But, at that moment, both men had identical expressions on their faces as they squared up to each other, like a pair of bantam cockerels scrapping over a little bantam hen.
“I had no reason to think otherwise,” Dad said stiffly. “The poor woman was beside herself. She said at one time she was in fear of her life.”
Mum and Richard both let out snorts of indignation and began to speak. But Richard got there first.
“Not that it’s any of your damn business, Terence…”
Dad grunted. He hated being called Terence but I guessed Uncle Richard knew that.
“If there was any violence threatened to my wife that night,” he went on. “It was from the woman who’d just discovered Tanya had been having an affair with her husband.”
“I should have known,” Mum huffed, but Uncle Richard ignored the interruption.
“It seems Tanya’s so-called personal trainer had been getting a damn sight too personal, if you see what I mean.” he went on, “Until his wife found out. She came to the house threatening to tear Tanya’s hair out by the roots if she ever went near him again. So yes, there was indeed violence threatened that night. But I can assure you, the threats came from the wronged wife. Not from me. I wanted to sit down quietly and calmly and talk about it. But Tanya refused to do so and stormed off to her room. We have separate rooms, you see,” he gave a slightly embarrassed shrug. “She says I snore. Anyway, when I came down in the morning, I found she’d gone.”
“She never told us that,” Mum said. “I’m sorry, Richard. When she talked about violence, we thought… well, to be honest, we didn’t know what to think.”
I did. I knew Uncle Richard wouldn’t have the nerve to threaten Tanya with violence. But I wasn’t going to say that in front of him.
“It’s ok,” he gave a wry smile. “Tanya can spin a very good yarn. So, where is she?”
Mum shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know. And that’s the truth. Maybe Terry knows.”
She glared at Dad.
“Terry?” Richard asked.
Once again, the two squared up to each other. Dad blinked first. “I don’t know,” he said quietly, “And that’s the truth.”
I looked across at him and frowned. Why was he lying? He must have been in the pub when Tanya came in and fixed everything up with Mary. So why was he trying to pretend he didn’t know where she was? He could, at least, make a pretty good guess.
I’d had enough. The whole thing was doing my head in.
“I told Elsie I’d walk Prescott again this morning,” I said, picking up my bag and heading for the door.
“Surely she doesn’t expect you to work on a Sunday, does she?” Mum said. “That’s exploitation, that is.”
“No, she doesn’t expect it. But the dog doesn’t know it’s Sunday, does he?” I said. “He needs his walk.”
And I need to get away from this toxic atmosphere, I could have added, but didn’t. I didn’t know why my dad was lying about not knowing where Tanya was. But I didn’t fancy hanging about to play referee between the two brothers.
Gran Latcham used to say the pair of them fought like tigers when they were little boys. And the way they were looking at each other, it didn’t appear either of them had grown up any in the interim.
***
I stood outside the Winchmoor Arms. It wasn’t quite noon and the front door, with its flaking green paint and tarnished brass door knob, wasn’t open yet.
I went around the back to see if the door to the public bar was shut too. As I crossed the car park, I was almost knocked over by the arrival of a great big bear of a man on a very small scooter. He was crouched low over the narrow handlebars, his huge rugby player’s shoulders hunched, his knees almost touching his chin.
“Hi Shane,” I smiled as he parked the scooter, straightened up and removed his helmet. “You haven’t grown into that thing yet?”
Shane Freeman shook out his mop of thick, dark curls and scratched his head. “Don’t knock it,” he said. “It gets me from home to here and is a damn sight better than that old push bike you pedal around on. Cheap as chips to run, too, which was the main reason for getting it.”
Shane lost his job as a lorry driver last year. He now worked in the pub at weekends and had a job as a night filler in the supermarket at Dintscombe during the week. Neither job paid particularly well, hence his need for cheap as chips transport.
“We’re not really open yet, sweetheart,” he said. “But if you’re that desperate, and seeing as it’s you…”
“I haven’t come here for a drink, Shane,” I said as I followed him into the bar.
“No? Well, that’s a shame because would you believe it, we’re clean out of designer handbags at the moment. Not to mention fancy cupcakes. We do a fine line in ladies’ lingerie, though, if you fancy a private viewing?”
Shane and I had gone to school together. Like Will, he’d been in the year above me. Even back then he’d fancied himself as a comedian. Pity no one else did.
I gave him a brief smile. “I’m looking for my aunt, Tanya. Skinny blonde with big hair and lots of bracelets. She said she was staying here. Do you know if she’s around?”
He looked around the empty bar. “Can’t see her anywhere.”
“But she is staying here, isn’t she? She told me yesterday she’d taken a room.”
He grinned. His teeth needed a good scale and polish and it was not a pretty sight.
“How would I know? I’ve only just got here. Besides, I don’t do room service,” he added with a leer that made me take a step backwards.
“Is Mary around?” I reckoned I’d get more sense from her.
“She’ll be up to her elbows in parsnips and carrots at the moment, getting ready for Sunday lunch service.” he said. “She always gets very wound up around this time and won’t thank you for disturbing her. Nor thank me for giving out confidential information about her guests.”
I was losing patience. “For goodness sake, Shane. I only want to know if my aunt is in. I’m not asking for the details of her bank account.”
He grinned. “All right. All right. Keep your hair on. I’m only teasing you. ’Struth! You always were a feisty one, Katie Latcham. I’m surprised Will puts up with you.”
He saw he’d gone too far, and held out his hands. “Sorry. Sorry. Look, I’ll risk getting my head bitten off and go and ask Mary. Stay there.”
He disappeared into the kitchen. I looked around the bar. It was a depressing sight. It hadn’t changed since the previous landlord’s day, more’s the pity. The faded prints of Cheddar Gorge (out of the same job lot as the ones in the hotel last night); the forlorn spider plant in the window; even the same dust-laden fir cones in the never-to-be-lit fireplace.
Shane reappeared a couple of minutes later.
“So what did she say?” I asked.
“She says, did I think she has nothing better to do than keep track of everyone’s comings and goings? And why was I hanging around like a spare part, getting in her way, when we have a party of ten booked in for 12.15pm?”
“But did she say anything about Tanya?”
“She said she thought your aunt went out, about ten minutes ago. And no, before you ask, she didn’t say where she was going. But she can’t have gone far because that fancy car of hers is still in the car park.”
“Thank you – I think.”
“Shall I give her a message when she comes back?” he asked. “All part of the Winchmoor Arms customer care package. In fact, I could give you a ring when she gets back, if you give me your number?”
Give Shane Freeman my number? In his dreams.
“Just tell her I was looking for her, and I’ll catch up later,” I said.
Then I hurried out, preferring the company of a bad tempered, snappy little dog with an attitude problem to hanging around in that dreary, draughty bar with the smell of over-boiled cabbage drifting out from the kitchen.
Chapter Eleven
Elsie had giv
en me a key to her bungalow a couple of days before. For a few brief moments I’d felt a warm glow, touched by her trust in me, until she spoilt it by adding: “It’s only while I’m in plaster, mind you. And I don’t want you wandering in and out of here like you own the place. So this is just to save me the trouble of getting myself to the door to let you in. Be sure to knock and call out, though. I don’t want you creeping up on me and giving me a heart attack.”
So as instructed, I knocked and called out: “It’s me, Mrs Flintlock.”
“Katie? What are you doing here?” The Chronicle, spread across her bony knees, was open at her favourite section, the obituary pages. She always studied each entry with such fierce concentration, she’d have got an A star if they ever brought out a GCSE in the subject. “I said not to come today. You’re not getting double time or anything like that.”
“I’m not expecting any pay at all. But it’s a lovely day and I thought I’d come and take Prescott for a walk. Would you like a cup of tea while I’m here? There’s something I’d like a quick chat about, if that’s ok?”
She looked across at me, with those bird-bright eyes that missed nothing.
“It’s not a lovely day at all,” she sniffed. “Looks like it’s going to pour down any moment.”
I opened my mouth to ask her about Margot, but before I could do so she went on, “Happen things are better at home now the trollop’s taken herself off to the pub, instead of making your mother’s life a misery?”
“How did you know that?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“It’s my ankle that’s broken. There’s nothing wrong with my hearing. Or my eyes. Besides, Creepy Dave was in the pub yesterday lunchtime and he told me how your dad came in, followed a few minutes later by your aunt, who took herself off to the far corner of the bar where no one could hear and had a long chat with Mary. After a bit she left, but came back a little later with enough suitcases to stock a shop.”
See what I mean about Much Winchmoor? I kid you not, if someone sneezed at one end of the village, someone at the other end would hear it and speculate as to what they’d been doing to catch a cold, where, and with whom.
I shrugged and went in the kitchen to make the tea (Elsie didn’t hold with coffee. Said it gave her ‘paltry-pations’). I was hoping by the time the tea was made she’d have finished with the goings-on of my parents, and would be ready to answer my questions about Margot.
No chance.
“And what about that lanky streak of nothing?” She peered at me over the rim of her favourite bone china teacup (with matching saucer).
“Who do you mean?”
“The trollop’s husband. Richard, isn’t that his name?”
“Yes. But…”
“Olive says she saw him pull up outside your place this morning in his flash car. Said he had a face like thunder.”
“He’s there now.” No point in denying it.
“No wonder you got yourself out the way. Those two boys have never got on. Your gran used to fret over them, right up to the day she died, God rest her soul. She always said there’d be trouble between them, sooner or later.”
I knew I shouldn’t encourage her. But couldn’t help myself. “How do you mean?”
She took a long, slow slurp of tea before answering.
“Of course I wasn’t living in the village at the time. But your gran told me all about it. How it was your mum who first started going out with Richard. Engaged, they were.”
“What?” Mum and Uncle Richard? This was news to me.
Elsie nodded. “They’d set the date of the wedding, booked the reception and everything. It was all going smoothly until Cheryl made the mistake of introducing Richard to the trollop—”
“Do you mean Tanya?”
She sniffed. “Your mum’s so-called best friend. At least, she was at the time. She batted her eyelids at him and next thing anyone knew, the pair of them had run off together. Cancelled the wedding and everything.”
I started at her, shocked. I’d had no idea. Poor Mum, no wonder she’d been so understanding when Ratface did almost the same thing to me. Although, in my case, there was no broken engagement and cancelled wedding, just a great big hole in my finances. And a shed-load of dented pride.
I made a promise to myself at that time that I would never ever let a man do that to me again.
“But how did Mum end up with Dad?” I really shouldn’t be gossiping about my parents to Much Winchmoor’s gossipmonger-in-chief. But I was dying to know.
Elsie knew when she’d reeled in her audience, and was milking it for all she was worth. She picked up a ginger biscuit (which, as per instructions, I’d set out on a matching bone china plate) and dunked it before continuing.
“According to your gran, Terry had been sweet on Cheryl since the moment Richard first brought her home. And after Richard jilted her, I dare say young Terry made a very good shoulder for her to cry on. If you ask me, your mother got the best of the bargain. Your dad’s a good honest man.”
“Are you saying Uncle Richard isn’t?”
“Of course I’m not.” She put her cup down and shot me an indignant look. “How could I? I don’t even know the man.”
I thought about pointing out how that didn’t usually stop her speculating. But decided against it.
“A man who runs off with another woman, leaving his fiancée to cancel the wedding, is hardly good husband material, wouldn’t you agree?” she went on.
I was still trying to take it in. It explained why Dad and Uncle Richard were always so edgy with each other. I’d thought it was nothing more than sibling rivalry that they’d never grown out of. It also explained why Mum and Tanya didn’t get on.
Why, then, had Mum agreed to her coming to stay with us this week? And why did she go on that girlie weekend to Bournemouth with her a year or so ago, that Tanya kept harping on about? It didn’t make any sense.
“Well?” Elsie suddenly demanded. “Are you going to stay there staring out of the window all day? What were you going to ask me?”
I was still trying to get my head around my parents’ merry-go-round relationship. Or should that be pass the parcel?
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something,” Elsie prompted. “I hope it wasn’t anything to do with Danny. Because, last I heard, he was spoken for. Actually, he said he might look in later.”
I felt my cheeks burn. “No, of course it wasn’t about him. It was actually about Margot. The editor at The Chronicle wants me to do a background feature on her.”
“Does he indeed?” She looked at me sharply. “That’s a far cry from last week’s dog show.”
“Yes, well, that’s local journalism for you, isn’t it?’ I said quickly before she could winkle out the truth that Mike hadn’t actually asked. I had offered. “Never the same story. The trouble is, I can’t find anything about Margot before she came to the village. Where she came from, why they decided to settle in Much Winchmoor, that sort of thing. And obviously, I can’t ask her husband. Not at a time like this. So I thought of you.”
There was a small silence. I glanced at her sharply. Silence was not Elsie’s usual response.
“I don’t really know where to start,” I went on. “She’s not on any of the usual social media sites, apart from Facebook. And that’s only about her holiday cottages.”
Elsie snorted. “Let’s hope those cottages will go back on the market now, so that local people who really need them can buy them.”
You reckon? I’d never had Elsie down for one of life’s optimists. But I let it pass.
“So, you don’t know much more about the Duckett-Trimbles than I do,” I said.
Her head shot up as if I’d just challenged her to an arm wrestling contest.
“I didn’t say that. They bought the Manor at auction after old Mr Jenkins died. He lived there like a recluse after his wife passed away. It was the new-monials that did for her. Not surprising, the place was that cold and damp. But they were
a very strange couple. She used to cycle around the place on one of those old three-wheeler bikes with a basket on the front handlebars. Used to carry a small dog in it. She came from Wiltshire,” she added as if that explained the old lady’s eccentric behaviour.
I didn’t want her to go off on a tangent, so steered her gently back. “And the Duckett-Trimbles? Do you know where they came from?”
“No. I don’t. Lady Duckface wanted to know everybody’s business but was very close when it came to her own. Now,” she said briskly as she picked up The Chronicle and smoothed it across her knee. “Are you going to leave me to read my paper in peace and walk my poor little dog?”
Her poor little dog was snoring loudly in his basket by the radiator. But I needed to have a think and a brisk walk always helped.
So, even Elsie didn’t know anything about the Duckett-Trimbles before they moved to Much Winchmoor. Very strange.
“Come on, Prescott,” I called. “Walkies.”
There was no response until I collected his lead and harness from the kitchen. At the sound of which he leapt into the air then hurled himself at the front door.
***
Prescott and I cut through the churchyard. As I threaded my way through the graves I recognised the tall thin figure leaning over the wall, looking at the small triangular wedge of land that was between the churchyard and the road. I nipped behind one of the yew trees before he spotted me.
It was Danny. And he had this great big grin on his way-too-handsome face.
So this was indeed Elsie’s plot of land. It was just about big enough for a small house, I supposed, although the way they squeezed things in nowadays, it would probably end up with a row of five ‘executive town houses’, suitable only for families of ‘executive’ mice who had no need or inclination to swing a cat.
It would be a shame to see the plot developed, though. It was fringed with hazel and blackthorn bushes and studded with apple and pear trees, their blossom a picture every spring, their fruits scrumped by every kid in the village come the autumn. In fact, the first buds were just beginning to show on some of the trees and the thought that they might never turn into apples made anger well up inside me.
Rough And Deadly (A Much Winchmoor Mystery Book 2) Page 11
