AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ly, about sixty yards from where the bones were scattered. This was with them.” He threw an old Swatch sports watch down on Teddy’s desk. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that any of you might recognize it?”
Teddy snapped, “Of course we don’t recognize it. Why would we? Other than being unfortunate enough to have had someone decide to bury a body on our land, my family and I have nothing whatsoever to do with this.”
Teddy ranted on, but Chief Inspector Wilmott was no longer listening. Roxie De Vere had begun making a strange noise, a sort of high, keening howl, like an animal caught in a trap. It was getting louder.
“Miss De Vere?” Chief Inspector Wilmott looked at her quizzically.
“Roxie, darling.” Teddy was all concern. “Are you all right?”
“Miss De Vere, do you recognize this watch? Do you know who it belongs to?”
With a wild shriek, Roxie swiveled her chair around. Teddy watched in horror as she used her forearms to propel herself out of the chair and onto Alexia, knocking her mother off her feet.
Now it was Alexia who screamed, as the pain shot through her chest like a lightning bolt. With Roxanne slumped on top of her, she couldn’t move. Instead she squirmed in helpless agony as Roxie gripped her neck like a vise, choking her and crushing her windpipe. Instinctively, Alexia kicked out in panic. She felt the breath leave her body and was sure she was about to pass out. Why was nobody helping her?
“Roxanne!” Teddy shouted. “For God’s sake.”
“You killed him!” Roxie screamed, shaking Alexia like a terrier with a rat between its teeth. “All this time you let me believe he left me. But you killed him! Shot him in cold blood like an animal and buried him here. Murderer!”
Belatedly, Chief Inspector Wilmott pulled the girl off, scooping her up into his arms. She weighed next to nothing. After the exertion of the attack on her mother, Roxanne sobbed weakly against his chest, as limp and fragile as a rag doll.
Meanwhile Alexia De Vere lay on the floor, clutching her throat and gasping for breath like a newly landed fish.
Placing Roxie gently back into her wheelchair, Chief Inspector Wilmott knelt down so that his eyes were level with hers.
“You recognize the watch?”
Roxie’s voice was a whisper. “It belonged to my fiancé. Andrew.”
With that, Roxie De Vere’s eyes rolled back in her head and a great spasm swept through her broken body. Soon she was foaming at the mouth, seizing wildly.
“Do something! Help her!” Teddy sounded panicked. Alexia merely stared, too stunned and in too much pain herself to do anything for her daughter. Roxie looked as though she were being electrocuted, dancing in anguish before her parents’ eyes.
“Call an ambulance,” Chief Inspector Wilmott told his sergeant. “NOW!”
Chapter Thirty-one
“Interview with Mrs. Alexia De Vere, Sunday, November twenty-sixth, two forty-four P.M. Chief Inspector Gary Wilmott present. Mrs. De Vere, can you please describe your relationship with Andrew Beesley, your daughter’s fiancé?”
Alexia twisted the gold wedding band on her finger. “Not until I see my daughter.”
“Your daughter’s been taken to hospital. You’ll be given word on her condition in due course.”
“That’s not good enough. I want to know what’s happening now.”
“Andrew Beesley, Mrs. De Vere.”
“Do you think I care about Andrew bloody Beesley?” Alexia snapped. “All I care about right now is Roxanne.”
Chief Inspector Wilmott said, “Most people would probably care that a young man they knew well had been murdered and that his corpse was found buried in their garden.”
“Would they? I doubt it. Not if they knew Andrew,” Alexia said bitterly. I should stop talking. I should ask for my lawyer. But it felt so good to speak the truth, to vent her hatred at last, she found she couldn’t stop herself.
“Andrew Beesley manipulated my daughter in the most cynical, vile way imaginable. I didn’t know him well. But I knew him well enough to realize that. All he ever wanted was Roxie’s money.”
“And was that why you killed him?”
Alexia laughed mockingly, then wished she hadn’t as the pain once again shot through her ribs where Gilbert Drake’s bullet had hit her. “Don’t be preposterous,” she said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t kill anybody.”
