Springtime for Murder Page 18
“Well,” said the doctor, taken aback, “it was my first time.”
Angelica put her hands to her temples. “Is everybody in this village insane? What sort of family have I married into? No wonder you didn’t want me to meet them, Stuart.”
“Ah,” said Stuart, “that reminds me. There’s something I need to tell you, darling.”
41 Saved by the Bell
Just then a buzzing in the pocket of my jeans told me Hector was after me. I pulled my mobile out, pressed “Accept” and held it to my ear, making my way into the hall for some privacy.
“Sophie, where are you? It’s nearly ten o’clock. Are you OK?” He sounded anxious rather than angry at my being so late for work. “You’re not cross with me about last night, are you?” To be honest, I’d barely given him a minute’s thought this morning. “Are you on your way? It’s getting pretty busy in here already, and I could do with an extra pair of hands.”
“I’m afraid I’m a bit tied up just now.”
Hector’s voice turned shrill. “Not literally?”
“No, of course not, silly. I’ll explain later.”
A queue at Hector’s trade counter didn’t register on my disaster scale right now. He’d have to deal with that issue himself.
“Listen, Hector, just give Becky a ring and see if she’s free to cover for me today. You seem to have been doing that a lot lately.”
He was silent for a moment. “Yes, OK. But do come and see me, please, as soon as you can. I really need to talk to you about Becky.”
We were on our third cup of coffee in the stockroom by the time I’d brought Hector up to date with the sad story of Kitty’s dreadful murder, while Becky took care of customers in the shop.
“Now, let me tell you something about Becky,” he said, as soon as I’d finished.
I froze. Couldn’t he see I’d had more than enough trauma for one day?
“You see, the only reason I’ve been getting Becky in to the shop is to train her up to cover for you when you’re away in Ithaca next month, on that writing retreat you won last summer.”
“Is that your only reason?” I asked in a small voice. “She’s on your speed dial and everything.”
“Becky’s fine in an emergency, but she’s nowhere near as efficient as you. That funeral book, for example. She took the order down wrong. It wasn’t for the Carters, but the Harpers. You know, the family of Neil Harper, whose grave Bunny was dumped in?”
“My goodness, how awful! And the book’s still at the Manor House. We’d better get it back before Bunny is discharged. It would be terribly upsetting for her to find it now, especially after what’s happened to poor Kitty.” I felt my eyes well up. It hadn’t yet sunk in that Kitty was really and truly dead. “Besides, it’s not as if she needs advice on funeral planning after burying three husbands. Do you want me to pop back up there now? I can let myself in. Billy still hasn’t fixed the front door. If the police will let me, that is.”
Thankfully, the police had arrived a few minutes after the doctor’s capitulation. Apologising for their delay due to the bridge closure, they were astonished to find that during that time we’d solved the murder and got the culprit to confess. It was a relief to be allowed to leave once they’d taken my statement.
“We must definitely fix it before Bunny returns, but no need to do it straight away. Besides, we probably won’t be allowed anywhere near the Manor House until the police have finished their business there. Anyway, it’s too late to help the Harpers now. Neil’s daughter phoned this morning, cross that we hadn’t delivered the book to her within a couple of days of the order, as Becky had promised. She said she’d got fed up with waiting and bought a copy online, which had come in the next day’s post. She expected better from her local bookshop, and I had to agree.”
I covered my face with my hands, partly in sympathy at the shaming of Hector’s House, and partly to conceal my smile at Becky’s fallibility. Perhaps she wasn’t competition after all, at least not in terms of employment.
“I’m kicking myself now,” Hector continued. “I should have spotted that she’d written the Harpers’ phone number in the order book instead of the Carters’. It’s just one digit different. I hope we haven’t lost their custom for ever.” He paused, looking sheepish. “But I confess, I did have another ulterior motive for giving Becky the odd day’s work in the shop.”
My heart sank, but rose again at his subsequent explanation.
“I thought Carol and Ted could do with some time without her.” Ted, a baker from Slate Green, had been dating Becky’s mother Carol since Valentine’s Day. It was Carol’s first romance in decades. “Their relationship is still so new, and while it’s lovely that Ted has taken to Becky so well, it’s Carol he wants to court, not Becky.”
“A bit like you wanting to shut Blossom out of my bedroom when you stay the night with me?”
He grinned. “Yes, I suppose so. Not that I don’t like Blossom, any more than Ted dislikes Becky. But Carol’s the one he loves and needs to have quality time alone with.” I felt a little glow at the parallel. “It will also give Becky a bit of independence. After all, she’s too young to get stuck serving behind the village shop counter at her age. It’s not easy being a young woman in a village.”
“She’s about the same age as me,” I protested. But with his eye on the time, as ever, Hector wasn’t listening. He pulled out his Battersby file from under the counter, and I realised he was expecting yet another visit from their rep. At least this time he hadn’t contrived to get me out of the way, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet her. She might be more alluring than I feared. Perhaps worrying about Becky had distracted me from a greater rival for Hector’s affections.
I scuttled behind the tearoom counter as in through the front door tottered an elderly lady. Her long bleach-blonde hair was folded into an elegant French pleat, her elaborate make-up immaculate and her black column dress expensive. She could have been Joanna Lumley’s mother. In a tartan trolley in front of her, she was pushing a large pile of Battersby’s trademark photographic hardbacks, worth at least £500 at list price.
Hector rushed round from behind the trade counter to greet her. “Mrs Battersby, come in! How lovely to see you again.” He held out his arms in welcome, but his eyes were on her books.
“Ahoy there, young Hector! I’ve brought you more from our returns stock, as promised, and every one in tip-top order, good enough for resale.” As she parked her trolley against the trade counter, her many bracelets jangled. “And you know, my son still isn’t on to our secret arrangement.”
I dropped a cup. As it smashed on the floor, she turned to look at me.
“Hello, my dear, you must be Sophie. Hector’s told me all about you.”
She teetered over in her high-heeled court shoes to shake my hand.
“I’m Dolores Battersby, of Battersby Books, near Moreton-in-Marsh. My late husband was the founder. Now my son runs it, but I can’t stay away. I feel closer to my husband at the print works than I do at home. Besides, an old woman needs a hobby, and mine is recycling good quality returned stock, before my boy can whisk it away into his horrible pulping machine.”
Until I started working for Hector, I hadn’t realised that booksellers enjoy a sale-or-return ordering system with publishers. Many of them pulp their returns, on the basis that they’re not fit for resale once they’ve been shipped to and from a shop.
“My husband seldom resorted to pulping, but my son insists it protects the brand. But I sneak out the best books while he’s not looking and distribute them free of charge to a handful of little local bookshops who deserve a boost. My son has no idea. Ha ha, what larks! He thinks I’m shopping in Cheltenham today. There’s no end to how many shopping trips he believes I do!”
Hector glanced across at me, looking slightly guilty that I’d rumbled their little secret. “Tea for two, please, Sophie, and it’s on the house.”
“Oh, aren’t you joining us, Hector?” said Mrs Ba
ttersby, making herself comfortable at the tea table nearest me.
I bit back a smile at her misinterpretation. “Yes, do join us, Hector. Feel free.”
Hector grinned. “OK, make it three. Right after I’ve got Mrs Battersby’s thank-you present from the stockroom. One bottle or two this time, Mrs B?”
She turned coy. “Oh, just the one, thank you, dear. Must keep my vices under control.”
42 Bunny’s Easter
“We’ll go over the Easter story again after the procession,” said Kate, gathering up the sheets of paper on which our Sunday School pupils had been trying to make as many words as possible out of the word donkey. That’s not as easy as it sounds. She led us out of the church hall to the car park in which Janet, the village donkey, was waiting patiently on a short rein. Beside her, Billy was almost hidden behind a big basket of palm leaves. The children knew the routine better than I did, rushing up to seize a frond each. Then they stood back and waved them at arm’s length with as much wonder and delight as if they were sparklers.
Kate and I herded the children into a crocodile (a line, I mean, not the reptile) behind the donkey. When the line was as neat as it was likely to get under such exciting circumstances, the vicar pulled from his pocket a silver pitch pipe to sound a starting note for our well-rehearsed Palm Sunday hymns. With Kate at the front of the line to take the children in the right direction, and me at the rear to make sure we didn’t lose any stragglers along the way, we paraded down the High Street, the children singing at the tops of their voices.
I allowed my gaze to pass beyond Janet to a walking party coming towards us. To my surprise, Becky was pushing the small figure of Bunny in a wheelchair. Beside her walked a young man I’d not seen before, not much more than a teenager, talking animatedly to the old lady, who was nursing little Arthur on her lap. As they came closer, I noticed there was something familiar about the young man’s face.
I broke ranks from the crocodile to greet them.
“Hello, Bunny, hello, Becky, hello, Arthur.” Cooing, Arthur waved his chubby hand at me. “And I take it you must be Dominic Brady?”
When the boy looked puzzled, Bunny answered on his behalf.
“Yes. Look who’s come to see me now, Sophie! My youngest grandson, Paul and Fenella’s boy.”
Bunny had aged dreadfully since I last saw her. She looked bewildered and lost, like a baby bird fallen from its nest. As a child clutches at a teddy bear for comfort, she clung to Arthur, who sat as solid as a doorstop on her lap, sucking as many fingers as he could fit in his mouth.
“Look, I’ve got two new friends, too. Your friend Becky is going to look after me till Paul’s converted the Manor House, and then she’s going to come and work at the care home, and have her own flat there. Which means she’ll be bringing this little beauty with her.”
“You’ll have such fun teaching him to explore your garden, won’t you, Bunny?” said Becky in a voice loud enough for a deaf old lady to hear. Resting one hand gently on Bunny’s shoulder, Becky smiled at me. “Hi, Sophie. It’s all true. But tell Hector not to worry. I can still help him at the shop while you’re in Greece. Angelica is going to be moving down here soon, and she’s going to lead the activities at the care home once it’s up and running properly. In the meantime, she can cover for me with Bunny, so I can cover for you.”
“I’m just going over the road a minute,” said Dominic, spotting his dad standing in the doorway of The Bluebird, beckoning him across.
Bunny fell silent, transfixed by the Sunday School children’s joyful singing.
“So is Angelica really Stuart’s wife?” I said in too low a voice for Bunny to catch. “Are they really married, or is he a bigamist?”
Becky grinned. “Fortunately neither. Apparently he and his first wife had been planning to divorce for ages and were just waiting to sell their house, but Stuart was so scared of losing Angelica that he pretended it had already gone through. He was trying to split his time between both of their homes, pretending he was away on business. He thought if his first wife suspected there was someone else, he’d get a smaller share in their divorce settlement.
“Angelica had guessed the truth. She’s not daft. But she loved him too much to let on. She tried to get him to tell her. She even persuaded him to marry her in some weird ceremony on a beach somewhere, thinking that might push him over the edge, but it didn’t. Fortunately it wasn’t legally binding, and she knew it – which is just as well for him, or he’d have been prosecuted for bigamy.
“Turns out the equity in his house was so small it didn’t make much odds anyway. And his wife had been carrying on with some guy at her office for years, and there were no children involved, so no harm done.”
“I’m glad Stuart came out of it all right. He’s obviously got his own demons, but he and Angelica clearly adore each other. And they’re moving down from the Midlands to live and work at the Manor House.”
Becky raised her eyebrows. “I guess that’s one gamble that paid off for him, eh? So yes, it’s happy families all round.” She nodded towards Dominic, who had crossed the road while we were talking to chat to his father. Paul was standing outside the pub, a pint in his hand. “His mum, Fenella, is coming to work there too. Turns out she’d been out of her head with boredom at home, and lonely too, since Dominic went away to university. Paul was so bound up in his business he never realised. Before she gave up work to have Dominic, she used to be an occupational therapist, so care home work will be right up her street.”
“A bored occupational therapist?” I raised my eyebrows. “That doesn’t bode well.”
Becky laughed. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. I think this whole business has shaken them all up and reminded them to make the best of what they’ve got.”
She looked away for a moment.
“Oh, Becky,” I said gently, realising she must be thinking about her own father, whom she had never known.
She gave me a damp-eyed smile, before reaching out to dust a clump of Blossom’s fur off my lapel.
“That reminds me, what’s happened to Bunny’s cats?” I asked. “Surely Paul’s not planning to keep them all in his new care home?”
Becky shook her head. “We’re keeping Bunny’s favourite, a placid old thing, for its therapeutic value. I’ve found good homes for the rest. Even Billy’s taken two, heaven help them.”
I remembered the little beds Billy had made up for the cats at the Manor House.
“Don’t worry, they’ll be fine. He’s a softie underneath.”
When the children stopped singing, Bunny reached up to pat Becky’s hand, which was still on her shoulder. “So are we going to stand here all day?” she cried. “I think little Arthur wants his dinner.”
Becky laughed. “You mean you do, Mrs Carter!” I was glad to see Bunny smile at last.
I bent down to kiss Bunny’s sunken cheek, and as I did so she took my hands in hers and gave them a feeble squeeze. I was glad that Kitty’s death had glued the rest of her fractured family together, though it was heartbreaking that it took a murder to resolve their feud. I wondered whether she might yet make peace with the remaining children from her first marriage. I sincerely hoped so.
Then Kate gave me a shout to rejoin the crocodile as it did a U-turn to pass back up the High Street to the church. The children dished out palm crosses from Janet’s panniers to villagers who came out to wave at our little procession as we passed by. Some brought carrots and apples for the donkey and sneaked sweets to the children, even though it was still Lent.
As we passed the churchyard, just prior to turning in at the gate for the Palm Sunday service, I couldn’t help but notice the fresh soil covering Kitty’s grave, marked by a small wooden cross. In the future, I planned to take a few flowers to her every time I visited Auntie May’s grave. But not too many, and not for too long. Life is meant to be lived, and I had plenty to look forward to, not least my writing break in Ithaca, far away from Wendlebury Barrow and its endless surprises. If
this latest case had taught me anything, it was to seize the day, because, like Kitty Carter, one never knew which day would be one’s last.
As I followed the singing children up the path and through the church porch, it was not their voices, but Billy’s that was reverberating in my head:
“The grave’s a fine and private place
But none, I think, do there embrace.”
Not even Bunny Carter.
THE END
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Acknowledgements
Enormous thanks to all the people who have helped make this a better book:
Orna Ross, as ever, for her wise and sensitive mentoring of the creative process (google her Go Creative! Series)
Novelists Lucienne Boyce, David Penny and Belinda Pollard for their insightful beta reading and tact
Alison Jack, my editor, always patient, capable, and dependable
Rachel Lawston of Lawston Design for another wonderful book cover design
My late English teacher, friend and mentor, Joe Campbell, for introducing me to To His Coy Mistress and making me a fan of Andrew Marvell for life
To my friend Sue Hewer for naming Sophie’s kitten Blossom – and fellow author John Lynch for Hector’s suggestion of Satan