by H. Y. Hanna
“Were you all right last night?” I asked. “That was really why I stopped by. I wanted to check that you were okay.”
She smiled gratefully. “Thank you. Yes, I did what you said and then went to bed. Aunt Audrey came to see me early this morning. She said she would help me with Mr Grimsby, our family solicitor, and also help me sort out Mummy’s papers, and organise the funeral.”
“When’s that going to be?” asked Cassie gently.
Mary licked her lips nervously. “I… I’m not sure yet. Mummy had some very specific instructions for how she wanted things and I… I wanted to make sure I followed… maybe at the end of this week…? And I… I suppose I need to speak to the college too, about a memorial service…” She swallowed convulsively. “I… I just can’t believe that she’s really gone. I mean, I knew that her heart wasn’t good—Dr Foster did warn us—but I suppose I just thought those pills would fix everything.”
Mention of the pills made me think of the conversation with my mother that morning and I said impulsively, “Mary, I hope you don’t mind me asking but there was something I was curious about.”
“Yes?” She looked at me enquiringly.
“You know your mother’s angina tablets—the ones she had with her at the show—she kept them in a little enamel pillbox, didn’t she?”
Mary nodded. “It was given to Mummy by her mother—my grandmother—and she really liked it. She used to keep her daily vitamins in there, then she started using it for her heart pills so that she could carry some with her wherever she went. She hated those metal foil packets that pills come in these days.”
“Do you know how many tablets she normally carried in her pillbox? Like how many she had with her at the show yesterday?”
“She usually carried six with her. Mummy always said that was a good number.”
“Can you…” I hesitated, knowing that this sounded like a bizarre request. “Can you find the pillbox and check?”
Mary looked slightly puzzled but she went obediently to the front of the house, with us following. In the foyer, she rummaged through a large leather handbag sitting on the hall table, then pulled something out and handed it to me. It was a beautiful circular Victorian pillbox, with a delicate enamel top and silver base.
I flipped it open and silently counted. There were six white tablets resting inside.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What was that all about?” asked Cassie as we came out of Eccleston House. “Why were you asking Mary all that about her mother’s heart pills?”
I told her about my conversation with my mother that morning.
“Well, couldn’t Dame Eccleston have carried some more pills somewhere else? Like in a pocket or another box thingy?” said Cassie.
“You heard what Mary said just now when I asked that. She said her mother was very fussy and only carried the tablets in that pillbox.”
“So… are you saying your mother was right and Dame Eccleston never got any pills from her own box?”
“Yes, which makes you wonder how she got the pill she was clutching in her hand when she died.”
Cassie gave me a sidelong look. “You sure it was a heart pill and not something else?”
“Well, her doctor identified it but…” I trailed off, remembering my mother’s scathing comments about Dr Foster’s abilities. What if the old doctor had been wrong? What if Dame Eccleston hadn’t died of a heart attack?
I felt an uneasy feeling start to gnaw at the base of my spine. We walked in silence back to the car. As I approached the driver’s door, I felt in my coat pocket for the car keys. They weren’t there. I thrust my hand deeper into the pocket and discovered why: there was a ragged hole at the bottom where the seams of the fabric had come undone.
“Blast! My keys must have dropped out while we were walking around the garden earlier.” I glanced back towards the house. “I’m going to have to go back and look for them.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“No, I’ll just be two secs. I’m sure they’re somewhere along the path around the side of the house. I remember taking my coat off when we went into the house and if the keys had fallen out then, they would have been in the foyer. So they must have dropped out while we were looking for Mary in the gardens.”
I hurried back around the side of the house towards the rear, retracing our steps from earlier. I had gone almost all the way to the back when I saw the glint of metal in the neatly trimmed grass at the edge of the path. Aha! I crouched down and scooped the keys up.
As I rose to my feet, a sweet perfume wafted over me and I looked around for the source of the fragrance. It must have come from the bank of old-fashioned roses growing alongside the path. I stepped closer to the flower bed and leaned down, inhaling deeply. They were gorgeous—somehow the smell of fresh flowers could never be captured in a bottle, no matter how expensive the label.
I straightened and looked around with pleasure. Unlike the landscaped formality at the front of the house, the gardens at the back had been left in a more informal style—in fact, much more like an English cottage garden. There were great swathes of delphiniums, foxgloves, and hollyhocks, and the sweet williams so beloved of the Victorians; rambling roses and a romantic wisteria in the corner, and bees humming busily through the fragrant blooms. The unseasonably warm spring we’d had meant that many of the flowers seemed to be blooming early. I pressed my nose to the rose petals again for one last sniff, then, smiling to myself, I turned back towards the path.
A man was standing right behind me.
He was so close—practically breathing down my neck—that I crashed into him as I turned around. I stifled a scream and staggered back into the soft earth of the flower bed, clutching a hand to my chest.
“Oh my God! You nearly scared me to death!”
He said nothing but stood there watching me. He was a tall, cadaverous-looking man in his fifties, I guessed, with the slightly stooped posture of someone who spent a lot of time bending over. He had deep-set eyes and a thin, lipless mouth. From the overalls he was wearing and the trowel he held in one hand, I guessed him to be the gardener.
“I… I was just admiring the roses…” I stammered, wondering why I felt compelled to explain. It wasn’t as if I owed him an explanation. And yet something about the way he stood there, like a grim executioner, made me nervous.
I took another step back and felt my heel sink further into the soft soil, making me pitch backwards. He reached out and grabbed me, yanking me out of the flower bed. Then without a word to me, he dropped to his knees and began patting the soil back into place, rearranging it around the sweet williams which had been disturbed.
“Oh, sorry… didn’t mean to step on them…” I trailed off, annoyed with myself for feeling the need to explain again.
What was it about the human psyche that made you feel compelled to speak when the other person remained silent? It was something clever investigators took advantage of in their interviews, I knew, and I was irritated to find myself falling into the same trap.
In any case, this isn’t a criminal interview and this man is just being plain rude! I thought, frowning down at his bent head. A voice called suddenly behind us.
“Joseph? Joseph, I thought—oh, there you are…” Mary Eccleston came into view around the side of the house. She paused at the sight of me. “Gemma? I thought you’d left already?”
“I had—except that I got to my car and realised that I had dropped my car keys so I came back to find them.” I raised my hand and jingled the keys. “I found them by the path here and I was admiring some of your flowers when Joseph came up behind me.” I couldn’t quite keep the note of accusation out of my voice. “He gave me a bit of a scare.”
Mary gave him a reproachful look. “Oh Joseph, Mummy said you must stop doing that.” She turned to me apologetically. “Joseph is ever so quiet—he walks like a cat.”
Joseph said nothing, his head bent, still intent on repairing the flower bed. There was an
awkward silence, then Mary looked at me apologetically. “I hope you weren’t hurt or anything, Gemma?”
“Oh, no, no, I’m fine. I think the flowerbed suffered more than me,” I said with a chuckle.
Joseph turned his head and shot me a look filled with so much hostility that I was taken aback.
I cleared my throat. “Erm… Anyway, I must be getting on.”
“I’ll walk you back to the front of the house,” Mary said, falling into step beside me. Once we were a bit farther away from Joseph, she said in an undertone, “I hope you weren’t upset by Joseph. Mummy and I have got used to him but I know people can find him a bit strange. You see, he doesn’t really speak, unless you talk to his plants. But he’s a lamb really.”
I couldn’t think of anyone who had less resemblance to a lamb but I kept my thoughts to myself. And she didn’t really say “talk to his plants”, did she? It must have been a slip of the tongue, I decided.
“Don’t worry, he didn’t upset me—just gave me a bit of a fright, that’s all,” I reassured her. “Hey, listen… if you need anything—or just feel like you need someone to talk to—don’t hesitate to give me a ring.”
Mary looked surprised and pleased. She gave me a tremulous smile. “Thank you.”
I walked slowly back down the drive to my car, my thoughts humming as busily as the bees had been back in the garden. I was remembering Mary telling me that Joseph had helped them load the car for the show yesterday morning. I wondered if he had known about Dame Eccleston’s heart condition…
***
I was still feeling a bit low by the time I returned to my parents’ house. Cassie had kept up a stream of cheerful conversation on our way back, but once I’d dropped her off and was left to my own thoughts, I found myself sinking into a gloom again. I knew I just had to keep looking—I would find a place to rent eventually—but I couldn’t help feeling demoralised. Oxford was so expensive… how would I ever find a suitable place within my budget?
As I let myself into the house, my spirits sank even further when I heard the clink of china and the babble of excited voices coming from the sitting room. Uh-oh. It sounded like my mother was having one of her Sunday afternoon tea parties. The last thing I felt like doing right now was making polite conversation with a bunch of well-meaning, middle-class housewives who all seemed to have an abnormal interest in my love life.
I crept along the hall, hoping to get past the living room doorway without being seen and escape upstairs to my room.
No such luck.
“Oh, darling! You’re back!”
I stifled a groan and went reluctantly into the sitting room. When I stepped in, though, I was relieved to see that instead of my mother’s usual crowd, there were four little old ladies sitting on the sofa around her. It was the Old Biddies—the Senior Command of Meadowford-on-Smythe: loud, bossy Mabel Cooke, eighty-going-on-eighteen Glenda Bailey, plump and food-loving Florence Doyle, and quiet, gentle Ethel Webb. Okay, so they were nosy and meddling in their own way, but somehow I didn’t mind it so much.
“I thought you’d be back earlier, Gemma,” said my mother.
“I stopped off to see Mary Eccleston,” I explained.
“Ah!” Mabel pounced on me. “We were just talking about her.” She sat forwards on the sofa, balancing a teacup on her knees. “Your mother has been telling us about your discussion at breakfast this morning and the Mystery of the Untouched Pillbox!” She made it sound like a Nancy Drew book.
My mother looked at me eagerly. “Did you mention it to Mary?”
“Yes, actually, I did,” I admitted.
“And?” Five pairs of eyes stared avidly at me.
“It doesn’t look like the pills were disturbed,” I admitted. “There were six tablets in the pillbox and Mary said they always carried six with them when they went to shows.”
“You see?” my mother said triumphantly. “I told you I am never wrong.”
“But what does this mean?” asked Florence, helping herself to a jam tart from the tea tray.
“I’ll tell you what it means,” said Mabel. “It means that Dame Eccleston was murdered, just as I suspected!”
“Ooh!” Glenda squealed, although whether with delight or horror it was hard to tell.
“Hang on… Don’t you think you’re all rather jumping to conclusions?” I said weakly.
“Nonsense, darling. It makes perfect sense,” said my mother. “I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if that horrible woman was murdered.”
Mabel nodded in agreement. “If you ask me, there is no shortage of people wishing to do her harm. Ask anyone in the village. Dame Eccleston was a tyrant and a bully and I should say that she will hardly be missed.”
“Oh Mabel, hush! One shouldn’t really speak ill of the dead like this,” said Ethel.
“I’m only speaking the truth,” said Mabel with a sniff. “That woman would have tempted a saint to murder. Heaven knows how that daughter of hers endured it for so many years. At least the poor child is free now.”
Glenda gave a gasp. “Maybe it’s her! The daughter!”
Florence nodded excitedly. “Yes, yes, and I shouldn’t wonder if Mary inherits all of Dame Eccleston’s money. That would be a double reason to murder her mother.”
“Wasn’t there a case where a son murdered his father by putting poison in his breakfast marmalade?” said Glenda excitedly. “It was to get his money—and the son was such a charming young man too.”
“That was in a novel by Agatha Christie,” I protested. “It was fiction, not real life.”
“But that’s the point—it could be true,” said Mabel, completely missing the point of “fiction”. “And Mary Eccleston would have been in the ideal position to poison her mother!”
“This is ridiculous!” I burst out. “Mary Eccleston is a really sweet girl; she’s so shy and quiet. She’s… she’s as docile as a lamb! I just can’t believe that she could have murdered her mother. I took her home from the fête yesterday and you should have seen how upset she was.”
“Ah… but she could have been putting on an act for your benefit, couldn’t she?” said Mabel quickly.
I thought back to Mary’s clenched hands and pale face as she sat in the car next to me. “No, I don’t believe it! No one could be that upset and just be acting.”
“Oh, but that’s why people win Oscars, isn’t it, darling?” my mother chimed in. “Because they are such wonderful actors and actresses that they fool us all. I mean, Meryl Streep certainly never lost a child to the Nazis but she still made us cry in Sophie’s Choice.”
“Yes, but that’s different,” I insisted. “Mary is… she’s not a professional actress! And even with actors and actresses, they say close friends and family can tell if they’re being genuine.”
“But you’re not a close friend, dear,” Mabel pointed out. “You don’t really know Mary very well at all. In fact, none of us do. Mary Eccleston has always lived in the shadow of her mother. Nobody really knows what she’s like.”
“I still think it’s a ludicrous suggestion,” I said stubbornly. “This is all just speculation. You’ve got no real evidence against Mary.”
“Aha.” The Old Biddies and my mother exchanged a meaningful look.
“What?” I said quickly.
“Nothing,” said my mother airily—a bit too airily. I gave her a suspicious look but she simply gestured to the tray on the table and said, “Would you like some tea and cakes, darling?”
Wow, my mother had really gone to town with the baking that afternoon. There was a full afternoon tea service in dainty bone china, accompanied by a selection of freshly baked scones, hot buttered crumpets, dainty little jam tarts, and slices of lemon drizzle cake, which all looked delicious. I was sorely tempted but shook my head.
“No, thanks, Mother. I don’t want to spoil my appetite for dinner. Devlin’s coming to pick me up around six. I’m just going to dash upstairs now for a quick shower.”
“Oh. Yes. I’d
forgotten about that.” My mother looked like she wished she could forget about it. She compressed her lips. “Well, don’t let him keep you out too late, darling. Make sure you’re back by ten.”
“Mother. I’m not a teenager anymore,” I said impatiently. “I think at twenty-nine I’m entitled to stay out as late as I like. I’ve got the spare key so you needn’t wait up for me.”
“Yes, well… I just don’t like the thought of you out alone on the streets at night with him.” She made Devlin sound like Jack the Ripper.
I glowered at her. “Devlin is a perfect gentleman.”
“Oh, but you just never know, darling, do you, what… er… habits Devlin might have picked up from his criminal associations—”
“Aaaarrgghh!” I contradicted my fine statement earlier by regressing straight back to my teenage years and storming out of the room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Devlin had chosen a lovely little French crêperie in Little Clarendon Street for dinner and it was the perfect setting for a quiet, romantic meal. Unfortunately, my boyfriend didn’t seem to appreciate the surroundings much. He spent most of the dinner looking down at his food, a frown on his face, and seemed to be lost in thought. Finally, as we were being served dessert—a delicious apple cinnamon crêpe—he looked up at me with an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, Gemma. I’m not being a very good dinner companion this evening.”
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to be understanding. “Long day?”
He sighed and finished his glass of wine, then leaned back. “Yeah, and most of it pretty tedious and boring.”
“Are you still sorting out the stuff from what happened at the fête?”
Devlin made a sound of frustration. “Yes. It’s bloody annoying. To think that the CID is being beaten by a bunch of petty thieves!”
“Well, not that petty, from the sound of it. Didn’t you say they could be an organised gang?”