Nella’s expression didn’t change but her eyes flickered for a second at the words ‘Elf Farm’.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I thought I’d pop in and speak to Lolly Granger.” Fay paused to ratchet up the suspense. “We think she might have seen the vehicle that dropped Edward Mayweather’s body the other morning.”
Nella let out a breath. “Oh, I see. Just keep going up Mountain View Road. It’s a small plot on the left. If you get to Baines Farm, you’ve gone too far.”
“Thank you.”
Fay went back to her scone and Nella moved away to talk to other customers. But Fay could feel Nella’s gaze burning into the back of her neck as she ate. She was definitely suspicious. Months earlier, Nella had challenged her to find out the secret behind her incomparable clotted cream. She probably suspected that the secret was well on its way to being cracked.
Fay used the drive up Mountain View Road to plan the approach she was going to take with Lolly Granger.
From what Morwen had said, the Grangers prided themselves on their independence. They lived off the grid and took care of their own needs. There was nothing Fay could offer them that they would be interested in.
She decided to approach Lolly from the point of view of someone who was interested in ethical farming. It had the advantage of being true. When Fay shopped for supplies at the farmers market, she not only looked for a good deal but also for suppliers that could give a satisfactory explanation of their farming practices.
By the time she hopped out the shuddering Volvo to open the gate to Elf Farm, Fay had a rough idea of what she was going to say. She drove up to the farmhouse and was struck again by how different it was to Baines Farm. Everything was on a smaller scale. Even the dogs that rushed up to greet her were smaller, shaggier, and less sleek looking than the Baines pack. She patted heads and scratched ears until the farmhouse door opened, and Lolly Granger emerged. Like Maria Baines, she was wearing an apron, but it looked more like an artist’s smock than something one would bake bread in. The fact that Lolly’s hands were stained with paint further suggested that she was busy with artistic endeavors.
“Sorry to drop in on you unannounced like this,” said Fay.
“That’s no problem. We don’t have a telephone or mobile phones, so all visits are unannounced. You’re Fay Penrose, aren’t you? You look like a young version of your grandmother.”
“That’s right. I wanted to ask you about two nights ago when someone dumped the body of Edward Mayweather in the village in the small hours of the morning. I was the one who found him, but you were also there. You probably drove past the person who dumped him on your way back here. Can you remember it at all?”
Lolly shook back her long red hair. Fay was sure now that this was the person she had seen delivering cream to the Cracked Spine at four o’clock in the morning. She had made exactly the same head-shaking motion when she got out of her van.
“Come into the studio.” She held the front door open. “I think better when I’m painting.”
The inside of the farmhouse was bright and airy and neat as a pin. Lolly led Fay past a schoolroom/playroom where two children were working quietly at a table. They looked to be about five and seven. The younger was assembling a jigsaw puzzle while the older wrote sentences on a whiteboard with a marker pen.
Lolly’s studio was a square room that let in every scrap of light available. It had windows on three sides and was currently flooded with the soft, gauzy light of a typical Bluebell Island afternoon. Dozens of unframed canvasses were propped up against the walls. They were mostly island scenes painted with an off-kilter, hallucinogenic technique, as though the painter had been taking LSD.
There was something compelling about them. Fay found herself walking slowly around the room drinking them in.
“These make me feel dizzy and clear-headed at the same time.”
Lolly laughed, sounding pleased. “That’s exactly how I feel about them. It’s like the buzz you get from downing a glass of champagne. You know you’re under the influence, but the world seems clearer and more beautiful than ever. That’s how I remember it anyway. I haven’t had a drink in twelve years. I was becoming a little too fond of it for my liking. I paint to recapture that feeling.”
Fay dragged her eyes from a view of the south side of the island, with Penhale Lighthouse in the distance. “Are any of these for sale?”
Chapter 13
Lolly looked around at the canvasses as though seeing them for the first time.
“For sale? Of course not. I just paint for my own enjoyment. Nobody would want to buy them.”
“You must know that they’re very good,” said Fay. “You’ve obviously been trained as a painter. Your techniques are sophisticated.”
“Yes, but that was years ago. I haven’t thought of myself as a proper artist in more than a decade.”
“You must be aware that Bluebell Island has a thriving artists’ community. They recently introduced the Art Mile route so tourists can go from one artist’s studio to the next. Your paintings are easily among the best that the island has to offer.”
Lolly shook her head. “I know there are a lot of artists on the island. But most of them are so good – especially painters like Violet Seraph. My stuff could never compare. I didn’t know about the Art Mile. I don’t spend enough time in the village to keep current with developments like that.”
“When my grandmother died, she was in the process of turning Penrose House into a bed and breakfast. It has been up and running for nearly a year now with me in charge. I’d be interested in buying some of these paintings for the B&B, if you’d be willing to sell them to me.”
Lolly’s shrug was helpless. “I wouldn’t know what to charge you. They’re not even framed. Maybe you should take a few of them for free. I quite like the idea of other people getting to see my paintings and enjoy them.”
Fay’s Yankee soul was scandalized by this idea. “Absolutely not. I want to pay the full market price for them.”
Lolly hesitated. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that money means nothing to us. We try to live as self-sufficiently as possible, but obviously we need an income. At the moment we get that from selling some of what we farm through the farmers market. The Baineses act as our agents. They don’t even charge us a commission. They just add our wares to their stall at the market. It works well, but I can’t deny that a few extra pounds would be welcome. I just don’t know how to go about it.”
“Bluebell Island Gallery on the High Street sells selected works from various island artists. A lot of them sell directly from their own studios, but the more important artists – the ones who are looking to reach the rest of Britain and even the overseas markets - sell their work through the gallery. I could take some of your canvasses to the owner and ask her to put a value on them. Whatever she thinks she could sell them for in her gallery is what I’ll pay you for them. Does that sound fair?”
Fay felt safe making this offer because Lolly Granger didn’t have an established reputation as an artist. She knew she would be getting a bargain.
“That sounds fine,” said Lolly. “You choose which canvasses you want, and we’ll load them into your car before you leave.”
She seemed to have lost interest in the subject because she picked up a paintbrush and started mixing paint again. Fay remembered what she had said about how painting helped her to think.
“The roads must be very quiet when you come into the village to make your early morning deliveries,” she said.
Lolly narrowed her eyes and began to apply paint to the canvass with a sweeping gesture. “What’s that? Quiet? Oh yes, it’s dead quiet. I don’t usually see so much as a fox at that time of the morning, never mind a person.”
“So, it probably sticks in your mind when you do see someone?”
“I suppose so.”
“Like two mornings ago when a dark-colored sedan came past you at speed. It was travelling towards the village
while you were going back up Mountain View Road. Do you remember that?”
Lolly’s eyes were focused so intensely on the canvass that Fay thought she hadn’t heard her. Then she said, “He was driving too fast for the conditions. He veered across the middle line. I thought he was going to hit me for a second. I was just about to blast him with my horn when he swerved back onto his side of the road.”
“You say ‘he’. Was it definitely a man?”
“I … I think so. It was just the impression I received from the way he was driving. Very fast and aggressive, you know? I thought it was more likely to be a man.”
Fay knew several women in SUVs who were equally likely to drive too fast, especially at school pick-up and drop-off times, but Lolly was right. Statistically, men were more inclined to drive fast.
“Did you notice anything about the car?”
“Just what you said – that it was a dark-colored sedan. I didn’t notice a license plate or anything like that. Why would I? I didn’t think anything of it.”
“What about the person behind the wheel? Did you get any impression of who it might have been? Tall or short, big or small, old or young, male or female?”
Lolly closed her eyes for a moment as her paintbrush hung suspended in the air. “I’m not sure why, but I got the impression that the person was male, fairly bulky, and neither very old nor very young, but sort of medium. Does that make sense?”
Fay remembered how the figure had been wrapped up in an overcoat and muffler, making identification impossible. He had lifted Edward Mayweather’s not inconsiderable weight out of the trunk of the car without apparent effort. “Yes. That makes perfect sense.”
Lolly resumed painting – a little crease between her brows, as though something were worrying her.
“Was there anything on the car that could help to identify it?” Fay asked. “I know some of the commercial farms along here display branding or trademarks on their vehicles.”
“There was nothing that I could recognize. The poultry farmer further down the hill has a logo of an egg box with six eggs in it. All the Baines vehicles have that distinctive white stripe painted on the doors. Doug’s Dairy has the cow with a pink bow on its head. This wasn’t any of those. It was just a plain dark car. Although …”
Fay gave her a moment to remember what she was going to say. The most reliable memories were ones that were unforced. But Lolly was silent.
“Although?” she prompted.
“I don’t know if I should say. It was just a fleeting impression.”
“Anything you remember could be helpful.”
“There was something hanging from the rearview mirror. You know how people sometimes hang fuzzy dice or something? My headlights caught his windscreen for a moment as he swerved towards me and I could have sworn he had a skeleton dangling there. Do you see how unlikely it sounds?”
“It’s not all that unlikely considering that Halloween is coming up,” said Fay.
“Halloween?” She said it as though it were a foreign word. “Oh, Halloween. Now that you mention it, I did notice some decorations in the village when I made my delivery. I only come through twice a week and I’m not always paying attention.”
She applied her paintbrush to the canvass in a flurry of strokes. Then she stood back to look at it and nodded.
“That’ll do,” she said. “Would you like to have a quick tour of the farm?”
“Yes, please.” Fay tried not to sound too eager. The secret of the clotted cream was about to be revealed.
Elf Farm stood on only a few hectares of land, but every inch of it was busy and productive. It might look rather puny next to the high-tech operation that was the Baines estate, but it was impressive how much was happening on that small plot.
“We don’t grow any cash crops,” Lolly explained as she marched Fay around the land. “Mono-culture is bad for soil productivity. Our kind of mixed farming leads to the best soil fertility. We keep goats, sheep, chickens, and a couple of dairy cows. Their dung helps to keep the soil fertile and promotes a diversity of insects and worm life. Then we grow organic vegetables on the keyhole system, which yields an extraordinary number of vegetables on a small patch of land. We also have some beehives, although we never take more honey than the bees can spare.”
“I heard that you and your family are vegetarians.”
“That’s right. We use all the bounty of nature, without hurting or killing animals. For instance, one of the cruelties of the egg industry is that male chicks are routinely killed because they are surplus to requirements. We don’t do that. Our hens are pasture-raised and live as close to a natural life as possible. The fact that we take their eggs every morning prevents population density from becoming a problem.”
Fay had to admit that the chickens looked sleek and healthy as they puttered around their large, sun-dappled enclosure.
“What about them?” she asked, indicating the two Jersey cows chewing grass in a small field. “I’ve heard that one of the problems with the dairy industry is that the cows are forced to have calves, only to have them taken away too young.”
“Yes, and the cows grieve for their babies. It’s heartbreaking.” Lolly waved a hand to indicate the cows in the field. “Here we have Mirabelle and Clarabelle. Clarabelle is the bigger one. She is Mirabelle’s daughter. They are crazily attached to each other. Clarabelle also had a calf, but we sold him once he was fully weaned and starting to become aggressive. He’s a bull now on the Baines estate.”
“Are they entirely grass-fed?” asked Fay.
“Mostly, although we do supplement their diet with corn. I found they become a little skinny when they only eat grass. I guess it’s because they’re producing milk all the time. We milk them by hand. It’s much gentler, which I believe also affects the taste of the milk. Honestly, you would have to taste it to believe it. These are the happiest cows on the island, and they produce the best-tasting milk.”
This was it. This was Fay’s chance. She had cracked the secret of Nella’s clotted cream. All she had to do now was mention to Lolly that she was interested in buying a regular supply of cream for the Cat’s Paw. She opened her mouth to speak.
And then she closed it again.
The moment passed, and Lolly took her to see the goats and sheep.
Fay argued with herself internally. Why had she hesitated? Why had she let the chance slip away?
She realized that it had only ever been about the mystery for her. Fay didn’t like not knowing things. It wasn’t just that Nella had the best clotted cream on the island – it was that she made a mystery out of it and refused to tell anyone where she got it from. Then she had made the mistake of challenging Fay to crack the secret.
There was no way Fay could resist that.
Now that she had solved the mystery, she realized that she was quite happy to let Nella continue as the queen of cream teas. Goodness knows, she enjoyed them enough herself whenever she visited the Cracked Spine. The satisfaction of having solved the puzzle was enough.
Chapter 14
Fay left Elf Farm with several canvasses in the back of her car and a handshake agreement that the Cat’s Paw would buy a box of seasonal produce from the Grangers every month.
She coasted down Mountain View Road and into the village, making a stop at Bluebell Island Gallery in order to drop the paintings off to be valued. She saw the way the owner’s eyes widened as she looked at the canvasses and knew she had not been wrong about the talent and quality they displayed. Then she got back in her car and contemplated her next move.
Part of her was dying to get home to see how Spooky was settling into his new environment. Morwen’s text messages had been encouraging. He was eating and drinking well and seemed relaxed in the box room. Fay was eager to see how he would respond to human interaction as his chances of being rehomed depended on that.
But she also wanted to speak to David about the sword that had been found in the High Street. Yes, it had been covered in fake b
lood, but perhaps that had been used to cover up traces of real blood.
It wasn’t quite five o’clock. David would still be consulting for a while. She decided to go home and visit Spooky now and try to set up a meeting with David for later that evening.
Fay: Any chance I can pop in later to talk about the sword Sergeant Jones handed over to you for testing?
The reply came faster than she was expecting.
David: I was going to work on it from about 8 this evening. Why don’t you come around then?
Fay confirmed that she would be there and pointed her car up Cliff Road towards Penrose House.
“What’s the latest on our guest?” she asked as she walked into the kitchen.
Morwen looked up from her paperwork. “He’s still calm and eating well. He used his litter tray a couple of times, so everything must be functioning normally.”
“Would he let you go in there to clean it?”
“He did actually. He hid in his basket, so he’s still nervous around humans.”
“I wish we knew how long he has been living wild. Judging by that scrap of a collar around his neck, he didn’t escape recently.”
“And no one on the island has reported a lost cat. I checked with all my WhatsApp groups.”
Fay had been thinking about this. “Is it possible that he could have come across on the ferry? I don’t think he’s been here long. One of our eagle-eyed locals would have spotted him and let us know.”
“Sure, it’s possible. Stray dogs come to the island all the time via the ferry, so why not a stray cat? Of course, that makes it much more difficult to find his owner because we don’t know where he got on the ferry. It could have been at St. Ives, or Falmouth, or Penzance.”
“Well, let’s see how he responds to me.”
Fay peered through the glass. Spooky was back on his perch, looking out the window. His skin seemed to cling less tightly to his bones. A whole day of good food and proper hydration had already made a difference to his condition.
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