‘Fancy a drink at the Duck?’ asked Rosie.
‘Love one.’
‘Why don’t you leave your car here and I’ll drive. Would you mind if I swing by the windmill to collect a jacket? I might walk home later.’
‘No problem, although I’d be happier if you ordered a taxi.’
‘In case I get shot by an arrow?’ Rosie teased, meeting Matt’s eyes and feeling her heart give a bounce of attraction.
She thought back to the afternoon they had spent by the sea at the end of August when Matt had chased her through the waves, splashing freezing water in her face, and how the day had ended in them kissing on the beach. That had been the day they had bared their souls to each other, pouring out their personal histories, discovering that behind any calm exterior, turmoil and heartache can reign supreme until you find the courage to banish the demons that occupy the darker corners of the mind.
Since that day, her relationship with Matt had steadily deepened and whenever she was in his company she knew they had achieved a mutual understanding of what had happened to make them who they were, but it was so much more than that. For the first time since she’d broken up with Harry, Rosie felt she could let someone into her heart and she craved the opportunity to repeat the kiss they had shared in the bushes outside the B&B in Willerby. Talk about unconventional! But that was what made their relationship all the more interesting.
‘I’ll wait in the car, just in case I have an allergic reaction to the intense smell of chlorine you’ve got going on in the café,’ Matt joked, but she saw the gentleness in his eyes.
Like Mia, Matt was aware of her struggle with the cleanliness ogres. She had also confided in him that the catalyst had been the loss of her father and the ensuing wrench from the comfortable life she had known until then. But, with the help of her sister, and after meeting Harry and hoping that he would be her partner for life, the monsters had crawled back into their grim, angst-ridden boxes for a while – only to return six months ago when she had found Harry rolling around amongst the dahlias and the chrysanthemums with Heidi.
Fortunately, working in a café environment meant it was easy to deflect curious enquiries about her over-the-top obsession with hygiene as a respectful regard for the Health and Safety regulations, and she had managed to hide it from all but the most observant of onlookers. She knew she would have to relent to her sister’s encouragement to seek counselling one day, but she wasn’t ready to talk through her issues with a stranger just yet. However, with the constant friendship and support she had found in Willerby that possibility was starting to peek its head above the parapet and demand attention more regularly.
‘Okay, I won’t be long.’
Rosie jogged to the windmill, wondering whether she should get changed and try to do something with her unruly waves, but she discarded the thought immediately. Neither Matt, Freddie or Mia cared about what she looked like. They loved her for who she was, not whether her hair was twisted into a perfect chignon or her eyelashes were coated with lashings of dark brown mascara. However, she did decide to give her new cashmere cardigan an airing.
She opened her bedroom door and the shock rushed at her with a vengeance. Her hand flew to her chest and she gasped in horror. Without waiting, she spun on her heels, tumbled back down the spiral staircase and sprinted to the car park, her breath coming in ragged spurts both from the sudden onslaught of exertion and the fright.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Matt, jumping out of the passenger seat before she arrived, his face creased in concern.
‘I … well, I think it’s probably better if I show you.’
Together, they rushed back to her flat and, swallowing down her fear, Rosie pushed open her bedroom door. She pointed to the white rattan chair next to the window where her collection of soft toys was enjoying the view – apart from the careworn bear she had loved for twenty-eight years who now had an arrow protruding from his brown furry chest. The sight was so unnatural that she felt physically sick, but she knew her reaction would not have been so severe had any of her other bears suffered the same fate. Mitzy held a special place in her heart because he had been her father’s childhood bear and, ridiculous though it sounded, she felt as though someone had entered her private inner sanctum and attacked a member of her family.
A spasm of dread rippled through her veins and sparkled out to her fingertips. She opened her mouth to say something to Matt but the words caught in her throat and she had to sink down onto her bed to catch her breath.
‘I’m scared, Matt. Someone’s obviously been in my flat, in my bedroom, while I was with you at the outward-bound centre. Do you think it’s because we’ve been asking questions about what happened to Rick? Perhaps the person responsible thinks they’re about to be discovered and this is their way of warning us off? Oh God, excuse me!’
Rosie dashed to the bathroom but managed to hang onto the contents of her stomach. She splashed her face with cold water and spent a few moments pulling herself together.
‘Let’s go downstairs and I’ll make us some tea,’ said Matt. ‘Then I think we should report this incident to the police straight away. They’ll probably want to come over and take a look tonight.’
In mute acquiescence, Rosie followed Matt down the stairs to the café. She watched him make his call to the police and then fill the kettle, warm the pot, and pour out two mugs of strong tea, feeling as though she was floating from the ceiling watching actors perform a stage play on the ground below. She smiled her thanks, but the sight of the thick brown beverage turned her stomach and she rushed outside to the terrace to inhale huge gulps of the cold, autumnal air until her ears pricked up at the sound of conversation.
‘I’m bored, Brad! You might think it’s fun being cooped up in a tiny kitchen baking a few twee cakes to pass the time, but I don’t. Why can’t we go home, or at least spend the day windsurfing or riding the zip wire over at Ultimate Adventures?’
‘You know the centre is shut!’
‘So what?’
Rosie watched Emma stalk towards her on the terrace. Displaying an expanse of naked chest under her lime-green Gore-Tex running hoodie, she looked like she was ready to launch straight into a marathon along the North Norfolk coast. There wasn’t a spare inch of fat on her slender frame, testament to her addiction to extreme sports. Brad, who had remained where he was, unsure whether to follow his girlfriend, also rocked the muscular and toned look, and Rosie noticed again how heart-churningly attractive he was – they made a perfect couple.
‘Oops, I’m sorry, Rosie, I didn’t mean to…’
‘It’s okay, Emma. Actually, Matt’s here at the café. Why don’t you ask him if he’s got any suggestions to keep boredom at bay? I’m sure there’s lots of adrenalin-pumping activities to choose from if you’re prepared to travel a bit further afield.’
‘Awesome, that’s more like it. Is there an indoor archery range, too? Steph told us you and Matt were planning to call a few as part of your on-going “investigations”?’
A smirk tweaked at the corners of Emma’s mouth when she highlighted the word investigations with her fingers. Satisfied she had hit her mark, she dashed inside the café and plonked herself down on the sofa next to Matt, stretching out her legs, flexing her trainer-clad toes and lifting her sinewy arms above her head before running her fingers through her hair. Brad hesitated for a moment before deciding that it was a good idea to give Emma some space, shrugged at Rosie, and turned to go back to the lodge.
‘You’re so lucky, Matt. Brad and I would love to work somewhere like Ultimate Adventures, but we always try to join in with every extreme sports challenge we can – gorge scrambling, canyoning, free climbing, orienteering. We also did the Three Peaks challenge last month with a couple of friends who joined one of your team-building courses last year, so when Brad told me Rick had arranging a trip down here for the myth seekers to visit some ancient stones or other, well, I was straight on to it. I didn’t think I’d be forced to sit through a cookery tutorial, though. No offence, Rosie.’
‘Well, actually I did ask … never mind.’
Rosie caught Matt’s eye. He gave her an almost imperceptible shake of his head, clearly hoping that she would let Emma talk in case what she said shed some light on her involvement with the group. However, after what had just happened in the place she called home, she couldn’t think straight. Questions were rotating through her brain like bingo balls in a tumble dryer.
How long would the police take to get there? Would they want her to vacate her flat? Would they expect her to go to the police station to give a statement? Had Emma and Brad been hanging around outside the café, waiting for her to return home and find her poor teddy bear speared by an arrow? Were they there just to watch her reaction? Or was the perpetrator concealed in the Willerby woodland with a pair of binoculars trained on her every move? Or an arrow?
Thankfully, before Rosie could pose any more improbable questions and drive herself closer to the precipice of her sanity, Emma continued with her exuberant chitchat.
‘Matt, Brad and I didn’t get chance to tell you how much we enjoyed the wild camping expedition. It was worth the sacrifice of spending a couple of hours mooning over a bunch of boring old stones just to be able to camp out in the open, staring up at the stars. It’s awful what happened to Rick, especially after he subsidized the trip, but I hope it doesn’t stop him from organizing other expeditions. Brad and I could never afford to stay anywhere as luxurious as this on our wages.’
‘So is that the only reason you tagged along?’ asked Matt.
‘Well, do I look like the sort of person who enjoys searching for non-existent vibrations radiating from a bunch of rocks? Brad loves that side of things, but not me. I admit that I’m in it for the subsidized jaunts. This year alone we’ve been to the Isle of Man and Scotland, even to Athens and Marrakesh!’
‘How long have you guys been together, then?’ asked Rosie, anxious to perform the role of cross-examiner that Matt had assigned her despite the fear burgeoning in her abdomen.
‘We’ve only been dating for about seven months so we’re not living together yet. I share a flat with two friends in Manchester. Both guys – for some reason I seem to have more of a connection with men than I do with girls.’ Emma smiled at Matt from beneath her eyelashes and Rosie couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. ‘Brad still lives at home with his parents, would you believe?’
‘Where do your parents live, Emma?’
‘I never knew my father. He left Mum when I was a baby and she brought me up until she died when I was ten, and then I went to live with my aunt and cousins. Three boys. That’s where I get my love of sports from; the more extreme the better! My cousins used to take me camping and climbing in Snowdonia. We spent weekends abseiling and free-climbing, and I’ve even flown down the longest zip wire ride in Europe. It’d be a dream come true to work for an outward-bound company.’
‘Where do you work at the moment? Even subsidized trips abroad don’t come cheap.’
‘I work as a gym instructor. Pay’s okay. Brad helps me out a bit sometimes.’
‘Mia and I were just talking about Sunday night and whether we might have seen anything unusual. Did you or Brad notice anything untoward when you went to collect the water from the stream?’
‘Well, I wasn’t really taking much notice to be honest, but if there had been something, I think I would have pointed it out to Brad, so no, I didn’t.’
‘And what about the last time you saw Rick before we found him in the cloister?’
Emma flashed a look at Rosie. ‘Same as everyone else, I guess. I remember you and Mia crawling into your tent…’ Rosie saw the glint in Emma’s eyes that said ‘wimps’, ‘…and the rest of us huddled down for a night under the stars in our sleeping bags – including Rick. The next time I saw him he was lying in agony in the middle of those ugly stones with an arrow poking through his foot. It could have been anyone of us, and when I think about it, I absolutely freak out. It’s just too awful!’
‘So you weren’t disturbed at all during the night?’
‘No.’
‘And how did you feel when you woke up?’
‘Yes, that was strange, all of us missing our alarm call. Brad was livid with Rick. It’s such a sneaky thing to do, but that was just the kind of guy he was. Brad reckons Rick put something in our coffee so we’d sleep in and miss the sunrise. I wasn’t fussed – seen one sunrise seen them all – but, yeah, Brad was furious.’
‘Furious enough to hurt him?’
‘Well, no, of course not. I didn’t mean…’
Rosie saw the colour rush to Emma’s cheeks so she hurried on before Emma had a change of heart about being so chatty.
‘How long have you known Rick?’
‘Let me think. I joined the Myth Seekers Society at the beginning of the year. I met Rick there, and Brad, Phil and few of the others. Boy, some of those guys were dull – a bit odd even – and all of them were completely focused on their obsession with chasing myths and legends. Someone had to drop out of the trip to Marrakesh at the last minute so I was offered their place. It was a free holiday. I wasn’t going to say no, was I?’
‘So you got to know Rick better when you took trips abroad together? What about his wife, Helen?’
‘I didn’t get to know him well. I was the only girl in the group on the Morocco trip, and on the trip to Athens. I met Helen and Steph for the first time this weekend.’
‘How did Rick treat you as a newbie and the only woman?’
‘He was always okay with me. I tried not to spend a lot of time with him, or with Phil and his mates, for that matter. They’re all old enough to be my father. Why Brad keeps going to the meetings is beyond me. When we were in Morocco we’d have breakfast together as a group, then when they set off on their scheduled activities, me and Brad would sneak off and go camel racing, dune surfing or take a jeep safari into the Sahara Desert – African extreme sports are an awesome buzz!’
‘And it must have been amazing to visit Athens? Did you do any sightseeing there?’
‘Yes, we did a bit of trailing around the ancient monuments. Brad insisted, actually. He said we couldn’t come to the seat of modern democracy without spending some time soaking up the vibes of those who’d trodden the ground before us, or some such garbage.’
Rosie noticed Emma couldn’t meet her eyes and she made a note to mention it to Matt later. Was she embarrassed because her boyfriend was interested in early Greek civilization or was it something else?
Emma laughed. ‘I know, I know, I’m sorry. My boyfriend is a nerd. All this myth stuff – treasure hunting, following ancient maps and setting out on quests – it’s just, well, it’s just so pointless. Why waste your time doing all that when you could be water-skiing on the Aegean Sea or abseiling down the rock face of the Corinth Canal?’
‘So you don’t have any idea why anyone would want to shoot Rick?’
‘Well, you and Mia were there, you saw how he went on. Rick’s always been a bit, well, a bit disrespectful to Phil and a few of the other long-standing members who were fixtures at the club before he arrived. It was like he wanted them to leave so he could take over and start afresh. He was an obnoxious moron to everyone at one time or another, even Brad. For instance, Phil’s writing this book on the myths of Europe or something, right? Well, Rick was always taking the p… Well, ridiculing him at every opportunity. Phil self-published his last book because he couldn’t get a publisher interested. After Rick mentioned it, I thought I’d look the book up on Amazon. It’s got a few reviews – probably from his anoraky friends – but there’s one review that is blisteringly awful and guess who wrote it? Rick! Now, if I was so obsessed with a subject that I’d spent years and years writing a book about it, I certainly wouldn’t have been happy if I got a one star review from the chairman of my local club. If you ask me, I reckon it was Phil who shot Rick.’
‘For writing a bad review?’ scoffed Rosie.
‘People have been murdered for less! Right, I think I’ll persuade Brad to go for a drink at the Drunken Duck. Hey, Matt, if it’s okay with you, once this is all sorted, I’d love to do the assault course at Ultimate Adventures, that way this whole week in the wilds of Willerby wouldn’t have been a total waste of time.’
‘No problem.’
Emma stood up, maintaining eye contact with Matt, a slight smile parting her lips. She straightened her spine and elongated her slender arms above her head in a felinesque stretch causing the shape of her pert breasts to protrude from her skin-tight gym top. Rosie took in her pixie-like features; the upturned nose, her neat mouth devoid of enhancement as she had no need for cosmetics to augment her natural attractiveness. She did wonder why Emma had chosen to dye her hair a non-descript auburn colour when her eyebrows and lashes indicated her natural colouring was a vibrant copper which would have complimented her colouring so much better. Clearly she did still harbour a little vanity despite constantly professing to be a tomboy.
‘Bye everyone!’