Small Town Christmas (Some Very English Murders Book 6)

by Issy Brooke

  Linda snorted. “Not so old – no, not so old. But…”

  She looked down.

  She was ill.

  Penny saw it in a flash. That layer of make-up was to disguise the ravages of illness or perhaps aggressive treatments; the care Linda took in her clothing and her presentation was her mask to show the world that she was all right.

  In a low voice, which she hoped was sympathetic because she certainly felt sympathy, she said, “Linda, is there anything I can do to help?”

  Linda sniffed. “Is it so obvious?” she whispered.

  “No, not at all.”

  Linda’s usually straight shoulders sagged. “There is one thing that you can do,” she said. “Don’t tell a soul.”

  Penny regarded her, and then said, “Right. You can’t take the bus home, Linda. Let me give you a lift, and if you feel up to it, you can come over to look at the work I’ve done.”

  “But–”

  “Yes, I insist. And yes, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  * * * *

  “So if you weren’t doing your Christmas shopping, what were you doing in Lincoln?” Penny said as they walked to her car.

  There was an awkward pause. Penny realised, too late, what Linda was going to say.

  “I was up at the hospital. Usually my husband takes me but it’s been so regular and he had to attend a family emergency of his own.”

  “I am so sorry. Ignore me. I have a huge mouth and I really ought to think before I speak,” Penny said.

  “Yes, you ought.”

  Ouch. But fair. Penny fumbled with the car keys and unlocked the doors, and went to the passenger side to help Linda in.

  “I do appreciate this,” Linda said.

  “It’s no problem at all.” Privately, Penny was worried that the half hour journey back to Upper Glenfield was going to be a long, tedious wasteland of stilted conversation. Still, she knew she was doing the right thing. She reminded herself that it was a small kindness that meant a lot.

  Her prediction was correct. Neither of them spoke for the first ten minutes as Penny negotiated her way out of Lincoln, fighting through the one-way system until they were clear of the town centre and into the still-busy suburbs.

  Finally, Linda found something to pick on. “I wouldn’t have come this way,” she said.

  “It’s the way I usually come.”

  Linda sniffed. “Oh, yes, you’re not local though, are you? You should have kept on that road and then turned left. It’s a cut-through past the airfield. It knocks at least three minutes off your journey.”

  “I’m really not so busy that three minutes is significant,” Penny said. “But I will bear it in mind.”

  “I am busy,” Linda said, but there was a tone in her voice that made Penny glance sideways. Linda’s face was drawn and tight, and she stared out of the window with a glazed and fixed glare. “Or at least, I want to be busy. I am supposed to be busy. That’s who I am, you know? Busy, capable, efficient Linda.”

  “You’re retired now, is that right?” Penny asked.

  “I am. I was an agricultural secretary for many years.”

  “Wow. I haven’t even heard of such a thing.” Penny tried to imagine what a farm secretary might do. Write down lists of cows? Send letters to farming magazines?

  “It’s big business, around here,” Linda explained, growing more animated. “The arable farms are huge, far bigger than stock farms in the hillier areas. The growers have a small workforce because it’s so mechanised but the actual running of the operations is tightly controlled. A lot of my job was dealing with budgets and finances. There was also an awful lot of health and safety, and legal stuff, and keeping up with European standards and so on. Not to mention working with the supermarkets! Oh, don’t get me started on them…” and she proceeded to rant at length about last-minute order cancellations, unreasonable quality standards, and pressure on prices.

  She gradually ran out of steam at the end of a tirade about parsnips.

  “Well,” Penny said. “That was an eye-opener. No wonder you are so efficient at everything.”

  “I loved it,” Linda said wistfully. “It must be a family trait. I totally understand why Clive felt so bereft after he retired, and why he tried to get involved in everything. But he lacked any graces. His manner was awful.”

  And yours isn’t? Penny thought. “But you keep busy,” she said aloud.

  “I do. I try. But this blasted illness…”

  “And is the treatment working?” Penny asked. It seemed safe to say something if Linda had already brought it up.

  “It is,” Linda said. “To be honest, the nurses are wonderful and everything is going to be all right.” She spoke with fierce determination. “I will be better. I will. It’s just that I feel so tired all the time, right now, and it drives me potty.”

  “Why don’t you ask for help?” Penny said. “You can’t keep on forcing yourself to meet everyone’s expectations.”

  “I will not have people talking about me and I certainly won’t have people feeling sorry for me,” Linda said fiercely.

  “Yes, but–”

  “No! Absolutely not. You must not tell anyone, Penny. You promised me. I can’t stand the looks that people will give me. I must carry on as always. The police were asking me about where I was, on the night Clive died. I was asleep! I had literally driven off in a fearful strop after Clive’s outburst, and parked up in a lay-by, and slept like a log for over an hour. When I woke up, I felt dreadful, and I drove home and had …”

  Penny waited. They were nearly back at Glenfield now. She peeked sideways at Linda.

  “…I had a bit of a meltdown at my husband,” she concluded in a whisper.

  “That’s understandable,” Penny said. “Being ill is so very stressful.”

  “But don’t you see how bad that looks? He told the police the truth, of course. Well, he didn’t mention my illness. He knows how I feel about it. We don’t even talk about it at home. I simply won’t. He said to the police that I had not come home until late, and that I was distressed when I got home. That’s all he said, but it makes me look guilty!”

  You do indeed, Penny thought. “But surely you yourself have told the police about your illness?”

  “Of course not! I don’t trust a single one of them. They all gossip. It will be all over town.”

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Penny said. “They have ethical standards of confidentiality.” Which I have never abused in the past, she thought, and hoped she wasn’t blushing at her lie. “It will go in your favour if you tell them the truth.”

  Linda snorted. “I don’t believe that. They will probably add it to their motives that they have already pinned on me. Maybe they think that I think I would inherit from him or something. I won’t, of course. But the police are rather stupid.”

  “They are not,” Penny said hotly.

  “You would say that. You are too close to that Cath Pritchard. How can you trust being friends with her?”

  “Because she is a nice person.” Unlike you. “Shall I drop you at your house?”

  “Please. Turn left here. You can drive up to the bottom of the path.”

  Penny gritted her teeth and pulled up outside Linda’s house. She decided not to remind Linda about the flyers that she wanted to view. Penny was not in the mood to spend any more time with Linda than she absolutely had to. She hoped that Linda wouldn’t suddenly remember, and invite herself over to Penny’s house.

  Penny held the car door open for Linda and watched her as she made her way up the path. She paused at the top, and Penny held her breath.

  But Linda just waved, thanked her, and went inside.

  I have done my good deed for the day, Penny told herself as she drove home. That probably counts for the week, to be fair.

  Good stuff has to happen to me now, right? That’s how karma works.

  Sadly it doesn’t seem to be how my life works.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “
I am taking some time for me,” Penny told Kali.

  Kali was splayed on her back on the sofa, her belly exposed to the world. The heating had been on in the house all day and the atmosphere was toasty and warm. The dog looked unconcerned by Penny’s declaration. They had returned from a walk just half an hour ago, and now Kali was settling down for the night.

  But Penny was not. It was Wednesday, and it was a clear night. It was also moonless, and she had learned that a moonless night was the best time to photograph stars. She had been talking about undertaking some night photography, and she was determined to do it. She was done with being helpful to other people – for a few hours, at any rate.

  She struggled back into many layers of clothing. Linda’s recent revelations were preying on Penny’s mind. She didn’t like being the only one who knew about Linda’s illness. She knew she had to respect the woman’s confidence, of course.

  Yet if the information pertained to the murder investigation, in any way, then she had a duty to tell the police.

  And she found Linda’s wilful intransigence infuriating. After all, if Linda told the police the truth, it would make Linda look like less of a suspect! Penny shook her head in exasperation. Linda was crazy not to see it that way.

  When Penny went to pull her boots on, Kali shifted off the sofa and came to see what was going on. She sat and looked curiously at Penny, wondering if she had to go out for another walk. She was always up for adventures, but Penny sent her back to the living room.

  “Guard the house,” she told the dog.

  Kali sighed, snuffled, and curled up on the sofa once more.

  * * * *

  Penny felt a little jumpy as cars zipped past. She remembered the incident with the red car very clearly, and she experienced a contrary sense of relief when she left the main road and started down a dark, unlit track. It felt safer being away from people.

  She told herself that she wasn’t worried about the previous incident. The police had opened, and perfunctorily closed, the case. It was deemed to have been an accident, or a random chance event. She would not be changed by it.

  She pulled out her head torch and turned it on, and it was enough to light the way safely.

  The lack of clouds made the air very cold. It was going to freeze, she knew, and already the grass at the side of the track was rimmed with white. The water droplets in the air froze when they came into contact with vegetation, creating a magical hoar frost.

  She liked the way her torch lit up the sparkling outlines of white-lined trees, and she pulled out her camera long before she reached the spot she had been aiming for. She wasn’t going to delve back into the deep woods, not on her own in the dark, but she wanted to go a little way along the path towards the badger setts and see if she could take some interesting shots of dark shadows, silhouettes and the like.

  Now that she was away from the traffic, it was silent. At least, she thought it was silent as she tramped along, her boots crunching on the freezing ground. But when she stopped walking, the tiny noises of the woods at night flooded into her hearing. She paused to take it all in.

  There was rustling in the undergrowth to her left. There would be a sudden rush of it, then a pause, then another outbreak of leafy whispers. She imagined some small creature darting along. From a distance she heard a cooing sound, which she thought was an owl. There was a thud deep in the trees which startled her. Something hunting, perhaps, or just an acorn falling.

  She went on, climbing up a raised bank that ran alongside the path. From here, she could see the stars up above, with the dark tree line like a smear at the bottom edge. It framed the shot in an unusual way, and she set up her new tripod to capture the scene.

  Behind her, a twig snapped. She stopped and peered into the dark. She had dimmed her head torch slightly, to let her eyes adjust better to the lack of light.

  There was nothing there.

  I am so jumpy, she thought. This is madness. Relax!

  She crouched down and began taking some photographs, adjusting the shutter speed and bracketing the shot. Her preview screen showed nothing but a dull blackness, but she remembered Jared’s advice and knew she needed to see them on her computer at home to appreciate her work.

  When she was done, she picked up her stuff but kept the tripod legs extended. She slung her bag over her back and walked on, staying at the top of the banking. The track was on her right and the trees were to her left.

  Another twig snapped behind her, and this was so close that she stifled a squeak of surprise. She glanced back, just to humour her own sense of panic as she told herself, Look, silly! There’s nothing there!

  But there was something there.

  It was the figure of a person, all muffled and disguised in a hat and scarf and coat so that she could not even see if they were male or female. Their arm rose up and there was something long and dark in their hand.

  Penny froze for a split second.

  It was enough for the assailant to bring the object down upon her head.

  Penny threw up her hand almost at the same moment, and she moved quickly enough to be able to stop most of the force of the blow as the object in the attacker’s hand connected with her camera tripod with a metallic clang. She screamed, then, as loudly as she could, and kicked forward with her booted foot and caught them on their knee.

  There was no point in continuing the fight. The attacker stumbled and that fraction of a second was enough to propel Penny down the banking, onto the path, and then she was running like a demon back towards the well-lit street.

  Her camera bag bounced painfully on her hip as it swung around. She kept a tight hold of her tripod, ready to bash the attacker on the head again, though she prayed forcefully that it would not come to that. She ran faster and harder than she thought she could, and her breath was raw in her throat, the cold air feeling like it was tearing strips out of her and squeezing her lungs tight.

  She hit the road but she didn’t look back and she didn’t slow down. She ran towards houses, towards other people, towards safety.

  She plunged through the gate of the first house she came to where the lights were on, and hammered on the door relentlessly until finally it swung open and she fell forwards onto a jute rug and could hardly breathe for crying.

  * * * *

  The startled elderly couple, Jan and Eric, ushered her into a comfortable and overheated living room. Jan brought her a blanket and a succession of hot drinks while Eric phoned the police. Penny was on her second cup of cocoa that had been laced with brandy when a uniformed officer turned up, and behind him was the welcome face of Cath.

  Jan and Eric willingly gave up their main room and went off to their kitchen while the police talked to Penny. She had been running through the events in her mind while waiting for the officers, and was able to give them a thorough breakdown. The uniformed officer went off in the car to explore the area, while Cath remained with Penny. Cath was dressed in typical slob-around-the-house gear, and she sat close to Penny, a concerned look on her face.

  “I can’t believe it,” Penny said. “It was a targeted attack, wasn’t it, surely?”

  “We have had no other reports of anyone else being attacked – well, except Clive,” Cath said.

  “Oh, thanks. He was killed, if you remember. Do you think it might be the same person?”

  “It’s something we have to consider.”

  “Maybe the car that ran at me was the same person. Maybe that wasn’t a random event.” Penny put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. “This is awful. I want to run away.”

  “In light of everything … yes. That’s a sensible reaction. You could go away, and stay somewhere else for Christmas.”

  As soon as it had been mooted as a real possibility, Penny rejected it. “No. No, why should I be chased out of the town that I live in?”

  “Why? Um, to stay safe, I suppose.”

  “Well, yes, apart from that. But look, Cath – the most important question is why me? And I don�
�t mean that in a whiney way.”

  “No, you’re totally right,” Cath agreed. “Find the motive and you often find the suspect. Why on earth would anyone target you?”

  “If this is linked to the murder of Clive Holdsworth, then this surely widens the pool of suspects for that case, too? I mean, there’s me – obviously I’m not attacking myself. Then there’s Jared, Haydn and Linda. All three of them have a slight issue with me, in one way or another, but I am pretty sure none of them would want to kill me. What purpose would it serve? So maybe the police need to look for more suspects.”

  “It’s two fold. Yes, we probably need to look wider. And like you just said, we need to establish the reason for the attacks in the first place.” Cath gazed around the room for a moment, obviously deep in thought.

  Penny could hear low voices coming from elsewhere in the house. No doubt this would be local gossip tomorrow.

  Cath picked at the antimacassar on the arm of the chair where she was sitting. “Tell me why you think those three all have a slight issue with you,” she said.

  “You know some of it already,” Penny said. “Jared decided he had a crush on me and told me that Drew wasn’t good enough for me. Although when I last saw Jared, at the planning meeting, he was perfectly okay with me. Haydn is just an idiot. He is fine one minute and then arguing with me, or anyone, the next minute. The last time I saw him we were arguing about cycling, of all things, when I was carol singing last week. And Linda…” Penny tailed off.

  “You look miserable,” Cath said. “That tells me you are holding something back that you know you need to share. This is a matter of justice, Penny. Speak up.”

  “She told me this in strictest confidence and I am really not happy about what I am going to tell you,” Penny said. “It might not even be relevant.”

  “We can judge that, and I promise you, that we only use information that is useful to us. You know that.”

  “I do. Okay, so, Linda is ill. I am not sure what’s wrong, but she’s having regular treatment up at Lincoln and it’s making her really tired. She actually went by bus yesterday. She said she was having trouble getting in and out of her car.”