by Rebecca Tope
But Maggs had phoned Den, who had said he was on his way. Did he understand what was going on? As far as Drew could work out, the former police detective had focused his attentions onto a completely different group of women: Geraldine and Hilary and somebody else. Three witches, all over sixty, and pillars of the community, in one way or another. Not really witches at all. That was just Den’s silly word for them.
It was shock, he told himself. He was still suffering from the shock of seeing his wife motionless in a hospital bed. Still unable to work out whether she would live or die, and how he was going to manage, either way. What if she was permanently disabled? What if she needed constant nursing, from here on? This, he finally admitted to himself, was the thing he feared most. Drew Slocombe, who had once been a nurse himself, did not want to spend the prime years of his life tending a helpless wife. Especially since a helpless wife would also mean having to take full responsibility for the children. It wouldn’t be fair, he whined to himself. Surely that wouldn’t happen to him? Surely he’d never done anything bad enough to deserve such a fate as that?
Den arrived then, in the familiar battered car. He unfolded his long legs from the driver’s seat and came quickly to the front door, where Drew was waiting for him.
‘Where is she?’ he demanded. For a moment, Drew could only think he meant Karen, and that this was a very silly question.
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. ‘Oh, Maggs,’ he realised. ‘She went to Della’s.’
‘Where is that, exactly?’ The impatience was very carelessly concealed.
‘Just up there. You know. Through the village.’
‘I know that much. What’s the house called?’
Drew stared at him blankly. ‘Della’s house? It’s white. On the right hand side. You’ll see the bike, I suppose. And cars. She said there were other people there.’
‘Are you OK?’ Den leant down slightly to examine Drew’s face. ‘You look a bit weird.’
‘I should have gone with Maggs,’ Drew said, a sudden moment of clarity restoring him to a brief normality. ‘I was scared.’ He looked at Den like a small boy. ‘I don’t really think I can take much more. That’s pathetic, isn’t it?’
‘Not surprising,’ said Den calmly. ‘I don’t expect Maggs wanted you along. She’d have been worried about you.’
‘I’m worried about her,’ said Drew, realising how true that was, as he spoke the words.
‘Me too,’ agreed Den, and strode back to his car without any further comment.
Drew was summoned back into the house by the sound of the telephone ringing. He knew, even before he picked it up, that it was the hospital.
Den had no difficulty finding Della’s house. The light was rapidly fading, and a clump of tall white daisies in the verge outside Della’s gate glowed luminous in the twilight. The two cars parked halfway across the narrow road were an annoyance. Den pulled in as tightly as he could, a short distance from them. He could see Maggs’s motorbike leaning against the stone wall that encircled Della’s front garden.
There was a light on in a front window, and before knocking on the door, he glanced in.
The scene was apparently peaceful, despite the fullness of the room. Geraldine Beech was squatting, low down beside a fireplace, staring up at two younger women sitting side by side on a sofa. Maggs was standing, with her back to the window. Della, looking taller and thinner than before, was beside the door, a hand on the knob, head up and chin thrust forward. The words at bay flitted into Den’s head as he watched.
It was with some reluctance that he stepped away from the window and knocked on the door. He knew he was disturbing a situation full of intensity. Something was happening, a climax building, that ought to be allowed to run its natural course. But this very sense of climax made it impossible for him to hold back. The looks on the faces of Della and Geraldine had persuaded him that this was no friendly evening get-together.
Whatever Maggs had intended with her ‘flushing out’ strategy, this was undoubtedly the closest she would get to it. One of these women was presumably being ‘flushed out’ at this very moment, and Den thought he had discerned which one, from that brief glance through the window.
And yet, how could Maggs have had time to put her plan into action? He had come the moment she’d phoned him, taking less than twenty minutes to cover the distance to Drew’s. Was it possible that she had said her piece and drawn the anticipated response in those few minutes? Or had she walked into something that had already been happening before she arrived?
Nobody responded to his knock for a long time. He considered stepping back to the window and rapping on it, making his identity clear. He knocked again, knowing there was no chance that he’d gone unheard. They were preparing what they would say to him, or concluding their conversation – or deliberately excluding him from their all-female assembly. So he grasped the door handle, turned it, and pushed open the door, knowing all along it was very unlikely to be locked.
He was met by Sally Dabb, with a vividly bruised face and wild expression. She said nothing, but barged past him and out onto the garden path. He turned, as if to follow her, but was stopped by the voice of Maggs. ‘Let her go,’ she instructed him. ‘We don’t need her any more.’
Den entertained a brief image of a flock of sheep, needing to be herded into a compound for shearing or worming. He’d helped various friends and relatives over the years with such tasks. He knew that when you let one escape, you were doomed. Somehow, all the others would manage to follow. With sheep, it was definitely all or nothing. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she affirmed. ‘Quite sure.’
Della then appeared, moving stiffly, chin still defiant, skin still pale. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Join the party.’
He nodded to her, but his attention was all on Maggs. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked her.
‘Of course I am.’ She was obviously cross. Was it because he’d interrupted, he wondered. That would be unreasonable, after she’d summoned him so unequivocally.
Somehow they all returned to the living room, where Julie Grafton remained on the sofa, and Geraldine slumped onto a fragile-looking footstool near the fireplace.
Geraldine, Den realised, was the odd one out – the one he hadn’t been expecting to encounter. In his mind she was inextricably connected with Hilary Henderson and Mary Thomas; it seemed wrong, somehow, to see her here with the younger women.
‘Mrs Beech,’ he said, acknowledging her. She looked up at him, and he became acutely aware of the strangeness of the situation. He had no right to be there. He wasn’t a police officer, he barely knew anyone present, apart from Maggs, who had probably intruded as shamelessly as he had himself. Geraldine Beech seemed to read his thoughts.
‘We all seem to have barged in on something,’ she said. ‘Poor Sally, it’s all been too much for her, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t go feeling sorry for Sally,’ said Julie Grafton. ‘What about me?’
Geraldine sighed noisily. ‘It’s terrible for all of us, I suppose,’ she said. ‘The whole thing is dreadful.’
Den kept his gaze on Maggs. ‘Are you going to explain?’ he demanded, with a sinking sense of having arrived either too soon or too late.
‘It’s not really …’ she looked around the room, and shrugged elaborately. ‘Geraldine was saying she went to see Karen. Julie was upset because she’d lost her temper with Sally. And Sally was already in a state because Archie’s been talking to Bill Gray, about Peter. And he hit her.’
‘Slow down,’ Den ordered her. ‘You’re not making any sense at all.’
Geraldine shifted on her footstool. Maggs stopped talking and seemed to droop.
‘But why is everybody here?’ Den wondered, turning to look at Della.
The question seemed to cause the room’s temperature to drop dramatically. Everyone froze. Maggs was apparently about to embark on an explanation when the sound of another car engine, racing impossibly fast along the village
street, distracted her.
‘Drew!’ she said, a moment later.
Maggs went out to meet him, with the others straggling behind her. He came through the gate, his face red, the car engine still running.
‘It’s Karen!’ he announced. ‘She’s woken up again and is desperate to talk to me. I’ve got to get there as fast as I can. I’ve sent Mrs Westlake to sit with the children, but she says she can’t stay long. Maggs … Della … someone – will you go and take over from her?’
Without even waiting for a reply, he reversed the car into a narrow gateway across the road from the house, and somehow turned it around.
‘He’ll have an accident if he drives like that,’ said Den severely.
‘Karen must want to tell him who shot her,’ said Maggs, in a clear voice. ‘And there’s a policeman there, as well. He’ll be sitting there, listening. We’ll soon have an answer to the whole business.’
Geraldine, Julie and Della all heard her, as she had intended.
Without warning, Della began running towards the garden gate. Unbidden, the image of another escaping sheep came into Den’s mind. He threw an all-embracing glance over the remaining flock, wondering who was going to make a dash for it next. ‘I’ll go and sit with Drew’s kids,’ Della said. ‘Poor little things.’
Stupid with relief, Den stood aside to let her go. Maggs, on the other side of the gate, made a similar move. ‘Where’s your car?’ she asked.
Della hesitated. ‘Bill’s got it,’ she remembered. ‘But I’ll walk. It’s only five minutes. Mrs Westlake’ll wait. She hasn’t got anything urgent to do; she just likes to get to bed early.’
Something about her tone made Den blink. She was too calm. It was as if she’d thought this through in advance and knew just what her moves were going to be. But he didn’t know her at all. Maybe she was always like this, seeing right through to the central task in hand and dealing with it. Some people were.
‘We’d better drive you, all the same,’ he offered.
‘No, no. I don’t want you to. You’ll need to talk to Julie and Geraldine. They’ve both got plenty to say to you.’ She gave a bitter smirk, before setting off at a trot towards the other end of the village. Den watched her, feeling he’d just lost some sort of match. She was carrying a shoulderbag, and wearing sturdy shoes. The impression returned that she’d been intending to make an escape in any case.
‘How could she have known … ?’ he murmured aloud. Only Maggs heard him.
‘What? Known what?’
‘That Drew would turn up when he did. That the kids would need minding. She seemed ready for it, don’t you think?’
‘She’s just quick, that’s all.’ Maggs was dismissive. ‘Let’s get back to the others.’
The living room seemed just as full without Della, although considerably less tense. Julie had gone back to her sofa, but Geraldine was now comfortably deep in an armchair.
Den had no idea what to do. He was not, he reminded himself sternly, an investigating officer. He was a local chap, interested in the local people, and concerned at what had been happening. He simply wanted to help, he told himself.
‘I think we have to talk about who killed your husband,’ he told Julie, almost regretfully. ‘Isn’t that why we’re all here, anyway?’
‘I know who it was,’ said Julie, her pale blue eyes turning towards him where he stood so tall over her.
‘No, Julie, you don’t,’ Geraldine corrected. ‘You’ve got it wrong. I know it wasn’t Bill.’
Bill? Den rummaged through the collection of names in his head.
‘What? Della’s husband?’ said Maggs. ‘Why did you think it was him?’
‘Because he and Peter worked together on a project connected with genetically modified fruit.’
‘OK,’ said Maggs slowly. ‘When?’
‘Four years ago. It was very secret. Peter never liked it. He began to realise the implications, and talked to other people about it. People like Geraldine.’ She flipped a hand towards the older woman. ‘Until most people in the Food Chain group knew about it. Then SuperFare got wind of it, and decided to run a trial on the shelves.’
‘But they’re not allowed to do that!’ Maggs was horrified.
‘They were then. They were very careful. Everybody assured them it was perfectly safe. And I suppose it was. They hadn’t done anything too ghastly to the apples, as far as I could work out. I thought Peter was being a bit daft about it, to be honest.’
‘It’s you who was daft,’ said Geraldine crossly.
‘Anyway, it was vitally important that Bill thought Peter was still entirely on his side. He’d have lost his job if the secret came out before the trials were completed. It was all incredibly cloak and dagger; everybody acting as if they were in MI6. But it just felt like a game, until last year.’ She heaved a deep sigh, and dashed a finger beneath one eyelid.
‘Which one would have lost his job?’ queried Maggs. ‘I think I got confused at that bit.’
‘Bill, of course. He’d stuck his neck out with the supermarket people, as well as various growers and exporters. There was a huge amount of money to be made, but everyone knew how precarious it was. And then Peter just blew it, the idiot.’
‘How?’ Den and Maggs uttered the word simultaneously.
‘He sent a letter to SuperFare, threatening to tell the media what was going on. He wanted them to withdraw the contract for the GM fruit. Then he offered to supply them himself, with the same quantities of organic fruit, as a sort of sweetener.’
‘And they accepted! Amazing!’ Maggs was stunned.
‘Not quite. It took a year of negotiations, but eventually they said they’d buy juice from him. And they never really promised to stop their involvement with GM stuff. They just put it on hold.’
‘No great hardship, the way the public started acting up,’ said Geraldine sourly. ‘Peter had much less influence than he thought.’
‘But he meant well,’ Julie insisted. ‘And he put everything into the juice business. Left the laboratory job and concentrated everything we had into the new venture. That was very brave.’
‘So his stuff was completely GM-free?’ Maggs checked.
‘Of course it was.’ Julie’s expression was outraged. ‘That’s the whole point.’
‘And Bill lost his job?’
‘Sort of. It all fell apart, anyway, a year or so ago. He blamed Peter for that.’
‘And you think he waited a year and then killed him at the farmers’ market?’ Den was sceptical.
‘He had reason. And he’s got a crossbow.’ She presented this final shot with a flourish.
Den and Maggs exchanged a look. ‘Has he?’ said Den.
‘I saw it ages ago, when we were here for a meal. Della and Bill invited me and Peter. I went up to the loo, and had a bit of a snoop round, like you do. It was hanging on the wall in their spare room.’
‘Didn’t you tell the police when Peter was killed?’
Julie shook her head. ‘I was going to, but then Bill seemed to have an alibi, and it was quite a while ago. And I thought – well, what good would it do? I always quite liked Bill, you see.’
Maggs leant towards her. ‘Liked?’ she echoed.
‘Oh, nothing ever came of it. You could say it was just a way of evening things up. Della always had a big thing for Peter, after all.’
Den and Maggs exchanged another look. She blinked and he frowned. Geraldine seemed to have been struck speechless.
‘So what about Sally?’ Maggs asked after a moment’s pause. The question seemed to rip through a carefully constructed barrier. Julie’s face registered shock.
‘Sally?’ she breathed.
‘She seems to have been terribly fond of your husband, too.’
‘That was a smoke screen,’ said Julie, matter-of-factly. ‘They’ve always been good friends, but nothing sexual in it. Peter was using Sally as a cover up.’
‘Whoa!’ Maggs pleaded. ‘Is this for real?’
> ‘No, it isn’t,’ put in Geraldine. ‘You have to trust me on this, Julie. Peter really was in love with Sally. I’m sorry to have to say it; I know it’s going to hurt you. But they were truly besotted with each other. I saw it growing and deepening. Whatever he told you, it wasn’t true.’
‘But he said it was all intended to get Bill and Della off his back. He said they were always after him, blaming him for the failure of the project, sniping and sabotaging.’
‘But how would an affair with Sally change any of that?’
‘He said Della had always had a thing for him, and she was giving out signals that he needed to deflect. He thought that if she could be discouraged, Bill would leave him alone as well.’
The room hummed with muddled thoughts and scrambled bits of mental jigsaw.
‘I remember Peter Grafton when he was seventeen,’ said Geraldine. ‘He was absolutely gorgeous. Not just girls of your generation were chasing him – most of their mothers had private fantasies involving him, as well.’
‘Which does sort of confirm what Julie’s just been saying,’ said Maggs. ‘I suppose.’
Den was approaching it quite methodically, sifting and eliminating. He held up a hand. ‘Bill didn’t do it,’ he said to Julie. ‘His alibi is solid.’
‘But he did have a crossbow,’ said Maggs. ‘And a motive.’ The collective penny dropped. ‘I think we’d all better go quickly to Drew’s house,’ said Den.
For Maggs the penny rolled down a further chute or two. ‘We have to save Stephanie!’ she yelled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Karen was still awake when Drew arrived. The sentinel policeman was by her bedside, with notebook open. ‘She wouldn’t tell me anything until you got here,’ he grumbled to Drew.