The Fall Girl (22 page)

“Well, well, well.”

Lexy’s eyes snapped open.

“What have you done to yourself, Mrs Warwick-Holmes?”

Her arm was twisted painfully, almost forcing her to her knees.

His face was pouchy under the spray tan, the pale blue eyes bloodshot. She could smell last night’s brandy on his breath, mixed with the pungent scent of aftershave and hair gel.

“I see you haven’t changed,” she gasped through the pain. She could hear Kinky’s savage growls through the closed car window.

He released her arm with a jerk and stood back, looking her up and down. “Classy look you’ve got there, Alexandra. Really classy.”

“Ta. Wish I could say the same for you.”

“Got any other tattoos hidden away? Butterfly on the ankle, perhaps? Or perhaps you’ve gone for a tastefully pierced navel?” He grabbed at her t-shirt.

Her knee jerked up, just like mother had taught her when she was a kid, and Gerard Warwick-Holmes doubled over.

Lexy jumped into the Panda, locked it, and rolled the window down an inch, waiting for her husband to recover.

“I want a divorce,” she said.

His face loomed at the window, eyes watering. “No chance. Never. Now, where’s my money, you bitch?”

“Er... let’s think. Are we talking about the money you got for selling that lost Lowry on the black market? The one you found in an old man’s loft when you were doing a
clearance sale after he died?”

“Where’s your problem? The daft old bastard didn’t know he had a Lowry. And the private buyer was more than happy to pay cash. Win-win, I’d say.”

“Not exactly. If you care to remember, in his will Mr Gillespie left all the proceedings from his clearance sale to charity.”

Gerard gave a shout of laughter. “What – did you seriously think I’d donate half a million quid to saving the bloody whale or something?”

“No. I knew you wouldn’t,” said Lexy. “So I did it instead.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I made an anonymous donation to a local bird reserve.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.” His fingers pressed down on the top of the window.

“Well, I can’t show you a receipt, or anything, but if you pop along there, you’ll be able to see that a big project is now going on to preserve one of the last remaining
breeding habitats of the Costello’s warbler in Britain. And between us, it’s all thanks to you.”

Gerard spluttered.

“Oh, and the good news is that two pairs successfully nested there this year.”

“You crazy... do you know what you’ve done?”

“That man trusted you with his property, Gerard. You betrayed him. I just put it right.”

“So what does that make you – a bloody saint?”

“Hardly. But at least I’m trying.”

Lexy let him force the window down another inch before she started rolling it back up. He snatched his fingers away at the last moment.

“You’re going to pay for this,” he howled.

“I’ve got a fiver here – will that do?” She was stupid to provoke him.

He strode to the BMW, opened the back, and got out a long-handled wrench.

Lexy fumbled with the ignition key.

“Open up,” he bellowed. “That’s stolen property you’ve got in there.”

“I just told you what I did with the money,” Lexy yelled back. The engine made a choking sound. “Not that it was yours anyway, which was the whole point, in case you’d
forgotten.”

“The dog’s mine, though.” Gerard’s face exuded triumph. “He belonged to my mother. She left him to me when she died.”

“You didn’t want him!” Lexy turned the key again, her throat dry. The car shuddered into life.

Her husband swung the wrench back. “Well, guess what? I do now. You going to open this door?”

“What do you think?” She fought with the gear stick.

The Panda’s windscreen shattered like pond ice, covering Lexy and Kinky with glass. “In the back,” she shouted, and the dog skedaddled between the two front seats.

Lexy finally yanked the gear into reverse and floored the accelerator. She skidded backwards across the car park. He ran after her. She threw it into a forward gear – first or third,
impossible to tell – punched out some of the glass, and hacked down the lane, engine screaming.

Minutes later, Lexy came to a halt up a quiet side street.

“You OK, boy?”

She twisted round, and Kinky stared up at her from the rear footwell, still decorated with lumps of toughened glass.

She pulled him up and brushed it off, then got out. A lapful of glass cascaded across the road.

Lexy surveyed her windscreen and swore. She began punching the remaining glass out.

“Want a hand?”

A woman had come out of the house opposite. A practical-looking woman with sensible grey hair, a broom and a pair of gloves.

Lexy let her do it.

“What happened?”

My husband smashed it with a wrench. “A stone, flung up by a lorry, out on the main road. I stopped as soon as I could.”

“Happened to me once.” The woman leant on her broom. “On holiday in France. Gives you a real shake up, doesn’t it?”

Lexy nodded.

“You insured?”

Lexy gave her wry smile. “I’ll sort it later. At least I can see to drive now.”

“It’s a bit dangerous like that, love.”

“I’ve only got to go down the road.”

“I couldn’t get all the glass out, but I think I got most of it.”

“Thanks,” Lexy got into the freshly swept driver’s seat.

“Don’t forget your dog.”

“Oh, yeah.” Lexy quelled a hysterical laugh as she leant over and opened the passenger door.

“Want me to lift him in? Doesn’t bite, does he?”

Kinky looked like he was in shock. The woman placed him on the passenger seat, and Lexy drove slowly off.

She hesitated at the end of the road, looking in each direction for a black BMW.

Tyman Gallimore and his Land Rover had gone right out of her mind. She knew where she was heading.

“Sweetie, is it honestly worth getting the thing fixed?” Edward surveyed the Panda dubiously.

“Well, on the up side, it still goes,” said Lexy. Just. “And I really need to get back to Nodmore.”

“Why?”

“Well, you know – this job I’ve got going on.”

“You ought to join the AA.” Peter, immaculately dressed as ever, came down the front steps with a tray of tea.

“Yeah, I know. I will.”

“No, you won’t,” said Edward.

Lexy kicked the Panda’s balding front tyre.

Edward sighed. “Are you OK, sweetheart? I sense you’re a little tense. Has someone been upsetting you?”

You could say that. “No – not at all.”

“Well, aren’t you the lucky one?” Edward’s lips pursed.

“I have apologised a thousand times,” said Peter.

Edward ignored him. “I’ll go and ring my little man at the garage about this windscreen. At least one can depend on him.” He headed for the huge studded wooden front door.
“Come along, Kinky. We’ll find you a nice biscuit.”

The chihuahua’s drooping tail flipped up and he trotted after Edward.

“What did you do?” Lexy asked Peter.

“Oh – it’s this antiques fair. Causing ructions. Last night I had to cancel a big dinner date I had with Edward and assorted friends.” He grimaced in the direction of the
house. “Didn’t go down too well. Thing is, I was asked to stand in for a friend who was ill. I mean, what can one do? And then this morning I had to get up at the crack of dawn to cover
for bloody Gerard again. Can you believe it?”

Lexy flinched. “Gerard?”

“You know. Warwick-Holmes.
Heirlooms in the Attic
. Meant to be hosting the show – introducing the talks, doing fundraising auctions, that sort of thing, but he keeps going
AWOL. His mind obviously isn’t on it. The Committee are going to contest his fee. Well, you can’t blame them – he’s broken the terms of his contract. Personally, I think
it’s the old... ” He did a drinking charade. “Whatever it is, he seems to have his own agenda here.”

Ain’t that the truth?

Peter laughed. “Nearly got himself arrested last night down the Jolly Herring, while I was trying to have a quiet drink. By that nice, tall policeman of yours, funnily enough.”

Lexy tried to look surprised. “He’s not my nice, tall policeman.”

“’Course he is, dear. Anyway, suffice to say Gerard is a liability. We’ll all be unutterably glad to see the back of him.”

“I can understand that. He’s... er... definitely going at the end of the week, is he?”

“Don’t put doubts in my mind. I expect he’s got another show to go on to, although I’m bound to say I’ll be tipping off a few organisers after his performance this
week. Anyway, what are we standing out here for? Come and see the main attraction.”

“Aren’t they just adorable?” said Edward

The three of them gazed upon the unbearably cute black kittens nestled against a fulfilled-looking Princess.

“Edward,” said Lexy, after a while. “You do know, don’t you?”

He turned his genial face to her. “That they’re not Rexes. Yes, lovie.”

“But they’re not ordinary moggies, either,” Peter pointed out. “Not with their heritage. They’ll be a cut above average, both in looks and intelligence.”

“It just means it’s going to take me a bit longer to pay you back,” Lexy sighed.

“It also means that Peter and I will be able to keep our new little family. The kittens won’t have to be sold.” The two men, temporarily reconciled, it seemed, smiled dotingly.
“With your permission, of course.”

“Edward, if you weren’t gay I’d give you a big French kiss. Of course you can keep them. And Princess, too, if you like. I mean, what with Kinky, I could never give her a
home.”

Edward beamed like a hundred watt bulb. “Let’s call that a done deal, then.”

But a shadow had passed over Lexy’s face at the thought of the chihuahua. Gerard just might be mad enough to track her down to Four Winds Cottage and try to take him.

The worst of it was that, technically, Kinky did belong to her husband. He really had inherited the dog from his mother. During her final illness, the old woman had asked Gerard and Lexy to look
after Kinky, and they had faithfully promised. But when the chihuahua had arrived at their South Kensington house in a wicker dog carrier a few days later, Gerard had wanted to take him straight to
Battersea Dogs’ Home without so much as opening the thing.

Lexy had intervened. She’d never been keen on little dogs, but to her, a promise really was a promise. Anyway, Kinky might be small, but, as Lexy discovered, he had the heart and stomach
of a Great Dane. She would never let her unforgiving husband get his filthy hands on him.

“Edward,” she said.

“Yes, honey?” Edward couldn’t drag his eyes from the kittens.

“Could I ask another enormous favour?”

“You know you can.”

“Could you look after Kinky for me for a few days?”

That got his attention. Edward blinked. “Are you going away?”

“No. Er... yes, actually.” Good idea. “This thing I’m working on – it would be really useful for me to get up to London. Could be tricky if I had Kinky with
me.”

“Well, of course we can look after him.” Edward glanced at Peter. “Just need to make sure he doesn’t come in here.”

“You can leave him shut in the kitchen,” said Lexy. “I’ll give you some money for his food. Just make sure he’s kept here at all times. Take him out in the garden
for a quick walk a couple of times a day and he’ll be perfectly happy.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Kinky would be bloody furious if he was shut in Edward’s kitchen for the next four days. But at least he would be safe.

She fished in her bag. “Here’s his lead.”

“You’re leaving him here now?”

“If that’s all right.”

“Something’s the matter, isn’t it, lovie?” Edward scrutinised Lexy. “I know it is.”

“Not at all. It’s just that things are kicking off with this case.” She pretended to check her mobile. “In fact, I need to get off as soon as my windscreen is
fixed.”

Peter straightened. “You’re driving to London in that wreck this evening?”

“Plenty of life in the old Panda yet,” Lexy blustered.

Again Edward and Peter exchanged looks.

Lexy hated lying to her closest friends in Clopwolde, but she didn’t want them to know her marital link with Gerard Warwick-Holmes. She just couldn’t bear to go into all the
explanations. It had been bad enough admitting it to Milo.

“I was just about to get some shopping, before I... er... pop down to the show again,” said Peter. Edward regarded him dangerously. “So I’ll buy the dog food.”

Lexy handed Peter a fiver.

The phone beside the bed rang and Edward picked it up. “It’s the windscreen man. He’s on his way. But then I said he was reliable.”

He flounced out, and Lexy and Peter followed, exchanging wry looks.

They waited in the large, immaculately clean kitchen while the car was being fixed. Edward fussed around, pressing biscuits, cakes and chocolates on Lexy.

“What have you done to your arm, sweetie?” he said sharply. Lexy looked down. A set of bruises was developing in a ring around her upper arm, just under her tattoo, where her husband
had gripped her so painfully earlier.

“Those look like fingermarks. Has some brute been manhandling you?”

She shrugged. “Just a misunderstanding. Kind of thing that happens all the time in my line of work.”

“I wish you’d get a safer job.”

“Hey – I can roll with the punches.”

“Listen – why don’t I come up to London with you, and help you out with whatever you’re doing. Please,” he added silently, jerking his head back at Peter, who was
assembling a collection of Cath Kidston shopping bags from a cupboard.

“Who’s going to look after Kinky?” Lexy said.

He gave her a frustrated glare.

An hour and a half later, Lexy arrived back at Four Winds Cottage. She felt bereft without the chihuahua.

Steve was sitting on the front lawn, cleaning a pile of rusty bolts with a wire brush.

“Gabrielle was scared I was going to rope her in when she saw me doing this,” he smiled. “She decided she had a prior appointment in Lowestoft.”

Lexy winced. “I know which I’d prefer. Where’s Rowana?”