Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [30]
“I know.” Helen burst into soft tears. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” He took her by the arm and together they crested the hill and started down the country road that led to Glen-eagle Village. Droplets of rain detached from the branches of the overhanging trees and fell onto the grass, where clumps of bluebells drooped beneath their watery burden. Sodden leaves clung to their boots as they trudged along. Not one car passed on the winding strip of blacktop.
“This reminds me of when we escaped to the pub from Swanmere Manor,” Helen told him. Snowbound at an English country hotel owned by a friend of his mother, they had skied down to the village to find the local constable and report a couple of suspicious deaths. “I must be a bad luck charm,” she added miserably.
“Don’t be daft, Helen. You were nowhere aboot when I had that case in the French West Indies, or in Florida, for that matter.” He let out a heavy sigh. “It’s a wee bit different when it’s on your own turf.”
“I was thinking … If Moira had had a bit too much to drink, she might have accidentally slipped in the bath and sloshed water all over the floor. Oh, wait,” Helen said before Rex could interrupt her. “That doesn’t explain how she ended up in the lake. But if she was drunk—I mean really drunk, she might have climbed out of the window and decided to take a swim. Then it wouldn’t be a murder at all,” she added hopefully.
“Does that seem plausible to you?”
“Her climbing out the window? Not really,” Helen admitted. “I’m just looking at all the angles.”
“If she had been found in the bath, the suicide theory might hold water—excuse the pun. But turning up dead in the loch … That’s definitely fishy.”
“I suppose so. That means a murderer is at large, doesn’t it? So, what’s your best guess?”
“I’m nowhere ready to say.”
“I knew a penny would be too little for your thoughts. What if I offered you a million pounds?”
“You don’t have a million pounds. As far as I know.”
Helen heaved a sigh as she walked in step beside him along the seemingly neverending wet road. “Unfortunately, no. School counsellors aren’t that well paid. And no one in my family has died and left me anything.” She was silent for a moment as the sign for Gleneagle Village came into view at the final bend in the road. “Does Moira have any family who would benefit from her death?”
“Only a father in Glasgow. But she had nothing, really, except her one-bedroom flat. If she left him anything, which I hope she didn’t, he’d only drink it away. No, Moira was verra much alone in this world.”
However, he refused to feel guilty. He had been good to her while they were together. He had not even complained when she suddenly decided it was her vocation to go and help the displaced in Baghdad. There she had fallen in love with an Australian photographer and written him a Dear John letter—when she eventually did decide to write. The contents of that letter made him flinch to this day. How she could have expected him to take her back when her lover returned to his wife in Sydney, he could not imagine.
“Here we are,” he said unnecessarily when they reached the village with its stark gray stone cottages and tiny shops aligned on each side of the road.
Beside the Gleneagle Arms stood Murray’s Newsagent’s, the name stenciled in black letters across the orange awning. A small-paned window held so many For Sale notices and sundry announcements that it was almost impossible to see through to the inside. A bell rang as they entered. From the newspaper stand, a headline screamed, “Moor Murderer Strikes Again!” Rex picked up a newspaper for Alistair.
“Guid day tae ye, Mr. Graves,” the wiry newsagent greeted from behind the counter, nodding a polite acknowledgment to Helen. “Whit can I dae for ye?”
“Is the pay phone down the street working?” Rex asked.
“Noo, but ye can use the phone in here—if ye’ll mind the shop while I nip round the pub. Is it a local call?” Murray inquired with a suspicious glint in his eye.
“Aye.”
The old man plunked the