And The Earth Moved: Romantic Comedy Cozy Mystery (Amber Reed CCIA Mystery Book 1) (10 page)

She sniffs, wipes away a tear and nods.

“You can tell us anything in confidence, any time.” I look at her. She looks so fragile. “Promise me you’ll tell us if anything, no matter how unconnected it might seem, pops into your mind?”

“Promise.”

“Sweetheart!”

I turn to see a woman in tracksuit bottoms and a fleece running towards us. She scoops Tina into her arms and then, over her shoulder, catches sight of Bert. I see the flash of pain as she looks at her ex-husband.

She takes a step back from her daughter and looks at her, wiping a tear from her face. “Sweetheart, are you OK? What happened?”

Tina shakes her head and cuddles up to her mum again.

“I’m Amber,” I say. “A friend of Bert’s. He’s going to be fine.”

“Carole Turnbull. I reverted to my maiden name after the divorce,” she explains. “But who would do something like this to him? I don’t understand.”

“Neither do we at the moment.”

“Here you go.” Charlie arrives back with the coffees and hands them out.

“This is Charlie,” I explain. “He’s in charge of the investigation.”

The woman glances at Charlie and then turns back to the room, watching Tina who has now gone back to sit by her dad’s bedside. She sips her coffee.

“I knew I should never have let her come and stay here,” she says with more than a hint of bitterness in her voice.

“Oh?” Charlie says, prompting her to continue.

“Tina has been something of a handful. Always was a challenging child but lately she’s been getting in with the wrong crowd. I spoke to Bert,” she continues. “And we agreed she should come and stay with him for a while. Now Bert goes and gets in some fight and gets himself beaten up, that’s a fine example to set to Tina isn’t it?”

Charlie and I exchange looks behind Tina’s mum’s back.

“What kind of stuff is he involved in then?” she asks Charlie.

“We don’t know,” he replies. “But we will find out. We think this incident may be connected to another case we’re investigating.”

She nods. “Well, I’ll be taking Tina home as soon as all this is sorted out.”

“We’ll need an address and phone numbers for you, in case we need to ask Tina any more questions.”

“Of course,” she frowns. “I’ll write all the details down for you.”

Once Carole has given us a bit of paper with the contact details Charlie folds it into the back pocket of his jeans and nods his head towards the exit. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“There’s nothing more we can do for him now. It’s almost three in the morning. Bert can’t talk to us, not yet. We’ll come back later when he’s not sedated. There’s no need to wake Ennis and Siobhan up in the middle of the night to tell them about Bert. We can do that in the morning. Let’s go and try to get some sleep eh?”

I sigh, reluctantly agreeing with him. My adrenaline high is finally easing off and I’m starting to feel exhausted. “OK.”

Once we reach the road which dips down the hill from the moors into Palstone Charlie slows the car even though we’re still a few miles outside the village and then I see him indicate and pull up to the security gate of Ennis’s house.

Of course. I’d forgotten. I’m supposed to be staying with Charlie tonight at the guest house. In all the time I’ve known Ennis I’ve never stayed at his place, in the main house or the guest house. It seems strange to be staying over. Especially in the guest house with Charlie.

“Don’t worry,” Charlie says as he pushes the buttons on the temporary remote access pad on the dashboard of his car. We wait for the black metal gates to slowly slide open. “You’ll be perfectly safe here and, in case you’re wondering, there are two bedrooms in the guest house.”

Chapter Thirteen

Charlie has demolished a mug of coffee and is on his third breakfast pancake.

“Another?” I ask as I dish up a pancake and smother it with honey and blueberries. Thankfully we both managed to get a few hours rest and recuperation after the chaos and confusion of last night.

I suspect Charlie got more sleep than I did, though I wouldn’t know for definite of course as I was across the hall in the other bedroom. Charlie is used to being in stressful situations, me, not so much. Certainly not stressful situations like finding a friend beaten up on the roadside anyway. When I did manage to fall asleep it didn’t seem to take long before I’d be awake again, reliving the scene up on the moor. Wondering who would do something like that to Bert and why. At one point I ached to get up and go and knock on Charlie’s bedroom door just to ask for a cuddle.

Just
a cuddle. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be held, be reassured, feel safe, but I knew seeking those things from Charlie wouldn’t be a good idea so I’d stayed right where I was and willed myself to sleep instead.

“Tempting. You make a fantastic pancake. But I’ve already had…”

I ignore his half-hearted protest and slide the plate in front of him. He smiles.
That
smile.

Unsurprisingly the bedroom I slept in was straight out of an interiors magazine. King-size bed with loads of pillows and cushions, a deep soft carpet to sink my toes into and an en suite bathroom. Mine had a Jacuzzi bath tub and walk in power shower area so I’m assuming Charlie’s room does too. I’m grateful Charlie nagged me into staying over because I don’t think I’d have got any sleep at all back at my flat.

I get up to move my mug and plate to the sink when there’s a knock on the door. Charlie pops the last bit of his pancake into his mouth and goes to answer the door. He’s dressed in black tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt and looks totally relaxed.

“Ennis, come in,” he says.

“Sorry to bother you so early but I …” Ennis stops in his tracks when he sees me standing at the kitchen sink, wearing pyjamas, washing dishes. His jaw drops open a little then he ignores me and turns back to Charlie.

“I couldn’t sleep last night and I heard you get back in the early hours. I wondered if something was wrong. Has there been any further developments?” Ennis asks him.

Charlie pours himself another mug of coffee. “Anyone else want a drink?”

I shake my head. Ennis looks from me to Charlie again then shakes his head too.

He gestures for Ennis to take a seat at the dining table. “Yeah, last night Bert was beaten up,” he starts to explain. “He sent a text message to Amber saying he wanted her to meet him up on the edge of the moor near the standing stones. When she got there he was in a bad way. He’s at the hospital but should be OK. He was sedated and stable when we left.”

Ennis gets to his feet, panic in his eyes. “You’re sure he’s going to be OK? Which hospital?”

“He’s in Dinham Royal.” Charlie gets to his feet as well, guiding Ennis to sit back down on one of the dining chairs, to calm down. “I’ll get one of the local police team to take you over there if you like?”

“This has to be connected to what happened with Joel doesn’t it?” Ennis asks, pushing nervous hands through his hair.

Charlie nods. “We think so, yes.”

Ennis leaps to his feet again. “Tina! Where’s Tina? Does she know?”

“Tina’s fine,” I say, earning myself an irritated glance from Ennis. “We told her and then took her to the hospital. She’s there with her mum.”

“I want to get over to the hospital as soon as possible,” Ennis says to Charlie, ignoring me.

“Of course, I’ll ring the station now,” Charlie says, wandering into the open plan lounge area to fetch his phone from the coffee table where he put it earlier.

Ennis and I stay in the kitchen but there’s a strange tension between us. I get the feeling I have some explaining to do but I’m not going to do it now, with Charlie only a few feet away. Ennis is annoyed with me and I completely understand why. He asked me to shadow Charlie, not move in with him and have sleepovers. Under normal circumstances I’d have felt awkward about staying here without asking Ennis first but last night my head was not in thinking mode and I just wanted to be here, where I felt reasonably safe. I’ll talk to Ennis later and he’ll be fine once he understands the circumstances which lead to this misleadingly domesticated scene of Charlie and me eating breakfast together.

The seconds tick by achingly slowly as silence hangs between us. Turning to the sink I finish the washing up just as Charlie wanders back through.

“All sorted. An unmarked police car will call at the house in fifteen minutes to collect you and escort you to see Bert.”

Ennis nods and heads for the door without saying a word. I glance at Charlie, wondering if he picked up on the uncomfortable atmosphere.

“I’m off to have a shower,” he says.

Obviously he didn’t pick up on it, I think with relief.

Charlie brings his empty mug over to the sink but instead of dumping it on the draining board he leans in close, reaching across me slightly, and washes it in the bowl, the warmth from his bare arm against mine making my stomach tingle.

“Ennis seems to really care about his staff,” he says. “He seemed really upset when he left.”

“Bert has worked for him for ages, of course he cares,” I say, ignoring the fact Charlie’s hand just accidentally brushed against mine in the washing up bowl.

Dumping the clean mug on the draining board Charlie wipes his hands on his tracksuit bottoms. “Funny thing is though,” he says. “I could have sworn he seemed irritated over something even before I told him about the Bert incident.”

“He’s just on edge because of what happened to Joel,” I say, avoiding looking at Charlie.

“Yeah, of course he is. I’m sure that’s all it was.” He takes the stairs two at a time and I think I hear him mutter something about Ennis and me as he goes but I’m not sure.

Not much more than ten minutes later Charlie bounds into the kitchen, showered and changed. I notice he hasn’t shaved though and I find myself thinking the dark stubble suits him. “Just had a call,” he says.

“News?” I ask, instantly on alert. “Is Bert all right?”

“Yep.” He nods. “He’s fine I just checked in with the hospital. No, this call was some feedback on the checks I requested about Set In Stone quarry. Seems the place has more serious financial problems than Liam was letting on when he said money was why they weren’t up to date on fence maintenance.”

“I’m not surprised. Armstrong Turston ran the quarry efficiently and the place always seemed busy. Since he died I’ve heard some of the local men who drive the lorries up at Set In Stone when they’re talking in the pub. They’ve been saying they’re worried there might be some redundancies because business has slowed so much. I get the feeling Liam is finding it difficult being in charge, running the family business.”

Charlie flops onto a chair and taps a finger against the top of the dining table. “So they might be looking for alternative sources of income for the business then by the sounds of things.”

“Could well be. Oh, I forgot to say I saw something which might be useful on a wall planner in the quarry office that night we broke in.”

He gives me a look which clearly tells me he’s a little miffed I’ve only just thought to mention this fact. Oops.

“There were several dates circled in red but nothing written next to them,” I press on. “One of the dates was the night we were there.”

“Did you notice if the night of Joel’s death was circled or not?” he asks.

I search through my mind, trying to summon up a picture of the wall planner. “Not sure but I do remember when the next date is which was circled. It was Thursday, two days away.”

He nods his approval and I get the feeling I’m forgiven. “I think I’ll be paying the quarry another visit on that night then.”

I raise an eyebrow. “
I’ll
be paying another visit? Singular?”

He frowns. “Amber, you’ve seen what these guys can do. It’s not safe for you.”

“It’s not safe for you either.”

“That’s different. It’s my job to do this stuff. I can handle myself.”

I have a feeling being stroppy won’t get the results I want, especially in the circumstances, so quickly switch tactics. “There’s more than one way to get to the bottom of something like this. You’re the expert of course but you know I can help you out with the local knowledge side of things and I…”

He shakes his head slightly and looks away.

“Something the matter?” I ask sweetly.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” I try to paste an innocent expression on my face.

“Using that charm of yours, combined with your stubborn streak. I’m glad you’re on my side in all of this. You know just how to work it to get people trusting you, opening up to you. Doing whatever you want them to.”

“You’re one to talk,” I retaliate. “What about you and that smile?”

“What smile?”

I cross my arms. “You know what smile.”

Still sitting at the table he lifts his head slightly and then he gives me
that
smile.

“See!” I can’t help laughing. “That’s the one! That smile. You can get anything you want with that smile and you know it!”

He raises an eyebrow and there’s more than a twinkle in his eyes. “Anything?”

I look away, feeling colour rising in my cheeks. “Well, almost anything,” I amend.

Charlie sighs. “OK. OK. OK. You can come with me on Thursday but we aren’t going down into the quarry this time. We’re going to find a suitable vantage point on the rim of the quarry perimeter. From there we can safely see down into the quarry hole itself and also see across the rim to the spot where Joel fell.”

His phone beeps again and he scans the text message then gets to his feet.

“Seems Bert is awake and we can go up there and have a chat with him this morning. According to Pete, the local guy keeping guard, Tina spent the night in her dad’s room, asleep on the chair. Nobody went near the place except for her mum and the hospital staff.”

I heave a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness he’s OK. Shall we get going to the hospital then? Oh, one more thing.”

“Yep?”

“Can we call at my house before we go to the hospital? I could do with another change of clothes and a freshen up. I wasn’t thinking straight last night when I packed some stuff. I haven’t got half what I need.”

He nods, grabbing a jacket. “Of course we can. Freshen up eh? That means you didn’t try out your luxury power shower or Jacuzzi bath this morning then?”

“No,” I reply. Before I can stop myself I add, “Have both bedrooms got them?”

“Yes, they have,” he says, holding the door open for me. “They’re pretty amazing as well.”

I swallow and try to avert my mind from thoughts of Charlie in the bath, or standing under a power shower, the water pummelling those broad shoulders. I feel my cheeks grow warm again and, as I follow him through the door, am relieved that a gush of fresh morning air helps cool me down.

“You can give one of them a try tonight,” he says as he sets off at full stride towards the parking area.

“Tonight?” I gulp.

He turns around to look at me, walking backwards now. “Of course. I reckon it might be best if you move into the guest wing for a day or so.” The cheeky smile is back. “For your own safety, of course.”

Mmm…not so sure about that.