Murder on the Moor - C. S. Challinor [33]
“That’s all right. It was awhile ago. And don’t go believing everything Moira might have told you.” Rex still couldn’t altogether absorb the fact she was dead. “I’m just worried that removing the body prematurely might compromise eventual legal proceedings, in spite of the notes and photographs I took. Still, it’s one less thing to worry about, I suppose. Now I can concentrate on the guests and try to find out who murdered her.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that. I still think it could have been an intruder. I mean, do you honestly think one of them could have done it?” Alistair thumbed toward the lodge.
“Killers come in all guises.” Rex reached back into the van. “I brought you a paper. All available bobbies and brass are working on the Melissa Bates case. I was told the police would respond to our emergency when they could.”
“I have no doubt you’ll figure it out by yourself.” Alistair gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and directed him under the porch.
“I don’t have much to go on. Most of the evidence will have been washed away in the rain. I don’t suppose anyone came to fix the phone in my absence so I can call the coroner?”
“No visitors except for the medics.”
“There’s not one mobile to be had in the village. Helen inquired at the pub. Too much to hope that Shona found hers … ?”
“She searched everywhere.”
Rex sighed in despair. “I arranged for the local mechanic to come. Until then,” he said, pointing to the Reliant, “this is our only set of wheels.”
“I wouldn’t be seen dead in it,” Alistair declared. “The good news is I doubt anybody will bother sabotaging it.”
“I should lock it in the stable, just in case—though I doubt it would make it up the hill in the mud. It barely managed the other side on a proper road. Perhaps I should have left it at the top of the hill, but I thought I should keep an eye on it since it’s on loan.”
“Are you going to keep everyone here?” Alistair asked.
“At least until I’ve spoken to the coroner. Perhaps he can shed some light on events.”
“It’s a she. Dr. Sheila Macleod. I impressed upon the medic how urgent this was. In fact, I even got his number.” The look of complicit satisfaction on Alistair’s face left Rex in no doubt as to his meaning.
“What happened to your solicitor friend? The one who arranged the sale of this house? I’m assuming you and he … ”
“We had a tiff. I left Edinburgh without my phone on purpose. I hoped—childishly—that he would call and wonder where I was, and I didn’t want to be constantly checking my messages in the hope that he had.”
“I see.”
“Sorry about that. However, to redeem myself, I begged a favour off the young medic—John. His aunt just so happens to be Dr. Macleod. He’ll tell her to get right on it, and she’ll contact the procurator fiscal if she determines the death suspicious.”
“I’m glad something is working to our advantage at last.” Rex glanced at the house. “I’ll join you inside in just a minute. I want to take a quick look around first.”
He found the pony grazing among his dripping flowerbeds, in the spot where he had left the ladder. Donnie must have let her out of the stable. He could at least have put her in the meadow, Rex fumed to himself.
“Off with you! Shoo!” he exclaimed, waving his arms at the Shetland, without venturing too close in case she decided to take a bite out of him with her big ivory teeth—the size of piano keys.
Strolling off, she started nonchalantly nibbling on a rhododendron bush. Rex, though incensed, attended to the more urgent matter of examining the ground beneath the bathroom window. Horse hooves had churned up the soil and grass around the feet of the ladder. No other prints had survived the downpour. However, a thorny vine growing up the wall had been flattened where it grew out of the soil. Moira’s body must have landed there. Unless that, too,