“I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s just… you’re Gwen, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.” I try to focus on him. “I’m sorry, I can’t place you,” I admit.
“I’m Bradley Brown. Valerie’s husband.”
The penny drops, and I feel a wave of sorrow for this poor man. “Oh, Bradley, how are you doing?” Immediately, I flush. “That’s a stupid question, I’m so sorry.”
A ghost of a smile appears on his lips. “It’s okay. It’s nice to talk to someone. You’d be surprised how many people have avoided me. They’ve literally crossed the road so they don’t have to talk to me.” He moves the basket from one hand to another and looks aimlessly around the store. “Kianna said she’d do the shopping, but I needed to get out the house, do something normal. Then I got here and realized I don’t have a clue what to buy.”
“Can I help?” I ask gently.
His gaze comes back to me, and he shakes his head. “No, no, it’s all right. I’ll manage. I know we don’t know each other, but I understand that you are the one who found Valerie, and I just wanted to say thank you, you know, for calling the police and everything.”
“Oh. Well, I only did what anyone would do.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But thank you anyway. I don’t really know what I’m doing,” he admits. “It’s strange how the brain works. I’ve lost the ability to think straight.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” I touch his upper arm. “You’ve had a terrible shock.”
He nods and swallows hard. “The police told me they think she died under suspicious circumstances.”
I glance at Arthur, who gives me a pitying look. “Yes, I heard,” I say softly. “I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t imagine who’d want to hurt Valerie,” Bradley says. “I mean, she could be a bit in your face at times, and she wasn’t afraid to say what she thought, but I don’t know that anyone hated her.”
I fight with myself as to whether I should use this opportunity to question him. I don’t want to distress him; equally, I doubt I’ll get another chance.
“I can’t imagine either,” I reply. “Does her brother have any ideas?”
Bradley’s face immediately hardens. “Matthew and I are not on speaking terms.”
I pretend to be embarrassed, which isn’t far from the truth. “Oh no, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. Now I’ve put my foot in it.”
“It’s okay,” he says, “you weren’t to know. He and Valerie had a big argument several years ago, and he was very mean to her.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I can’t help adding.
Bradley gives a wry smile. “Yeah, I don’t think many people can stomach him.”
“Do you know what they argued about?” It’s an invasive question and I don’t like asking it, but luckily Bradley just nods.
“It was after he started doing that research for his book,” he says, surprising me.
“The one about witchcraft in Somerset?”
“Yes. He discovered that two witches were hanged near Glastonbury,” he says.
“I know; one of them was my ancestor,” I tell him, “Alice Young. She had the same name as my mother.”
Bradley’s eyebrows rise. “How strange. Because Valerie had done some family research ages ago, you know, for the kids, and she told him that they’re both related to the other one—Elizabeth Burrows.”
Arthur and I stare at him. “Oh my,” I whisper. “No wonder he’s mad.”
“Yeah.” Bradley snorts. “Talk about a hypocrite. Calls himself the Witchfinder General reborn, and then finds out he’s related to a witch. He wasn’t happy about that, I can tell you. He insisted Valerie was wrong, and when she refused to back down, he demanded she never tell anyone. He was right in her face—I had to step in and intercede. He walked out, and they never spoke again, to my knowledge.”
“How awful.” I don’t have to act distressed. I’ve experienced Matthew’s fury first-hand, so I know how it feels. “Has he been around since she died?”
“He called in yesterday, actually,” Bradley says. “He wanted to know if he could have all her family research. I told him to…” He glances at Arthur, then back at me. “Sod off,” he finishes lamely. “Luckily, he said he had an appointment and he had to go.”
“How insensitive of him; that must have been distressing for you.”
“It was.” He looks away, out through the supermarket windows at the sunny afternoon. “It should be raining,” he murmurs, almost inaudibly. “There should be thunder and lightning. Not sunshine. It doesn’t make sense.”
His eyes are haunted as he obviously recalls some memory of his late wife. Without another word to us, he turns and wanders off toward the checkouts.
I look up at Arthur, who’s frowning. “So that was why Matthew looked upset when we saw him,” I say quietly. “Well that’s a strange twist.”
“He did look angry,” Arthur says. “Angry enough to murder her?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” I reply. “He’s a horrible man.”
“He must be, for you to say so.” He’s carrying the basket, and he takes my hand in his free one. “Come on. Let’s go.”
We pay for our goods, go back to the car, and return home, fussing Merlin up when we go in.
“I’m going to ring Immi,” I tell Arthur as he puts items in the fridge.
“Okay. I’ll make us a coffee.”
Smiling, I dial Imogen’s number and sit at the pine table. She answers after a couple of rings.
“DCI Hobbs.” She sounds as if she’s on speakerphone. I can hear an engine, too; she’s in the car.
“It’s me,” I say. “Are you busy?”
“I’m on my way to an interview,” she says. “I’ve got a few minutes.”
“I’ve just seen Bradley Brown in the supermarket,” I tell her. “He told me something very interesting.” I explain Bradley’s revelation about Matthew Hopkins.
“Oh…” She draws the word out. “That is interesting.”
“I thought you’d like to know.”
“Yes, absolutely. I’m going to see Matthew now,” she says.
“Oh, well, that was good timing.”
“Mmm. He rang me. Said he has some information.”
I sit up. “Oh? You think he’s involved?
“Indirectly, maybe.” Her phone beeps. “Sorry,” she says, “I’ve got another call coming in. I’ll call you back later.”
“Of course, ’bye.” I hang up, frustrated that she wasn’t able to give me more information. Still, she doesn’t like sharing details of any case she’s working on, so she might not have told me anyway.
Arthur brings over a coffee. “What did she say?”
“Thank you. She said Matthew rang her and announced that he had some information about the case. She said he might be involved indirectly.”
“Oh, interesting.” He gives Merlin a biscuit from the dog tin on the shelf, brings the human cookies over, then sits opposite me and opens the tin. “Ooh. Chocolate.”
I smile and watch him dunk a cookie in his coffee. “It didn’t take you long to pick up that technique.”
“I’m a fast learner. So I wonder what Immi meant about Matthew having information about the case?” He crunches the cookie thoughtfully. “Do you think he knows who did it? How would he have worked it out?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I still don’t think any of the possible suspects has a strong motive.” I sip my coffee. “Who do we know had an issue with Valerie? There are her friends, Fenella, Nancy, and Leah.”
“Bradley’s sister, Kianna?”
“Maybe, although I don’t know what her motive would be. Fenella had the argument with Valerie about her dog being poisoned. Nancy was up against her for the promotion in the Living History group. Leah was running against her for the school board. But are any of those strong enough motives for murder?”
“Hmm. What’s our next step?”
“I don’t know.�
� I sit back in my chair and look out at the garden. It’s clouding over, and a few spots of rain land on the window. “Maybe we’ll have a read for a while, what do you think?”
“I’m always happy to do that.”
So we go into the living room, get the fire going, and I curl up on the sofa, while Arthur stretches out his long legs in the armchair, still working his way through the encyclopaedia.
I pull the box of journals toward me and hover my hand over them. Merlin comes over and snuffles around in the box.
“There’s no food in there,” I scold. “The dust will get up your nose.”
Sure enough, he sneezes, but he doesn’t stop snuffling. Before I can push him away, he closes his jaws around one of the journals, gently pulls it out, and lies it on the carpet in front of me.
I stare at it. “What’s so special about this one?” I look up at Arthur.
His gaze drops to the dog, then back to me. “He doesn’t know. He said he has a hunch.”
“All right.” I pick it up and settle back. “I’d better find out why.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The journal turns out to be Josephine’s—my great-great-grandmother’s.
I’ve already read this one, but I leaf through it again slowly, taking time to note the sketches of plants and herbs, and reading through the spells.
“Anything yet?” Arthur says about ten minutes later, putting down the encyclopaedia.
“Nothing’s jumping out at me.” I read through a passage on crystal energy and turn the page. “Maybe there’s nothing in here that…” My voice trails off.
Arthur gets up and comes to sit beside me on the sofa. Josephine has written a page on poisonous plants in England.
I count them up. “She’s listed seventeen.”
“How many of these did you know about?” he asks.
“Some. Foxgloves, obviously. Water hemlock. Belladonna. Monkshood. I didn’t know that the daffodil was poisonous. Or the hydrangea.”
I read out Josephine’s next paragraph. “The ingestion of even one flower or leaf from some of these plants can be deadly. But also be careful about burning them, as inhaling the smoke could prove a problem. There are also reports of people falling ill from honey made from bees who have visited some of these flowers.”
I look up at Arthur, and we stare at each other for a long time.
“Nancy keeps bees,” he says. “But there were no foxgloves in her garden.”
“No.” My brain is working furiously. I scan the list of plants again. “She had oleander, though.”
Arthur thinks about it. “But Immi told you that the coroner said Valerie was poisoned with digoxin.”
“Actually, no, she didn’t. She’d forgotten the name, and when I suggested it, she said yes. Digoxin is something called a cardiac glycoside, and I’m sure it’s in foxgloves.” I pick up my iPad and start typing.
After a minute or two, I find what I’m looking for. I exclaim and turn it to show Arthur. “I was right; digoxin is in foxgloves. Oleander contains another cardiac glucoside called digitoxigenin.” I indicate the line on the page. “‘The clinical effects of oleander poisoning are similar to Digoxin toxicity.’ Immi would have read that on the coroner’s report and must have remembered the name when I said it.”
“An easy mistake to make,” Arthur comments. “So let’s assume the substance that Valerie was poisoned with came from the oleander in Nancy’s garden. Do you think she purposely poisoned Valerie? Or do you think the bees fed on the oleander flowers, and the honey was poisoned by mistake?”
“I don’t know.” I frown. “We know that Nancy desperately wanted the promotion to team leader of the Living History group, but that doesn’t seem like a strong enough motive for murder.”
“True. But we mustn’t forget the presence of your watch at the site,” Arthur says. “It implies someone pushed Valerie, or at least that someone else was there when she died, and they tried to implicate you.”
Frustration bubbles up inside me. “Why would Nancy do that? I don’t know her well.”
“She’s probably jealous of you,” Arthur says.
“Why?” I ask, puzzled.
He gives me a look that says, Honestly, woman. “Because you’re beautiful and smart and popular.”
“Popular? I’ve never been popular.”
“You’re not at school now,” he says patiently. “You’re well liked in the community, Gwen. People trust your opinion and come to you for advice.”
He’s right; my opinion of myself stems from school, where I had bright ginger hair, sticky-out teeth, and glasses. I look different now, but inside I’ll always be that shy, plain child who nobody wanted to play with.
“I’ll ring Immi and tell her what we’ve found out,” I say.
“Good idea.”
I dial Imogen’s number, but for once it goes to the answerphone. “She must be busy.” I hang up and send her an email instead. Immi—can you double-check the name of the poison that killed Valerie? Digitoxigenin comes from the oleander plant. Honey made from bees who feed on the flowers is also poisonous. Didn’t you say she had honey for breakfast? Maybe to sweeten her tea? Nancy has oleander flowers in her garden. Might be worth investigating.
I press send and put down my iPad. I feel edgy and frustrated. I get up and pick up my coffee cup to take it out to the kitchen. I happen to glance at the crystal ball on top of the mantlepiece, and the cup rattles in the saucer as I see a face looking back at me that isn’t mine.
“What is it?” Arthur says, getting to his feet.
“I saw Valerie’s face.” I rub the edge of my sleeve on the sphere. “It’s gone now.” My heart’s racing, though. “Is she trying to tell me something? Why does she keep appearing?”
Arthur gently takes the cup from my hand. “Shall we take Merlin for a walk? Stretch our legs?”
I swallow and nod. He understands that I need to do something. I can’t just sit here and wait for Imogen to call. “Okay.”
We don our jackets and shoes and head out into the blustery spring afternoon, Merlin at our heels.
“Let’s go into town,” I tell him. “I’ll pick up another bottle of wine for tonight.”
“All right.”
The occasional drop of rain touches my face and the wind whips my hair, but it’s refreshing. I’m not a police officer; I can’t bring Nancy in for questioning. I’ve passed on the information, and now I have to wait for Imogen to do her bit.
It’s getting late, and some of the shops are starting to close. As we approach Mackenzie’s Jewellery Shop, I see James in the process of locking the shutters before he goes home.
“Hi James,” I say, stopping before him.
He looks around and beams. “Hello, you two. You’ve chosen a gusty afternoon for a walk.”
“Needed to get rid of the cobwebs,” I tell him. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” He finishes fastening the padlock and turns to me. Then he hesitates. “How’s your detective work going?” he asks.
My eyebrows rise. “What do you mean?”
He gives me a small smile. “Imogen came into the shop a few days ago to get a new battery for her watch. She told me how you helped her solve Liza’s murder. And I know you well enough to know that when you questioned Nancy the other day, you weren’t just being polite.”
I laugh. “You’ve got me there. I have been trying to help where I can.”
His smile fades, and he glances behind him, as if making sure he isn’t being overheard.
“Everything all right, James?” Arthur asks.
James’s gaze comes back to us. “I’ve just discovered something odd, and I don’t know whether it’s important.”
My heart skips a beat. “Oh?”
He clears his throat, then obviously decides he might as well tell us what’s bothered him. “On Tuesday, I opened up the shop at eight thirty, then when Nancy turned up at nine, I asked her to hold the fort while I nipped out to the post office.”
“Hold the fort?” Arthur says.
“It means to look after the place while you’re away,” I explain.
“Ah.”
“I went out around nine,” James says. “For about thirty minutes. When I came back, Nancy was there, cleaning the clocks. But I’ve just bumped into one of my customers. She lives out of town and works in one of the cafés here on Tuesdays and Fridays. She jokingly asked if I overslept on Tuesday, because she came in early to pick up a ring she’d had altered, and the shop was shut.”
“Just after nine o’clock?” Arthur says. “That’s when Valerie died.”
“I know,” James says. He studies his shoes for a moment. “I feel bad for telling you. Nancy’s worked for me for a long time, and she’s diligent and hardworking. But lately…” He gives a long sigh.
“Has something changed?” I ask softly.
“She started seeing someone a few months ago,” he says. “I think she’s in love with him. And it’s making her a bit…” He pauses. Then he rotates his forefinger around his ear.
“Crazy?” I ask.
“Mm,” James says. “I don’t think he’s serious about her. But you know what it’s like when you’re in love. You’d do anything for that person.”
I don’t look at Arthur, but my face warms.
“Do you know who it is that she’s seeing?” I ask James.
“Of course,” James says. “It’s Matthew Hopkins.”
And, like one of those puzzles with the little square tiles that slide around to make a picture, everything slots into place.
Arthur looks across at me and goes still. “Gwen…” He looks at James. “She’s had a Europa moment.”
“Eureka,” I correct. “But yes, I have. Where is Nancy now?” I ask James urgently. “Has she gone home?”
“She was working at the abbey this afternoon,” James says. “They’re short-staffed because Valerie’s not there.”
A Knight on the Town Page 16