Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1)

by Issy Brooke

  “Wow, that sounds glamorous.”

  “Not so much, any more. He was Glenfield’s golden boy once, apparently. He’s a night security guard in Lincoln now, at some scrap yard.”

  “He could be a suspect.”

  “Maybe,” Drew concurred. “And what about Mary, his partner? Girlfriend? What do you call that kind of relationship? Girlfriend sounds too … immature, you know, for teenagers.”

  “And lover sounds a bit … yeah, I don’t know. Anyway, whatever. Girlfriend. She was a recent girlfriend, too, from what I hear. Why would she kill him? I don’t think she had time to get to that stage of a relationship. You know, that point when you realise you want to kill the other person because they leave their toe nail clippings in a pile on the bedside table.”

  They stopped while Kali decided to mark her spot. Penny sighed and pulled out a plastic bag.

  Drew looked up at the brightening sky, and mused to himself, “It’s always about love, money or power, isn’t it, in the end?”

  “That’s a good point!” Penny said. “I need to make a chart of all this. I need coloured marker pens and a really big bit of paper.”

  “Are you sure? Look. Supposing there is a murderer. The thing about murderers is, uh … well, they are murderers, right? They are outside the law. They’re kind of dangerous. So…”

  “I’m just following the case and thinking about stuff. I can do that,” she protested.

  “There’s a look on your face that worries me,” Drew said. “Like you’re going to start digging around for stuff. I know you said you have the advantage, being an outsider, but that means you don’t know who you can ask and who you can’t. Don’t forget that a lot of people have lived here for generations and some of their enmities go back generations, too. You could end up in proper bother.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Penny felt annoyed. She had hoped Drew would be an ally, helping her sift through the clues, but if he was just going to tell her not to ask questions, he was no help at all. “So, where does this path lead?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Hmm.”

  They faced one another, and she stared at him. Yes, he had brought her a head-collar for Kali and yes, it was working fantastically well, and it occurred to her that she owed him some money for it. But ultimately she wasn’t going to let herself be deterred from something she really wanted to do.

  He crumbled first. “We’ll carry on a little way past the bridge,” he said at last. “I’ll show you. It’s a nice walk when it isn’t raining.”

  “It’s a nice walk anyway,” she said. “And thank you so much for taking the time out to walk with me. I do really appreciate it. And the head-collar. And everything.”

  He was walking beside her but he flashed her a sideways smile. “You’re welcome. I’m just doing my bit to show that our villages and towns aren’t the stereotype of unfriendly locals.”

  As long as they don’t ask questions, she thought to herself. But she smiled back.

  Chapter Seven

  Penny woke up on Friday morning feeling determined to get to the bottom of the murder case.

  Thank you, Francine, she thought. You are right. I’ve misjudged you … Penny still didn’t want to work with her, and was glad she wouldn’t have Francine as a colleague again, but she’d opened Penny’s eyes. She made a mental note to send her a surprise gift of expensive champagne in a hamper. Then she felt warm and fuzzy. And that was certainly nicer than feeling stressed and confused.

  Yes. Today will be a good day, she decided, humming in the shower and almost dancing around her bedroom.

  Kali was surprised and a little peeved that she got less food that morning, and stayed stuck to Penny’s side as she chopped up some sandwich ham and put it in a paper envelope in her coat pocket. The dog’s big eyes followed every movement of the knife.

  “Yes, it is for you, but only when you’re good,” Penny told the drooling dog.

  She took some deep, calming breaths as she clipped the head-collar onto Kali. After the horrible incidents where Kali had launched herself at passing dogs, Penny had found that she dwelled on them more and more, building them up in her mind until she felt quite sick at the thought of going out.

  Now, she knew that when she tensed up at the sight of another dog, she was transmitting her own anxiety to Kali, and Kali was sent into protective mode – on top of her own fear. She didn’t need a trainer to work with Kali, Penny thought. She needed someone to train herself first.

  She patted Kali and rested her head against her shoulders for a second. “It will be okay,” she said to both herself and the dog.

  Then she stood up and took another calming breath. “Right. Come on, you. Let’s go.”

  As she walked, she tried to swing with a confident stride. Drew had outlined his theory on the way back the previous day; it was him who had suggested that Kali’s reaction might be rooted in fear. “You need to make her feel that seeing other dogs is a really good thing,” he had said. “Like people take them to the vets for no reason, just for treats, so they associate it with good things. Eventually, in her head, seeing a dog will trigger her to look at you for a yummy treat.”

  It was a theory that she liked. She resolved to put it into practise.

  The small town was all fresh and sparkling after the days of rain. The sun was shining and it finally felt like a promising spring day. There were tubs lining the open market area, and tulips waved their showy heads in a riot of colour. She discovered that market day was Friday, and the central area was busy with shoppers and stalls selling watch batteries, mop buckets, huge packets of chocolate, strange 1950’s aprons in polyester gingham, and a fish seller who had a PA system rigged up at the back of his refrigerated lorry.

  She was still nervous about walking Kali with so much distraction there, and she avoided going directly past the market. They turned right and headed out of town, along their now-usual route to the Spinney and beyond. At one point they saw another dog in the distance, and Kali tensed, her ears flattening and her hackles rising. Instantly, Penny grabbed a handful of ham and began offering it to Kali in a cheerful voice, her hand shaking and spilling the tasty meat all over the pavement.

  Kali was on it immediately, the other dog forgotten as she searched for every last scrap of meat.

  “Oh. Oh! Good girl. Good girl,” Penny said, in wonderment. So, some things were more important to Kali than other dogs – food was a great motivator.

  She walked along deep in thought.

  Everyone has their motivation. Drew said it was love, money or power.

  David Hart had love – Mary, at least. Money? Perhaps. They said the farm was doing well. What about power?

  I need to do some research, she thought.

  * * * *

  She got back to her cottage and Kali flopped, exhausted, on the living room rug, and sighed as her eyes closed. Penny had worked hard to get Kali to walk nicely on the lead, and it was clear that the unexpected mental exertion was as tiring as the physical exercise.

  She decided she needed to work on following the clues that she had. She lined the suspects up in her head: Mary, the lover; Thomas, the brother; and Ed, the disgruntled rambler. Thomas interested her the most – she felt she knew least about him – and she decided to go and talk to Agatha.

  After all, as the local hairdresser, she was bound to know all sorts of things. And though much of it might be classed as gossip, there could be grains of truth in it.

  She left Kali with a rawhide bone to gnaw on, and went out to the salon, intending to make an appointment for some time later in the week. Then she planned to come home and make a list of questions and enquiries to ask Agatha at her appointment.

  ‘Curl Up And Dye’ was a small salon nestling between the butcher’s shop and the mini-market. Penny scurried past the big windows of the mini-market, not wanting to attract Warren’s unwelcome attention. There were huge black and silver posters in the wi
ndows of the salon, featuring glossy-haired models with digitally smoothed curls and faces like porcelain. She suspected the general clientele of the salon were after much more practical hair styles, on the whole.

  The bell over the door jingled merrily as she entered. The three chairs down the left hand side were empty, and Agatha was at the back of the salon, sweeping up. She was dressed in black, head to toe, except for her gold lame mules and metallic silver nails.

  “Now then, Londoner!” she sang out. “Penny, how are you, eh?”

  “Hi, Agatha. I’m very well. How are you?” She wasn’t wildly keen on being called “Londoner” but it was clear that Agatha meant no harm.

  “My sciatica is playing me up rotten, and my salon washing machine went pop and bang this morning, and my husband used up all the milk on his cornflakes. Mustn’t grumble, eh?”

  “Er … right. No. Quite. Sorry about the … everything. I was wondering if I might book an appointment for a trim? And maybe a bit of a restyle? Something … funky.”

  “Any time, my love. Are you in a hurry right now?”

  “No, no plans. I–”

  But it wasn’t a conversational politeness. Agatha meant something different. “Well, then, I can do you here and now! Would that suit you, my love? My next appointment isn’t until three, and that’s Mrs Hargreaves, and she’ll be late. But she’ll bring biscuits, so I don’t mind that at all, eh.”

  Agatha put the sweeping brush aside and descended on Penny like a boulder rolling down a hill, with a slow inevitability, grabbing a gown as she came. Penny had wanted to prepare but now she was trapped.

  No, she told herself sternly. I am not trapped. Here is an opportunity… Just think on your feet.

  “Great!” she said brightly. “Wonderful. Thank you very much.”

  She could do this. After all, in her television career, she’d had to be so flexible they’d called her the rubber-band woman. If she could cope with trying to hire forty blue taxis in Mumbai with only three hours to do it in, she could deal with a sudden haircut.

  And it was not only a chance to talk. This was another blow struck for her new, refreshed, relaxed self. No more sensible, professional hair styles! Maybe she’d have her hair coloured. Green? Red? Maybe platinum blonde, giving her dull usual strawberry blonde a startling shine?

  Agatha patted a chair. “Can I get you a brew?”

  Her instinct was to say no, because few people could make a decent cup of tea that she liked. She forced herself to accept. It would help the bonding, and make her look less of a stuck-up southerner, she told herself. “Yes, thank you, that would be lovely. Tea, with milk.”

  Agatha clipped the gown around her shoulders and pottered off, leaving Penny to stare at herself in the mirror. Usually the lights in a salon seemed expressly designed to make the clients look half-dead, with their harsh overhead glare and unflattering angles. Penny suddenly realised the salon was actually unlit. The sunlight streaming in through the window was the only illumination.

  Then she heard voices from the back room, and with a click, Penny was flooded with light and the reflection of her features flattened and aged instantly. Great, she thought. I was enjoying pretending that I was ten years younger.

  She avoided eye contact with herself while she waited for Agatha to re-emerge with the cup of tea. “Sorry about that, my love,” she said as she popped it onto a small table near Penny’s hand. “Like I say, the washing machine gave up the ghost this morning. Bang! I nearly did a wee. I’ve got Ed in to look at it. Turns out to be a fuse in the plug socket so we had to have the power turned off.”

  “Ed …”

  “Here he is!”

  A skinny man with razor blade cheekbones and flat, dull blue eyes came into the salon, carrying a toolbox. He was wearing boots with no laces, and threadbare jeans that were artfully ripped horizontally all the way down both thighs in a style that Penny hadn’t seen since the poodle haired glam rockers of the eighties.

  “How do,” he said, nodding politely at Penny. “Now then. All done, Agatha.”

  “Wonderful, thank you.”

  He nodded again to Penny, his eyes sliding over his face without even registering her, and then he was gone.

  As soon as they had the salon to themselves, Penny wanted to leap in with her questions, but first she had to explain to Agatha she needed a vibrant, exciting, youthful style. Agatha smiled and nodded and said she knew exactly what Penny wanted. She seemed very confident, but Penny couldn’t stifle her nervousness as Agatha set about combing through Penny’s hair.

  “So, who was that?” Penny asked, trying to keep her head still. “I have heard of someone called Ed who’s into the ramblers. Is that him?”

  “Oh, the very same. Edwin Montgomery. He leads a lot of local walks. Yes, he’s pretty handy to have around the place.”

  “He looked a bit of a hippy, with that tie-dyed top. I haven’t seen many of those around recently.” Penny was moving her mental list of suspects around. So Ed could fix things, could he? That was a clue.

  “Oh, yeah, for sure. He’s not been in Glenfield that long but he was making his mark straight away. He’s a yellowbelly anyway, you know, a proper native Lincolnshire lad. He organised a litter-picking group and they planted trees by the slipe and he writes to the paper all the time about windfarms. I can’t remember if he’s for them or against them, though. But he’s awfully passionate, one way or the other. I wish I could have half his energy, eh!”

  “Wow. So what’s his job? Does he have an actual job?”

  “Handyman, I suppose,” Agatha said. “He does electrical stuff and basic plumbing and bits and pieces. Not gas. He can’t do gas, apparently.”

  “That’s interesting. And so he was fighting to get paths re-opened…?”

  “Oh, he is always into something. Now, my love, how long do you want your fringe? I think we can sweep it up here and …”

  “That’s fine. Just out of my eyes, thanks.”

  Penny took a moment to rearrange her thoughts while she sipped her cooling tea, and Agatha tutted because she’d moved her head when she should have been still. Ed had a motive and he had the means to tamper with the fence.

  Although she still wasn’t sure if an electrical fence could be set to stun or kill. Cath had thought not. She’d insisted the fence wasn’t to blame. But surely power was power? Whether it came from the mains or a battery pack, it was still electricity. She remembered something vague from school about alternating current and direct current, but the details were hazy.

  Then she remembered she was here to find out about Thomas, David’s brother, not try to recall high school physics. Drew had warned her not to ask questions. But how dangerous could it be? She put the cup of tea back on the table. “Agatha, what do you know about Thomas Hart, David’s brother?”

  It was the wrong kind of question, she realised instantly. It was too open and unfocused. “What do you want to know, my love?” Agatha said, tugging at a strand of hair for no apparent reason.

  “I don’t know.” Well, did he kill his brother? Huh. Too direct. “They didn’t get on, did they, David and Thomas?”

  “Nope. They had nothing to do with one another. It’s sad, eh? Families should stick together. Except for my husband’s sister. She can stay away, thank you.”

  “Was it mutual dislike?” she asked. “Between Thomas and David, I mean. Not you and your sister-in-law.”

  “I reckon so, yeah. Thomas was older but I don’t know what went on with them all at home because he upped sticks and went off to the Army as soon as he could. Tells you something, eh? He left that after a few years and travelled the world being some kind of bodyguard. All the girls fancied him whenever he came back to visit the family farm. He was all muscles and tan, and goodness, didn’t he know it, but you don’t mind them parading around when they’re worth looking at, eh.”

  “Is that the family farm that David ran?”

  “That’s right. Their father died first, rest his soul,
though he was a mean old codger, then their mother, lovely woman and a saint if you know what I mean, and David took it on. Thomas was never interested in it.”

  “And Thomas still lives in Upper Glenfield…?”

  “Oh yes. Him and his snooty wife Eleanor live in a shiny detached house up on that estate, ‘The Shires’, all those boxy ticky-tacky houses for commuters and them as don’t want to really live here. He works up in Lincoln now. He’s some kind of night watchman at a scrap yard on the east side. Sorry, ‘metal recycling plant’. Got to be politically correct, haven’t I?”

  Penny decided not to tackle Agatha about what “politically correct” really meant. “And what does Eleanor do?”

  “Ha!” Agatha’s scissors flashed with increasing venom around Penny’s face and she regretted asking a potentially emotional question when she was so close to the sharp blades. “Ha. That one? She’s done a little of this and a bit of that. But she never thought she’d need to work, you know. Everything was always above her. She came in here once because her regular woman in Lincoln was off on holiday but the face on her was like I’d rubbed pee in her hair.”

  “Gosh. Do they have children?”

  “Oh yes, and they’ve escaped, and good luck to them. One’s in Australia, which tells you everything you need to know about Eleanor, eh. The other is in Scotland. Clearly he’d rather freeze on a mountain than deal with his mother. Ha! So would I. That long enough at the back for you?”

  “Yes, great, thanks.” The style was choppy and slightly like a pixie, and to Penny’s surprise, it seemed to work. She fell silent as she repeated all the information back to herself. Agatha patted her hair and sprayed her with something that smelled quite nice but didn’t seem to make any discernible difference.

  “Is the length okay for you at the sides now?”

  “Yes, it’s fantastic, really, thank you.” She really was delighted, although she would have struggled to tell Agatha if it wasn’t quite right. In London, she had had no qualms about letting a hairdresser know if they hadn’t hit the right mark. But here, in the small town, it seemed far more awkward to speak up. “Honestly. Just what I wanted.”