Farewell, My Cuckoo

by Marty Wingate

  “Why was she out here?” Callow asked as the uniforms crept closer to the pond.

  “We’re running a watercolor competition for St. Swithun’s Day—fifteenth of July. It was Willow’s idea. Everyone will have to paint the same view. She’d chosen this one, I think.” And a lovely view it was—the pond in the foreground, the wild graveyard nestled up against the medieval church with its tall, square Norman tower. At this time of day, the afternoon light hit the scene perfectly, the cattails rising in clumps along the edges and a mallard paddling along lazily.

  “Boss,” the sergeant called. Callow joined him near the water. I stayed where I was, but forced myself to look at what they’d found.

  A man’s body, facedown with arms and legs splayed out. Grass and reeds and the brown color of his clothes acted as camouflage. Willow had been admiring the view of the church—no wonder she hadn’t noticed a corpse at her feet.

  He’d fallen just at the edge of the pond, and his face was in the shallows—more mud than water. His trousers and jacket looked rumpled, and the bottoms of his shoes had holes. Even from my position, a good fifteen feet away, I could see the back of his head was dark and the hair matted.

  And yes, now I saw the flies, but I also spotted something out the corner of my eye that Willow might not have seen—a carrion crow flying off. I took a step back and shifted my gaze to the yellow flag iris growing farther along.

  Callow and Glossop bent over the body, donning blue evidence gloves before they examined what they could without disturbing the scene. The uniforms, stock-still in the grass, waited. The DI stood and began to give orders, pointing at the body, sweeping her arms across to take in the field, and nodding toward the churchyard. Blue-and-white police tape appeared from someone’s pocket, and soon the entire pond was circled in what looked like bunting for a fête. Callow made two quick phone calls and then motioned her DC over.

  “Flynn, drive Ms. Wynn-Finch to Hoggin Hall, and I’ll join her there.” The DI nodded to me. “And take Ms. Lanchester with you.”

  * * *

  —

  “There now, love, this’ll do you good.”

  Sheila Bugg, housekeeper-cook at Hoggin Hall, set a cup of tea in front of Willow, who stared into the steaming brew as if trying to identify it before murmuring “Thank you” and obediently taking a sip.

  We’d been greeted at the door of the Hall by Thorne, the butler, who had taken the call from the DI. He was, as always, impeccably dressed in a dark suit that contrasted well with his white cotton-ball hair and silver-rimmed glasses. Thorne reported that neither Linus—on his way home from a meeting in Diss—nor the young master—en route from a day conference in Aberdeen and not expected to return until that evening—had been informed of events as yet.

  “Cecil is the ‘young master,’ ” I explained to DC Flynn. Cecil, thirty-something years old, carried the official title of Lord Palgrave, although he preferred to be called Mr. Fotheringill in estate business. But to Thorne, he would always be a child of the Hall.

  Mrs. Bugg had waited for us in the kitchen, tea at the ready, and we—Flynn, Willow, and I—had settled at the table and awaited the arrival of DI Callow. It didn’t seem the time for small talk, so none of us spoke, apart from me congratulating Moira on her promotion.

  When Callow arrived, she declined tea. She began her interview standing over us until I nudged an empty chair with my foot. Its squeak caught her attention, and she took a seat and continued. The DI went over Willow’s story again, her questions prodding here and there; a few queries came my way. Who frequented the area? How busy was the path? When was the last time we were out there?

  Willow responded clearly, taking a swig of her tea after each answer. She explained she’d wanted to take a final look at her choice for the watercolor competition, and that it had been a week since she’d stood on the same spot. “That poor man,” she murmured.

  The DI reported that no identification had been found on the body. Did we know of anyone locally who had been reported missing? We shook our heads.

  “I’ll need to talk with the vicar,” Callow said.

  “Reverend Eccles is away,” Sheila told her. “He and his wife left after the wedding on Saturday—fishing holiday in the Highlands.”

  “I can get you the verger,” I offered. “She’ll be able to get in touch with him.”

  Callow wrapped up the session by saying, “When we get the body cleaned up, Ms. Wynn-Finch, we’ll need you and Ms. Lanchester to take a look—” Willow’s cup clattered into its saucer, and Callow caught herself. “At a photo,” she added. “We’re finished for the present.”

  The housekeeper, who had added the occasional commiserative tongue click during the proceedings, set another pot of tea on the table and took away the first. “There now,” she said, “that’s fresh. And help yourself.” She nodded to the plate of shortbread that no one had touched, although I’d been giving it the eye.

  As Sheila put an arm round Willow and led her out of the kitchen, Callow said, “Ms. Wynn-Finch, we’ll need your clothes and your shoes. DC Flynn will provide you with a bag and take them from you to the lab.”

  “You can have a bath here,” Sheila told Willow. “I’ll ring Lottie and explain.”

  As Flynn followed them out and the door swung closed, Willow looked up at the housekeeper and said, “Flies, Sheila. There were flies—so many of them, buzzing…”

  After they’d gone, I slumped in my chair, put my elbows on the table, and dropped my chin into my hand. DI Callow stood at the door as if listening for approaching footsteps, and, hearing none, she unbuttoned her jacket and sat. She picked up the teapot and nodded to my empty cup. I pushed it across the table toward her and sighed deeply.

  “Do you need to get back?” she asked as she poured.

  “No, Vesta is all right. I texted her—I didn’t tell her why, just said I was delayed.”

  “So, the newlyweds have returned. How was the wedding?”

  As I poured milk into my tea, I thought how Detective Inspector Callow had taught me you could never judge a book by its cover—or a person by her manner while on the job. Since meeting her under unpleasant circumstances a year ago the previous autumn, we’d become friends. Tess’s girlfriend worked in London and was home only on weekends, and Michael was often in another part of the country with Dad during the week, and so the DI and I would occasionally knock about together, sometimes meeting for a drink and a meal at The Den, a roadside pub in Foxearth—a place where she felt comfortable being a civilian.

  “The wedding was lovely,” I replied, biting off half a shortbread finger.

  “It’s only that I thought you might text me with news,” she replied, snapping her shortbread in two.

  My sister, Vesta, Beryl, and now Tess. I kept my secret quite poorly, it seemed—the idea that Michael and I might have an announcement of our own. But the warm and exciting anticipation of sharing big news had faded, and it felt as if what I had expected to happen had been five years ago, not five days. A thought had begun to buzz round in my brain. Perhaps I’d invented the entire thing—perhaps Michael hadn’t intended to propose at all, but had wanted to talk about—I don’t know, buying new curtains.

  “Nothing to text you about,” I confessed. Knowing it was no good to lie to the police, I told the story of Pammy. “But really, she’s to be gone the end of the week.”

  “When I was growing up,” Tess said, “we had an uncle—my mother’s brother—who came for a week and stayed for three years. That made eight of us in a two-up, two-down. He had to kip on the sofa—turned out his wife had run off with the dustman and taken all their savings. Mum felt sorry for him.”

  A rare glimpse into Tess Callow the girl, I was torn between being fascinated and seized with fear that Pammy might try the same trick. “How many brothers and sisters did you have?”

  “Too
many.”

  Her phone rang and she stood to answer, buttoning her jacket as she did so. After only a few words, she ended the call.

  “FME,” she said, and I blinked. “Forensic medical examiner—we’ve got one booked. Body is on its way to her.”

  “Do you know how he died? And when—because it didn’t look…you know, fresh.” Poor Willow.

  “I’d say he’d been there a good few days, but we won’t know for certain until—well, here it is Thursday. Might be Monday before we have any results.”

  “That Inspector Francesca would have the report by the end of today.”

  Tess arched an eyebrow. “We are not a television program, and neither do we have the budget of one.”

  Those police detective shows on the telly—it was a bit of a joke between us, although I thought Tess had a secret crush on this Inspector Francesca, because she never missed an episode.

  “We’ll have to wait for manner of death as well. The head injury was obvious, although that had been exacerbated by—”

  “Yes, fine, thanks, I get the picture.” I waved my hand to dispel the words. “Could he have done that himself? Fallen and hit his head?”

  “On what?” Tess asked. “And it would have to be quite a fall to receive such an injury. No, not an accident.”

  “He was murdered?” I whispered. “There, outside the churchyard? Why?”

  “Who was he?” she countered. “What was he doing out there? Was he local, and if not, what brought him to the estate? We’ve a great many questions to answer. Have you noticed many new people in the village lately?”

  “More than last year, not as many as we’d like. Remember, that’s my job—luring strangers to the estate. Our visitors.”

  “Has His Lordship installed CCTV anywhere yet?”

  I shook my head. “You know how Linus feels about that—he doesn’t want his tenants to feel he’s spying on them. Shopkeepers are welcome to install cameras in their own businesses, but I’m not sure any have.”

  Tess took our cups and saucers to the sink. “I’m returning to the scene—we’ve recovered footprints in the mud, but they look fresh, so they are most likely Willow’s. The rain on Monday probably washed away anything useful.” She looked round the kitchen walls, a subtle tone of maize. “Is this a new paint job?”

  Sheila had taken the project upon herself late last year. Lovely of the DI to notice, but it only served to remind me that another suspicious death had brought the police back to our village.

  Chapter 8

  Detective Inspector Callow offered to have an officer drive me back to the TIC, but I preferred not to show up in a panda car, and so I walked back into the village from Hoggin Hall, taking my old shortcut down to the road. I looked back up toward the church and could see at least one panda car still parked. I wished I had worn trainers, as my spike heels sank into the soft verge, but when I reached the low bridge over the brook, the pavement began and I made better time.

  Who was this poor fellow dead by our pond? From the state of him—as much as I was willing to take in—it looked as if he might have been down on his luck. Caught in a violent encounter? The thing is, the pond isn’t really on the way to anywhere—far enough off the road so that you’d have to be looking to see anyone there. It lay between the church and a field—on the other side of the field sat a few fine houses that had been built for the fourth earl’s in-laws in the late eighteenth century. Now, one house was a pensioners’ home and the others were let to families. Perhaps the police were already knocking on their doors.

  I drew up in front of Nuala’s Tea Room at the sight of a dark green Morgan Roadster parked at the curb, and my thoughts shifted from a body at the pond to Mr. Anthony Brightbill, who had apparently set up Nuala’s as his second home. Vesta had said she’d close up, and so I didn’t think twice about taking action. I pulled open the door of the tea room so violently that the bell jangled off its hook and fell to the floor with a clank.

  Two girls sitting at the window table gasped, and Nuala looked in from the room next door that held the bakery cases. Brightbill, occupying the same table as before, had a pencil in hand and a newspaper turned to the crossword. He glanced up, eyebrows raised.

  “Sorry,” I said in a stage whisper, picking up the bell and standing on tiptoe to reattach it.

  “Here, let me.”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Brightbill, I’ve got it.”

  “Please, it’s Tony.”

  I turned, straightening my blouse and tugging on my skirt. He smiled at me—that winning, debonair smile. I smiled back, but said nothing.

  “Everything all right, Julia?” Nuala asked.

  I inhaled deeply, taking in the scents of sugar and butter and chocolate and spices to clear my head. “Fine, yes. I’ve only stopped to ask…what you’ve decided to take to the church’s cake stall on Saturday.” I congratulated myself on my quick thinking. One Saturday afternoon a month, the church had a cake stall with tea, all proceeds going to Conserve Our Choristers. I had absolutely nothing to do with the event, but it made a fine excuse, because everyone knew I was naturally inquisitive about cake.

  The girls paid and left, and Nuala hovered in the doorway, always looking as if she might rise en pointe at any second. “I’ve a cherry-and-almond traybake and a chocolate sponge with an orange glaze. Next month, I’ll do a Victoria sponge with peaches instead of strawberries. Do you think?”

  I momentarily lost my irritation at Brightbill’s presence as a vision of a peach sponge cake rose before me. “Oh, I’d say it’ll do quite well.”

  “Tony,” Nuala said, “we’ve some fine bakers in the church. You should drop by the cake stall on Saturday.”

  “Ah, Nuala, it’s tempting, I’ll say that, but sadly, I’m not able to. Weekends are difficult.”

  “Linus is on his way back from Diss,” I said, apropos of nothing except I wanted Nuala to keep him in mind.

  She nodded. “The quarterly meeting for Suffolk Estates Association.”

  “Of course, you would know that,” I said, laying a hand on Nuala’s arm. “The way you and Linus keep up.” Well, there you are, Mr. Brightbill—Nuala and Linus closer than you thought. My work here was done. “So good to see you again, Mr. Brightbill.”

  “And you.” He cut his eyes at Nuala and back to me. “See you next time.”

  * * *

  —

  Muttering curses on Anthony Brightbill’s head, I clattered down the pavement, seeing nothing but red and walking straight past our cottage and all the way to Three Bags Full, before I remembered I didn’t need to return to the TIC. I stopped and peered in Lottie’s wool-shop window—now closed, as it was gone six o’clock. But the shop brought me up short, reminding me of the afternoon’s tragedy. Perhaps Lottie had gone out to the Hall to fetch Willow. I’d check on her tomorrow to make sure she’d recovered from her ordeal.

  I turned and went back to the cottage, and realized I’d walked straight past both Pammy’s Fiesta and Michael’s Fiat without noticing. The gang’s all here, I thought bitterly. The door of Pipit Cottage opened just as I got to it, and Michael started out.

  “Hiya,” I said.

  “Where’s Pammy?”

  I gasped. “Is she gone?”

  “No—at least, not for good.” He went back in, and I followed. Pammy’s loyal subjects, the plastic bags, had been shoved to the side, and so there was, at least, a clear path to walk. Two drained mugs on the coffee table along with the wrapper from a packet of custard creams—as well as a sink full of dirty dishes—stood as evidence of her presence in the not-too-distant past.

  “I don’t suppose she could be out for a walk?” I asked.

  “Pammy doesn’t like the outdoors, haven’t you noticed?” Michael sighed, took out his phone, and sent a text. “I should be glad—we should be glad—but it’s odd.”

/>   “Yeah,” I said, dropping my bag on the floor along with my spirits. Shouldn’t we be happy to be alone?

  Michael tossed his phone on the sofa and came to me. “You shouldn’t have to put up with my family business,” he said as he kneaded my upper arms, rubbing away the tension I hadn’t noticed was there.

  “No, I should put up with it, because she’s…she’s your sister and I…should.”

  I looked down at the floor to avoid his gaze, but he put a finger under my chin and tilted my head, and I saw a few stars in those deep blue eyes. I met him halfway in a soft, lingering kiss, interrupted by his phone vibrating.

  Pammy’s reply. Out for a drink, home soon.

  “Home?” My voice tightened.

  “A figure of speech—she didn’t mean anything by it,” Michael said. “Come on, we’ve a couple of minutes to ourselves. Let’s sit in the garden. What do you say?”

  He poured us wine and we settled on the terrace, chairs shoved together, his arm round me and my hand on his thigh. This was how it had been before Pammy—the two of us chatting about the minutiae of our days. But this day held bigger news—I told him about that poor man Willow had found.

  “They’ve no idea who he is?” Michael asked.

  I shook my head. “And Tess wouldn’t say for sure before the medical examiner takes a look, but it appears he was killed with a blow to the back of his head.”

  “Perhaps an argument with someone that got out of hand.”

  “Left there for days. And we none of us knew it.”

  “But it’s nothing to do with you,” Michael said firmly.

  “It certainly isn’t,” I agreed. “Let the police take care of it.”

  “Good.”

  Willow’s wan face, spotted with freckles, rose before me. “Except, I hope Willow’s all right.”

  Michael and I grew quiet, enjoying the evening light and each other. I heard a light drumming against wood somewhere nearby, and I squinted into the dense growth beyond the back garden wall. Had my peanut feeder finally attracted a great spotted woodpecker?