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“Yes.”
Teddy spluttered, “I hope you’re not suggesting that Michael had anything to do with this body business?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, Mr. De Vere.”
“Good. Because the boy’s on a bloody life support machine. He can’t defend himself from your insinuations, but I sure as hell will.”
Alexia put a hand on Teddy’s arm, but he shrugged it off. She’d never seen him like this. Teddy was always the calm one. She was the hothead in the marriage.
“Chief Inspector,” she asked, “do you know how long ago this man was killed? Or how long he may have been buried on our land?”
“Not yet, no. Although judging by the degree of decomposition and the damage to the skeletal remains we’ve unearthed so far, animal bites and whatnot, I would guess we’re talking several years.”
“There you are, then.” Teddy looked at him triumphantly. “It couldn’t have been anything to do with Michael, or the stupid pagoda. I only thought of the thing six or seven months ago and we didn’t start work on it till June, long after your chappie was bumped off.”
He pronounced it “orf.” Pretentious bloody snob. For a moment Chief Inspector Gary Wilmott’s professional mask slipped and he stared at Teddy De Vere with naked loathing. Thankfully he was interrupted by one of his team before he said something he might have regretted.
“Sir? You’d better come out here a minute.”
Chief Inspector Wilmott left the room. Alexia, Teddy, and Roxie all looked at one another, shell-shocked. Roxie broke the silence.
“Do you think Michael knew?”
“Knew what?” asked Teddy.
“About the body.”
Both parents looked at her as if she were mad.
Alexia said, “Of course not. Why on earth would you think something like that?”
“For the same reason the police think it,” said Roxie. “That Pilcher woman’s dog found the hand right on the edge of the pagoda site. Michael could have seen something when they were excavating.”
“He could have. But obviously he didn’t.”
“Why is that obvious?”
“Because if he’d seen anything, he’d have told the police, wouldn’t he? Or us. If he’d unearthed a dead body, he’d hardly put it back and say nothing about it.”
“Unless he had a reason for keeping it hidden,” Roxie mused. “Summer Meyer was asking me a couple of weeks ago about a secret. What if this was it?”
Alexia’s tone hardened. She badly wanted not to upset the applecart with Roxie. But she couldn’t allow these unfounded suspicions of poor Michael to stand unchallenged. “Summer’s a sweet enough girl, and I daresay she’s well meaning. But she really ought to mind her own business and stop banging on about secrets and conspiracies. It’s all nonsense.”
“I agree,” said Teddy. He’d told Alexia yesterday about Summer’s latest investigations into Michael’s Ducati and its frayed brake pads. Alexia was not amused. “If your brother had found a body, he would have told somebody.”
But Roxie wouldn’t be deflected. “Unless he was the one who buried it,” she said defiantly.
Teddy’s eyes widened. “You aren’t serious? You think Michael killed a man?”
“I’m not saying he did. I’m just saying, it’s possible. We all sometimes do things in anger, or self-defense, or accidentally, in the heat of the moment. I love Michael. But I mean, we’re all capable of murder, aren’t we? In the right circumstances.”
“Are we?” said Teddy.
“Of course we are, darling.” Alexia had been watching Roxie while she spoke, wondering if there was a deeper message beneath her words, something more that she was trying to tell them. “There but for the grace of God go all of us.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” said Teddy, “but I still don’t believe that Michael—”
Chief Inspector Gary Willmot marched back in without knocking. He looked grim-faced. “The dogs found some clothes buried separate
