Small Town Suspicions (Some Very English Murders Book 3) (21 page)

“What meeting?”

“The Sculpture Trail Extraordinary Meeting. It’s in the
hall, in half an hour. Come on. Let’s eat and go. Battered sausage all right
for you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Francine swept through into the kitchen, followed by Kali
who was sure there must be something wrapped up for her, too. “No.”

* * * *

The Community Hall was much fuller than Penny had expected.
“How did everyone find out?”

“The town grapevine,” Francine said. “Well, me and Ginni
going round everyone’s houses and shops and everything. Obviously a lot of
people are still at work or commuting home, but this is a pretty good turnout.”

“It is.”

Lots of people had brought their children, probably because
they couldn’t get childcare with such late notice, and the hall was noisy with
chattering and laughter. Francine stood on tip-toes to look over the heads of
the crowd towards the top table.

“Ah! Ginni’s there. I’ve got to go,” she said to Penny, and
disappeared into the throng.

“Right.” Penny sighed and waited.

Soon the meeting was called to order, and people took their
seats. It was just over half-full, Penny reckoned. Ginni and Francine stood
side by side in front of the table, and both were smiling.

Francine was still Francine. She was still the laughing,
giggling, warm and exuberant person that Penny was so familiar with. She still
used phrases like “the love that this town has for the project is what will
make it a success!” and “this belongs to
you
, Upper Glenfield!” but coming
from Francine, they sounded fine. Penny couldn’t say things like that without
sounding like a politician with a hidden agenda. But Francine had no agenda.
Her openness had been her key to success in the corporate world.

Or had it? Penny thought back to Francine’s reasons to
leaving London. Penny had always known that some people laughed at Francine. To
her shame, she herself had smiled along, sometimes, when she’d wanted to
ingratiate herself into a group.

Francine’s talents had been so wasted, Penny realised as
she gazed up at the passionate woman on the platform. She had a truth in her
energy that these people responded to. They
wanted
to believe her.

So they did.

And Ginni was the seal of approval that the town’s
residents also needed. With Ginni beside her, Francine wasn’t an incomer to be
suspicious of. She was accepted; Ginni’s proximity saw to that.

“All of us!” Francine was saying. “We are all together in
this! Ginni, perhaps you can explain what has already been achieved just this
very day!”

Ginni stepped forward. Her manner was drier and more
straightforward, but the content of her speech far outweighed her factual
delivery.

Penny was amazed.

The local care home for the elderly had begun already, with
some of their willing residents working with one of the occupational health
staff who happened to have an interest in pottery. They were collaborating on a
design of a barn owl, as there were regularly seen in the area.

The scouts, guides and beaver groups had been contacted,
and the leaders were keen to get everyone involved. They were going to produce
a clay figure each.

The vicar from the church in the centre of town was keen.
He’d been tracked down at one of his satellite churches a few miles away – he
never seemed to be in the same place for more than two hours – but he had a
full programme of house groups he was going to galvanise into action.

Even the market traders’ association that represented the
stallholders in the covered market had welcomed the ideas and were planning a clay
model of their own.

When Ginni had finished, there was rapturous applause for a
minute.

It was too good to last.

A man shouted out, “Yeah, but, yeah, the clay, right, the
clay is still going to break in the frost, isn’t it?”

All eyes stared at Ginni and Francine.

Penny shook her head. People could be so infuriating. Steve
had been right; she knew that properly prepared and sealed stoneware would be
weather-proof. But Steve’s ideas had not been viewed with confidence, and it
was a stumbling block to the whole project.

“There is another way.”

The voice came from the back of the hall. A low rumble of
chatter started up as three men entered and walked up the central aisle to the
platform at the top.

Steve had spoken, and he was flanked by Barry and Drew. When
they reached the platform, the whole hall held its breath.

Francine smiled widely. “Steve! Come on up. Tell us about
your way.”

Everyone exhaled. Steve shook his head, and hunched his
shoulders, unwilling to step up into the limelight again. But he spoke loud
enough for everyone to hear.

“So what we wanna do, you see, is use the clay models as
moulds. You should encourage everyone to make tiles, not round objects. You
know, like what I was gonna do and all that. We press the designs into casting
sand and pour molten aluminium into the impression. There you go, metal designs
to screw onto poles. We were looking at the maps and stuff, and we reckon we
won’t even need that many new poles. There’s a lot of places we can put them
already, you know, fences and that.”

Someone snorted with laughter. “How are going to melt
aluminium? In a saucepan?”

Drew stepped up onto the platform, and spread his hands
wide as he faced the crowd. “Um, do you know anyone with a furnace?”

People began to look at one another and laugh and nod. Drew
folded his arms and grinned. Penny could see that a part of him was lapping up
the limelight and she grinned, hoping to catch his eye.

He saw her, and she was sure that he winked.

Maybe.

Francine, Drew, Ginni and Steve were the centre of
everyone’s attention.

Penny faded into the background, and told herself that she
was very, very happy for them all.

* * * *

Penny was sitting in the living room with Kali curled up
next to her on the sofa. She had one lamp lit, and was listening to music.

Finally she heard the front door open and close, and the
stealthy entrance of Francine walking like someone who was trying not to
disturb anyone. She jumped as she came into the living room, her shoes in her
hand.

“Oh! Sorry, I thought you’d be in bed.”

“I feel like a mother waiting for her teenage daughter to
come home,” Penny said.

“I was talking, and I got carried away. Sorry, again. I
should have sent a text.”

“Don’t apologise,” Penny said, laughing. “You’ve nothing to
apologise for. I am not your mother…”

“Thank goodness,” Francine said, dropping her shoes.

Penny had never asked about Francine’s family. “Are you not
close?”

She shuddered. “No, not at all. I was never good enough or
hard enough or dedicated enough.”

“You’re kidding!” Penny sat up and stared at Francine in
the half-light. “You were an amazing and highly successful career woman.”

“Ah, well, mum was a politician
and
a professor of
economics.”

“Really? Wow.”

“Yeah,” said Francine, “and of course I’m very proud of
her. Well, one of us has to be.”

“She must be proud of you. It’s a mother thing, isn’t it?”

Francine sighed heavily and when she spoke, her voice was
low. “A mother thing? I don’t think there
is
a mother thing. Or my
mother was at the back of the queue, or busy with something dreadfully
dreadfully important … more important than family. We’re all different.”

Penny briefly closed her eyes. “Yes, that’s true.” She
forced a change of subject, for both their sakes. “Right. So, that meeting. You
were fantastic! You know, I think you two might just pull it off.”

“Us two? No, it’s the whole town,” Francine said, beaming
once more, her rubber-ball nature refusing to stay quashed.

“Well done us, then.”

* * * *

Penny slept badly and remembered the old Spanish proverb
about not blaming one’s bed:
first examine your conscience
. As soon as
the shops were open, she headed out to the florist’s shop along the High
Street.

Ginni was behind the counter, looking fresh and full of
life. She was clearly pleased to be part of things again.

“Can I order flowers to be delivered through you, but quite
far away? Are you part of that network?” Penny asked.

“Of course. Whereabouts?”

“Leicestershire.” Penny pulled out her address book and
read out the directions. “It’s for my sister.”

If Ginni thought it odd that Penny didn’t know her own
sister’s address very well, she was too polite to say.
She must have to
exercise quite a degree of discretion
, Penny thought.
All those people
having affairs, and secret admirers, and people saying sorry for this and for
that.

“Sorry” was sort of what Penny was saying to Ariadne.
“Something cheerful,” she said when Ginni asked what she wanted. “It’s not an
occasion like a birthday. It’s just a way of saying hello, and that I hope
everything is all right.”

“Right. Summery and happy, a riot of colours.” Ginni
pointed at various pre-made displays. “Like that one?”

“Just like that. Thank you.” Penny gazed around. It seemed quite
cold in the shop, in contrast to the warmth outside. “This place is amazing.
I’ve not been in before.”

Ginni smiled. “I worked hard for this shop. I nearly lost
it after my divorce but my friends helped me and it worked out in the end. It’s
everything to me, now. Would you like to see in the back?”

“Oh, yes please!”

Penny was keen to see new things, but there was an ulterior
motive that she hardly even admitted to herself. Ginni, or at least Ginni and
Steve, were still on her list of suspects for the murder of Alec Goodwin. And
she had been puzzling about the daffodils that had been sent to Mandy, and
delivered in the night to Barry.

And so it was daffodils that she was particularly
interested in as she nosed around the very cold stock room.

“It’s like an ice box in here!” she said. “There must be a
reason for it.”

“I’m tight with money. Oh, and it is better for the
plants,” Ginni said. “You do get used to it. Steve still grumbles, but that’s
just him.”

“He did a big thing, coming back to the public meeting.”

“Yes, he did, and I am glad,” Ginni said. “I guess me and
him are alike. Stubborn, but we come around in the end.”

“What about the fact that he didn’t graduate?” Penny said.
“What is he going to do?”

“I’ll admit that I was shocked,” Ginni said, idly sorting
out some long-stemmed plants, arranging them in a wooden bucket. “But we
talked, and then we went to my sister’s house – his mum, you know – and we all
talked, and maybe there was some alcohol consumed, and when we all woke up the
next day, things did not seem quite so bad. What hurt us all the most were his
lies.”

“He was worried.”

“Yes,” Ginni said. “And actually, it wasn’t the lies so
much as the fact that he felt he
had
to lie to us. Anyway, it’s all
water under the bridge, as they say. I know he has his issues, and he gets a
little too angry, but I am sure he’ll grow up soon.”

Penny made a non-committal noise and browsed along the
workbench to where some bulbs were laid out in trays. She picked one up and
looked at it. “Now, is this a tuber or a corm?” she asked, trying to sound like
she knew what she was talking about.

“Neither,” said Ginni. “It’s a true bulb.”

“Daffodil?”

“Yes, so you have better wash your hands before you eat
anything. Did you know there was a spate of people eating daffodil bulbs
because they thought they were some strange Chinese vegetable?”

“Will it kill you?” Penny said.

“Oh no, not at all, but you’d be ill.”

“Oh.” She put it down on the tray again. “Well, I’ll let
you get on. Thank you for sorting out the bunch of flowers for me…”

“My pleasure.”

* * * *

Penny’s head was whirling and she phoned Cath as soon as
she had got away from the shop. She walked over the road and headed to the
peace and quiet of the churchyard, settling on a bench under a broad, spreading
yew.

She glanced around but there was no one else by the graves.
She didn’t want to disturb anyone’s peace, but as she found herself alone, she
thought it was probably all right.

Cath didn’t pick up her mobile. Penny hunted in her purse
for the small business card that Cath had given her, all those months ago when
they had first met at the death of the farmer, David Hart. It had Cath’s
alternate numbers listed, and Penny tried her office phone.

A man answered. “Inspector Travis. How can I help?”

“Oh! Hi, it’s Penny May. Is DC Pritchard around, please?”

“She’s out and about. Hi, Penny. How is it going?”

“Slowly. I’m really sorry. I think I’m letting you all
down.”

“Not at all, not at all. I think the conversations you’ve
had with Cath have been quite useful.”

Penny felt funny but of course Cath would have reported
everything back to her Inspector. It was her job, after all. “Really? Have you
made any progress that you can tell me about?”

“I can, as it happens. Toxicology reports are finally in. We
know exactly what killed Alec Goodwin now.”

“Oh!”

“Yes,” the Inspector said. “Poet’s narcissus.”

“Er – what?”

“It’s a type of plant, apparently. We’re investigating
further.”

“Thank you for letting me know.”

Penny let her phone drop into her lap and she stared around
the green and leafy churchyard. Some bees were buzzing nearby. It was calm and
peaceful.

But her mind was humming more frantically than even the
bees. A plant had killed Alec Goodwin.