| |
YOU EVER WONDER how some people get published?
I’d read some drivel but wow could Bunion suck at a person’s resolve until drinking seemed like the only medication. Before you ask, I didn’t medicate myself. I’d been drunk three times since my birthday and that was three times too many. Even the thought of stout made my stomach roll.
We’d sent Bob with Jake on a tour of the grounds, Edwina had taken to medicating herself but with tea and Fiona still looked drunk as we hunched around the dining room table with text-to-speech running roughshod over the English language.
––––––––
Lady Sophie took advantage of her grandfather’s disreputable connections and obtained a false passport where she travelled all around the globe, carrying out crimes on their behalf.
––––––––
I looked to Edwina who shrugged. “I have no idea if he had disreputable connections. I know that he had a great deal of power and the estate was at its richest under him.”
“Do you remember any of his connections?” I wasn’t sure when Sophie’s grandfather had died so Edwina could have been a child for all I knew.
“Yes, his accountant was Walter . . . what was his name?” She tapped her lip and clicked her fingers to herself then tutted. “It’ll come to me.”
Fiona patted her on the hand. “I remember Walter. I think they just called him Walter though, but he was the only one who looked mildly dodgy, the rest were all aristocrats like the Hayes.”
Edwina nodded. “I concur. I think Walter went to Eton with him.”
“So is Bunion right? Could Sophie’s grandfather have been involved in anything like that?” It would have taken some organising even if it had been twenty two years ago . . . then again, I never did immigration either. Maybe it didn’t take much organising.
“I can’t imagine so,” Edwina said and shook her head. “He would have been brought to task. And, that being said, Sophie’s grandfather had died six months before she disappeared.”
Hmm. That counted Bunion’s suspicions on that out . . . maybe.
––––––––
Deeply involved in criminal ways, Sophie enjoyed the taste of freedom and an illicit relationship with a highly infamous criminal. The Australian police were then called to a crime scene where three bodies had been cut down by a sabre much like the weapon Sophie used to kill Eugenie.
––––––––
“Well, we know he was closer to the truth than we’d like there.” I met Fiona’s worried gaze. “But I thought there’d been four victims?”
“Keep going,” she mumbled and nursed a coffee.
––––––––
When on her way to receive medical care, she killed the police officer escorting her and fled back to her criminal lover who shielded her from the ensuing police hunt.
––––––––
“That would have been newsworthy, surely.” I shook my head. “There would have been some physical description of her or photo or camera shot.”
Fiona nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“Yes, we only knew there was someone who might match Sophie’s description.” Edwina slammed her cup down. “It’s a preposterous report.”
“Then again, the guy thought Eugenie was in the flower bed.” I shrugged—you already know my thoughts on journalism so you can guess that I wasn’t stunned into silence.
––––––––
Then, nearly fifteen years later, Sophie’s bereft mother and father went to find her after a tip off from a man in London. They never arrived at the location of the meeting and were found three weeks later on a boat off the Cayman Islands.
––––––––
“This true?” Forget poor Wood. If this was the case, we needed an international collaboration and the National Crime Agency. Wood didn’t stand a chance.
“The late Lord and Lady Haye were found in the Bahamas on a yacht but the public stance was that they had sank off the Cayman Islands, yes.” Edwina sighed and took her glasses off to polish them. “Henry wanted to play down what had happened because of what had happened with Sophie and Eugenie. He didn’t want a fuss.”
“Yeah, but he must have been sweating because the estate would have gone to . . . whoever gets it . . . if there’s no Haye around.” I shook my head. It got more complicated the more I learned about the Haye family. The only part that seemed simple was that Henry Haye was my prime suspect in it all.
“No, he inherited,” Edwina said, confusion in her eyes.
“He couldn’t have. He was illegitimate,” I said but, ooh, weren’t they staring at me like I’d said something they hadn’t known. Huh. Guess that was privileged information. “Raquel said that before Sophie, their genes were incompatible.” That was my polite version. “Sophie was their only child.”
They exchanged a look.
“She was being serious.” I hoped. Why would she tell me otherwise?
“I don’t think Henry knew that,” Fiona mumbled and put her hands over her mouth. “But I do know that he was furious because no one had the papers for the estate?”
Edwina nodded. “He was ready to take a crowbar to the walls.”
––––––––
The poor, lonely Henry vowed to find out the truth and revisited the site where Sophie had been seen in Australia. His presence alerted Sophie’s criminal lover who helped Sophie to be rid of the only person between her and the Haye fortune.
––––––––
“Is Bunion Henry’s PR or what?” I rolled my eyes. Poor and lonely? “Give me a break.”
Fiona snickered. “He tries to evidence it for the next two hundred odd pages.”
“He disappeared in the Whitsundays.” Edwina pursed her lips. “But he went there to holiday.” She drummed her nails to the table. “Asking Sophie about this would be utterly fruitless, I fear.”
I agreed. Sophie was not a helpful witness. So was I suspicious of her or wasn’t I?
“Morgan,” Jimmy said into the radio. “I have Detective Inspector Wood here. She wants to see Lady Haye . . . er . . . now . . .”
I tensed. Uh oh. “Again? What does she want, marriage?”
“Morgan,” Wood barked in the background. Oops, guess she’d heard. “I have a dead body who just so happened to be Lady Haye’s accountant. I am coming in to see her.”
“She’s sleeping or at least in her room when I saw her,” I said instead of the truth. “Let me check with Edwina.”
Edwina stared at me.
“You have five minutes to wake her and we are coming in.” Wood sounded like she knew full well Sophie wasn’t in,
“That should be okay.” I turned my radio off. If Wood wasn’t “asking” for entry, that meant she intended to arrest Sophie again. “Fiona, grab Bob. I want you to go hide in Jake’s cottage until the police are gone.”
Fiona nodded, panic in her eyes.
“Edwina, I need a phone.” I got up and paced around in a circle. It helped . . . ish. “Do you have a phone?”
“Yes, but Lady Haye doesn’t,” she said with confusion in her eyes. “The police confiscated it. I don’t think she’s had it back yet.”
“I’ve seen her with a phone.” Even when it was confiscated. Hmmm. I hurried along the hall to her office. Frank, funnily enough, wasn’t there. Star employee. I headed over to Sophie’s desk and pulled open the drawers. Then stopped. A pistol. “Fuck.”
Edwina poked her head around.
“Just get Fiona to the cottage, now.” I rubbed my right hand to my clammy neck as Edwina scurried off.
The pistol could be the murder weapon but why would you keep the murder weapon in your own desk? No, it could have been placed there.
Either way, if Sophie’s accountant was dead and there was a pistol in her drawer . . . I grabbed my handkerchief from my pocket and picked the pistol out. She had a sim card taped to the back of the drawer behind it. I pulled it free and fumbled to put it in my phone.
There were two numbers on the phone. One was an international number. I hit the one for the UK.
Someone picked up.
“Ma’am,” I whispered, hoping that it was Sophie and I hadn’t called some scary criminal.
“Morgan?” Sophie’s voice was so near a growl I shuddered and nearly dropped the pistol.
“Wood is at the estate. Your accountant is dead. You have about ten minutes before they reach the manor. I don’t know where you are . . . but move it.” I shoved the drawer shut. “Please.”
Sophie laughed so low and so laced with danger that I shuddered.
I cut the line, sprinted out of the office, and down to the black marble stairs. I sprinted up them, all seven flights until I got the stone steps. I took a breath, hoping Sophie wasn’t up there, and sprinted up those too.
I could see the gates opening at the bottom of the estate. If Sophie had killed her accountant, she’d never get back in time, right?
Right?
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, I was nuts, compromised, and about to go to jail. Thank you for stating the obvious.
I headed to the first suit of armour and lifted his visor, then shrieked as a spider scuttled out of the way. I took the sim card from my phone, used the tape still stuck to my prosthesis and taped it to the inside of the helmet. Then I wrapped up the pistol tighter and jammed it at an angle so it hung inside the neck. If they were going to search the entire manor, it could take weeks for them to get to the eighth floor.
And, wow, was I actually thinking like a criminal.
––––––––
SOPHIE STORMED ALONG the tunnel, laptop under her arm. Her temper more acute than it had been in years. At least she’d cleaned her DNA from the scene.
She ducked up the spiral steps all the way through to the family wing and pulled off her clothes in the darkness, left the laptop there, and stepped out of the wall inside the fireplace of her bedroom. She washed off, quickly, in the shower—Jackie’s place had been a mess, blood everywhere—threw on some new clothes, headed back into the tunnel, and down into the study.
“Morgan, if you don’t open the door, I will assume you are perverting the course of justice.” Wood sounded ready to break down the door.
Sophie closed the bookcase, pulled a Sherlock Holmes mystery from it, and slid into her chair as the door opened.
Wood, Matthews, Morgan, Frank, and Edwina all stared at her.
The shocked silence would have been amusing in normal circumstances.
“Is there a reason why you are threatening my staff?” Sophie didn’t bother to look up from her book.
“I told you that Lady Haye was home,” Morgan muttered, sounding beyond relieved. “Are you happy now?”
“Morgan called your phone several times.” Wood glared at Morgan. “And I want to see it.”
Sophie raised her eyebrows. Thankfully her burner cell was with her clothes . . . behind her fireplace. “You still have my phone.”
Wood laughed. “As if you wouldn’t have bought another.”
“Believe what you wish.” She smiled at Morgan, who looked like she’d sprinted around the estate, twice. “Some women can be overly dramatic.” She glared at Wood. “Are you that keen to question me, again, that you have such a tantrum?”
Wood scowled. “Like you don’t know Jackie Rampone is dead.” She motioned to Morgan. “Hand over your phone or I’ll assume you’re as guilty as her.”
Morgan glared at her. “You know I don’t have to do any such thing.”
“Morgan, please. If you did call her phone, we need to see.” Matthews said it like she was begging Morgan not to comply.
“It’s fine.” Sophie held up her hand. “Please, feel free to ring it yourselves.”
“I’m not handing you my phone, Ruth. I don’t have to and I have no idea why you’ve charged in here just because you found another body. You can see that Sophie is in her study.” She threw her hands in the air. “You can check the CCTV to see if she left but, really, this is beyond harassment.”
Matthews pulled out her phone and hit call like she had them both in a snare.
Silence.
Sophie leaned onto her fist. “Is Jackie really dead?” She clenched her jaw. “That is . . . most unfortunate.” And she was beyond angry. How could Jackie have done it to her? How could she have stolen from a woman she was supposed to love? It hurt. She blinked a few times. Clearly she was not enough like her grandfather. He’d have never suffered such . . . ignominy.
Matthews rang the phone again, then handed it to Wood. “It could be on silent.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you’re not guilty, Lady Haye, then you have no reason to hide the contents of your pockets.”
“Why don’t I let you search me too? That way we can really run roughshod over my rights.” Sophie wagged her finger through the air. “No, thank you.”
“What grounds do you have for searching her?” Morgan said like she already knew but was trying none the less.
“That vital evidence is on her person,” Matthews shot back.
“Under PACE?” Morgan shook her head. “Section eighteen and thirty two of the act only give you the power of search or seizure when she’s been arrested.”
“Then we’ll arrest her,” Matthews snapped.
“Why?” Morgan folded her arms. “I want a clear reason why you suspect my client to be guilty of unlawfully killing this person?”
Wood glared at her. “I don’t have to explain the lawfulness of the arrest.”
“No, but if you drag my client to the station under arrest a second time without a solid basis for why you believe she is responsible, I will file several complaints.” Morgan’s hand whirred as she flicked it around. “Do you believe she’s guilty of murdering Rampone? What’s your reasonable cause here, hmm? Was she seen near the crime? Is there clear evidence pointing to her presence? What is your reason?”
Wood opened and closed her mouth.
“Exactly, you don’t have cause to suspect her and you can’t just arrest people because you have a personal gripe against them.” Morgan glared at Wood and Matthews who shrank back.
Oh, now this was an opportunity too enticing to pass up. Sophie stood and held out her arms from her sides. “Why doesn’t Morgan put your mind at ease and search me?”
Morgan stared at her, pale green eyes glinting.
“Surely they trust your honesty,” Sophie said, knowing she was smiling but the grimace on Matthews’ face was priceless. “If I have some weapon or phone concealed on me, they will know I’m guilty, yes?”
“I’m happy with that.” Wood nodded to Morgan and Matthews looked like she’d throttle her.
It was almost amusing enough to lift her mood.
Morgan walked over and started to pat her down.
“Make sure to be thorough, we wouldn’t want the officers left uncertain now, would we?” Sophie smiled down at Morgan who was trying not to tremble. Her left hand whirred almost as if it enjoyed checking her over.
Wood smiled as if she was certain it would incriminate them both, only Morgan came up with some tissues fused into a ball in the wash and nothing more.
“Are we satisfied?” Sophie said as Morgan stepped away. “Or do you feel I’ve concealed a phone elsewhere?”
Matthews grunted as if daring Wood to agree to anything more.
“Do you still wish to contravene Morgan’s Human Rights too?” She smiled at Morgan who looked impressed. “Which Article?”
“Article eight, ma’am.” Morgan gave a curt nod.
“No,” Matthews said, glare on Wood like she had been embarrassed enough. “I think we have all we need, isn’t that right, ma’am?”
Wood nodded, gaze locked with Sophie’s.
“Now I have proven, yet again, that I am not in the business of killing my staff, I am going to defend them.” Edwina and Frank, loitering in the doorway, exchanged a look. “I have put up with your harassment long enough. It is one thing to target me but targeting my staff is a step too far.” She slammed her fist to her desk. “Morgan Lloyd was a better police woman than you will ever be, a better person than you will ever be, and if you don’t get out of my house this minute, I will sue your department and demolish your career.” She reined in her growl. “Get. Out.”
Wood and Matthews hurried out, and Sophie sucked in her breaths, seething, searching for the control not to rip a sword from the wall and skewer them.
Wood stopped by Frank and Edwina, then glanced over her shoulder, that smile returning. “Did you see Lady Haye enter this office?”
Edwina nodded. “I thought she had gone for a lie down. It was my fault Morgan thought that.”
Frank’s chin wobbled.
Sophie glared at him, anger pounding through her. Would he turn on her like Jackie?
“I have been at my desk all day,” he said, taking a breath. “I get flustered when you ask me in that tone.”
Edwina turned to him and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Frank. She needs to know so we can clear up this nonsense, yes?”
Frank rubbed at his throat. Yes, she would throttle him, slowly.
Morgan came to her side. She placed her left hand to the small of Sophie’s back out of view of Matthews who was blocked by the door. Morgan rubbed her thumb to and fro, the smooth metal. Smooth cool metal.
“Yes, of course she was,” Frank muttered then tided his tie. “Why would I be at my desk otherwise?” He pursed his lips at Wood. “She did go to lie down but I assume she couldn’t sleep and returned two hours ago where she has remained and in constant contact with me.”
Slow, soothing touch. Strong touch.
“Why didn’t you answer the phone then?” Matthews snapped and threw her hands in the air.
“I put it on silent. It distracts me when I’m working.” He shrugged, his hands shaking.
“Then, we’re sorry we wasted your time, Lady Haye.” Matthews growled at him, sounding more and more like she’d had enough of annoying Morgan more than Sophie. “Let’s go back to the scene.”
Wood stomped off. Matthews sighed and followed her.
“Come, Morgan, it is best we leave Sophie in peace.” Edwina held out her hand, worry in her eyes.
Morgan didn’t move but kept running her thumb in slow circles.
“Morgan, if you please?” Edwina motioned to the door.
“Yes . . . of course . . .” Morgan didn’t look at her but dropped her hand away and strode out.
Edwina shut the door.
Sophie leaned onto the desk and let out a shuddering breath. Her temper swirled around her until her focus narrowed, her head pounded, and she was ready to tear someone apart.
Instead, she ripped open her office door, marched up to Frank’s desk and leaned close to his ear. “Your hesitation was noted.”
Frank hunched. “I hate it when women bark orders at me.”
Sophie leaned onto the desk and growled, low and threatening. “That had better be your reason.” She grabbed him by the chin and yanked him up to glare into his wide eyes. “Or I will find a spot in the flowerbed for you.”
He sucked in his wobbling chin like a tortoise.
She turned and headed to the black marble stairs only to catch Morgan watching her from the service entrance. Morgan studied her like she was unsure of what she had done.
“We need to get Bob and Fiona back to the manor,” Edwina muttered, yanking Morgan by the arm.
Morgan nodded and let herself be pulled out.
Sophie strode up the stairs uncertain why Morgan had been so foolish but it was clear that Morgan was willing to risk her liberty to warn her, was willing to lie for her, protect her, and cover her tracks. How had she secured that kind of loyalty in spite of warning her? She hadn’t played with her, much, but Morgan was exactly where she needed her to be.
Sophie smiled and slowed to a stroll. Such an invitation was too tempting to resist.