‘We’re doing exactly what the police are doing,’ Tony said. ‘Driving around looking for this mythical red turning orange Passat. Old Passat.’
‘It’s not mythical,’ Alex responded. ‘It belongs to the Peales. And the police have technology and manpower on their side.’
‘You know what I mean. I never heard of it before and I’ve certainly never seen it. I thought they walked everywhere.’
‘I know. Harvey hangs out with the motorcycle club a lot, but that’s mostly around here, I think, at the Black Dog. I don’t think he owns a motorcycle.’
They had driven for two hours, almost following the Land Rover’s nose through villages surrounding Folly.
‘Do you want to risk calling Bill?’ asked Tony, who was driving. He leaned to look up the driveway to a stone building on Kingcombe Lane after leaving Chipping Campden behind. ‘I’ll talk to him if you get him. If you’d rather, that is.’
‘You don’t think he’d call if they found Annie?’
‘I don’t know anymore,’ Tony said. ‘Let’s hope Hugh never caught up with him. I understand the police not wanting to publicize what happened to Sergeant Miller, but I don’t know how Bill could stand there in Gloucester and not tell the two of you that Annie never arrived. When Hugh found out he was so angry, he couldn’t speak.’
The day continued to bake everything in sight. They had to stop for a tractor to leave a field. Unfortunately, it turned in front of them and traveled on slowly in the same direction.
Alex got her mobile but held it on her leg. ‘I think I understand Bill not telling us. He must be under horrible pressure about losing Annie. And now it would be best if Harvey, or whoever was driving that car, didn’t find out the vehicle has been identified. If he’s got Annie and does a runner, it could be a total disaster. It may already be a total disaster. And Harvey is involved somehow.’ She thought about it. ‘It is. It’s all horrible. When Bill decided to talk, he said Sergeant Miller was really bruised as well as having a blow to the head. Do you think it’s the same person? With Percy and Wells – and now, Miller?’
‘Because of the way he attacks? Yes, I do. I’m going to drive closer to Folly again. We went through Naunton, but let’s do it again. Hugh said Annie likes Naunton.’
‘That doesn’t mean whoever she’s with likes it,’ Alex said, and picked up her mobile. ‘Let’s go there, though. All we can do is try.’
Bill finally answered. ‘Hello, Alex. No, we don’t have Annie.’
‘Has anyone seen that car?’ She no longer cared if she irritated him.
‘We put out a description. Had to. Several potential sightings – each one in an unlikely place and a long way from one another. Oh, might as well tell you it was definitely a man driving Annie’s Mini on the day of the fire. Forensics did their work on the images. No identification to share.’ He hung up.
Alex started searching again while she thought about what Bill had said.
‘Are you going to share?’ Tony asked.
She told him what had been said and turned toward him. ‘Who could this man driving the Mini be?’
‘No ideas here, unless it was Harvey – which doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Even if the forensic people are right, a man couldn’t be driving Annie’s Mini without her knowing about it? Not when she drove it away and she drove it back?’
‘That brings on the biggest question about this, doesn’t it? If Annie did know, she’s been complicit in a lot of lies – why?’
‘And was he the one who drove it to Green Friday?’
Questions but no answers.
No luck in or around Naunton. They carried on toward Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter, twin villages.
With the River Eye in sight, Tony slowed the Land Rover. ‘You have to go in by foot,’ he said. ‘Can you imagine them leaving the car and walking in? Why would they do that?’
‘I don’t think they would.’ Alex flopped back in her seat and stared out the window. ‘We’re just filling up time pretending we’re doing something that might be useful.’ She sat straight again and peered down a bank toward a track through a stand of trees. Below was a stone barn, in need of attention, with the driveway leading past it to a limestone farmhouse in poor condition. A dark green car arrived and drove behind the barn. Within moments a woman walked from the direction the car had taken, toward the farmhouse.
‘You’ve seen something,’ Tony said. ‘Tell me.’
‘Between that barn down there and the farmhouse behind it, there’s a gap that’s hidden by the barn. Look, Tony, at the woman walking to the door. Quick. Is that who I think it is?’
He watched until the woman let herself into the house and closed the door.
‘You go first,’ he said.
‘Neve Rhys! Tell me I wasn’t seeing things. How could you miss how tall she is and all those black clothes?’ She went for her mobile and Hugh picked up immediately with a barked, ‘Yes.’
‘Do you know if Neve has been, or could be staying at an old farmhouse near Lower Slaughter?’ She could hear him breathing, feel him thinking, so went ahead and told him exactly where it was. ‘They must have somewhere else to stay when they’re not bugging you at the Black Dog. Neve does, I should say. I don’t see Perry.’
‘No,’ Hugh said flatly. ‘I don’t know anything about this farmhouse. I have wondered if Neve had any connection to Annie. It seems vague, but I think they go out of their way not to acknowledge one another. I’m not sure they’ve ever spoken.’
‘I’ve wondered about them running into each other but I haven’t noticed what you’re talking about,’ Alex said. ‘That would be strange.’
‘I thought the same thing,’ Tony said when he had her attention again and she told him what she and Hugh had discussed. ‘I’m going to park and go down to see what I can see. She was very comfortable going to that house so it isn’t the first time. We can’t afford to miss a lead of any kind, even if I can’t figure out the connections.’
‘Neve and Perry sought out Annie at the tea rooms,’ Alex said. ‘She was very upset afterwards, remember. I don’t think the Burke sisters thought those two were there by accident although it was Neve, not Perry, who did all the talking.’
He gave a tuneless whistle. ‘Do we drive around and go up to the place? I don’t think so. If it is what it might be and Annie’s there, willingly or unwillingly, we don’t want them to see us coming. If it isn’t, I don’t want to call Bill in, then try to save face if it’s nothing.’
‘Neither do I.’ Suddenly, Alex’s breathing was shallow. ‘So let’s decide how to do this. We need a closer look at the car she was in first. I know the one she was driving the last time I saw her and the one down there looked like it.’
Tony made a U-turn, drove up a footpath that was definitely not meant for vehicles, pulled off to one side beneath some trees, and they got out. ‘You stay here,’ he said. ‘It won’t take two of us to find out what we’re seeing.’
Without arguing, Alex followed him across the road and started looking for a way to get closer.
‘Don’t run ahead or do anything on your own,’ Tony said, without surprise that she had ignored his request. ‘Please.’
‘What’s the worst that can happen? We say something silly about thinking we saw Neve and wanting to look at the farmhouse. Maybe we’re thinking of buying one.’
Tony shook his head. ‘Maybe you should leave this to me.’
At that, she left the conversation.
An overgrown track from the road quickly disappeared between trees. It was easy to veer right, staying under thick branches, and approach the barn. It seemed the trees grew right up to the ramshackle building on one side.
Stepping fast but carefully, Alex followed Tony, who must know she was still there, but made no further comment. She smiled at his broad back.
By unspoken agreement they made no attempt to leave the cover of mostly beech trees and made their way, with as little noise as possible, to where they could eventually see the barn. It was very close, its stones covered with moss where the trees shaded them.
At that wall, Tony edged along toward what was the front. They could see the driveway.
Voices, a man’s and a woman’s reached them and Tony pressed Alex close to the rough stones, flattening himself at the same time. He looked back at her, frowning, and held a finger to his lips. Alex’s scalp started its prickling act and she grimaced. She didn’t need a reminder that danger could be ahead of them.
‘You sure you didn’t hear anything?’ the man said. ‘Or read anything?’
‘I told you, no,’ the woman said. Alex was afraid she was already persuading herself this was Neve for sure. ‘I’m driving back – now – and I’ll check on the way.’
‘No, I don’t want you to leave. I need your help. You can’t pay me enough for all the extra trouble you’ve dropped on me.’
Tony reached for Alex, found her shoulder and pressed. What the man said sounded odd, but it didn’t have to be.
‘I’ve paid you plenty.’ The woman’s voice was hard and almost a snarl. ‘If you had just killed Sonia that night as we agreed we wouldn’t be in this mess. All you were told to do was deal with her and then the girl – when I said the time was right. It was too bad Percy Quillam showed up like that and we couldn’t expect it, but you didn’t think it through. Look what you’ve done. Look what has to be cleaned up because you had no control.’
‘Don’t start with me,’ the man was close to shouting, ‘I already told you that disposing of two bodies at once was impossible. It isn’t easy dragging a body to that pond. It wasn’t my fault the husband had turned up and attacked her. After that we needed Sonia alive for a few days so that – damn it, I didn’t want anyone saying the two of them had died at the same time! If Hugh is going to take the fall for Sonia, it couldn’t be that way.’
‘What is it with you and disposing of bodies in water?’ The woman sounded genuinely mystified … and mean. ‘You’ve got quite the history with watery graves. Now I know your secrets, and you’d better not push me any farther. Tell me about Wells? You still haven’t explained that one. And more water, you fool. Where’s your imagination? Tell me, did you have a good reason for what you did to Wells, too?’
‘Apart from my hating the dramatic tosser, you mean? Yes, he was upsetting Annie and at that point you and I hadn’t made a final decision what to do about her. Not for sure. But we didn’t want her going to Hugh with the truth about the letter. That would’ve given it all away, wouldn’t it?’ The man phrased that last comment as a question but it was more a statement. ‘Now, stop with the questions and come back inside with me.’
‘Don’t tell me you want sex again.’ The woman, Neve – Alex was sure of it now, didn’t sound completely opposed to the idea. ‘The first time I saw you, at that hellhole psych place, I didn’t have you pegged as a sex addict. I thought it was kind of fate that we found each other then.’
‘You have some good ideas, when you aren’t spouting your fantasies,’ he said, ‘but no, thanks anyway. We’ll save it for later. You need me and I need you – just as we decided months ago. We set it all up – partly thanks to Annie – and Sonia. Now, you know what needs to be done, and there’s more of it. It’s time.’
If only she recognized the man’s voice, Alex thought. It sounded familiar but she couldn’t place it.
‘And that,’ the woman said, ‘is all your fault for not making sure you’d done your job properly and then losing your head. And the police officer – I couldn’t believe it when I heard. How many more do you intend to kill and still think you’ll get away without consequences?’
‘Don’t start that again. I’m running out of patience with this, and with you.’ The man’s voice had become ominous. There was no reply this time.
Footfalls crunched on gravel, rushed footfalls.
‘They don’t know Miller’s not fatally wounded,’ Tony whispered and started moving forward and Alex followed – all the way to the corner of the building where he very carefully extended as little as possible of his head to see around.
His face jerked toward her and he offered his hand, which she held tightly. Quickly and quietly they moved around the corner and Alex saw that a door on the front of the building, the one nearest the farmhouse, was wide open, screening off any view of the approach to the front door.
They slipped inside the barn and Tony put an eye close to a door hinge and almost leaped back. He pushed her in front of him beside one of two cars parked inside. ‘I’m texting Bill,’ he said against her ear, and his thumbs probably moved over the keys faster than they ever had.
The passenger door on the car in front of them was slightly open, the failing light inside struggling to keep casting a thin veneer of yellow light.
An old Passat. Alex didn’t need to make sure it was the right color, but she thought it was some shade of red.
A stench all but overwhelmed her.
She looked at the empty passenger seat, only it wasn’t empty. Jean-clad legs, twisted sideways, were part of the man who had slid sideways in his seat.
Tony ducked his head in time with Alex.
The man’s face was streaked with thin rivulets of blood turned near black.
She didn’t need to get closer to know the glassy eyes had belonged to Harvey Peale.