Foul Play at Four

by Ann Purser

  “Hi, Josie. Got any of that Greek yoghurt? Ben is fast becoming an addict.”

  Floss had worked for Lois’s New Brooms team for a long time now, and though her family—and sometimes her new husband, Ben—had suggested she might give up cleaning and do something more satisfying for her lively intellect, she refused, saying they had no idea how varied and stimulating the job could be.

  Josie pointed out the yoghurt, and asked where Floss was working this morning. “For her up at the hall,” she said. “She asks for me, because I like horses.”

  “Naturally,” said Josie. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  They laughed, and Floss said now that Mrs. T-J was not up to riding anymore, she had asked her to exercise her gentle old mare once a week. Floss quite enjoyed a slow hack around the estate, and the arrangement suited all three of them.

  “I’d better take some of the cereal Mrs. T-J has, please, Josie. She’s always running short, and then making a special trip just for a packet of muesli. Old age is a horrible business, isn’t it? Thank goodness we’re a million years away from that, huh?”

  NOT ONLY HAD MRS. TOLLERVEY-JONES RUN OUT OF MUESLI, but she’d also used up the milk, and she realised she had two choices. No, three. She could ring Floss and ask her to bring some on her way up to clean this morning. Or she could drive down to the shop later on today. Or she could go without. She decided on the last, and put the subject of milk to the back of her mind.

  She had hardly slept a wink, and now had difficulty concentrating on the problems confronting her. Perhaps if she took a walk in the garden, the fresh air would clear her head. A big decision had to be made, and soon. She was no fool, and knew that opening the park and providing teas in the stables was not the answer. She needed big money, and the only practical solution she could see was to sell something. That nasty little man at the bank was right, of course. It was his job, she supposed.

  Not bothering with a coat, she stepped out into the stable yard and headed for the walled kitchen garden. It was the only well-maintained part of the estate, and all thanks to Jack Hickson, who, now that she could no longer employ him full-time, came along in his spare hours and refused payment.

  Jack had had a troubled period in his life, but now he was reunited with his wife and family, and had settled down in Farnden. Mrs. T-J was a good enough judge of character to know that she could trust him absolutely. His wife, Paula, was one of the New Brooms team, and he had been taken on again by the County Council Parks Department to work on its municipal flowerbeds.

  The kitchen garden was protected from the east wind by high brick walls, and the sun had broken through clouds to brighten the day a little. Mrs. T-J walked slowly round the grassy paths, admiring Jack’s neat rows of leeks and purple sprouting, the bean poles ready for planting runner beans, and expertly pruned currant bushes lined up by the end wall, where espalier pears caught the sun in high summer. For a few minutes she was a child again, running agilely round the vegetable beds, chased by her brother bent on punishing her for being a girl.

  An old wrought iron seat, slowly tipping itself into the ground at one end, could just about support her now. She sat down and tried to concentrate. The most valuable land would be a large field close to the road just outside the village. Planning permission was not a sure thing, but to raise the amount of money needed, it would have to be a sizeable development. She thought of the disadvantages for herself. There would have to be access roads, noisy building works and an inevitable disturbance of her way of life. And most important, the new estate would be in full view of the main windows of the big house. Finally, and this meant more to her than anything, she would become extremely unpopular in the village. She sighed. “I’m too old for all that,” she said to her faithful hound.

  She heard the gate click behind her. It was Jack Hickson, and at first he did not see her. She called to him, and he came down to stand beside her. “Morning, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve got a few hours free, so thought I’d give meself a treat and come up here. But I’ll go, if I’m in your way?”

  She said of course he must stay. “No, no, Jack, I’m very pleased to see you. I’m sitting here trying to solve an insoluble problem.”

  “Can I help?” he said, looking more closely at her and realising she looked what his mother would have called “a bit peaky.”

  “Just supposing,” she said, “that a new development of houses was proposed and passed the planning application, doubling the size of the village? How do you think that might be received by the parish?”

  Jack smiled. “Remember that bloke who tried it? Forgotten his name, but he was going to build us a new village hall, and oh yes, as an afterthought he mentioned a few, forty or so, attractive new executive dwellings destined for the playing field. Remember him? It was turned down flat, wasn’t it? And he ended up arrested for fraud and God knows what all.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be an outsider. It might be me.” The minute the words were out, she knew she shouldn’t have said them. They would be all around the village . . . Unless . . .

  “Jack, can I ask you not to mention to anyone that I had even considered it? Just a flight of fancy, that is all.”

  “My lips are sealed, ma’am. In fact, I’ve forgotten what you said already. Now,” he added, “you look blue with cold. Can I come up to the kitchen with you and cadge a cup of coffee off Floss? She must be there by now.”

  FIVE

  ROBERT TOLLERVEY-JONES WALKED SMARTLY DOWN SHEPHERD Road, a long, straight street in North London. The area was rapidly gaining in popularity as one after another the dingy houses were restored and emerged in all their Georgian elegance.

  Robert had had a trying day at his chambers in the City, where he worked as a successful barrister and pillar of respectability. He looked forward eagerly to turning into the neat front garden of his comfortable Edwardian house, where his wife, Felicity, would be waiting with a large gin and tonic at the ready. The girls should be up in their rooms doing homework, and with luck he could collapse into a comfortable chair and watch the television news in peace.

  His mobile trembled in his pocket, and he fished it out. Blast! It was his mother calling, and he was tempted to leave her to the message answering service. He would call her back later, after he felt more relaxed and ready to face whatever she had to say. She had always been a domineering mother, and he sometimes confessed that he was still a little afraid of her.

  He sighed, and answered the call. “Mother? Hello, how are you? Nice to hear from you—”

  “Forget the fibs, Robert,” Mrs. T-J said sharply. “I’ll come to the point. We need to have a conference about the future of the estate. I shall be coming up to London next week, probably Wednesday, so can you make sure you have a free afternoon on that day? We can meet at the flat, say two o’clock? We shall be undisturbed there. Now, must go. Goodbye . . . dear,” she added as an afterthought, and was gone.

  The family flat was in one of the streets leading off Baker Street, and had been used by many young Tollervey-Joneses in all branches of the family over the years. It was extremely handy, being near the tube station, which had lines going in all directions. Now it was chiefly a bolt hole for Mrs. T-J, when she felt the need for a wider horizon than that afforded by rural life in a small village. The flat was tiny, but adequate, and Robert saw the sense in his mother’s decision to meet there.

  He kissed Felicity and accepted the glass in her hand. “Thank you, my love,” he said. “Had a good day?”

  Felicity began an amusing account of her day at the Citizens Advice Bureau, and after a minute or two was aware that Robert was not listening to a word. She said, “And then a lioness came into the back garden and ate up the girls, so we needn’t worry about them anymore.”

  “Jolly good,” said Robert, nodding his head wisely.

  “Robert! What did I just say?”

  “Um, well, about meeting Honora for coffee?”

  “Oh dear,” Felicity said, and sat down o
pposite him. “So what’s wrong? Trouble at the office, or is it Farnden Mother?” From his expression, she could see exactly what it was, and leaned back in her chair, waiting for him to tell her.

  “She just caught me on the mobile. Conference needed on the future of the estate, she said. Wants me to meet her at the flat on Wednesday afternoon next week. I must say that from the sound of her voice, there are urgent decisions to be taken about the old place.”

  “Sell it,” said Felicity simply.

  “Not as easy as that,” Robert said, and added that if it was up to him alone, he would suggest the same. “It’s a millstone now, I’m afraid. Worth millions to some Arab, with luck, and needing millions to put it in good order. But it is still Mother’s home, and I suppose should be considered as a rightful inheritance for the girls?”

  “Oh, blow that,” said Felicity. “Can you imagine either of them wanting to live in that dump in the Midlands? They would die of boredom. No, you’ll have to persuade her to sell. She can always resettle in one of the cottages on the estate. She’ll have plenty of money to do it up nicely, and then she can divide her time between country and town, and see more of us. Not too much more!” she added, and leaning over, squeezed Robert’s hand.

  He returned the squeeze, but reflected that if he’d had a son to inherit and perpetuate the family name, things might have been different.

  MRS. T-J PUT DOWN THE PHONE AND WALKED INTO THE DRAWING room. The evening sun was pouring in through the long windows, lighting up the lovely plasterwork ceiling and fine old oak double doors. Family portraits smiled down benignly upon her, and in glass cabinets, displays of exquisite porcelain collected by successive generations shone and twinkled in the sunlight. She supposed she could sell some of those, but however enthusiastic the valuers had been, she knew it would not be enough.

  She shook herself. Now that she had talked to Robert and arranged to meet him for a practical discussion on what was to be done, she felt a little better. Not that she had any hopes of her only son working a miracle, but at least she did not feel so alone. Between them, they had to come up with a solution of some sort. Deep down in the pit of her stomach, she felt sick at having to acknowledge that selling was the only possible answer; selling the lot, or selling off building land, which would change the character of the estate and the village forever.

  Her attention was taken suddenly by the appearance of a small white truck slowly approaching up the long drive to the house. Who on earth could that be? She had ordered nothing to be delivered. She watched as it swung round towards the stable yard and disappeared.

  “Floss!” she called loudly, and then remembered the girl had gone hours ago. She walked quickly through to the kitchen and peered out of the window. A man was jumping out of the truck and approaching the door. She locked it quickly, and retired out of sight by the big cupboards.

  His knock was slight, feeble even, and came only once. After that he returned to the truck and climbed in next to the driver. Mrs. T-J moved so that she could see them without being seen herself. They were talking animatedly, and then the driver looked at his watch, and nodded. She could see them laughing, and then the truck reversed, turned around and went back the way it had come.

  Obviously they had been lost, she told herself. Came in to ask the way to somewhere. That must have been it, she decided, and went to put on the kettle. She looked in the fridge, saw that it was empty and decided she was not hungry. She would sit down for a while and listen to the radio, then think again about supper.

  In the battered old chair by the Aga, she sat down and closed her eyes. The characters in her favourite soap chattered on, but Mrs. T-J did not hear them. She was fast asleep, and dreaming of miracles.

  SIX

  “SO, DID MRS. T-J GO TO THE DOCTOR, FLOSS?” LOIS SAT IN HER office, trying to concentrate on New Brooms, but still worrying about her most irascible client. As Floss had been riding the old mare at the weekend as usual, Lois thought it worth checking, so had lifted the phone and was glad to find her at home.

  “Not sure,” Floss said. “I didn’t like to ask her outright. You know what she is!”

  “Of course. Anyway, I’ll see you later at the meeting, and we can catch up.”

  The weekly team meeting was in Lois’s office in the Meades’ house, in a room that had, in more formal days, served as the morning room for family breakfast. At that time, the family would have had a cook and housemaid to bring kippers and eggs and bacon under covered dishes, all the way from the kitchen and through the swinging green baize door to the front of the house. The green baize door had long gone, and all the Meade meals were eaten in the large, warm kitchen.

  As Gran came into the office with a coffee, grumbling about her poor old legs, all this went through Lois’s mind, and she said puzzlingly to Floss, still on the phone, “By the way, I expect there’s still a green baize door at the hall?”

  “What’s that got to do with Mrs. T-J going to the doctor?”

  “Absolutely nothing. Sorry, Floss. Mind wandering. No, I just rang you about the doctor because she’s not right, is she? Keeling over at WI, and driving into the ditch. Not like the Honourable Mrs. Tollervey-Jones at all.”

  Floss agreed, and said she would check with the old girl about the doctor. “I’ll be up at the hall this morning, so I can tell you more at the meeting. We can ask Paula, too. See you later, Mrs. M.”

  Paula Hickson, wife of Jack, who gardened at the hall, was a fairly recent member of New Brooms’ team, and also worked for Mrs. T-J, at first cleaning in tandem with Floss, and now, in addition, cooking one or two meals and leaving them in the hall freezer each week. The Hicksons needed every penny they could raise, having four young boys to clothe and feed, and at the same time trying to save enough for a mortgage to buy the roomy old house they were living in, handily placed opposite the shop.

  Lois put down the phone and made a note on her pad to ask the team if they’d heard anything about a suspicious-looking white truck and sinister drivers around the area. Then she finally settled down to arrange the cleaning schedules for the next week.

  At twelve noon exactly, there was a knock at Meade House’s front door, and Gran was there to open it. She loved to do this and, before Lois could get there in time, had sent packing more than one stranger she considered undesirable.

  “Morning, Mrs. M.” It was Dot Nimmo, strutting in on her high heels. She was a tough customer, widowed by her dodgy husband’s drowning accident. Did he fall or was he pushed? In spite of a life with him spent sailing close to the wind, and more than once on the wrong side of the law, she missed him, and when her only son had been killed in a road crash, she went to pieces. Now she was solidly loyal to New Brooms, and especially to Lois, who had given her a job when nobody else thought her employable.

  Then Floss and Paula arrived, followed by Andrew, clutching a briefcase and swatches of fabric for the girls to look at. Sheila Stratford was next, smiling as always, and hoping for a gossip with the others after the meeting, and lastly Hazel, former cleaner and now wife of local farmer John Thornbull and manager of New Brooms’ office in Tresham.

  “Right, shall we start?” said Lois, smiling round the team settled in a semicircle in front of her. “First of all, any emergency matters we should deal with? Perhaps Mrs. T-J might come under that heading. Floss? Paula?”

  “Go on, Paula,” Floss said. “You said she’d said something about a doctor.”

  Paula nodded. “She was jotting down jobs she had to do, and muttered something about an appointment to see the doctor. But she didn’t write it down, and if I heard right, she said it would keep until next week. She was sort of talking to herself. She’s done a lot of that lately. That’s all I know, Mrs. M. But I shall keep an eye on her now, after seeing her at WI. And also that accident she had last week.”

  “Well, we can’t force her, I suppose,” Lois said. “Perhaps both of you could watch out for her, and let me know if anything goes wrong. Now, Andrew, cheer us up
with your décor plans for young Mrs. Norrington over at Fletching.”

  Andrew Young had joined New Brooms after the death of his parents, and a period of drifting about, not knowing what to do with himself. Finally he had decided to use his interest and talent in interior design, and had made a useful move in joining Lois’s team, where he could infiltrate potential clients’ homes. This had worked well for all of them, with Lois taking a cut on his fees, and now he was to tackle the complete refurbishment of a house in the next village. “What’s more,” he had told the team previously, “there seems to be a bottomless pit of cash there, so whoopee!”

  He had found it very useful to have a female input on colours and fabrics, and now produced the swatches and circulated them round the team for approval. This was followed by the routine scheduling of tasks, and then Gran came in with coffee and biscuits, giving them all an opportunity to relax and bring up less important matters.

  “Oh, and by the way,” Lois said, “I expect you’ve all heard about Josie’s robbery in the shop? Yes? Well, I thought you would have, Farnden being Farnden.”

  “Have they caught the thieves?” Sheila said. “Sam reckons it was one of them fly-by-night lot who drive round the villages looking for likely pickings. He said they’d done one in Waltonby. A car parked outside the pub was broken into. Window smashed, and a laptop taken. All done in seconds. Sam says they come off the motorway, drive round and do a job, and then back down to London like bats out of hell.”

  “Must have been a stupid bloke to leave a laptop on his car seat,” Andrew said.

  “Wasn’t a bloke,” said Sheila, smiling. “It was that Miss Yates from the council, come to inspect the pub kitchens.”