The Fall Girl (32 page)

“Nearly getting himself killed in the process,” added Ward.

“By the owner, rather than by Lola,” Tyman confirmed. “He had the sort of gun that puts ours to shame. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we took her with us, back to our base
in France.” He gave Lexy a defiant look.

“Risky,” she commented. Who was she kidding? She’d have done the same.

“Then, when Dad bought Pilgrim’s Farm last year,” Ward continued, “we smuggled her over the channel on a boat.”

Now, that
was
dodgy. Lexy had to stop herself looking admiring.

“She’s always been fairly placid, for a lion,” said Tyman. “And she’s getting pretty old and arthritic now. She’s normally out in her paddock during the day,
and the gate in the wall is always shut and padlocked. No one knows she’s here. She’s well away from the farm, and she never makes a noise – there’s something wrong with her
throat. The loudest she can manage is a sort of low cough.”

“So I heard,” said Lexy. Just now in the paddock, right behind her. And several nights ago, outside the cottage. The sound she couldn’t place because it was out of context. But
then a lion is somewhat out of context on a hill in Suffolk.

“Anyway,” Tyman continued, “the day she got out there was a misunderstanding. Her cage was unlocked, but she was still in it. Dad came down looking for me, thought the cage was
locked and left the gate in the wall open. While he was round the back of the paddock, Lola pushed her way out of her cage and wandered out the gate.”

“I happened to be out in the garden de-fleaing Django,” said Ward. “He suddenly did the dog equivalent of going pale, and I turned round, and saw Lola strolling up the path. My
biggest immediate fear was that Mrs Mangeot would see her. Much as she loves animals, there are limits. I tried to corner Lola and chase her back down the path, but she was in no mood for games.
She dodged round me, jumped over the garden wall, and legged it straight off up the hill.”

Tyman gave a grim laugh. “Dad didn’t even realise what had happened. He was still in the paddock. Ward got hold of me, and the three of us tracked and chased her for... what?”
He glanced at Ward for affirmation. “Twenty hours... ?”

Ward nodded.

“... but she’d gone completely to ground. Left us with a hell of a dilemma.”

“I’ll say.”

“We didn’t want to contact the police. A scandal like keeping an illegal lion could have ruined our business, to say nothing of the fact that they’d want to take her away from
us, maybe even have her put down. So we just kept patrolling the area, night and day, to try and track her down and catch her.”

“We had to keep a very close eye on Elizabeth,” Ward said, “to make sure she didn’t accidentally come across Lola. We were constantly watching the place through
binoculars. Then one morning Elizabeth came marching down to the farm. Someone had stolen a whole salmon that had been defrosting on her kitchen table. I think she thought it was one of us.

“Well, it was pretty obvious that Lola was starting to get hungry and she’d managed to get into the cottage,” Tyman went on. “Elizabeth tended to leave the patio doors
open from the time she got up until she went to bed. So that night, Ward and I went up to Four Winds with some bait and lay in wait for her out the back. We were pretty sure Lola would come to us
if we had some raw steak, and we’d spiked it with horse tranquilliser – just enough to make sure she was completely calm to get back to the farm.”

“Just when we’d given it up as a bad job,” Ward continued, “about eight in the morning, I went back down to the farm to check she hadn’t sneaked back in our
absence.”

“I decided to stick around the cottage for a few more minutes, just in case,” said Tyman. “And lo and behold, she turned up on the track. As soon as she saw me she went
skittish and raced back up the hill. I couldn’t get a signal on my bloody phone, of course, to call Ward back, so I spent the best part of an hour circling behind her and slowly herding her
down myself, praying that Elizabeth wouldn’t come out.”

“Everything was fine until we got to the back of the cottage. Then suddenly Lola was over the wall, straight across the lawn and through the patio doors.”

Lexy drew in a deep breath. There was a kind of ghastly inevitability about it all.

“Scared the hell out of me,” said Tyman. “I ran in after her and got to the hall, just as she was coming out of the kitchen. She couldn’t get past me back out the patio
doors, so the bugger ran upstairs. I followed her, meaning to try to shut her in one of the bedrooms. Stupid idea, but I wasn’t thinking straight by then.” He shot Lexy an anguished
look. “The radio was on in the bathroom. I thought Elizabeth was safe in there. Then when Lola went straight into Elizabeth’s bedroom and I heard a scream, I was... well...
paralysed.”

“Think I can guess the rest,” said Lexy.

Elizabeth, minding her own business in her bedroom, hearing a noise, looking up, and seeing a full grown lioness walking towards her. Not many people would be able to cope with that. It was bad
enough finding one standing behind you in a paddock. Lexy could certainly understand why Elizabeth started screaming.

“She started backing up, right?” said Lexy. “Stumbled out through the windows, on to the balcony and went straight over.”

Rather like the scenario Lexy had first dreamed up, when she’d found the trail of goose grass burrs on the carpet. Except Lexy’s imagined culprit was a man who deliberately wanted
Elizabeth dead, rather than an elderly lioness hoping for another salmon.

“The screaming suddenly stopped,” said Tyman, swallowing. “I thought Elizabeth had just fainted. I managed to get my legs to take me to the bedroom, and I looked in. But she
wasn’t in there.”

He shook his head. “Just the open window, and Lola looking at me as if to say
whoops
.”

He coloured. “I lost it, and started shouting and yelling at Lola, and she leapt right past me, knocking me flat, gashing my jeans on the way, straight down the stairs and out of the
cottage. She was scared out of her wits.

“I dashed round to the front. There was nothing I could do. Elizabeth had broken her neck. Died instantly. I ran back down to the farm in a panic. Ward got the gist of it and dragged me
out of the kitchen before Mrs Mangeot got an inkling.”

“We called an ambulance,” cut in Ward, “and they got a doctor out to certify the cause of death. Even though there was a police investigation no one suspected it was anything
other than an accident.” He gave Lexy a sober look. “It
was
an accident.”

“After that we were more desperate than ever to catch Lola,” Tyman said. “But she just kept evading us. She was lying up somewhere during the day, and coming out at dusk, which
was her normal feeding time at the farm, then prowling around until dawn. All we could do was patrol the hillside with spiked meat. One or other of us was usually out there all night. We had to go
back to the vet twice for horse tranquilliser. He must have thought we were getting high on it or something.”

“That’s what you were carrying in the bag the other day, wasn’t it?” said Lexy. “Spiked meat.” Probably explained those huge steaks in the fridge, too.
“And that’s why there were no sheep on the hill.”

“They were all crammed into one of our lower fields until yesterday morning,” said Ward.

“Can you imagine how we felt when you suddenly turned up in the middle of it all?” said Tyman. “It was like a nightmare.”

“Cheers,” said Lexy. “But I can see where you’re coming from. Couldn’t at the time though. I thought you were all mental.”

“Lola hadn’t been down to Four Winds since the accident, but a complication like you was we all needed,” said Ward. “Together with a bite-sized dog. Dad was practically
apoplectic after meeting you that morning. We knew we had to get you out of there.

“When we got over the shock of seeing you in the pub that night with the Patersons, Dad took the opportunity to try to get them to sell him the cottage. He would have bought it too, just
to get rid of you all quickly. He made up the story about the break-ins, hoping it would put you off going back that night. But it didn’t work, and he started to go into panic mode.”
Ward glanced at his brother. “I said I’d go and shoot Lola, but we didn’t tell Tyman, because we knew he’d try and stop me. I mean, Lola’s Tyman’s lion, really.
He was the one who risked his life rescuing her, and I think she knows it.”

Lexy looked at the huge cat, quietly panting as Tyman rubbed her ear. Lola knew it.

“When I overheard you talking to your dad about dealing with Lola,” said Lexy, “I thought you were talking about me. I thought you were going to do away with me – because
I knew too much.”

Ward and Tyman exchanged wry looks. “You must have thought we were the Suffolk Mafia.” Tyman gave her a weak smile.

“The awful thing was,” Lexy went on, “I couldn’t make anyone believe me. I thought I was losing my mind. And when Ward came dashing into the cottage the next
day...”

“You thought that’s when I was going to kill you,” Ward said. “No wonder you looked so petrified. I’d just seen Lola near the cottage, so I had to find a reason to
keep you all from wandering out there. The only thing I could think of at the time was to tell you that Edgar was loose. As if he’d hurt a fly.”

“He’s OK, is he, Edgar?” Lexy asked quickly.

“Yeah. He was lying in the sun when I checked him earlier.”

Rather than on a plate in the fridge. Good.

“So, given that all this was going on,” Lexy said to Tyman, “why did you invite me up the hill at dawn?”

He smiled into her eyes. “Just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Yeah, really intelligent, Tyman,” Ward snorted.

“What did happen to you that morning, anyway?” Tyman asked Lexy.

“I followed you, idiot,” Ward cut in. “When I saw what you were doing I escorted Lexy back to the cottage.”

Escorted?

“Thanks a lot. Didn’t you hear me shouting?”

“Frankly, I didn’t care.”

“She wouldn’t have been in any danger,” Tyman said, quietly.

“Is that why you were toting a gun?” Lexy enquired.

“Just wanted to be on the safe side.”

“I assume none of it was true, then?” Lexy turned to Ward, hiding a grin. “What you told me about...” She angled her head at Tyman.

Ward coloured. “Only thing I could think of at short notice.”

“What’s this?” said Tyman.

“I’ll let you explain,” Lexy told Ward.

“Explain what?” said Tyman.

“Later,” Ward growled.

“But when we were up on the hillside the second time,” Lexy said to Ward, serious again. “The night of the shooting. It was Lola you were shooting at, wasn’t it –
not me?”

“Of course. How could we have known you were there? You appeared at the last moment. Lola was right behind you.”

“She has a habit of doing that,” said Lexy. They contemplated the lioness in silence for a moment.

“When I came down to the farm, that morning after the shooting... ” Lexy began, slowly.

“Lola must have been about five minutes behind you,” Ward went on.

“So when Tyman was shouting that he’d seen her coming down the hill,” Lexy said.

“I was talking about Lola,” Tyman finished. “She’d finally had enough of roughing it. Came back of her own accord.”

“No wonder you lot were light-headed with relief. And there was me thinking you were all just mad as a box of frogs.”

Tyman put a hand on her arm. “The question is – are you going to tell anyone about her?”

Lexy found herself looking into Lola’s gold-flecked eye.

“I don’t think you should have let things go on the way they did,” she began, slowly, “although god knows I can understand your reasons. But I’m going to leave it
to you to decide about going to the police.”

“I suppose you think we should?” said Ward.

“It’s not up to me. But if you decide to, can you go and break the news to Rowana first?”

“Why?”

“Elizabeth Cassall was her mother.”

“Christ.” Another silence descended.

“I’d better go and get my dog. He’s shut up in your kitchen. Fortunately.” Lexy imagined Kinky hanging off Lola’s long, tasselled tail.

She made her way back to the gate, leaving the Gallimore brothers to wrestle with their consciences.

Kinky had barked himself hoarse in the Gallimores’ kitchen. Lexy raided their biscuit tin and gave him four custard creams, along with a full apology.

They arrived back at Four Winds Cottage at the same moment as Gabrielle. The girl leapt from the van and ran across the lawn to where Steve was still working.

“I’ve got a month’s trial at Fandango, starting next week,” she shrieked. “I might be even able to sell some of my clothes in the shop, because the manageress
really liked what I was wearing, and she couldn’t believe it when I told her I’d made it.”

“I knew you’d do it, sweetheart.” Lexy watched Steve kiss his daughter.

A white estate car pulled up next to the van. Lexy felt her features tighten.

“How did it go? You got it, didn’t you, Gabby?” Rowana, obviously back from wherever she’d been, ran out from the kitchen door, paint stains on her hands. Like... Archer
Trevino. Funny, that.

“Isn’t she brilliant, Dad?”

Steve looked over at Rowana, shading his eyes. He hesitated for a split second.

“Not now!” Lexy screamed under her breath.

“Yes, my love, she’s amazing. You both are.”

Far away in the distance a mechanical grumble broke the still, hot air.

Milo walked up the path to stand next to Lexy. She glanced coolly at him.

Kinky, however, ran up to the policeman, tail waving. Milo bent to pat him. Odd. Kinky and Milo didn’t object to one another, but so far they’d never been enthusiastic.

Milo straightened. “What’s new?”

Lexy almost broke out laughing. He wouldn’t believe it if she told him. She was having trouble herself.

“Edward managed to lose Kinky, but he came back again,” she said. "That’s about it.”

“Lose him?”

“Long story.”

“Would this be a good time for me to have that chat to Steve?" Milo said, quietly.