“Helping the police with their enquiries, was how your gran said they put it.”
Jules’s eyes were wide with shock. “You’re kidding.”
“Course I’m not. I wouldn’t joke about a thing like that.”
“But Uncle Abe wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Jules went on as she jiggled the buggy so hard the baby’s hat slipped right over his eyes, making him yell even louder. “Hush now, Zeke. Aunty Millie’s always grumbling about how she’s the one who has to despatch the chickens, seeing as how the ‘girt soft apeth’ – her words, not mine – can’t bring himself to do it. It can’t have been him.”
“No, of course it wasn’t,” I said as we crossed the High Street, then walked along the bumpy path that ran around the village pond because ‘Zeke likes to see the ducks,’ apparently. Even though Zeke had by now gone back to sleep. Which was just as well as there were no ducks, although a blackbird flew out from one of the overgrown bushes, scolding us as it did so.
“Then who was it?” Jules asked.
“I have no idea. Your gran was in the salon on Monday and was saying that Margot was ‘no better than she should be.’ What do you think she meant by that?”
Jules laughed. “That’s Gran-speak for ‘having an affair’. Bet she called her a flighty piece too.”
“She did, as it happens. But who was Margot having an affair with?”
“Well, I’m not one to gossip…”
“Blimey, Jules. You’ve changed.”
“I mean, I’m not one to gossip about my employer.” She sounded almost as po-faced as Will had done last Saturday when he gave me his ‘animal welfare’ lecture.
“Ex-employer,” I reminded her.
Her face clouded. “God, yes. I hadn’t thought of that. That’s me out of a job then, I suppose. Are you sure it was murder?”
“How many people do you know who’d commit suicide in a vat of foul-smelling cider?”
She grimaced. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Go on then,” I prompted.
Her eyes darkened as she looked at me. “You still working for The Chronicle?”
“Yes, when I can. Why do you ask?”
“You’re not going to write this, are you?”
I stared at her, hurt that she could even ask such a thing. “Of course I’m not. What do you take me for?”
“Ok. But this is just between you and me, right? Promise me you won’t let it go any further.”
I nodded. “I promise.”
“Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had to phone Margot to say I couldn’t make it that day because Kylie – that’s my eldest, in case you’re wondering,” she added, her hard stare telling me she hadn’t missed the fact that I’d forgotten everything about the new baby.
“Of course, I knew that,” I said quickly, while silently repeating Zeke, Zeke, Kylie, Kylie, hoping the names would stick in my mind. “Go on.”
“Well, Kylie was sick that morning. One of those twenty-four hour things that was going around the school. So I had to phone Margot to say I couldn’t make it.” We crossed the road and turned into the lane that led down to the village hall. “She sounded pretty annoyed and I felt so bad about letting her down that I asked Gran to have Kylie, left Zeke with my neighbour (Gran refuses to have them both) and went up to the Manor as usual.”
“And then?” I prompted as she paused.
“I didn’t phone to say I was coming after all, just in case Kylie started playing up, so Margot wasn’t expecting me. As I went around the back of the house, there she was, getting up close and personal. And you’ll never guess who with?”
“Go on.”
Jules’ eyes sparkled. She was about to impart a particularly juicy piece of gossip and was determined to make the most of it.
“Gerald Crabshaw.”
“You’re kidding!” My reaction must have been everything she could have wished for.
“On my life, I’m not. None other than our glorious ex-councillor Crabshaw.” She leaned forward to adjust the hat on the now-sleeping Zeke and looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Oh God, Katie. You don’t think it was Gruesome Gerald who murdered Margot, do you? A lovers’ tiff?”
Chapter Six
Gerald Crabshaw lived with his wife Fiona in a renovated mill on the edge of the village. Unlike most things in Much Winchmoor, Winchmoor Mill was still a working mill that had been patiently and lovingly restored by the Crabshaws.
That is to say, Gerald read some books about restoring old buildings and indulged in a few funny handshakes in order to get various grants to finance it, while Fiona dealt with everything else, from sorting things out with English Heritage to, once the work eventually got under way, making the builders enough cups of tea to float the QE2.
To further fund the restoration, they’d turned every spare room and outbuilding over to bed and breakfast rooms. While Gerald posed about playing the jolly miller, and never passed up an opportunity to drone on to the visitors about how he was single-handedly breathing life into rural communities (the mill was not commercially viable but run as a tourist attraction), Fiona just got on with the cooking, cleaning and generally holding everything together.
She must have cooked enough full English breakfasts to have raised the cholesterol count of the entire nation, while Gruesome Gerald swanned around in his look-at-me Porsche and made out that he was still Much Winchmoor’s Big Cheese.
But then, this time last year he was indeed the Big Cheese, even if it was in a very small pond, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor.
He had been the man with a finger in every pie and a seat on every committee. A Dintscombe District Councillor, he was strongly tipped to be its next chairman. He had been riding high, and no doubt looking forward to the day he was recognised for his services to the community and became Sir Gerald of Winchmoor.
But all that came crashing down when he got tangled up in a property scam. Thanks to a very clever lawyer, who did the same funny handshake as Gerald, nothing was ever proved against him, but he was still ‘invited’ to resign his seat on the council.
He’d blamed me for being the cause of his fall from grace ever since.
Certainly, I was the one who’d uncovered the fact that he’d been having an affair with a poor woman who’d subsequently ended up as the murdering maniac’s second victim.
And now, Jules was telling me that Gruesome Gerald had once again had an affair with a woman who’d ended up murdered?
As Lady Bracknell might have put it: ‘One murdered mistress is unfortunate. But two is downright careless.’ Or at least deeply suspicious.
“Gerald was having an affair with Margot? Are you sure?” I asked. I was having trouble getting my head around it. Gerald Crabtree and ‘irresistible to women’ didn’t belong in the same sentence.
He was pompous, portly and puffed up with his own importance. Not to mention slippery, smarmy and downright sleazy.
“I know what I saw,” Jules said. “Or, rather, what I heard. They were in the dining room. The windows were wide open and I couldn’t help overhearing. ‘Here’s to our little secret,’ I heard Gerald say. ‘It’s really important my wife doesn’t find out,’ and then Margot giggled and said that her husband wouldn’t be too happy either. Then Gerald gave that sleazy laugh of his. Honest, that guy gives me the creeps.”
“Ok, that means he was up to something, I’ll buy that,” I said. “But not necessarily an affair.”
“Yeah, but then a couple of days later I heard her on the phone to him. She was saying how she was tired of pretending and how she just wanted everything out in the open.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense, does it?” I frowned. “Think about it. John Duckett-Trimble’s a good looking guy for his age, in a George Clooney kind of way. And he’s obviously seriously rich if he can afford Winchmoor Manor. Not to mention the way he buys up all the houses in the village. Whereas Gerald Crabshaw…”
I shook my head. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what Margot
might have seen in Gerald with his shifty eyes, phoney regimental tie and loud braying laugh.
Jules shrugged. “No accounting for taste, I suppose. Anyway, I went back around to the front door and rang the bell. It took Margot ages to answer and when she did, she looked quite flustered and not at all pleased to see me. And when I went into the dining room, there was no sign of Gerald. He must have sneaked out the back way rather than risk being seen by me. Talk about acting guilty.”
“I can see he wouldn’t want his wife to know he’d been hobnobbing with Margot, whether or not they were carrying on,” I said. “Fiona was in the salon only the other day, moaning to Mum about how the Mill’s B&B trade has plummeted since Margot started her holiday lets.”
Jules giggled. “Surely you mean her ‘luxury self-catering cottages, an intrinsic part of the historic Winchmoor Manor estate,’” she drawled, in perfect imitation of Margot’s ultra-plummy accent. “At least that’s what it says on the cover of her glossy brochures, which she had printed by the thousand, by the way.”
“Whatever she called it, her holiday business hit the Mill hard.”
Jules nodded. “So I heard. According to Margot, B&B is ‘so last century’. And apparently she and Fiona had a right set-to about it the other day at the Floral Art Society meeting, when Fiona accused her of poaching her customers.”
“There you go then. Mystery solved. It was a crime of passion.” It was all beginning to fall neatly into place. “Then there’s the election, of course. Not only were Margot and Fiona rivals in love and business, but for a seat on the parish council as well.”
“Murdered for a seat on the parish council?” Jules’ yelp of laughter caused the miniature drunk to stir ominously beneath his fleecy hat again. “I hardly think so, do you?”
“OK. Maybe not. But even so…”
“And while we’re on the subject of passion,” Jules said with an abrupt change of subject that I didn’t see coming. “What’s this I hear about you and Will? One minute it’s on, next it’s off. What’s going on with the pair of you?”
You see what I meant about her giving me the third degree every time we met? I should have known I wasn’t going to get away with it.
“You might as well tell me,” she went on, as we reached the small car park in front of the village hall. “You always do in the end.”
She wasn’t wrong there. That’s my problem. I’ve never been able to make her (or anyone else in Much Winchmoor, come to that) understand that my love life (or lack of one) was none of her damn business.
I drew a pattern in the gravel path with the toe of my shoe. “Things have cooled between us a bit lately,” I muttered. “If you must know, he stood me up on Saturday night.”
“Will? Stood you up? I don’t believe it. Who’s he supposed to have stood you up for?”
“Is that the time?” I avoided looking at her by glancing down my watch. “I really must go.”
“Oh no, you don’t.” She wheeled the buggy round, blocking my escape. “Come on, girl. Spill.”
“Not who. What.” I glared at her, daring her to laugh. “If you must know he stood me up for a pregnant sheep.”
She didn’t laugh. Instead, she gave me a look that would caused even Mary Berry’s custard to curdle. I flushed and looked away.
“Jeez, you have been away a long time, haven’t you?” Her voice was scathing. “The guy’s a farmer, for pity’s sake. It’s bang in the middle of the lambing season. He can’t afford to lose any. No sheep equals no money equals no food. Surely he explained?”
I shoved my hands deep into my jacket pockets. “I haven’t spoken to him since. He’s ignoring my calls and texts.”
“If I know Will, it will be more a case of him forgetting to charge his phone for a few days. You know what he’s like. A mobile phone’s totally wasted on him because he’s either left it at home or he’s carrying it around with a dead battery. He’s a total dinosaur when it comes to technology. So why don’t you go up and see him instead of sulking?”
“I’m not sulking,” I protested.
“Not much. You’re behaving like my Kylie when she doesn’t get what she wants.” She glared at me and, as she turned away, muttered: “You don’t deserve him.”
An awkward silence fell, broken only by the high-pitched screams and squeals from the Little Ducklings inside the village hall. What is it about little kids playing that always makes it sound like they’re killing each other?
Jules shrugged and said she’d better go.
“Do you want me to look in on your Aunty Millie on my way back?” I asked. “See if there’s anything I can do?”
“Like what, exactly?” she flashed, her acid tone telling me she was still mad at me. “Assemble everyone in Uncle Abe’s sitting room and unmask who done it?”
“Of course not. But—”
“I’m going up there myself as soon as I’ve picked Jenson up. Look, I’ve got to go.”
“Of course. Well, it’s been great bumping into you like this,” I said, trying really hard to make it sound like I meant it. “Why don’t we have a girls’ night out some time soon and have a really good catch up?”
“Yeah, let’s do that. Some time.” She sounded about as enthusiastic at the prospect as I was. “Text me. Got to dash. They’re about to be let out.”
But bumping into my one time best friend hadn’t been great at all, I admitted to myself as I watched her approach the group of mums who were clustered around the hall entrance.
I felt as out of place as a terrier at a cat show.
I’d changed. Jules had changed. Even Much Winchmoor had, in some ways at least, changed. And nothing quite fitted together anymore.
Perhaps Will and I didn’t fit together any more, either? I’d known him all my life. We’d more or less grown up together and he had been the brother I’d never had.
And when we discovered that there was something more going on between us, to be honest, neither of us really knew how to handle it. I had feelings for him, certainly. And I knew he had feelings for me.
And things were going along just great until a couple of months ago, when suddenly, out of the blue, he started talking about the future. Our future.
And as he did so something inside me froze. And had stayed frozen ever since.
Because, deep down, I was still working on how to get out of Much Winchmoor. Still chasing that dream job. Still dreaming of that city centre flat and the buzzy city life that I used to have, before it all came tumbling down around my ears.
Whereas Will was as much a part of Much Winchmoor as the village duck pond. His family had owned Pendle Knoll Farm since the days when Judge Jeffreys roamed the Somerset countryside after the Monmouth Rebellion in sixteen hundred and something, looking for rebels to hang, draw and quarter.
Trying to imagine Much Winchmoor without the Mannings was like Marks without Spencer or Ben without Jerry.
As I walked back towards home I stopped by the pond and stood gazing down at the exact spot where Will had fished me out when I’d just turned seven, and had got a bit too adventurous while gathering frogspawn.
Me without Will? The thought made me uneasy and panicky.
I took out my mobile and left yet another message on his dead phone. Only this time, I remembered what Jules had said and tried really hard not to sound like a five-year-old who’s just been told she can’t have second helpings of chocolate fudge cake.
I left the same cheery message on Will’s land line. Neither Will nor his dad were answering, which meant they were out on the farm somewhere, probably leaning on a gate and watching their cows grow. Or, it being the lambing season (as Jules had pointed out) up to their elbows in a sheep’s…
I stopped. That particular analogy was a step too far so I turned and headed for home. The potholes were calling.
***
As I passed the road that led up to the Comptons’ farm, I saw that the police car was no longer parked outside the house. Were they, at this very mom
ent, asking John Duckett-Trimble to identify his wife’s body? I wondered. He’d been called back from a business trip abroad, I’d heard.
Poor guy. When it came to rubbish days, mine was way down the list compared with what he’d be going through right now.
Not to mention Millie and Abe Compton.
Did the fact that the police cars had left the farm mean they’d discovered who had really pushed Margot in to the cider vat? Because, of course, Elsie was right. It couldn’t possibly have been Abe.
So was I right? Could it have been Fiona Crabshaw in a fit of jealousy? She was a very quietly spoken, seemingly inoffensive woman, the least likely person, you’d think, to commit murder. But then, that’s what I, and everyone else, had thought about the murdering maniac this time last year.
I was so deep in thought that, as I walked past the Old Forge cottage, I almost bumped into the For Sale sign that had been fixed to the gate post but now leaned at a drunken angle across the pavement.
As I attempted to push it back to its original position, I jumped back, startled, as the laurel bush just inside the tiny front garden began to move. This was accompanied by a sound that had become all too familiar in the last few days.
The leaves parted and Tanya, complete with her trademark jingling bracelets, stood there.
“What are you doing in there? You’re not house hunting, are you?” I added with a laugh. Although the idea of Tanya settling down to life in Much Winchmoor was anything but funny.
“Good Lord, no,” she said quickly. “Although as an investment property, this could do very well. I see, from my morning power walks, there are quite a few holiday cottages in this village. Must be a market for it.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the estate agents are a bit late taking the sign down,” I said. “This one was sold over a week ago. Houses in Much Winchmoor are snapped up faster than feeding time at a crocodile farm at the moment.”
In fact, The Old Forge was the latest of John Duckett-Trimble’s acquisitions, but I wondered whether he’d be going ahead with the purchase now.
Rough And Deadly (A Much Winchmoor Mystery Book 2) Page 6
