THE FLOWER ARRANGER AT ALL SAINTS a gripping cozy murder mystery full of twists (Suzy Spencer Mysteries Book 1)

by Lis Howell

  ‘You should call Mummy. You’re being disobedient. She’ll go mad when she finds out.’

  ‘No she won’t. She’ll be pleased. And it’s exciting being here by ourselves. I’ll look after you.’

  ‘I don’t want you to, Jake. What if that Matthew Bell comes round? I’m scared of him.’

  That was a fair point. Jake had deleted Matthew’s email but the message had been burned into his brain. That day, he had been bothered to see the Bellmobile circling the house for the first time in weeks. He knew Molly had seen it too, through the window. He remembered what Matthew Bell had said about his mother. And his sister.

  ‘He won’t touch us.’ But the words sounded loud and hollow. Jake realized he was sweating. He looked up. Big grey clouds were rolling in from the east. The sky was matted with them.

  ‘Let’s go in and get some Coca Cola.’ Inside, he opened the fridge and almost put his head in, it was so refreshingly cool. ‘Here you are, Molly.’

  ‘But what about Mummy? She’ll ring Daddy, won’t she, to see if we’re safe in Newcastle. And he’ll tell her.’

  ‘She won’t do that for hours yet. We can watch films and eat ice cream.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’ Suddenly, in the distance, there was a roll of thunder. Molly screamed, more for effect than in fear, but when she saw how it alarmed her brother, she screamed again for real. ‘There’s going to be a storm. Jake, I’m frightened, I really am.’

  ‘OK, OK. What do you expect me to do about it?’

  ‘You’ve got to get us a babysitter, Jake. That’s what Mummy would say. Anyone will do. Ring people up.’

  ‘All right.’ Jake gave his sister a hug. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find someone.’ He thought for a minute. ‘It’s an emergency, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes!’ Thunder rippled through the sky and cracked above their heads. Outside, darkness had come early.

  ‘OK,’ Jake said, and started to punch a number into the phone.

  * * *

  In his London flat, the elderly vicar was holding court to the rather nice young woman who had turned up out of the blue.

  ‘George Pattinson? Oh yes,’ the self-consciously mellifluous voice went on. ‘Super chap! And Joan is marvellous. Such a tragedy about his breakdown. But I was so sorry to hear that Phyllis passed away. I saw her earlier this year, you know. Quite by chance! I lecture on Roman art. It’s a sideline of mine. Came out of lecturing in theology, a fascination with the ancient world . . .’

  ‘Theology?’

  ‘Absolutely. Anyway, you were asking about Phyllis? I bumped into her at a college reunion in March. I was giving the talk. Though I must say, I thought she looked her age.’ Suzy watched him preen a little, running his hands through his sparse white hair. He seemed to have lost his thread.

  ‘Did you tell Phyllis something that upset her?’ she prompted quietly. ‘She left a note which nobody could understand. It referred to meeting a mutual colleague, someone George Pattinson knew too. Could that have been you?’

  ‘Oh, very possibly. Phyllis was doing teacher training as an ordinary student. George and I were postgraduates, of course.’ He laughed in rather a superior way.

  ‘What was it you told her?’ Suzy held her breath.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I should repeat it. Confidentiality, you know. Of course Phyllis was a teacher so that was all right . . .’

  ‘Please . . .’ Suzy breathed. She didn’t have time for his complex ethics system. ‘Phyllis died before she could tell anyone. Even George. It might be important.’

  ‘So George was never told? He was probably too ill to cope. It’s not nice when things like this happen,’ he said. ‘Such a pity. That sort of person can be dangerous, you know.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Can’t you give me some sort of clue?’ Suzy’s eyes were pleading. In response he shut his own. Then suddenly he snapped them open.

  ‘All right,’ he said, his voice brisk now. ‘But I’m not giving names or pack drill!’

  Suzy allowed herself to breathe, and to listen.

  It had been very sad, the prissy old man went on. He had come across a talented student, surprisingly intelligent, at the university where he now lectured in theology. That was one of the problems with theology. It didn’t just attract those who wished to study. It attracted people with blind faith, too. Then they spent the whole course trying to prove their point. He didn’t want to name names, he stressed again. But this had been a mature student who came from Cumbria, who’d seemed a little unhinged and who’d been sent down from the university, and then returned to the original parish. He’d only made the connection a few months ago, and then when he’d bumped into Phyllis, it seemed a good idea to mention it to her.

  That was all he thought he could say, really.

  A mature student of theology. Like Robert Clark? Suzy had never asked Robert where he had studied. It could have easily been ‘distance learning’ at a London college, with summer schools and occasional visits.

  ‘May I use your loo?’ Suzy asked.

  In the bathroom, she looked at her white face in the mirror. What had Russell Simpson said when they met him on the train? He had seen Yvonne Wait going into the church, really early on Saturday morning. So Robert could have killed Yvonne before he met Suzy for coffee. Suzy had assumed Yvonne had gone along to All Saints at mid-morning. But if she was there at eight o’clock, or even nine, Robert could have pulled her off the ladder and then ambled home to meet Suzy.

  And he did have a real motive to kill Yvonne. She could damage his wife’s reputation, and she was going to inherit Phyllis’s bungalow. Suzy had thought about this as she’d walked through the Islington square, crammed with Georgian houses more beautiful than any in Tarnfield. What made the village special was the environment. It would be just like Yvonne to develop Phyllis’s house, ruining the view from The Briars, spoiling the home that was a shrine to Mary Clark.

  She had to make the old man tell her the name of the mature student. He couldn’t be a broken reed any more, talking one minute then clamming up the next! He had to tell her the truth, and stand by it.

  She went back into the dining room. The elderly clergyman was talking as she pushed the door open.

  ‘I really shouldn’t be discussing these things!’

  ‘But you have to. People’s lives are hanging on this! Look, if you can’t tell me directly, just talk about this student’s good points, things that everyone knew . . .’

  ‘Oh dear, this is such a tricky one. I suppose I could . . . you know, this student was very thorough, but failed the second year exams because of an obsession with Old Testament prophecies. In the end, the college had to say goodbye to her, sadly.’

  ‘To her?’ Suzy felt her head spinning.

  ‘Yes, she tried very hard. But as I said to Phyllis, someone like that really ought to be watched in a parish. In my opinion she was mentally disturbed. Such a pity because she worked so hard. Like all students, spare cash was always an issue.’ He chuckled. ‘I remember she even worked part-time in the local hairdresser’s!’

  ‘Oh God,’ Suzy said.

  Fifteen minutes later she scrambled up the stairs into the flat. Robert and Rachel were sitting, sipping wine and laughing.

  ‘It all fits,’ she said to their uncomprehending faces. ‘It’s really strange, but it all fits. I know who it is. But we’ve got to go home.’

  * * *

  In Tarnfield, Jake opened the front door. ‘Thanks so much for coming,’ he said. ‘Molly’s scared of the storm and Dad isn’t picking us up till tomorrow. Molly’s not infectious any more, are you, Moll?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ His sister gave a squeal of delight and ran clattering down the hallway. ‘I’m not scared any more either.’ She flung herself at the visitor, arms round her waist.

  ‘I’m OK now you’re here, Daisy.’

  42

  Trinity season, continued

  From battle and murder and sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us.

/>   From the Litany

  Robert crunched the gears in Rachel’s little car and said, ‘Oh, shit.’ Beside him, Suzy was trying yet again to raise Nigel on her mobile phone.

  ‘I can’t understand it. He’s not at the flat and he’s not answering his mobile. He should have picked up the kids and let me know this afternoon.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s taken them out?’

  ‘Maybe. They don’t fly until Monday. But I wish I knew where they were.’

  She sat forward, grim-faced. Robert crunched the gears and said ‘Shit’ again. Suzy couldn’t concentrate. She was navigating from Rachel’s tatty road maps, but Robert had taken on the driving of the first leg because he said he knew the way to the motorway. To her surprise, he said he had a sister who lived in Hendon.

  ‘You never mentioned her?’

  ‘Mary didn’t like her so we hardly met,’ he said. ‘I’d like to get in touch with her again.’

  ‘What’s stopping you?’

  I don’t know any more, he thought. Jenny had come to Mary’s funeral and invited him to stay with her in London. But he hadn’t been away from Tarnfield overnight until this weekend, which seemed astonishing now. It was surprising how easy it had been. Even coping with the North Circular seemed achievable, though he could feel Suzy’s tension at every red light.

  ‘We have to get to the police,’ she said again. ‘I’ve got a feeling in my bones that something’s going to happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was sharp with Daisy last week at All Saints. She wanted me back in Nick’s fold and I told her I wouldn’t go. And worse, I said Molly wouldn’t go back to Sunday School either. I shouldn’t have done that. It was spiteful.’

  ‘You’re not a spiteful person,’ Robert said.

  ‘I can be sharp-tongued sometimes. I wish to God I hadn’t done it to Daisy.’

  ‘Other people’s certainty can be pretty provocative.’

  They sat in silence as the car bowled along the motorway.

  ‘It’s going to take us hours in this thing,’ Robert murmured.

  ‘I know. But it was good of Rachel to lend it to us and saves fussing over cabs and things at the other end. I just want to get back.’

  ‘The kids will be all right, Suzy.’

  ‘But I won’t be happy till I hear from Nigel.’

  She tried ringing again; then she stuffed the phone into her bag in frustration. She had called the house too, but there had been no reply.

  Rachel had made a flask of coffee for them, while they packed. They shared the driving, passing each other plastic-tasting liquid and drinking it from a mug with a straw. The drink was the only comforting thing on the journey. The motorway had been busy at first with people going out for summer evenings, but after the Midlands it grew quieter and by Knutsford, the sky was darkening.

  ‘Looks like a storm,’ Robert said.

  They had been quiet on the first leg of the journey. But tension couldn’t make the car go faster. When they reached the North, they began to talk urgently, putting the pieces in place.

  ‘If Phyllis had already told Daisy that she knew she’d been chucked out of uni, Daisy would be terrified of Nick Melling finding out. And there’s the allegation of instability.’

  ‘Perhaps he would have asked her to stop working with the children. That would have really upset her.’

  ‘So she goes into the church and threatens Phyllis with the reed. And maybe she leaves her, and Phyllis dies later.’

  ‘Could Daisy be so callous?’ Robert asked.

  ‘I think so.’ Suzy remembered the evening they had spent making Whitsun decorations. ‘Daisy was absolutely uncompromising about religion.’ She had a sudden insight. ‘She bullies her mother, too. I think Nancy’s terrified of her. And she said she did English at uni, then changed. It must have been to theology.’

  ‘I bet Yvonne was blackmailing Daisy. Perhaps Nancy filled in some hospital form saying she was Jewish.’

  ‘Yes! That would be it! Why should being Jewish worry someone like Nancy? But Daisy relates to her father and her Christian half. She thinks Jesus is the only way to God. If she can’t persuade her own mother to believe, it doesn’t look good, does it!’

  ‘Do you think Nancy knows?’

  ‘Not conclusively. But she must know Daisy is disturbed. Monica told me that the Arthurs still owned the land behind Lo-cost. I bet Yvonne was blackmailing Daisy about her mother’s background, to get the land.’

  ‘So Daisy killed her. But why leave the hellebore?’

  ‘Because the reed worked so well.’

  Robert thought about it. Daisy may have used the reed to ram her point home, and realized later how much it would affect people who knew their Bible. The Isaiah references were clever, and to Daisy they would clinch her case. She had found the time to cut Yvonne’s hair, and it was luck Yvonne was wearing her anklet. The hellebore was just an extra special touch.

  ‘I see. There would be no point in these people getting their come-uppance if no one knew why. And much of Isaiah is about how to behave before God.’

  ‘And Tom Strickland’s accident was a God-given opportunity.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a warning too. Anyone who stands in the way of her and Nick Melling and the one route to salvation gets hurt.’ Suzy shuddered. ‘I shouldn’t have been rude to her. I can’t help feeling I’m next on the list.’ She jabbed at the phone again. ‘Where the hell is Nigel?’

  The rain came at Lancaster, great fat drops splattering against the windscreen. It was fierce but sporadic. There was some sickly sun as they drove towards Shap Fell, but at the top the sky was gunmetal grey and the crack of thunder came from the east.

  ‘I wish it would get on with it,’ Suzy said fretfully. But the sky just went on darkening, and, as they turned off the M6, night and the coming downpour mingled in inky blots of cloud.

  By comparison, the street lights of Tarnfield looked welcoming.

  43

  Trinity season, continued

  O ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever.

  From the Benedicite Omnia Opera, Morning Prayer

  The first thing Suzy realized when she entered the house was that the luggage was still there. She nearly fell over it in the blackness of the hallway.

  ‘Oh my God, Robert. The kids’ stuff is still here.’

  She flung open the living-room door. Empty. Then she pounded up the stairs.

  ‘Jake’s here,’ she yelled. Robert went up two at a time behind her. She was shaking her son, and shouting.

  ‘Stop, Suzy. He’s completely out.’ Jake opened his eyes, showing the whites, then shut them determinedly. Suzy let go of his shoulder and he slumped back into his duvet. She shook him again.

  Robert went back onto the landing. He opened all the doors as he went, looking for Molly’s bedroom. He could sense at once that she wasn’t there and snapped on the light. Suzy was right behind him.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she said. ‘Where’s Moll?’ Frantically she pulled open the fitted wardrobe; then she crashed into the bathroom, ripping at the shower curtain. ‘Where is she?’ she screamed.

  ‘Stop, Suzy. She’s not here. But look at this.’

  Suzy went stiff and silent with fear. She looked down where Robert was pointing. On Molly’s cupboard the books and toys had been moved and there were some small, wilting flowers.

  ‘A daisy chain.’

  ‘Yes, but it says something.’ Robert leaned forward. ‘Get me a pen.’ He peered at the flowers. ‘Actually, it’s quite clear. She’s left them on paper and written the reference herself. It’s Isaiah 57.5.’

  ‘I’ll get the Bible. And call the police.’

  ‘Get the Bible first. This is Daisy’s message to us. Remember, Daisy loved Molly. She won’t want to harm a little girl.’

  Suzy was already back. At first her hands were shaking too much to turn the pages. But she forced herself to be steady.

  ‘It’s weird: Yo
u who burn with lust among the oaks, under every green tree. Oh, listen to this — who slay your children in the valleys, under the clefts of rocks. Robert, what is she saying?’

  ‘I don’t know. We don’t have many oak trees around here.’

  ‘But we do!’ Suzy grabbed his arm. ‘That day on the Scar, when we stumbled down over the edge of the fell. They were little oaks, weren’t they? And we left the children playing on the hill. I kissed you, remember? That car we heard . . . maybe she saw us but we didn’t see her!’

  ‘We can go to the Scar and call the police on the way.’

  Lightning laddered the sky. Robert kangaroo-hopped the car down Tarn Acres, crashing the gears again. He swore. The fuel indicator was on empty. Suzy was fumbling in the dark with her phone when suddenly it rang out. She punched the keypad.

  ‘It’s Nigel,’ she said to Robert. ‘Where the fuck are you!’ she said to the phone. Robert could hear his enraged voice at the other end; then Suzy clicked it off. ‘It’s my fault of course for leaving the kids. Oh God, oh God,’ she moaned to herself. Her phone made a sad little bleating noise. ‘Shit. My battery’s flat. Can’t we go any faster?’

  There was no sign of Daisy’s car at the Scar.

  ‘So we’re wrong.’

  ‘And we’re out of petrol,’ Robert said. He let the car freewheel into the car park and bump to a halt on the dry-stone wall. An enormous drumroll of thunder rumbled overhead and Suzy felt the first drops. ‘It’s hailstones,’ she said. ‘But it’s July!’ The world had gone mad. Robert was standing on the wall, waving his arms.

  ‘I can see a car. It’s hers. She’s driven right over the fell to the edge of the path. Let’s go.’

  He started to run. Suzy felt the pain in her chest and her knees giving as she ran, the hummocky ground tripping her up and the sharp pins of ice-cold hail pricking her face. Robert was ahead of her.

  When he was ten yards from Daisy’s car, Suzy heard her gun the engine. The car jumped, then moved slowly towards the edge. For a moment it stopped, caught on one of the first rocks that meant the start of the uphill country. Robert lurched forward, hurling himself on the back of the car. It coughed and roared, then pounced forward, only to stop again in a rut beside the path. Suzy caught up and hammered on the window. Then she wrenched open the back door. Daisy was crouched over the steering wheel and Molly, fast asleep through all this, was strapped in the back. Daisy turned to look at Suzy, her face blank and her eyes staring.