Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1)
Page 17
She rolled her eyes on his behalf.
He nodded. “Yup. It’s easier for you because you’re an incomer so everyone expects you to be a little unreliable and odd. You can get away with anything, really. Me, I’m bound by history and heritage and all that malarky.”
“I never thought of it that way. Does your family all live in Upper Glenfield?” she asked.
“Yes, and all my uncles and aunts and cousins are here or in the nearby villages, except for Uncle Jim who moved to Bristol and set up a micro-brewery with a man called Lawrence who wears the most extraordinary dresses. I was the only one from here who went to their wedding.”
“Oh.”
“And my brother Ross, he lives in Lincoln and does something terribly sciencey. Mum and dad live south of here, on a smallholding. And yourself? You’ve never mentioned your own family.”
Penny’s pace slowed. “My mum and dad are currently on the Orient Express somewhere. They are getting old quite disgracefully and I think it’s wonderful. I get random postcards from them, from time to time. I have a sister, Ariadne, but we don’t get on.”
“That sounds quite final.”
“Well, we don’t. She has issues but she won’t accept help so that’s that.”
Drew opened his mouth and then closed it again, and she was grateful that he didn’t pursue the matter. They continued on for a few yards. Penny tipped her head back to let the sun warm her skin.
“Uh-oh. Up ahead, just past the phone box,” Drew said, startling Penny out of her sun-worship.
She strained her eyes, expecting to see a rare bird or something. But it was Warren, just coming around the corner, carrying his camera with the long, intimidating zoom lens. When he saw them together, he stopped, and openly stared, his fleshy face unfriendly and flat. Penny and Drew walked past. She couldn’t resist greeting him cheerily, but Warren did not respond.
“What is his issue?” she asked when they were out of earshot. “It’s like he thinks every woman in the world should be grateful for his attention and he gets annoyed when they are not.”
“That’s exactly his issue,” Drew said. “I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.”
“Sad, really. What relationships and love make people do.”
“You’re thinking about David Hart again, aren’t you?”
“I am.” Penny kicked at the ground with her sandals as they passed the market area and came to the crossroads in the centre of town. “It seems such a waste of a life. Not just David’s. I mean Eleanor’s.”
When the police had gone to the house, they had found Eleanor sitting on her sofa, staring blankly into space. It was as if she knew what was coming, Cath had told Penny afterwards. Eleanor had broken down and confessed to being driven by jealousy and spite – and anger at David, not at Mary.
David had been seeing Eleanor, behind her husband’s back, off and on for many years. Eventually he had grown tired of her and finished with her for good. But when he’d taken up with Mary, she’d seen it as a deliberate blow against herself. She’d known his habits and his routines. Finding him out alone in the fields was easy.
Had she meant to kill him? She said that she hadn’t. She’d been told that a Taser couldn’t kill.
But it could, and it did.
And now she was in a women’s prison. Penny didn’t know of anyone who had been to visit her. Thomas had moved away immediately; the rumours said he was in a bedsit in Lincoln. Their marital home was still up for sale, the grass outside now unkempt and long, the pristine lawn ruined through lack of care.
“People do get stuck in a way of thinking,” Drew said, “and the longer they go on, the harder it is for them to change, I suppose.”
They stood still and silent for a moment.
Drew shook himself. “Anyway. Let’s go on a picnic.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Bring Kali.”
“Will you teach me about plants and things?”
“Of course. I’ll show you which ones you can eat.”
“Oh,” she said with a laugh. “So I don’t need to bring a picnic, then? We can just eat our way around the hedgerows of Upper Glenfield.”
“Sure. Just bring some salad cream. That’s the one thing that doesn’t grow locally.”
There was an awkward moment when Penny wondered if Drew was going to hug her or something more, but their eyes met and he laughed, and stepped backwards. Her stomach fluttered and she chided herself for wanting something while at the same time, not wanting it at all.
Things were fine as they were.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said hastily, starting down the street to her cottage.
“I’ll call at ten.”
“Great.”
She didn’t look back but she felt strangely warm in the pit of her belly as she strode down the pavement. She was almost humming to herself as she flung the cottage door open.
“Hello, Kali! What have you been up to, hey?” she said, bending to scratch the happy dog behind the ears.
“Oh. That’s what you’ve been up to.”
Her new strappy sandals, an impulse purchase from a boutique shop in Lincoln, lay in shreds across the hallway carpet.
She stood up straight and glared at the dog for a moment.
“Oh well. Walking boots will be a better choice tomorrow, anyway. Come on. Shall we go walkies?”
They went.
The End…
…for now.
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Author’s Afterword
This is the bit you don’t need to read, but if you enjoyed the book you might want to find out more.
I’ve got a website at http://www.issybrooke.com where I have more information about the characters, about Lincolnshire, and the fictional town of Glenfield - including a map. It’s a work in progress.
The dog in this story, Kali, is based on our own rescue dog, a Rottie cross called Stella. That’s her on the cover of this book. She’s a stressed out and reactive thing, and we’re still working through her issues. I wish it was as easy as Penny found it … you can read more about dogs on my website, too. And look at photos. Everyone loves photos of dogs, right?
There are more books coming in this series (I wrote a heap all at once). So you can check out what Penny gets up to next in Small Town Secrets. Does she get any further with Drew? Will Francine re-appear? Is Cath a new friend? Is Warren a new enemy? Buy here: http://amzn.to/1ys54BJ
Oh, I’m on Facebook here – https://www.facebook.com/issy.brooke – and Twitter here – @IssyBrooke – but as for the million other social media sites, nope. I’d rather be writing…
Thank you for reading.
Issy.
Table of Contents
Author’s Hello
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Author’s Afterword
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Issy Brooke, Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1)