“Do you have any idea who the other girl in the photograph is? The one with the gap between her two front teeth.”
Tina frowned and a tiny wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows.
“I’m afraid I don’t recognize her. I don’t believe she was ever a pupil here at the Oakwood School for Girls.” Tina handed the magazine back to Penelope. “But I know who would know. Cissie’s old nanny still lives here in Chumley. She might be able to help you.”
“You don’t happen to remember her name or her address by any chance?” Penelope held her breath waiting for Tina to answer.
Tina frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t.” She snapped her fingers. “But Greta Danbury might. She’s our German teacher and, if I’m not mistaken, she lives near Cissie’s former nanny.” Tina craned her neck and looked at the clock on the wall. “Her class is ending in three minutes. If you don’t mind waiting here, I’ll go and get her as soon as the bell rings.”
“Thank you.” Pen breathed a sigh of relief.
She could hear Tina’s pumps tapping against the marble floor as she walked away down the hall. She pulled out Wanda’s empty desk chair and sat down. She suddenly realized she hadn’t had any lunch and was beginning to feel a bit light-headed.
She glanced at Wanda’s desk. An ordinary black frame held a photograph of Wanda kneeling on the ground, the ends of her long hair nearly brushing her ankles and her arm around a shaggy Saint Bernard.
A copy of the local paper sat on top of a pile of file folders. Penelope picked it up and began to scan the front page. She was beginning to wonder if Tina was ever coming back when she reappeared with a piece of paper in her hand.
“Greta remembered Cissie’s nanny. They were neighbors until Greta married and moved away.” She handed Penelope the paper. “Her name is Alice Thurston. And here’s her address.”
“Thank you.” Penelope took the paper and stood up, pushing Wanda’s chair back into place.
Penelope glanced at the paper. Alice didn’t live too far away. She’d check in with Mabel and then go pay her a visit. But first she was going to get something to eat.
* * *
* * *
The aroma of fish-and-chips and hot oil drifted out the door of the Chumley Chippie when Penelope opened it. It was a bit late in the day for lunch, but there were still a few people scattered among the tables.
“Can I help you, love?” the bored-looking clerk behind the counter said without looking up from his newspaper.
“The pollack, please, and a side of chips.”
“Sorry, love, we ran out of pollack an hour ago. Would the plaice do you?”
“Sure.” Penelope had no idea what the difference was between the two types of fish, but at this point she was starving and ready to eat anything.
She watched as the fellow behind the counter lowered the plaice into a vat of oil that sizzled and spit and bubbled up around the fish. He then filled a wire basket with potatoes and plunged it into the oil. The chips immediately crackled and spat, slowly turning golden brown.
She dug some bills out of her wallet, paid for her meal, and took her tray over to a vacant table. A young man was sitting at the next table over facing her. He looked familiar, but Penelope couldn’t immediately place him.
He had slightly shaggy hair, and even from a distance Penelope could see that his eyes were a deep, vivid blue. He looked up from his plate of fish-and-chips and smiled at Penelope. She was surprised when he got up from his seat and began to walk toward her.
As he got closer, Penelope realized he was the lead singer for the Foggy Bottoms—and the young man who had purchased Tobias’s blue velvet dinner jacket at the Oxfam shop in town.
“This is a bit of good luck,” he said when he reached Penelope’s table. “We met at the Book and Bottle. Do you remember? I was singing with my group, the Foggy Bottoms, and you asked me about my jacket.”
“Yes, of course. I do remember,” Pen said. “You did an excellent cover of ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ I really enjoyed it.”
The young man dipped his head shyly. “The name’s Sean, by the way.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and jingled the coins in it nervously. “I was hoping I’d run into you again—the odds are good in a town as small as Chumley.” He thrust his hand in his other pocket and pulled out a photograph. “I thought I ought to give you this. I found it in that jacket I bought at Oxfam—the one you were asking about the other day. I thought perhaps the owner might want it back.” He handed the picture to Penelope.
She looked at it quickly. It was a photo of Tobias with his arms around a woman with long blond hair. She was clearly young—Penelope doubted she was much older than her early twenties—and very pretty. And it was obvious from the pose that Tobias was more than just a casual acquaintance. Penelope glanced at the date stamp on the picture—it was taken quite recently.
Sean tapped the photograph in Pen’s hand. “Can you see that that gets back to the owner?”
Penelope didn’t have the heart to tell him that the owner—Tobias—was dead.
“The police came and took the jacket, by the way,” Sean said as he turned to leave. “But they’ve promised to return it when they’re done with it. I’ve become quite fond of it.” He grinned.
Penelope studied the photograph again. If Rose had gotten wind of the fact that Tobias had taken up with someone else, how devastating that would be, especially if she had killed Cissie so that she and Tobias could be together. If Tobias had sent that letter Pen found in his wastebasket, Rose would have known it was over. But perhaps she had convinced herself that she could get Tobias back?
Was it really Tobias that Rose was interested in or was it the money she knew he would inherit from Cissie? And had her anger at the thought of losing out on a fortune eventually turned to murderous rage?
TWENTY
Penelope got in her car and started the MINI’s engine. The smell of fish-and-chips clung to her clothes and she rolled the window down a crack. She’d already rung Mabel to let her know she might not be coming back to the Open Book that afternoon. There had been a note of curiosity in Mabel’s voice but Penelope had promised to fill her in on everything later.
Penelope drove down the high street, which soon dwindled to a country lane. The grass in the fields on either side of the road was scrubby and brown, and parts of the fence along the footpath had come down. In the distance, Penelope spotted a rambler with a walking stick and a man wearing a Barbour jacket who was heading in the opposite direction, his border collie sprinting ahead of him.
Penelope’s mind was wandering when her car suddenly began pulling hard to the left. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, but the MINI continued veering toward the side of the road. Suddenly the front left side of the car dipped, the engine slowed, and she coasted to a stop with an ominous scraping sound. The road had little shoulder to speak of, but she managed to pull slightly off to the side and onto the grass.
Her palms were sweating as she opened the door and got out. She circled the car and soon discovered what the trouble was—her front left tire was totally flat. How on earth had that happened? Penelope wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about cars, but the tires had been fine when she left India’s cottage.
She reached into the car and grabbed her cell phone off the console. She was about to ring Digby’s garage when she saw a car coming toward her. The driver was slowing and eventually pulled over alongside Penelope’s car. He rolled down the window and stuck his head out.
“Trouble?” It was Maguire.
“Yes!” Pen said. “My tire seems to have gone flat.”
Maguire pulled off the road as far as he could and got out. He walked over to Penelope’s car and squatted down to examine the damage to her tire. He poked and prodded the tire and finally looked up with his face creased with concern.
“Your tire’s been slashed.”
“What!” Penelope felt the blood drain from her face. “Who would do something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Maguire admitted. “We don’t have a lot of vandalism in Chumley—mostly kids’ pranks like the occasional trampled flower bed or broken lawn ornament—so I can’t imagine who would have done this. It takes a bit of strength to slash a tire like that.” He raised an eyebrow. “And a knife.”
He stood up and gestured toward Penelope’s trunk. “Got a spare?”
Penelope bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Let’s take a look.” Maguire opened the trunk and Penelope was glad to see a spare tire nestled in the space. “I’ll have this fixed for you in a tick.” He leveled his gaze at Penelope. “But what I’d like to know is why did someone choose to slash your tire. Were you singled out or was it random?”
Penelope thought about all the questions she’d been going around asking. Was it possible someone was trying to warn her off investigating? “I don’t know.”
Maguire jacked up the car, removed the ruined tire, and tossed it in the trunk. He quickly put on the spare tire, checking to make extra sure all the lug nuts were tightened. Finally, he stood up and brushed some dirt off his pants.
“That should do the trick until you can get to the garage.”
The phrase knight in shining armor flashed through Penelope’s mind.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she said.
“Glad to be of service.” Maguire tipped an imaginary hat.
Penelope was about to tell him about her theory that the cloth found in the ashes of the bonfire must have come from an apron when loud, strident honking startled them both.
A large van was stopped in the lane and the driver was glaring at them. The lane was narrow and so was the shoulder of the road and with Penelope and Maguire’s cars stopped side by side, there wasn’t enough room for him to pass.
“Be careful, please,” Maguire said as he ran to his car. “Sorry, mate,” he called over his shoulder to the van driver as he hopped in and started the engine.
Penelope’s hands were still shaking a bit as she turned the key in the ignition and released the brake. The thought that someone might have slashed her tire on purpose was frightening enough to make her consider dropping the entire investigation, dumping everything in Maguire’s lap, and going back to minding her own business, writing her book, and working at the Open Book.
As Penelope drove along, the scenery, with its open spaces and wide vistas, soothed her nerves and the tension in her shoulders began to ease. Surely there would be no harm in paying Alice Thurston a call.
* * *
* * *
Alice Thurston’s cottage was not unlike Penelope’s, although it was set down a dirt drive in the middle of a field with sheep grazing in the distance on the sparse grass.
Penelope pulled up in front of it, parked her car, and walked to the front door. The brass knocker was highly polished, and she noticed starched white curtains hanging in the windows on either side.
A tall, elegant woman in gray flannel slacks and a blue cashmere turtleneck answered the door. She had black hair threaded with silver strands that was swept back from her high forehead and twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck.
“Yes?” she said when she saw Penelope.
“I’m looking for Alice Thurston?” Penelope said.
“You’ve found her.” She kept her hand on the doorknob. “Are you selling something?”
“No,” Penelope hastened to reassure her. “I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind . . . about Cissie Emmott. I believe you were her nanny at one time.”
“Yes. Yes, I was—for Cissie and her little brother. Dreadful news about the murder.” She drew back a bit. “You’re not with one of those horrid tabloids, are you?”
“No. I’m . . . I’m a friend of Cissie’s,” Pen said. That was stretching the truth a bit. Okay, rather a lot actually.
“You might as well come in.” Alice held the door wider.
The door opened directly into a small sitting room where the walls were lined with bookshelves. Some of the books were obviously old classics although the spines of the more colorful dust jackets suggested a collection of contemporary fiction as well.
“What did you say your name was?” Alice said as she motioned toward a comfortable-looking armchair covered in worn chintz.
“Penelope Parish.”
“Like the author of Lady of the Moors?”
Penelope was taken aback. Despite her having written a bestseller, the people that recognized her name were still few and far between.
“Yes. That’s me, actually.”
“Delightful book. I enjoyed it tremendously,” Alice said, moving toward the door. “Would you like some tea—that great British panacea?”
By the time she was done with this, Penelope thought, she was going to be awash with tea.
“Or would you care for something stronger? I have a lovely single malt Scotch with a delightful peaty aroma.” Alice laughed. “Surely the sun is over the yardarm somewhere. Although that expression has come to be interpreted as after five o’clock when sailors, who originated the expression, were actually referring to eleven in the morning.”
Penelope had never been a fan of hard liquor. “Thank you, but I’d better not.”
“Tea it is, then,” Alice said as she swept from the room.
Penelope found her eyes drawn to the books. She never could pass a bookshelf without checking out the titles.
Alice came back into the room with a tray of cups and saucers and a teapot.
She gestured toward the books on the wall. “You’re probably wondering how I ended up taking a job as a nanny.” She put the tray down on a low table and began pouring. “I read English at university—specifically the romantic poets. I was working on a biography of William Blake when my husband died in a car accident. I needed to support myself so I got a job as a nanny. Studying poetry doesn’t exactly give you a lot of marketable skills.”
Penelope accepted the teacup Alice held out and took a sip. Lapsang souchong, she thought. It had a slightly smoky taste—probably like Alice’s favorite Scotch.
“So what did you want to know about Cissie Emmott?” Alice said. “Have you known her long?”
“Not terribly long, no.”
“Are there any suspects? Have you heard?”
“Not yet. At least not that I know of. But that’s one reason why I’m here. I’ve been doing a little digging and—”
“You’re playing amateur sleuth?” Alice clapped her hands together. “Like Miss Marple? What fun.”
Penelope felt her face get hot. “Sort of.” She cleared her throat. “I’m wondering about a woman named Ivy Brown and if she had any relation to Cissie.”
“Ivy? Of course. She was the daughter of Gemma, the upstairs maid, who was a particular favorite of Mrs. Emmott’s.”
“Were Cissie and Ivy . . . friendly?” Pen finished her tea and put her cup down.
Alice leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs. She pursed her lips.
“Friendly? I don’t know that I would call them friends. But Ivy did live with the Emmotts.” She raised one eyebrow. “A highly unusual circumstance but, as I said, Gemma was a favorite of Mrs. Emmott’s.”
“Did Cissie and Ivy do things together? Play together when they were young or hang out with the same crowd?”
“When they were small, yes, they did play together—games with other children like what’s the time, Mr. Wolf and red letter. I remember that Cissie would become quite upset if she wasn’t the victor and eventually the other children learned to let her win. I found that quite alarming—that’s no way to build character—but when I mentioned my observations to Mr. Emmott, he didn’t want to hear about it. Cissie was the apple of his eye.”
&nbs
p; Alice crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t pursue it because eventually Cissie was sent off to board at the Oakwood School for Girls and I was confident that the headmistress would soon sort things out.”
“What about Ivy? Where did she go to school?”
“The local primary school, of course.”
“Did that cause friction between Cissie and Ivy?”
“Obviously Ivy understood her position. The Emmotts were very good to her, but there are limits. She left secondary school at sixteen with her GCSE—what we used to call the O level—and went to work.”
“That must have caused some resentment on Ivy’s part? It would only be natural.”
Alice’s glance slipped away from Penelope and focused on the window beyond. She appeared to be debating something. Finally she spoke.
“It wasn’t that that caused Ivy’s resentment.” She fiddled with the silver chain around her neck.
Penelope waited silently, nearly holding her breath. She had the feeling she was about to grasp the thread that would unravel the entire mystery.
Alice let out a sigh, her shoulders rising up and down with the exhalation.
“It happened when they were both around seventeen. Cissie was home from school for October half term and Ivy was still living with her while she worked at a nearby factory. Cissie had taken up with a local boy during the summer holidays. Her father didn’t approve—in his eyes, the young man wasn’t good enough for his daughter. Besides, Cissie was still young and, well, you know how youngsters can get up to things.”
Penelope nodded.
“Cissie’s father forbade her to go out with him, but of course they continued to see each other. Cissie went back to school after the summer holidays and we all thought that would put an end to it, but the young man convinced Cissie to come out with him when she was home at half term. It seems he’d gotten hold of some spirits—gin I believe—and had gotten Cissie drunk. Mr. Emmott was beside himself when Cissie got home—he’d been frantic when he discovered she wasn’t in her room.”
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