Chapter Twelve
Lake
The knock at the door came ten minutes after the time we’d arranged, yet earlier than I’d expected.
I’d had doubts about Baxter showing up at all.
But show up he did, almost on time, and with a brown paper bag that he brandished like it was the secret password when I opened the door.
“I brought breakfast,” he said. “You’ve got a choice between a bacon and egg McMuffin or a sausage and egg McMuffin. ”
“Sausage,” I said without having to think about it. “Unless… you wanted that one?”
He shrugged as he stepped inside. “I’m easy, or I wouldn’t have asked.” He stopped dead, some of the color draining out of his face, the easygoing demeanor he’d arrived with replaced by tension.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Coffee,” Baxter said, his voice strained. “I have problems with the smell of coffee.” He squared his shoulders. “It’s fine. It just took me by surprise, that’s all.”
I was already moving to open windows, Baxter going to stand by the first one I opened and dragging in breaths of fresh air like my house was full of toxic gas rather than a drink consumed every day the world over.
“I didn’t know,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say. Of course, I didn’t know. And even now that I knew, I didn’t understand.
Luckily, Baxter didn’t need any prompting to explain.
“When someone attacked me… When I was murdered…” He hesitated.
“I’d just bought a coffee to go from a little place in Finchley.
I used to go there every day.” He shook his head.
“Which is hardly the important part of the story. Anyway, when he stabbed me, I dropped it. It was all I could smell as I lay there. Dying, I suppose, considering what happened a few hours after that. When I was dead, I couldn’t smell anything.
Smelling it since I came back has been…” He exhaled. “Yeah.”
“Makes sense. Smell is a common trigger for PTSD.”
“PTSD?”
“You realize that’s what’s going on here?”
Baxter shook his head.
“It is,” I said gently. “It’s common after experiencing a distressing event. And what’s more distressing than your own death? Symptoms include intrusive memories, nightmares, and flashbacks of the traumatic event.”
Baxter tried for a smile, but it didn’t quite come off. “Sounds about right. How do you know this stuff?”
I went into the kitchen and came out with a can of fresh air spray.
I used it liberally, figuring that the cloying scent of sandalwood and jasmine—not that it smelled like either of those things—was preferable to any traces of coffee that still hung in the air.
“I wrote a book about the First World War. It dealt with shell shock because of trench warfare. Of course, doctors didn’t recognize it as PTSD at the time.
People didn’t use that label until the 1970s and didn’t officially use it as a diagnosis until the 1980s.
But it existed long before that, just under different names.
Soldier’s heart in the American Civil War, battle fatigue in World War II, Vietnam syndrome in the Vietnam War.
And if you go back to ancient times, there are accounts of soldiers from Ancient Greece and Rome exhibiting trauma-like symptoms after battles. ”
I caught myself, heat rushing to my cheeks. “Sorry. You didn’t ask for a history lecture.”
“It’s fine.”
“You don’t have to say that. You can just tell me to shut up. Or do what Verity does and be even less subtle and make loud yawning sounds.”
Baxter smiled. “You have a nice voice. It’s calming. It’s not an ordeal to listen to you talk about something you’re passionate about.”
More heat rushed to my cheeks, this time for a completely different reason, and I was glad of the excuse to return the fresh air spray to the kitchen.
I opened the kitchen window while I was in there, sprayed some more spray until it made me cough, poured the rest of my undrunk coffee down the sink, rinsed the cup out, got rid of the coffee grounds in my newly purchased coffee machine to replace the one stolen by Carl, and then, for good measure, unplugged the machine and stashed it in a cupboard.
It was doubtful we’d solve the mystery of Baxter’s death in one afternoon, so the least I could do was not have my place smell of something that triggered him when he came here. “Do you want a drink?” I called. “Tea? Or something cold?”
“Tea would be good.”
By the time I carried two mugs of tea into the living room, he looked better, the fresh air spray and open window having combined to rid the room of the smell of coffee.
He still stood by the window, which gave me an opportunity to study him, my gaze lingering on the long legs shown off to perfection by black thigh-hugging jeans.
I plucked the brown paper bag out of his hands, Baxter seeming to have forgotten he even held it. “Why don’t you come and sit down?” I suggested as I sorted through the bag to locate which McMuffin was which.
He did, tucking into his breakfast with gusto when I passed it across and washing it down with tea. We ate in silence for a few minutes, Baxter the first to break it. “So, what’s the plan today?”
“Gather information,” I said around a mouthful of sausage and bread. “That’s the starting point of any investigation. It will mean my having to ask you some tough questions.”
“That’s fine.” Baxter leaned his head back against the sofa, his body language saying something different. “I’ll answer whatever questions you’ve got to the best of my ability. But…” He stood, a smile flickering across his face. “I need to use your bathroom first.”
I waved a hand in its general direction. “You know where it is.”
He was gone a while, and when he came back, it was with a slight frown on his face. “Everything okay?” My mind was racing, trying to work out what could have triggered him in the bathroom. Had I purchased coffee-scented shower gel without realizing it? Did such a thing even exist?
“Your bedroom door was open,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. “And I couldn’t help noticing a distinct lack of bed. Is that a new thing?”
“Recent…ish.”
“How recent?”
“Erm…”
Baxter let out an exasperated sigh. “Where did you sleep the other night when I was on your sofa?”
The question was too direct to avoid the way I might have wanted to. “On the floor.”
“And you usually sleep on the sofa?”
“I usually sleep in a bed.”
Baxter stared intently at me. Instinct told me he’d grown tired of pulling teeth and was reading my mind, even as I still rebelled against that being possible.
“Carl took it,” he said. “The man you chased after the other night. No wonder you chased him. He took most of your furniture. What kind of man steals someone’s bed?”
“A desperate one,” I offered.
Baxter’s look of disbelief would have pleased Verity. “You shouldn’t have given up the sofa for me.”
“You needed it that night more than I did.”
“Maybe,” Baxter admitted. “But don’t do it again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You said ‘he’ earlier when you talked about being stabbed,” I pointed out. “How do you know it was a man?”
“Did I?” Baxter seemed surprised. He’d removed his shoes and sat cross-legged on the corner of the sofa. It made him seem more child-like, more vulnerable. “I guess I just assumed it had to be a man. Most murderers are.”
I was sitting at the other end of the sofa, laptop open at a blank document, ready to take notes.
I shook my head. “Not good enough. We work on facts, not assumptions. What did you see? What did you hear?” I stopped myself from asking what he could smell, not wanting to catapult him back to thinking about coffee.
He closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously as he swallowed. “A dark figure running away.”
“Tall? Short?”
A furrow appeared on his brow as he thought hard, eyes still closed. “About my height.”
“So probably too tall to be a woman,” I suggested. “Which is why you assumed it was a man.”
“Heavy footsteps,” Baxter added. “And… I only saw them briefly, but they didn’t move like a woman.”
“Fat? Thin? Muscular? Stocky?”
“Average.”
“Did you see their face?”
“They had their back to me. They were running.”
“I suppose you’d hardly saunter if you’d just stabbed someone.”
Baxter opened his eyes again, the blueness of them stunning after not seeing them for a couple of minutes.
The twitch of his lips said he’d plucked that thought right out of my head.
Jesus! How were you supposed to deal with someone who knew exactly what you were thinking?
Especially when you found them incredibly attractive.
Except he’d probably read that thought as well.
Clearing my throat, I concentrated on the laptop, reading back through what I’d written as an excuse not to look at Baxter.
If I didn’t look at him, perhaps I could go two minutes without thinking about his lips or his eyes or his cheekbones—none of which was remotely appropriate when we were talking about his murder. “Did you see the knife?”
The silence said Baxter was thinking about the question. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Everything’s fuzzy.” A long pause followed. “I think…” He let out a strained laugh that sounded little like a laugh at all. “I can barely believe I’m going to say this, but I think I need to go back there.”
I stared at him. “Back to the…?”
“To the car park,” Baxter said. “I need to stand in that exact spot.”
“Are you sure?”
“You were the one who said I had to face up to things.”
“Yeah, but…” I trailed off, unable to think of a good way of finishing the sentence. Given his reluctance, I wanted to tell him it wasn’t necessary. Unfortunately, though, it made a twisted sort of sense. Returning to a place often triggered hidden memories. “I’ll call a cab.”