Murder on the Moor by C. S. Challinor

distance.
    “They’ll get there before we do,” Helen remarked.
    “By a long chalk,” Rex added, gunning the accelerator from a standstill as the single front wheel spun uselessly. “We are stuck in the mud.”

By the time Rex and Helen arrived back at Gleneagle Lodge in the three-wheeler, both of them mud-splattered from head to foot, the ambulance had left.
    “It’s all taken care of,” Alistair said, coming out of the house to meet them. “The medics took the body to the morgue. Here’s the number.” He eyed the yellow van. “Um, may I ask … ?”
    “It’s all we had available to get us back here,” Rex told him. “No one in the village wanted to venture out in this weather. The ambulance ran us off the road and we got stuck in the mud.”
    “I need to go and change,” Helen said, starting toward the house.
    “What about the police?” Rex asked Alistair.
    “No show. And the ambulance had to dash off and respond to another call. I gave the medics all the information. They couldn’t wait around for the police.”
    “So, what’s new here? How are the guests bearing up?”
    “The Allerdices are insisting they have to get back to their hotel. I persuaded them to wait until you returned. Shona is busy throwing together some lunch. Estelle and Flora are helping out.”
    “And the men?”
    “Watching the soccer. All except Cuthbert, who stalked off somewhere in his hunting gear.”
    “Did he now?” Rex said tersely. “I asked him to keep an eye on things at the house.”
    “I couldn’t stop him. He promised he wouldn’t leave the property.”
    “Did he take his rifle?”
    “Aye. He said to tell you not to worry as he didn’t intend to kill anything.”
    This was not very reassuring. “What aboot you, Alistair? Are you okay?” His friend, hunched in his jacket against the wet weather, looked deathly pale. “You’re soaked through.”
    “It was a wee bit emotional seeing that poor woman being carried off in a bag. I’m glad you were not here to witness it.”
    “Did the medics find anything unusual?”
    “Nothing beyond the obvious. They were reluctant to move the body before the police arrived, but I told them we had fished it out of the loch hours ago and there was a chance it might start to decompose. It is, after all, summer. Not that you’d notice.” Suddenly, Alistair grimaced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to sound callous. I forgot you two had been close.”
    “That’s all right. It was awhile ago. And don’t go believing everything Moira might have told you.” Rex still couldn’t altogether absorb the fact she was dead. “I’m just worried that removing the body prematurely might compromise eventual legal proceedings, in spite of the notes and photographs I took. Still, it’s one less thing to worry about, I suppose. Now I can concentrate on the guests and try to find out who murdered her.”
    “I hope you’re wrong about that. I still think it could have been an intruder. I mean, do you honestly think one of them could have done it?” Alistair thumbed toward the lodge.
    “Killers come in all guises.” Rex reached back into the van. “I brought you a paper. All available bobbies and brass are working on the Melissa Bates case. I was told the police would respond to our emergency when they could.”
    “I have no doubt you’ll figure it out by yourself.” Alistair gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and directed him under the porch.
    “I don’t have much to go on. Most of the evidence will have been washed away in the rain. I don’t suppose anyone came to fix the phone in my absence so I can call the coroner?”
    “No visitors except for the medics.”
    “There’s not one mobile to be had in the village. Helen inquired at the pub. Too much to hope that Shona found hers … ?”
    “She searched everywhere.”
    Rex sighed in despair. “I arranged for the local mechanic to come. Until then,” he said, pointing to the Reliant, “this is our only set of