Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1)

by Issy Brooke

  “I did wonder about that.” Penny looked over the fields. “It’s all crops, so why does he need electric fences? How dangerous can carrots get?”

  “That’s broccoli in there, or it was,” Drew corrected her. “But it’s all harvested now. Heh, it can be vicious stuff … I never touch it, myself. But you’re right. He doesn’t have … didn’t have … any livestock at all any more. No, the electric fences were to annoy the local ramblers’ club.”

  “Really?” Penny was immediately intrigued.

  Drew nodded. “Yeah. He was really possessive about his land. There was an ongoing thing about a footpath that the ramblers said was a public right of way, because it had been used for a certain length of time so it had passed into common usage or something, and was marked on an old map, and he disagreed. Flatly refused. I don’t know what harm it would have been, but anyway. In the ramblers’ group, there was one guy, Ed whats-his-face, who was trying to take it to court and everything.”

  “Did he have support? The ramblers, I mean?”

  “From some people, yes. But Ed’s pretty new to the area and some people think he’s a bit … of a hippy.”

  “How long does someone have to live here to be considered local?” she asked. “I need to know…”

  “Oh, only two or three … generations.”

  “Great.” She rolled her eyes at him and he laughed. “I suppose you and your family have lived here since the Norman Conquest.”

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “We’re still bitter about it.”

  A fat blob of rain fell and she shook her head, looking up. “I guess I ought to be getting back. It was nice to meet you, Drew.” Certainly nicer than meeting Warren, she thought. Way nicer.

  “I’m walking back to town. May I walk with you?”

  “If I say no, it’s going to be really awkward.”

  “No, it’s fine,” he said, laughing as he fell into step alongside her. “I’ll keep a discreet distance behind you.”

  “Like a stalker.”

  “Uh, yeah, okay. That will look weird. I’ll have to walk beside you, then. Sorry.”

  “I’ll suffer it this once.”

  “Thanks.”

  They soon reached the road. The rain was a light drizzle now. Drew laughingly called it a “mizzle” – apparently a mixture of mist and drizzle. When they got onto the pavement by the road, Kali decided she’d been on her best behaviour for long enough, and lurched without warning down a ditch, heading straight to some temptingly brackish water at the bottom.

  “Get back up here!” Penny was dragged behind, trying not to lose her grip on the lead, with her feet scrabbling ineffectively for purchase in the treacherous mud. “Kali! No!”

  Kali reached the bottom of the ditch and happily bounded along for a few steps before deciding that she didn’t like the feeling of her paws in mud, after all, and she tore back up to the pavement again. Penny felt hot with shame as she scrambled up. “I am so sorry,” she muttered. “I’m new to dogs, and … ugh. Just, ugh.”

  “Don’t apologise! Are you all right?” Drew’s hands hovered, as if he wanted to reach out and help. He dithered, and shoved them back into his pockets.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Dented pride, that’s all.” Penny hauled on the lead to get Kali closer. “She doesn’t listen to me but I am going to find some training classes. I’ve got to.”

  “How long have you had her?”

  “About a week.”

  Drew smiled. They moved off again, Penny keeping Kali at her side. Her shoulders ached with the effort. Drew said, “It’s early days, yet. But she looks strong. It’s that Rottie muscle around her neck and shoulders. I don’t think that collar and lead is the best thing, you know.”

  “Some bloke I met said I should get a choke chain,” she admitted. That bloke had been a horrified man who’d been waiting for a bus, minding his own business, and who had witnessed Kali leap at a passing terrier, apparently intent on murder. She had resented his unsolicited advice.

  Drew shook his head. “You haven’t, so I am guessing you don’t like them.”

  “No, I don’t. It doesn’t seem right to strangle the poor thing. But the way it’s going, maybe I’ll have to try it.”

  “No, don’t,” Drew said very firmly. “Not the choke chain. There’s always another way. Watch her reactions. You need to bond with her, but take it slow. It will happen.”

  “I’ll keep trying.” They reached the crossroads in town. “Here’s my street.” She wanted to ask where he lived, but her tongue seemed to dry up.

  He nodded, and rubbed Kali on the head. “Get in and out of the rain. Don’t worry about your dog. I’m sure she’ll settle. Take care, now.”

  “And you.” She tugged on the lead and walked away. She was acutely aware of the large brown stain of mud that was inevitably spread across her bottom. Her hair would be everywhere, and she’d be a general mess.

  Not that it mattered or that she was in any way concerned, of course.

  Not at all.

  Kali rolled her eyes up at her, mouth partly open as if she was laughing at Penny. Penny frowned. Kali dropped her head and scurried on.

  She thought about the dead man, David Hart. So, it wasn’t just the farmer’s brother who might have taken against him, she said to herself as she let herself in to the cottage and Kali shot down the hallway before Penny could grab a towel for her paws. In the enclosed space, the pungent smell of wet dog was immediately apparent. She paused, thinking. The local ramblers had issues with the farmer, too.

  If it wasn’t suicide – though she still thought it could be – then it might have been an accident… but what if it was murder?

  I’ll follow this story, she said to herself. I’ll start buying the local paper and learn who is who. It will give me something to talk about, and I can become a part of this community. Shared experience, and all that. After all, as I found him, I can contribute to the … to the, er, gossip.

  There was a crash from the kitchen, and Penny sighed. “Kali!”

  Chapter Four

  Penny walked Kali early on Tuesday morning and then spent a fruitless few hours on the mobile phone trying to organise getting broadband internet sorted to her cottage. The previous owner hadn’t had a landline and Penny was appalled to learn of the connection charges she was going to incur. Didn’t these companies want her business? She was desperate to get online so she could learn a little more about the community, and also about dog training.

  I suppose I’ll have to pretend it’s like 1990 or something, she thought, sitting glumly in the living room with a half-eaten sandwich in her hand. Back when we had to learn things by observation and thinking, not just googling. Huh. When I was a student, it seemed easy. But I suppose I didn’t know what I was missing.

  She was still trying to reconnect with her light and happy mid-twenties self. She was doing this by listening to the music she had loved, and dressing in bright, cheerful colours. Currently, some strange electronica was wafting out of her iPod docking station and her stripy socks were irritating her calves. Had the music really been this bad back then?

  Kali stared fixedly at the sandwich which was limping hanging from Penny’s fingers. The dog’s unceasing glare started to unsettle Penny so much that she didn’t want to eat the rest of it. She stood up and went to the kitchen, and half-heartedly did some cleaning up.

  It was no good. She had to get active and involved. She shook herself all over, just like Kali did, and ferried herself out to the mini-market once more. She remembered they had a noticeboard of local events and groups. It seemed like a good place to start.

  * * * *

  It was still overcast but the rain had eased overnight. She was fed up of the long, drawn-out chilly spring now, and longed for summer to make its appearance. She buttoned up her jacket as she approached the food store. Partly it was against the cold, and partly because she remembered her meeting with Warren and she wanted some kind of armour against his advances. No doubt he
tried it on with every new woman who came into the shop; she didn’t flatter herself to think that his advances were directed to her alone.

  The gossipers had mentioned that David Hart had possibly had a string of women, too. Was that true, or was it sour grapes on the part of the beehive woman? Certainly, she never believed gossip about other women’s love lives as it was invariably untrue. Though perhaps he really had been more successful in his affairs than Warren was. She could only see the farmer’s lifeless face in her imagination, and it wasn’t one that screamed devilish attraction, though.

  The noticeboard was by the entrance and she kept alert to the potential approach of Warren as she began to scan the posters. Upper Glenfield Camera Club. Craft Group. Over-Fifties Aerobics. Gemstones for Beginners with Reginald Artichoke. Was that a person or a pop group, she wondered.

  A short, stocky woman was pinning something up and it was only when she turned around that Penny recognised Cath Pritchard, the detective constable who’d first interviewed her.

  “Now then! Hi, Penny, how are you?” She was dressed in a comfortable looking long skirt and a fleece jacket that had gone bobbly with wear. She was straightening her poster which appeared to be advertising some kind of kitchenware party. Did such a thing exist? Penny wasn’t even sure. Foam parties, yes. Dinner parties, okay. Kitchenware? “I hope your gruesome discovery hasn’t put you off living here,” Cath added, stepping back to assess her poster’s placement.

  “No, not at all,” Penny said. “I’m settling in well. Can I ask … if it’s all right, I don’t know … how did he die? I overheard people talking about suicide and all sorts of things.”

  “Huh, small town gossip,” Cath said, shaking her head in disapproval. “People round here with nothing better to do. Don’t listen to them. I can tell you how he died, though. It will be in the paper at the end of the week, so it’s no big secret. Believe it or not, he was electrocuted.”

  “Really! I didn’t think you could be electrocuted to death by an electric fence. Goodness. I’ll take more care when I’m out and about. Perhaps it was an accident? It could have malfunctioned.”

  Cath shook her head again, grim-faced. “The shock throws you clear. Well, not quite the shock itself.” She grimaced. “I’ve been learning a lot about electrocution. Apparently your muscles all go stiff and that’s what throws you across the ground. There isn’t anything magic in the electricity itself.”

  “But there isn’t enough power in an electric fence, surely? Even to make your muscles go all stiff. Don’t people pee on them for a dare? Unless he’d rigged it up to the mains. Do they run off the main grid? And he didn’t like the ramblers, did he?” She stopped herself. She could hear her own voice ranting on. So, this is what happened when you stopped working. With fewer people to talk to, all the words bottled up and poured out in a flood when they got a chance.

  Cath pressed the final pin into the poster and stepped back. “There’s definitely not enough power in the fence. It ran off a battery pack, they say. Some fences are wired to the mains, and some aren’t. It’s an odd situation.”

  “Could someone have made him hold on to it?” The farmer was killed by electricity. He was next to an electric fence. It was obviously connected. “In fact, if you were determined to kill yourself, and had run out of paracetamol or gin or whatever, you could just hang on, couldn’t you? Unless the muscle thing is involuntary. Yes. Or could it have been tampered with, that battery pack? Super-charged? You have checked, haven’t you?”

  “The scene of crime team will be all over it. Our clever techy boffin types are wildly excited,” Cath said. “They will work it out. But I doubt that you could hang on to a fence until it shocked you dead, no.”

  Penny’s mind was running overtime. It sounded unlikely to have been suicide. The fence had to have been tampered with. There was so much she didn’t know about electric fences, she thought in frustration. I need the internet in my cottage! She was about to ask Cath if there was anywhere with internet access in the town, when she spied Warren lingering by the magazines a few feet away. As soon as she caught his eye, he turned towards them and bore down on them both.

  She couldn’t let Cath leave now – it would abandon her to the clammy hands of Warren. “So, you’re running a kitchenware party!” Penny said brightly, clutching at straws. Cath was already turning to go. Penny wanted to look like she was deep in conversation and she walked alongside Cath as she made for the exit.

  “It’s just a little hobby to bring in extra cash for Christmas,” Cath said. “And it’s nice to do something completely unrelated to my day job, and feel like a normal person for a while. It’s being held tomorrow night at my house. I had a poster up for a while but it got lost. Well, I say ‘lost’. Certain groups in the town are not afraid to take other people’s posters down.” She sniffed. “The Camera Club are particularly underhand. Anyway, do you fancy it? My party, I mean. It would be a great way for you to meet people!”

  It would, but it sounded dire. “What happens at this sort of party?” Penny asked. “I went to one in London once. Except it wasn’t for kitchenware. It was more … adult. And it was hugely embarrassing and I swore to never go to one again. I bought some furry handcuffs and then got very drunk to blot it all out. I rode home in a taxi and when I woke up, I had ‘Ginger Rogers’ written in marker pen on my forehead. I still don’t know why.”

  “Oh dear. I know the sort of thing you mean. I think my husband would laugh his face off if I ran a party like that. But I’ve got two kids and it’s bad enough keeping them out of the way when we’re all discussing plastic storage boxes, never mind … all that other stuff. No, it’s just a bunch of women who come and look at handy things for the kitchen and you can buy things if you like. There will be nibbles. No marker pens. Go on. Do come.”

  “Ladies, if I may…” Warren said behind them, catching them up.

  Penny walked faster, swishing though the automatic doors and Cath kept pace. “I’d love to come,” Penny gabbled. “You’ll have to give me your address.”

  “Of course.” By unspoken mutual consent they darted across the road to the covered market hall.

  “He can’t leave the shop while he’s working, can he?” Penny asked, not daring to look back.

  “I don’t think he leaves it even when he’s not working,” Cath replied. “It’s like a self-imposed restraining order.” They sidled into the wide entrance of the market.

  Penny peeked in the direction they’d come. Warren was in the window of the mini-market but someone was trying to attract his attention with a frozen leg of lamb, and he had to turn away. “We’re safe,” Penny said.

  Cath was already writing her address and phone number on a piece of paper torn from a police officer’s pocket book. Penny wasn’t sure that she really wanted to go to a party that involved the discussion and sale of plastic tubs; it didn’t sound wild enough to be called a “party.” But it would be a good way to meet folks, she had to agree, and Cath seemed to think it was a done deal. And she owed Cath for letting her escape Warren with her.

  Cath handed her the paper. “So you met Warren before, have you?”

  “The other day.” Penny shuddered.

  “Did he ask you out?”

  “He did. I guessed he tries to ask every woman out.”

  “Yeah. I can tell you that half the women in this town got married simply to stop him asking them. It’s the only possible defence. He does stop at that. He has standards. Limited ones, but still. You could pretend to be married, buy a cheap ring...”

  Penny laughed. “What a horrible man. They said that David Hart was a ladies’ man…” she added, fishing hopefully for more information.

  Cath was not to be drawn into it. “Not like Warren is. Warren is ever hopeful, whereas somehow David Hart did manage to keep a lady friend from time to time. He was never a womaniser. Ignore the gossip. Anyway, I will see you tomorrow night, at my place, seven o’clock.”

  “Do I have to bring anyth
ing? Wine, snacks?”

  “Not at all! Just yourself, that’s all.” Cath smiled warmly. “I must get on. The kids will be killing each other by now, and hubby will be barricading himself into the shed. It is a good job we don’t have close neighbours.”

  Penny waved goodbye, feeling curiously warm and at the same time, bereft. Cath was lovely but her world was a different one to what Penny was used to.

  Just like her sister, Ariadne, Penny thought. Family life, kids, all that. Except the Ariadne doesn’t seem half as happy with it as Cath does.

  I ought to tell Ariadne that I’ve moved, I suppose.

  * * * *

  Penny walked home with an aimless, slow step. She was lost in thought. There was a part of herself that was amazed and appalled that she was considering going to a kitchenware party, but she recognised her own snobbery in that. What was wrong with wanting to meet other people? She had not expected to be attending the opera and discussing Nietzsche every night, had she? She knew she needed to get over herself.

  And remember, she told herself sternly. This was all about de-stressing, relaxing, letting go and becoming one with … one with … one with myself. As it were. Reconnecting with my creative and idealist side. I am going there with an open mind and I will meet some lovely people.

  But when she reached her own cottage, the figure on the step, listening to Kali bark her own head off from within, made Penny’s stomach clench.

  What on earth was that Francine Black doing here?

  Chapter Five

  Francine greeted Penny with a frantic wave, as if somehow Penny could miss the apparition in layers of floral fabrics. She had a small bag at her feet, and an enormous hat on her head. Her smile was wide and warm. You couldn’t look at a smile like that and not respond. She had one of those faces that shouldn’t have worked; technically, she was a plain woman, with a long nose that was bulbous at the end, and uneven teeth, and narrow eyes. But her beaming grin made everyone feel so warm that if you had the choice, at a party, to talk to her or a supermodel, you’d always pick Francine. Penny smiled in spite of her surprise.