by Issy Brooke
“Hi Cath, or hi DC Pritchard if you’re at work. It’s Penny.” Penny stood in her kitchen and stared out of the window, to where Kali was sniffing the hedge. She held the phone to her ear and leaned against the draining board.
“Ahh. Good morning. I’m at home. Has an officer been out to talk to you, yet?” Cath said.
“No, not yet. I was wondering if you were working later on today? You police have funny shifts.”
“No. I’ve got a lazy Sunday planned. Hubby is taking the kids to one of those indoor play area things so they can jump around on multi-coloured balls or something. I think he secretly wants to have a go himself. No doubt I’ll be receiving a call later informing me he’s been banned or something.”
“Brilliant. I’ve always fancied having a go myself. Anyway, about that coffee you suggested yesterday…”
Cath laughed. “Okay, sure. Why don’t you come over? I have the house to myself. If we go out to a coffee shop, I’ll have to change out of my slobby clothes.”
“You mean you won’t be dressing for visitors?”
Cath snorted. “Nope. If you’re lucky I’ll brush my teeth. Come over any time after eleven.”
“I’ll bring cake.”
“You’ll run the gauntlet of Warren at the mini-market?” Cath asked. It was the only shop in Upper Glenfield open on a Sunday.
“Er … I’ll make one,” Penny declared impulsively.
“Smashing. I’m looking forward to it.”
* * * *
It was some time after eleven that Penny made it to Cath’s house. She stood on the doorstep clutching a plastic tub, feeling sheepish.
“Cake!” Cath declared as she swung open the door. She was wearing a faded grey pair of sweatpants and a loose long-sleeved top and looked every inch the weekend sofa-surfer.
“It’s not exactly cake,” Penny confessed. “It turned out I didn’t have the basic ingredients. Like, er, eggs. I did have flour so instead I made biscuits. Sort of. I had to adapt the recipe. I used normal granulated sugar rather than fine caster sugar … they might be a little, er, coarse.”
“Are they packed with deliciously unhealthy calories?” Cath asked.
“Oh, definitely. I can guarantee calories.”
“Perfect. Come on in!” Cath led her through to the garden room at the back of the house.
Penny prowled the long room while Cath made some hot drinks. The room had large windows that looked out over a grassy garden filled with children’s toys. She hadn’t seen it properly in the dark when she’d attended the kitchenware party. The garden room was warm and pleasant, with wicker furniture and potted plants and the occasional hard plastic building brick lying in wait underfoot. She took a seat on a comfortable wide chair, and opened the box of sort-of biscuits, sliding it onto a low round table.
“About last night–” Penny began when Cath had returned and settled herself in a chair opposite.
“Hush!” Cath held up her hand. “It’s okay. You really shouldn’t be meddling. You will get into trouble. But … some of the stuff you’ve said did get me thinking and listening to gossip.”
“You’ll turn into Mary,” Penny joked. “Incidentally, what exactly did she say to get sacked from the surgery?”
“Oh, it wasn’t anything related to this. Just something to do with someone’s terribly bad case of piles. The point was that it was a breach of trust. No one trusts her.”
“I noticed,” Penny said. “It was obvious at the craft group. So, what have you heard?”
“It’s about Thomas and David’s past.”
Penny was excited. “Is it to do with the farm? Does it explain why the younger brother – David – inherited?”
“Everyone says that was because Thomas joined the Army and wasn’t interested in the farm,” Cath said. “I believe it. There’s more, though. Here’s the thing that I keep hearing on the sly. Their father, old Mr Hart, hated David and he was going to sell the farm because Thomas wouldn’t take it on.”
“No! Why would he hate his own son?”
Cath raised an eyebrow.
Penny sat forward, and asked, “And so how did David end up with the farm, then?”
“Well, apparently, old Mr Hart died first and he thought that verbal wishes were enough. They aren’t. The farm automatically passed to his wife, on his death. And she made sure she had a water-tight will that did leave the farm to David.”
“That makes sense,” Penny said. “Just leave the farm to the son who wants it. But why did his father hate him? What had David done?”
“This is where the rumours get murkier,” Cath said. “This one only started up last month, or at least, it’s the first most people had heard of it. It’s obvious when you think about it. David and Thomas’s mother had had an affair. They were only half-brothers. David is someone else’s son. And old Mr Hart knew it.”
“Oh.” Penny sat back again and sank into thought as she sipped her tea. It wasn’t David’s fault who his father was, or wasn’t. It seemed monumentally unfair for Mr Hart to take against the innocent child like that.
But then, people were unfair, weren’t they?
“How are the biscuits?” Penny asked.
Cath nibbled one. “Oaty. I think. And a bit …”
“Horrible?”
“Not exactly standard.” Cath replaced it carefully on the table and smiled.
“The half-brother thing,” Penny said, musing aloud. “You said it was a recent revelation? Who started it?”
“I don’t know,” Cath admitted.
“Could it have been Mary? She has form.”
“Maybe. But how, and why? Why would she say something to upset her lover?”
Penny was nodding as it came together in her head. “She doesn’t think before she speaks. She loves gossip for the sake of it. For the power of knowing something that other people didn’t know. She and Eleanor were long-time friends, weren’t they?”
“It seems unlikely but it’s true.”
“No, I don’t see it’s that unlikely, at all. Both are lonely women stuck here in a place they don’t feel they quite belong in. Friendships get made over the strangest things. And then they had a falling-out over something unspecified. Perhaps Eleanor knew about Thomas and David’s past. That would make sense, because Eleanor is married to Thomas. Now if Eleanor told Mary in confidence, when she started dating David … but Mary let it slip …”
“Oh.” Cath was nodding too.
“But the really big question is this,” Penny said. “Did David know about his parentage and his past?”
“Everyone said he had been strange the past few weeks,” Cath said. “That’s why we had considered suicide at one point.”
“That’s it!” Penny cried. “I think we need to talk to Mary again!”
“Really?” Cath snorted a laugh. “You are already down on the records as harassing Eleanor and Thomas … do you really want to make it three?”
Chapter Sixteen
Cath went off to make a fresh round of drinks. Penny sat back and tucked her heels up underneath her bottom, a position that used to be so natural to her. Pins and needles started up almost straight away and she knew she’d take a few minutes to unkink again when she tried to stand up.
Ugh. Ageing did not have many plus points.
She gazed around the garden room. One wall was devoted to framed photographs of the family. Many were artfully done in a photography studio, with everyone dressed in primary colours, posing against a stark white background. Wife, husband, two lively children.
She had to take a trip to see her parents soon, she thought. And what about her sister, Ariadne, and her hectic brood of children and her sullen, ignorant husband? Ariadne would defend him and his actions with her last breath but everyone could see how wrong she was. Penny didn’t want a family like that.
Penny smiled and felt a strange pang of regret. Not for the childlessness – or childfree state, as she liked to consider it – but the lack of connection and un
ity that she had in her life. She refused to see it as empty. But there were corners that needed to be filled. Her career had been wonderful, fulfilling and amazing … but it didn’t last. It was transient.
Then again, she mused as she looked at the happy portraits, family was also transient. Life ended. Consider poor David Hart, murdered for some unknown reason.
She was seized with a fresh burst of righteous enthusiasm. She had to make it right. The facts had to come out, for him and for her.
“More tea, vicar?” Cath joked as she came back through with a tray. “And I found some edible biscuits.”
“Wonderful. Oh yes,” she added as she munched one. “These are much better. I won’t give up the day job, hey? I don’t picture myself starting a bakery.”
“Are you planning on working again?” Cath asked. “I know you came here to de-stress and all that, but aren’t you going to get bored?”
“What’s the upper age limit to join the police?” Penny asked, in half-seriousness.
Cath rolled her eyes at her. “Don’t even think about it. There isn’t an upper limit, as it happens. But…”
“Why not? Do you not recommend it as a fulfilling career?”
Cath glared at her.
Penny subsided. “It was just a thought. I have been doing a lot of art, as it happens. Mary got me thinking. I could design cards and do prints and all sorts.”
“Go for it.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“Yes,” Cath said. “Other people do. So why not you? What is the difference between you, and someone who sells their art? The other person is trying. All you have to do, is do what they do.”
“It sounds so easy.”
“I’m sure it is. If you’re prepared to work,” Cath said. “Look at Drew. He’s started doing those courses for rich folks who want to learn about, I don’t know grass and stuff, and it’s great.”
“I met some people who sounded a bit negative about it.”
Cath shrugged. “A lot of people here don’t like change and they don’t like people trying new things.”
“I got the feeling that was Drew himself.”
“No, not at all. Drew is considered an alarmingly unpredictable go-getter around these parts.”
“Wow.” Penny considered that a frightening thought.
Cath laughed. “He’s stubborn, but don’t mistake that for stuck-in-the-mud. You could learn from him about starting up new businesses, to be honest.”
Penny had to straighten her legs. She winced and wiggled her toes as the prickling started up in earnest. “If I do it, it does mean I am going to end up going to craft fairs with Mary.”
“Consider it your penance for meddling in all this to start with.”
“Huh.” Penny stuck her tongue out childishly. “So did I tell you about the Taser?”
Cath stopped, her hand halfway to her mouth. An edge dropped from her biscuit into her tea. “What Taser? What on earth have you bought? They are not exactly legal, you know.” Her eyes went to Penny’s bag by her feet. “Please don’t tell me…”
“Oh my goodness, no, I didn’t. Buy one, I mean. Or tell you about it before. I should have told you last night. No, listen. I’m convinced now that the murderer is Thomas. That’s what I was trying to tell you last night on the phone. When I went around to see Eleanor – I know, I know, I shouldn’t have, I’m very sorry and all that, mea culpa – she threatened me with weapons. She said there was something in the house that would be able to stun me. Not a gun. There must be something like a Taser – do security guards use them?”
“Here in the UK? I don’t think so. You need licences and reasons and all sorts for that sort of thing. Some police have them, but oh my goodness, the paperwork. Did she actually call it a Taser?”
“No. But look, there’s more,” Penny insisted. “I got a distinct impression that Eleanor is one of those aspirational sorts of women who like having manicures and read glossy magazines that features houses they can never afford. She seems totally unmatched with Thomas. He was shabby and unshaven and he is hardly a city high-flier. How much does night security guard pay?”
“Not a lot. It will be minimum wage stuff, I imagine. But they have been married a long time, and people do change. He was quite a catch in his youth, so I’m told.”
“That’s it,” Penny said. “Thomas is jealous. He was jealous of the farm and the money it was making. The farm that he didn’t want at first! And David has no wife and no kids. Did he leave a will? All his assets will go to Thomas if he hasn’t left a will, won’t it?”
“Oh yes…”
“Can you find out, Cath? Do you know if there was a will?”
“Leave it to me. I’ll do some digging.”
* * * *
A polite young man from the police station came to chat with Penny later that day. He found her in the back garden, trying to make sense of the mysterious plants and weeds that were emerging in the fertile soil.
“Is this supposed to be here?” she’d asked him, pointing at something dark green that emitted a sinister smell.
“I have no idea.” He looked startled. “I’m from the police,” he said, as if it wasn’t obvious from his uniform. “It’s about your antics last night…”
She plied him with tea and he accepted one of the awful biscuits. It was a credit to his courtesy that he manfully ate the whole thing with hardly a wince. She promised to be very good, and he advised her that any further reports of her harassment would be dealt with “severely and promptly.”
And that was the end of that matter, except that she now had a “file” and the incident was logged in it.
The rest of Sunday was quiet. She pottered around, did some sketching, and spent some time trying to teach Kali to sit and stay. Kali could now stay in another room and patiently wait until she was called – at least, unless she was distracted by something, such as a passing car, a falling dust mote or an invisible current in the air.
She didn’t hear from Cath again until Monday afternoon, by which time she was wild with frustration at not knowing what was going on. She was very close to just running out of the house and launching herself on Mary to ask her more questions. And she wondered if she ought to tell Cath about Mary’s threatening letters. But it seemed like a betrayal of trust; it was up to Mary to decide what to do. She could hardly ride roughshod over another adult’s personal decisions.
Still, she was uneasy about ignoring it, and she did pop to the shops to buy the right ingredients for a decent cake, with the intention of taking it around to Mary to show her support.
When Cath did call her, she sounded perky and excited. “I’m on my way home,” she said, all faint and muffled. Penny guessed she was using her hands-free device in her car. “So I’m not technically working. First of all, was it PC Patel that came out to you yesterday?”
“Yes. He was a very pleasant and polite young man. He doesn’t know anything about gardening, though.
“Er … right. He called in sick today. You gave him a biscuit, didn’t you?”
“Oh no. Sorry. Yes, I did. Is he okay?”
“I hope so. Anyway, the next thing is that Thomas was brought back in to the police station – okay, he was asked back, not arrested – to answer a few more questions. I shouldn’t tell you this, and you never heard it from me, but his marriage was pretty rocky.”
“I am utterly unsurprised.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s one thing to wonder about it, and another to have it confirmed from the horse’s mouth. It was Eleanor. He says that she was having affairs.”
“Not unusual,” Penny said. “I can quite see that happening with her. I’m surprised that the local gossips didn’t know, though.” Bang goes your theory, Drew; not everyone knows everyone else’s business.
“There’s more!” Cath exclaimed. “Oh yes. Get this: before Thomas and Eleanor got married, she was actually going to marry David!”
“Oh.” Penny stared at Kali, who was sitting at h
er feet. Kali blinked and looked away. “Oh wow…”
“Oh wow, indeed.”
“Do you think they carried on seeing one another, even though she was now married to his brother? What happened? Why did she switch from one to the other?” Penny asked.
“I reckon that David simply wasn’t glamorous enough. Remember, at that time, Thomas was jetting around the world while David was working the farm. As for whether they continued to see one another once she was married … I don’t know.”
“This just gives you even more motives and reasons to suspect Thomas,” Penny said. “And you guys released him?”
“It’s nothing to do with me. I’m sorry. Look … I’m home now. Don’t let on that I told you any of this, all right?”
“You’re secretly enjoying the chase as much as I am, aren’t you?” Penny said.
“No. Maybe. Yes, of course, because it’s my job.”
“Yes… and I’m helping, aren’t I?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I need to go in and get the oven on.”
“You’re loving this.”
“Go away. I’m getting out of the car. I’m finishing this call.”
“La la la I’m not listening,” Penny said with a laugh.
“Bye.”
When the call ended, Penny remained sitting on her sofa, her sketchbook loose in her hands. She was happy. She felt like she had a new friend. And she was deeply frustrated that it was so blindingly obvious that Thomas Hart had killed his brother, and no one seemed to be doing anything about it.
Chapter Seventeen
On Tuesday morning Penny was in the kitchen, sliding Mary’s cake into the oven, when Kali went nuts in the hallway. It was the regular post delivery, which never failed to ignite foaming fury in the dog. How dare the postman come onto her property? No matter that Penny had patiently introduced the dog to the postman on frequent occasions, and that if they met outside, she would bound up to him expecting a treat.
“You daft dog,” Penny grumbled as she wiped her hands on a towel and wandered down the hallway to rescue the slightly-chewed letters from the mat. There was one junk mail circular, and one letter, with a Lincoln postmark and the address printed in unsteady capital letters.