The emergency operator kept her on the phone, kept talking. Stopped making sense.
She should stay where she was. Not go outside under any circumstances. A unit was on the way. Was she sure this wasn’t a medical emergency? What was she hearing now? Had the lights gone off yet?
The questions went around and around in her head.
‘Have the lights gone off, ma’am?’
‘You ask the same things over and over,’ Alex said, hearing her words slur together. ‘The police always ask questions like that – the same questions. The lights are still on. They must be right outside.’
‘Are there sensors at the back of the house?’ the operator asked.
‘Why? I mean, yes.’
‘Are those on, too? Are they on the same circuit?’
Alex rubbed at her stinging eyes. The dog jumped up and down and barked. He flew up at the windowsill, then threw himself against the wall, howling.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alex said. ‘I’m making a mess of this—’
‘It’s OK. It won’t be long.’
‘I can’t see the back of the house from here but those lights are on the same circuit, yes.’
Barely at first, then steadily louder came the urgent warning from police sirens.
‘They’re coming!’ Alex tried to straighten her knees, to stand without shaking.
The lights went out.
Alex closed her eyes. ‘Bogie,’ she whispered. ‘Come here, boy.’
In an instant the dog’s front paws landed on her thighs and Alex dropped to her knees to hold on tight to the warm, wiry body.
When more lights flashed across her closed eyelids she knew the police car had turned down the driveway. And another vehicle came. Doors slammed and pounding came from the front door.
‘They’re here,’ she said into the phone and dropped it to shove the chest of drawers blocking her bedroom door. She’d only moved it a foot before she unlocked and opened the door enough to squeeze through on to the landing.
Clinging to the banisters, she ran downstairs but stopped by the front door. ‘Who is it?’ she cried, and her voice broke.
‘Police, Ms Bailey-Jones. It’s Dan O’Reilly.’
The detective inspector? She let him in, stood there on bare feet wearing her flannel pajamas.
What felt like hours later, Dan O’Reilly came through the back door, passed through the little mud room and met Alex where she paced in the kitchen.
At least the inspector didn’t look either annoyed or disbelieving, but she knew before a word was said that the men who had been searching her gardens hadn’t found anything to put her mind at rest.
‘Coffee smells good,’ O’Reilly said. He picked up a mug, raised it and waited for her invitation before filling it from the percolator. He drank, looking from her to the kitchen over the rim of the mug.
‘So, nothing?’ she said. ‘It’s weird to hope there’s a maniac found in your garden while you also hope there’s no one at all out there. I feel like a fool.’
He shook his head slightly. There were strands of gray in his wind-ruffled dark hair.
Alex looked away. She’d already drunk too much coffee. At least she’d been able to pull on clothes, jeans and a sweater that felt comfortable.
‘I don’t understand how you were the first to get here,’ she said.
‘I was at Constable and Mrs Frye’s. They were good enough to insist I stay when I said I wasn’t comfortable getting too far away at this point.’
Alex’s mix of relief and self-consciousness evaporated. His simple statement creeped her out.
Snow had turned the shoulders of his tan raincoat dark and wet. ‘It’s not unusual to block reality when you’re faced with death. Particularly sudden and violent death.’
Without looking, Alex found the back of a chair and scraped the legs away from the table. She sat down and propped her elbows.
‘We’re glad you called,’ the officer said. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to do anything else.’
‘But there wasn’t really a reason to be scared,’ she told him. ‘Now I almost wish you’d found him out there. This would all be over then.’
‘Are you sure you saw the lights go on?’
Anger flashed at her, stiffening her body and making blood rush to her face. ‘You think I imagined it? I didn’t imagine it. It was like being played with, like someone trying to frighten me. And the dog barked, too.’
O’Reilly had already expressed his surprise at finding Bogie there. ‘Dogs are sensitive to human moods, or some of them are. He could have felt your anxiety.’
Staying in her seat was an effort. ‘OK, I made it all up because I wanted to feel like a fool. Sorry I bothered everyone.’ She sounded childish in her own ears.
‘No,’ he said quietly, and his dark eyes held hers steadily. ‘You’re in the middle of an unsolved murder case. I don’t say that to worry you even more but you have to be careful, very careful.’
‘The next thing you’ll say is that I should move out of my house. I’m not going to. If someone wants to find me badly enough, they will. Wherever I go, I’ll be vigilant. OK?’
He smiled and sat opposite her at the table. ‘We’ll all be more comfortable if you’re down in the village. You included.’
Bogie sidled up beside her and rested his head on her thigh. If she didn’t believe dogs got sad, she’d tell herself she was making it up. He was sad and lost and she was the only thin thread he had to safety. She considered what O’Reilly was suggesting. It was time to stop proving how independent she was. Staying here tonight would be stupid.
Alex scratched the dog’s head. ‘OK, I can go to the Black Dog.’ She would feel better with people around.
‘Looks as if you’ve found a friend,’ O’Reilly said.
‘He’s my kind of fellow,’ Alex responded. ‘What are you trying to find from the crime scene?’
The blank look she got was completely convincing but she wasn’t one to give up so easily.
‘You were looking for something in the woods where the man died. I watched your men. And you asked me if I’d found anything.’
Mentioning the ring theory didn’t feel right. Let him tell her.
He smiled at her and drank more coffee.
There were digestive biscuits in a tin on the counter. Alex got up, thought about putting some on a plate but opened the lid and set the tin in front of him instead. O’Reilly promptly took out two biscuits and demolished the first in three bites.
‘You’re stalling,’ she said while his mouth was full. ‘I bet you’ve had people searching for something all through daylight hours. What?’
He finished the second biscuit with more coffee.
‘Had enough time to think of an excuse not to answer?’ Alex said.
O’Reilly laughed. ‘You almost think like a detective. We may make one of you yet.’ He held up a hand. ‘Forget I said that. The question was routine.’
‘You didn’t have anything specific in mind?’ She wouldn’t mention she knew Tony had been asked the same question.
‘We would be interested in anything that caught your attention.’
How to deny the truth without telling a lie?
She’d leave it for now. ‘Do you know who the man is yet?’
‘No.’
‘No wallet or anything?’ Tony had said there wasn’t, but …
O’Reilly let out a long breath. ‘Not a thing.’
‘Can anyone tell what order he was from?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Couldn’t you have someone go through descriptions of the habits different orders wear?’ She leaned toward him.
‘Thanks for the tip.’
There was laughter in O’Reilly’s voice. He thought she was playing amateur detective, but she didn’t regret the question. She would see if there was a way to find out the details of that habit. If she could find out something useful, where was the harm?
A rap at the back door preceded the entrance of a uniformed policeman. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Could you come and have a look at this, please?’
On his feet immediately, O’Reilly said, ‘Stay here.’
Ignoring the order, Alex followed as closely as she could without running into his back.
Several officers stood at the back of her Land Rover, parked beside a dry stone wall that ran from the front of the property to disappear behind the garage.
‘I asked you to stay put,’ O’Reilly said, still striding purposefully toward the vehicle.
Alex didn’t answer, just kept on following.
Flashlights illuminated the Land Rover and she saw one policeman kneeling to train his light on a wheel. ‘There,’ he said, pointing.
Then she saw the way the whole vehicle canted to one side. The right, rear tire was flat.
‘He was out here,’ Alex exclaimed. A deep slash from some sort of sharp knife or tool must have done the job, but another dart with a yellow flight had been embedded in the tire.
‘Shit,’ said O’Reilly. ‘Window dressing. He’s into games.’