Moonlight Bones (A DI Fenella Sallow Crime Thriller Book 9), page 24
Fenella grunted. She was off duty and wanted to relax after a fine meal cooked by Nan. Jeffery could wait until morning.
Brring-brring.
Nan hustled into the living room carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses. She wore a chef's white hat, a double-breasted matching jacket and a pink apron with leaping lambs. Crisp scents from the kitchen floated into the room.
"Is that for you, Fen?"
"Let it go to voicemail." Fenella half-wondered if Nan was watching too many celebrity chef shows but pushed that to the back of her mind. This was the high point of the evening. A full belly, a show on the telly that you were only half-watching, sharing a bottle of wine and a natter with Nan while Eduardo snored away. "That Italian chicken was delicious."
Nan poured wine into a glass and offered it to Fenella. "Aye, it was darn good, as they say in Texas."
"It's an Italian dish; shouldn't it be delizioso?"
"I got the recipe from a blog by an Italian family about their move to the town of Texarkana. That's in Texas."
Eduardo jerked awake and huffed words in a feeble attempt at an American accent. "Gee, we'll don't that beat all."
"You're a greedy bugger." Nan poured wine into her glass and took a long gulp. "As soon as you hear talk about food, you are wide awake. But with human achievements at the farthest reaches of outer space, it's nowt but a snore fest from Mr Dumpling."
"I wasn't asleep." Eduardo gazed around, rubbing his eyes and blinking. "I was creating."
"You were snoring." Nan clacked her tongue against her teeth and went to the kitchen and came back with a tray.
Three plates.
Three huge chocolate fudge slices.
They finished minutes later, their bellies bulging and sweet tooth satiated. Eduardo picked at his empty plate and shuffled a few stray crumbs into his mouth. Then he hurled himself flat on the sofa and let his eyelids droop. "Time for my mind create."
Fenella's phone pinged with a familiar tone — Dexter.
Fenella sighed. "I'll take it outside." She never let work into her private life and always left her day job at the front door. "In the car."
Chapter 141
Pale moonlight smeared the sky, although it was not yet dark. Fenella crouched over the steering wheel of her ancient Morris Minor and pressed the phone to her ear.
"… Jeffery called you… I see… no word on the search warrant for Ash Antiques… a delay… not good… tomorrow… spacecraft and the outer limits… oh, that's interesting… tonight? … aye, I'll get the ball rolling… tell Jones… going to be a long one… Uh-huh, okay. I will."
She hung up and stared at the shadows dancing in the darkening sky. An owl winged across the clouds, hooting with savage shrieks.
Chapter 142
It was midnight. Guy crouched in a dank alley at the side window of Ash Antiques. A car groaned from Hood Street. Loud, then soft, then distant. He drew a breath and listened for movement. There came no sound of footsteps or bicycle wheels or chatter of drunks.
Hood Street was quiet.
The fragrant alley air still.
Just the faint city hum of night.
"Do exactly as I tell you, wear black, your face mask and it will be easy."
Louise's words played as Guy slid to his feet.
"It has to be tonight, for soon, the police will search."
With gloved hands, he worked the glass cutter, removing a circular pane with a quiet click. He bent forward, peering through the hole into darkness.
"Mr Ash keeps his knife collection in the room at the back."
Guy's pulse thudded as he thrust a gloved hand through the opening and unlocked the latch. Once inside, he stood alone in the gloom, rivers of sweat pooling on his forehead.
"Don't take your mask off until you are back in the alley."
He reached for his torch and hesitated. Voices carried from the street. Excited and happy and full of strong beer. He flattened himself against the wall and turned his gaze to the window.
The voices grew louder.
They were coming his way.
Entering the alley.
Footfalls rattling against the cobblestones.
A man and a woman.
Both giggling with joy.
They stopped by the window, the woman's thin shoulders jumping out from the shadow. She pressed her back against the glass so the window framed her head.
She reminded Guy of a crow about to steal something shiny for its nest.
"Oh, I don't know, Tom; it's dark down here." She slurred the words, her voice excited. "Are you sure we are alone?"
"Come on, Ivy." A man with a high-pitched boozy voice spoke in a sly whisper. A short, skinny bloke with a sharp nose. "Just you and me. Our chance before —"
"Next week we'll do it at my place." Her voice shrieked with lurid laughter. "Dick will be away on a business trip."
"Don't talk about next week, let's ravish today, for tomorrow may never come."
"Ooh, Tom, I like that." The woman giggled. "Ha, ha, tonight is all that matters."
The grunt-gasp-groan of small pleasures. The sighing shrieks of drunken joy. A single lorry on the street lit road plunged down Hood Street's full length. Throbbing engine. Thrusting pistons. Moans penetrating the city night.
"Ivy, is that you?" A new voice rattled the air. Deep. Male. From a big bloke with a huge chest. His words boomed like cannonball fire. "Tom, what the hell is going on?"
"Jesus!" The woman's voice twisted with the hard slap of shock. "It's Dick. Oh, Christ!"
"I can explain, Dick, old mate." Tom spoke fast, words tumbling over each other in their rush to flee his mouth. "It is not what it seems, is it, Ivy?"
A dull thud.
Tom screamed. A full-throated wail. "No, no — God please, I'm not to blame; it was her. She made me. No, no, no."
A short gasp.
Another thud.
Another gasp.
Thud-thud-thud.
A woman's biting scream. "Don't hurt the sod any more, Dick, else you'll kill him."
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
A sudden silence.
"You are a bloody caveman." A woman's drunken laugh. "My caveman."
Two pairs of feet running fast.
Chapter 143
Guy waited for a full five minutes before he tugged the window wide and leaned out.
An inky murk filled the alley. The slender bloom from the streetlights cast a delicate dusky glow. His gaze shifted down, towards the cobblestones.
Slumped against the wall, a figure lay still. A short, skinny bloke with a sharp nose — Tom. Guy flicked on his torch. A thin trail of blood snaked from the man's nose, his bruised face bread dough pale.
And his eyes.
They stared up at the midnight heavens, seeing nothing.
Guy watched for the rise and fall of Tom's chest, listened for a moan, waited for movement, the twitch of a leg, flutter of eyelids, exhale of boozy breath.
Nothing.
"O mio babbino caro…"
Guy whispered the words, trying to steady his nerves. He hadn't bet on this. It wasn't part of Louise's plan. If the bloke was a random drunk, he'd sleep it off. Chances were that he'd wake with a stinging headache and stumble his way home.
But this wasn't a random drunk.
The man took a fierce beating. Brutal. From a bloke called Dick with a cannonball voice. Guy shuddered, imagining the size of Dick's iron fists. For all he knew, the mad attack had left Tom… dead.
And he was the only witness.
Chapter 144
Guy kept the torch beam angled on the face of the slumped figure. He leaned further out of the window, watched and waited and listened for a sign of life.
A flicker of the eyelids. A twitch of the mouth. Anything.
The man lay still. The hum of the city droned on.
He must call an ambulance. No! If the police found him here…
Guy forced himself to think.
A siren wailed in the distance.
"Shit!"
He switched off the torch, snapped the window shut, and quickly crossed the space to the room at the back. He entered, leaving the door ajar so he could track the closeness of the siren.
The air held the tang of old books and worn clothes. Even in the dark, Guy sensed there were no windows.
"Look for a bench table by the rear wall. That is where you will find the cherry wood box."
He flicked on the torch.
It was a windowless room with a vaulted roof. An eerie and dank-smelling chamber. Keeping the beam low, he scanned the place.
A framed portrait of a stern-faced man in a seventeenth-century military uniform rested against the brick wall. A grandfather clock leaned at an angle in a corner, its bevelled glass door open, pendulum still. Three life-sized figurines of naked women clustered together. A low table covered with yellowing magazines stood next to a tall rack filled with pottery. He saw it then — the bench table by the rear wall.
Resting on the surface was his cherry-wood box.
"Bingo!"
Chapter 145
Guy moved fast. He gave himself two minutes. No more. Then he'd get away.
The siren wailed.
Closer.
A steady charge.
The oscillating thrum of danger.
Guy turned towards the door, searching for the flash of blue lights. Nothing but dull hues. He laughed. A nervous twitter.
"Easy. Take it easy."
He liked the sound of his voice and found it calming. The siren wasn't a warning to him. The police weren't coming this way. They were on their way somewhere else. Newcastle was a big city where crime lurked on every corner.
"That's right, isn't it, Honeybird?"
But Louise wasn't there to reply.
The siren screamed louder.
Chapter 146
Guy moved to the bench table, keeping his beam focused on the cherry wood box.
"Remember to check inside before you leave. Mr Ash might have taken the knives and stored them somewhere else."
A fresh bloom of sweat broke out under Guy's mask. If they weren't in the box, he'd have to search and that might take all night.
He lifted the lid.
The torch lit the contents.
He gasped.
His knives.
Only one missing.
He fondled each in turn, wondering about Louise. Who told her that Goose had sold the knives to Wilfred Ash? What else hadn't she told him about the Popping Stone? Why wasn't she with him now?
At least he knew the answer to that one. He had insisted she stay at home for fear the excitement might rile the baby. For once, she'd agreed without a fight, seemed eager to wait it out. Now he wondered whether it had been his decision at all.
Guy snapped the lid shut, retrieved a cloth sack from his pocket and tucked the box inside. He flicked off the torch and turned towards the door when something smashed against the window in the other room.
Bang, bang, bang.
Guy stumbled back into the windowless chamber and dropped into a tight crouch. The dank odour crawled up his nostrils. From the direction of Hood Street came another siren wail.
Then there was silence.
And another noise.
Something rattled nearby.
A key.
Guy's heart boomed against his ribs.
Someone was fiddling with the front door lock.
Chapter 147
"Which one, for Christ's sake?"
The man's voice carried like a thin beam of light.
Guy crab-crawled past the nude figurines to the far wall and lay with his back against it. There was nowhere else to hide. When the lights flicked on in this chamber, it would be impossible to miss him.
It was over. Caught squatting in a dank corner of a windowless room.
From the direction of Hood Street came a high-low wail. More police on the prowl.
"The buggers are playing tricks on me." The man was shouting, standing just beyond the front door. "Do you take me for a damn fool?"
Who was the man talking with? One person? More?
Guy glanced at the door to the chamber. He was trapped in a windowless room. Again, he pondered why Louise was so eager for him to come here on his own tonight.
"You're a cowardly lion, that's what you are."
That voice. A flicker of recognition dawned. Slow at first, then growing. Guy leaned forward, straining to listen.
"Can't you do your job and let a man into his own home?"
It couldn't be, could it? Guy rocked to his feet and crept to the door. He moved into the main room, picking around dark objects.
The door rattled.
Clank of keys.
The receding screams of the sirens.
The man's voice came again.
He was singing.
A high-pitched drunken voice.
Guy moved along the wall, knocking over a footstool by a bookcase.
At the window, near the front door, he peered through the glass.
Tom leaned against the railing, singing a torrent of drunken words. Then he pushed away, stumbled to the front door and struck it with a fist.
Guy waited, watchful.
Tom knocked again.
When no one answered, he raised two fingers, turned, and danced, his movement out of phase with his high-pitched song. Then he waved, long and slow, and staggered away until the shadows swallowed him and his singing faded into the night.
Chapter 148
Guy stood by the window near the front door for ten minutes. When the city settled into its nighttime hum, he crossed the room and climbed through the side window.
As his feet hit the cobblestones, relief flooded him.
He'd done it.
Joy.
Except the window latch snagged his cloth sack.
He left the bag hanging and went to look up and down the alley. He wanted to take his mask off for a better view but kept it tight on his face.
Not yet. Wait awhile in case there is someone else about.
He stood watching the quiet street. He told himself to take his time and lingered. Daylight was hours away, the dark sea of night still fierce in resisting the tide of dawn. A sprinkle of stars sparkled in the heavens. Huge dark clouds fussed to blot them out. The hoot of an owl lifted above the alley.
Guy's gaze climbed the walls, roofs, and chimneys as a church bell tolled the one o'clock hour. Only when he spotted the bird winging against the dull sky, did he return to the window to wrestle the cloth sack free.
Holding the weighty sack in his hand, he felt a thrill of pleasure. There was something satisfying about taking from another person that which was yours. It almost dulled the thoughts wriggling at the back of his brain about Louise.
He remembered the look on her face as she encouraged him to retrieve his old burglary gear from the shed. A stare so intense it frightened him. And all the while telling him to listen to his wife, all the while explaining the layout of Ash Antiques, all the while talking over the doubts now sprouting in his head. They swarmed like locusts in an Old Testament plague — a ravenous horde feasting on his fears.
"I'll get to the truth of it when I get home."
He threw the sack over his shoulder and turned to leave the alley.
"Going somewhere nice, luv?" Fenella stepped from the shadows, with Dexter and Jones at her side.
Chapter 149
The clouds melted from the night sky. An owl hooted in the pale moonlight. Its cry fluttered across the rooftops, to-wit-to-wooing between the brick houses, chirruping along the quiet roadways, tumbling in avian screeches to the cobblestoned alley where Fenella and Dexter waited.
Jones, along with two uniformed officers, carted the masked man away. The police car lights faded into the distance. One of the first things Dexter mentioned bothered Fenella.
"Mr Guy Bertram, guv." Dexter wore a crumpled beige suit with a knotted green tie set against a grey shirt. Stubble poked from his unshaven chin, and his eyes shone with questions. He turned towards the sound of the owl, squinting. "And it don't take Sherlock Holmes to see what he was up to. I don't get it, though."
"I don't like it either." Fenella searched for the flicker of wings against the moonlit sky. "That sack bothers me, and Mr Bertram is from the village of Gilsland, right?"
Dexter nodded. "Do you reckon there is a link to the Popping Stone and the death of Mr Peter Quelch?"
"We'll get those knives checked out." It seemed to Fenella that it all fit. "I still don't like it. We'll leave Mr Bertram to stew for a while. Later, I'll prod him for answers."
"And he'll know Mr Gosbee, guv." Dexter's words hung quiet and low. "Know the lad's been knifed; know he's at death's door, know everyone called him Goose. Might know what happened to the lad. Might be one of them knives in that cherry wood box that stabbed Mr Gosbee. I reckon it was the missing one. Bet it fits nice and sung into that empty space."
Fenella rolled her shoulders and gazed at the sky. Countless stars spattered the inky black. "That phone call bothers me."
"I had me doubts too, guv." Dexter lifted a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed his forehead, and then scrunched it tight. "Couldn't tell whether it were a man or a woman. Had a right squeaky voice. Thought tonight would be a giant waste of time. But that call told us the time and place, and there the bloke was. Dressed in black with a face mask, just as the caller said." He flattened the handkerchief, folded the thin sheet twice, and then dropped it back into his pocket. "Still, it don't smell right."
Fenella turned to gaze along the street. Nothing moved. "Any idea who the caller was?"
"Ain't got a clue, guv."
"Why did they call you?"
Dexter shrugged. "It ain't like I've been on the telly or anything. Ain't had no luck tracking the phone's owner either. It's like walking through thick bushes on a cloud-filled night. It don't make no sense. A real mystery."
There was quiet for a while.
The hoot of the owl rose and fell. A siren shimmered at the edge of the night. At first, it did not catch Fenella's ear. She gazed along the moonlit alley. Black wheelie bins lined both sides of the cobblestones. She focused on the small wooden plaque to the left of Ash Antiques front door.
