Time Enough To Die (9 page)

Matilda decided she could live with the hornless English saddle, even though it gave her less to hold onto in an emergency. She and Bodie had to make a couple of experimental circles before they reached a compromise about the use of the reins. “It's like steering a buggy,” Matilda griped good-naturedly as she turned the horse's head to follow Gareth out of the yard.

He glanced back. “You're accustomed to Western-style?"

"Understandably so,” she retorted. He grinned, but said nothing.

Let him feel superior when appropriate, Matilda told herself. It would make working together easier. Although she wasn't going to play dumb just to butter him up. She tapped Bodie's flank with her toes and the horse picked up her pace, drawing even with Gremlin. Side by side they turned down a lane that ran behind the farm.

Human figures bobbed up and down along the skyline of the fort. Beyond it the rooftops of Corcester gathered like skirts around the steeple of the church. St. Michael's was more impressive from a distance than when it was hemmed in by the other buildings. In its time the Roman fort of Cornovium would have been equally impressive, masonry and tile squares stamped indelibly on the green Celtic interlace of Britain.

Ahead the rolling Cheshire farmland faded into a mistily indistinct distance. Even so Matilda could detect a darker line where earth and sky met. On a clear day Durslow Edge would look like storm clouds massing on the horizon.

"I bet,” Matilda said, “Reynolds was eager to lend us the horses so he could play Lord Bountiful."

"He's right chuffed about his possessions,” answered Gareth. “Probably started out poor."

"Did you catch what Della said about a note?"

"Oh yes. They're not half in debt, I reckon. Perhaps for improvements to the farm—that's a tidy bit of property and no mistake."

"Except for the cobwebs hanging in the stable."

Gareth grinned again. “Spiders eat the flies that torment the horses."

"Oh.” Matilda liked Gareth's grin. It slipped the tempered personality an inch or so from its police inspector's scabbard. If they'd been out riding for pleasure he might have eventually mellowed out. But they were on a mission. “Fortuna Stud,” she went on. “Fortuna was the Roman goddess of Fate. Reynolds seems to think it means ‘luck'."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he gambles on his own horses. He might owe a fair amount to his turf accountant."

"He's certainly eager to turn a pound."

The lane meandered across a couple of fields and then turned to follow the river. Willows lined the banks, their branches studded with green buds. Water gurgled around the stone piers of a ruined Roman bridge. Matilda's saddle creaked, chafing gently between her thighs. She felt the spikes of her mind flatten into slow undulations. “What part of Wales are you from?” she asked Gareth.

His chin went up. “Anglesey."

"How interesting! I bet you have red-headed Druids in your ancestry."

"My father's grandparents came from Anglesey, but beyond them I don't know. My mother's from London."

"Quite a culture shock for her, I suppose."

"I suppose,” he said, much too casually.

That conflict was never resolved, Matilda told herself, and did him the courtesy of diverting the subject. “I've always enjoyed Tacitus's account of the battle between the Romans and the Druids on Anglesey. Suetonius thought he had pacified Britain. Then the messengers came galloping with news of Boudicca's rebellion. He had his greatest battle still before him."

"My grandmother used to say that when the RAF built an air base at Llyn Cerrig Bach during the War, they dug up huge chains, so well-made they used them to haul heavy equipment. Until an archaeologist realized it was pre-Roman work, two thousand years old. But they had no time to do a proper excavation."

"And the Celtic port disappeared beneath the air base, sacrificed to a troubled time.” Matilda ducked an overhanging branch. “You must enjoy history."

Gareth shrugged. “They made some attempt to teach it me in school. I was never keen on it."

"What a shame,” Matilda murmured. He didn't react. “My son is always interested enough when we do the old sites, even though he's majoring in computer science. I'd like to see him writing archaeological programs someday, but he's more likely to be one of the first settlers on Mars."

"You have a son?"

"One about the same age as the kids back at Corcester, and about as flighty, given half the chance. Patrick Kiloran Gray. Patrick after his father, and Kiloran for me, that's my maiden name.” She sensed Gareth's puzzled query. He wasn't about to ask out loud, though. “I'm a widow."

"I'm sorry,” Gareth said.

Matilda replied, “So am I."

The horses’ hooves plopped along the muddy path, Bodie stepping solidly, Gremlin showing a tendency to shy at the odd blowing leaf. But Gareth remained firmly in control. Reynolds had probably given him Gremlin to test his claims of horsemanship.

The river looped away to the left. The path sloped upward among rocks that pierced the grass of the fields. The red sandstone escarpment of Durslow Edge loomed ahead, veiled with the black and pale green of trees. The higher they went, the fresher grew the breeze.

"I interviewed Clapper this morning,” said Gareth. “Linda left the bar with Reynolds at least once, to see his artifact collection. According to both his and Della's statements, though, he was at home the night she was killed."

Matilda nodded. “Linda told the police she knew the whereabouts of illegal artifacts. Maybe she and Reynolds were up to something together. I wonder if he really was at home that night, or whether he intimidated Della into saying so."

"I wonder if Della has enough sense even to be intimidated."

"Dullness is often a defense—if you don't let yourself feel anything, then you won't get hurt.” Gareth glanced over at her. Matilda met his look blandly. If he wanted to put that boot on himself and shout that it fitted, let him.

A sprawl of travel trailers and old trucks filled an angle of road below them, crowded on the third side by the dark, dense bristles of a mature fir plantation. Smoke shredded down the wind. A motorcycle roared away toward Macclesfield and a dog barked furiously.

"The New Age travelers?” Matilda asked.

"Yes. They were camped on the other side of the river when Linda was killed, beyond Corcester, but about the same distance from Durslow. That's where she was last seen, in their camp."

"Was she killed for her money?"

"No. She was found with twenty quid in her handbag.” Gareth urged Gremlin on up the hillside, and Bodie dutifully followed.

"Della was frightened when you mentioned the travelers."

"Was she then? Someone riding a brown horse welcomed two traveler lads to the farm yesterday. She said herself Bodie is her horse, didn't she?"

"Inviting them in behind her husband's back would frighten her, I imagine. That's pretty bold. Maybe it's an attempt at rebellion. Unfortunately, that kind of desperate rebellion is so undirected it can turn dangerous."

"You're thinking she's in danger from Reynolds? He looks the sort to knock his wife about,” Gareth said indignantly. “I'll call round the traveler's camp and talk to Nick, the leader, see if he knows anything. Or if he'll tell me anything."

"It might be better if you waited a few days to do that. You're supposed to be here writing about the dig."

"It's early days yet.” Gareth's tone carried little conviction.

The horses scuffed up a trail between russet sandstone boulders. Aged oak trees clung to the top of the embankment. Interspersed among them were sweet chestnut trees just starting to bloom with pink and white flowers. “Those are Mediterranean trees,” Matilda offered. “Brought here by the Romans. The oaks, of course, are the Druid trees."

Gareth didn't reply. Crows spun overhead, calling harshly, and somewhere pigeons cooed. A heave and a scramble and the horses stood snorting atop Durslow Edge.

Gareth pulled a map from his bag, consulted it, and led the way across the rough and tumbled top of the Edge. The scarred mouths of old mine workings gaped in barren patches of ground. On a low promontory a few cut stones among the trees showed where a fortress had once risen. One or two vestigial roads ended in car parks littered with aluminum cans, cardboard, and plastic.

At last they came to a rocky ledge in a cliff, wide enough the horses could walk along it comfortably, and so high that Matilda felt she had only to reach out and touch the writhing limbs of the oaks below.

Beyond the trees lay the countryside. Black and white houses and black and white cows dotted the fields. Corcester was a distant jumble of squares and angles. The Jodrell Bank satellite dish made a metallic accent on the far horizon. A smudge to the northeast hinted at Manchester's factories and traffic jams. The wind whipped Matilda's hair back from her face. She thought,
there is no black and white, only shades of gray.

Gareth dismounted gracefully and held Bodie's bridle. Matilda levered herself out of the saddle. Nerve endings in her seat and thighs woke from their stupor and protested. She walked gingerly back and forth while Gareth secured the horses to a nearby log.

A few steps along the ledge a fissure opened in the face of the cliff. From it water poured into a rough-hewn basin. Cold water, Matilda discovered when she washed her hands in it. The stone before her face was marked with myriad scratches—old writings and drawings. She could almost make out faces looking at her, noses and eyes defined from bumps in the rock. Sacrificial heads? Bride's well. Brighid's well, whether it was technically a spring or not. Coins glittered at the bottom of the basin, and the neighboring tree branches were tied with bits of cloth. Someone still believed.

Gareth knelt, cupped his hands, and drank. If he was willing to brave any microbes, so was she. Matilda drank, too. The water filled her mouth with implications of stone and dirt and green. It wasn't its chill that made her shoulders pucker. She turned around.

Ghostly leaves swayed among the branches of the oaks, thick bunches of leaves casting dense shadows that fled before the guttering light of torches.... The torchlight thinned and dissipated into the dim sunlight. Matilda blinked. This was a ceremonial place. The rock beneath her feet hummed with an ancient power that if not malicious, was not particularly friendly.

Gareth was looking at her. “All right then, you tell me where Linda's body was found."

Matilda extended her senses, dissolving them into space and time. Her nostrils caught a whiff of smoke. She heard voices, perhaps a man's and a woman's, too distant to make out words. The sound of the crushing blow echoed from the cliff face. The woman's short cry of surprise did not.

"There.” Matilda pointed to a leaf-and-dirt covered space about thirty yards from the basin, not far from the charred remains of a bonfire.

Gareth pulled several photographs from his bag and looked at them. One of his brows arched upward. “Spot on."

Together they cleared away the debris, revealing a leveled and smoothed stone floor. Matilda crouched and laid her hand flat on the rock. It droned beneath her fingertips like a long plucked string. “I wonder why the body was left here.... “The thought flicked away from her grasp and she shook her head. “You didn't tell me she was hit from behind first."

"You'll have read the reports already,” Gareth replied.

"No, I haven't. Watkins gave them to you, remember? When are you going to start trusting me?"

"I don't think it's a matter of trust."

"Faith, maybe? Or credulity?” She stood up, brushing off her knees, and considered the detective's closed and almost belligerent face. “I want to read the reports and look at the photos, but not here. Too much rock for footprints, I suppose. Nothing conveniently left behind by the killer, no driver's license or anything like that."

"Nothing was here save the woman's body. She was wearing denim trousers and a coat—ordinary clothing. Her handbag was lying beside her."

"She came here with someone she trusted. A man, I suppose, although surely it was too chilly that night for much sexual activity."

Gareth jerked his head back the way they had come. “Car park's just there. It's filled with tire tracks."

"But who's to say whether she had sex here?” Matilda closed her eyes. The wind keened past her ears. It had been windy that night, too. Even if Linda had had time to scream, no one would have heard her. But she hadn't been frightened soon enough to scream. Thank God for that mercy, at least.

Matilda opened her eyes and looked around the area, not at the rocks and the leaves, but through them. There, something glinted. Not like the coin at the dig—gold had a distinctive shimmer to the eye, a deep note to the ear. This was something else.

She walked to a pile of brush not far from the ashes of the fire and pulled out a small piece of paper. It was damp and dirty but still legible. “A sales slip from a store called ‘The Antiquary's Corner', proprietress Celia Dunning."

"That's the shop where Linda worked.” Gareth plucked the paper from her hand. “Someone bought a vase there for eight quid on March 2. Well after the murder, more's the pity. This was dropped by someone gawping at the murder scene."

"Still, isn't it interesting that it's the same shop?"

"Yes.” Gareth put the paper carefully into his bag.

"Were the ashes of that bonfire there in February?” Matilda asked.

Again Gareth consulted his pictures. “Yes. You think they'd have washed away in the rains since then."

"Perhaps there's been another fire lit here since then. The goddess Brighid had a sacred fire even after she was reincarnated as St. Brigit.” Gareth blinked at her. “All right, what else did Clapper tell you this morning?"

"Some local lads have put it about that the travelers are devil-worshippers."

Matilda frowned. “Some people experiment with the occult the same way they experiment with drugs, sex, music, and anarchy. It's not a good idea to invite something into your mind, though, if you can't control it."

"You don't believe that rubbish?” Gareth demanded.