A Bitter Feast

by Deborah Crombie

  Sturdily built, the victim wore dark trousers and a dark anorak. One of his shoes—black rubber-soled lace-ups of the sort worn by people who stood on their feet all day—had come off and lay a few feet from the body. His socks, although both dark, didn’t match.

  Dr. Mason squatted beside the body and stretched out a gloved finger. “See here, just above the right knee? There’s not much tearing to the trouser fabric, but his leg is broken, I’d say from the initial impact. Also, I suspect his pelvis is fractured.”

  “He turned towards the car as it came on?” Kincaid looked back the way they’d come, trying to work out the point of impact. Had the victim been thrown five feet? Ten? Taking a step back, he studied the tarmac. “There aren’t any skid marks, unless they’ve been washed away by the rain.”

  “I’m not certain even last night’s downpour would have completely washed away burnt rubber,” Booth commented, having followed the direction of Kincaid’s gaze.

  “I’m inclined to agree,” the pathologist said. “And there are also injuries to the back of the head that are consistent with our fellow’s initial contact with the tarmac. However”—Dr. Mason moved, squatting again by the man’s head— “this one is not.” She pointed to an indentation at the top of the man’s forehead. “There’s no blood, of course. If he bled, it will have been washed away by the rain, and I’d guess that there wasn’t much to begin with. His skull was fractured and if the blow didn’t kill him immediately, he probably didn’t live long afterwards.”

  Kincaid winced. The position of the blow to the bartender’s skull was almost identical to the lump on Kincaid’s forehead, but much easier to see as the man had kept his thinning hair buzzed short. A dapple of sunlight moved over the face of the corpse, giving it a sudden eerie animation.

  “So what you’re telling us,” Booth said, straightening up, “is that someone deliberately hit this bloke with their car, then got out and bashed him in the head?”

  The doctor shrugged. “It’s possible that the driver simply didn’t see him. Although”—she touched the anorak with her gloved fingers—“this jacket has highly reflective panels. It’s also possible that he rolled as he fell and hit his head on a stone. But I think either scenario is highly unlikely. I think this is where he landed after impact. And then I think someone hit him on the head, hard.” She stood to face them. “I think you’re looking at a murder, Detective Booth. And a particularly brutal murder at that.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wanting an excuse to grab a few minutes to herself, Melody had told Doug that she wasn’t the right person to show him round the garden. He’d looked a little offended, but it served him right for being so squirrelly over whatever it was he was keeping to himself. Relenting, she said, “Seriously. Let me find Joe. He’s the expert here. Mum likes to putter and read gardening books, but Joe’s the one who puts in the hard graft.” With that, she let herself out onto the terrace and surreptitiously checked her phone. There was nothing from Andy.

  Damn. Was it too late to grovel? Did she even want to grovel?

  Gemma and Duncan were out under the pergola with Charlotte, watching something the boys were doing on the lower lawns. Realizing that she didn’t want to speak to anyone at the moment, she slipped quickly along the terrace and took the path to the glasshouse. She stepped inside, breathing in the warm, humid, humus-scented air. It was a comforting smell, dirt, and she’d often taken refuge here as a child. Of course, before Joe came, when the garden and glasshouse had been the domain of Old Ted, the place had been much less tidy and more suited to childish imaginings.

  But Old Ted, who had let Melody push his wheelbarrow and bury things in his borders with her trowel, was living out his days with a sister in Bournemouth, and the garden, under Joe’s care, had gone from a place pretty but rather ordinary to a showpiece, a stunning adaptation of a Gertrude Jekyll design.

  Joe, however, talented as he was as a gardener and landscaper, seemed a bit of an odd duck. Several years ago, her mother had discovered him working at a garden center in Cheltenham, and after hiring him a few times for contract work through the nursery, had offered him a full-time job. Together, they’d hatched a plan to restore the gardens to their Edwardian glory. Once Joe had begun implementing the long-term plan for the ornamental gardens, he had tackled the derelict kitchen garden. Within a year, he’d been harvesting much more produce than the household could use, and he and her mum had decided to sell the excess to local restaurants. Melody thought it was about that time that Joe had asked her parents if he could fix up the old fishing hut, and in return her mum had offered to let him live there. That, Melody couldn’t imagine. No electricity, no hot water, and heaven forbid, no Internet.

  Leaving the glasshouse, she wandered down through the kitchen garden and, her curiosity piqued, took the path along the river. Even though the morning was warming nicely, when she reached the hut’s clearing, a faint wisp of smoke drifted from the woodstove chimney. Otherwise, there was no sign of habitation, and she felt suddenly unsure of herself, trespassing on Joe’s privacy. Although she often chatted with him when she came for weekend or holiday visits, she couldn’t say that they were exactly friends.

  Before she could either call out or change her mind, Joe came out onto the hut’s porch and looked round, as if he’d sensed her presence.

  “Melody. What are you doing here?” He did not sound pleased to see her. He was dressed in a woolly jumper so ancient it might have been Old Ted’s, and his thick brown hair stood out like a thatch, obviously uncombed.

  “I came to ask a favor.” She took a few steps forward but stopped shy of the porch. “I didn’t mean to intrude, especially on your Sunday morning.”

  “I do have a mobile, you know,” he said, but then his shoulders relaxed a little and he added, “I don’t suppose you have the number.”

  “No. Look, it wasn’t important. I’ll just—”

  “No. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to sound a total shit. Had a bad night.” He raked a hand through his hair, subduing it a bit. “I was just making some coffee. Why don’t you come in and have a cup while you tell me what I can do for you.”

  “Thanks.” Melody wasn’t about to turn down a chance to see what he’d done with the inside of the place. In her granddad’s day, it had been full of cobwebs, broken fishing rods, and disintegrating lawn chairs.

  Following him, she saw a single wooden garden chair on the porch, a tartan rug thrown over its arm, and beside it, a pair of muddy boots that Joe seemed to have been in the process of cleaning with a palette knife. “I used to come fishing here with my granddad, when I visited my grandparents as a kid,” she said. “But I haven’t been here in years—Dad never having held a fishing rod in his life.”

  Although it was hard to tell through the beard, her little aside brought what might have been a smile from Joe as he held the door open for her. Her father, brought up in working-class Newcastle, not only abhorred golf, but had refused to take up the expected country pursuits of hunting and fishing.

  “He comes down here sometimes,” said Joe, surprising her. “For a drink. Likes the quiet. I keep a bottle of single malt set aside just for him.”

  Stepping into the single room, Melody inhaled the scent of fresh-ground coffee. There were no more cobwebs. A kettle simmered on a gas cookstove set atop a long waist-high wooden bench on one wall. Beside the cookstove sat a cafetière and a metal contraption that looked like an oversize pepper mill. “Oh,” she exclaimed, when Joe twisted it open and dumped coffee into the cafetière, “it’s a grinder.”

  “I’m not uncivilized,” Joe said tartly.

  “No, of course not.” This was certainly obvious from her quick glance round the room. It was as orderly as any army quarters, but considerably more colorful. Crockery, utensils, and pots and pans were neatly stacked on the workbench, alongside straw baskets filled with just-harvested fruits and veg. There were apples and pears, a bowl of blackberries, cabbage and carrots and Brussels sprouts and br
occoli, and a large butternut squash. She wondered how he could possibly cook all of it with such meager equipment.

  A single bed on the opposite side of the room was covered with another bright tartan rug. There was also a copper tub with some sort of shower rig suspended over it, a sturdy oak table with two chairs, and in a niche created by two half-height bookcases, a toilet. A beautifully designed camping lantern hung from a long hook in the ceiling. “I’d say you have everything you need here. How does the toilet work?” she added, curious.

  “Composting. That was my biggest expense, but it beats a chamber pot.” Joe sounded as though her interest had thawed him a bit.

  While he made the coffee, Melody perused his eclectic selection of books. There were at least half a dozen on Edwardian garden design, including one faceup on the top of the bookcase about the restoration of the Jekyll garden at Upton Grey in Hampshire. There were books on philosophy and history, and a good selection of classic novels. Most of the volumes looked secondhand. A small table at the head of the bed held a battery-powered lantern.

  Joe, who she assumed was about her own age, had never said anything about his education. “Did you do a university course?” Melody asked, tracing the title on a quite nice volume of T. S. Eliot’s collected poems.

  Pushing down the plunger in the cafetière, Joe shook his head. “No time, no money. But my father taught history and philosophy in Czechoslovakia—as it was then. So books were always treasured in our house. And without electricity there’s not much else to do here in the evenings,” he added with another faint smile.

  “It sounds quite idyllic. Waldenesque.”

  Joe poured the coffee into two stoneware mugs. “Not so much in the winter, when it’s dark early and you have to sleep in your long johns. Milk?” he asked, holding up her mug.

  “You have milk? Oh, sorry.” Melody colored as Joe frowned. She’d offended him again.

  “Of course I have milk.” He reached under his work top and lifted the lid on an insulated cool box, pulling out a glass bottle of milk, organic, with cream on top, which, at her nod, he poured into her coffee.

  “I keep the ice blocks in the freezer at the house,” he said with a shrug. “So I’m not really all that self-sufficient. I charge my mobile there, and do most of my washing.”

  Melody took the offered mug. “Self-sufficient enough, I’d say.” Melody cringed at the thought of her life, filled with ready meals and takeaway. She really must make more of an effort. But it was hard on her own—although apparently not all that hard for Joe—and the “on her own” brought her round again to Andy.

  “Thanks,” she said quickly, cradling the mug in her hands and inhaling the steam rising from it. Searching for a change of subject, she said, “I didn’t see you when I was here the last time, in August. Mum said you were on holiday. Where was it—Prague?”

  This only earned her another frown. “Yeah. Near there. My mum insisted we visit some long-lost relatives, when I should have been here. Too much to do in the gardens that time of year.”

  Leaving his drink on the workbench, Joe picked up one of the chairs and nodded towards the porch. “Let’s sit outside. It’s too fine to be in, and these days won’t last.” There was an elegiac note in his tone. Melody picked up his cup and followed him, intrigued.

  She supposed she could understand, she thought as she sat beside him and gazed at the sun sparkling on the river, how the loss of these golden autumn days could seem like a personal deprivation.

  When Melody had tasted her coffee, which was delicious, Joe said, “So what can I do for you?”

  “Well, you’ve given me a respite, for starters,” she said with a smile. “And I really don’t want to intrude on your time, but my friend was wanting a tour of the garden, and I thought you were certainly better qualified than me.”

  “Harry Potter?”

  Melody grinned. “Doug. Yes. I’m the one got him started on the gardening thing, so I feel responsible.”

  “I thought you didn’t garden?”

  “I don’t. I live in a mansion block. But Doug, he’d bought a little house in Putney with a derelict back garden. And things were sort of rough for him last spring, so I thought . . . you know, it would be therapy. But it’s turned into a bit of a monster.”

  “That happens.” A glance at Joe’s face told Melody it had been said in all seriousness. “But there are worse things,” he added. “Your friend—he seems all right for a— Oh, shit, sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “For a nerd, you mean?” Melody felt comfortable enough now to tease him. When Joe’s mouth relaxed, she wondered what he would look like without the beard. Better, in her opinion. But she supposed shaving and the rustic life didn’t go all that well together. “For a cop, yeah, Doug’s a good guy. Even though he’s a pain in the arse sometimes.”

  “Your other friends—they’re cops, too?”

  “Yes. Gemma’s my boss.”

  Joe sipped his coffee and Melody waited, wondering where he was going with this.

  “Did you know who this bloke was, the one in the car crash? Did Viv really work for him?”

  “A long time ago, apparently.”

  “I didn’t want to put my foot in it, when I talked to her.”

  “You’re friends, you and Viv?”

  “Well, yeah. We work together all the time, with the produce for the pub. But I had no idea she’d ever worked in that sort of a restaurant, or with somebody famous.”

  “I got the impression that no one else knew, either, if that helps.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. Did Viv say what the guy was doing here?” Joe rotated his mug with his long fingers.

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  Joe nodded, as if she’d given him a positive answer rather than a negative one. Finishing his coffee, he stood. “If you’ll tell your friend I’ll be up in a few minutes, I just need to clean up a bit.”

  Realizing she’d been dismissed, Melody finished her coffee and stood, too. “If you’re certain—”

  “Yeah. No problem.”

  “Well, okay, thanks. See you, then.” Feeling awkward, Melody stepped off the deck, then raised her hand in a little wave as she turned away.

  “Melody?”

  She turned back.

  “You won’t say that I asked about him? O’Reilly? It’s just that I wouldn’t want Viv to think I was . . . putting my nose where it didn’t belong.”

  “No. Of course not,” Melody said, but all the way back to the house, she wondered why Joe didn’t want to ask Viv himself.

  “Where are we going?” Kit asked, shortening his stride to keep pace with Grace as they walked back through the village.

  “I don’t know—you’ll see,” Grace mumbled, keeping her eyes on the dog. Rather than staying on the road towards Beck House, she turned left at the little roundabout across from the mill.

  Kit was beginning to regret agreeing to this. He glanced at the girl beside him, her frizzy hair pulled up in a lopsided ponytail, her shoulders hunched, her eyes still on the ground. Her face looked puffy from the crying she’d done yesterday. Maybe she’d been upset enough over the lady dying in the car crash to excuse her being so rude to her mum, but he’d certainly never get away with that.

  Grace had released the dog from her heel, and now she ranged out in front of them, sniffing back and forth at the hedgerows and threatening to tangle them in her lead. The lane was barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. The sun was warm and Kit began to wish he hadn’t worn his hoodie. Bees buzzed in and out of the blackberry brambles and the air smelled ripe and green.

  “So, how much obedience training has Bella done?” Kit asked, breaking a silence that felt increasingly awkward. “I did trials with my terrier, Tess. She’s a rescue.”

  “It wasn’t official training, like classes or anything,” said Grace. “Just basic stuff. Mark was helping Nell teach her to herd.”

  “Mark? Who’s he?”

  “Bella was one of Mark’s puppi
es,” said Grace, as if Kit were dumb for not knowing. “Mark breeds herding collies, really good ones. They win sheep trials and everything. Nell bought Bella from Mark when she moved here. It’s Mark who’s keeping Bella now, until . . .” Grace’s voice quavered. “Until someone decides who she belongs to.”

  “Nell didn’t have any family?”

  “Some niece who lives in Australia or something.”

  Bella was forging ahead, pulling Grace along on the lead now. When Grace gave her the heel command, the dog only pulled harder. Grace started jogging to keep up.

  “Do you want me to take her?” said Kit, worried the dog was going to pull Grace down. He was running now, too.

  “No, she just—” was all Grace managed as the collie pulled her off the road and through an open gate. Kit saw a thatched cottage, set back from the road.

  “Bella, stop!” Grace shouted. With both hands wrapped in the lead, she managed to bring the dog to a stop. The collie panted and whined even as Grace reached down and unclipped her. Bella shot towards the cottage and began barking at the door. “She just wanted to go home,” finished Grace, panting as well, hands on the knees of her ripped jeans.

  “This is Nell’s cottage?” Kit wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea. Bella seemed frantic now, running back and forth along the front of the cottage, then bolting round towards the back. Running after her, they found her pawing at the kitchen door.

  “She needed to see there was no one here for her. She’s got me now.”

  “I thought Mark was taking care of her.”

  “That’s just because she belonged to him once. He won’t want to keep her for good.” Grace sounded mulish again.

  “Well, right now, Bella’s really upset.” Taking the lead from Grace, Kit walked slowly towards the dog, saying, “Hi, Bella, you’re a good girl,” in a singsong voice. He took a few more steps. “Shh, that’s it, you’re a really good girl, everything is going to be okay.”