'At least I can get as far as London tomorrow,' Bruce said. 'I'll be just in time before my book's published in England.'
'You'll probably be on the same plane as me,' Dodie said. 'Annoying, wasn't it, to have to wait? I could have gone yesterday. Have you many publicity functions to attend?'
'Yes, and my publishers were not best pleased that the police here refused to let us leave.'
'You'll have all the time in the world,' Emma said cheerfully. 'We've had enough of lotus eating.'
'You're going back to New York afterwards? Be careful you don't get mugged there, Bruce. It's a dangerous place.'
He laughed. 'I think I'll be safe, now. I hope you are satisfied the police did all they could to solve Jake's death?'
Dodie looked at him. 'Yes. I think they did all they could. But they didn't have my advantage of knowing my son.'
With a slight smile she excused herself and squeezed past the other tables into the open air. She had to think. Was it possible, the theory that had come to her in the restaurant? She went across to sit on the wall beyond the coaches, and stared down at the small pools where the sea surged in through gaps, lashed furiously at the sharply pointed black rocks, and then with equal ferocity plunged out again, leaving only a churning, shallow residue. Her mind felt like that, chock full of swirling facts one moment, empty and bewildered the next.
'There you are!'
Dodie jumped, and looked up at Bruce. He was flexing his arms, stretching and breathing in the salt-laden air.
'It's invigorating on this coast, isn't it?' she said, getting to her feet. 'Have the others finished?'
'The girls wanted coffee and Theo went off somewhere. Did I understand your cryptic remark to mean you think you know who killed Jake?'
She looked at him, frowning slightly. 'Oh, yes, I know. But it was all rather pointless, wasn't it, Bruce? You see, Jake and Emma never had an affair.' Over his shoulder she could see Theo walking towards them. 'Quick, come this way. I'd rather Theo didn't overhear.'
She moved so that the coaches hid them from Theo and the people in the restaurants. The only noise was the fermenting of the water in the pools and the plaintive cry of seabirds.
'We can go down here,' Bruce suggested suddenly, and before Dodie could evade him he took her arm and thrust her into a narrow tunnel amongst the rocks which she hadn't noticed before. She stumbled on some steps, inwardly cursing her carelessness in not expecting Bruce to attack her. She'd expected scornful denials, not an action which admitted guilt. He forced her down the steps until they were on a narrow platform at the end of the short tunnel, which opened out into one of the cone-shaped pools. As she took a deep breath the sea heaved in from above the level of their heads, and the water within rose almost to the foot of the platform before subsiding in an swirling, angry vortex.
'Now I think you can explain what you mean,' Bruce said curtly.
Dodie shrugged, summoning up all her acting ability to pretend she wasn't terrified. She leaned back against the wall of the tunnel. Her jacket might be ruined, but she would try to edge along the wall so that she was above Bruce, away from that perilous edge where there was only a low wall to protect against the drop. She had to keep him talking. Maybe someone would come. Please, let anybody come!
'Anyone on the boat could have killed Jake,' she said calmly. 'It was a question of why, motive. But almost everyone there had a motive.'
'Isabella, her family, and Gloria for starters. Why pick on me?'
'I didn't, for a long time. When I first saw you I thought you resembled Jake.'
'Well, thanks a million!' Bruce exclaimed. 'I looked like that haggard, superannuated gigolo?'
'It was more a matter of height and figure, plus dark hair. I soon forgot it. But you, and Jake, and Alex are all superficially the same type. Indeed, Alex Ross and Jake often auditioned for the same parts, but I hadn't appreciated quite how alike they were until I met Alex.'
'What on earth has all this to do with who killed your precious son?'
'It was when Isabella mistook you for Alex that I began to remember other occasions when there might have been confusion. I think you once saw Emma with Alex, and mistook him, from the back, for Jake. During one of your rows she probably admitted to an affair, but was too scared of your temper to say who. After all, you did once threaten her with a knife, didn't you?'
'You have a fertile imagination,' he sneered. 'You should have used it for fiction, not constructing unlikely theories about me.'
'What happened between you and Emma isn't important. She probably thought the hotel was too public, so she and Alex occasionally met at his studio. But she didn't know you would be nearby that day you were fetching photographs.'
'Then?'
'Then I think they saw you and Alex cracked you over the head to give them, particularly Emma, chance to get away.'
'He is prone to use his fists,' Bruce said. 'And Emma did seem a bit breathless when I got home. I put it down to loving concern for my injuries.'
Dodie went on remorselessly. She had managed to slide quite a way round the wall, and Bruce was silhouetted against the sky which was framed by the rock doorway. 'You saw him running away, mistook him for Jake, drew your conclusions about Emma, right in substance but with the wrong lover, and took your revenge by tipping Jake off the boat. I don't know if you meant to kill him, but I wouldn't be surprised.'
'You can't prove a thing.'
'Only if you attack me.'
He laughed, and the sound echoed round the rocks. 'Are you proposing a deal? Your silence for your life?'
'Would that be so terrible?' Dodie slid her hand inside her handbag.
'It would be stupid! I'd never be able to trust you, and everyone knows how avaricious you are, with your poor rich fools of husbands. You'd bleed me dry! No, you'll have a sad, lonely accident in this pool. No one will ever know if you fell, or decided life without dear Jake was no longer supportable.'
He lunged suddenly for her, but Dodie whipped out of her handbag a six-inch long hatpin. She'd once had to learn fencing for a role as a highwayman's gal, and ignoring her aching muscles she evaded Bruce's grab at her arm, feinted across his body, and as he twisted slipped her hand beneath his arm and jabbed at his face.
Startled, he jerked his head back, and that was enough for Dodie to be able to hook her foot round his ankle and unbalance him further. He stumbled, and clutched at her. She pressed back, sliding further towards the steps and comparative safety. Bruce slipped on the wet rock, and tried to grab at the overhanging shards as he toppled over the low wall. They were like rows and rows of saw blades, honed individually into wicked points which sliced to the bones of his seeking hands.
He moaned faintly as he fell, and at that moment the water, which had been fermenting in the cauldron behind them, boiled over in an ecstasy of wrath. Dodie leaned cautiously forwards. She thought he called for help, but the noise was so frenzied she could never be sure. His body was tossed aside, flung time after time against the rocks, and within seconds looked no more than a bundle of tattered rags. The water momentarily gleamed red, until the surging waves once more emptied the cavity to make way for a fresh onslaught. No one could have saved him from that ferocious agitation. She hadn't intended this, but it had been Bruce or her.
'Don't worry,' she said softly. 'I won't let Emma know she was married to a murderer.'
Then she opened her mouth and screamed for help.
###
THE END
Marina Oliver has written over 75 novels, all are available as ebooks.
For the latest information please see Marina's web site:
https://www.marina-oliver.net.
Other Dodie Fanshaw mysteries by Marina:
A CUT ABOVE THE REST
Which characters dared to write the author out of the script?
When Dodie Fanshaw went to stay with her daughter, Elena, in Markenlea, she had been expecting a peaceful, sedate village on the banks of the River Thames. But th
en a mermaid clambers out of the river and into Elena's garden.
Well, not a mermaid exactly – a mysterious, sopping-wet girl. Bizarre and intriguing though she is, it's only when Dodie and Elena call on Elena's neighbour, best-selling novelist Rick Wilbraham, that the real story unfolds. There they find Anna, Rick's girlfriend, hysterically clinging on to Rick's lifeless body.
Soon Rick's pleasant riverside garden fills up with his neighbours, ex-lovers, his publisher and agent, and Dodie can't help herself getting involved in this close-knit village.
A literary puzzle, but what genre is the motive? It could be Romance, might be Financial Thriller. And the mermaid? Well, that's just pure Fantasy . . .
*
Riding for a Fall
When Dodie Fanshaw goes to stay with her old friend Christine, she soon realises there are tensions, both in the family living at the Manor and the one where Elena is organising daughter Rebecca's wedding.
John, the young brother of Robert, who owns the Manor, hates his Uncle Michael, Robert's Trustee, and because he wants to be a detective, gains a reputation as a snooper.
Then there is a tragic death, but was it the right victim?
Plenty of people have both motive and opportunity, and Dodie is determined to discover the truth.
*
Some other Mysteries by Marina:
Veiled Destiny
The twisting roads through the Chiltern Hills are lonely at night. When Sophie Stone realises the car behind is deliberately following her, she is angry, then afraid – the ordinary drunken yob doesn't carry a machete.
Desperately, she uses her local knowledge to evade her pursuer, just as handsome, enigmatic Luke Despard intervenes. Grateful to him, Sophie is convinced it was a purely random attack. Why should anyone want to kill her?
Her business partner, Pru Bailey, counsels caution. What do they know of Luke? A sequence of threatening events follows, and Sophie begins to suspect they are deliberate. Yet the only people who could benefit from her death are Pru, and Sophie's own half-brothers and sisters. Sophie's father was rich, but she cannot believe any of them would harm her...until there is a sudden violent death. Could it have been murder?
She turns to Luke, outside the family. With him she'll be safe, hidden from whoever is persecuting her. But then she almost dies. Now, Sophie cannot trust anyone but herself. Alone, she must confront the dangers shadowing her every move, and track down the killer – before she becomes the next victim.
*
The Knot Garden
When Mr Greenslade, owner of Green Valley Garden Centre, falls from his wheelchair one night and is rushed into hospital, his daughter Tansy, talented interior designer, gives up the chance of a prestigious commission to go home to the Cotswolds and take charge.
Things have been going wrong at the Garden Centre, small irritating mistakes, petty vandalism, and what increasingly seems like major sabotage.
Is the incompetent manager responsible, or the charismatic Karl, whose company is trying to buy the centre?
***
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