by Issy Brooke
“There are buses.”
“Yeah but the buses take ages and they smell and also they cost money, so…”
Penny sighed and met Ariadne’s eyes. Her sister looked sad, and said, “Things are different now, Destiny. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s absolutely fine,” Penny said firmly. “Of course I can run you up to town. I need to go anyway, to get some craft supplies.” Not exactly true, but then, when did a crafter ever not need more craft suppliers?
“We can’t repay you,” Ariadne said, her voice husky.
“Oh, she can. The last time I gave those two monkeys a lift anywhere, they left the back of my car in a terrible state. Seriously, who eats half a chocolate bar? That, alone, is plain weird. And then leaves the other half on the back parcel shelf? It took me ages to chisel it off. You – and Wolf – can clean my car out. You know where my keys are. That’s repayment enough.”
Ariadne was frowning. “I am so sorry, Destiny, you treat your aunt’s car with more respect, do you hear?”
Destiny shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Mum, what’s for tea?”
Ariadne gritted her teeth, turned and went into the cottage.
Penny wanted to run after them and shout at them, but she knew it was pointless. It was only now, with the benefit of many decades of experience behind her, that she truly understood how much youth really was wasted on the young.
She thought about Steven at the Arches Hotel. He had seemed to be in his late twenties. He lived on site. What was his future, she wondered. What was his plan? What would someone do if they wanted to stay in Glenfield but couldn’t afford the housing?
What would someone have to do?
Chapter Seven
Penny steeled herself. She would have to get used to having her house to herself once more. Yet the kids seemed to come around at least once a day, usually to play with Kali and take her for walks. Ariadne had accessed some grants and payments through the benefits system to tide her over while things got sorted with Owen, but Penny was chafing about the lack of information. Even the local press seemed to have dropped it. Yes, the victim was from out of town, but surely that didn’t mean the crime was going to go uninvestigated and unpunished? Whether it was hit-and-run or deliberate murder, a crime had happened and justice had to be served.
Wolf and Destiny were coming to terms with the death of their father, and the family liaison officer had organised some support for them all, both group sessions and individual counselling. The biggest problem, as far as Penny could see, was the conflicting feelings that they all had; they were torn between sadness at the loss of a family member, and the relief that the bad times were over, and then sheer guilt that they felt relief at all.
Time will heal, Ariadne and Penny said to one another, as they took turns in being the mature one and reassuring the other. Time will heal.
Time, pizza, long walks, and a good cry every now and then. It was simple but it was true.
Wolf was lying on the floor of Penny’s cottage, reading about military aircraft, and Destiny was plugged into her headphones, sprawling over the sofa. They’d just come back from a walk with Kali, who was seeking cool shade in the kitchen.
Penny left them to it. She was about to spread her artwork out on the kitchen table when the front door simultaneously opened and was knocked upon. “Hello! Only me.”
“Mum, hey.”
“Is your crazy aunt around?”
“I’m in the kitchen,” Penny shouted to Ariadne. “Come through if you are bearing gifts. Chocolate-based gifts in particular.”
“Ah, no chocolate, but does news count as a gift?”
“Get in here now!” Penny shouted, laughing. “Of course it does.”
Ariadne appeared at the door, and she was grinning. “So you definitely haven’t heard, then?”
“Heard what? I might have.”
“The police know whose car killed … him.” Ariadne still struggled to say his name.
“Oh my gosh, no, I hadn’t heard that! Who, who, who? I bet it was Alf, wasn’t it? Or Gaz. One of them. They’re both dodgy.”
“Neither,” Ariadne said.
“Don’t milk this. Tell me now or I’ll set the dog on you.”
Ariadne sat down on a kitchen chair and reached out to stroke the least threatening Rottweiler in the world, who was lying on her back and presenting her belly to her adoring audience. “It was the Range Rover belonging to Tina Fairmore.”
Penny paused. She was halfway through opening a packet of biscuits by jabbing a knife into the packaging, but she stopped and lowered it. “Who, what, now?”
“Tina Fairmore. I thought you knew everyone in this town?”
“Hardly. Who told you?”
“That police detective, Cath. She’s lovely. She said that this was an exciting new development.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because you’re not investigating the case.”
“But she’s my friend,” Penny said.
“You whine just like Destiny,” Ariadne said.
“I’m listening, you know,” Destiny called from the front room. She had only been pretending to have her attention focused on her music, Penny thought. It was a neat trick.
“Go on, do you know who Tina Fairmore is?” Penny shouted.
There was no reply from the living room. Penny shook her head and returned to the packet of biscuits. She was just sitting at the table when Destiny came to the kitchen door, her mobile phone in her hands.
“Okay, so it says here that Tina Fairmore is the director of a property development company with its offices based here in Upper Glenfield,” she said, and stuck her tongue out. “Above the butcher’s shop on the High Street.”
Penny stared at Destiny. “I’m totally lost. Are you sure? What connection did this woman have with Owen?”
“Mum?” Destiny said, slowly. “Was he … uh, you know…?”
“Having an affair?” Ariadne laughed without humour, her voice rough. “Maybe he was, in the short time he was living here. I can’t imagine it, personally.”
Destiny was looking at her phone once more. “Okay, so I’ve got the ‘about me’ bit of her website. She looks very pro, you know. She has nice hair, it’s very trendy and styled. She’s married, got one kid. Yeah, she’s all business suit and lip gloss.”
Ariadne shook her head. “Then, no, I doubt it was an affair. She sounds way out of Owen’s league. Let’s look.”
Destiny showed her the phone, and Ariadne snorted. “Nope. Her and him? Nope, nope, nope.”
Penny began to work her way through the biscuits, taking a handful for herself before offering them around. “So, what else did Cath tell you? Did she give any clue as to why this Tina might have decided to run him over?”
Ariadne shrugged. “Apart from as a general service to mankind? No. Not a clue.”
“We’ve got three suspects, then,” Penny mused. “Alf, of course. Gaz, and now Tina.”
“What’s this ‘we’ business?” Ariadne said. “You’re not involved, remember?”
Penny flung her hands into the air and then slapped them down by her sides. “I am,” she said in frustration. “I can’t stand by and watch. I have to do something.”
“No!” Ariadne said. Destiny was simply laughing.
Penny grabbed another biscuit and pushed past her niece, heading for the front door. “I’m going to go and talk to Tina Fairmore. Right now.”
“Wait, what about–”
“Sorry, too late. I’ve gone. Help yourselves to biscuits.”
* * * *
Penny walked briskly. She knew she was wrong and she could find no excuse for her current actions save the unflattering admission that she was, indeed, a tiresome busybody who was going to be in more trouble than it was worth.
And yet on she went. She had a strange flashback to being fifteen years old once more, like Destiny, and skipping a class at school. She knew, even back then, that she shouldn’t
do it. She knew it would achieve nothing but aggravation. And yet, both then and now, once she’d set herself on a course of action, she stubbornly continued.
At least she didn’t have to pretend about anything. When she had been asking questions before, on the other murder cases, she had been unofficially working for the police – an informer, she reminded herself, and quivered with indignation at the phrase. She had generally had to hide that fact. Now, though, there was no fact to hide.
She really was on her own.
Maybe I could be a private investigator, she thought. I’ll look it up. I bet it’s really exciting.
Probably uses a lot of technology though. Can you just buy surveillance equipment online?
And it’s likely to be mostly following people around whose partners think they are having affairs.
Actually, she concluded, it’s all sounding rather sordid.
So that was that career change conceived, considered and discarded in the time it took for her to walk from her cottage to the row of shops on the High Street.
There was a mini-supermarket, and a handful of other speciality shops – a florist’s, Agatha’s hairdressing salon, a greengrocer’s and a butcher’s. Opposite, on Penny’s right, was Upper Glenfield’s indoor market and an open space for the weekly outdoor market.
She went towards the butcher’s. Through the plate glass window, she could see the diminutive frame of Shaun Kapowski, a tiny man with an enormous voice. He was intent upon serving a customer, so she didn’t wave. Instead she looked at the small doors either side of the butcher’s shop, hunting for a name plate or sign to mark which one of the two would lead to Tina’s offices.
“Fairmore Property.” That was it. There was a bell to press, so she buzzed it, and tried the door as well. It opened, so she peered into the stairwell.
It was plain, and well-maintained, just cream-coloured walls and a neutral carpet. Stairs rose up in front of her, with tasteful framed prints to each side.
Here goes nothing. She took a deep breath and began to walk up the stairs.
A figure appeared at the top. She was slender and dressed in a smart pair of dark trousers and a cream blouse, and accessorised nicely with gold jewellery and a honey-blonde shoulder-length bob of smooth and glossy hair. She smiled warmly, but spoke with confident steel in her voice. “Hello, there. Can I help you?”
Penny stopped halfway up the stairs. “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you. Are you Tina Fairmore?”
“I am. And you are…?”
“Penelope May. I’m the sister of the wife of the man who was killed, if you follow…”
“I do,” she said. “I was sorry to hear about that. What can I do for you?”
“Do you drive a Range Rover?”
Tina Fairmore’s head tipped slightly to one side and her eyebrows twitched upwards. “I’m sorry,” she said flatly. “I am a property developer and I am happy to talk business with you, or anyone, but I don’t understand why you are asking personal questions.”
“It’s to do with Owen Jones’s death,” Penny said, not wanting to say “brother-in-law” as it implied a connection she had never felt, or wanted to feel. “Where do you park your vehicle? More specifically, where was it parked around the time of Owen’s death?”
“It was at Alf’s garage. He’d had it for over a week, if you must know.”
Penny wanted to punch the air. “Really? Wow. Okay, do you know Alf at all? Perhaps I might come up and talk more with you…”
Tina was about to speak, but her attention was caught by movement behind Penny. Penny turned and her heart sank.
In the doorway, almost silhouetted against the summer sunshine, was Cath and she was dressed in her formal work wear of jacket and trousers. She was most definitely on duty, and she was clearly unhappy.
Unhappy with Penny.
“Penny May, did I just hear you right?” Cath said in a low voice. “You’re asking…”
Penny had no choice but to brazen it out. She began to walk down the steps, unleashing a torrent of words with no gaps to let Cath interrupt. “Oh, hi, Cath! How are you? I was just chatting to, uh, Ms Fairmore. Anyway, I had better be off. We must do lunch sometime! We haven’t caught up for ages. There’s still some flavours of ice-cream up at that ice-cream drive-through place by Lincoln that I haven’t tried, you know? Wow, this heat! I thought it was supposed to be cooler by now … right, lovely to see you, but I can’t stop. I’ll call. Take care! Bye now!”
She kept her litany going as she pushed past Cath. She smiled broadly through all the chatter and waved brightly, as if everything was perfectly normal. Her heart hammered and she felt like a heel.
Cath called out, “Penny! Penny, wait. Penny, you get back here–”
Penny ignored her, and knew that it was only a matter of time before Cath came after her, and she would be in for some trouble.
Maybe even official police trouble.
Chapter Eight
Penny didn’t turn in the direction of home. Instead, impulsively, she began to walk eastwards. She passed the small industrial estate and glanced over, thinking of Drew. He used to rent a unit there for his blacksmithing work; he had given it up when his field craft and outdoor activity career had taken off.
Drew was the voice of reason and sense in her life. She had a sudden deep longing to talk with him. He was her anchor, she realised; a rock, a secure point.
She was lost in an aching sadness as she walked. She trudged on without realising that a car had pulled up alongside her, and was creeping along in first gear. When the driver spoke, she jumped and squeaked in alarm.
“Hello, there, Ms May! Penny, if I might. I’m sorry to startle you. Could I give you a lift anywhere?” Brian Davenport grinned at her.
“Oh! Yes, Penny is fine. I … don’t know where I’m going.” As she said it, she knew that wasn’t true. “No, wait. I’m coming up to the hotel to see Drew.”
“Goodness. You’d better hop in.”
It was less than half a mile, but she accepted the lift with grace, and slid into the plush beige interior of his Jaguar. “I’ve not been in many of these,” she confessed, inhaling deeply.
“The smell is fake, but the leather is real,” he remarked as he increased the speed, but carefully keeping to the limits.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, real leather, properly treated, doesn’t actually smell too strongly. Fake leather has always had a fake leather smell added to it, to try to convince people it was real. But manufacturers found that when they use real leather – like in cars such as this – people didn’t believe it was real leather, because it didn’t smell enough. So they have to add a fake leather smell to real leather upholstery.”
“That is madness!” she said with a laugh. Brian might have been all teeth and wallet, but he was interesting. “My car doesn’t smell of fake or real leather. Can you buy it in a can?”
“Almost certainly, just like when the smoking ban came into pubs, and some people started selling ‘stale smoke and beer’ aerosols so that pubs could retain their unpleasant yet familiar ambience. What do you drive?”
“My pride and joy is my M-21 motorcycle,” she said, and was gratified by his surprised expression. “But for practical purposes, just a little red Ford Fiesta, a couple of years old.”
“Indeed,” he said, and was silent for a moment. They pulled into the front courtyard of the hotel. “A biker chick, eh? How marvellous.”
He had swung the car around so that it pointed towards the entrance, and she could see the edge of the field where the protestors were camped. “That can’t be good for business,” she said, as she disembarked from the car. Their bright tents and flags were framed by the two stone pillars that flanked the entrance to the hotel’s grounds.
He followed her pointing hand. “I can completely identify with their aims, but in this case I do think that they are, perhaps, misguided. After all, there is such a need for more housing. People have to live somewhere.”
“More social housing, and more affordable houses and flats, that’s what we need,” he was saying. “I’m a businessman, after all. My most important asset is the people that work for me. Those protestors won’t get their way, and hopefully soon we’ll see work beginning on the new development. It should have begun last month. Fairmore will be tearing her hair out.”
He came to her side. It was a beautiful view, she thought, as she gazed over the green-yellow fields that were shimmering with heat haze.
She was about to remark that the view would actually be spoiled by housing, but the sensation of his hand closing over her elbow side-tracked her thoughts. She pulled to one side, and half-turned, getting herself away from his potentially over-friendly hands. “Tina Fairmore?” she said, smiling to try to deflect away from the fact that she didn’t want him to get too close.
“Yes, one of Glenfield’s golden success stories. She worked hard to get where she is now. I have a lot of time for Tina, in spite of us being technically business rivals in some ways. There are a few in the town who would do well to follow her example.” Brian was smiling back at her, and nodded towards the sweeping steps up the entrance.
Penny followed his lead and they went into the hotel side by side. He was still talking about the value of commitment and vision. “Businesses need to remember that we are also pivotal in the local community. We are, in all senses of the phrase, community leaders, but it’s a two-way process, of course. We show the way. We inspire, we educate and crucially, we employ. We bring prosperity to the area. And we couldn’t do that without the support of the community.”
She was starting to glaze over. This must have been a speech he’d given many times. It had probably been honed at dozens of after-dinner speaking engagements. Any minute now, she thought, he’d strike a pose and break into a rousing song-and-dance routine.
But his voice changed from stirring polemic to a more conversational tone as he said, “Sadly, our duties and responsibilities as business leaders are lost on some in this town. The days of being a small local company that can just bump along trading off habit and goodwill are long gone. They can’t get away with that any longer.”