Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) (8 page)

He kicked off his wellington boots, leaving them in the
puddle they had already formed, and followed her to the back of the house, Kali
getting underfoot as they went.

“Settling in?” he asked.

“Yes, thanks.” She realised with some shame that the two
empty wine bottles from two nights previously were still standing by the back
door, waiting to be taken out to the recycling area. He was going to think her
some kind of alcoholic, so she pre-empted that by nodding at them and saying, “Ahh
… my friend, she, er … she brought them as a gift ...”

He smiled. “A cheeky red there. She has good taste. What
did she think to Glenfield, then?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t actually leave the living room. I
was amazed she came, to be honest. She kind of tracked me down against my
will.”

“What?” Drew took his coat off and folded it so the wet
outer layer was on the inside.

“I didn’t tell her where I lived. She was one of those
people who seemed to hang on to me and I couldn’t shake her off. We worked
together but she was … annoying. Wow. I sound like a silly school girl, don’t
I?”

“Yes,” he said, and she blushed with shame.

“I am petty,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Er … no, you’re supposed to say nice things that are lies,
just to make me feel better.” Especially as you don’t even know me, she
thought.

“Nope. I’m not going to do that.” He shrugged. “But I did
bring you a head-collar, so there’s that.”

“Thank you,” she said. She had to laugh. “So how does this
head-collar thing work, then?”

He knelt down and encouraged Kali to sniff it. “I noticed
how you struggled to hold her back the other day, and it made me think about my
work with horses. They put a collar on if a horse needs to pull a cart or
plough, right? So the animal can use all their strength. And Rotties, they were
used to pull carts, back in Germany. All their strength comes from their chest.
But the head-collar means she can’t put her full weight into pulling you over.
Just take care with it. Don’t use one of them retracting leads or you’ll hurt
her neck. And don’t yank at her. Mind you, you shouldn’t be yanking at her with
a normal collar on.”

“Collars are designed for dogs, though, aren’t they?”

“It’s my understanding that dogs have something called the
oppositional reflex,” he said, the long words clumsy in his mouth. “I mean, you
pull and they pull back. It’s automatic. So dragging on the lead won’t get you
anywhere.” He patted Kali’s shoulder. “What do you think, there? Smells okay,
doesn’t it?”

Kali tentatively put her nose into the smaller loop. Drew
rubbed her ears and gave her some more praise. “Do you have any treats that she
likes?”

“No, I don’t want her to get fat.”

Drew sighed and remained crouching, but he looked up at her
with a serious expression. “You don’t really know me and all that, but I kind
of feel I need to speak my mind about the dog thing. Er…”

“Please do. I mean, you haven’t held back so far … Tell me.
I need help, I know…” Oh, be gentle, she added in her head. I want to get it
right but don’t tell me I’m wrong too harshly. “Okay, you don’t have to lie to
make me feel good.”

“Okay. I won’t. It’s about the dog, not you. So, it’s like
this. How will she know if she’s done something right?”

“I say good girl.”

“Does she like food? And treats?”

“My goodness, yes. She won’t stop eating.”

“If two people wanted you to do two different things, and
when you did one thing, person A said ‘well done’ and when you did the other
thing, person B gave you a cake, who will you want to please?”

“Person B. Cake, always.” Penny could already see where
Drew was going.

“If Kali is motivated by food, use that motivation. She
won’t get fat if you adjust her main meals. If she puts the head-collar on,
give her a treat and take it off again. Bit by bit she’ll learn that the head-collar
means good things.”

“But if I give her treats for everything, I’ll be feeding
her all the time!”

“At first, yes, you will. Use her meal as treats. Why not? Then
reduce it. Anyway, she’ll soon learn that the head-collar means walks. Please,
do try it. Otherwise you’ll be telling her off more than you reward her, and
how can that make her happy?”

It wouldn’t make anyone happy, she thought. It made sense.
“Okay, I’ll try it, I promise. Thank you so much.”

“Great.” He got to his feet and grinned. “Rewards always
work better than punishment.”

“How’s work? Where do you have you … uh, what’s it called?
Smithy? You said you were a blacksmith, sort of.”

“Yeah, I have a smithy. Actually it’s an industrial unit at
the end of the High Street.”

“How marvellous! I’d love to look round one day. If that
would be okay.”

“You think it’s going to look like a romantic Victorian
painting, don’t you?” He laughed. “You can certainly come round. Work is quiet
though. I don’t shoe many horses, and I tend to travel to do that on-site. Horses
aren’t my thing, to be honest. Their teeth are enormous. No, I mostly end up
doing ornamental ironwork. And I’m competing against imports, and it’s a tough
business.”

She looked again at him. The jeans were no-brand and faded,
his socks had holes, and his sweater was baggy in the wrong places. “I’m sorry
to hear that. How do you mean, that you’re a ‘sort of’ blacksmith?”

“Ahh, well, I realised I needed to diversify, you see. If
smithing isn’t paying – and it’s not – I decided to make a change. I’ve been
developing some field-craft sessions with the local hotel, The Arches. It’s
kind of a conference centre too, and they already do things like hawking and
off-road driving.”

“That sounds amazing! So you’re like a tracker or
something?”

“Yes, pretty much. Oh – now, that’s beautiful. It can’t be
local…”

His eye had caught the stack of sketches that she’d left on
the kitchen table.

“No, that’s somewhere in Kent.”

“Did you draw these?” He got closer but was too polite to
reach out and touch them.

“I did. But it was years ago.” She felt embarrassed and
exposed. Showing someone a picture she had deemed fit for public view was one
thing – having her half-formed sketches spied upon was like being caught in
your worst nearly-wash-day underwear. She wanted to scoop them up and hide
them.

He smiled. “You have a talent. I love being out in the
countryside, walking, but I can’t even take a decent photo of what I see. Hey. Would
you like to try Kali with the head-collar?”

“It’s raining.”

“It’s easing off, and you’ll not dissolve, I’m sure. Are
you made of sugar? We don’t have to go far. I’ll show you how to persuade her
it’s a good thing. Have you any ham you could chop up for treats?”

Less than ten minutes later, they were walking slowly
through the light rain but not going the usual way towards the centre of town.
Instead, Drew turned left out of her cottage and took them towards the end of
the row, which Penny thought was a dead end. She’d never even walked that way,
because she would have felt daft getting to the end, and turning around.

“There’s a path here,” he told her. “It cuts down to the
river and under the bridge where the kids hang out in summer. And then out into
hillier land, westwards.”

It didn’t matter that the rain was soaking everything. The
sky wasn’t dark; patches of blue shone brightly through grey clouds. As well as
the grey slabs, there were occasional white fluffy bundles, moving quite
quickly up above their heads. The fields were already carpeted with green and
yellow. She could almost imagine the rain being sucked up into the stems of the
crops, growing and blooming visibly before her eyes.

By the river, the land was muddy but Drew seemed to avoid
ever sinking into the bogs, whereas Penny was constantly up to her ankles. “Are
you some kind of earth wizard?” she complained.

He looked back and laughed when he saw her, stuck as she
was in an unexpected pool of water. “Don’t step in the boggy bits,” he said.

“It’s
all
boggy bits,” she replied crossly. “Apart
from the bits you magically know to step on.”

He pointed at the dark green spears of foliage. “See those
rushes? They like water. It’s a clue. That clump of yellower grass there, that
will be fine to walk on. Take a leap onto it.”

She jumped to the patch of grass and found her feet land on
soft but solid ground. They continued on, Penny watching carefully, and
learning where to walk. She felt like some kind of old-world tracker. She
wanted to go on one of his field-craft courses now.

“Speaking of clues,” she said to Drew’s back. “What do you
think to the death of David Hart?”

“A tragic accident, for sure. And a horrible way to go.
They say he was electrocuted by his fence!”

“It wasn’t an accident and it probably wasn’t his fence. I
happen to know that he was murdered.”

“No. Really?” Drew stopped dead and turned. “How do you
know?”

“I was told by … a police officer,” she said cautiously.

“Oh, that Cath blabbed, did she? Get a drink inside her and
she’s anybody’s. So to speak. Well, well. So, who did it?”

“That’s the thing,” Penny said. “They don’t know! Perhaps a
serial killer is on the loose!”

“Not here in Upper Glenfield. Anyway, most murders are
accidental, aren’t they? Like, manslaughter stuff. The situation is usually
that one bloke pushes another bloke in a pub, he falls down and hits his head, and
boom – dead. The bloke that pushed him is then liable for manslaughter.”

“Maybe. Or
maybe
this was premeditated. You are a
proper local. Who would want David Hart dead, do you think? You know all my
business, apparently.”

“Are you a part time police officer, now?”

“No,” she said. “I want something to do and I did find the
body, so I’m linked. I’m connected. And I thought perhaps an outsider like
myself could bring a fresh eye…”

“You’re having crime investigation fantasies, aren’t you?”

She shook her head stubbornly, but had to agree. It was all
Francine’s fault for encouraging her. Now the idea was in her head, she
couldn’t shift it. “No. Yes. Maybe. There was one time in Dusseldorf where
someone was stealing from the canteen truck and I worked out who it was… maybe
I have a gift for it.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’ll get into trouble.”

She shrugged. “I know I’m being facetious but really, I’m
just using it as a way to get to know people and the community. It’s a great
conversation opener. I was at a kitchenware party last night and they were all talking
about it.”

“A kitchenware party?” he said. “Is that a cover-up for
something else? No, don’t answer that, let me live in ignorance. Look, my
advice is, don’t listen to gossip and rumour. It’s got more than one person
into bother here in Glenfield. Someone lost their job over it not so long
back.”

“Did they? Oh dear.” They continued walking, side by side.
“But listen. You told me about the ramblers and that guy called Ed. He’s a
prime suspect, isn’t he?”

“No one would kill over the question of access to a
footpath! Would they?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “I’ve seen footage on the
news of protestors. People get really angry about local issues. I was involved
in the documentary about the shade of pink someone painted their house in
Cornwall. It got really rather heated. Some people did end up in court. And the
other thing is, what about the dead man’s brother? Thomas, isn’t it? I had heard
that they argued.” Okay, she had to admit to herself. That
was
pure
gossip overheard in the mini-market.

But Drew agreed. “They didn’t get on at all but there always
seems to be more to it than just sibling rivalry. There was some kind of silent
bitterness. Oh, listen to me… I’m as bad as the rest of them.”

“It’s just community spirit and neighbourly interest; it’s
fine,” she reassured him. “Who was the older brother of the two?”

“Thomas was.”

“Were there any other siblings?”

“Nope, just David and Thomas.”

She persisted with her questions. “Did David inherit the
farm or did he buy it?”

Drew thought for a moment. “He inherited it, but I don’t
really know why it went to him and not Thomas, being as he was the older one.
Except … okay, thinking about it, maybe it was because Thomas was never very
interested in any of that. He went off to join the Army and then he worked all
over the world, as some kind of close protection officer.”

“Wow, that sounds glamorous.”

“Not so much, any more. He was Glenfield’s golden boy once,
apparently. He’s a night security guard in Lincoln now, at some scrap yard.”

“He could be a suspect.”

“Maybe,” Drew concurred. “And what about Mary, his partner?
Girlfriend? What do you call that kind of relationship? Girlfriend sounds too …
immature, you know, for teenagers.”

“And lover sounds a bit … yeah, I don’t know. Anyway,
whatever. Girlfriend. She was a recent girlfriend, too, from what I hear. Why
would she kill him? I don’t think she had time to get to that stage of a
relationship. You know, that point when you realise you want to kill the other
person because they leave their toe nail clippings in a pile on the bedside
table.”

They stopped while Kali decided to mark her spot. Penny
sighed and pulled out a plastic bag.

Drew looked up at the brightening sky, and mused to
himself, “It’s always about love, money or power, isn’t it, in the end?”

“That’s a good point!” Penny said. “I need to make a chart
of all this. I need coloured marker pens and a really big bit of paper.”

“Are you sure? Look. Supposing there is a murderer. The
thing about murderers is, uh … well, they are murderers, right? They are
outside the law. They’re kind of dangerous. So…”

“I’m just following the case and thinking about stuff. I
can do that,” she protested.