by H. Y. Hanna
And yet she hesitated as Charles Mannering’s cautionary words echoed in her mind. The lawyer was right: her cousin hadn’t actually made any official challenge to the will yet. If she went to the police with her accusations now—without any proof—it would be tantamount to slander and could lay her open to a defamation suit. She couldn’t afford that!
But perhaps she could go halfway? If she could just find out what Hubert’s alibi was for the night of the murder—if he even had one—then she could decide whether to reveal more to the police. Seizing on the decision, Poppy put a call through to the police station and asked for Suzanne, but was disappointed when she was informed that “Detective Inspector Whittaker was out on a case”. She left a message asking Suzanne to call her, although she didn’t hold out much hope of any reply for a long time. She was pleasantly surprised, though, when her phone rang barely twenty minutes later.
“Poppy—Suzanne Whittaker here. I had a message that you wanted to speak to me?” said Suzanne in a harassed voice.
“Oh! Yes, I… thanks for ringing back… There’s… there’s something important… about the Pete Sykes murder.”
“Yes?” asked Suzanne impatiently.
“Um… well…” The other woman’s brusque tone made Poppy nervous, and suddenly she wondered how she had thought that she could call up the police and grandly say: “I think I know who the murderer is. Can you tell me if he had an alibi?” So instead, she started rambling about “possible suspects” and “people Sykes may have known, who should be questioned” until Suzanne cut her short.
“Poppy, look, I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time for a long discussion right now. I’m on a double homicide case and things are really crazy here. Why don’t you speak to Sergeant Lee? He’s handling the Sykes case and I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk things over with you.”
“But—”
“Is everything else all right otherwise? Are you comfortable in Nick’s house? Managing okay with Oren?”
“Yes, he’s fine and the house is great, but I—”
“Good. Look, I need to go now. Take care of yourself and I’ll catch you soon!”
Poppy stared at the darkened screen, then sighed and put her phone away. What should she do now? Well, she couldn’t just sit in Nick’s house any longer—she would go crazy! She checked Oren’s food and water bowl, grabbed her handbag, then—pausing only to give the ginger tom a scratch on the chin—she headed out.
***
Poppy stepped off the bus, then paused uncertainly, looking around her. She had jumped on the bus for Oxford on an impulse and with only a vague idea of what she wanted to achieve. Now that she was here, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Slowly, she wandered out of the station forecourt and into the large, piazza-like square of Gloucester Green. This had been empty the last time Poppy arrived, but today she was surprised to see the wide expanse filled by row upon row of temporary stalls. It looked like some kind of farmers’ market, with local growers and farmers, bakeries and cheesemakers, and a whole host of other artisans, selling their produce and creations. The stalls and stands were bulging with fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, bread, cakes, herbal soaps, candles… as well as the inevitable hotchpotch of mobile phone accessories, cheap toys and souvenirs, second-hand books, handmade jewellery, pottery and more.
Glad of a distraction, Poppy began wandering between the stalls, admiring all the things on display. Despite her worries, she soon found herself genuinely caught up in the vibrant market atmosphere—in fact, it was hard to resist buying things on impulse! She was just sniffing some wonderfully perfumed soy candles, wondering if she could justify the expense, when she saw a stall selling fresh flowers and potted plants. Poppy watched enviously as a woman filled her arms with bunches of ruffled pink sweet peas, their fragrance heady in the morning air.
Suddenly, she flashed back to another time when she had stood beside a flower stall and enviously watched another woman buy a bouquet of fresh flowers. That had been in London, on her way to work one morning—before she’d quit her job, before she’d come to Hollyhock Cottage, before she had discovered Pete Sykes’s body… Had it really only been a week ago? It felt now almost like a lifetime away.
Poppy drifted over to the flower stall and gazed longingly at the buckets filled with colourful blooms. She reached out and touched one of the flowers, admiring the blend of colours—magenta and salmon pink and orange, with darker flecks that looked almost like tiger stripes long the inside of the petals. Then she smiled in sudden delight as she recognised the bright, lily-like flower.
“It’s an alstroemeria!” she exclaimed. She looked up to see the flower seller giving her an odd look and she laughed sheepishly. “Sorry…. I never knew the names of many flowers before and I’ve been reading a plant encyclopaedia and it’s exciting to recognise things in real life.”
The woman gave her an “O-kay… customers are weird but humour them…” kind of look and said: “Alstros are great value. Last for ages in a vase—weeks and weeks, if you change the water. An’ I got a special going—if you buy two bunches, you get a third free.” She indicated the label on the side of the bucket
Poppy glanced at the price on the label and gulped. It seemed an exorbitant amount of money, even for flowers that would last several weeks. It was an extravagance that she really couldn’t afford. And yet her hand was already creeping towards her pocket as she stared at the beautiful blooms.
“Or… if you want even better value, I’m selling a couple of ’em in pots, for the same price, with the pot thrown in. If I were you, that’s what I’d buy, ” said the woman, bending down and lifting something up from underneath the bench.
Poppy looked at the pot askance: the dark-brown compost was bulging with fleshy stems and whorls of green leaves, and looked nothing like the bunches of bright flowers. The flower seller must have caught her expression because she said hurriedly:
“They don’t look like much now—the buds haven’t opened, see?” She parted some of the leaves to show a stem ending in a cluster of tightly shut oval buds, just beginning to show a hint of red. “But they’ll open in a couple of days an’ then they’ll knock your socks off! Gorgeous cherry-red, this one is, with dark flecks an’ gold streaks in the throat. They’re also known as the Peruvian Lily or—”
“Lily of the Incas,” said Poppy excitedly. “Yes, I read that last night in my book. They came originally from South America and they symbolise friendship in the meaning of flowers.” She saw the woman give her an odd look again and tried to explain, “I’ve got this… er… friend who’s a writer and he’s researching the meaning of flowers for his latest novel. I saw that he’d made a note about alstroemerias.”
“Er… right. So d’you want one? They really are fantastic value,” said the woman, obviously not caring about the meaning of flowers as long as she made a sale. She added persuasively as she saw Poppy hesitate: “You just have to water ’em an’ they’ll keep giving you new blooms, right up until the first frosts.”
“Can I keep it in the pot?”
“Well, you could for a couple of months… but they really like to be in the ground. You can put ’em in a nice spot in your garden, mulch ’em well over the winter to protect ’em, an’ they’ll bounce back in the spring. Then you’ll be able to enjoy ’em for years, eh?”
Poppy was about reply that she didn’t have a garden, when an image of the cottage garden flashed in her mind. The alstroemeria would look lovely planted right by the path, near the front door, she thought. Then I can enjoy seeing the flowers every time I go in and out of the hous—she pulled herself up short. What was she thinking? Hollyhock Cottage was going to sold! It wasn’t her garden and she wasn’t going to be walking up to the front door.
Poppy gave the woman a regretful smile. “Thank you, they look lovely but I really can’t afford it…”
She started to turn away, then she stopped, hesitated, and whirled back to the startled woman.
“Actually,
I’ll… I’ll take one,” she said breathlessly.
A few minutes later, Poppy walked away from the stall, wondering if she was a bit mad. She had just spent much-needed money on a potted plant that didn’t even have a flower on it; a potted plant that she had nowhere to plant and couldn’t even lug overseas with her when she left England.
It was such a silly extravagance, such an irresponsible act, unlike anything she’d ever done, that she felt slightly giddy with exhilaration. She looked down and caught a whiff of fresh compost, mingled with the smell of the green leaves, and couldn’t help smiling to herself. It might have been a crazy thing to do… but it felt good.
Clutching the pot, she began making her way out of the market, but she hadn’t gone a few steps when loud voices nearby caught her attention. She glanced over curiously: the commotion was coming from a stall at the end of the row. It looked much more makeshift than the rest—almost as if someone had stacked a board on some milk cartons, and just hijacked a space—and unlike the rest of the displays which were lovingly decorated with tablecloths, banners, and pretty homemade signs, this one looked cheap and rough, with most of the items stacked in careless piles. Also, unlike most stalls which specialised in one type of item, these were a strange hotchpotch: from the large pile of mobile phones and accessories to another pile of cosmetics—all bearing the logos of famous designer brands—as well as handbags and T-shirts (again with ostentatious designer logos); there were also cheap plastic toys, stacks of computer games, and even some packs of cigarettes.
A young man stood behind the stall, wearing a hoodie despite the heat of the summer’s day, the hood pulled up to partially shield his face. He was facing an older man—a market trader, by the look of things—who was standing on the other side of his display, yelling and gesticulating wildly.
“…won’t have the likes of your sort! We’re all good, honest traders, selling quality items we’ve grown or made ourselves—we don’t deal in junk and fakes!”
“Who said they’re fake?” the younger man sneered. “Just because you can’t recognise a designer brand, old man, doesn’t mean that they’re no good. People like my stuff. You’re just jealous ’cos no one’s buying your stupid trains!” He looked with contempt at a stand across from him, filled with beautifully carved wooden trains in local Cotswolds timber.
The trader narrowed his eyes. “I’ll bet you haven’t applied to the local council for a trader’s licence, have you? You’ve got no right to be here!” He glanced at the other side of the square, where two police constables could be seen chatting under a street lamp, and jabbed a finger. “You’d better pack up right now or I’m going to call the police!”
The young man cast a furtive glance over his shoulder at the police officers, then turned back to stare defiantly at the trader for a minute longer, before cursing and beginning to pack up his display. He grabbed items at random and shoved them into a large canvas holdall, his angry, violent movements making his hood fall back to reveal his face.
Poppy stared at him. He looked familiar…
Then she realised where she had seen him before: he was the man she had caught trying to break into Hollyhock Cottage, on the first day she had arrived in Oxfordshire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Poppy found herself walking over to the young man before she realised what she was doing and stood in front of his stall, watching him pack. He paused and looked up, eyeing her suspiciously.
“What?” he demanded.
Poppy glanced at the pile of suspiciously cheap mobile phones, at the obviously counterfeit designer goods, and had a sudden hunch who this man might be. Taking a punt, she said:
“Boyo? Boyo Simms?”
He narrowed his eyes at her and said belligerently, “Yeah, that’s me. Who’re you?”
Poppy hesitated, then she felt a rush of daring and said, looking him straight in the eye: “I’m the person who saw you trying to break into Hollyhock Cottage.”
He paled and took a step back. “I… I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
Poppy glanced meaningfully at the police constables in the distance and took another step forwards, leaning over the table. “Maybe when the police question you about it, it’ll help to jog your memory.”
He blanched even more and licked his lips. “No… no need to bring the fuzz into this. What d’you want?”
“Why were you trying to break in that day? Were you doing something to cover up for Pete’s murder?”
He recoiled, yelping: “What? No way! I had nothin’ to do with Pete’s murder!” He realised several people were staring and hurriedly lowered his voice. “I didn’t even know that he were dead, okay? It wasn’t until the next day when the fuzz came round an’ questioned me…” He swallowed and looked away.
Poppy felt a pang of doubt as she watched him. Maybe she was wrong to think that Boyo could be involved? He looked genuinely shocked and upset at the mention of his friend’s death. Then she reminded herself that people could be good actors.
“I heard that you and Pete fell out?” she challenged him.
He swung back to her, his eyes blazing. “Yeah, so what? That don’t mean that I murdered him! We disagreed ‘bout stuff an’ had bust-ups all the time… and then we’d have a pint an’ make up. Wouldn’t be the first time.” His voice cracked. “Pete was my mate… we’d gone to school together, you know… we did everythin’ together…”
Poppy shifted uncomfortably. Boyo might have been a brilliant actor, but she could have sworn that those were real tears in his eyes. She cleared her throat and said, her voice softening:
“So… do you have any ideas who might have wanted to kill Pete?”
He shrugged. “The fuzz asked me that—over and over again. Like I told ’em, I dunno! I mean… Pete didn’t have that many friends. I was his only mate, really. But he didn’t have any enemies either…” His face turned ugly. “Unless you count Jenny. She’s a right slapper. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who killed him.”
“His own wife?”
“She were only his wife in name,” Boyo sneered. “Never cooked for him, house was a tip, always askin’ him for money an’ then goin’ off shoppin’ and stuff… an’ she was playin’ around behind his back too!”
“If she’s so awful, why were they still married? I heard that she wanted a divorce.”
Boyo shrugged again. “Pete didn’t believe in divorce. He was Catholic an’ a bit old-fashioned like that.”
Poppy thought of the gossip she’d heard the day she’d had lunch in the Bunnington village pub. “Are you suggesting that Jenny killed Pete just so she could leave him? It’s… it’s so absurd!”
“Well, I dunno about that,” Boyo admitted. “Maybe she had some other reason. All I’m sayin’ is, wouldn’t surprise me if it was Jenny who did it.”
He started packing his things again and Poppy watched him for a moment, then she said: “You never told me why you were trying to break into the cottage.”
He stopped and looked shifty. “Look, it weren’t anythin’ really bad, okay? I promise you it were nothin’ to do with Pete’s murder.”
“If it was nothing bad, then why can’t you tell me?”
He looked down and said sullenly, “I was just lookin’ for a place to store my stuff.”
“Your stuff?”
He gestured to the pile of items on the table. “This. Other things. I’ve got them stashed in a mate’s garage at the moment but they’re getting twitchy, so I need to find a better hidin—I mean, storage place for the stuff.” He threw a glance over his shoulder at the police constables again, then gave her a pleading look. “You don’t need to go reportin’ that, do you? I mean, it’s nothing to do with Pete’s murder. I just knew the cottage was empty ’cos Pete mentioned it a while back. He said it was deserted and didn’t look like anyone was coming to live there soon.”
“Well, the police know about the attempted break-in already—I put that in my statement when I was
questioned after Pete’s body was found.”
“But they don’t know it was me, right?” said Boyo quickly.
“No, they don’t,” Poppy admitted.
“And you won’t tell them, will you? Please?”
Poppy hesitated. “I… all right. But if I ever see you skulking around the cottage again—”
He raised a hand, palm out. “Won’t come near the place again. I promise.”
A few minutes later, Poppy watched him walk away, a bulging canvas bag slung over his shoulder, and wondered if she had done the right thing. Boyo was pretty much a petty criminal, and what was his word worth? Still, she didn’t feel comfortable about going to the police to snitch on him and if he really had nothing to do with the murder…
With a sigh, Poppy turned away and began cutting through the market, intending to come out on the other side of the square. She tried not to look at the stalls as she walked past, knowing that it would be so easy to get sucked in again, but just as she was about to reach the edge of the market area, she spotted a second-hand bookseller. His table was filled with teetering towers of books—well-thumbed paperbacks, faded hardbacks, children’s colouring books, and even some vintage magazines.
Poppy couldn’t resist. She was missing her regular visits to the bookshop near her old London office, and now she felt that familiar thrill of anticipation as she approached the stacks of novels. Just as she was reaching towards the first book, however, she noticed the box of old magazines. She felt another familiar—but different—spurt of excitement and she pulled a few issues out eagerly, scanning the celebrity faces on the covers. Then she opened them and flipped through the pages, whilst her eyes skimmed the headlines: a rock star caught coming out of rehab… a Hollywood actress after her divorce… another looking several pounds thinner on her new diet… a director and actor having coffee on set… a pop star performing on tour…