Weycombe

by G. M. Malliet

  He did travel a good deal for research, and I gathered his teaching duties were somewhat perfunctory and limited essentially to guest appearances. This left Heather with lots of time on her hands. Other women might seize the opportunity to have an affair or take up kickboxing. Heather knitted, canned, and cleaned. Too often she had only her child for company, and I don’t suppose when Gideon was around Heather understood half of what he was saying.

  I knocked at her door, not surprised to see she was taking part in the wreath-hanging competition that gripped the village each season. Right now every other door featured fallen leaves and small decorative pumpkins and the occasional bat with ruby eyes. Heather’s contribution was an eyesore because she could never bring herself to leave well enough alone—a twiggy confection shot through with acorns and seashells painted brown and orange.

  As I followed her into her kitchen I saw she was, swear to God, ironing tea towels as something like a witch’s cauldron simmered on the stove. Nearby in an apple-green high chair sat one-year-old Lulu, engaged in her usual pastime of eating mashed something or other. If it wasn’t mashed already you could be sure it would be by the time Lulu’d smeared it all over her face. This time it looked like oatmeal but of an Exorcist color and consistency—organic and all-natural, of course. Heather did everything but milk her own goats, and that was only because the homeowners’ association forbade anyone’s keeping livestock.

  Before she’d put her people skills to use in human resources, Heather had been a retail professional. I think she worked behind the counter at Boots. That talent seemed to have carried over well into her life as Lulu’s mother. There was a constant busyness to Heather’s existence, and an innate order applied to everything she owned. While I had not seen her closet, you could be certain her sweaters were rolled just so and sorted according to season and color. Each spring, she would seal the heaviest sweaters and coats into vacuum bags and store them in the attic until autumn. I told myself I was way too busy for that but to be honest, I just did not see the point. A jumper thrown on a chair is still there to be found the next day. It’s not like stuff moves around on its own.

  A loom crouched in one corner of Heather’s living room, a great whacking thing of shuttles and knobs. I don’t think she’d touched it for a while. At least, every time I saw it the same shaggy cloth was emerging from its innards. She made all her own Christmas presents from ideas she copied from Pinterest and Etsy, and if you were unlucky, she’d weave or decoupage something for you.

  Lulu let out a giddy, ear-piercing shriek at the sight of me.

  “Is it just me or is she just the cutest thing ever?” Heather asked of no one in particular (certainly not me), looking adoringly at her oatmeal-crusted offspring. She rested the iron on its heel while she settled a new dishtowel in place of the old one. I can’t tell you the last time I ironed a blouse, let alone a fucking tea towel. I engaged in a mini-staredown with Lulu, who at that moment had a big drool of something coming out of her lopsided features. She looked like a miniature sumo wrestler clad in gingham and lace, and she seemed to be adding a few new rolls of baby fat to her middle even as we sat watching her, as if she were the subject of a slo-mo documentary on childhood obesity.

  It’s just you, Heather.

  “She’s a charmer,” I said brightly. “Reminds me of her dad.” The last part at least was true. Her father had gifted Lulu with the chubby face, the Buddha-like build, and mounds of curly dark red hair. This last really was a gift, as Heather’s own hair was stringy as a cobweb. But she was a busy mum, too busy to fuss with her hair, as she never tired of telling everyone who would stay to listen. She was also too busy to fuss with her wardrobe, which always looked like something knotted together out of dried rainforest plants. Lulu had a lot to overcome; I hoped I wouldn’t be around to witness the teen years.

  Of course, Heather and I had to spend the next five minutes discussing the mystery of birth, with particular reference to the miracles of reproduction and heredity and the DNA markers that had gone into producing such a specimen as Lulu, before I could finally get down to business. But while Heather seemed to be aware there had been a murder in the village—a murder of someone she knew personally, mind—she evinced more interest in her dishtowels.

  “Did you get any sense,” I finally got to ask, “that Anna was preoccupied in the days leading up to her death?”

  I must have sounded even to Heather’s ears like a documentary on police procedure, for she stopped making funny faces at Lulu and turned, giving me her full attention at last. Lulu aimed a cross-eyed look of unqualified contempt at her mother’s back, then grinned at me as if I were her favorite co-conspirator.

  “Preoccupied?” Heather repeated.

  “You know. Worried. Sad. Distracted. Or happy, even. Manic. Was there something going on in her life, did you sense? Because—and forgive me, I may be wrong—I never had the impression you and she had much in common. And yet I noticed she was over here a good deal. I just thought she might have confided in you, given that you were so close.”

  “I wouldn’t say close.”

  “Okay. What would you say?”

  “Friendly.”

  I could see this was going to be a challenge, and I wished the police very good luck if they interviewed this doorstop. They’d have to take her to the station just to get her away from the ironing board. Lulu made some kind of choking, gurgling sound that pulled Heather’s always fleeting attention back to her child, and before we were plunged again into one of Heather’s digressions on the virtues of breast milk and whole grains, I said, “Look, let me speak plainly: Anna always had an angle. I mean, we all have one. We all want something from someone. It doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It means we’re people.”

  Heather nodded along with this simple logic but said nothing, so I prodded her: “What did Anna want from you? Did you get any sense of that?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Did Anna seem to want something from you?”

  “No. Not really.”

  Sigh. I wasn’t sure why I thought she’d know anything. It was more her physical proximity to Anna. That and the occasional recipe exchange at book club, more out of politeness on Anna’s part than a sudden interest in marinated tofu, I was sure.

  “If you really want to know what’s going on,” Heather said, the beam of her focus returned to the precious Lulu—it was like trying to hold a conversation with a kitten—“you should talk with Elizabeth.”

  “Who?”

  “Elizabeth Fortescue. I think she and Anna were friendly.”

  Knowing Anna, she had her eye on the elderly Elizabeth’s cottage in case she decided to sell, or anticipated the day Elizabeth would have to go into assisted living. Anna was like that, always one step ahead of the market.

  Heather continued, talking to me but looking at Lulu: “Elizabeth knows where all the bodies in the village are buried. Literally, since she’s on the St. Chrysostom’s vestry. But you know what I mean. You won’t have any trouble finding her—she’s at the church every weekday afternoon.”

  A good tip. I wouldn’t have thought of Elizabeth right away, but Heather was right: she was a busybody who had her finger on the pulse. Proving that even Heather had her uses beyond fermenting everything in sight.

  “A village Iyanla,” I said, nodding.

  “Who?”

  “As in, Iyanla, stay the hell out of my life.”

  “Who’s Iyanla?”

  “She’s on Oprah. She’s—oh, sort of an expert on everything. Particularly other people’s business.”

  My eyes wandered over to the enormous pot simmering on top of the stove. The table was covered with Mason jars.

  “I’m making jam,” Heather said, going over to turn down the heat.

  “Why? Did Whole Foods burn down?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Never mind. I’m sure it’s
delicious. Way better than any store brand.”

  “I should think so.”

  “Although I bought a jar of blueberry preserves on sale at Waitrose last week and it was delicious.”

  Heather was aghast at this heresy, as I knew she would be. “I think a lemon is the last thing I bought at Waitrose,” she said, “and that was months ago. Did you know lemon is a natural degreaser?”

  “No. Myself, I prefer to use harsh chemicals that pollute the environment.”

  I gave her a moment to study my expression and figure out that I was kidding. Heather kept information like that stored in a tin neatly labeled “Social Interactions: Visual Cues.”

  I looked around as I waited for those gears to kick in. The kitchen was of course organized and homey, with each item in its own indexed container. It was as if a team of stagers arrived nightly to arrange the wooden cooking spoons just so in their white ceramic jars, to mist the leaves of the potted herbs on the sill, and to squeegee the sparkling windows. I wondered how long the perfection would last once Lulu began to walk and scream and pull things willy-nilly out of the lower cabinets, but for now her little toys were neatly contained in a single wicker basket in the living room. No surprise, Heather had woven the basket herself.

  If I were leading the police investigation she would have my vote for potential suspect in the OCD category, but eventually I got out of her that she had an alibi. She was shopping at the Sew-Sew and had a conversation about how to make a French seam (don’t ask, no idea). Then she’d tripped over to the yarn shop, swinging her little shopping basket, followed by a stop at the greengrocers. All easily documented, although in truth, one day’s shopping for Heather was much like another. Would the shop owners even be able to verify this?

  “Eliza had a sale on interchangeable knitting needles,” Heather informed me. She zipped open a little container that held rows of what looked like something you’d see at the dentist’s. I made suitable noises to show my awe, throwing in a tinge of envy when she added, “It was the last one on sale.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “My husband will have to wait another year for hand-knitted socks.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Heather did not have much of a sense of humor—at least, my comments tended to fly straight past her. As she was always looking for ways to increase her income and self-worth by selling her useless homemade crap, you had to be careful what you wished for. Her preserves for the church fundraiser might have landed a few people in hospital but fortunately the jars exploded prematurely. Before she could say, “I’ll make him some if you’d like,” I had to fess up that I was kidding.

  Lulu had nodded off for a moment, so turning Heather’s attention back to the topic of Anna’s murder was easy, sort of like peeling open a little box labeled “Dead Anna.” It was all anyone wanted to talk about, and that would be true for months to come.

  10

  Did you need anything more, Jillian? Because I need to sterilize these jars and change Lulu in time for Baby Play, so I—”

  “I guess I was just sort of wondering what your reaction to Anna’s murder was. How you were feeling. You know.” Even Heather looked a bit skeptical at my sudden concern, and I reminded myself not to underestimate her. Gideon was no dummy and he must have seen something more in her than I ever could. On the other hand, maybe she just catered to his secret bondage fetish. Still, I figured that with Heather, it was best to keep the questions open-ended and my motives for asking vague.

  She put down her wooden spoon on a ceramic holder shaped like a little windmill.

  “They’re really certain it’s … you know?”

  She didn’t want Lulu learning a new word like “murder.” I nodded.

  “I can’t believe it. Right here in our neighborhood, or nearly. What next?”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s all way too close to home. I wonder if you’d seen her lately—to really talk to her at length, I mean? If you had any sense of what was on her mind?”

  She shook her head. “Honest—I hardly knew her, really.” I knew better but I let it pass. Keep her talking and something useful might pop out. “She was older than me, and interested in different things. You know how it goes.”

  I did indeed. I imagined that Anna had written Heather off pretty quickly—with Anna, it was always all about Anna, and advancing Anna’s own needs and wants. Although she might have seen Heather’s semi-famous Gideon as holding some romantic potential: I wondered about that. Just because I couldn’t see the attraction in a red-headed Buddha didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  Heather was funneling something into a jar now. When she informed me she was making her own window cleaner I saw even more clearly why people like Anna had disowned her. I just hoped she didn’t mix it in with the jam somehow. It was absurd—I mean, it wasn’t as if Heather needed to save money by making her own Windex. That was true of everyone in Weycombe Court, unless someone was going bankrupt I didn’t know about. Anna, for example: she’d never let on anything was wrong but the real estate boom-bust had touched even Weycombe’s strong market.

  “Funny thing, though,” said Heather, judiciously eyeing a measuring cup of white vinegar. “As it happens, I think I do know what was on her mind. Who, I mean.” She reached for a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

  I perked up. “Really?”

  She began shaking the mixture in the spray bottle. “I’ve been wondering whether to tell someone. It’s really none of my business. But if it helps them catch whoever did this … ”

  “Tell me and let me be the judge,” I said, adding rather pompously: “It’s your civic duty to tell the police what you know—of course you realize that.”

  “I know. But really, it’s nothing specific.”

  “I was a reporter for ages.” A slight exaggeration. “I know how these investigations work. What the investigators are liable to think is important may surprise you.”

  “That’s just it. I really don’t want to get dragged into it or drag anyone else in by mistake. It won’t bring Anna back, will it?”

  “Would you really want her back?”

  She stared at me for a moment, letting that sink in. Then a surprisingly feminine little squeak of laughter escaped her. “Anna—yeah. She could be a real Miss Fitch.” She casually leaned over and wiped some more effluvia off Lulu’s face. “Or worse.”

  I took a wild guess Miss Fitch was cockney for bitch. Knowing I should not go down that road, I should just ignore her and plow on, I said, “Worse?”

  “You know what I mean. Starts with C, rhymes with hunt.”

  I paused, pretending to have to search the windmills of my own mind.

  “Oh,” I said, wide-eyed as comprehension dawned. “Well, yeah. But she was pretty nice to me. When I first came here.”

  “She was nice to everyone. To their faces, anyway. Especially when they were coming or going. You never knew when they might want her to sell their houses for them.”

  “So, just tell me already,” I said, trying not to throttle it out of her. “I promise you, pinky swear, that if it’s important, I’ll use my media connections to get the word privately to the police. You’ll never even have to be mentioned. Unless you’re, like, an eyewitness or something. Or you’ve found a signed confession in your kitchen.”

  She shook her head. “I’m an eyewitness but there must be a dozen others. She was involved with … someone in parliament. Gideon knows about it, too. Can you see why I have to keep both of us out of it?”

  Actually, I didn’t see. Of course, I knew about Anna and the MP, but I played dumb. “You don’t mean … ?”

  She was looking really uncomfortable now, clearly wishing she’d said nothing. If her husband was pally with Colin Livingstone, our local up-and-comer and rider to hounds—so what? It was only natural. There was speculation Colin might one day lead his party. In any event, he fancied himself a big expert
on Wither Britain, giving him and Gideon lots to talk about. He was an Oxbridge type and like Will he was the real thing, with a pedigree practically going back to King Canute.

  “Colin and Anna had something going on,” she said quickly, dropping her voice. She looked around the room, as if it might be bugged, or Lulu might be pressing the record button hidden under the seat of her high chair. “Something serious. Gideon is sure of it. And worse, Alfie found out about it.”

  Of course, I knew as much already, except for the part about Alfie’s certain knowledge. How Gideon knew was anyone’s guess, but maybe riding to hounds was just an excuse to brag about sexual conquests in the open air. In any event, Anna was not known for her discretion.

  “Wow,” I said. I wanted to encourage more confidences, not shut Heather down by letting on I knew much of this already.

  “You do see the problem?” she asked. “I have to be discreet. At the same time, I have to tell what I know. Anything else would be wrong. Wouldn’t it?”

  The silence hung so long in the air I realized she was expecting an answer. I am so seldom the go-to person for parsing moral quandaries.

  “Yes, that would be wrong,” I said.

  “But the thing is, I don’t know know.”

  I emphasized it was her bounden duty to tell what she knew. “But not until you’re sure,” I added. “Lives could be wrecked, Heather. Murder investigations are like that. Everybody goes downriver with the victim. By the way, you weren’t out walking yesterday by the river, were you?”

  It was a clumsy segue in an attempt to test the strength of her shopping story. Because shops like the Sew-Sew don’t open early on Mondays. They might not open at all on Mondays, now that I thought about it. Because most women in Weycombe didn’t sew their own clothes; they went to London, like normal people, to buy them. I wanted to find out exactly where Heather had been, and when.