Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [29]
“We can’t,” she said roundly.
“How not?”
“Slashed tyres.”
“Good God, she’s right,” Alistair exclaimed, walking around all the vehicles. “Every single one.”
When Rex saw the vandalized tyres, he felt ready to bellow and stomp his feet.
“Rex, I’m frightened,” Helen said in a small voice beside him.
“Don’t worry, lass. We’ll get out of here one way or the other. Where’s that boy?”
Glancing about him, he strode off beyond the stable to the meadow, where Donnie stood beside Honey as she grazed peaceably beneath the rain. When the boy saw Rex, he led the pony by the reins through the wet grass toward him. Rex realized Honey was too small to be of any use to him after all.
“I don’t suppose your horse would support my weight, would she?” he asked.
“Och, noo, and she’s right mean-spirited,” Donnie told him in his slow, deliberate way. “She’ll throw you just as soon as look at you.”
“She’s looking at me now, and not kindly.”
The pony regarded him with much of the white of her eye showing, while her hind quarters did a little stampede on the spot.
Donnie stroked the length of her furry neck. “She kens you’d squash her.”
Rex was not willing to send the boy to the village on his behalf, even though he would get there quicker on horseback—if he ever got there at all. “Perhaps you should put Honey back in her stall,” he told Donnie. “I think we may all be here for a while yet. And I don’t want you catching a chill.”
The boy obediently led the horse toward the stable. Rex saw the bone-handled sheath knife was still in his belt. Had he slashed the tyres when he cut the phone line? Rex dismissed the idea. The careful planning involved in the murder all but ruled out the mentally disabled boy as a suspect.
“Donnie,” he called after him. “Did anyone borrow your knife?”
“No one,” the boy answered slowly. “I always keep it on me. Da gave it to me for my seventeenth birthday and said not to lose it as it cost more than he could afford.”
“Alistair,” Rex said when he drew near his colleague. “Follow the lad. When he’s seen to the pony, send him into the house. I’d rather they all stayed together.”
“Are you walking to the village?”
“We have no choice. We’ll try to get a lift back.”
Rex took off up the road with Helen, avoiding the worst of the puddles and potholes. The gravel crunched soggily underfoot. The damp chill on his face and the gentle patter of rain on the hood of his anorak made for a dismal walk, aside from the sad nature of his errand.
Someone had murdered Moira under his roof. That was the most logical explanation for all the water on the bathroom floor. The question that haunted him was whether the killer was a guest at Gleneagle Lodge or else an intruder who had snuck into the house with more than robbery in mind.
Rex pondered this last possibility. There were two points of access to the lodge: the front entrance and the kitchen door; and, of course, an unlocked window. The downstairs had been all lit up. Anyone could have peered inside while the inhabitants were partying and crept in at some point, perhaps when they were all in their rooms. He remembered locking the kitchen door, but not the front door, in case Donnie needed to get in the house.
Moira was prone to taking long baths, but she would have had to have been inconsiderate in the extreme to voluntarily remain in the bath for hours when people were trying to get in to use the facilities.
And what about the shadow Flora had seen on the stairs at around twelve-thirty? The apparition with a distorted head and a long knife?
“A penny for your thoughts,” Helen said, trudging breathlessly beside him. “Actually, I’d give a lot more to know exactly what goes on in your head sometimes.”
“I’m just trying to sort out this whole mess. Did Moira seem suicidal to you last night?”
“Hardly. Quite the belle of the ball, I’d say, and enjoying every minute of it.”
“You were the belle, Helen.”
“If you say so.”
Rex stopped in his tracks and turned Helen to face him. Her hood slipped into her eyes as she lifted her face