The Rhyme of the Magpie

by Marty Wingate

  Dear Linus, Thought I’d let you know that all is well with Rupert. I’m unable to meet tomorrow, but look forward to our discussion on how to go forward with the estate’s needs uppermost in my mind. Could we make it Tuesday morning instead? Thanks!

  I hit “send” and exhaled. Should I be looking at “situations available” websites?

  I rang Bianca instead. Seven-year-old Enid answered and began a long story about a hedgehog in the garden that she had named Eddy—what was it with this family and their “E” names?—and how she would introduce us when I came for a visit. Bee relieved her of the phone, promising a biscuit in exchange.

  “Have you heard Dad’s story?” I asked first thing.

  She had. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me what was going on,” she said.

  “Yes, rather annoying when people don’t tell you the truth about things, isn’t it?”

  That gave her pause. “Well. So is Dad really all right? Is this all about Fenny?”

  “There’s an example right there,” I said. “I go along merrily thinking that Dad and Fenny are great friends, and then find out Dad’s been cleaning up his messes for years. Stephen told me about the A-levels scam.”

  “When did you see Stephen?” Bee asked brightly. I could see her ploy but was too tired to complain, and so we reminisced about our childhood and the gang of three for a few minutes.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked. “How’s little Evangeline—or is it Eduardo?”

  Bee snickered. “We don’t know which yet. I’m fine, just tired. I’m looking forward to that burst of energy at the end. The week before Emmy was born, I cleaned out four wardrobes and the attic.”

  It’s true, she did become super-mum right before each birth.

  “And now you,” she said. “Tell me about Michael.”

  Dad or Beryl had grassed me up—snitching on me before I could break the news. “Tell you what about Michael?” I asked, acting the innocent. I checked the time, got up, and locked the TIC door.

  “Are you or are you not?”

  My sister knew how to get straight to the point.

  “Am I what?” I asked with great indignation.

  “Oh, please,” Bee said.

  “We had a lovely evening Thursday—I cooked. He brought me a box of chocolates.”

  “Well, that answers my question,” she said. I laughed, breaking any hope of fooling her. “And now, details, please.”

  I gave them. The word “accommodating” may have come up once or twice.

  “And now what?” my sister asked.

  My face felt hot as I searched for a way to explain something I hadn’t actually thought through yet. “Well, he’s asked me out for tomorrow.”

  Bianca didn’t answer for a moment. In the background, I heard little Emmett rabbiting on in his unintelligible English.

  “Jools, that sounds promising, it really it does,” she said at last. “You’ll stick with it, won’t you? Get to know each other—see how you are together. You know, you do seem to go to extremes occasionally, either plunging in or running away before you know if something will take hold or not.”

  “I do not plunge in,” I said, switching on the kettle for another cuppa.

  “How long had you and Nick known each other before you got married? You have no idea how many people asked Mum if you were pregnant.”

  “All right, perhaps we were…impetuous. It was a mistake, I realize that now. But I’m not always impulsive.”

  “Gavin Lecky.”

  “One time—that’s not fair!”

  “And that fellow who worked in the pub near Hodbarrow when you were filming the great crested grebe?”

  Oh, him. That was a weekend better left where it belonged, in a cheap guesthouse in Kendal. It was by mutual agreement that we never saw each other again. I swished the tea bag around in my mug before fishing it out and slinging it into the sink. I didn’t like this list of failures in my love life.

  “I’m not saying any of those fellows were terrible choices,” Bee said in a pacifying tone. “I’m only pointing out that you never hang around long enough to know.”

  It’s true, the phrase “working it out” has never sounded terribly romantic to me.

  “I want you to be happy, Jools—to find someone you love who will love you back. No matter how difficult that may seem at times.”

  I sniffed and wiped my nose on the back of my hand. “You don’t want me to have four children, do you? Because I don’t think that’s in the cards.”

  Bee laughed, and I joined in. “Then you’ll just have to be the best auntie in the world—you remember Emmy’s playing Nana in Peter Pan?”

  “Certainly I do,” I said. But I had not remembered to write it down. I did so now, scribbling it on the back of an envelope until I could put it into my phone calendar.

  “And you’ll tell me how it goes tomorrow?”

  “I tell you everything, you know that.”

  —

  I walked home dreaming of a picnic at the seaside and decided to spend the evening going through my wardrobe for the proper outfit. Still a bit chilly for summer frocks, but I might be able to pull together cropped trousers and a gauzy top. At that thought, a frigid gust of wind rounded the bend and hit me in the face. I added a cardigan to the mix.

  But when I arrived home and looked into my fridge, I realized that although I may be able to work up an outfit, I would need to go out for a meal or go to bed hungry. I chose the Royal Oak—Smeaton’s other pub. As manager of the TIC, I was the face of the estate, and needed to spread myself around.

  The server—whom I’d met once or twice but whose name I couldn’t recall—brought me the half pint of cider she had recommended while I waited for the haddock and chips. “Thanks, um…”

  “Louisa,” she said.

  “Louisa. Thanks.”

  I sat in a corner at a tiny table with a good view of the light Sunday evening crowd, smiling to myself at how comfortable I felt in my new home. I took a sip—crisp, ever so slightly sweet, and a tiny kick from the alcohol. Over the rim of my glass, I saw a good-looking fellow with cropped brown hair sitting across the room with a pint of his own. He lifted his glass to me and nodded. I smiled, then blushed and looked down at the table. So much for a quiet meal. Louisa came round, nodded back to the man, and said, “You’re drinking his cider.”

  I set my glass down abruptly. “But you gave it to me.”

  “No, I mean, he’s the maker. Bugg’s Best Cider—it’s made right here on the estate.”

  “Oh yes.” A cider orchard—that sounded vaguely familiar. I raised my glass to him and said, “Very nice.”

  “He’s my boyfriend,” Louisa said. “But that’s not why we serve it,” she rushed on. “It’s local. Adam plans to sell it at the farmers’ market when you get that started.”

  The penny dropped. This was a sales presentation. “It’s quite good, I’m sure he’ll do well.”

  “It would be even better to have a permanent place to sell it in bottles,” she went on.

  “Has he talked with Akash Kumar at the shop?”

  “Mr. Kumar does stock it, yes, but of course, he’s only room for a few bottles at a time. Not quite the same as at that enormous farmshop on the Chatsworth estate.”

  Don’t even mention the Chatsworth estate to Linus, I thought, he yearns to be even a tenth as successful. That brought me up short. If he longs for that, he shouldn’t dismiss my summer supper out of hand. If we pulled that off, we’d be one up on Chatsworth. And if we can have a summer supper, why can’t we have our own farmshop as well?

  “I see that I need to meet Adam.”

  Louisa called him over to my table and we had a quick introduction; I told Adam to look me up at the TIC.

  “Thanks for that, Julia,” Louisa said when she served my haddock and chips. “Let me bring you another half—on the house.”

  —

  I crawled into bed and stretched out, considering my options. If I were
to lose my position for proposing the summer supper, why not sound even crazier and champion a farmshop? An organic farmshop—with fresh fruit and produce, a bakery, cheese and meat counter, and ready-made meals. Of course, we’d need a café, too. I drifted off to sleep with visions of opening a picnic basket and offering Michael a selection of local cheeses and a bottle of Bugg’s Best followed by chocolate truffles followed by Michael reaching out and me falling back and feeling the sand sifting into my knickers.

  Damn sand.

  —

  “Julia, good morning,” Akash said. He stood behind his counter, straightening his grocery apron. “I’ve heard good news about your father.”

  I smiled. “Good morning. Yes, he’s fine and home and all. I hope you and Vesta had a lovely afternoon.”

  “The walk was invigorating—only three miles, but far enough for me. Vesta took notes to give you—they began the walk indoors with coffee and cake. She hopes that Nuala might do the same at the Hall.”

  “I don’t see why not—what better way to get people ready for the outdoors?” I asked, digging my hands deep into the pockets of Mum’s—formerly Dad’s—old chestnut-colored cardigan. I’d thrown it on over a skimpy cami—the cardy was long enough to cover up the threadbare bum on my trousers. That’s the beauty of a quick trip to the corner shop—there is no dress code.

  I gathered a few essential items for my own larder—milk, eggs, butter, tea—and sat them on the counter before scanning the drinks shelf, searching for the real goal of my visit—that special something I could contribute to the picnic. Ah, there—I spied Bugg’s Best on the top shelf. “Could I have a couple bottles of the cider, please? I met the maker last evening.”

  Akash reached for them and said, “Adam is a fine young man and truly trying to make a go of this. He works as a librarian during the day, but cider is his passion.”

  “I hope we can help him.”

  “When I mentioned Adam to my son Daniel—look at what this young man is doing with his life, I said—Daniel told me the public relations firm he works for could help promote the cider. Public relations seems more of a whitewash to me—covering up what a person or a company is really like. Not terribly respectable, but it’s a new post for him, and Daniel seems to love it. Thinks his managing director walks on water, he does. Look,” Akash said, and pulled out his phone. “He sent me a photo taken just the other day—that’s Daniel standing next to his managing director—Miles Sedgwick is his name.”

  It was a clear picture—not close up, but certainly close enough to see the two men in suits. That was Daniel, all right. And Daniel was standing next to a man with neatly combed black hair and a smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. Michael, I thought as I rubbed away the pricking sensation creeping up my arms. But no, I looked closer—this man was a few years older—I could see the gray at his temples. This may not be Michael, but there was no doubt Miles Sedgwick and Michael Sedgwick were quite close—it must be his older brother.

  “What company is this?”

  “Didn’t I mention that? They’re out of Cambridge—HMS, Ltd.”

  Chapter 30

  My hands trembled as I pulled money from my pocket in an attempt to pay and leave as soon as possible. The coins spilled out and dropped to the floor, bouncing and rolling away under the counter and the adjacent sweets display.

  “Sorry, how clumsy of me,” I said as explosions went off in my head. HMS, Ltd.—the new PR firm hired by Power to the People to make even their most egregious actions look good. And only now do I learn the boss of the firm is Michael’s brother. Did he own the company? And more important—what does Michael have to do with it? Did he not think that it would be a conflict of interest—his brother owning the PR firm trying to make a mockery of Rupert’s work?

  I felt faint as it hit me that perhaps Michael didn’t care about conflict of interest. Perhaps this was all part of a grand scheme. He was a spy infiltrating the enemy’s camp to learn all he could and report back to Oscar Woodcock. Michael had even admitted to talking with Woodcock right here in Smeaton-under-Lyme on Friday—he’d just neglected to say what about.

  I fell on my knees to get the blood flowing again as I began sweeping up the one- and two-pound coins that had skittered away.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Akash said, joining me. We counted out my money, and he dropped the coins in the till. “Are you all right?”

  “Just not quite caught up with my rest, I suppose,” I said. At least, I think that’s what I said as I threw my shopping into a bag—I couldn’t pay attention to anything except the voice inside my head that screamed, You knew he was keeping a secret!

  Yes, of course I knew. He refused to tell me about his past, always deftly evading any questions. He’d been at the news conference where the video was shot—maybe he shot it himself and posted it, and then feigned shock that someone would do such a thing. But now that I recall, he didn’t seem all that shocked. Now I saw how he worked his plan—taking the position as Rupert’s assistant as an enemy agent in order to sabotage Dad’s career, his life even. Does Dad know that he has a spy in his midst?

  I’d made it back to my cottage before I even knew I’d left the shop, the fury inside me about to overflow. The door caught on the flagstones, and instead of pushing it open completely, I squeezed past. Dropping my shopping on the floor, I turned round and kicked the door with every ounce of energy I had.

  A stab of pain shot through my foot and up my leg. I screamed and hopped on one foot, caroming off the wall, smashing into the shopping, and coming to rest against the sofa. Breathing hard, I gingerly put weight on my foot, and was rewarded with another jolt. My big toe began to throb, and my shoe felt tight. At least I was in trainers and not heels. I tried again, persisting until I found that if I shifted my weight to my heel, I could walk. Barely. I collapsed on the sofa, head in hand, and forced myself to think.

  First, I would ring Dad and tell him of Michael’s deceit. My God, he could be up to his ears in everything—even murder. Where had Michael been that Sunday morning Kersey was killed? Doing Oscar Woodcock’s bidding by killing Kenneth Kersey? And the letter—a good way to point the finger at others, wasn’t it?

  Wait—first, I would find Michael and tell him his cover was blown and to expect a visit from the police. The thought crossed my mind that I used that threat with everyone but did little to follow up. No longer—I’d be delighted to see Michael behind bars for deceiving me.

  Hang on—first, I would go have a chat with Miles Sedgwick, managing director. I’d squeeze every detail out of him about what HMS, Ltd., had planned. Yes, that’s where I’d start, and then I’d have the facts straight to present to Dad and confront Michael.

  I left the shopping where it lay, barely noticing the egg yolk leaking out onto the flagstones, and picked up my bag. Out on the pavement, I pulled the door closed firmly but carefully. Hobbling the few doors down the street to where I’d parked my Fiat, I climbed in for the journey to Cambridge.

  —

  Each time I depressed the accelerator, a fresh wave of pain ran up my leg, but it helped, because it kept my anger in check. Save that for Michael, I thought, not for other drivers on the road, as I lay on the horn at someone who took too long to turn onto the A1017.

  I would be on foot in Cambridge—there was no way round that. A lighted sign on the way up Hills Road into the city displayed how many parking bays were available in which city-center lot. Monday morning, and it didn’t look good, but I went straight to the Grand Arcade, closest to my destination, and circled through the many levels until I was at last rewarded when a car pulled out of a spot in front of me.

  Limping out onto the pavement, I tried to get my bearings. I had come across HMS, Ltd., by accident and couldn’t quite recall how I’d got there. I decided to start at the Guildhall—I’d walked out from seeing Fenny, and perhaps I could retrace my steps. I began my journey, overly careful to avoid anyone banging into my foot. As I lowered myself from the cur
b to cross the road, an older man with steel-gray hair pulled back into a ponytail came up behind me and touched my elbow. “All right there, luv? Do you need a hand?”

  “No, thank you,” I said with dignity. “I can manage.”

  “We all need help sometime,” he said. “It’s no good denying it.”

  I gave in and took his arm—it did make it that much easier to get to the other side.

  “Thanks, I’m fine now.” I smiled; he nodded and went on his way.

  I stood at the door of the Guildhall and took a deep breath, considering my route. University students strolled by in twos and threes; businessmen and -women walked by with purpose. I eyed each suited figure, just in case Miles Sedgwick might be among them.

  “Julia?”

  Here came Fenny up the street. No longer bursting into a big smile when he saw me, I noticed—now he had a wary, reserved, “not-her-again” look on his face.

  “Hello, Fenny,” I said. “You’re probably quite tired of me popping round, aren’t you?” What he’d put Dad through, the never-published paper, and the messes that had been cleaned up for him—all of that shot to the top of my mind. I had enough anger to go round, might as well begin here.

  “I never meant any harm,” he said, making it sound as if we were picking up in the middle of a previous conversation—or perhaps he had read the expression on my face. “But you don’t know what it’s been like, always being in the shadow of a man like your father.”

  “Speaking of Dad, have you heard the good news? He’s been nominated for the Queen’s birthday honors. But of course you’ve heard. You must’ve been asked to write a letter of support for him—who better to know how hard he worked when he was a fellow?”

  Fenny lowered his eyelids, but could not completely cover up the piercing resentment. “Rupert has never needed my help in garnering honors, now has he?”

  “Is that what this is about—envy? You’ll never get on the list, and so you don’t want it for Dad, either. After all he’s done for you? Is that why you wrote that letter?”

  “I didn’t write the letter—isn’t that the problem?”