Springtime for Murder

by Debbie Young

  “Pushing sixty, I’d say,” said Bob.

  “They let them into these places very young these days,” said Carol.

  Bob winked at me. “Yes, you might like to apply yourself, Sophie.”

  Carol started to ring up his purchases on the till. “Well, perhaps if Paul just asked her nicely rather than trying to push her into it, she might agree. Perhaps it was him that tipped her into the grave to teach her a lesson. That’s the sort of thing a bully would do. It’s downright wicked, even if she was knocked out first with her sleeping pills. A fall like that could give an old lady a nasty haemorrhoid.”

  I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile. “I think you mean haemorrhage.”

  Bob took a step back, his face serious. “How do you know she was on sleeping pills?”

  Carol pointed to a large white plastic box, stowed out of reach of customers behind the counter, bearing the logo of the Slate Green pharmacy. It held the medicines they delivered regularly, along with a signing sheet for patients or their representatives to acknowledge safe receipt. This service saved villagers a journey to the dispensary in town.

  Bob frowned. “That’s why the dispenser packages the medicines in sealed paper bags, so no-one else beside the patient and the doctor knows what’s inside.” He paled. “Do you know what’s in my prescription?”

  I bit my lip, trying not to think about what that might be. Carol diverted her gaze, pretending to concentrate on putting his shopping into a flimsy plastic carrier bag.

  “Of course not,” she said briskly, inadvertently making a hole in the bag with the corner of the chocolate bar. “Kitty must have just mentioned the nature of Bunny’s medication when I took it down to her one day. Or Billy. He sometimes delivers her prescriptions to save me the bother, when he goes in to do their gardening.”

  Here was a good opportunity for me to introduce myself to Kitty – and to Bunny, when and if she came home from hospital.

  “I don’t mind dropping them in for you any time. It’s hardly out of my way.”

  “Thank you, Sophie, that would be very kind, and I’m sure you’ll be more reliable than Billy,” said Carol. She seemed relieved to have the conversation back on a more business-like track. “I think I’ve got a new prescription for her that came in just yesterday. You just need to sign for them on her behalf.”

  She delved into the front of the box in which the bags were neatly filed in alphabetical order by patient’s name. Carol liked order. Her whole shop is stocked in alphabetical order by product.

  “Actually, no, I haven’t.” She held up the clipboard. “It’s on my list all right, but someone must have signed for them when Becky was covering for my lunch hour yesterday.” Becky is her grown-up daughter, about my age, who recently came with her baby son Arthur to live with Carol.

  Carol held the list out at arm’s length to scrutinise the signature. “It looks like Billy’s already taken them.”

  7 Joshua’s Clues

  I’d expected Joshua to be more upset by Bunny’s accident, because it would remind him of his own frailty. Instead, he seemed positively jocular. Perhaps he felt like fighter pilots used to in wartime after a colleague had been killed, secretly glad not to be that day’s statistic.

  “Perhaps she’d gone down to put flowers on her husband’s grave and tripped up,” he said.

  That seemed unlikely, given that everyone said she’d hardly been out of the house for years, but I was glad of the excuse to discuss her marriages.

  “Which of the three? Did she have a favourite?”

  As I settled down on his sofa, I pictured gold, silver and bronze awards on the husbands’ graves.

  Joshua let out a low chuckle. “All of them, and some other women’s, too.”

  I laughed. “Hector told me she was a charmer when she was young.”

  “What you might call a Pied Piper of men.”

  With tremulous hands, he handed me a delicate vintage glass of sloe gin before returning to his fireside armchair.

  “Yes, she was a charmer, as her husbands would readily attest. And she had more lined up to take their place should another vacancy arise.”

  My eyes widened. “Didn’t the rate of attrition put her other men off?”

  Joshua gazed wistfully at the black and white photo of Edith, his late wife, on the mantlepiece.

  “You never saw her in all her youthful glory. She was a stunner. Her children, too, when they were young, and all of them so alike.”

  I tasted the sloe gin and licked my lips. “How odd when they had three different fathers.”

  Joshua’s eyes twinkled again. “Fortunately, none of them turned out looking like me.”

  I clapped my hand to my mouth. “You mean—?” I knew Joshua had had a love affair with my Auntie May before his long and happy marriage to Edith, and that it had resumed after he was widowed, but I didn’t have him down as a philanderer.

  He shook his head. “A poor jest on my part. Suffice to say there were plenty of fellows about the village who keenly watched Bunny’s pram at each new arrival, waiting to see how Baby turned out.”

  I took another sip from my glass and let the viscous liquid coat my tongue. “So what’s your theory on how she ended up in that grave today?”

  He stared into the distance, out of the front window to the High Street. “I’ve no idea. But it looks as if someone is about to investigate.”

  He raised his walking stick from beside his chair to point to where a police car had just parked outside his cottage. A uniformed officer got out, peered at the house name on Joshua’s front gate, then got back in to his vehicle. The car drove off slowly, moving the few metres required to reach the Manor House, before its engine went silent, just out of our sight. How a policeman could mistake Joshua’s cottage for a manor house was beyond me, but then the police were from Slate Green, so not used to our rural ways. The older houses in Wendlebury don’t even have door numbers, which confuses relief postmen no end whenever our usual postie goes on holiday.

  I hoped Kitty would by now be in a fit state to help them with their enquiries.

  A little later, I let myself out of Joshua’s house, leaving him resting in his armchair. Instead of taking my usual shortcut home over the low lavender hedge between our front gardens, I sauntered slowly to the end of his path to check whether the police car was still outside the Manor House.

  It was, but now there were three people in the car instead of the two officers who had driven past earlier. I couldn’t identify the extra passenger until the driver executed a three-point turn. Pretending not to be watching, I dodged back up my own front path, walking as slowly as I could to my front door, turning only as the police car passed my gate.

  On the back seat, with his face pressed against the window, and waving desperately to attract my attention, sat Billy, looking utterly bewildered.

  8 Kitty’s Cats

  Curiosity and compassion trumped my natural reserve, and moments later I found myself knocking on the front door of the Manor House. Beneath the canopy of its imposing Georgian pillared porch, I felt as small and unwelcome as a Borrower.

  I almost took the lack of an immediate answer as an excuse to bolt back to the safety of my cottage. But knowing Kitty was agoraphobic, I told myself she had to be at home. After the visit from the police that resulted in them taking Billy away, whether under arrest or just for questioning, she must have been anxious, even within the supposed safety of her own four walls. I wanted to reassure her, and to find out what was going on.

  Knocking again to no effect, I plucked up the courage to tug the old-fashioned bell-pull. A deep clanging echoed from within. If Kitty hadn’t heard my knocking, she couldn’t fail to hear this thunderous chime, unless she was profoundly deaf. Dr Perkins had said deafness ran in their family.

  A scraping sound came from within, followed by a scuffling, which got closer and closer. When the door finally creaked open a few centimetres, a bleary grey eye, partly obscured by an unruly curl
of similar shade, peered at me through the crack.

  “Yes?” Kitty’s low voice was sullen and resentful. She packed a remarkable amount of expression into a single syllable.

  “Hello,” I began warily. “I’m Sophie. I live the other side of Joshua Hampton from you.”

  “Yes.”

  I paused, hoping she might say more, if only to confirm her identity, but she said nothing. I tried again.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been round to introduce myself before, but I was worried about you after your mother’s accident this morning.” I took her nod to acknowledge Bunny as her mother. “I was with her earlier, just after the children found her, and I sent for Dr Perkins.”

  “Billy told me.”

  Well, that was progress. At least we were beyond monosyllables.

  She edged the door open just enough to reveal both her eyes, a distinctive aquiline nose and a wide, expressionless mouth. Her face pallid from a life lived indoors, she had the look of a marble Roman statue, and not much more animation. In her youth, she must have been beautiful, even if she did have Billy’s nose.

  “I know who you are,” she said suddenly. “You’re May Sayers’s girl.”

  “Her niece, actually,” I said, wondering whether she was mixing me and Auntie May up with Becky and her mother, Carol. Becky is about my age and had come to live in the village only a few months after I had.

  “That’s what I said.”

  What an unreliable witness, I thought. She can’t even remember her own words from one sentence to the next. What chance would there be of getting any sense out of her about Billy? But I had to ask.

  “I’ve just seen Billy being taken away by the police. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Questioning.”

  I was just wondering whether she was referring to my behaviour or that of the police when she opened the door wide and beckoned me in. I stepped into the entrance hall before she could change her mind.

  As she led me through to the back of the house, I trod carefully between piles of newspapers lining the passageway. Several were topped with scrawny cats washing themselves. In the kitchen, which featured a 1950s linoleum floor and faded 1960s floral wallpaper, more cats were asleep on half a dozen dusty plastic chairs around an ancient Formica-topped table. I felt as if we were interrupting some kind of feline meditation session.

  Kitty jerked the back of one chair to tip a chunky tabby on to the floor, which I took as an invitation to take its place. The poor cat squawked in protest as it landed, briefly washed a front paw to hide its embarrassment, then padded away, aloof, into the hall, as if relocating had been its own idea.

  Kitty went to stand a few feet away from me, leaning against a cluttered worktop in front of long, tall windows overlooking the rear grounds. With her back to the light, I could hardly see her face.

  “Stitched him up,” she said abruptly. “The police. They’ve stitched him up. Billy wasn’t doing no harm. Just looking after me after I felt a bit poorly this morning. And the shock about Mother. Coffee?”

  She rummaged among the crumpled empty food packages spread across the worktop and produced two mugs.

  “Thanks,” I said uncertainly.

  To my relief, I spotted a modern coffee machine behind her. She popped a capsule into the machine, and a moment later presented me with a mug of steaming Americano before dispensing another for herself. I hoped the steam would sterilise the mug.

  A few sips turned her garrulous.

  “The police just came to investigate a report of breaking and entering. They didn’t seem interested in Mother’s accident, of which I knew nothing until Billy woke me up around lunchtime.” She indicated a disturbed pile of papers where her head must have rested on the kitchen table. “I don’t know why I was asleep. I never sleep during the day, nor much at night, either. I used to have sleeping pills, but my brother took them away. I don’t know why the lazy tyke couldn’t get his own. I got up early because I was expecting a visitor at eight o’clock. I forget who. But I couldn’t stay awake. What day is it?”

  She didn’t pause for me to reply.

  “I don’t know why Billy didn’t use his key. Nor did the police. They have keys, don’t they? Skeleton keys?”

  “The police?”

  She nodded slightly. “Billy has a key for when he does our garden, but he said he didn’t have it with him today. So he knocked on the door, and I didn’t answer, so he told me he climbed in the window. So they took him away. But he needn’t have broken in at all, because after he’d gone home yesterday, I discovered the front door lock had jammed open, so he could have got in without his key. When I told him, he said he’d fix it for me, but the police wouldn’t listen to either of us, even though I told them he’s my cousin. I don’t think what he did was wrong, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Of course not. Billy was just concerned for you. That’s why he came straight down here as soon as we found your mother. It was Billy who identified who she was, and his first thought was to come and get you, while we called the doctor.”

  “He said an ambulance took Mother away.”

  “Only later. He came to tell you before the ambulance arrived, so that you could come back with him and go in it with her to the hospital, but you were fast asleep.”

  “But I told you, that’s ridiculous. I’m a very light sleeper. I shouldn’t have been asleep.”

  I shrugged, unwilling to take her word over Billy’s.

  “But why did the police take Billy away? How could that help Mother?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve got no idea.”

  She closed her eyes and clutched her head, staggering slightly. “Oh my lord, I’ve a head full of knives.”

  Worried that she was about to faint, I stood up and led her gently by the arm to the chair I’d just vacated. She slumped down like a string puppet whose wires had been cut.

  “So what happened exactly?”

  She picked up the envelope that Billy had used for the paramedics’ report and held it over her face. “Could you close the shutters, please? This sun’s too bright for me.” I did as I was told. “Anyway, the police searched his pockets and found my front door key in his jacket. Even then, they still acted as if he’d been lying about why he’d climbed in the window. But Billy wouldn’t lie to me. He’s family.”

  Her mouth crumpled, and tears began to spill silently down her cheeks. Beside me, a ginger cat awoke from its slumber and leapt down to rub itself against Kitty’s ankles until she kicked it away. I fumbled in my handbag for a packet of tissues, pulled one out and passed it to her.

  “I’m sure you’re right.” When I patted her free hand, she pulled it away as abruptly as if I’d stubbed out a cigarette on it and hauled herself upright once more. “There must be some misunderstanding. Billy’s no criminal.”

  She glanced about her nervously and got up to stand with her back to the wall. “Stuart doesn’t trust him.”

  “Stuart?” I hadn’t come across a Stuart in the village. I wondered whether he was her boyfriend.

  “One of my brothers. He’s an accountant down in Slate Green. He always says Billy is up to no good, hanging round here all the time. He reckons Billy is after Mother’s money. I don’t think that’s true. Billy’s not after anybody’s money. He’s happy with what he’s got – his little cottage, his old age pension, his odd jobs. He wouldn’t know what to do with more money if he had it.” She sank to the floor, her back sliding down against the wall.

  Getting up from my chair, I went over to kneel beside her and put my arms around her, expecting her to push me away. Although stiff and self-conscious at first, she began to lean into my embrace, then started to sob uncontrollably on my shoulder.

  “I’m sure you’re right about Billy.” I spoke softly, stroking her hair. “Perhaps for some reason someone else tried to abduct your mother, someone we don’t even know.”

  I still couldn’t believe it was an innocent accident.

  Kitty stopped
crying and pulled away to look me in the eye. “What, you mean like aliens? I suppose that could happen.” She got up to fetch her coffee cup, swirling the dregs around and gazing at them as if they might provide guidance. I was starting to gather the kind of festival Kitty used to frequent.

  “Not that sort of abduction. I mean, someone might have taken her out in the wheelchair against her will. Not Billy, though. Did Billy tell you your mother was unconscious when we found her? She’d have been a dead weight for whoever took her there.” I winced at my unfortunate choice of words. “Anyway, it bore the hallmark of someone with more imagination than Billy. Dressing her up like that didn’t seem like something he would do.”

  She looked blank. “Dressing her up like what? In her Sunday best? Is it Sunday today?”

  I stared back. “Didn’t Billy tell you? When we found your mother, she was wearing a fur coat and bunny ears, like some weird Easter bunny costume.”

  “A fur coat? We don’t have a fur coat in the house. She used to have one, which she’d been given as a gift decades ago when fur was all the rage. But she ditched it a few months ago, about the same time that she decided we should go vegetarian. God, I could just eat a bacon sandwich right now.”

  She stared at the floor.

  “She made Stuart take the fur coat away, along with all her old leather shoes and handbags. First of all she wanted to give them a funeral and bury them in the garden, as they had once been living creatures, but Stuart said that was too weird and also a waste. So she told him to take them to an animal charity shop.”

  She waved a hand towards a wall calendar promoting the plight of Chinese bears.

  “Stuart said animal charity supporters wouldn’t buy fur, so she told him just to get it out of the house and do what he liked with it, and that was the end of that. I’ve no idea where it ended up.” She sniffed and blew her nose feebly. “He always seems skint these days, so he probably sold it and pocketed the proceeds, and good luck to him. Anyway, the point is, Mother doesn’t have a fur coat. Only the other day she said she’d rather die than wear fur.”