Suddenly the noise stopped and everything seemed to settle.
I turned back to look.
The house sighed once, a deep, convulsive moan of utter defeat, and the entire structure collapsed in an explosion of dust and debris.
We got in the Volvo and closed the doors. Tom started the engine and shot backward down the drive, fifty feet or so.
He pulled a police radio from his glove compartment. “Hapthorn Lodge. We need medical assistance—EMTs and police backup. Now.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Lucy and I huddled in the back of Tom’s Volvo. She was shaking—from shock or the cold, or both. Colin lay moaning in the front passenger’s seat. I couldn’t see the extent of his leg injury, but it was bleeding badly. He needed medical help right away.
All three of them were going to need serious antibiotics and antifungals. The stench from their wet clothes was enough to make me sick, but I didn’t care.
Tom was alive.
Colin was still moaning. “My shoulder.”
“I’m more worried about your leg,” Tom said. I’m going to try compressing the injury until the EMTs arrive. Kate, may I have your jacket?”
Tom folded my jacket into a tight coil and positioned it over Colin’s thigh. Then he whipped off his belt, wrapped it around Colin’s leg, and pulled it tight.
“Aah.” Colin grimaced in pain.
Lucy was sobbing. “What did you do to my mother, Colin?”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Colin grimaced. “She attacked me. Aah.”
Tom was breathing hard. “Colin Wardle, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder in the death of Evelyn Villiers.” He stopped and took a breath. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
“You murdered her!” Lucy flung herself at him from the back seat. I pulled her back.
“Never laid a hand on her, I swear.” The words came through gritted teeth. “Aah. My leg.” Colin breathed in and out several times through his nose. “Went to see her after the inquest. I was Wallace Villiers’s son. I deserved something after all those years of poverty, after all my mother had put up with to preserve his precious reputation. I thought she’d see the justice of it—at least give me something to get started in life.”
“And then what, Colin?” Lucy hissed. “When she wouldn’t agree, you killed her?”
“It wasn’t like that, Luce.” He was wheedling now, getting weaker. “She wouldn’t let me in the house. Said to meet her by the river. She offered me five hundred pounds to go away. Ha! Five hundred measly pounds when my father was worth millions.” Colin’s breath was coming in ragged spurts. “I ripped up the check and threw it at her. Told her I’d take her to court. She came at me with her claws, scratching, gouging at my face. She was wild, Luce. Next thing I knew she was on the ground. Must have hit her head or something.”
“You’re saying it was an accident?” Tom said.
Was that the truth? How would we ever know?
“What did you do with the body?” Tom asked.
“Dragged her into the long grass and hid her while I drove to Little Dunmow to get my mother. I didn’t know what to do. She was the one who came up with the idea of pretending to be Evelyn Villiers—it wasn’t me. I found tools in the shed. She helped me bury the body. Later, we gathered rocks and made a sort of garden over her.”
“All that same night?”
“Finished at daybreak. Aah. Mother told me to leave. She’d take care of everything. Said she’d call Winnifred Villiers.” He cried out again in agony. “I’m going to die!”
“Not if I can help it,” Tom said. “Hang on. Help’s on the way.”
“Wouldn’t Winnie have recognized Evelyn’s voice?” I asked.
“They hardly knew each other.” Colin stopped to catch his breath. When he spoke again, we could barely hear him. “Mother pretended to be crying, told her she had to … get Lucy.”
“And she needed to get rid of Ertha,” I said. “She typed those letters, didn’t she—the ones to Lucy and Ertha.”
Colin nodded. “Had to. Police would have blamed me.”
“What about your mother, Colin?” Tom asked. “What happened the night of the May Fair? Colin? Colin?”
Colin’s head had dropped against the window.
“I think we’re losing him,” Tom said. “He’s lost too much blood.”
We weren’t getting any more answers out of Colin that night—maybe we never would.
Lucy was sobbing quietly.
We heard the sound of the ambulance. Minutes later, the flashing lights lit up the car interior.
DS Cliffe and PC Weldon arrived together.
Colin was loaded into the rear of the ambulance. The EMTs bundled Tom and Lucy into Cliffe’s car. Anne Weldon slid into the driver’s seat of Tom’s Volvo, and we followed the ambulance to the NHS hospital in Bury St. Edmunds.
Colin was taken immediately into surgery. His shoulder was dislocated, as I thought, and his collarbone was broken. The most serious injury was the gash on his leg. He’d severed the superficial femoral artery. He was lucky to be alive.
Tom and Lucy were put on IV meds and admitted overnight for observation.
I was allowed to see Tom for a brief moment. He lay, pale and exhausted, under a cotton blanket.
“Do you believe Evelyn Villiers’s death was an accident?”
“Not for a minute.” Tom’s eyes closed. They must have given him a sedative.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I said and had a sudden memory of him saying almost the same words to me in Scotland. “How did you pull yourself out of that cellar?”
“Hand over hand.” He grinned sleepily. “Police academy rope training comes in handy every once in a while. You’re stronger than you think, Kate. You and Lucy were holding my weight.”
“Amazing what you can do when you have to.” I wrinkled my nose. “I’d kiss you but you smell like a sewer.”
“I’ll claim my kiss later. We have time, you know.”
We have time,
