One look at Hugh and Alex decided small talk would be a bad idea. He hauled out chairs from tables in the saloon bar and thumped them on the wooden floors. From table to table he went, muttering under his breath.
Finally, she said, ‘What’s wrong, Hugh?’
‘If you can’t see, I won’t bore you with it. Where’s Scoot? He’s supposed to get in here and do these floors by six in the morning? If he doesn’t want the job, I’ll find someone who does.’
When she had got back from Radhika’s last night, Hugh was tight-lipped but working steadily. His mood had headed downward ever since. She had to think the visit to Green Friday and his temper were connected.
Neve Rhys was apparently in residence although Alex hadn’t set eyes on her. Lily said Neve had gone out very early in the morning. There had been a note left saying Perry Rhys, Neve’s husband, would arrive in a day or so to stay with her.
‘This is Scoot’s morning off,’ she said quietly. ‘He did the floors before he left last night. They look fine to me. Let’s have some coffee, Hugh. You sound in as much of a funk as I’m starting to feel.’
‘Why are you in a funk? Tony stepping out of line?’
This would be a morning to remember and hope never to repeat. Hugh wasn’t a man to make snide digs – or be deliberately annoying. ‘No,’ she told him, walking past and behind the bar to the kitchen. In fact she was – or had been – in good if slightly anxious spirits since she got up. She had old demons to face but she wasn’t unhappy about that – just a little nervous – but glad she’d made up her mind to take an action she should have taken long ago, no matter the result.
Rather than have coffee, she made a pot of tea, expecting Hugh to join her at any moment. He wouldn’t feel good about being surly.
He didn’t come. She could hear him working with the fireplace in the saloon bar. Even in warm weather they burned a fire in the evenings. The patrons liked it.
A tap sounded at the back door and Sam Brock, the locksmith who worked in several surrounding villages, looked inside. A round-faced man with curly blond hair, he was known to be efficient and honest, if garrulous. ‘Alex,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for Hugh.’
She poured strong tea, added milk and handed him the mug. ‘Come on in. I’ll round him up.’
‘Wait a moment,’ Sam said. He grimaced. ‘Do you know if there’s been any trouble at Green Friday … Hugh’s place on Trap Lane?’
Apprehension tensed her stomach. ‘Trap Lane?’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten its name.’
‘I think that’s it,’ Sam said.
Alex said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong at Green Friday,’ but couldn’t get Hugh’s visit to the house out of her mind.
‘I got worried up there. I was supposed to change all the locks, but I didn’t stay. Thought I should have a word with Hugh first. What a place that is.’
‘It is something,’ Alex said. ‘I haven’t been there since … not in a long time.’ She hadn’t intended to mention the past.
‘I know what you mean,’ Sam said. ‘A tragedy, that. But it’s over now. Or I hope it is.’
Alex swallowed hard. There were places and times you’d rather not revisit. ‘Of course, it is. Let me find Hugh for you.’
Leaving Sam in the kitchen, she went through to the main bar, expecting to find Hugh. He wasn’t there, but she found him in the restaurant on the other side of the building. ‘Hey, Hugh, what’s going on?’ she said. Bogie had come to sit at Hugh’s feet and stare up into the man’s face. ‘Don’t shut me out. You’ve been there for me when I’ve needed you. If you’ve got issues, I’m here.’
‘I’m feeling ace,’ he said and clamped his mouth shut.
Alex grimaced. ‘When did you start with that ace stuff? You feel good – I’m with you. Ace? I don’t know about that.’
‘I feel shitty. How’s that?’ He turned away from a window that looked over the little duck pond. ‘I don’t know what to say to you, Alex, except I apologize for being a foul-mouthed boor. And I can’t explain why right now, OK? When I can, you’ll be the first to know. I’m being an ass. Sorry.’
She went to him and gave him a hug around the waist. That on its own was something she’d never done before. ‘You are special to me. I know something’s bugging you, but I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell me – or whatever. Sam Brock is in the kitchen. He went up to do something to the locks at Green Friday. Now he’s looking for you. I think there was a problem. Why did the locks need to be changed?’
‘Oh, God.’ Hugh looked down at her, his dark eyes desperate. ‘Today? He’s supposed to change them all but not until next week. Right, I’d better see him.’
But he didn’t move at once.
Alex thought of him walking toward Green Friday last night and looked at the floor. He hadn’t mentioned being there, not that he needed to account for his movements.
Abruptly, Hugh turned on his heel and walked away. She followed him across the restaurant, through the archway that led to the short passage that passed the snug, and into the saloon bar. Sam Brock was in the middle of the room, shuffling back and forth.
‘All right then, Hugh? I just came down from Green Friday. You asked me to get up there early. I know you said next week but I had some time now. I hope that was all right.’
Hugh gave no response.
Alex made to leave but Hugh turned and said, ‘You don’t have to go.’
Sam said, ‘I was going to start on the front door but it was open so I went inside and called out. No one answered, like. I wasn’t sure what to do. I went a bit farther and kept shouting. There wasn’t anyone there but there was dried blood on the tiles in the hall. Smears of it. It went all the way to the kitchen. A wine bottle was broken on the floor and there was more blood – a lot more. That’s when I stopped. I was going to call the police but I thought I should check to see if anyone was in the house and injured. The whole place was empty. Then I decided you should know before I got the police in.’
Alex gripped the edge of a table and looked at the side of Hugh’s rigid face. ‘You could have called me from the house,’ he said.
‘I wanted to get out of there.’
‘Right,’ Hugh said, suddenly sounding vague. He drummed his fingers on the back of a chair.
‘What do you want me to do now?’ Sam said.
‘We have to call the police,’ Hugh said. He looked at Alex. ‘What else can we do?’
‘I don’t know.’ She could scarcely breathe.
‘Anything else?’ Hugh said to Sam.
The man turned crimson. ‘I had to check in case I could help someone. In a bedroom there were clothes tossed about. Women’s clothes. And there’s a car out back. A Mercedes. Kind of dark grey, I think. There were some things scattered on the bed. Lipstick, that kind of stuff. A few pounds. Notes and coins.’ He worked something from the front pocket of his overalls. ‘And this.’
He gave a couple of photographs to Hugh.
‘Holy hell,’ Hugh said under his breath.
‘What is it?’ Alex said. ‘What’s happened?’
‘A piece of history,’ he told her, handing over one of the photos. ‘Probably taken twenty years ago.’
One picture was of Hugh, probably in his early twenties, his black hair ruffled and longer than Alex had ever seen it, with a very blue sky behind him and scrubby, wind-raked trees on a craggy cliff edge. He was smiling over his shoulder at whoever was taking the picture but looked as if the smile was forced and the photographer had taken him by surprise.
Automatically Alex looked at the back. Written in precise script was ‘My Hugh’ and nothing more. The other photo was of a thickset man standing in front of a wall painted in bright colors, but in the foreground, the man was badly out of focus. She dropped them both on the table. ‘It’s too late now but we shouldn’t be touching them. Did you pick up anything else, Sam?’
‘No. Should you lose those, d’you think, Hugh?’ Sam said. ‘I don’t mean I think you did anything in that house … but you know how things can get messed up when the police start in.’ He turned red again.
‘Thanks for the concern,’ Hugh said. ‘Even if I thought it was a good idea, it would get out that I’d destroyed evidence.’ He glanced at Alex. ‘Our local PI will agree with me there, I think.’
‘I’m no PI and we don’t know anything’s happened yet,’ Alex said, with more conviction than she felt. ‘Should we go to Green Friday with Sam and check around before we call the police? There may be nothing really wrong. Or is that a bad idea?’
‘No,’ Hugh said. ‘Let’s do it before we make fools of ourselves with your copper friends.’
Alex picked the photographs up again. She was losing patience with her manager.
‘I don’t like any of this,’ Sam interjected. ‘Could be someone hiding out up there – waiting.’
‘Don’t come then, Sam,’ Hugh said. ‘Or you, Alex. It’ll only take one to deal with it.’
‘I’m coming,’ Alex said promptly, and Sam fell in with them. ‘The photos better go in a plastic bag first. Let’s take my vehicle,’ she added, certain there was a lot Hugh wasn’t saying.
Within the hour the three of them sat on the front steps of Green Friday, waiting for the police. What they’d found inside the house matched Sam’s report. Alex took deep breaths, trying to settle the jumpiness in her stomach. She had made sure they did not move or touch anything but it was too late to take back what Sam had already done to the scene and she had a feeling he had likely shifted a few other things.
‘Looks like something nasty happened, doesn’t it?’ Sam said. Repeatedly, he pulled out a carefully ironed and folded white handkerchief and wiped his brow and the palms of his hands. ‘I don’t understand why we’ve had so many crimes in the area – killings, I mean.’
‘For all we know this goes on everywhere,’ Alex said. ‘Anyway, we don’t know whether or not there’s been a killing here. More likely not. I was thinking, though. That wine bottle fell and broke. Why wouldn’t it be reasonable for whoever was cut to go looking for help?’
‘Why not use the phone?’ Hugh said. He’d been silent since they entered the house until now. ‘Why not get in a car and go to a hospital? Where’s the victim? And there’s no sign of anyone, anywhere. We haven’t heard about an accident. If someone had walked into Doc James’ surgery saying they’d cut themselves badly, or been attacked, we’d probably know about it by now. And if it had been an attack, he’d also call the police immediately.’ Hugh didn’t sound as if he’d noticed anything untoward at Green Friday when Alex had seen him going there the night before.
Alex sighed. Her lover, Tony Harrison, Doc James Harrison’s son and the local vet, had expected to see her around nine for a trip into Gloucester. He asked her to take a few hours off, vaguely talking about buying something to ‘zap up’ the breakfast room which was really the sitting room but still held on to its old name from before Tony had it almost completely changed.
‘Excuse me,’ Alex said. ‘You’ve reminded me I need to get in touch with Tony. It’ll only take a minute.’ She cocked her head but heard no approaching vehicles. ‘The police are taking their time.’
‘Do it,’ Hugh said, feeling his pockets. ‘Where’s my phone? Damn it, did I leave it inside?’ He ran through the door, glancing back at the driveway as he went.
Tony answered at the first ring and Alex told him where she was. True to form, he didn’t ask a lot of questions and told her he’d come and get her. She could ask Hugh to drive Sam back down.
When she rang off, Alex wondered how long the police would take to let the three of them go. You never knew which way their thought processes would go. Hugh returned, waving his phone. ‘In the kitchen. I’m glad I remembered before the police found it. I looked at the sink. I don’t think anyone attempted to wash any cuts there. I don’t get that.’
‘Tony’s coming for me,’ Alex told him. ‘I forgot we were going to Gloucester. I’ll give you my keys and you can drive Sam back to the Dog.’ She met Hugh’s eyes and tensed again at the anxiety there.
An unmarked car approached down the driveway. A burgundy Kia Optima – spiffy but with the unmistakable feel of a police vehicle.
‘Aye-aye,’ Sam said. ‘Here come the plods, I think. They drive better looking wheels these days.’
‘Woman at the wheel,’ Hugh said.
‘They do have women in the police force,’ Alex responded with a grin. ‘Who knows what they’ll let them do next.’
Hugh raised one brow. ‘Scary, if you ask me,’ he said.
The car swung to a stop in front of them and Alex almost groaned when Detective Constable Jillian Miller climbed out and walked toward them. The woman’s pretty but unfriendly face was tattooed on Alex’s memory from two previous cases.
Detective Inspector Bill Lamb, his thick, sandy crewcut unmistakable, strolled to join Miller. He smiled at Alex. She still found it hard to accept the change in his manner over the past year but the man’s friendship with Radhika, Tony’s assistant, had obviously softened him.
‘Detective Sergeant Jillian Miller, and this is my partner Detective Inspector Bill Lamb,’ Miller said with aplomb as if she shouldn’t have introduced Bill first, or better yet, waited for him to introduce both of them.
‘Alex Duggins of the Black Dog,’ Hugh said, indicating Alex, and as if Bill didn’t already know. ‘This is Sam Brock, our local locksmith and I’m Hugh Rhys. I manage the Black Dog for Alex.’
Bill had crossed his arms and looked toward the sky. He lowered his shuttered gaze to Miller – now Sergeant Miller, Alex noted. Did the woman know she irritated her boss?
‘Is Dan ill?’ Alex said before she plastered on a smile to cover the realization that she shouldn’t show any sign of familiarity, especially with Chief Inspector Dan O’Reilly, in front of the touchy Jillian Miller.
‘No,’ Bill said quickly, although Miller’s lips were already parted to make a response. ‘But I’ll let him tell you all about it when he sees you.’
Miller glared at him. Her long blond hair was worn in braids wound together from her crown to the nape of her neck. Her navy-blue suit fitted an excellent figure perfectly and plain navy pumps showed off a smashing pair of legs. Too bad she wore an almost constantly sour expression.
Hugh cleared his throat. ‘Sam came up to do some work for me this morning. I’ll show you what he found and you’ll understand why he didn’t want to get started until he’d talked to me. I can show you around inside.’
‘I’d better call for backup, boss,’ Miller said. ‘These three should be separated, so we’ll need help.’
‘Excuse me,’ Hugh said. ‘Alex has an appointment and she only came to give moral support. Tony Harrison’s coming to pick her up shortly.’
‘Poking her nose in, as usual,’ Miller said, not quite quietly enough. ‘She’ll have to wait just the same.’
‘Are you leaving your car for Hugh and his friend, Alex?’ Bill said, breaking his silence at last.
‘Yes. He’ll take it back to the Dog for me.’
‘Is there anyone in the house?’
‘No,’ Alex said. ‘Or not that I saw. Sam saw a car out back that doesn’t belong to Hugh? That’s right, isn’t it?’ she asked him.
‘Dark grey Mercedes, Sam thinks,’ Hugh said. ‘Not mine.’
‘Someone’s things are in there,’ Sam said. ‘All in a bedroom upstairs. And a bottle got broken on the kitchen floor. Glass cuts, too, I should think. There’s blood. And in the hallway. Tiles, you know. Everywhere. Hard stuff, those tiles – stone. There were things in the bathroom, the one in the bedroom with the clothes and so on.’
Alex felt disassociated, numb, listening to Sam blurt out every detail he could come up with.
‘The front door was open,’ Sam went on. ‘That’s how I knew something might be wrong. I gave it a push and it swung in. I kept shouting but there wasn’t any answer. Scared me when I saw the blood, I can tell you that.’
‘Understandable,’ Hugh said. He must wish Sam would shut up until he was asked some questions.
‘And there’s the Mercedes out back,’ Sam said. ‘So they didn’t leave in that.’