Walking Into Murder

  WALKING

  INTO

  MURDER

  Book One in the Laura Morland

  Mystery Series

  BY

  JOAN DAHR LAMBERT ©

  CHAPTER ONE

  Laura regarded the wooden stile with dismay. The Cotswold Hills of England were littered with stiles – as well as the fences they helped people to cross - but she had never come across one as dilapidated as this. The bottom step was rotted away; the top one tilted precariously and was almost chest high. She would have to be a gymnast to get her foot up there.

  The first stile she had come across on this long-distance walk had charmed her, she remembered grumpily. Filled with the romance of history, she had told herself as she imagined the generations of farmers and walkers who had trod its weathered boards. Then, however, the step had been lower, the weather perfect, and she had been full of energy. Now she was bone-tired, a dense fog with pelting rain had rolled in, and the temperature had dropped precipitously. Worse, she was lost. The walking path had disappeared into a sea of mud made by trampling cows. What had ever made her think she could walk the hundred plus miles of the Cotswold Way alone?

  Raising a leg as high as she could, Laura levered one mud-encrusted knee onto the sloping step. Encouraged, she hoisted the other knee up and slowly raised herself to a standing position. She wobbled there unsteadily and then dared to fling a leg over the fence. The step collapsed under her other foot and she toppled into the mud on the other side. It was at least a foot deep, smelly and icy cold.

  If it was mud. More likely it was cow manure.

  Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Laura tried to stand. She failed, due to the fact that one of her boots was stuck fast in the muck. Grabbing it with both hands and a fund of pent-up frustration, she yanked. With an odious sucking noise, it came loose. Attached to it were at least five pounds of glop. How was it possible for a bunch of cows to produce so much of the stinking stuff?

  She stood up hastily, startled by the sound of pounding feet. A man materialized out of the mist and ran straight at her, arms outstretched.

  “Thank goodness I found you!” he exclaimed, and swept her into a close embrace. Laura’s body went rigid with shock. Then indignation took hold.

  “Let me go!” she hissed, shoving at his chest. The arms held her even closer, and to her horror, lips began to move passionately along her cheek.

  “Play along with me,” the man pleaded in an undertone. “A life could depend on it. Pretend you’re my wife and we got separated when I went to look for -”

  Another voice interrupted, startling Laura so badly that she clung to her unknown accoster. “By jove! Telling the truth about a missing wife after all. Still, I shall have to bring you both back. Can’t go anywhere in this bloody fog anyway.”

  This voice was very English, brought pictures of fireplaces and dogs and country manors into Laura’s mind. The idea of a fire and a manor, or any kind of house as long as it was warm and dry and had a bathroom, seemed like salvation. So did the idea of an English gentleman who might rescue her from this madman.

  He hadn’t sounded mad, though, only desperate. Could a life really depend on her cooperation? And what did the Englishman mean by saying he had to take them back with him? That had a menacing sound. For the first time she noticed the shotgun on his arm. It was even more menacing.

  “What’s your name?” her would-be husband murmured in her ear.

  “Laura,” she answered automatically, her voice muffled by his close embrace. She was aware of a not-unpleasant smell. Damp tweed, she thought, or was it that cologne called Tweed?

  Why was she thinking about smells when she ought to be trying to escape? Laura jerked away from her unknown assailant but he grabbed her hand before she could run. Her fingers immediately felt warmer. His, she noted with satisfaction, were now well decorated with the cow muck that was smeared all over hers. She could feel the stuff oozing between their fingers. He rolled his eyes but hung on gamely.

  “Come, Laura dear,” he said loudly, dragging her along with him. “It seems we must do as this gentleman says and go back to his house.”

  Laura’s instant of triumph dissolved. This was ridiculous! She was being virtually kidnapped by two large men. That didn’t happen to innocent American tourists on walking trips in England, so why was it happening to her?

  Because you have a positive talent for getting into trouble, Donald the Defector would have said. That was the name she had used for her ex-husband, privately at least, since the evening he had invited her to dinner and stupefied her with the news that he was leaving. Humiliating didn’t begin to describe the experience. She, the Professor of Gender Studies who was supposed to know all about relationships between the sexes, hadn’t had a clue that for months he’d been carrying on an affair. By the time he had finished his rapturous description of Patti, the young lady-love (his words) who had lured him away, the coq au vin and string beans Laura had ordered had congealed on her plate. Donald had speared the limp beans one by one with his fork, she remembered, and devoured them with gusto. She’d never seen him eat string beans before.

  She’d never known him to do anything out of line before, which just went to show how naïve she was. She had even assumed that Donald had invited her to dinner in an effort to revive their moribund marriage.

  Laura sighed. Sometimes it seemed to her that advanced degrees and academic expertise came only at the expense of common sense.

  “Odd time to be out walking,” the Englishman remarked, watching them suspiciously. “All this rain and fog.”

  “My wife has an odd preference for walking in despicable weather,” the hand-holder replied, eyeing Laura warily. “She likes getting soaked. Good for the character, she says.”

  Laura shot him a baleful look but he only smiled charmingly and patted the hand he held with his other one. “Only teasing, darling,” he said.

  “If you want cooperation,” Laura muttered icily under her breath, “teasing is not a good idea. Nor is calling me darling.”

  “Sorry, darling,” her companion answered blithely. A stinging barrage of hail prevented Laura from expressing her indignation. It was followed by lashing wind that blew her hood off and sent cold water dribbling down her back. She shivered, and then found she was unable to stop.

  Paying no attention to the onslaught, the Englishman gestured them towards a maze of trees that loomed like ghostly poles in the fog. The man clinging to her hand obeyed docilely. Laura wondered why, until she noted that the shot gun was now pointed at them.

  She glanced up at the man beside her covertly, trying to decide if he could be trusted to come to her assistance if that should be necessary. His curly hair was plastered to his head by rain, but even so, he was attractive. She wondered what she looked like with her hair plastered to her skull. Less attractive, she was sure.

  Failing to watch her feet was a mistake. She tripped over a protruding root and fell. Her companion pulled her upright again. “Best to look where your feet are going, dearest,” he advised. Laura responded with a furious frown. The man was incorrigible! And what made her think she could assess his character after five minutes when she’d failed so spectacularly to assess her husband’s after twenty years?

  Laura clenched her fists hard. “Quite a grip,” her companion observed mildly, and squeezed her hand in return. Glaring at him, she tried again to pull it away, but he held on as if his fingers were glued to it, which possibly they were.

  The path narrowed. Closely packed bushes hemmed them in on both sides and met overhead, forming a tunnel. The Englishman gestured for them to go ahead and followed with the gun. Laura hustled through. At any other time she would have enjoyed this tunnel of greenery, but now
she felt only an eerie prickling along her spine.

  Rain attacked them again as they emerged. Squinting, Laura made out the shape of an enormous house just ahead. Smaller buildings clustered around it. She heard the clatter of hooves, and then the silhouette of a large horse came into view at the top of a ridge. A small and graceful rider was perched on its back. Both vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

  “Damnation!” the Englishman shouted. “Who let the senator go out?”

  Laura was bewildered. Was the senator a person or the horse?

  The Englishman offered no explanation. “In!” he ordered Laura and her companion in a tone that brooked no argument. Opening the heavy door of the house, he shoved them unceremoniously into a wide stone entry and loped off in the direction of the vanishing horse. Laura went inside obediently, but the other man dropped her hand and ran after the Englishman. “Cat,” he shouted. “Cat, come back!”

  Laura watched him disappear into the fog again, feeling perversely abandoned. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone in this great castle of a house. Maybe she should go out again, try to find a road or a halfway sensible person. And who or what was Cat? The missing wife perhaps? If there was one.

  The big door closed soundlessly before she could make up her mind whether to go out again or stay put. Laura was conscious of sudden blissful silence, of dryness and warmth. Better to be warm and dry and abducted than wet and cold and abducted, she decided, feeling her shivering abate. Besides, someone in here might help her.

  She looked around curiously. The entrance hall was huge, with a flagged floor and high vaulted ceiling that gave it a cavernous feeling. The stone walls were studded with lethal-looking swords and firearms. Across from her was another heavy door, a replica of the one through which she had entered.

  “Please remove your muddy boots and wet jacket,” a disembodied voice commanded. Laura jumped. No one was in the hall. Maybe a butler lurked behind the inner door. This seemed like the kind of house that would have a butler. An invisible one, however, was distinctly odd.

  She hesitated, but her indecision lasted only a moment. Her jacket was clammy and her boots soggy, and she removed both with a sigh of pleasure.

  “Thank you,” the polite voice remarked. As if by magic, the door opposite her opened. Laura went through into another hall, this one more conventionally decorated with dark paintings and heavy curtains. A magnificent Persian rug stretched across the stone floor, and she wriggled her cold toes appreciatively into its warmth. Against one wall, a long, heavily carved table held a tall vase of flowers and a large number of ornate pieces of silver. A butler still hadn’t appeared.

  She whirled as the voice spoke again. “Please put your card on the silver salver and proceed into the drawing room,” it instructed politely. A speaker system must be wired to the doors, Laura realized. How clever! Her son would love it. Mark used to play around with wiring, causing Donald to wonder if they would all be burned in their beds while they slept. Mark had looked crushed.

  Since she had no card Laura went directly into the drawing room. At the threshold she stopped abruptly, astonished. The scene in front of her was like a stage set. An elegant older woman rested her hands on the back of a carved Victorian sofa that was placed in the exact center of the room. She was the embodiment of a grande dame, with her aristocratic face, her aquiline nose and arched eyebrows. Just behind her stood a tall skinny youth with a supercilious look on his face. He had exactly the same eyebrows as the older woman but a distinct slouch. A pair of round wire spectacles was perched incongruously on his long nose. Neither spoke nor moved.

  The tableau remained frozen for a long moment; then the woman began to slide sideways, very slowly, without changing her erect posture or her composed expression. The young man, however, looked startled. Laura heard a muffled curse and a giggle, and then the lights went out.

  ***********

  Someone will scream now, Laura thought hysterically. Someone always does. She fought an urge to scream herself, or maybe to laugh.

  The scream came, but not the one she expected. It was the indignant yell of a furious child. “That isn’t fair, Nigel! You said I could do it.”

  “Well, I meant you to, but it happened so fast.” The young man sounded aggrieved and surprised in equal measure.

  A door opened at the other end of the room and the lights went on again. With disbelief, Laura watched the woman who had just fallen enter the room. How could she have moved that fast? Then she saw that there were two women, one on the floor behind the sofa and the new one. She took a step closer and realized that the first woman was a mannequin, a remarkably realistic one. She almost expected it to get up.

  The woman at the opposite door regarded the scene thoughtfully with keen dark eyes that contrasted sharply with her snowy hair. Her gaze rested on the young man, whom Laura presumed was Nigel, and then moved to the stiff figure on the floor. She said nothing, but her dark eyebrows arched expressively, managing at once to convey resignation, veiled annoyance and a touch of humor.

  “Sorry, Gram,” the young man apologized. “Didn’t mean to startle. We were just practicing. No one told me a guest was coming.”

  The white-haired woman inclined her head graciously. She must be his grand-mother, Laura decided. They looked extraordinarily alike.

  Muffled giggles came from behind the sofa. The grande dame finally broke her silence. “That will do, Angelina,” she said calmly.

  A small girl popped up from her hiding place. All laughter disappeared when she caught sight of Laura. “Why are you here?” she demanded, stamping her foot. “You are not supposed to be here!” She sent Laura a scathing look.

  Laura sent one back. “I don’t know myself why I am here, and if I could I would be elsewhere,” she said crisply, irritated by the child’s peremptory tone – and by the fact that no one, so far, had acknowledged her presence except this obnoxious girl.

  “Then you should leave,” the child ordered. Her accent was as perfect as the Englishman’s, and Laura wondered if she was his daughter. Like his, her manners left a great deal to be desired.

  As if on cue, her thought was expressed by a younger woman who came into the room. Laura tried not to stare. She had seldom seen anyone as beautiful or as impeccably dressed. Patti’s neat little outfits and fake blond hair couldn’t come close. This woman’s flaxen hair hadn’t come out of a bottle. It waved softly around her oval face, and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. She had the same huge blue eyes as the child. But while the girl’s eyes were frankly hostile, the woman’s eyes held only mild boredom. She didn’t look at Laura or even seem to notice her.

  “Your manners are atrocious, Angelina,” she said lazily, her tone unconvincing. Angelina paid no attention. Her small mouth was set in a discontented line that foretold still more loathsome remarks.

  Fed up with being ignored, Laura decided to make her presence obvious. She was tired, wet, hungry, dirty and bewildered. The least these people could do was to offer her a bathroom or a hot drink – anything but this perverse silence, as if she didn’t exist.

  “I would like to use a bathroom,” she stated, not bothering to think of a polite euphemism. “I have been walking for hours and want to wash my hands at least.”

  The two women looked at her for the first time. “Of course,” the white-haired one replied. “I fear we have been inconsiderate. Please take our visitor to the green room, Antonia, and see that she has everything she needs.”

  The youth’s eyes widened in alarm. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it again and made a helpless gesture with one hand. Angelina giggled.

  Laura turned away from the tableau with relief. She followed Antonia up a wide staircase and past an impressive number of doors. All were closed.

  “I think you will find everything you need here,” her escort said as she opened one of the doors. “There is a connecting bathroom to your left.”

  “Thank you,” Laura replied, her mood vastly impr
oved by the chance to clean up. She went straight into the bathroom and eyed it appreciatively. The fittings, though old, gleamed with cleaning; so did the tiles that covered both floor and walls. Thick white towels were neatly folded on an elegant drying rack, and when she picked one up it was warm to the touch. This must be one of the many grand old houses that had resorted to taking in tourists to help pay the bills, she mused. Why else the perfectly polished fixtures, the heated towels?

  Reveling in the unexpected luxury, Laura treated her wind-whipped face to a soothing cream, removed every trace of cow manure from her hands and combed her rebelliously curly red hair into some semblance of order. She even found a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste in her pack. Now she could face the impeccable grande dame and the gorgeous Antonia without feeling quite so much like a bedraggled refugee.

  Her confidence restored, Laura emerged into the bedroom. She couldn’t make out any details in the dim light cast by a single lamp near the door, but she could see that the room was indeed green, as the white-haired woman had stated. A pale green rug covered the floor, the wallpaper had green stripes, a darker green canopy soared over the huge bed and a matching silk coverlet lay on its surface. Laura looked at the bed longingly. It would feel so good to get off her feet for a moment.

  Tempted, she took a few steps toward it but stopped abruptly. How odd. Someone was already in the bed, under the coverlet. All that showed was part of the face and an arm. It drooped down one side of the bed, looking oddly lifeless, and the eyes were...

  Laura froze, and then she screamed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The scream reverberated in the room but Laura heard no answering calls. The doors, she thought helplessly. No one would hear anything through all those closed doors. They wouldn’t hear from downstairs anyway.

  Fascinated despite her horror, she glanced again at the woman in the big bed. Her skin had a waxy pallor that made the creamy sheets look bright by comparison, and her slanted green eyes were wide open, staring sightlessly.