The policeman who tapped on her doorjamb looked about eighteen, if that. His helmet under his arm, he showed his warrant card and said, ‘Constable Smith. You called in about some trouble.’
Alex walked toward him, deciding what to say. She gave a shaky cough. ‘I take it your people did this? Ransacked my room?’
His brown eyes got very round. ‘Excuse me?’
‘This.’ With one arm she took in sheets tossed on one side of the bed, the mattress thrown off so it came to rest against an easy chair missing its cushions and a chest from which all five drawers lolled open and the innards were scattered and trailing.
‘It’s a good job I don’t have any more personal things here than I do. If you’d waited until tomorrow, I would have made a run up to my house for more supplies – then it would have been more fun for you. What did you people think you were, kids in a sandbox?’ As seconds passed she became more furious. ‘What were you hoping to find?’
‘Fuck!’
Tony’s arrival and opening salvo struck her momentarily dumb.
He didn’t apologize. ‘What a damn nerve. And the police did this?’
He advanced on the much smaller copper.
Katie, grinning as only she could, turned her ears into pointed wings that stood straight out to the sides of her head and started sniffing around the room.
‘Sir,’ said the red-faced young man, his blush quite fetching on dark skin. He sounded very Welsh. ‘I don’t know what any of this is about. I came in response to this lady’s request. I’m on loan, out of Broadway. We’re helping out. If you have any complaints about the department, I suggest you contact them. Under the circumstances, I’m calling for back-up.’ He worked a police radio from beneath the heavy yellow slicker he wore over his uniform and pressed buttons.
‘Back-up?’ Tony sputtered. ‘Is that because we’re so bloody terrifying? Do you think we’re going to beat you up? Look at this place. Why throw the few bits and pieces off the desk? It’s just vandalism. You broke a bottle of perfume. Yes, that’s what we’ve got here, Alex, vandalism.’
Constable Smith had stepped past him on to the landing and continued talking without apparently hearing a word Tony said.
The mentioned perfume, the Je Reviens she favored, overwhelmed everything.
‘Right then,’ Smith said, facing them again. ‘Someone’s coming right away. They’ll be here quick enough. I’m sorry you’re upset. You should be, of course. I expect you’ll want to check for anything missing.’
‘Police,’ a very recognizable and officious voice said from the stairs. Detective Sergeant Lamb came into view, two steps at a time. ‘What’s all this, then, Constable Smith?’
‘Room break-in is what it looks like, sir. Lady came back and found it like this.’
Alex began to have a nasty feeling she was making a fool of herself. She cleared her throat, half watching Katie curl up on the pile of discarded bedding. ‘I was told you – or some of your people – came up here looking for me earlier,’ she said. ‘Why would you do this? If you’d asked to look around I’d have let you.’
Glancing at the room, Lamb smirked and, from the corner of her eye, Alex saw Tony make fists. She rushed to stand beside him and hold his arm.
‘When you ducked out of the rectory early this morning we wanted to know where you were. A couple of our officers checked here. I assure you they were never in this room. We would have needed a search warrant for that and we hadn’t had time to get one – even if we wanted it. You can get back to the parish hall,’ he told the constable, who left without another word.
‘Maybe I made a big mistake,’ Alex muttered. ‘It seemed so obvious. But someone’s been in here. Why, Sergeant? Can you think why someone would search my room?’
He rolled from his heels to his toes, not settling his baby blue eyes on anything in particular. ‘Whoever it was could have made pretty certain you wouldn’t even know they’d been here,’ he said. ‘But this was done so it would be obvious.’
Tony muttered something under his breath and got the detective’s full attention. ‘You have something to add, Doctor Harrison?’
‘I said, no shit, Sherlock. Seemed appropriate given what I’m looking at.’ He showed no remorse. ‘I think you should be thinking about who’s trying to frighten Alex. So many things point to an effort to scare her off. The darts from her pub. What happened up at Lime Tree Lodge when she was on her own. Now this. Don’t you think someone wants to frighten her?’
‘Could be. Could be they even want to make her decide to leave.’ A flicker in his expression suggested Lamb hadn’t intended to say that much.
Alex wandered past him to the landing and held on to a railing over the stairs. Her legs didn’t feel steady and her heart beat too fast. ‘Why?’ she asked herself more than the men.
‘That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’ Lamb said. ‘An endless string of why questions. We shall just have to keep on asking. For now I don’t want you to touch anything until our people have had a look.’
‘To check for fingerprints?’ Alex said.
‘Among other things. Someone may be along today but more likely tomorrow. This room will be taped off and someone stationed here to make sure it stays off limits. That needs to be taken out of here.’ He pointed at Katie.
Before Alex could tell Sergeant Lamb how much she disliked him, Tony picked up Katie and carried her out of the room.
Hurrying footsteps came up the stairs behind them and Lamb said, ‘Hello, boss,’ at the same time as Alex and Tony turned to watch O’Reilly, an unexpected smile on his face, coming to join them.
The instant he saw the room, he said, ‘This needs to be taped off.’
‘It will be,’ Lamb said.
‘You have residents or guests at the moment?’ O’Reilly said to Alex.
‘Two rooms occupied tonight,’ she said. ‘It’s slow in winter.’
‘Get someone up here with that tape,’ O’Reilly said, and paused while his second-in-command made his way down for reinforcements.
‘Don’t you wonder what happened to Reverend Restrick?’ O’Reilly asked without preamble, addressing Alex. ‘He just about ran into you leaving the crime scene this morning. Didn’t you tell me that?’
She rubbed her forehead, trying to unscramble her thoughts. ‘I forgot,’ she told him honestly. ‘It’s been a weird day. Did something happen to him, too?’
‘Wouldn’t it be reasonable for him to just come back when he recovered from the shock?’
‘Of course.’ Relief flooded Alex.
‘But you immediately think of something happening to him.’ O’Reilly didn’t sound aggressive but he was a master at planting seeds of doubt – at least about her.
‘Wouldn’t that be a reasonable assumption, Inspector?’ Tony said. ‘From the way you phrased your question.’
O’Reilly gave a short laugh. ‘Next you’ll be accusing me of leading the witness. Everyone watches too much TV. This isn’t a court of law and you’re a vet, not a barrister.’
A nasty feeling intensified in Alex. ‘The reverend – is he all right?’
‘No, he’s not all right. He was plainly upset when he ran out of his house. He must have gone to the church looking for some sort of sanctuary, I suppose. Then it seems he fell down the stone steps into the crypt. He’s in hospital with a serious head injury. He may not live.’
Alex’s hands felt frozen. She clasped them together and stumbled to sit on the top stair. ‘I don’t believe this.’
‘May I take Alex somewhere more comfortable?’ Tony asked.
‘In a moment. I want you to take a look at this first, Mrs Bailey-Jones.’ He had been holding a plastic bag behind his crossed forearms and he gave it to Alex. ‘Don’t open the bag. Just tell me if you recognize what’s inside.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Here it was. It did exist. A man’s heavy gold ring, dulled by mud and with sundry pieces of debris stuck to it.
Tony crouched down behind her and muttered, ‘That has to be it. Looks expensive. Even under the mud.’
It was a signet ring but larger than would fit on most men’s small fingers the way they were usually worn. She held it up to the light and pulled the plastic tight against the flat side so she could see any engraving.
She heard Tony’s indrawn breath behind her and shook her head.
‘This can’t have belonged to the monk,’ she said. ‘It’s got the Derwinter crest on it.’