Too Good to Be True (3 page)

Outside in the street, the village was very quiet – there were no children’s voices. Soon it would be lunchtime and they would be out to play again, Perez thought. Stonebridge seemed
sad without them.

Jimmy Perez was thinking that he’d go back to the Stonebridge Hotel for lunch when he saw a woman leaving the cafe where he’d had coffee earlier.

The woman was alone. The other yummy mummies must still be inside talking, he thought. It was Gail, the mother from the farm, and she made her way towards a battered Land Rover parked in the
wide main street. He caught up with her just before she opened the Land Rover’s door.

‘Could I have a word?’

She turned round and stared at him. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m a detective. My name’s Jimmy Perez. I’m just checking some details concerning Anna Blackwell’s death.’

‘But she killed herself.’ Gail was still staring. ‘According to the local police the case has been closed.’

Something in her eyes made him ask, ‘Do you think it shouldn’t have been?’

She looked at him carefully. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay here and chat. I’ve got to get home for a delivery of feed for my hens. Why don’t you come too
and we can talk? I might even find some soup for your lunch. I’ve got to come back to Stonebridge to collect my little girl from school at three o’clock and I can give you a lift back
then.’

So Perez climbed in beside her and Gail drove out of the village. It seemed like a sort of escape. He realised how trapped he’d been feeling in the village with its bitchy women and the
dark woods all around it.

They took a lane that rose sharply away from the river, and as they rounded a corner there was a view of a whitewashed house at the end of a rough track. ‘I love this place,’ Gail
said. ‘I was born here and I can’t imagine living anywhere else.’

She parked the Land Rover in the farmyard. Perez could see sheep on the hill behind the house and hens in a small orchard beside the yard. He thought it looked like a child’s idea of a
farm rather than the real thing – it could have come from a picture book. Gail seemed to read his thoughts.

‘It’s only a smallholding really,’ she said. ‘My parents sold off most of the land years ago. Now my brother and I run it almost as a hobby. We’re trying our best
to make a go of it. Sandy has a full-time job working for the forestry commission, and that just about keeps us afloat.’

‘What does your husband do?’

There was a moment’s silence and then Gail answered:

‘He died three months ago in a car crash. He had real plans for the place. He thought we should turn some of the buildings into holiday lets. Without him I can’t seem to work up the
same passion for the project, but I’ll try to make a go of it as a tribute to him.’

She opened the farmhouse door and led him into a cluttered kitchen. ‘Will you have some soup?’

He nodded and sat at the table. He thought how strong she must be to carry on with her everyday life when her husband had so recently passed away. Perez had been good for nothing for months
after Fran had been killed. He’d just brooded.

‘Lucy Blackwell stayed here the night Anna died?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘My daughter Grace is best friends with Lucy. They’re both only children, so it was good that they each had someone to play with. Lucy loved it here. All this space is
perfect for children and she enjoyed helping with the animals.’ Gail slid a pan onto the hotplate of the range. ‘Grace is so sad that Lucy’s moved away.’

‘Were you and Anna friends?’

Gail turned away from the stove to face him. ‘Well, we didn’t have a lot in common. Anna was young enough to be my daughter. I was forty when I had Grace. John and I married late.
And I’ve lived all my life here, and Anna was English and had moved around. But we got on OK. She was great with the girls and I liked her.’

‘Was she the sort of woman who might have killed herself?’

There was a long pause before Gail answered. ‘I wouldn’t have said so when she arrived in the village last year. She was full of enthusiasm and ideas then. I was pleased that
we’d have some-one young and fit to teach the little ones. Freda had been there a long time and she was still teaching in the same way as when she first started in the job. She’d taught
lots of the children’s parents.’

‘But later?’

Gail tipped home-made soup into a bowl and set it in front of Perez. ‘Later it all seemed to get too much for Anna. It can’t have been easy dealing with a small child and a full-time
job all on her own.’

‘You seem to manage,’ he said.

‘Aye, well, I’m a little bit older and I have lots of friends in the village. Besides, I’m not really on my own. My brother Sandy lives here too.’ Gail looked up from her
soup and smiled. ‘But not for much longer, it seems! He’s just got engaged and he’ll be moving into a home of his own.’

‘You’ll miss him,’ Perez said.

Gail grinned again. ‘I will, but he’s marrying a lovely girl and they won’t be living far away. Besides, Grace, my daughter, is great company now.’

There was a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be the feed delivery,’ Gail said. ‘You’ll have to excuse me.’

She went out into the farmyard. Perez wandered around the kitchen. There was a picture of Gail on her wedding day standing next to a giant of a man with a beard. He must be the husband
who’d died. They were surrounded in the photo by laughing friends and family.

When Gail returned to the kitchen, it seemed that she’d made up her mind to speak, because she started talking as soon as she came into the room. ‘Did you know that there are lots of
rumours about Tom King and Anna?’

‘What sort of rumours?’

‘People are saying that Tom and Anna were lovers. He owns that little house in the village where she lived, after all. And Tom’s wife Sarah took against her as soon as she started at
the school. It was as if she wanted to get rid of Anna as soon as she arrived.’

‘Do you know who started the rumours?’ Perez pushed away his soup bowl and put his elbows on the table.

‘Who can tell where gossip begins in a place like Stonebridge? The stories are like weeds, they seem to grow out of nowhere and then they spread, so there’s no way of stopping
them.’

Gail was silent for a moment. ‘When my husband died in the car crash there were rumours that he’d been drinking. It wasn’t true and it’s dreadfully hurtful at a time when
I’m still grieving for him. I don’t know who started that gossip either.’

‘But you think there might have been truth in the story about Tom and Anna?’ Perez remembered Gail talking in the cafe. It had seemed then that she believed the two had been
lovers.

Gail shrugged. ‘They’ve been seen together and they seemed very close. Sarah obviously couldn’t stand Anna. Perhaps we’ve all jumped to conclusions, but it seems to make
sense.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll get you back to Stonebridge. The kids will be coming out of school soon.’

As they drove through the open countryside and into the village, Perez felt a stab of dread. It was as if he was being taken back to prison after a brief period of home leave.

Back in Stonebridge, Jimmy Perez went to his hotel room. He wanted to talk to Robert Anderson, the local police inspector, about the cleaned wine glass in the cupboard at
Anna’s house. He also wanted to find out why Anna’s parents weren’t taking care of their granddaughter Lucy.

But Jimmy was told that Inspector Anderson was in a meeting and wouldn’t be available all day. Perez left a message for Robert to call him back.

He stood at his window and watched a flurry of snow blow across from the hills. Parents had collected their children from school and were hurrying home. He saw Gail’s Land Rover move away
down the main street. Back outside, the light was already fading and it felt colder.

Perez left the hotel and made his way to the school. He found the main door still open. Some older children were practising Christmas carols in the school hall. A woman in reception took his
name and showed him to the head teacher’s office.

Maggie Redhead was in her fifties, with fine grey hair pulled into a comb at the back of her head and bright brown eyes.

‘I thought this matter with Anna Blackwell was over and we’d be allowed to get back to normal,’ she said. ‘It was distressing enough for the kids when she
died.’

Her office was cluttered, with children’s books on the shelves and brightly coloured paintings covering one of the walls. Perez decided she looked like an energetic granny.

‘There seems to be some question about the cause of death.’ That wasn’t quite a lie, Perez thought. He wondered what Robert Anderson would make of his meddling.
‘I’m just taking another look at the case with a fresh pair of eyes. You know how it is.’

‘Not really,’ Maggie snapped. ‘I don’t usually lose my staff like this. They don’t die suddenly, and if they do, the deaths aren’t followed by gossip and bad
feeling. Usually my teachers retire. The children present them with a gift on their last day and we have a party in the staff room.’

Perez smiled. ‘Did you throw a party when Freda retired?’

Maggie narrowed her eyes. ‘You have been poking around.’

‘Is Freda glad to be back as a supply teacher?’

Maggie sat back in her chair. ‘Freda has never married and the school was her life. But she’s got health problems now she’s getting older. She really wasn’t up to coping
with a class of four- and five-year-olds. The only way she could keep order was by scaring the life out of them. I was pleased when she agreed to retire. So yes, we did throw a party for
her.’

‘But she’s back now?’

‘On a very short-term basis while we appoint another reception teacher.’

‘Did Freda resent Anna Blackwell?’ Perez asked. ‘If the school was her life, it must have been hard for her to see another, younger teacher take her place. Especially if
Anna’s teaching style was so different.’

Maggie gave a little laugh. ‘Freda might have resented the teacher who replaced her, but if you’re saying that she killed Anna to get her job back, then that’s quite mad. As I
explained, she’ll only be here for a few weeks anyway.’

‘That’s not what I’m suggesting,’ Perez said. ‘I’m trying to find out where the rumours about Anna and Tom King started, and I’m wondering if Freda
might be behind the gossip.’

Maggie took a little while to think about this. In the background, Perez could hear the children singing ‘Silent Night’.

‘That might be more Freda’s style,’ Maggie said at last. ‘She was very hurt when I told her it might be time for her to consider leaving. She was going to hate anyone who
took her place. And she could be bitchy if the mood took her. I can see her starting the gossip as a kind of revenge.’

Perez nodded. ‘Do you know why Sarah King took against Anna Blackwell so strongly?’

‘No,’ Maggie said. ‘That was a complete mystery. Sarah is a parent governor and she’s always worked hard for the school. She helped me interview for the new
teacher’s post and Anna Blackwell was her choice as well as mine. We knew that Anna was new to the career, but we decided her great ideas made up for that. We thought she’d bring
something fresh to the school.’

‘It must have been rather a shock, then, when Mrs King turned up with a petition demanding that Anna should leave.’

‘It was a nightmare! And honestly I couldn’t see what the parents had to complain about. Anna was a good young teacher. But she took it to heart. All the bitching started making her
ill. In the end I could see she was stressed and suggested she went to the doctor. That was when she started taking the antidepressants.’

‘Was she still working in the school when she died, or had she taken time off sick?’ Perez asked.

‘She’d had nearly two months off, but she was back at the time she died. She seemed better, still a bit frail but almost happy.’

Perez thought this tied in with the flowers in the living room and the hopeful tone of the note he’d found on the dressing table. He stood up to leave. ‘Do you think Anna Blackwell
committed suicide?’

Maggie answered straightaway. ‘Not in a thousand years. She adored her daughter. There was no way she would have killed herself and left Lucy without a mother.’

‘Did she ever tell you who the father was?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘I never asked and she never told me. It was Anna’s big secret. I’ve never felt the need to pry into the affairs of my staff.’

When Perez walked out into the playground, it was almost dark and the children had stopped singing. He turned to look back at the school and saw the head teacher staring out at him.

Jimmy Perez was hungry. It seemed a long time since he’d eaten the soup in Gail’s farmhouse and he decided to have an early dinner. He made his way back to the
hotel along the silent village streets. It was impossible to believe that anything sinister could happen in a place that was as quiet and ordinary as Stonebridge.

As he walked into the hotel, Perez saw three people – two men and a woman – sitting around a table in a corner of the lounge bar. He recognised one of the men as his ex-wife’s
husband, Doctor Tom King. The rest of the bar was empty, but Perez couldn’t be seen where he stood in the lobby. He was hidden by a large plant in a copper pot, and he had a good view through
a glass door. He stood there, feeling a bit silly. Like a kid playing hide-and-seek. He strained to make out what the people in the lounge were saying.

‘This can’t go on, Tom. Two patients refused to see you today, even though it meant waiting nearly a week to get an appointment with another doctor.’ That was the woman. Her
voice was clear, rather shrill, and easy to hear.

Perez thought she was most likely a doctor too. She had the confidence that doctors seem to carry round with them. He assumed that both the strangers were Tom King’s colleagues. They must
have come to the hotel to discuss the aftermath of Anna’s death.

‘I’m not sure what you expect me to do.’ Tom King sounded drained, almost desperate. ‘The police have closed the case. I’ve been cleared of any
misconduct.’