The Fall Girl (31 page)

Lexy loosened her grip. She realised that she’d started laughing.

“What is it?” Steve regarded her quizzically. “What’s so funny?”

“Just nice to have my instincts confirmed.”

“What – that I’m a drunken slob?”

“No. That you’re a good man.”

“I try my best.” Steve started laughing too, and before Lexy knew it, he had leaned over and kissed her. And she kissed him back.

“I’m sorry.” He took hold of her other hand. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“Me, too. Weak moment.”

They eyed one another.

“Better get back.”

“Yes.”

He stood, stretched, pulled her up and held her close to him, suddenly serious. “I’m going to have to tell Rowana, aren’t I?”

“Up to you.” Lexy let her head rest on his shoulder. Just for a moment. Kinky stared up at her askance.

“I guess I owe her the truth,” Steve went on. “But it’s going to be messy.”

He was still holding that last photo of Elizabeth, the one that looked so painfully like Rowana. The wind made it flutter.

He and Lexy watched it.

“I could just let go of this.”

“And let her find out some other way? You’ll always be looking over your shoulder.”

“Lexy – I... er... suppose there’s no chance of you staying on at the cottage, is there? I mean, with me?”

Stay at Four Winds Cottage? Lexy imagined herself living there, with Freshing Hill on her doorstep every day. A romantic new relationship, a ready-made family, domestic bliss...

She felt herself shaking her head.

“I know, I know,” said Steve. “Too soon to ask. Anyway, you’re a free spirit. And I’m a forty-five year old bloke with a lot of explaining to do.”

He’d got that about right.

They made their way back through the sheep. Steve held the photograph of Elizabeth in his hand, until they reached the gate of the cottage, then he slipped it into his pocket.

“I’m returning to the underside of my small red car to think,” he said. “Just in case anyone wants me. And I enjoyed that kiss, by the way.”

Lexy let herself into the kitchen and pulled out a chair.

“God, Kinky, what a tangled web,” she murmured, watching the dog circle the kitchen floor, sniffing suspiciously.

At least one good thing had come from this. Steve was out of the frame as far as Elizabeth’s death was concerned. She would still check his alibi though, go and talk to the fearsome
landlady and her cleaner at Wharf View B&B. They’d be sure to remember the disgraceful drunk.

But Lexy knew that it would be a formality.

“And you know what this all means,” she said to the inattentive dog. “The Gallimores are back on centre stage again.”

She felt almost too tired to contemplate it.

In fact, it was tempting to draw a line under the whole Elizabeth affair, pack up her stuff and head back to the cabin a day early, now that Gerard was gone. Lexy couldn’t quite trust
herself to get through another night on the sofa after that kiss, and she didn’t want to complicate matters with Steve any further. It would be tough to leave, though...

But leave she must, Lexy told herself, for all the reasons Steve had said. But before she went she would have to square things with Rowana, and convince the girl that her magic in the greenhouse
wasn’t in any way responsible for Elizabeth’s death.

No time like the present. She went to the studio, but Rowana wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the garden, either. Lexy went upstairs and called outside the room she was sharing with
Gabrielle. No answer. She opened the door to Elizabeth’s room, and went over to the window, gazing down the hill towards Pilgrim’s Farm. Was that Rowana walking up the tarmac track?
Lexy fetched the binoculars, but the figure was too far away to identify.

Perhaps she’d drive down there.

Lexy collected Kinky, who was now outside the kitchen door, sniffing around under the hydrangea bush where he’d last had his teeth in that delicious bone.

She ushered him into the Panda, stuck her key in the ignition and turned it. The car coughed raucously, spat and died.

Lexy sat there with her eyes shut counting to one hundred. She’d got to eighty-eight when a tap on her window made her jump. She wound it down.

“Problem?” Steve enquired.

Lexy found herself blushing like a teenager. “Arsing thing won’t start – again,” she said gruffly.

“Well, it can’t be the spark plugs.” He lifted the lime green bonnet and propped it.

Lexy got out. “Listen – you don’t have to...”

“It’s OK.” Steve bent over the engine. “Although I have to say it’s not looking good in here.”

“I knew it hadn’t got long to live.” Lexy sighed. She’d miss the Panda – they’d had an action-packed three months together. And she’d just bought the
ungrateful bastard a new windscreen.

“Oh, she’ll go again,” said Steve. “I just need to get a couple of parts. There’s a scrap yard just outside Lowestoft...”

“Hey – don’t go to any trouble.” Especially after she’d just given him the brush off.

“It’s no trouble. I welcome any excuse to go to a scrap yard. Just don’t tell the girls. Last time I went for some replacement door handles for the van, I came back towing a
Hillman Imp.”

Lexy swallowed. Why did he have to be so endearing?

She squinted down the hill. “Think I can see Rowana down there – I might go and meet her.”

She set off, the chihuahua at her heel, aware that Steve was watching after her. “What do you, reckon, Kinky?” she murmured. “Am I being too hasty turning him down? After all,
it would be brilliant living here all the time.”

Kinky gave her the briefest of pained glances. He was sniffing at the path like a minute bloodhound.

“Oh, yeah – I forgot how you felt about the place,” Lexy went on. “You’ve never really taken to it here, have you?” She looked at the scenery all around.
“Can’t imagine why.”

Kinky gave a series of sharp barks.

Lexy ignored him. The thought of living at Four Winds was so intoxicating. But was it that, rather than the thought of living with Steve? Would she be even contemplating it if he lived in a
council flat in Ipswich? Anyway, she’d only met the bloke a few days ago. And she didn’t really know him – not beyond a brief kiss. Lexy felt herself redden again. No – she
couldn’t just stay and hope things worked out. What if they didn’t? And how would Gabrielle and Rowana react when they discovered Steve and her in the throes of an affair? Didn’t
bear thinking about – especially as Rowana was her client.

But what if Steve was her soulmate – that once in a lifetime person she’d never come across again? Was she going to regret this forever? Lexy was so absorbed in this dilemma that she
walked all the way to Pilgrim’s Farm without being aware of it. It was only when Kinky gave another disconcerted bark that Lexy focused on her surroundings.

Mrs Mangeot was in the yard, loading bags into the back of a small car.

“Why, ’allo, dear,” she said. “Come to see the boys? Been in the wars they ’ave. Both of ’em fell up in the woods the other night.”

She obviously didn’t know that Lexy was already aware of this.

“They were out badger watching. Badger watching! Must have scared off every badger for miles around, the clumsy buggers. I could tell them a thing or two about it, and it doesn’t
involve crashing around in size nine boots and tripping over tree stumps, either.”

Lexy had to stop herself from snorting out loud. The Gallimores had told their housekeeper that they’d been out badger watching, rather than killing foxes. No wonder she thought they were
such angels.

“Anyway, I’d best get on.” Mrs Mangeot squeezed herself into her car. “I was meant to be meeting my daughter at the farm entrance but the poor girl’s walked all the
way up here now.”

Lexy looked up to see a figure trudging towards them, the same one she’d seen earlier. Not Rowana, then.

Mrs Mangeot pulled off with a wave.

Lexy looked over at the front door.

What was it at Pilgrim’s Farm that the Gallimores wanted to hide from her?

The door was ajar. Lexy pushed it open.

“Anybody home?” she called.

Silence.

Lexy went to the living room, expecting to find Ward still laid up on the sofa. But all she found was a neatly folded quilt with two pillows stacked on it. There were two tracks visible in the
carpet leading to the kitchen. Ward must have found a way of getting up and about.

Lexy compressed her lips, and pushed open the kitchen door.

Three cups with dregs of coffee stood on the draining board.

There was a door at the far end of the kitchen that opened out on to what looked like a scullery. She went across and pushed it wide. The small room contained a washing machine and a pile of
damp washing in a basket. And a door leading outside.

“You’d better stay here,” Lexy said to the chihuahua, pushing him back into the kitchen and shutting the door. She didn’t want him having a close encounter with the
world’s rarest chicken, or whatever it was the Gallimores kept here.

She went through the scullery and found herself in a covered passage with a corrugated roof. Kinky had started barking – sharp, warning barks.

Steeling herself, Lexy followed the passage past a row of woodsheds with cobwebbed windows. It ended at an old-fashioned tiled path that curved away past a bank of faded pink hydrangeas. She
paused. A printed sign with red lettering informed her that she was entering a quarantine area. Authorised Personnel Only.

The double track that had made an indentation across the living room carpet was visible in front of her as two damp tyre tracks. Shrugging, Lexy made her way along the path, feeling the warmth
of the morning sun on the back of her neck, Kinky’s barks fading into the distance. It wound on, until she felt marooned in hydrangeas and silence.

Then she turned a corner, and found herself looking at a high brick wall. It had a sturdy wooden gate in it, with a heavy steel bolt, drawn open. A padlock with the key in it hung on a rusty
nail beside the bolt.

Lexy slowly pushed the gate open.

She found herself in an untidy garden. Clumps of pampas grass were dotted around a muddy pond. A large fallen tree pointed broken branches to the sky.

It wasn’t what she expected a quarantine yard to look like, particularly given the neat and tidy appearance of the rest of Pilgrim’s Farm.

Wrinkling her nose, Lexy skirted a battered-looking privet bush.

Ah – there were the cages, at the far end of the garden. She made her way towards them.

Halfway across, two things struck her.

One, it wasn’t so much cages, as one large cage.

And, two, it was open.

Lexy stopped dead. Later she would say she felt it before she heard it. Felt a warm gust just behind her. Then that low rasp.

She turned and froze.

“Don’t move,” said a voice.

Seemed like a sensible suggestion.

Tyman appeared, walking slowly towards her.

Ward was coming across the enclosure too, propelling himself in a wheelchair that made parallel tracks across the grass.

“So – you’ve finally discovered our secret,” he said. “Now, we really will have to kill you.”

“Shut up, Ward.” Tyman slipped past Lexy. “Come on, darling.” He put a hand on the mottled brown shoulder and began to walk slowly back to the cage, Ward bumping along
beside them.

Lexy stood aside to let them pass, then followed, transfixed by the thick, black-tufted tail that twitched languidly from side to side.

Finally, it all made sense.

This
was why the Gallimore family had been so dismayed to find someone staying in Fours Winds Cottage – why they tried to get her to leave. Why they were watching the place with
binoculars all day.

This
explained the escaped bull that no one actually saw. The sheep that were meant to be on the hill, but were crammed in a paddock on the farm until now. The bag with the dark red
stain, and the tear in Tyman’s jeans. The fact that Pilgrim’s Farm had been closed to visitors.

This
explained why Ward had ambushed her on the hill like something out of Tarzan, and shepherded her back down to the cottage.

This
explained why Kinky has taken such a fearful dislike to Four Winds Cottage.

Poor Kinky – always trying to warn her, right from the beginning. How could she have been so blind?

Again, Lexy heard Ward’s voice outside the pub, speaking in lowered tones to his father.
We’ll just have to deal with her the hard way. It’s the only option
.

Then Tyman shouting outside the door when she was at the farm the day before.
She’s here! I saw her coming down the track... !

“In you go.” Tyman locked the cage.

“It’s OK,” he said, turning to Lexy with a smile. “She’s mostly harmless.”

“
Mostly?
” Lexy stared hard at him.

Tyman’s smile faded and he glanced resignedly over at Ward. “Might as well come clean, I guess.”

He sat on a bench outside the cage, gesturing Lexy to do the same. Ward angled the wheelchair next to them.

“Where do we start?” he said.

“Let me guess,” said Lexy. “This – what’s her name?”

“Lola.”

“Lola here caused the accident with Elizabeth.”

Tyman dropped his head. “She got out two months ago. Dad – well, all of us – had got a bit lax with security.” He put a hand through the bars of the cage to scratch a
scarred ear. “Trouble is, Lola’s been a pet since we rescued her years ago.”

“Rescued her?”

Ward grimaced. “We’d been touring Eastern Europe with the circus, and when we were in Romania, some kids tipped us the wink that a man in their village had a lioness for sale. I
mean, we never used performing animals ourselves, but I guess the kids associated the circus with lions. Anyway, it sounded like there was something fishy going on, so we ended up going with them,
and we discovered this ignorant sadist starving Lola, and torturing her. See, she’s still blind in one eye.”

Lexy frowned at the scarred face.

“God knows how he’d got hold of her in the first place.” Tyman’s voice was tight. “From what we could gather it was from a local zoo that had gone bankrupt, and was
just selling the animals, or giving them away. Anyway, I... er... broke into his place that night and took her.”