Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) (14 page)

“See,” she told the dog. “I’m learning, aren’t I?”

On Friday afternoon, Penny gathered up her sketches and her
watercolours, and stacked them neatly in a newly-purchased portfolio case. Kali
watched her from a corner of the living room.

“Don’t you start as well,” Penny said. The dog’s expression
was almost reproachful. Penny knew she was projecting her own internal doubts onto
her, but even so, it was unsettling.

Kali licked her lips and turned away.

Penny sighed and tucked a tin of pencils into the outside
pocket of the portfolio case. When she’d got back from the morning walk, her
mobile phone had been ringing from where she’d left it on the table in the
kitchen; it had been Francine.

Francine had sounded delighted that Penny was off to the
local craft group in the community hall.

“Do you know anyone there?” Francine asked.

“No. I saw the poster in the mini-market. I hope to meet
Mary and … oh, well, you know. New people.”

Francine was immediately suspicious of Penny’s motives.
“Who is Mary?”

“Just someone I’d like to get to know better…”

“Oooh!” Francine squealed in excitement. “You’re prying
into the murder thing, aren’t you? Have they not found anyone yet?”

“No. And I’m not prying. I’m a concerned citizen. And I’m
just trying to make friends.”

“How exciting! Is Mary a suspect? Who was she, in relation
to the farmer?”

Penny was torn between wanting to share her suspicions with
someone who was interested, and wanting to keep it private and her own little
secret. “She was his girlfriend. Look, I do have to go …”

“Phone me later! Tell me everything! And thank you for the
hamper. You shouldn’t have.”

“It was nothing. Okay, okay, I will call you, okay.”

Penny turned her phone to silent and shoved it into her
pocket. Francine’s exuberance did make her smile. Would Penny be as keen to
pursue the murderer if Francine hadn’t encouraged her?

She was certainly helping Penny to reclaim her lost youth.

She put her musing aside. She had a mission! “I’m off now,”
she told Kali. “You be good.”

* * * *

The community hall was a long, low building on the east
side of town, on Back Street which ran behind the church. At the end of Back
Street the road turned at a funny angle to follow along the river. Opposite to
the river were three long straight roads, with a late 1900s look about the rows
of terraces. It was the sort of scene that needed cobbles on the street and
washing strung across from house to house, rather than shiny new cars and
satellite dishes.

Inside the community hall, there was a buzz of activity. It
smelled like all village and community halls smelled – a slight whiff of damp,
industrial cleaning fluids, dust and large vats of tea kept at a continual
rolling simmer since the end of the war.

The usual folding tables had been set out in a horseshoe
shape, and various people fussed around. Most of them were women, and they were
all of a certain age. That age being the more mature side of fifty, at least.
And in many cases, Penny was being charitable.

But this was no time to be ageist. After all, she was what
she considered to be the “wrong” side of forty though was there a “wrong” side?
It wasn’t like she could put it “right.” She was already the sort of woman that
she remembered looking at when she was younger, and wondering if she would
ever, ever get to that age. And here she was, at that age, and not a lot had
changed.

Except her stress levels, her resilience, her sense of
humour and her general reaction to life’s difficulties, of course.

No. The person she once was
would
return, she
promised herself. In fact, she already was. She lifted her head high and walked
into the hall, clutching the portfolio to her chest.

She was greeted enthusiastically by everyone, and she
thought she recognised a few faces though she could not place them. They were
people she’d seen in town, perhaps, or maybe with the ramblers. Just the act of
recognition made her feel warm and part of something.

A stately woman in a formal blue dress suit with
intimidating shoulder-pads introduced herself as Ginni, the secretary of the
group. “I’m not quite a leader,” she said with a laugh, “but I am the closest
thing, I think. I do the paperwork, which is power, of a sort.”

Penny was introduced to everyone in a whirlwind round and
promptly forgot all the names. All except one, the very woman she was here to
talk to: Mary.

There was a spare seat either side of her, and Penny sidled
onto the left side. Mary smiled warmly. She was in her early fifties, perhaps,
with slightly mad fuzzy hair and enormous purple-rimmed spectacles. She was a
loose-skirt-and-bangles sort of woman, with a throaty laugh.

“Penny! Now then, duck, you sit here and tell me all about
yourself!”

Perfect! Penny grinned back. “I’m sorry … so many new
names. Mary…?”

“That’s right, Mary Radcliffe, that’s me. So you’re new to Upper
Glenfield, are you? What brings you here?” Mary’s eyes glistened with something
very like greed and Penny realised that here was a woman who collected gossip
in the way that others collected stamps or coins.

She didn’t look like a woman in mourning for the love of
her life, either, but then, Penny reminded herself, who was she to judge? Grief
– like stress – took people in different ways. She was increasingly sure that
there wasn’t a checklist of “things to feel when someone dies.”

Penny told her a little about London and her career in the
heady world of television, but Mary had a particular talent that seasoned
rumour-mongers all had. She was able to tease out more information that Penny
had intended on giving. It was a skill Penny wanted to learn, although not by
being on the receiving end of it.

“Stress, hey?” Mary was saying. “Enough that you gave up
your job and moved away? That sounds more like a breakdown to me.”

Penny shook her head – nothing so dramatic – but Mary was
unstoppable. She blundered on. “There was a woman that I knew, lived up on the
Abbeystead estate, oh, she was terrible with it. Terrible. Made herself quite
ill, you know? I saw her once, she hadn’t washed her hair in two weeks, no
make-up, shocking, it was!”

“That sounds more like depression,” Penny hazarded,
grabbing a gap in Mary’s stream of words.

“Well, they do go together, don’t they? As I am sure you
know.”

“No, I–”

Mary patted her hand. “I’m sure you’re a very private
person and you don’t know me at all, but I want you to know you can always come
to me if you need to talk. I’m a very good listener. Everyone knows.”

Penny glanced around. ‘Everyone’ seemed very intent on
their own business in their own little groups, and there was a noticeable space
around the pair of them. No one looked their way.

Mary was clearly not as popular as she thought she was.

Penny desperately wanted to steer Mary away from the topic
of stress and depression before she leaped to any more conclusions. Penny
already recognised that denial on her part would simply strengthen Mary’s
convictions.

Penny unzipped her portfolio and began to pull out her
sketches. She felt nervous about unveiling her work but it was a good tactic to
divert Mary. It was much like throwing ham around when Kali spotted another
dog. It worked.

“Oh my! What a talented artist you are!” Mary said, her
hand darting in amongst the pile and sifting through them as if Penny had given
her permission. Which she had not. “What a beautiful dog! I used to draw, you
know, but I’ve moved on.”

As if drawing was something you did until you could do
something else. Penny decided that Mary was simply bad with her impulsive
phrasing, not wilfully rude and tactless. She tried to rescue her sketches but
Mary was intent upon them. “Is this your dog?”

“Yes, Kali. She’s a Rottie.”

“Oh, what vicious dogs they are! They’ll rip your face off
as soon as look at you. You wouldn’t think it to look at her there, would you?”
Mary said.

Now Penny was properly annoyed. You can say bad things
about my drawings but not about my dog, she thought. She hadn’t realised how
protective she felt until that moment. “There is nothing vicious about Kali,”
she snapped.

Mary pursed her lips and ploughed on. “Barry Nuttall had
one of them. Not quite like this one. His dog was smaller, and chunkier. More
like … well, it was a pit bull terrier. Or something like it. It looked like
one of them banned dogs, anyway. Horrible thing. Anyway, it died!”

And your point is…? thought Penny, disliking Mary more and
more. The plan to become friends was a regrettable one. She gritted her teeth
and said, “So, what crafts do you do now? Is that decoupage?”

Mary pushed all of Penny’s sketches aside with a dismissive
sweep of her arm, the bangles jangling. “I’ve been making cards. High-class
ones, obviously. Well, I’ll decoup onto anything, but cards is easiest.”

Decoup? Mary’s grammar made Penny itchy and she wasn’t
usually a snob about how people spoke. It was all the aspects of Mary’s
demeanour that were making her uncomfortable. “May I see?” she asked, pointedly
trying to demonstrate what good manners looked like.

Mary picked out one of the worst creations and presented it
with pride. A fat robin had been cut out and glued onto a blue card, with
golden glitter applied around the edge. Penny was unconvinced that it counted
as ‘decoupage.’

“I’m selling at craft fairs all over the county!” Mary told
her. “This is one of my most popular designs.”

“At Christmas?”

“I sold one last week.”

“Wow,” Penny said with genuine feeling. “They are certainly
unique.”

“They are very popular,” Mary repeated. “Have you thought
of selling at craft fairs?”

“No, it hadn’t occurred to me. I’m not really good enough
yet.”

“Nonsense! A bit of work, a nice frame, someone will buy
them. You’ll improve. Although you probably want to draw a cuter dog. Do a
terrier. Everyone loves terriers. A terrier in a bow. With flowers around it.”

Penny resisted the urge to say something nasty about
terriers being loved by her Rottie as a nice snack. “Well, quite,” she said.
“I’ll see.”

“No, you must!” Mary said. She was becoming quite
insistent. “We could share a lift! Wouldn’t that be nice? You wouldn’t be on
your own, and it’s cheaper with petrol.”

“Perhaps in the summer.”

“There’s a fair next weekend in Grantham. There’s still
time to book a table there, only a fiver. It’s not too far and it will give you
a real taste for it!”

Absolutely not, for many reasons, not least of which she
didn’t want to spend too much time in Mary’s company. “No, I’m afraid…”

“There is nothing to be afraid of!” Mary said, missing the
point, possibly deliberately. “I’ll book the table. You don’t need to do
anything except pick me up on Saturday morning. We’ll have to leave early, of
course. How big is your car?”

Hit the brakes! Hit the brakes right now, Penny screamed
silently. “I can’t. I’m busy at the weekend.” It was a lie and she hated to
tell it. “I’m sorry,” she said. As if it were her fault. Aargh!

Mary frowned and her face was not pretty when her brows
lowered and her frosted-pink lips puckered. “I lost my car recently,” she said
petulantly. “And I lost my job, and my dear, close gentleman-friend.” She
pulled out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes unconvincingly, an act which sent
her right to the top of Penny’s mental list of suspects. Who would list their
boyfriend – well, ‘gentleman-friend’ – last?

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Penny said. This was her chance,
wasn’t it? But how on earth did one ask for details about something so
sensitive? She wanted to know, above all, if Mary was to be a beneficiary of
David’s will.

But she wouldn’t be so upset about not having a car, then,
would she?

Or maybe she would. Penny said, hesitantly, “Probate takes
such a long time, doesn’t it?”

“Especially when the poor dearly departed was
murdered
,”
Mary said in a low whisper, her hand darting out and gripping Penny’s wrist.
“Tragic. You’ll have heard all about it, I’m sure. My poor David. It’s in all
the papers! Tragic, tragic. When you reach my age, my duck, you’ll understand
what a trial life is…”

Your age? I’m only five or ten years away. And yet it
seemed like a lifetime. “I really am sorry to hear about your troubles.” She
was supposed to add ‘if there is anything I can do’ to be polite, but social
convention could go swing for it. “Perhaps when the will is read…”

“Ha!” Mary hissed and sat up straight, her chin jutting up
and out. “Fat lot of good that is to me now, is it?”

Penny winced. It wasn’t going well, and people were
starting to look their way. She could read Mary’s words in different ways. Had
she experienced financial problems which led her to murder David in the hope of
getting something from the will, unaware that probate would be delayed due to
the circumstances of his death? Or did she know she was not a beneficiary
anyway? Had David’s death caused her
more
financial problems? Had he been
supporting her in some way?

There were so many questions and no easy way of asking
them. “Perhaps you have friends who might give you a lift next weekend,” Penny
said slowly. “Or relatives. David had a brother, didn’t he? Maybe his wife, Eleanor…”

“Eleanor?” Mary’s voice quivered. She repeated the name,
louder this time. “Eleanor? What is
Eleanor
in all of this? Why would I
speak to that woman?” She pushed her chair back, the legs scraping on the hall
floor. “Who put you up to this? Who has been talking?”

It was a bit rich, Penny thought, for her to complain about
gossip. “No one. I’m sorry. I thought…”