by Kim M Watt
“Oi. We can’t all be suave southerners like you.”
“Evidently not.” She didn’t feel very suave. “We need to tell her about Wright’s cardiac event. The fact that maybe it was induced. And about that Gavin Peabody.”
“We’re not sure that was connected. It was ruled a natural death at the time.”
“True, but two councillors dropping dead in not much more than six months seems odd. And that was a heart attack too.”
“He was out on the town in Leeds at 3 a.m. with not one but three lovely young ladies, all indulging in some illicit substances. And he did have a heart condition.”
DI Adams frowned at him. “It’s still odd.”
“I know. But maybe we’re best not to tell her. Maybe it’s safer, if there is something going on, that she doesn’t have all the information. She might get even more enthusiastic about poking around.”
She sighed. “Knowing her, she probably already knows.”
“You could be right.” Collins popped the last of his biscuit in his mouth.
“There’s probably some underground Women’s Institute information network,” DI Adams continued, not entirely joking. “Morse code in the knitting and secret messages in the jam.”
Collins shook his head. “I’m not sure the country agrees with you, you know.”
“Neither am I.”
The young constable on the front desk, PC McLeod, called DI Adams and told her there was someone to see her. “He says he knows you from the manor house case?”
“What’s his name?”
“He says it’s a surprise.”
DI Adams put the desk phone down with a sigh.
“What’s up?” Collins asked.
“Press, I think.” She walked out of the office and down the little corridor, letting herself into the waiting room with its photo prints of Dales landscapes and information posters and grey plastic chairs. A couple in walking gear sat in one corner, looking distressed and talking quietly in a language she didn’t recognise, and a shrivelled woman was loudly berating a distressed PC McLeod for the fact that he wasn’t doing enough to stop whoever was stealing her daffodils. DI Adams was no gardener, but she was quite certain daffodil season was long over.
“DI Adams!” a young man exclaimed, bouncing to his feet and advancing on her with one long-fingered hand outstretched, his dimples on full display. “We must stop meeting like this.”
DI Adams ignored his hand. “Quite right. At some stage all this following me around becomes stalking.” She glanced at Dandy, who was sniffing the journalist’s legs, and wondered what happened if an invisible dog bit you. Unfortunately, Dandy didn’t seem to share her dislike of the young man, and he lost interest and wandered out the front door into the sun. “What do you want, Mr Giles?”
“Maybe just to catch up, for old time’s sake.”
She just looked at him, hands in her pockets, waiting. Ervin Giles had been writing a profile on how old country houses were surviving in the modern day when they’d last met, at the manor house owned by Miriam’s sister. He’d been a nuisance during that investigation, and she didn’t expect him to be any different now.
“Alright, alright. The Thomas Wright death. Can you tell me how the investigation is going?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on. Not even one statement?”
“I thought you wrote articles on country house hotels.”
“I did, but my coverage of the manor house death in spring was so good that the paper put me on crime.”
“Such a promotion for you. In Skipton.” Trying to ignore the fact that she was in the same place, and she’d started in London.
“In Leeds, actually, but when I saw you were on the case I thought I’d pop over.”
“Lucky, lucky me.”
He pushed his hands through his dark hair and smiled at her. “Look, I know you hate the press. Police always do. But you have to admit I did a good story last time. I’m not going for tabloid fodder.”
“The investigation is still in its very early stages, Mr Giles. I have nothing to say to you.”
“What about what you’re doing in Skipton, then? You do like keeping the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute close, don’t you? Word is Mr Wright’s last stop was one of their meetings.”
DI Adams nodded, then turned to the woman at the desk and said, “Ma’am? This journalist here is a crime reporter. I think you should tell him all about your daffodils.”
The woman wheeled around in a swirl of pink tartan coat and matching skirt. “Finally! This constable is doing nothing to help me!”
“Hang on,” Ervin said, eyeing the door, and DI Adams patted his shoulder.
“Balanced reporting, Mr Giles.” She followed Dandy out into the sunlight as the woman backed Ervin into a corner, already describing which of her neighbours she thought was the culprit. PC McLeod mouthed thank you at her, and she grinned at him.
With any luck he might actually stop looking terrified every time she came in the door now.
7
Alice
Alice climbed the old stone steps to the town hall, a quiet breeze lifting grey hair off the back of her neck. It was warm today, the air smelling of hot streets and baking ground, and the lobby when she stepped inside was wonderfully cool. She clipped across the floor in her low heels, spoke briefly to the receptionist, and was directed to the next floor.
It hadn’t been difficult to get the signatures she needed to be put forward as the temporary representative for Toot Hansell. And with Gert’s brother’s niece’s second cousin – or whatever dreadfully complicated relation it was – putting the application letter in front of the right people, she’d found herself entering politics rather rapidly. Miriam was still exceptionally nervous about the whole thing, and it had been very hard to convince Beaufort he couldn’t accompany her to the meeting, but otherwise everything was under control. The inspectors had found out rather more quickly than she would have liked, which she thought might be due to Jasmine feeling the need to share everything with Ben. She never quite understood people who did that, but then, her own husband had been most unsatisfactory, so she’d never really felt the need to share that much with him.
And be that as it may, the inspectors had at least known not to bother trying to tell her she couldn’t do it. DI Adams had made a lot of warning noises about not poking around in things and just getting on with council business, which had had Thompson choking with laughter, and DI Collins had muttered about the importance of Alice staying in constant contact, but after that they’d left her alone. Which was a little suspicious, and she had found herself checking for police cars behind her on the drive in, but she supposed it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that she was now on the council. She smiled as she walked down the upstairs hall, stopping in front of a dark wood door with a plaque labelled Conference Room 3. Now it was time to investigate.
She let herself into a rather stuffy conference room that smelled of wood polish and too much cologne and talcum powder, and nodded at the six people scattered around a long table. “Good morning,” she said. “Alice Martin, temporary representative for Toot Hansell. Anywhere in particular I should sit?”
“Oh, come sit next to me, dear,” a pretty woman with dark hair said, waving her over. “We’re not very formal. It being summer and all, half of us are missing anyway.”
“Dropping like flies,” a lanky man with a weather-darkened face said. “Off to Bermuda and what have you.”
“That seems very irresponsible,” Alice said, taking a seat one chair away from the woman. If there were going to be spare spaces she didn’t fancy being crowded.
“All the serious work gets done in winter,” a red-faced man with a shirt straining across his belly said. “We’re just keeping things ticking over, really.”
“I see.” Alice set a notebook and a pen on the table and tucked her bag beneath her chair. “Well, that gives you plenty of time to catch me up on everything I’ve missed,
doesn’t it?”
The lanky man snorted, stretched, folded his arms over his chest and appeared to go to sleep immediately. Alice looked at the woman next to her, eyebrows raised.
“Oh, that’s Len. Don’t mind him. He says council meetings are where he does his best sleeping.”
“I see,” she said again, trying not to sound too disapproving. Not on her first day.
“Lily Dean,” the woman said, extending a hand.
“Pleased to meet you.” Lily’s dark hair curled about her face rather fetchingly, and she had the sort of clear-skinned look that made her age hard to place. Alice thought she might be around Miriam’s age, early fifties or thereabouts. “Do you live in Skipton, Lily?”
“Yes, recent transplant.” She pointed around the table. “Rob,” she said, pointing at the red-faced man. “Charles,” this a man who was eating a custard tart with every evidence of enjoyment and waved at them cheerily around a mouthful of pastry, “Ed, and Lee.” The remaining two men were comparing something on their phones, and they looked up, nodded, then went back to what they were doing.
Alice poured herself a glass of water from the jug on the table, condensation spreading around it in a pool on the stained wood. The windows were cracked open, but despite that, the room was choked with a heat that managed to be both dusty and sticky at once. “Is it just us?”
“Probably. Honestly, everything runs much better when it’s not school holidays and so on.”
Alice didn’t share the somewhat uncharitable thought that it could hardly run worse. “Can’t we get some fans in here? No wonder everyone’s half asleep.”
“Oh, we ask after every meeting.” Lily took a little battery-powered fan out of her purse and switched it on, planting it on the desk in front of them. “Nothing ever happens.”
“I see.” Alice opened her notebook. “Well, then, if everyone’s here, we may as well get started, hadn’t we?”
Alice did not consider it to be a particularly successful meeting. Len snored so loudly at one point that she couldn’t hear what Rob was saying, and Ed and Lee never looked up from their phones. Charles had a seemingly limitless supply of pastries that he offered around the table, and he paid more attention to them than he did to what was happening in the meeting. He was rather a skinny sort, too. Lily leaned over and whispered in Alice’s ear that his wife had him on a no-sugar diet, and this was the only chance he got to indulge. Alice thought both the diet and the meeting was a lot of foolishness, and the W.I. was a rather more efficiently run organisation. Or the Toot Hansell branch was, at least. She couldn’t speak for any others.
Lily kept the minutes in a laborious scrawl, and Alice was sure she missed at least half of what was said. Rob led the meeting, in a manner of speaking, flipping through some printed sheets and calling out now and then, “Who was getting quotes for the new tourist maps? Ones without fairy houses and river monsters on them?” or “Who was responsible for getting rid of that damn silly typo on the dog park signs?” Inevitably, the answer seemed to be someone who wasn’t there.
Alice folded her arms and leaned back in her chair, reminding herself that she was there to gather information, not to restructure the council. “Is it normal for everyone to go away at once?” she asked Lily, while Rob paged through his sheets, muttering to himself.
“Oh, well. I’ve actually only been on the council since the end of last summer, but it seems so. Lots of people off on nice holidays, it seems. I wish I could go to Barbados.”
Alice personally thought it sounded a bit overrated, sitting on a beach drinking things with umbrellas in them, but she just said, “I imagine.”
“Flowers for Thomas?” Rob demanded. “Tell me someone did that!”
“I did!” Lily exclaimed, almost bouncing out of her seat.
“Great. So we can actually get something done around here.” He went back to his notes.
Lily walked out with Alice as the meeting ended, nodding goodbye to the other councillors and leaving Len snoring in the stuffy room. The two women stood on the steps, Lily fanning herself with her notepad as Alice lifted her hair off her neck to let the wind cool her.
“That wasn’t a great first impression of the council,” Lily admitted. “It really isn’t always so slipshod.”
“Well, it explains an awful lot about the state of politics in this country,” Alice said, then smiled. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”
“No, you’re right. And I think I came in feeling quite idealistic about it all too, as though maybe I could make changes and really help around here, but you just sort of get worn down by the indifference.”
“Did you say you’ve been here since last summer?”
“Yes, about nine months or so. There was a vacancy not long after I arrived in Skipton, so I went right out and got myself selected.” She smiled at Alice, her teeth bright white and not quite straight. “Early retirement. I couldn’t stand the idea of sitting around doing nothing.”
“Quite.” Alice nodded toward the centre of town. “I really fancy a decent cup of tea after all that. And probably a bite to eat. Will you join me? You can fill me in.”
“Oh yes! That would be lovely.”
The two women headed down the main street, and Alice wondered if it was odd or not that no one had mentioned Thomas except to ask about flowers. It felt odd to her.
They ordered salads and a large pot of tea in one of the cafes on the main street, sitting in the bay window upstairs where they could watch people pass below. Alice spotted Ben sitting in a patrol car in one of the parking bays, and wondered if he was trailing her. Then he got out of the car and, with a guilty look around, emptied a tub of something into the bin and went into a baker’s, emerging a moment later with a fat sandwich and a bag of crisps. Which answered her question about whether he actually liked Jasmine’s food, although not the lingering doubts she had about how neither he nor Jasmine had come down with food poisoning yet.
Lily had been chattering on about her husband, who she was very enthusiastic about, and her previous career building up a chain of clothing shops, which she was even more enthusiastic about. Alice was wondering why Lily had given it up when she suddenly said, “Are you married, Alice?”
“Oh, no,” Alice said. “Not at all.”
“Oh.” Lily looked at her plate, then said, “Well, there’s no knowing when it’ll happen. I met my husband only last year.”
“Really.”
“Yes! Do you know, he literally tripped over me at a cafe. Knocked my coffee all over my tablet and asked to buy me another one.”
“Another coffee?”
“No, silly. Another tablet!” Lily laughed delightedly. “Although he did buy me a coffee, too. And then dinner. And, you know …” She winked, rather alarmingly, and Alice smiled back.
“So, he works here, does he?”
“Well, he’s a bit of an international businessman. He’s out of the country all this month, more’s the pity. But he’s marvellous. He gave me wonderful advice on selling my shops. I’d probably still be slaving away in them otherwise.”
Alice thought the whole thing sounded highly dubious, but she wasn’t about to say as much. Instead she just said, “Did you know Thomas well?”
“Thomas?”
“My predecessor.”
“Oh, Thomas. Of course. Sorry, I was still thinking about husbands. Yes, he was such a lovely man.” Lily took a mouthful of salad and ate. Alice waited. After a moment Lily put her fork down and said, “I mean, I knew him from the council. I wouldn’t say I knew him well.”
“It was quite tragic, his death.”
“Oh, awful. Just awful.” Lily busied herself with her food again. “I hear it was a heart attack. So sad. He was so young!”
“Indeed.” Alice chased a cherry tomato around her plate. “Did he get on with everyone at the council?”
“Oh yes. Usual thing – everyone clashes with everyone else at some point, but everyone liked him. It really is so sad.”
“I don’t think so. Why?” Lily tipped her head to the side, suddenly birdlike, her eyes bright. “You think something happened to him?”
Of course something happened to him, Alice thought. He died. Honestly, people were so obtuse sometimes. Aloud, she said, “No, of course not. Just if he was dealing with anything specific to Toot Hansell I should probably take a look at it.”
“Oh! Of course. Well, I put all the minutes of the meetings in emails, and send them to everyone. I’ll email all of the last month or so to you when I get home.”
“That would be lovely,” Alice said, and checked the tea pot. “I think we need a refill.”
“Yes! And now tell me about you – you’re not married, but is there anyone special? Come on, girl talk!”
Alice tried not to let the horror show on her face, and wished she hadn’t mentioned the refill. “No,” she said, when Lily poked her arm, still grinning. “I tried marriage. It didn’t agree with me.”
“Oh, how terrible! Do you want to talk about it?”
Alice leaned forward and said, “He vanished. I retired from the RAF, and about a week after I got home, I went out to get some milk. I came home, and he had vanished.”
“Vanished!” Lily whispered, her eyes round. “Was he … was he murdered?”
Alice leaned back in her seat. “The police thought I might have murdered him.”
Lily was rather gratifyingly quiet for a moment, then said, “But you didn’t, of course?”
“And have him be even more trouble than he already was? No.” She smiled at the young waiter as he delivered a fresh pot of tea to the table. “Thank you, dear.”
“And you never found him?” Lily asked, when the waiter had retreated.
“I never looked.”