Small Town Secrets (Some Very English Murders Book 2) (4 page)

“You’ve been through all manner of terrible things,” said a
growling voice by Penny’s shoulder. Nina flicked her eyes to him, and then back
to Penny.

“It’s okay, dad,” Nina said. “Everything will work out
fine.”

“But at what cost?” he intoned ominously.

Penny felt somewhat uncomfortable as Eric came alongside
her, and began to speak. “My poor daughter. My poor dear Nina. We wanted to
keep her with us, but if you love something, set them free; that’s what my wife
said. And off she went to study in Edinburgh … and never came home. Until now.
You’re safe here in Glenfield, Nina.”

“Dad! This is embarrassing. Please stop.” Nina was a bright
red now, and Penny felt herself blush in sympathy.

But Eric’s public humiliation of his daughter wasn’t done,
yet. “Hardships make us stronger, and you will become a better woman. I just
wish that I’d been there for you. I’ve failed as a father.”

Nina closed her eyes for a few seconds, and inhaled deeply,
obviously gathering her patience. When she opened her eyes again, she said, “No
you haven’t.” And before he could argue, she went on, rapidly. “Right, I’m here
to note down how many shots we get of different dogs. It would be great if we
could do all the photos today, but I somehow doubt it.”

“Oh, we definitely won’t get everything done,” Eric said
glumly. “I don’t think we’ll get a single useable shot. What is Irene doing
with that spotty dog?”

“Trevor’s doing well with the Jack Russell,” Nina said,
pointing across the field.

“Now that he’s caught up with it,” Penny said.

Eric shook his head. “The light is too bright, too flat,
too harsh. The dogs are … haphazard. This is too big a task. That dimwit Warren
should never have… oh, I’m sorry, my love, I didn’t mean to bring up his name.
It must be so upsetting for you.”

Nina shrugged. “Not really. I barely knew him. I’m sorry
he’s dead, though.”

“I’m…” Eric swallowed whatever he was going to say, but it
was obvious.

I’m not.

Well, thought Penny, as she left father and daughter to
their ongoing conversation, it was a normal reaction on Eric’s part, if Warren
had made a move on Nina, although it was still speculation by Penny.

Who was she kidding? Warren would have leaped upon Nina the
moment her feet crossed the parish boundary.

I ought to ask her, Penny thought, and then stopped
herself.

No. NO! I am not meddling, remember? In spite of what
everyone around here seems to believe.

“Penny for your thoughts!” Lucy, the dippy shop manager,
said as she appeared out of nowhere, floating along in her pristine cloud of
chiffon and airiness. “Oh! Isn’t that funny! It’s your name, too. Fancy that!”

Like I have never heard that before, Penny thought, but
kept it to herself. Lucy meant no harm. “Nothing, really. I’m a spare part. The
photos are being sorted. Marge is dealing with the dogs and the photographers.
Eric is trying to be in charge. What a very … forceful sort of man he is.”

Lucy shuddered. “He must be a Taurus, that one. And always
so negative! Poor Nina.”

“Poor Nina indeed – he kept saying that. What happened in
Edinburgh? He just alludes to something quite horrible.” Penny didn’t like to
speculate. You only had to watch the news for ten minutes to think that the
whole fabric of society was on the brink of collapse.

“To be honest … I don’t know. She split up with her
boyfriend. That’s all.”

Penny pursed her lips. “If I had only met Nina, I’d believe
that. But her dad thinks it’s the end of the world.”

“Yes,” Lucy said. “But that’s dads, isn’t it?”

Penny thought that was the most insightful thing Lucy had
said for a long time.

“How’s the shop? Are you opened to the public yet?” Penny
asked.

“Nearly. That’s why I came to find you. Can you come and
help out?”

“Of course.”

Penny followed Lucy back to the long, low building that
housed a café at one end and the gift shop at the other. It was on the opposite
side of a courtyard to another, larger building where the administration
offices and staff rooms were. Already, lots of people were milling around –
volunteer dog walkers, people wanting to look at the dogs available for
adoption, and general supporters who liked to visit every weekend and bring bric-a-brac
for the second-hand area in the gift shop.

Penny had to steel herself for what she knew was coming.
And her prediction was correct. She spent the rest of the day trying to
convince every other customer that she had no interest in the Warren Martin
case at all.

And in between the questioning, she checked her mobile
phone to see if she had a message from Drew.

Still nothing.

On Monday, Penny took herself off up to Lincoln to meet
Cath for lunch. She had a car and also a motorcycle. The weather was still hot
and humid, and though she didn’t want to drive, she resented sliding into
layers of protective motorcycle clothing. Her summer textile jacket claimed to
be “lightweight” but with the armour and padding and technical fabrics, it
seemed to weigh a ton.

Kali got excited as soon as Penny pulled out her motorcycle
boots, and went to stand by the front door, her tail – and, indeed, her
hindquarters – wagging furiously.

“Sorry,” Penny told her as she pulled the helmet onto her
head. “Not today.”

Kali’s tongue lolled as she panted with anticipation.

“No,” Penny repeated. “You’re staying at home.”

Kali slunk off to the kitchen. The lino floor was cool and
she had a shady spot to hide in, under the table. She loved riding in the
sidecar of Penny’s vintage M21 motorbike, but Penny didn’t want to drag her up
to the city in the current heatwave. She didn’t particularly want to be wearing
motorbike gear in the heat, either. But as soon as she fired the old beast into
life, her stomach did its usual flip, and she couldn’t wait to get going.

Riding the old steel steed made her young again, in the way
that nothing else ever could. She had ridden bikes – old ones, classics – since
her early twenties. It had been an act of rebellion then, and it still was,
now. The past decade of her career, she’d given up her bikes, so it was one of
the first things she bought when she moved to Upper Glenfield. Here she was, at
an age when she was expected to be at the pinnacle of her career, planning for
retirement in a decade or so, sending children to university perhaps, and
instead she had given up her London lifestyle for a quiet cottage in a rural
corner of Lincolnshire.

The M21 didn’t go fast but she was a steady old bike,
well-maintained and lovingly restored. Penny chugged up the back roads to the
cathedral city of Lincoln. The journey was longer, but now she had the cooling
wind blowing through her helmet and the open vents in her jacket, it was
paradise. The bike thumped its way through the classic English villages that
nestled in the rolling hills of Lincoln edge, where the landscape rose to a
long ridge before dropping eastwards into the endless flat fenlands for miles
before eventually blurring into the sea.

This was freedom, she thought. I could go anywhere.

Although … part of the point of all that was missed when
people didn’t know how free she was. She knew that people turned their heads
when she rode past them, and she liked that. She had to admit it to herself;
she revelled in her rebellious status. It wasn’t that she wanted to shock
people, not exactly.

But it was nice when she did.

Lincoln’s road system was as horrific as ever, but it
mattered far less when you were riding a great bike and were in no particular
hurry. She cruised along, her visor pushed up, glad of the sunglasses to keep
stray flies out of her eyes. She was beginning to know the best parking areas,
now, and made her way to the shopping area at the bottom part of town.

Lincoln was a city of two halves, and she loved the older,
top part the best. The Bailgate area around the castle and cathedral was a
haven of narrow cobbled streets and secret shops. Tourists came, of course, to
view the Magna Carta and the great Bishop’s Eye window in the cathedral, but they
came in far fewer numbers than she had expected. Many overseas visitors
bypassed Lincoln; instead they followed a well-trodden path from London to
York, via Oxford, and if they were really keen they stayed in the UK an extra
day and “did” Edinburgh too. It was a shame, but on the other hand, it kept
Lincoln fresher and freer than some of the crowded honeypots of the other
cities.

Today, though, she was meeting Cath on a yacht converted
into a floating restaurant which was usually moored at Brayford Pool. She left
the bike in a secure parking area, paying a little extra to use a car park that
had a real live security guard on site rather than a broken CCTV system and a
wire fence. She stripped out of her jacket and carried it over her arm, her
helmet dangling from her hand, as she walked through the streets to the trendy
area around Brayford Pool.

Penny spotted Cath from behind as she came out of a side
road and turned onto the street in front of her. Penny hailed her with a
piercing yell, and at least three other people turned as well.

Cath grinned and waited for Penny to catch her up. “My
goodness, you look hot.”

“In a complimentary sense or a ‘you are a menopausal woman,
what on earth do you think you’re doing’ sort of way?”

“Mostly the second, sorry,” Cath said. In her baggy shorts
and loose tee-shirt, she looked like she’d just been interrupted halfway
through a slobby day at home. Unless she was on duty, when she’d wear a sober
suit, Cath tended to dress down. Her focus was not on clothes or such niceties.
As far as Penny could tell, Cath’s priorities were her family, and then her
job. Everything else was simply optional icing on an already rather good cake.

“Have you eaten here before?” Penny asked as they boarded
the yacht. It was wide and long, and brilliant white. “Is it really a good idea
to serve food on something that is always moving slightly?”

“I haven’t been here but Ted at work recommended it. But he
did say to check the weather forecast first.”

“I am not surprised.”

They were met on the deck by a strapping, athletic girl in
a smart waitress’s uniform, except that it was nautically blue and white rather
than black and white. She had a slight Polish accent and perfect English. “A
table for two? This way please.”

It was good to be spending time with her friend again,
Penny reflected as they went through the rigmarole of menus and drinks and
orders and cutlery organisation and all the other business of getting food. When
the salads were delivered to the table, Penny sat back, her fork in her hand,
and eyeballed Cath until she looked up.

“What?” Cath said, suspiciously.

“You haven’t told me to stop meddling again yet. Do you
want to get it over with now?”

“Are you meddling?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t need to tell you to stop. I already did. Once
was enough.” Cath speared some lettuce. “You know, I can’t feel the boat moving
at all.”

“I know, it’s weird, isn’t it?” Penny glanced out of the
round window to her side. The level of the water was disconcertingly high but
everything was calm and still. “It’s just that everyone else in Upper Glenfield
has been chasing me around talking about poor Warren Martin, and even you
called me to warn me to stay away. And the thing is, you know, I have no
intention of looking into it. Why would I?”

“Why, indeed,” Cath said mildly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I suppose we all assumed you’d get the bug,
that’s all.”

“Huh. No, I am busy enough, thank you very much. And I
don’t appreciate everyone making assumptions about me.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. How’s the salad?”

“It needs more calories and fewer bits of green,” Penny
said darkly. “But it does leave space for the pistachio ice cream I saw on the
menu, so there’s that. Anyway. Tell me about work. How are things?”

Cath shrugged. “Apart from the Warren Martin case, of
course…”

“Of course…”

“Well, it’s the usual, run of the mill, low level stuff
that is everyday policing. There’s a spate of harassments going on.”

“In Upper Glenfield or here?” Penny asked. Cath was based
in Lincoln, mostly.

“Both, as it happens. Actually the Lincoln one is just some
person apparently lingering outside someone’s house, and no one knows who or
why. Or even if it really is anyone at all. Frankly, the main witness – the
only witness – is a teenage girl. It’s probably some boy from her class at
school. Or a shadow. Who knows? One of my lads spent half an hour coaxing a
hedgehog out from under his bed, and it turned out to be a pair of rolled up
socks.”

“What about the Glenfield one? I haven’t heard of any
harassment, I think.” Penny felt affronted. It was a small town and she
expected to have heard the gossip.

“I can’t tell you the name but you’ll hear it, I’m sure, if
you ask around. It’s an older chap who lives alone and someone’s phoning him
up. Silent calls, you know? And a bit of low level vandalism, painting on his
fence, stamping on his flowers. It’s the really petty, targeted kind of stuff
that makes my blood boil.”

“That is horrible,” Penny said, feeling her own anger rise.
“Go on. If it’s common knowledge, you can tell me his name.”

“I’ll be sacked if I tell you it’s Reg Bailey.”

“So don’t, then. See if I care.”

Cath frowned, and Penny stuck her tongue out at her, and
they both laughed.

“Ice cream, then?” Cath asked.

“If you insist.”

“I’m only ordering some to keep you company with your
pistachio thing,” Cath said.

“Whatever.”

As they waited for their desserts, Cath struck out on a new
tack, and turned the conversation to an uncomfortable topic. “What’s going on
between you and Drew, then, at the moment?”