“We’re still working on several lines of inquiry,” he said noncommittally, but allowing a lingering look to pass between him and all three of his companions.
“And, may I ask,” Marjorie said with a slight cough, “would the Fletcher-Normans be one of those lines?”
Andy smiled at her, as though in deference to her sharp mind. “I really shouldn’t,” he said conspiratorially, “but, yes, we have been investigating recent events at the Barn in case they might be linked to the murder.”
“I knew it!” Marjorie said triumphantly. “He’s a dreadful man, that Brian Fletcher-Norman, I’ve always thought so.”
“Rubbish,” interjected Elsa. “You used to fancy the pants off him.”
“Nevertheless,” Marjorie continued, “I saw him coming out of Yonder Cottage late that night. And when I knocked at the door, there was poor Polly in her bathrobe. He took advantage of an impressionable young girl, there’s no doubt about it. He probably killed her when she started to see sense.”
“Marjorie, really!” Felicity was looking slightly uncomfortable because Andy was there. “I’m sure Inspector—I mean—Andy, doesn’t want to hear about our theories.”
“On the contrary. You ladies know more about this village than I’ll ever know. Something you’ve seen, something seemingly minor, might be the key that cracks this case. Tell me, what was Mrs. Fletcher-Norman like?”
They paused, and the replies, when they came, were a little too measured for Andy’s liking.
“She was a reasonable bridge player,” said Marjorie.
“Her tennis wasn’t bad either. Especially after she had those lessons,” Elsa added.
“I thought her common,” said Felicity, and got an admonishing look from the other two. “Well, she was! Even though she tried hard to act like the Lady of the Manor. Remember that dinner party we had, not long after Polly arrived? She was perfectly beastly when she’d had a few glasses of wine and poor Brian had to take her home, saying she wasn’t herself. Don’t you remember, Elsa? You were there. Marjorie, I rather think you were in Spain—or was it Jamaica?”
Andy’s phone rang at that moment. He mouthed “Excuse me” to the women and went outside.
“DI Hamilton.”
“Andy, it’s me,” Lou said. “Can you talk?”
“Yes, it’s fine.”
“The hospital phoned. Brian Fletcher-Norman is awake and they say we can talk to him briefly. I’m sending Sam down with Ali Whitmore because everyone else is busy. Thought you should know.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said. “I’m at the farm.”
“How are you getting on with Flora?”
“Haven’t managed to track her down yet.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry about the phones for Hayselden Barn. Jane’s got all the numbers, and she’s put the billing application in already. For now, you’re down as the officer in the case.”
“Right.”
The call ended. Was she deliberately trying to make him look like he didn’t know what he was doing? Because it felt exactly like that. He was a DI, for fuck’s sake; he’d been a DI when she was still a probationer. What was she trying to prove?
He went back to the kitchen. Whatever it was they’d been talking about, they all stopped when he came in and turned and looked at him. Felicity was looking very pink. He took a deep breath.
“You all keep yourselves very fit,” he offered as an opening gambit. “Did Polly play tennis?”
Elsa made a noise. “I don’t believe she did.”
“She kept fit in other ways,” said Marjorie, meaningfully.
Felicity cleared her throat. “She was very busy at the stables most of the time. When she had time off, I think she went to the pub, or she was off out with friends.”
“Anyone in particular?” Andy asked.
“Oh, Lord knows. She didn’t tell me anything.”
“What about Connor Petrie, was she friends with him?”
“You all seem very interested in the Petrie boy, don’t you?” Felicity said sharply. “Why’s that, I wonder?”
Andy leaned back in his chair. “Well, they must have spent a lot of time together at the stables. I thought they might have been friends.”
“She was perfectly pleasant with him, but I wouldn’t have said they were friends. He followed her around like a little puppy until she gave him something to do. I remember her telling Flora about it.”
“What about Flora—was she friends with Polly?”
“I suppose so, they went out into town occasionally, although not for a while. Flora’s been spending more time at the studio recently.” She gave a strange, high-pitched sort of laugh. “Actually, I was starting to think she was avoiding me.”
“Why would she do that?” Marjorie asked, before Andy had a chance to.
“I have no idea. She used to stay over at the farm all the time in the summer, every day. I asked her why she’d gone back to her flat and she said she was busy with her painting. But I don’t know.”
Andy saw a glance pass between Elsa and Marjorie and wondered what it was they weren’t saying. He decided to risk stirring things up, see what might float to the surface.
“Mrs. Newbury at Willow Cottage. Is she someone you know?”
Felicity straightened in her chair. “That old witch,” she said. “You don’t want to pay any attention to her.”
“She’s a nasty old gossip,” Elsa said. “Her husband ran off with one of the partners at his firm two years ago and she couldn’t deal with it.”
Andy made a note. They were watching him like hawks now.
“She was very pretty, wasn’t she?” Andy coaxed. “Polly, that is. I’m surprised she was single.”
There was a silence, then eventually Elsa said, “Well, I liked her. She was fresh and bright and always seemed to be happy.” She bit her lip and continued: “I’m sorry for her, sorry she’s gone. She was a nice girl, despite everything . . .”
“Despite what?” Andy asked, unable to help himself.
But after Elsa’s glowing recommendation, none of them seemed willing to elaborate on this. They had all fallen quiet, and Andy thought he had probably reached the limits of their sociable conversation. The rest of it was up to Miranda Gregson, who had tactfully left him alone to do his thing.
“Mrs. Maitland, thank you very much for the coffee, but I’m afraid I must leave you. It’s been lovely to meet you all.”
They cooed their goodbyes and Felicity rose to show him out. “You simply must call me Felicity—all my friends do.”
Andy treated her to his best smile. “Felicity, I did want to ask one thing. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Flora but I keep missing her. Any ideas where she might be?”
“Oh,” Felicity said, her voice quavering as it tended to do when people demanded something of her. “I’m not really sure. She might be at the studio.”
“Where’s that?”
“On the road to Briarstone, just past the fire station. There’s a few industrial units, her studio is on the upper floor, above the printing shop. I’m afraid I’m not sure of the actual address.”
“Don’t worry,” Andy said, soothingly, hiding his rising impatience. “Do you have a mobile number I could catch her on?”
13:21
Flora wasn’t in her studio. She was sitting in the car outside, looking up at the big windows, thinking of the canvas in there and wondering if she’d ever be able to look at it again.
Crying again, of course. How long would it take before she could think of Polly and not cry? It wasn’t even as if they’d been together when it happened. It had finished months ago. But that didn’t stop the hurt, didn’t make it any less, didn’t make any bloody difference.
The canvas was huge, swirls of green and gold, flashes of navy, dots of bright red.
It was an abstract, and it was based on the memories of what had happened in the top field at Hermitage Farm. The field where, on that hot spring day when the world had seemed so sudde
nly full of promise, Polly had kissed Flora for the first time. And then, when Flora had looked at her in amazement and kissed her back, Polly had pushed her gently into the shade of the trees, the buttons being undone one by one while Polly met her gaze and smiled at her surprise.
Flora had been breathless, stunned, unprepared for how she would feel the moment Polly’s cool hand slipped over her burning skin. She didn’t wear a bra—nothing worth putting inside one—so when Polly’s fingers met her bare nipples they reacted instantly.
The taste of Polly, the coldness of the lemonade they’d shared, the smell of the hot, baked earth, the horses on Polly’s clothes, her own sunburned skin, the salt of her sweat on Polly’s fingers, the softness, the incredible softness of her mouth . . .
And she had lain back, the ground hard beneath her shoulders, breathing hard while Polly’s hand inside her jeans brought her to orgasm, looking up at the pattern made by the sunshine through the leaves on the trees, such a bright, bright green, and somewhere nearby a blackbird sang a song of uplifting joy while Flora writhed, clutching Polly’s wrist with one hand, the other buried in that thick blond hair.
That was what she had been trying to paint.
It had been a way of dealing with the way things had finished between them at the end of August. She had stayed away from the farm, avoided Polly as much as she could. And it had hurt that Polly hadn’t really pursued her, hadn’t asked her why, had seemingly carried on with her life as though nothing had happened. Finishing the painting had been like a catharsis, and Flora had believed that when it was completed she would have what they called closure.
But this was different. How could she ever finish it, when Polly had been taken from her? How could she ever even look at it again?
No point staying here—she wasn’t going to be able to paint today. She turned the key in the ignition and drove back out toward the town.
13:25
“Slumming it a bit, aren’t we, Sarge?” Ali Whitmore said with a smile on his face, as Sam Hollands crossed the car park toward him.
“What’s that?” she said, not hearing him—or maybe pretending not to.
“Interviewing with me.”
“Boss clearly thinks you can’t manage on your own. How are you getting on?”
Ali dropped his voice, although there was nobody near enough to hear them. “Bits and pieces coming in on Maitland; still the same stuff he was up for when I was working on him—you know, all the trafficking, the links to the McDonnells. We had a couple of arrests and convictions—drivers, dealers. None of the big nobs, though. Whatever we did, Nigel Maitland came up clean. Felt like he’d been tipped off, it was that obvious, but we couldn’t get any further with it.”
“Happens a lot,” Sam said. “Karma says one of these days we’ll get to put him away.”
“Yeah,” Ali said. “Fingers crossed for this job, then. I can’t wait to see that smarmy bastard locked up.”
The Intensive Care Unit nurse looked them up and down appraisingly, as though she could sense them bringing germs into her domain. They were shown to the antibacterial hand gel, and she watched them closely as they rubbed the stuff into their hands.
“He only woke up this morning,” she said, “and had the tubes removed a couple of hours ago, so he’s still very tired and out of sorts. I don’t want you upsetting him if you can help it.”
“Is he aware that his wife is dead?” Ali asked.
“Yes, but I’m not sure how much you’ll be able to get out of him, so don’t expect miracles.”
“How is he, physically?”
“He’s fine, for now. We take things one day at a time with heart attacks. And his was particularly nasty—you should be grateful he’s here at all.”
More grateful than you could possibly realize, thought Sam.
Brian Fletcher-Norman was propped up at an angle of about forty-five degrees, connected to various machines. His eyes were closed and monitors attached to the wires coming out from underneath his blue hospital gown kept reassuringly steady beats. Sam looked at the gray chest hair at the neck of the gown and wondered idly how much it would hurt when they took off the sticky pads. Maybe they’d shaved those bits underneath . . .
“Mr. Fletcher-Norman? Brian?”
The eyes opened and swiveled round to Sam’s face. He managed a smile, although he was pale.
“I’m Detective Sergeant Sam Hollands, and this is my colleague Detective Constable Alastair Whitmore.” She took Brian’s hand, resting on the white sheet that reached up to his waist, half shook it and half gave it a gentle squeeze. “I wonder if we could take up a few moments of your time.”
“As you can tell,” said Brian, “I’m not exactly busy.” His voice was a little hoarse, but otherwise strong and with a resonance that was curiously attractive.
“I wish we were meeting under other circumstances, Mr. Fletcher-Norman. I’m very sorry about the death of your wife.”
His gaze fixed at some point in the middle distance. “You must call me Brian.”
“Thank you. How are you feeling, Brian?”
He gave a little shrug. “Quite tired . . . Do you know any more about what happened to my wife?”
“That’s why we’re here, I’m afraid. Can you tell us a bit more about that day? About what happened?”
Brian cleared his throat weakly. “I said goodbye to her in the morning as usual. Well, she was still in bed asleep when I left. I don’t—don’t remember much about the evening. I got home late. Barbara—she’s often out in the evenings, playing bridge or tennis, or at dinner parties or whatnot.”
He paused for a moment, brows furrowed.
“I’ve been trying to remember. I sat in the living room, drank a whiskey. Read some papers from work. Then I went up and had a bath, went to bed.”
“So you didn’t see Barbara in the evening?”
A long, long pause. For a moment Sam wondered if he was drifting off to sleep.
Then he sighed. “I don’t remember. It’s very hazy. I wasn’t feeling well.”
“And in the morning?”
“I didn’t set the alarm because Wednesday isn’t one of my working days. I woke up some time after nine, had a shower. I was going down the stairs when I heard the door knock, and it was the—the police officers.”
“So you didn’t go into the kitchen at all?”
“I don’t think so. No. I didn’t.”
Sam took his hand again, gave it a little squeeze. There had been a little tremor in his voice, his eyes filling slightly. He was a handsome man, despite his circumstances, and still looked strong, fit. No wonder Polly had been attracted to him—if that rumor was true.
“Brian, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Polly Leuchars was murdered in the early hours of Wednesday morning.”
She’d kept hold of his hand, knowing that his reaction to this news was fairly crucial. The monitor tracking his heartbeat noticeably speeded up. He was looking at Sam again, eyes wide.
“Polly? What—what on earth happened?”
“She was attacked at Yonder Cottage. Brian, I am so sorry about this, but you realize there is a question I have to ask you.” Sam’s voice was gentle. “Is there any reason why Barbara might have wanted to harm Polly?”
The eyes closed. There was a long pause. Sam was desperate for him to say something, as she could sense the approach of the nurse and knew she did not have long.
“Brian?”
“Barbara was a very jealous woman. Polly and I were friends. She’d given me riding lessons at the stables in the summer. We had—we had some arguments about it, so I gave them up. But I never thought . . .”
His hand gave Sam’s a little squeeze.
As expected, the nurse’s footsteps squeaked across the lino toward them. “Now, Brian, are you feeling all right?” She started fussing around the monitors, checking things.
“Quite well, thank you.”
“Just a few more minutes, then,” she said, with a stron
g warning look toward Sam before she headed back to the nurses’ station.
“Barbara was suffering from depression,” Brian continued without any prompting. “Had it for ages, finally got some drugs from the doctors a few months ago.”
“Do you think she had been drinking that night?” Sam asked.
“Probably. She drank most nights.”
“Okay.” Sam took Brian’s hand in both of hers and held it for a moment. “Thank you for your time, Brian. I understand this must be very difficult for you.”
He gave her a weak smile.
“Is there anyone we can contact for you? A friend, a neighbor?”
Brian shook his head sadly. “You could try my daughter, but I doubt she’ll come.”
Sam wanted to ask him about that, too, but the nurse was back again. “I’ll show you out, Officers,” she said, in a voice that invited no argument.
At the door, she asked, “What about his daughter? Have you spoken to her?”
Ali said, “We spoke to her briefly; we’ll go back to her now Mr. Fletcher-Norman is awake.”
“See if you can persuade her to come. He needs somebody, and this would be a good time for a reconciliation.”
“Is he likely to make a full recovery?” Sam asked.
“You’ll need to speak to the doctors, but he isn’t out of the woods yet by any means.”
“Please do call us if he remembers anything, won’t you? Please?” Sam asked, handing her a business card.
Then Sam was marching down the corridor, heels sounding loudly, Ali having trouble keeping up. “I hate hospitals,” she said passionately. “I’ll see you at the station later,” she said, without even looking back.
14:12
Flora’s studio bore little resemblance to Felicity’s description, the building being a converted mill rather than a purpose-built industrial unit—and the office downstairs was a management consultancy, not a printer. A nice place to work, Andy thought, admiring the landscaped lawns and flower beds around the building. The door which led directly to the stairs and the upper floor had a handwritten sign taped to the inside of the glass which said “No junk mail thanks.” There was a buzzer, which also had a handwritten note: F MAITLAND STUDIO.
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