Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) (18 page)

“Four or five. The last one was three weeks ago. I’m so on
edge waiting for the next one. I’m quite distracted.”

Penny thought back. The last letter Mary had received was
before David had been killed. Could he have been sending them to his own
partner? It seemed very unlikely but of course, Penny had never met the man. In
life, at any rate.

“Mary, do you have any idea who might have sent them?”

Mary’s sobs were abating. She blew her nose again and
tucked the tissue away. “I always thought it was an ex-lover of his,” she said.
“I have a strong suspicion…”

She fell silent. Penny waited for her to finish but Mary
began to pat her hair and pinch her cheeks, evidently readying herself to
continue her walk. “You have a strong suspicion…” Penny prompted hopefully.

“It’s gossip, nothing more.” Mary threw her shoulders back
and tipped her chin up, a woman determined to carry on in life and let nothing
get her down. “Gossip’s got me into so much trouble,” she added, a downturn to
her mouth.

“I … I was sorry to hear about the loss of your job,” Penny
said. “At the surgery.”

Mary smiled tightly. “That? That was the least of it. Thank
you, my duck, for your kindness today. Don’t let me keep you from your walk.
You be a good dog, now!” she said, wagging her finger at Kali. “Be good for
your lovely owner!”

She patted Kali on the head and walked away, holding
herself very straight and walking briskly. Penny watched her go, with Kali held
close beside her on a tight lead. So, what other trouble had Mary’s gossiping
got her into?

And who had sent her the threatening letters?

“Hi Cath, or hi DC Pritchard if you’re at work. It’s
Penny.” Penny stood in her kitchen and stared out of the window, to where Kali
was sniffing the hedge. She held the phone to her ear and leaned against the
draining board.

“Ahh. Good morning. I’m at home. Has an officer been out to
talk to you, yet?” Cath said.

“No, not yet. I was wondering if you were working later on today?
You police have funny shifts.”

“No. I’ve got a lazy Sunday planned. Hubby is taking the
kids to one of those indoor play area things so they can jump around on multi-coloured
balls or something. I think he secretly wants to have a go himself. No doubt
I’ll be receiving a call later informing me he’s been banned or something.”

“Brilliant. I’ve always fancied having a go myself. Anyway,
about that coffee you suggested yesterday…”

Cath laughed. “Okay, sure. Why don’t you come over? I have
the house to myself. If we go out to a coffee shop, I’ll have to change out of
my slobby clothes.”

“You mean you won’t be dressing for visitors?”

Cath snorted. “Nope. If you’re lucky I’ll brush my teeth. Come
over any time after eleven.”

“I’ll bring cake.”

“You’ll run the gauntlet of Warren at the mini-market?”
Cath asked. It was the only shop in Upper Glenfield open on a Sunday.

“Er … I’ll make one,” Penny declared impulsively.

“Smashing. I’m looking forward to it.”

* * * *

It was some time after eleven that Penny made it to Cath’s
house. She stood on the doorstep clutching a plastic tub, feeling sheepish.

“Cake!” Cath declared as she swung open the door. She was
wearing a faded grey pair of sweatpants and a loose long-sleeved top and looked
every inch the weekend sofa-surfer.

“It’s not exactly cake,” Penny confessed. “It turned out I
didn’t have the basic ingredients. Like, er, eggs. I did have flour so instead
I made biscuits. Sort of. I had to adapt the recipe. I used normal granulated
sugar rather than fine caster sugar … they might be a little, er, coarse.”

“Are they packed with deliciously unhealthy calories?” Cath
asked.

“Oh, definitely. I can guarantee calories.”

“Perfect. Come on in!” Cath led her through to the garden
room at the back of the house.

Penny prowled the long room while Cath made some hot
drinks. The room had large windows that looked out over a grassy garden filled
with children’s toys. She hadn’t seen it properly in the dark when she’d
attended the kitchenware party. The garden room was warm and pleasant, with
wicker furniture and potted plants and the occasional hard plastic building
brick lying in wait underfoot. She took a seat on a comfortable wide chair, and
opened the box of sort-of biscuits, sliding it onto a low round table.

“About last night–” Penny began when Cath had returned and
settled herself in a chair opposite.

“Hush!” Cath held up her hand. “It’s okay. You really
shouldn’t be meddling. You will get into trouble. But … some of the stuff
you’ve said did get me thinking and listening to gossip.”

“You’ll turn into Mary,” Penny joked. “Incidentally, what
exactly did she say to get sacked from the surgery?”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything related to this. Just something to
do with someone’s terribly bad case of piles. The point was that it was a
breach of trust. No one trusts her.”

“I noticed,” Penny said. “It was obvious at the craft
group. So, what have you heard?”

“It’s about Thomas and David’s past.”

Penny was excited. “Is it to do with the farm? Does it
explain why the younger brother – David – inherited?”

“Everyone says that was because Thomas joined the Army and
wasn’t interested in the farm,” Cath said. “I believe it. There’s more, though.
Here’s the thing that I keep hearing on the sly. Their father, old Mr Hart,
hated David and he was going to sell the farm because Thomas wouldn’t take it
on.”

“No! Why would he hate his own son?”

Cath raised an eyebrow.

Penny sat forward, and asked, “And so how did David end up
with the farm, then?”

“Well, apparently, old Mr Hart died first and he thought
that verbal wishes were enough. They aren’t. The farm automatically passed to
his wife, on his death. And
she
made sure she had a water-tight will
that did leave the farm to David.”

“That makes sense,” Penny said. “Just leave the farm to the
son who wants it. But why did his father hate him? What had David done?”

“This is where the rumours get murkier,” Cath said. “This
one only started up last month, or at least, it’s the first most people had
heard of it. It’s obvious when you think about it. David and Thomas’s mother
had had an affair. They were only half-brothers. David is someone else’s son.
And old Mr Hart knew it.”

“Oh.” Penny sat back again and sank into thought as she
sipped her tea. It wasn’t David’s fault who his father was, or wasn’t. It
seemed monumentally unfair for Mr Hart to take against the innocent child like
that.

But then, people were unfair, weren’t they?

“How are the biscuits?” Penny asked.

Cath nibbled one. “Oaty. I think. And a bit …”

“Horrible?”

“Not exactly standard.” Cath replaced it carefully on the
table and smiled.

“The half-brother thing,” Penny said, musing aloud. “You
said it was a recent revelation? Who started it?”

“I don’t know,” Cath admitted.

“Could it have been Mary? She has form.”

“Maybe. But how, and why? Why would she say something to
upset her lover?”

Penny was nodding as it came together in her head. “She
doesn’t think before she speaks. She loves gossip for the sake of it. For the
power of knowing something that other people didn’t know. She and Eleanor were
long-time friends, weren’t they?”

“It seems unlikely but it’s true.”

“No, I don’t see it’s that unlikely, at all. Both are
lonely women stuck here in a place they don’t feel they quite belong in. Friendships
get made over the strangest things. And then they had a falling-out over
something unspecified. Perhaps Eleanor knew about Thomas and David’s past. That
would make sense, because Eleanor is married to Thomas. Now if Eleanor told
Mary in confidence, when she started dating David … but Mary let it slip …”

“Oh.” Cath was nodding too.

“But the really big question is this,” Penny said. “Did
David
know about his parentage and his past?”

“Everyone said he had been strange the past few weeks,”
Cath said. “That’s why we had considered suicide at one point.”

“That’s it!” Penny cried. “I think we need to talk to Mary
again!”

“Really?” Cath snorted a laugh. “You are already down on
the records as harassing Eleanor and Thomas … do you really want to make it
three?”

Cath went off to make a fresh round of drinks. Penny sat
back and tucked her heels up underneath her bottom, a position that used to be
so natural to her. Pins and needles started up almost straight away and she
knew she’d take a few minutes to unkink again when she tried to stand up.

Ugh. Ageing did not have many plus points.

She gazed around the garden room. One wall was devoted to
framed photographs of the family. Many were artfully done in a photography
studio, with everyone dressed in primary colours, posing against a stark white
background. Wife, husband, two lively children.

She had to take a trip to see her parents soon, she
thought. And what about her sister, Ariadne, and her hectic brood of children
and her sullen, ignorant husband? Ariadne would defend him and his actions with
her last breath but everyone could see how wrong she was. Penny didn’t want a
family like that.

Penny smiled and felt a strange pang of regret. Not for the
childlessness – or childfree state, as she liked to consider it – but the lack
of connection and unity that she had in her life. She refused to see it as
empty. But there were corners that needed to be filled. Her career had been
wonderful, fulfilling and amazing … but it didn’t last. It was transient.

Then again, she mused as she looked at the happy portraits,
family was also transient. Life ended. Consider poor David Hart, murdered for
some unknown reason.

She was seized with a fresh burst of righteous enthusiasm.
She had to make it right. The facts had to come out, for him and for her.

“More tea, vicar?” Cath joked as she came back through with
a tray. “And I found some edible biscuits.”

“Wonderful. Oh yes,” she added as she munched one. “These
are much better. I won’t give up the day job, hey? I don’t picture myself
starting a bakery.”

“Are you planning on working again?” Cath asked. “I know
you came here to de-stress and all that, but aren’t you going to get bored?”

“What’s the upper age limit to join the police?” Penny
asked, in half-seriousness.

Cath rolled her eyes at her. “Don’t even think about it.
There isn’t an upper limit, as it happens. But…”

“Why not? Do you not recommend it as a fulfilling career?”

Cath glared at her.

Penny subsided. “It was just a thought. I have been doing a
lot of art, as it happens. Mary got me thinking. I could design cards and do
prints and all sorts.”

“Go for it.”

“Really? Just like that?”

“Yes,” Cath said. “Other people do. So why not you? What is
the difference between you, and someone who sells their art? The other person
is trying. All you have to do, is do what they do.”

“It sounds so easy.”

“I’m sure it is. If you’re prepared to work,” Cath said. “Look
at Drew. He’s started doing those courses for rich folks who want to learn
about, I don’t know grass and stuff, and it’s great.”

“I met some people who sounded a bit negative about it.”

Cath shrugged. “A lot of people here don’t like change and
they don’t like people trying new things.”

“I got the feeling that was Drew himself.”

“No, not at all. Drew is considered an alarmingly
unpredictable go-getter around these parts.”

“Wow.” Penny considered that a frightening thought.

Cath laughed. “He’s stubborn, but don’t mistake that for
stuck-in-the-mud. You could learn from him about starting up new businesses, to
be honest.”

Penny had to straighten her legs. She winced and wiggled
her toes as the prickling started up in earnest. “If I do it, it does mean I am
going to end up going to craft fairs with Mary.”

“Consider it your penance for meddling in all this to start
with.”

“Huh.” Penny stuck her tongue out childishly. “So did I
tell you about the Taser?”

Cath stopped, her hand halfway to her mouth. An edge
dropped from her biscuit into her tea. “What Taser? What on earth have you
bought? They are not exactly legal, you know.” Her eyes went to Penny’s bag by
her feet. “Please don’t tell me…”

“Oh my goodness, no, I didn’t. Buy one, I mean. Or tell you
about it before. I should have told you last night. No, listen. I’m convinced
now that the murderer is Thomas. That’s what I was trying to tell you last
night on the phone. When I went around to see Eleanor – I know, I know, I
shouldn’t have, I’m very sorry and all that, mea culpa – she threatened me with
weapons. She said there was something in the house that would be able to stun
me. Not a gun. There must be something like a Taser – do security guards use
them?”

“Here in the UK? I don’t think so. You need licences and
reasons and all sorts for that sort of thing. Some police have them, but oh my
goodness, the paperwork. Did she actually call it a Taser?”

“No. But look, there’s more,” Penny insisted. “I got a
distinct impression that Eleanor is one of those aspirational sorts of women
who like having manicures and read glossy magazines that features houses they
can never afford. She seems totally unmatched with Thomas. He was shabby and
unshaven and he is hardly a city high-flier. How much does night security guard
pay?”

“Not a lot. It will be minimum wage stuff, I imagine. But
they have been married a long time, and people do change. He was quite a catch
in his youth, so I’m told.”