The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (most difficult books to read .txt) 📗

murder Roddy, he was cutting her out of the podcast in favour of you. You are obviously in her sights. Like me with True Hosts, Andrea preps before taking action. Unlike me, she’s designed her own software so she can prowl around a home without leaving her chair.’

‘Is she a True Host?’ Stella was determined to sound OK about Jack stalking killers and living in their closets. No one was perfect. Least of all her.

‘She could be.’ Jack steepled his fingers. ‘We might no longer believe that when someone takes our photograph they steal our soul, but with this scan Andrea has stolen your privacy. How did she know where you live?’

‘She would have seen my name on the cleaning rota; she could have followed me home. Then all she had to do was call when Lucie and I were out. But how did she get in?’ Unconsciously Stella shifted closer to Jack on the sofa until their thighs were touching.

‘I’m afraid a Yale lock is no challenge.’ Jack closed the file and removed his USB stick from Stella’s laptop. ‘Stella, you’re not safe here. I’d like to swap – you take my room at the hotel, then if Andrea dares break in again, I’ll be waiting.’

The abbey clock struck midday. The mugs of tea had gone cold. Outside there was a lull in the rain. Neither Stella nor Jack could have said when they began clasping hands.

Chapter Forty-Five

2019

Jack

Rain fell in a slant across the abbey close; a gargoyle above the north buttress spewed water which, whipped by the wind, splashed against the stone wall. The bells in the tower tolled four o’clock. Two figures and a small dog huddled beneath an umbrella hurried up the path between two lines of yews into a pool of yellow light spilling on to the flagstones and entered through the north door.

Retracting the umbrella, Jack dried his face on his coat sleeve. Stella was already halfway up the right-hand side. He found her with three life-size alabaster models of the kings, a motley crew lurking in the gloom of the south ambulatory.

Jack felt in the grip of an awakening that was less to do with God than that he and Stella had spent the previous few hours making love. Afterwards, they had lain in each other’s arms as if resting on a fluffy white cloud. Then they’d made a plan.

‘That’s the Grove organ Joy plays,’ Stella whispered, as with Stanley the poodle swaddled in a towel on her lap she settled on a chair. Seemingly now expert on the abbey, Stella told him that the north transept was fifty-eight feet high.

‘It’s horrible to think of the men who died building this.’ Jack admired fine geometrical tracery around small pointed windows. ‘Beneath beauty lies ugliness.’

‘Beneath ugliness there’s more beauty.’ Stella’s optimism made Jack want to kiss her right there.

They crossed the nave to the western end where, putting Stanley down, Stella showed Jack the font, a giant octagonal receptacle carved, she informed him, in Purbeck stone. Abruptly she said, ‘Jackie said Zack Hunt at Geo-Space had taken over Andrea’s office and behaved like he was in charge.’ Stella pushed the towel into the rucksack she’d bought from a luggage shop in the high street. Even when the police relinquished the bag that was stolen by the mugger on the bridge, Stella didn’t want it back. ‘Andrea said Roddy stole her project – the murder of Maple Greenhill then later the consequent killing of Aleck Northcote at Cloisters House – for his podcast and ousted her. Zack Hunt is ousting her from Geo-Space. It’s a bit like me.’

‘No one’s ousting you from Clean Slate.’ Jack sought to reassure her.

‘No, I know. But what if Andrea needed to take a break, find what mattered to her? Like I did.’ Stella brushed his fingers. ‘She realized she loved Roddy.’

‘Meantime lovely Roddy was after you. Whoa.’ Jack spread his arms before a gigantic stove caged in mesh. This was more an object of worship than the glittering altar or the mysteries depicted in the stained-glass windows. ‘A Gurney, what a Victorian invention! And here’s one in operation. Isn’t the “London Warming and Heating Company” a magical name?’

‘Rather long, but yes, nice.’ Stella’s willing interest made Jack want to whirl her around and shout how much he loved her. Except that wouldn’t go down well.

‘If who Andrea discovered was Roddy, I feel sorry for her. She didn’t matter to him.’ Stella peered through an iron grating into what was called the Clarence Vault.

Somewhere, Stella remembered reading that the vault contained the remains of George, Duke of Clarence, and his wife, Isabel, who had died of poisoning.

Murder was never far away.

‘You mattered to March. If Andrea killed Roddy and then Clive and, mad with jealousy, attacked you, she doesn’t get my sympathy vote.’ Wracked with his own jealousy, Jack felt no regret that Roddy March was out of the picture. What if Stella and March had worked together…

‘Time to go undercover,’ Stella announced.

Stella had suggested Jack visit Joy in the gift shop. Since Beverly had texted that Joy had hired her, Stella wanted to check up on her to know she was safe. Jack had warned Beverly he’d be incognito, treat me as a stranger. Bev texted back, Who are you? Jack would try to gauge if Joy was the harmless organist she portrayed herself as.

Stella sat where she had seen the shadow on the wall the night March was murdered. Nervous for her safety too, Jack wanted Stella to come with him, but Stella was adamant, he’d learn more alone. She and Joy hadn’t hit it off.

Confirming there were a good few people around, Jack left Stella perusing ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ in a copy of Hymns Ancient and Modern with Stanley. Still with misgivings, he slipped around the pillar to St James’s chapel.

Jack had read that, compared with the chapel housing the starved monk, St James had got a raw deal. The chapel had