twenty-two

“How do you propose to proceed?” Helen asked Rex.

They had just finished lunch in the beer garden of a local pub and were lingering in the sunshine amid other couples and small groups of people in business attire.

“I’d like to speak to someone who knew Cassie best, like her aunt. Penny gave me Cassie’s mother’s address, though I’d rather not impose on the mother in her time of grief.”

“No, it’s too soon, and I’m sure she’s been questioned enough by the police. Cassie’s room must have been combed through for evidence.”

“It has. Mike said nothing was found to indicate suicide or who might have shot her. Unfortunately, she misplaced her mobile the day before her death, and so a lot of phone history was lost with it.”

“Surely the police can get hold of her phone records from the phone company,” Helen said, pulling out a compact and a gold capsule of lipstick from her handbag.

“Phone numbers can be retrieved, certainly, and the contents of text messages, but it can take a while to get hold of them. They have Trey’s. Nothing there to indicate anything was other than a bed of roses between them. She was saving herself for marriage, according to Mike. No wonder Trey proposed so quickly.”

“Rex, really,” Helen said, returning her compact and lipstick to her bag, her mouth pearly pink again. “Ready?”

In unison, they got up from their table and crossed the trodden grass to the gate leading into a walled-in car park. Rex dropped Helen off at the house and made his way to the address once inhabited by Cassie Chase, which he found in an established residential street in a quiet leafy suburb south of Barley Close.

As he surveyed the opposing rows of well-maintained homes and mature trees, his heart plummeted when he saw the L-shaped bungalow with a concrete ramp leading up to the widened frosted glass door. A large bow window to the left looked out to the street; another, on the shorter projection of wall, faced into the garden, where spring flowers bordered the front of the enviably green lawn.

Parked by the kerb, he turned off the ignition. He had no intention of going up to the door and disturbing Cassie’s mother; he just wanted to get an idea of where her daughter had lived, so he might form a fuller picture of the victim.

He had the aunt’s surname in his notes from when Ron Wade had introduced her at the memorial service, and entered “Belinda Stokes” and the street name into the search engine on his phone. Before he could read the first entry, a double tap on the car window startled him. Whipping his head around, he found himself staring into a pair of gentian blue eyes. Belinda’s face, lowered to his level, displayed a hesitant smile.

He pressed open the window. “You’re just the person I wanted to see,” he said, handing over his card from his wallet.

“I recognized you from the service. A QC from Scotland,” she read with the aid of a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles hung on a chain around her neck. “I feel honoured.” She smiled at him fully at that point and straightened up, stepping back from the car.

Rex got out and closed the door. “I’m helping the police with their inquiries, but not in the sense it’s usually understood.”

“I gathered as much. I’m staying at my sister’s for now. I was just taking a break in the garden while she napped. We can talk there. I heard the car engine and came to see who it might be, ready to chase away any reporter before they could ring the bell and wake her.”

He followed Belinda up the short driveway and through a gate in a white trellis fence enclosing a patio, which accommodated four white wrought-iron chairs arranged around a table of the same ornate design. Hybrid tea roses with blush and yellow petals, rather like the ones he had got Helen, fluttered gently in a flowerbed running along the brick wall of the house. A bee buzzed lazily over the blossoms in the warm breeze.

“Sit yourself down while I fetch some lemonade,” Belinda offered, proceeding towards the back of the bungalow.

Rex took a seat. A sketch pad and a B pencil with a thick soft point lay on the table. He saw that the rose bed was the subject of Belinda’s drawing. Through the white trelliswork, the occasional car and pedestrian passed by in the early afternoon sunshine.

“You’re an artist?” he asked when Belinda returned with two tall glasses and a jug rattling with ice on a tray.

“It’s mostly just a hobby, though I do get a bit of commissioned work.” She sat down and poured the lemonade. “I find it therapeutic to concentrate on nature during times of great sadness and stress.” She contemplated the roses, the source of her inspiration for her latest sketch. “I wish I’d pursued art in school, but the guidance counsellor persuaded me to take shorthand, arguing it was more vocational. I doubt people have used shorthand since the advent of Dictaphones. Still, it got me a decent job in an office after I left school.”

She flipped back the stiff pages of her pad. “I do pet portraits mainly. This is Peekaboo, Cassie’s dog.” She showed Rex drawings of a shaggy-haired Pekinese with short legs and a black snout. “Called Boo for short. She hasn’t left Cassie’s bed other than to stand by the front door at specific times waiting for her to come home. It’s heart-breaking. She knows something’s amiss.”

Belinda’s face saddened, but lost none of its serenity. Her smooth skin radiated a heathy glow, which he perceived to be natural. She did not appear to be wearing makeup other than a pale coat of lipstick and possibly a hint of mascara around her eyes. An assortment of silver and turquoise stone jewellery adorned her fingers, ear lobes, and neck above the embroidered, white peasant blouse. A brown dirndl skirt and beaded sandals completed her bohemian style of dress.

Rex took a drink of his lemonade. “Ah, just what I needed.”

“Fresh-squeezed and organic,” she said, raising her glass to her lips. She paused. “To Cassie,” she toasted. “And may we get the brute who did this to you, my dearest darling.”

“You don’t think she took her own life, then?” Rex asked cautiously.

Belinda shook her silvery mass of hair. “Heavens, no. It would have been a shamefully dramatic and inconsiderate thing to do, and our Cassie wasn’t like that. She had a zeal for life and was devoted to her mother. Joanna sometimes has difficulty even opening her pill bottles and swallowing. Cassie would never leave her voluntarily. In any case, if she had truly wanted to end her life, it would not have been with a gun. She was vehemently anti-guns.”

“I too am convinced she didn’t take her own life, but it seems someone wanted to make it appear so.”

“Have you come to tell me you know who?”

Rex placed his empty glass on the table. “I was hoping you might be able to help me with that. Any ideas?”

“Not positively. I don’t know the other actors in the play apart from Trey, except to say hello. Is Penny not able to help you?”

“She had more of a working relationship with them. She didn’t even know for certain that Trey and Cassie were going steady.”

“No, well, there was a good reason why they tried to keep that a secret.”

Rex fixed his gaze on her. “Someone else would have been jealous?” he ventured.

Belinda nodded. “Cassie was being stalked. It doesn’t matter by who, since he left before this awful thing happened, otherwise I’d be looking at him for her murder. It’s not unusual, men killing their ex-girlfriends because they don’t want anyone else to have them. That’s not love; it’s selfish, controlling behaviour.”

Rex wondered if Belinda spoke from direct experience. He had noticed she did not wear a wedding band. “Was this person Darrell Brewster?”

Belinda met his gaze. “So, you know about him.”

“I know he was originally in the play, not that he stalked your niece. In fact, no one I’ve spoken to mentioned he had feelings for Cassie.” But now, Rex had the connection he sought.

“They may not have been aware. Cassie had broken off with him long before Peril at Pinegrove Hall, but he didn’t give up.”

“Why did she split up with him? Was it because of Trey?”

Belinda distractedly smoothed down a bent corner of her sketch pad with her slim fingers. “No, that came after. Everything was wonderful at first. Darrell was very attentive and always thinking up fun things for them to do that didn’t cost money. He was a bit-part actor, mainly playing petty criminals on TV and appearing in a few non-speaking parts in films, and had to live with his mother out of financial necessity. He was often here playing cards and board games with Cassie and Joanna, who’s becoming increasingly housebound. He was very good with her; Joanna, I mean. Cassie had a full plate, what with helping take care of her mum, work, and theatre; and the moment she started pulling away, he began to get possessive. Now, Cassie wasn’t about to let anyone dictate to her what to do. Besides, she wanted stability. She had her mother to consider.”

Belinda smiled, adding, “And the height thing bothered her. One day she told me, ‘Auntie, if I marry Darrell, I won’t be able to wear heels on my wedding day.’ Of course, Darrell’s prospects might change in Los Angeles. Perhaps it was his aim to impress her and then come back and sweep her off her feet. I received a long text from him on Sunday, as a matter of fact. Obviously, he’s stunned. His mother had given him the devastating news.”

“Was she at the memorial service?” Rex asked.

“I don’t know. I had to take my sister home.” Belinda took a quick sip of lemonade. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that about Darrell being capable of killing my niece. It’s not really fair.”

“Did he ever display violence towards her?”

“Nothing provable. One of her tyres punctured by a roof nail. Some ripped clothing in her room, which could have been Boo with her little claws. A gold chain with a heart pendant from Trey that went missing, but which she thought might have come apart at work when she was removing her apron. Mostly just a barrage of calls and text messages, and small gifts and flowers. He left a red rose and a note on the doorstep before he took off for the States.”

“What did she do with the note?”

“What she always did. Crumpled it up and threw it away. She didn’t want Trey finding it. And Boo got out of the garden a month ago, through this gate.” Belinda glanced towards the trellis fence. “However, we’re careful about keeping it shut. We knew what Boo meant to Cassie. She went out of her mind when we couldn’t find her. Fortunately, late the next day a neighbour spotted Boo in the garden of a derelict house almost a mile away.”

“That’s a long walk for a little dog.”

“If she walked,” Belinda said meaningfully. “Boo’s collar with her name and phone number was missing too, but she was unharmed; just hungry and very frightened.”

“Did you like Darrell before you suspected him of doing these things?”

“Yes, but I did tell Cassie she was short-changing herself. And then Trey came along. They met doing The Lady of Shalott. She had the title role and he played Sir Lancelot.”

“So I heard,” Rex said. Perhaps Cassie’s fate was sealed the moment she became enamoured of Trey, just as the Lady of Shalott’s curse had been fulfilled the day she set eyes on the dashing Lancelot.

“And then they were in this latest play together. They were a perfect match.” With a faraway look in her eyes, Belinda gazed up at the azure sky beyond the tiled roof. “Why can’t she be sharing this idyllic day with us? I couldn’t have children of my own,” she confided suddenly. “My niece was such a blessing. I keep thinking how unfair it all is.”

Rex reached out and patted her hand.

“Please catch the person who did this. It won’t bring her back, but it may help make more sense of what happened.”

Rex promised he would do his utmost.