Another sigh, this time followed by a short laugh, “Oh come on misery, stop feeling sorry for yourself.” She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her head from side to side, easing the tension. She was a naturally hopeful person and a silly farm woman at the door wasn’t going to upset her.
On the way to the kitchen to fill the kettle for a hot drink she passed the dining room and, glancing in, was entranced anew at the rainbows thrown from the crystal bowl on the table. She stepped through the doorway and without thinking sniffed the air, ever since that odd happening a few nights ago she’d been paranoid about smells. A litre of disinfectant had gone into the drains and the cupboard under the sink had been cleaned out, and certainly there was no sign now of the smell. She had humped the sacks of compost and dried horse manure to the top of the garden, but she had never felt that she got to the bottom of it.
The first drawer of the dresser was slightly open. She moved into the room and dragged it open. She should probably sort some of this stuff. That would give her a job to do at any rate and it was probably quite valuable. There were lace cloths and embroidered napkins. She dragged the drawer out and put it on the floor then knelt beside it to unpack the old linens. She pulled out a small piece of fabric and frowned, unfolding it and smoothing it between her fingers. It was a small ladies handkerchief. It was white with a lace edge and one corner trimmed with even more lace and a tiny initial embroidered in white. She tipped it towards the light from the window, “M.”
“M.” Well this could only have belonged to Mildred, poor lost Mildred. She hadn’t thought much about the missing daughter and the vanished housekeeper and now here was a piece of that history, hidden in the bottom of a drawer, lost among the tablecloths. She hadn’t looked much at these things, they’d been in there when they arrived, leftovers from when the house was rented and presumably from when Freddy and his parents had come regularly. Of course it could be that, maybe it had belonged to one of the holiday renters. She would show it to Freddy tonight, a little link with his family mystery.
What a funny day this was turning into. She marched back into the kitchen, made a cup of instant coffee and took it up to the spare room. Maybe once the office was properly set up that would be the nudge the universe needed and work would come flooding in. Enough of all this mooning about, worrying about garden centres, and handkerchiefs. “Get a grip girl.” She admonished herself.
Chapter 8
Marsha and Freddy ate their dinner of pan fried salmon and rocket salad. Further towards the village centre, in one of the terraced cottages, the smell of grilled sausages and onion gravy filled the air.
“Sit down Jared, your tea’s gettin’ cold, d’ya want ale or water?”
“Ale, aye, ale. An old wooden chair-leg scratched across the kitchen vinyl as Jared Barnes lowered his substantial bulk to the woven wicker seat. “So tell me now properly, whad she say that woman? She say they’d let us take that piece a land?”
“No, I tol’ you already. She can’t, they didn’t buy that place like we thought. That lad is that young Freddy as used to come with his Mum, afore the rentin’ started. I thought he’d long gone and away but no, back, back like a bad penny. No sign of ‘is mother though. That there girl she said as ‘ow she’d ‘ave to speak to Bob, I remember Bob, stuffed shirt ‘e were, down ‘ere at weekend an’ then back to town on a Mundi. We’ll need to go back, we can’t let this rest. We ‘ave to get that land. We should a done this years ago, I told your father back before Granddad died. Get down there I said and sort this out, if not it’ll store up trouble for later and see now, I was right.”
“Yeah, yeah I know but Dad, well you know Dad, couldn’t face it could he? Never could, never would talk it through, make a plan ‘n sort it out. Granddad should a been the one sortin’ it out though, if things were done right.”
“Aye, I know lad but, well you weren’t old enough to know at the time. Weren’t old enough to see what it did to ‘im all that business. It’s time though, long past time, we’ve gotta sort it now, once and for all. No good anymore leavin’ this to chance. Things ‘as moved on, I see the television, I see what they can do now, we need to move on this and finish it.”
“I’m goin’ back, day after tomorrow and I’m gonna push it some more. I reckon she’ll be easy, namby pamby bit of a city girl. I might even get that Bob’s telephone number and ring ‘im meself, aye I might do that.”
Jared wiped a dribble of rich gravy from his chin with the back of his hand before poking the fork at the shabby old woman he called mother. “You be careful,” he warned through a mouth full of creamy mashed potatoes, “don’t go makin’ too much fuss now ‘n causing ‘em to look at us too ‘ard.”
“No, but it’s family is this Jared, family and business. What do you think’ll ‘appen? This all comes out, you can kiss goodbye to the contract at the school, they’re not gonna let you near them little boys and girls if this comes out now are they? No, it may be long gone but the thing is still ‘anging over our ‘eads. We needs to get it fixed.”
“Yeah, well just keep on this same road we agreed, get the land and then the rest is easy.”
The light faded gently, leeching the colour from the fields and drawing the owl out to hunt. Lights flicked on, glowing from the cottage windows and pooling on the old flags and cobbles.
“Lovely dinner Marsha thank you. I’ll be sorry when you start working again and I have to take my turn at cooking. You’re ever so quiet, are you okay? You’re not worrying about your job are you?”
“No, no, as a matter of fact I rang Lionel today and he said that he had deliberately been holding off to give me a chance to settle in. I wish I’d rung him before; I could have saved myself a worry and told him I was set up and ready. Anyway he reckons he’ll have something for me by next week, so make the most of this, your days as a pampered pet are numbered.”
“Oh shame, you know there was something to be said for the old-fashioned way of doing things.”
“Oh, talking of old-fashioned I found a handkerchief today, a really old-fashioned fabric one with lace and embroidery, it was thin and worn looking. I wondered if you knew whose it might have been. It was in the dining room. I’ll get it.”
“Well, it might have been Mum’s of course.”
“No, it had an initial M on it. Your mum was Fiona wasn’t she? Oh unless her maiden name began with M?”
“No, it was Brighouse.”
“Ah, well that can’t be it then. Here it is, look. I wondered, I thought maybe it had belonged to Mildred. It made me a bit sad to be honest, thinking about her and wondering just what had happened. Oh yes, something else, the woman from the garden centre came and she was really rude. I sent her on her way but I’ll be honest it upset me a bit. I think the sooner I get myself some work the better, I’m becoming too sensitive and high maintenance.” She dredged up a smile for him but in the pit of her stomach the worm of unease wouldn’t rest.
Chapter 9
The morning light filtered into the bedroom and gently roused Marsha from a deep, dreamless sleep. She stretched in the warmth of the bed. Freddy was stirring beside her; she felt cosy and content. The unease and disquiet of yesterday had left her at last and she let her mind drift, listening to the birdsong and the sound of the day coming to life.
“Morning gorgeous,” Freddy threw his arm around her and pulled her to him. “What are you smiling at?”
“Oh well, I was just feeling happy and lucky and content. I think that not having work was preying on my mind more than I realised and today I just feel – oh I don’t know – right, I suppose. I do love it here, I really do but I think that I have been having settling-in nerves, you know. Now and again I’ve felt a bit adrift but today it just all seems to have come together.”
“Talking about all that, you never did explain about the woman from the garden centre?”
“Oh, no, right. I was quite upset about it yesterday but today I think that maybe I misunderstood her, well perhaps. She
was rude, at least she seemed rude and it caught me on the back foot a bit and I think that coloured the rest of the conversation. Now I think about it maybe it was just her way of putting things. Anyway the long and short of it is that she wants to know if they can rent that piece of land at the top of the garden. You know that rather overgrown patch, beyond the apple tree where the old shed is. She reckoned that they could grow stuff for their farm shop. I told her I’d speak to you about it and you could ask Bob.”
“Blimey, that piece of land has been neglected for such a long time. We never did anything with it. A fox used to live out there and we didn’t want to disturb him but it was more than that. I used to want to play in it with my mates, it was more exciting than the garden, being overgrown, but Mum banned us.”
“Banned you?”
“Yeah, she used to just say keep out, it’s not nice up there. I never argued much but I used to sneak up sometimes. It is a bit spooky, there are places where you can’t actually see the house and it is very overgrown and quiet. It’s a mess to be honest. There was a time when Dad thought about selling it off but they worried that if they did, someone could build something on it and spoil the view, so that all came to nothing. What do you think? Should we just ignore it or do you think we owe it to Dad to tell him? I don’t think he’ll be bothered that much about the rent but it is income after all.”
“Oh, I think we have to tell him. Thing is though, can I just say that, if I am going to be working from here I don’t know how much I’d like it, that woman coming and going, so close. Not to be antisocial or anything and of course at the end of the day Bob and you must decide but I don’t feel comfortable around her.”
“Okay, I’ll tell Dad, but I’ll say that if he’s happy, we would rather that things stay as they are.”
“Come on, let’s get on with the day. If I’m going to have work from next week I want to try and get the garden finished and the office all shipshape.”
“Right, I’ll put the kettle on.”
With the sound of running water and rattling pots in the background Marsha pulled on her jeans and a blouse. She drew back the curtains and gazed out into the early morning garden. Hundreds of tiny diamonds sparkled on the grass and the trees were draped in silver spider’s webs. It was beautiful, it really was. Her eyes were drawn to the old apple tree and the overgrown patch of land beyond. There was a brick wall at the very boundary of the garden and it glowed in the early morning sun. It would be a big job to tackle that piece of ground but it would be a lovely place for a sun terrace, maybe with a little pergola in the corner.
Later on she would put on her boots and go and have a proper look. Maybe it wasn’t such a mess as everyone thought, a couple of days with some shears and energy and perhaps she could start to bring it back. Of course if there was any sign of the fox then she would leave it. A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. How lovely if there was a fox living there, she would like that, but there had been no sign, as far as she knew.
With a busy plan ahead of her and a new feeling of lightness she hummed quietly to herself as she ran down the stairs to where Freddy was toasting muffins.
Chapter 10
It was a glorious early summer day. After trying for a while to concentrate on organizing her files into folders Marsha gave up the struggle and submitted to the pull of the garden. The plants that she had put in during the last few weeks seemed happy and, apart from a bit of weeding and sweeping the paths, there wasn’t that much to do.
The apple tree was laden with blossom, a great lace canopy alive with bees and dripping perfume into the warm air. Being very much a hobby gardener Marsha had no idea what type of apple tree this was or what, if anything, she should be doing with it, but she determined to get some information from the web. For the moment though she simply stood beneath the old boughs, lost in the beauty.
The land beyond the tree was overgrown and weedy. In the corners by the old stone wall the shadows were deep and the grass and bindweed had full control. It was a different growth from the rest of the garden and the land here wasn’t smooth and flat but ridged and uneven. Under the wall there was a very dilapidated wooden shed, it appeared as though a high wind would reduce it to firewood and probably the only thing saving it just now was the shelter of the brick structure under which it crouched. Someone had obviously known what they were doing, placing it to sit undisturbed for who knows how long. Marsha knew that to go in there would be foolhardy and the only real option would be to have it taken down before it tumbled and crumbled into the overgrown plot.
A hint of a pathway led from the topmost part of the cultivated lawn, through the centre of the wild area and then, taking a right angle, led on to the shed and what appeared to be a small flattened area in front of it. That the shed and pathway were there was proof this part of the garden had been used in the past, but what for?
Marsha retraced her steps and headed for the garage where she collected the yard brush. She put on her wellington boots, tucking her jeans inside; she didn’t know much about snakes and such like and had a feeling that they would be so afraid of her that they would be long gone already, but she was a country novice and wasn’t taking chances.
Back up in the top of the garden she used the stiff bristles of the brush to try to clear the path but it was hopeless. Years of weeds and debris had covered it. She collected more tools, a hoe, a rake and a small spade and started to scratch and tear at the growth. The birds cheered her on and the exercise felt good as she stretched and laboured in the warm sun.
She almost missed the tiny glint, and if the ring hadn’t caught on the edge of the rake and moved it would probably have disappeared back into the soil. As it happened though she did see it and she bent to retrieve the tiny piece of metal. At first it appeared to be just a little washer or some other piece of old rubbish but when she rubbed at it the gold shone through. She turned it back and forth. It was encrusted with soil, but as she cleaned it in with the piece of cloth from her gardening basket the tiny diamond cluster blinked back to life. She pushed it onto her finger. How long had this pretty little jewel lay here? She had no way of knowing. Someone had probably searched and searched for it and now with the passage of time and pure luck it had fallen into her hands. The thought was very moving and then she realised that it could possibly have belonged to Fiona, she would give it back to Bob the next time she saw him. But then she must ask Freddy first, she didn’t want to upset the poor man who was still grieving. She tucked it into her pocket.
How long she was there she was never able to tell, but for certain it was quite some time, one hour or maybe more. The sun had redrawn the shadows revealing different shapes and edges. She could see now that the land was divided into sections and so the conclusion had to be that it was separate beds and probably had been the vegetable plot. It made sense really, the shed, the protection of the wall and the position in the garden, yes, this must be where the homeowners, Freddy’s grandparents in fact, had planted their Victory Garden, though it was perfectly possible and in fact quite likely that it had always been used for growing food.
She smiled as her mind’s eye pictured rows of tomato plants, leeks perhaps, some herbs. The decision was made, it would be hard work but she would reclaim this plot and they would grow some of their own vegetables. Hot and dirty now she stopped for a moment and turned to go back to the house for a drink and a well-earned biscuit.
There was no pain, not at that precise moment, later there was, horrible sickening pain but the original insult was so fast and unexpected that her brain didn’t have time to catapult the messages down the nerves and tell her that she was under attack. The darkness was sudden and complete, a pit, endless, bottomless. She wasn’t aware of the depth of it until her senses tried to bring her back, dragging her with sickness, panic and confusion through the mire of unconsciousness to a new and frightening reality. A world of agony and anguish.
Chapter 11
“Marsha, Marsha, where are you? Are you okay,
Marsha?”
“In here Freddy, the lounge. It’s alright don’t panic, I’m alright.”
“What’s happened? Mrs Simms just said that you asked if I could come home as soon as possible. Oh God, Marsha, what’s happened, you look awful?”
“I’m sorry Freddy I didn’t want to call you at work but I feel bloody horrible.”
“What the hell has happened? You’re as white as a sheet.”
“I don’t know what happened I honestly don’t.” As Marsha tried to talk, hot tears flowed down her cheeks and, now that she was no longer on her own, she gave in to the crying that had been held at bay by pure will power. Freddy wrapped his arms around her and held her gently until the sobbing subsided. He leaned to the table and grabbed a tissue from the box.
“Oh you poor love, did you fall? Here, blow.” He held the paper handkerchief to her nose as if she were a small child and she blew and then took it from him and crumpled it before dabbing at her eyes. She was regaining control and though the pounding in her head was horrendous, she felt so much better now that Freddy was with her.
“No, I didn’t fall. It’s so odd Freddy, I don’t know what happened. I have no idea. I was out in the garden, I’d decided to have a go at the patch at the top and was getting along fine. It’s hard work but I think it’s worth it. Thing is though, one minute I was tearing at the weeds and grass and then the next thing I know I was puking my guts up and everything was spinning and there was this bloody great lump here, she carefully touched the sore spot on her head wincing as her fingers connected with the damage. My head’s pounding, I was a bit scared to be honest, I think I’d been unconscious and I didn’t know if it was okay for me to take aspirins or not.
YOU'RE DEAD: Three Gripping Murder Mystery Suspense Novels Page 9