by Issy Brooke
Ariadne goggled to overhear that. “You never did!”
Francine shrugged and pouted. “I just wanted a nice evening in, the three of us.” Her face fell a little. “He had to get a new pager. We couldn’t get the little bits of onion out.”
“Grim,” Penny said. “So you’ve got nothing to share?”
“No, sorry.”
Penny glanced at Ariadne. The wine had relaxed her, so she took a chance and asked her bristly sister, “Ari, why did you and that Julie argue?”
“I told you, didn’t I?”
“Not entirely. You said she was more disorganised than you thought. What exactly happened?”
Ariadne sighed with an exaggerated toss of her head. “Julie was a bit weird. I mean, she was really in-your-face and keen and a bit overbearing, and I think …” Ariadne swallowed and played nervously with her glass. “Well, after what happened, in my marriage and all that, I still find it a bit too easy to go along with what other people say. So she took charge, she took me under her wing, and it was great. I thought she was super-organised at first, like I said, because she did all this stuff, you know, her dog-walking and looking after her uncle and everything. And her house was always immaculate, you know! Whenever I went there, I always felt like I had to take my shoes off.”
“Oh, that kind of house,” Penny said darkly, thinking about the dust collecting on her vacuum cleaner at home.
“Yeah,” Ariadne said. “She had a few dogs, but you couldn’t tell. Thing is, though, she was actually really scatty and chaotic. She couldn’t organise her way out of a paper bag. That’s why she needed me. It was funny, how she was so controlling about some parts of her life and other things were just a disaster. She knew it, too. So we set up in business together. It drove me potty. She was forever booking on too many dogs in one day and I’d have to swoop round and make apologetic phone calls or try to do everything. It was embarrassing, quite frankly.”
“Right,” Penny said. “So it got too much? I can’t remember how long you worked together.”
“Thirteen days,” Ariadne said in such a flat tone that there was a pause, then everyone laughed, even Ariadne.
“And then you set up on your own,” Penny said. “Thirteen days. Did you stay on speaking terms, though? Did she understand why you had to leave?”
“Yeah, kinda. I didn’t want to fall out over it, you know? I backed away very carefully. She was upset, but she said that she understood, or at least, she said that at first. Unfortunately, because I am actually reliable – unlike her – the clients came with me rather than stay with her. She probably did take that quite badly but honestly, she never came after me or tried to make things difficult. What she said about me behind my back, I don’t know. But she was pleasant to my face.”
“Well, that’s to her credit,” Penny said.
“She had enough on her plate anyway, with her niece turning up.”
“Did they get on?” Francine said curiously.
Ariadne shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, Charlotte came around to Julie’s house quite a bit when I was still working with Julie. Obviously she was coming to see her dad. Julie seemed quite keen to help Charlotte out. You could tell that Julie really wanted the best for Charlotte.”
“What is Charlotte like?” Penny asked.
“It’s hard to say. Quiet, restrained, looks like she needs a good meal and a hug. Julie took her under her wing, really. So when we didn’t carry on with the business partnership, Julie had lots of other things to occupy herself; her uncle, her niece, her own dogs, and everything.”
“And she didn’t come after you,” Penny said, half to herself. “You had no fight, no argument … you were hardly enemies.”
Ariadne drained the remains of her second glass of wine and put the glass on the coffee table. She sat back in her armchair and pulled her legs up, so she could rest her head on her knees. “It’s not enough for the police, though,” she said in a small voice.
“You aren’t a suspect,” Penny said. “Honestly. Tell her, Francine. They came to talk to her, that’s all. I am sure they were just trying to build up an impression of Julie.”
Ariadne sniffed. “It’s all gone wrong. I can’t cope with it all. All the stress, with the police looking into my life, again. Oh, and don’t get me started on Destiny. What am I going to do?” The loosening effect of wine was kicking in now, and she started to cry. Penny and Francine exchanged looks, and as one, they went to perch on each arm of the chair, either side of Ariadne. Francine patted her arm, while Penny stroked her shoulders.
“It’s going to be okay. Don’t worry about Destiny. It is just a phase.”
“A phase which might destroy her whole life!”
“That’s a little dramatic. I thought Drew helped?”
“He did.” Ariadne sniffed and hiccupped. “He did. But it all feels too much. It comes in waves – waves of blackness, like I’m drowning, oh help…”
“We’re here, and we’ll help,” Penny said, hoping that she sounded reassuring. “We will do anything we can.”
“Can you make my daughter see sense?”
“If I can,” Penny said.
“Can you get the police off my back?”
“They aren’t on your back,” Penny said, a little snippily.
Francine leaned in. “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “Look. I know Bill doesn’t talk to me about work but … I’ll see what I can do, all right? I’ll find out, somehow, what sort of suspect you are. They have different levels, you know. He isn’t supposed to bring his work home but when he’s under pressure, he does, from time to time. I know where he hides his folders. The next time I’m at his house, I’ll just take a little peek, and let you know. How about that?”
“Would you, really?” Ariadne lifted her tear-stained face.
Penny had a sense of foreboding. Francine was suggesting something quite unethical, and probably illegal.
But then, this was Penny’s sister they were dealing with. Laws didn’t matter when it came to issues of family, did they?
Chapter Six
Penny woke up late on Monday morning but she had slept deeply and now she felt refreshed. After walking Kali, she made a cup of tea and stood at her kitchen window, looking out across her long, narrow garden. Leaves were collecting in the corners and the grass was starting to look patchy and dark.
She was determined to help Ariadne. She felt closer to her sister than she had done in decades.
Kali was pressing against her legs. The dog didn’t want anything; she’d been fed, walked and done a little bit of agility training when they’d come across a fallen tree trunk. She was happy just to be near to Penny.
Penny put her cup of tea down and reached for her phone, and called her friend Cath. She was a local police woman, and although they had met under unpleasant circumstances, they had become friends. Over the past month, Cath had been caught up in work business. It was time, Penny thought, for a catch-up phone call.
Which might just mention the current murder case, of course. As a matter of gossip, no more.
“Hi Cath! How are you doing?”
Cath sounded slightly fuzzy and there was a low level chatter in the background. “Hi, Penny! I’m not bad. Yourself?”
“Fine, fine. Are you at work right now?”
“No. Yes. Sort of. I’m in London for a few weeks, on a course, actually.”
“What, you’re not in Lincoln?” Penny was aghast.
“Er … no. London.”
“Down south?” Penny said, sounding slightly daft.
“Yes, that London. Why? Is everything okay?”
“I just thought you’d be looking into the Julie Rose case.”
Cath snorted. “Oh, that’s lovely. Here was I, thinking you had called me because you wanted to chat. But no.”
“Yes, that too. I’m just surprised. But then we haven’t had a catch-up for a while…”
“It was a little bit last minute. No, Inspector Travis is heading u
p the investigation, as always. And, as always, you are to keep your nose out.”
“I would, but listen. My sister is a suspect.”
“Even more reason to keep your nose out,” Cath warned. “Seriously, Penny. Trust the police.”
“But…”
“Nope. Look, our tea break is over. You caught me at a good time but I’ve got to go back and learn about media communications or some such nonsense now. But when I’m back, we’ll catch up properly, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Penny said despondently, thinking, what’s the point of a friend in the police force if you can’t just abuse that relationship. Huh.
She ended the call and tried not to sulk about it. Instead, she sent a brief text message to Francine, to remind her of the snooping duties that had been assigned to her.
“Now what?” she asked Kali, who rolled her big brown eyes in her direction, but gave no answer.
“Of course,” Penny said in reply to nothing at all. “I know. I’ll go and visit the murder scene.”
* * * *
She knew where Julie Rose had lived. Ariadne told her the previous evening, but it had prompted a fresh flood of tears.
Penny bundled herself up warmly and walked through the town centre before veering off to the north where there was a pleasant residential area. Some of the houses were quite large, standing in wide plots of land with low hedges and clean, neat front lawns. The garages were built for two cars, and the driveways paved to let even more cars stand outside.
It screamed “commuter.”
But the estate was a few decades old and the demographic was slowly changing. Some of the residents were retired now, and others were just starting out in their careers but were doing well enough to afford a big house – or at least, a big mortgage.
It was easy to find Julie’s house. There was still a light police presence there. She crossed the road so she wasn’t approaching it directly, and ambled slowly, staring intently at the house and its surroundings, as if a clue might leap out at her from the privet hedges.
It was a roomy detached house, with the ubiquitous double garage and a small mock-Tudor porch. There was an access ramp leading from the driveway to the front door, and she remembered that Julie’s uncle had been infirm since his stroke.
The officer on duty at the bottom of the driveway caught sight of her as she approached, and appeared to shudder.
“It’s you,” he said. “Ms May.”
“Hello, Officer Patel,” she said, smiling in spite of his wariness. “How are you?”
“Fine, thanks.”
There was a moment of silence. He watched her, waiting, and no doubt remembering the stomach cramps he’d suffered after eating her homemade cakes. It was going to take him a long time to forgive and forget, she thought.
“So, er, I suppose the house is empty while the investigations are carried out,” she said brightly.
He narrowed his dark eyes in suspicion. “Of course. And no, you can’t go around it.”
“I wasn’t going to ask!” She spread her hands wide, trying to look innocent. “Not at all. I was concerned about poor William. I wondered where he was living now?”
“Do you know Mr Goodfellow well?”
“Er … I’m a local well-wisher…”
PC Patel shook his head but there was a hint of a smile on his face. “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that. He’s taken a temporary let nearer to town, a ground-floor flat near to where his daughter lives. But that’s all I’m telling you, and only that because it’s local knowledge.”
“Thank you so much.” In a spirit of devilment, she then added, “Are you on duty all day? I can pop back with some homemade goodies.”
“I’m on a diet.”
“They can be low-fat.”
“It’s that five-two diet where you don’t eat for a whole day.”
She raised an eyebrow, but admitted defeat, and left.
* * * *
You don’t eat for a whole day? What nonsense was that, Penny thought, and resolved to go back into town to call by the bakery and buy some cakes in a fit of spite against everyone who might be on a diet.
The road curled back towards the north end of town, and the houses changed from executive-type to the older cottages typical of the area, built in warm yellow stone. She stopped to admire a beautiful tortoiseshell cat sunning itself in a window, and was startled when a voice called out from behind,
“Mind yer back, missus!”
“Sorry.” She stepped to one side and a mobility scooter zipped past. An old man was sitting in it, and by his side there was a young woman, running slowly along in the road to keep up.
It could only be William Goodfellow and his daughter. She struggled to remember her name; Agatha or Sheila or Ariadne had mentioned it.
It came back in a flash: Charlotte.
Penny followed, but it wasn’t really following, she told herself. She genuinely was going in the same direction as the pair.
They were talking to one another as they went, but sporadically. It looked like casual chit-chat, not an animated and deep conversation.
The young woman was lean and lithe, even wrapped as she was in a slightly shabby green parka and oversize boots. Her hair was hidden under a burgundy knit hat. The man on the scooter was a substantial sort of man, hatless and also hairless, his shiny head crying out for protection on a cold day.
They entered the High Street and turned left to go along the parade of shops. Penny was itching to catch up with them and talk to them, but she reminded herself that they had just lost someone close to them. Worse, William Goodfellow had lost his carer, his niece and – at least temporarily – his home, too.
She found a modicum of good sense, and stayed well back. She did decide, however, to keep following them, but she was thwarted almost immediately by Sheila pouncing on her from the Post Office. The wide woman lurched out at her from the doorway, smiling broadly.
“Penny! I am so glad to see you!” she warbled.
“Ah–” Penny said, trying to convey through her body language and facial expression that she was really very busy, awfully sorry, not trying to be rude, got to dash and all that.
She must have failed because Sheila parked herself in front of Penny and beamed. “Now then! About the weekend.”
Penny craned her neck but the rounded rear bumper of the mobility scooter disappeared into the covered market hall.
Well, I might catch up with them in a moment. She focused on Sheila. “The weekend?” Then it came back to her. She had stormed off from the ramblers in a huff. Hindisght made her feel silly. “Oh…”
“I wanted to apologise on behalf of the rambling club, for Kevin,” Sheila told her. “Honestly, that man! Nice as pie for as long as you please and then, boom! He’s off on one.”
“He’s under stress,” Penny said. “And so was I. He just touched a nerve. I’m sorry for running off like that. I should have called when I got home.”
“Yes,” Sheila said. “Yes, you should have. But when we got back to the car park and saw your vehicle had gone, we knew that you weren’t dead in a ditch or lost or something, so we didn’t worry too much.” She laid a pointed emphasis on “too”.
“Ah, yeah. I’m really sorry. How was Kevin, after I left?”
“Silent and grumpy. But enough about that mardy-bum. What about those chemicals, eh?”
Penny knew instantly that Sheila was talking about the death of Julie Rose. “What chemicals? Why does everyone else know things that I don’t?”
“Because I work in the Post Office and everyone knows me. Do you want some part time hours?”
“What, just to gossip?” Penny said.
“No, to actually work.”
“Er, no thanks. What about these chemicals, then?”
Sheila beamed with the joy of having news. “Julie Rose was killed by mustard gas!”
Penny was stunned. After a second, she almost laughed. “She was killed by … what?”
“You
know, like in the war. Mustard gas, nasty stuff. She had put it down the toilet or something.”
“You have got to be kidding. You can’t just pick up a bottle of the stuff and pour it down your loo.”
Sheila shrugged, making her two chins into four. “That’s what it is. So it’s not an accident, is it?”
“That’s just bizarre. How, and why? And anyway, if you wanted someone dead, that’s a strange way to go about it.”
There was a shout from within the Post Office. Sheila inclined her head to listen, then said, “Oh, my hubby is apparently incapable of weighing a parcel on his own. Do come back to the rambling club, though, won’t you?”
“I will.”
Penny waved goodbye and wandered over to the market hall, but she didn’t go inside. She stopped by a low wall, and leaned against it. She knew nothing of mustard gas; but she knew someone who knew about history.
She called Drew.
“Hey, are you busy?”
He sounded out of breath as he talked. “I’m halfway up Long Ridge, looking for mushrooms. But I can chat.”
“Okay. Ooh, so there are mushroom omelettes coming up?”
“Maybe.”
“Excellent. Right, um, so what do you know about mustard gas?”
Drew snorted. “Don’t go near it?”
She explained it was what had killed Julie, and how strange it sounded.
“No, that’s not strange at all,” he said. “The only strange thing is why the police would treat that as murder. It’s a known domestic accident, that one, because you can unwittingly create your own sort of mustard gas – not quite the World War One stuff, but close – if you put certain different chemicals down your toilet.”
“You are not serious!”
“It’s true,” Drew said. “Don’t you read the warning labels?”
“Oh.” She felt vindicated when she considered her woeful lack of attention to housework. It could kill. But Drew was right; if it was an understandable and explainable accident, why would the police not simply assume it was murder? “I wonder what exactly she put down there.”