you had lunch?”

Up close, he noticed lines etched around her eyes and downturned mouth, a feature inherited from her father. As was the case with Annie, she wore black, accentuating her natural pallor. The coral lipstick and jade beads around the collar of her turtleneck sweater displayed the only colour on her person.

“A sandwich on the train,” he said in reply to her question. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Well, Annie will bring us some tea. You look well. In fact, you haven’t aged much at all. The same red hair, but perhaps more grizzly in the beard?” Mrs. Wells continued to study him. “It’s very distinguished,” she pronounced. “And with your height you can carry off a bit of extra weight.” She indicated for him to take a chair next to hers.

“How are you?” he asked solicitously, sitting down. “How was the service? I’m sorry to have missed it.”

She gave a wan smile. “It was a quiet but dignified send-off. Dad wouldn’t have wanted a huge fuss. He’s been retired for ten years and has lived most of them here, largely forgotten by everyone back home in Edinburgh.”

Rex privately disputed the notion of his being forgotten. Judge Murder was something of a legend in Scottish legal circles and often talked about, especially since his death. An American colleague had referred to him wryly as His Orneryness. Lord Murgatroyd may have been avoided by some after his retirement, but never forgotten.

“Dad became something of a recluse,” Phoebe went on, fingering her jade necklace. “He couldn’t go out by himself towards the end as he tended to wander about and get lost.”

Rex nodded in commiseration.

“In any case, it wasn’t safe for him to be out on his own. An old man was robbed and beaten to death on St. Dunstan’s Terrace shortly before Dad died.” Phoebe gave an uncomprehending sigh.

“Was the mugger caught?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think there were any eyewitnesses, otherwise the police would have released one of those composite sketches. I expect it was some yob looking for drug money. Anyway, the point is I couldn’t think who to invite to the funeral. But I bought Dad the very best coffin. Solid oak with beautiful brass fittings.” Phoebe blinked away tears and looked down at the pale, manicured hands clasped in her lap.

“Ye did him proud,” Annie remarked, bustling in with a tea tray, which she placed on the low table between the two occupied armchairs.

“Thank you, Annie. I’ll take care of this. She’s a wonder in the kitchen,” Phoebe confided to Rex when the housekeeper had left the room. “Especially in the baking department. Please help yourself to a scone,” she said as she poured the tea.

“How many years has Annie been in your employ?” Rex asked, splitting open a scone still warm from the oven. He helped himself to butter and strawberry jam.

“Two years. Before that I had a live-in student who attended the university. Michaela. She was supposed to help with Dad in return for free board, but she wasn’t very reliable. Annie came highly recommended by the family she charred for in Edinburgh. She had just lost her husband and wanted to move south to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren in Essex. In a place called Brightlingsea.”

“Never heard of it.” Rex munched into his scone.

“It’s a small coastal town. London day trippers own most of the beach huts along the shore, or at least they did when I was last there. But that was a long time ago, with my husband.”

“I was sorry to hear aboot Dr. Wells,” Rex said with grave sincerity. He had found him to be an astute and agreeable man on the few occasions he had met him socially in Edinburgh.

“His death was so sudden.” Phoebe sighed heavily as she restored her tea cup to its saucer on the table.

“I forget the circumstances,” Rex faltered in apology.

“An aneurism. It happened while he was preparing oysters for a party. I can’t bear to look at an oyster now. You never remarried, did you?”

“I’m engaged, as a matter of fact.” Rex smiled at the thought of Helen.

“Oh.” Phoebe stiffened in her chair. “How nice,” she added belatedly.

“So you still have doubts regarding your father’s death,” Rex stated, since that was the main purpose of his visit.

“Yes, and more so than ever. You don’t think I’m being irrational, do you? Dad wasn’t always an easy man to get along with, especially during the last years of his life, but I hate the thought of him suffering at some evil person’s hand and never knowing the truth.”

“Do you fear the killer might come back?” Rex asked with concern for her safety.

Phoebe shook her head in the negative, and then paused. “Well, I suppose I do in a way, although that’s not what’s been preying on my mind. I mean, wouldn’t I have been murdered at the same time if that was the intruder’s intention?”

“You were home that night?”

“I’m almost always home,” she said bitterly.

Rex feared this might be a long weekend and began to privately question Phoebe Wells’ motives for inviting him to Canterbury. Hopefully, her account of foul play was not pure fabrication.

An unlocked window and a missing stamp album were not a lot to be going on with, he reflected. The story about the old man being mugged in the street would have to be verified. In the meantime, he had little choice but to continue with his investigation and hope either to catch the killer or else catch Phoebe out in a lie.