by Sarah Kelly
“You’re still doing the fundraising?” Xavier asked.
Laurence nodded, determined. “I hope it doesn’t seem insensitive. But the west wing roof is just as bad as it ever was. One long rain and we’ll have serious problems. And, well, I’m still doing it because…” He looked down into his lap.
“It gives you something positive to do?” India guessed.
Laurence smiled weakly. “Exactly. It’s about the only thing that’s keeping me going at the moment.” He got up and brushed down his trousers with a renewed vigor. “So I had better get going. Why don’t we all walk down to the entrance together?”
“Let’s,” Xavier said.
Laurence kept up a steady stream of chatter as they went through the long hallway toward the main stairs, then descended them. “The piece is very nearly finished, but I always need to work on the finishing touches. It’s very rare I have such a concrete deadline for any artistic project. It definitely makes a change in terms of the dynamic of the creative process…” He went on in the same vein for a while.
“Oh,” said India, just as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “I just wanted to ask you a quick question. I hope it’s not too personal.”
Laurence crossed his arms and nodded. “I think you know just about everything there is to know about me, in terms of the details of my life. Or at least you know some of the deeper things that other people do not generally see.” He chuckled softly. “I don’t think there is anything you could ask that would be too personal, given what you already know.”
Xavier chuckled along. “Yes. Investigations tend to turn out like that. But it’s just to solve the case. We’re not prying, we’re really not.”
“I know,” Laurence said. “It’s fine.”
“I just wanted to ask you about something your accountant said. Geoffrey mentioned something about you having a ‘funny turn’ at some point. Do you know what he could have meant by that?”
Laurence looked rather taken aback. “Funny turn?” He scrunched up his face, evidently thinking hard. “What would make him say that?” India watched his expression, which seemed to be genuinely deep in thought – but then who could really tell? Eventually he said, “Ooh, I think I might know. You remember I mentioned calling Alexander and asking him if he might… well, contribute for the roof?”
“Yes,” Xavier said as India nodded. “We remember.”
“That was the day he was leaving for California, I think, so he was very short with me. Rather blunt.” His face took a weary cast. “I know it might sound ridiculous, but that was not the only reason I was calling. For one thing, Felicia was just about to arrive, and I wanted to ask some questions so I could make things more comfortable for her. If she needed me to buy anything before she arrived and suchlike.”
“That was thoughtful of you,” India said.
Laurence looked uncomfortable. “Well, actually Old Row is the thoughtful one. I would never have thought to do such a thing. She always says I’m far too focused on my artwork to the extent I never think of anyone or anything else. Perhaps she’s right. Anyhow, the phone call. I was also… I was also ringing to see if we might try to heal some… old wounds, I suppose.”
“You were offering him an olive branch,” Xavier said.
“Well, trying to. I’m afraid it was quite like me waving a branch in his face rather clumsily, him accusing me of trying to poke his eye out, then snapping the branch in half and stamping on it.” He sighed. “We even got into an argument on the call, over nothing really, and he said he would never set foot here again. Of course, fate changed all that.” His face was looking ever more gaunt by the minute. “And now he’s convinced that I’ve done it. Or that we’ve all conspired against him and killed his daughter just to bring down his ‘empire’.” He shook his head. “His blasted empire. Don’t people who try to do these things read any history? Empires usually end up in disaster. At least, they always crumble in the end. Now, what was I saying?”
“About what Geoffrey called a funny turn,” Xavier reminded him.
“Oh yes. Well, after the argument with Alexander I was rather… disturbed, shall we say. I arched down to the estate agent in the village and told her I was to put up the Hall for sale. I was thinking sod my father’s wishes, I can’t be dealing with it all anymore. I had visions of flying off to Nepal or Ethiopia and living in a guesthouse for the rest of my life. I still daydream about it sometimes. My only responsibility would be to paint, to sleep, to eat. Have you ever tried Ethiopian food? It is wonderful.”
“No,” India said. “But I think there’s an Ethiopian restaurant near our house back in Florida. I think?”
“I think so,” Zave said. “We should try it out.”
“Oh yes, do,” Laurence said heartily. “First there’s a large flat pancake sort of bread called injera, and you share a platter between whomever is eating. And then you have various sauces, vegetables, meats etcetera laid out on top of the injera. No forks or knives, mind you, but rather you use the pancake as your cutlery by tearing strips off and using it to pick up the food. It is a marvelous way of doing things, I must say. Delicious, absolutely delicious.”
India smiled at Xavier. “We’ll try it when we get back.”
“Absolutely.”
Laurence sighed. “Well, that guesthouse dream is still in the back of my mind, for after the art and sculpture school is established. Since I have no children and neither does Alexander, the estate would probably be auctioned off when we both died. It would end up being torn down, most likely. So it is better that I set it up as a school. I’ll name it Drummond-Coe College of Fine Art & Sculpture, perhaps. That would please father, I think.” He smiled. “You might wonder why I’m trying to placate my long dead father, but I want to make sure he’s not too disappointed with me, in case we end up meeting in hell.” He laughed, and it seemed to lighten the atmosphere some. India hadn’t realized quite how heavy it had been. “An eternity is a rather long time to spend with my father berating me for not carrying on the family name in some way, don’t you think?”
India and Xavier laughed along, glad for some light relief.
“Oh, of course, this funny turn,” Laurence said. “So I said I wanted to sell it. Then I went to The Arms and had a few too many to drink. A couple of local lads had to carry me home and the next day I had the most awful banging headache. But it was nothing serious, really. I heard it was talk of the village for a week or two.” He picked at the sleeve of his long sleeve T-shirt. “Which, in my view, only illustrates that people around here have far too little going on in their lives.” He looked up at them with searching eyes. “Wouldn’t this world be a much kinder place if we all minded our own business and followed our own passions and simply supported each other? I think it would be.”
CHAPTER 14
“My head is literally spinning,” India said, as they walked into Mrs Clitheroe’s carefully tended front garden.
Xavier took her in his arms, wrapping her up in a hug. “You don’t feel well?”
“I’ll be all right,” she said, snuggling into his neck. “It’s just pretty intense right now. I’m just glad we can sit down and eat for a while and not think about anything much. At least that’s what I’m gonna try and do.” Mrs Clitheroe had offered to cook them up a nice dinner they could all enjoy together, and India and Xavier had gratefully accepted. They’d enjoyed Mrs Rowan’s homecooked food so much when they’d been staying at the Hall. While the local sandwich shop had been keeping their bellies full since, it wasn’t quite the same. The BLT baguettes and tuna sweetcorn sandwiches had filled a gap, but offered none of the charming comfort that a hot meal did.
But when they knocked on the door, Mrs Clitheroe did not come and answer the door. Within a couple of seconds, India was already beginning to feel uneasy. They kept knocking and knocking, but there seemed to be no sign of life in the house.
“You don’t think…” India couldn’t even finish the sentence.
But Xa
vier knew what she meant. “Nah, of course not,” he said, trying to be casual. But he kept rubbing one finger against another like he was trying to push back his cuticles, something he only did when he was nervous. He peered in the kitchen window to find it empty. No food was on the stove. The place was spotlessly clean. He shrugged. “She’s probably forgotten about it. You know how busy she is.”
That was true. Mrs Clitheroe certainly hadn’t slowed down with age. If anything she’d sped up, sitting on the board of the Women’s Institute, running her own flower arranging club, and participating in a huge number of clubs and schemes. She told them proudly she’d never miss a session of church choir, cardmaking club, or her particular favorite, the Craft Club for Boys, where she taught little schoolboys how to knit and crochet and cross stitch at the end of the school day. “The notion that craft is for girls only is ridiculous,” she’d told them firmly. “Boys take to it like ducks to water, as long as they’re not embarrassed and shamed for it by others.”
“I really hope she’s all right,” India said, biting the inside of her lip and trying desperately not to let her imagination speed up into melancholy overdrive. It was all too easy to imagine the murderer targeting her next, her body lying… No, India told herself. She mustn’t let her mind go wild. It was a great shame they couldn’t ring her, but she’d told them that cell phones cook the brain and if they managed without them in the old days they could do the same now. “You’re right,” India told Xavier. “She’s just at some club or other and is having so much fun it’s completely slipped her mind.” She hooked her arm into Xavier’s. “Looks like bacon ‘sarnies’ again for us, pal.”
He pushed open the gate. “Not for me, ‘love’,” he said, imitating a British accent. “I’m going to do that chip butty thing they’re always talking about. I’m going to give it a whirl. We’ll have to go down to the fish and chip shop first and bring them over to the sandwich place. That’s what the sandwich lady said, right?”
“Yep,” India said. They’d been a little weirded out by the idea at first. Thick cut French fries, deep fried, then made into a sandwich, often with ketchup or mustard, or both. “I might as well try it out, as well. We could get some fish, too, actually.” It was the deep fried kind in thick crispy batter. “Cholesterol levels through the roof, here we come!”
Xavier laughed.
Soon they were sitting at the only table in the tiny sandwich shop. The sandwich lady, as they always called her, had given them free slices of white bread to make up their own chip butties, buttered, of course. “And another old English classic,” she’d said, handing them two drink cans over the top of the counter, laughing. “Jamaican ginger beer. Once you’ve had a good Indian curry, you’ll be well on your way to mastering English cuisine.” She then put her finger up in the air. “Ooh, but we do have a couple of things. Pork pies and scotch eggs. One sec.” She took up a plate and placed two tiny little pies on it, so small you could eat them in two bites. Then with her hygiene-gloved hands she picked up two little round balls covered in breadcrumbs. “Try these out.”
“Thank you,” India said, taking the plate, delighted.
“You’re welcome.” She nodded at them both with a mischievous smile. “You should be thankful we don’t do jellied eel and black pudding, though. I don’t know how anyone stands to eat that stuff.”
“Jellied eel?” India said. The whole thing sounded slippery and slimy and gross.
Xavier asked, “What’s black pudding?”
The sandwich lady shuddered. “Pigs’ blood. They mix it up with seasonings and some other stuff, then put it in sausage skin and cook it. People tell me it’s nice but I haven’t got the stomach to try so much as a taste. Ugh.”
“Gosh,” India said. She’d once nearly become a vegetarian. That dish sounded like her worst nightmare. “It sounds unappealing, to say the least.”
Xavier grinned. “I’d try it.”
“Don’t listen to him,” India said, rolling her eyes and linking her arm in his. “He’ll eat anything.”
But they both enjoyed their chip butties.
“Surprisingly delicious,” India said, dipping the last mouthful in ketchup. “I think I want to do that all over again. There are still fries, right? I mean chips.”
“You read my mind,” Xavier said. “Only this time…” He unwrapped the paper that held the fried battered cod and then broke a piece of fish off. “I think I’ll have a fish and chip sandwich.”
India shook her head and joked, “You’re butchering the fine English cuisine. Why not just cut up the pork pie and the what was it… welsh egg… and stuff all that in there, too?”
“Scotch egg,” Xavier said. “And that’s actually a great idea.”
The sandwich lady laughed when Xavier went to the counter to get more bread and told her his plan. “Why not, love? It’s your meal.”
On their second round of sandwiches, chips-and-fried-fish-and-batter-and-pork-pie-slices-and-scotch-egg – which turned out to be an egg wrapped in meat – sandwiches, India watched the sleepy village of Aston Paddox go by. It went by very slowly, it had to be said, with a dog walker passing at one minute, then a mom with her preschool kids five minutes later. There was certainly no steady stream of people or customers, and India wondered how the sandwich lady kept her business afloat.
After a few minutes the sandwich lady started chopping something. She spoke in such a casual voice, but when India looked back she could see the look in her eye was more intense. “Liam Dancer’s funeral’s in a couple of days,” she said. “Poor lad.”
“Did you know him?” Xavier asked.
“Oh, well everyone knows everyone around here. I heard… well, I hope you don’t mind me prying, but… well, I heard you were the ones to find him.”
India nodded. “Along with Laurence. At the Hall.”
She shook her head. “Terrible business. And after that Felicia… it was you who found that body as well?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Xavier said. “I hope it isn’t some trend.”
“Well, there’s got to be a murderer among us, hasn’t there?” the sandwich lady said conspiratorially. “There’s got to be. Or perhaps… murderers.” She put such emphasis on the last word that India thought maybe she knew something.
“Murderers?” India said. “You think two people are working together?”
“Maybe.” She looked uncomfortable, like she wasn’t sure whether to let more of her ideas out into the open.
“It’s a possibility,” India said.
Xavier nodded. “Usually it’s one person working alone. But sometimes people tend to work together. Especially lovers.”
“But that’s what I had in mind!” the sandwich lady said, like she couldn’t contain herself. “Two lovers working together! In fact, two secret lovers working together.”
India’s brain started working. Already her mind was making random pairings, guessing who the secret couple was. Laurence and Mrs Rowan? Laurence and Tasha? Geoffrey and Felicia? Muriel and Constable Middleton?!
“Well, we know that Liam and Felicia were an item,” Xavier said. “Does that have something to do with it?”
“You bet it does,” the sandwich lady said. “In fact, I’d bet my life on the fact that it’s secret lovers killing secret lovers. But not so secret. Because I saw them with my very own eyes.”
“Who?” India said, her curiosity squeezing all the patience out of her.
Suddenly the sandwich lady looked worried. “I shouldn’t tell you. I might be wrong.”
“It’s fine,” Xavier reassured her. “We’re not going to rush over to them and accuse them. We’ll just take it as another idea to add to our list.”
The sandwich lady stopped chopping and placed her hands carefully on the counter. She took a deep breath. “I’m doing the right thing, I’m doing the right thing,” she said to herself.
“Yes, you are,” India said.
“It’s just, well… Tasha and I have never seen e
ye to eye, even since school days. But I still feel guilty. Accusing someone of a murder is a serious thing!”
“You’re not accusing her,” Xavier said in a measured tone. “So who is Tasha’s secret lover? Tell us.”
She paused, then looked all around her. “Charlie Tomlinson,” she whispered.
***
“But that doesn’t make sense,” India said. She and Xavier had gone to a field to talk, and it was bathed in the golden sunlight of the late afternoon. Aston Paddox was surrounded by fields on every side, thousands of acres of them, and one could have walked for hours and hours through them without coming to any other villages or houses. “Because if Tasha was with Charlie, then why would she have cared about Liam sleeping with Felicia? If she was a cheater, too, I don’t see why she would have been that angry. Certainly not enough to kill him.”
Xavier nodded. “Unless…”
India could practically see the cogs going around in his mind. “What?”
“This is a little out there, but bear with me. Tasha, Charlie and Liam were obviously all friends at some point, I’m guessing. What if they knew Felicia had stolen the twenty thousand? Maybe she’d told Liam, let’s say. Told him she’s going back to America, too. So he tells this to Charlie and Tasha, unaware that they’re actually together behind his back. They decide to kill her and split the money three ways. Then Charlie and Tasha decide to get rid of him, too. Get him out the way so they can be together.”
“Whoah,” India said. She ran her hand along the long grasses as they went through the fields. “That would really be something, huh? It seems a bit extreme, though. With twenty thousand pounds three ways, they’d be getting less than seven thousand pounds each. Is that enough to kill for?”
“Scarily, it’s actually… 6666 pounds each. Six thousand six hundred and sixty six pounds.” Xavier had always been good at math.