As for Carly staying, the truth was that Keeley had all but forgotten the idea. Thinking through her theories about Terry Smith’s demise had indeed proved a distraction from her own fears. So much so, she decided there was no better time than the present to begin asking a few questions. After a belated breakfast of her own apple and cinnamon smoothie and a large portion of tofu scramblies, she changed into her jeans and left for the town center. This time, she took her umbrella.
As she passed the inn, she remembered Norma and Maggie, the voracious gossips, and wondered if they should be her first port of call. Then she remembered their almost predatory manner the other evening and decided against it. Perhaps as a last resort. Although Keeley didn’t doubt that the pair would be more than happy to let her in on any juicy bits of information they may have at their disposal, she was also under no illusions that they wouldn’t then do exactly the same to her, wasting no time in letting the other residents know that she was asking questions. No doubt with an embellished spin on things. No, she would need to be feeling a little sharper and more self-assured before she tackled those two.
Her first potential informant, as she had decided the previous day, would be Jack. She had thought of Annie too, but remembering the landlady’s valiant attempts to be diplomatic when it came to discussing the personalities of both Terry Smith and Keeley’s own mother, she thought Jack her best bet. He wasn’t one to mince his words.
For once, though, he wasn’t alone as she stepped into the dingy half-light of the Tavern, but sitting with two other men, both as craggy and hard-bitten-looking as Jack himself. He looked up and nodded at her as she came in, his nicotine-stained fingers clutched as ever around his pipe. The other two men eyed her with a curiosity that didn’t seem entirely friendly, but Jack’s dog at least was pleased to see her; sitting up and wagging his tail in an excited motion that caused his whole body to shake—no mean feat, given the size of him. Again Keeley thought about the fact that if it wasn’t for the wolfhound, the arson attempt on her café may well have succeeded. She crouched down by the dog and rubbed behind his ears, and he rewarded her with an affectionate butt to the side of the head that nearly had her sprawling on the floor. Jack tutted and yanked the dog away.
“Behave yourself, now, Bambi,” he admonished, the name eliciting a surprised squawk of a laugh from Keeley as she stood up.
“Bambi? That’s his name?”
“Aye. It were the wife’s idea. When he was a puppy, he had these long spindly legs and these big eyes, see. And she always was a soft ’un, so Bambi he became. She had just gotten ill then, and the dog was a comfort to her like.”
“It suits him,” Keeley said kindly, remembering Jack’s wife had died just a year before her father, of a cancer that had taken a long, painful time to reach its inevitable end. Jack had been by her side throughout.
“Can I get you a drink?” she asked him, glancing at the other two men, who had made no move to introduce themselves. Jack shook his head and Keeley made her way to the bar, ordering a tonic water from a vacant Tom. As she walked back over to the table, she realized that Jack hadn’t actually invited her to sit with him and hesitated, wondering if she was interrupting something.
“Jack, have you got a minute?” She hovered uncertainly at the edge of the table. Jack looked up at her, frowned for a moment, then waved his hand toward a free stool.
“Sit down. This is the Carpenter girl,” he said to the two men, who gave her a brief nod in unison. They looked alike, one just being a little fatter than the other, with a red nose that spoke of a life spent working outdoors and a touch more homemade liquor than was healthy. Brothers, perhaps.
“Ted and Dan Glover,” Jack introduced, confirming her assumption. “They own the big farm at the top of the hill.”
“Oh, of course, I remember,” Keeley said, giving them a warm smile. “We used to get our milk and eggs from you.”
The skinnier of the two men—Ted, she remembered now—regarded her with an even look that froze the smile on her face. Definitely not friendly.
“That’s right, and your father got a lot of his meat from us, too, you know, just over the road.”
Keeley nodded in encouragement but felt her stomach sink a little. She had a feeling she knew where this conversation was going.
“I hear you’ve got plans to turn it into a vegetarian café now,” the brother chimed in, saying “vegetarian” the way another person might say “cockroach.” Trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed their obvious hostility, Keeley nodded, her smile now not so much frozen as having succumbed to rigor mortis.
“That’s right.” She sensed that launching into her usual mini sales pitch about a healthy diet and lifestyle wouldn’t be advisable in the face of the Glover brothers.
“You don’t think that’s a bit of a daft idea? In a farming town?”
Keeley took a long, slow swallow of her drink, her smile finally wiped off her face, and eyed Dan calmly, although inside she was cringing. Jack sat silent beside her, making no move to defend her. Not that she really expected him to. He had made his own dismissal of her business just as apparent, if not quite so rudely. Bambi at least offered some support, pushing his great head into her lap and looking up at her with his mournful eyes. She combed her fingers through the fur between his ears, grateful for small comforts. Perhaps she should get a dog—she had read somewhere that people with pets showed decreased stress levels and better immunity to disease.
“I’m sure Belfrey, and Amber Valley as a whole, is big enough for us both, Mr. Glover,” she said politely. The conversation reminded her of her earlier one with Raquel. She wondered if every newcomer who tried to set up a local business that was perceived as a bit different from the norm was treated like this, and made a mental note to ask Megan how Crystals and Candles had first been received.
Dan Glover nodded curtly, as if the matter was settled, but his brother wasn’t done. He leaned over the table toward her, a mean glint to his eyes that Keeley thought looked almost fanatical.
“Do you know what people like you have done to the business of farming?” he demanded, each word rapped out sharply like a strike against her. “As if things aren’t bad enough, what with the floods and the bloody economy.” A drop of spittle had gathered at the corner of the man’s mouth as he spoke. His brother had nodded along throughout, his piggy eyes fixed on Keeley.
She sucked in a deep breath before she answered, trying her best not to show she felt intimidated. Bambi had raised his large head and was looking at Ted Glover from under his shaggy fringe, his large body tense. No doubt he too had picked up on the man’s barely contained rage.
“I’m sorry if you’re having problems, I really am, but they’re none of my making, Mr. Glover. And I’m not sure what you mean by ‘people like me.’”
“Bloody do-gooders!” he snapped, the whole of his face now as red as his nose. “Traipsing around the countryside, moaning about the way things are done, letting out the livestock, damaging machinery. Going on about animals’ rights as if we don’t have any ourselves.”
“I don’t reckon Keeley here’s into any of that,” Jack cut in. His tone was amiable enough, but Keeley was sure she detected an edge of steel to it. Bambi must have sensed it too, for he let out a soft growl and narrowed his eyes at the farmer, who sighed and finally sat back on his stool.
“Sorry,” he said grudgingly to Keeley, not looking or sounding one bit sorry, “just a sensitive subject, that’s all.”
“It’s all right,” she said stiffly, sipping her drink—though it wasn’t, really. How on earth could her opening a little café have any impact, in the larger scheme of things, on the Glovers and their livelihood? She suspected Ted Glover was, quite simply, a bit of a bully, and his brother not much better. She should ask her mother about them too. Assuming her mother would tell her what, if anything, she knew.
Thinking about Darla brought her attention back to the real reason she was here: Terry Smith. Now, though, she di
dn’t want to ask Jack questions, not in front of these two, who clearly thought her a blight on the local community, in any case.
To her surprise, however, right on cue, it was Dan Glover who brought it up, but without the hostility she might have expected.
“How’s the police getting on with finding the killer, anyway? They must have some idea by now who it is, surely.”
Keeley shrugged, not wanting to share any confidences with this pair. Or to admit that she didn’t think Ben had any more idea than she did.
“Bloody useless, the local police. Can’t find their arse from their elbow,” Ted muttered sullenly into his beer. Clearly a man angry at the world, Keeley thought, still trying not to take his comments personally.
“It’s not like it’s any great loss, though, is it?” his brother said, and Keeley looked at him, interested now.
“Did you know him?”
The Glovers shrugged, again almost in unison.
“Only for the betting,” Dan said.
“But he would always try and cheat you, if he could. Never liked paying up, either.”
“Though he was quick enough to complain if you owed him money.”
They both nodded at Keeley, her sins obviously forgotten for the moment while they had a new target. Then Ted, clearly the more dominant of the two, drank back his beer in one long gulp and nudged his brother.
“We need to go. Be seeing you,” he nodded to Jack, not even bothering to address Keeley. Dan at least nodded at her before he drank back his own beer and left. Keeley watched them go, suppressing a shudder of distaste.
“Don’t mind them,” Jack said, as if reading her thoughts, “they don’t like most folks.”
Keeley turned to him, placing her palms flat up in her lap as if beseeching. Bambi sniffed them, licked one of them, and then looked disappointed when he realized she wasn’t offering a tasty tidbit.
“Jack, is everyone going to be like this? Honestly, I thought…” She trailed off, embarrassed to feel tears stinging her eyes.
“Don’t go upsetting yourself.” Jack patted her knee awkwardly. “Most of the younger folk will probably come flocking to you. It’s the older ones, we’ve got set in our ways, that’s all.”
Keeley nodded, though she didn’t feel convinced. Her enthusiasm for questioning Jack about Terry had waned in the face of the Glovers’ rudeness, and she suddenly felt she didn’t want Jack to think she was snooping. He was one of the few friendly faces she saw.
Instead she excused herself and took her tonic water over to the bar, feeling glum. She had discovered precisely nothing about Terry Smith so far other than the fact she already knew: that he was pretty much solidly disliked by every other resident of Belfrey. A distinction Keeley herself felt close to acquiring. Tom was polishing glasses, looking as faraway as usual.
“I think it sounds pretty interesting,” he announced, surprising her, “this yoga stuff.”
“Really?” Keeley perked up a little. Though she did have to suppress a giggle at the thought of Tom doing an inversion or upside-down pose. Would his beard get tangled in his nose ring?
“Yeah, I saw this clip on YouTube of a naked yoga class. It was hot.”
Keeley nearly choked on her tonic water. “That’s not quite the same as what I do,” she said, but Tom continued, his eyes becoming even more glazed over.
“There was this one girl, she did this thing with her hips—”
Keeley finished her drink in one quick gulp.
“Fascinating. But I’m not sure that’s yoga you were watching, Tom. I’d better be going.” She slid off her barstool, only to pause at his next words.
“Terry was in the diner last week.”
“Oh?” Keeley slid back onto the stool, although given her height, or lack thereof, getting back on was rather less graceful than getting off.
“Yeah, I heard you asking Jack about that too, the other day.”
“Is that unusual, though? I mean, it is a diner.”
“I reckon so. The thing is—” he lowered his voice and leaned over the bar toward her, “—she was giving him money. Out of the till. Not like change, but a wad of notes.”
That did seem odd. It didn’t fit with Keeley’s theory that Raquel could have been dating Terry for his money either. Could they have been in business together? Some venture that, for whatever reason, Keeley’s plans for the café had derailed? Although that didn’t really explain why Raquel would want to kill him. And if either of them had intended to either buy or lease the premises, then Darla would surely have known. It didn’t make sense.
As Keeley said good-bye to Tom and Jack and stepped out into the High Street, a realization struck her—one so obvious, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t made the connection instantly.
Terry had been blackmailing Raquel. Why else would a notorious gold digger be giving her money away? Either that or she had a gambling problem, which didn’t fit with what she knew of Raquel Philips. But what could Raquel be hiding that she would be willing to pay to keep secret? Or even to kill?
Keeley paused in the middle of the street as she turned over the new possibilities Tom’s bit of information had turned up. There was only one way to figure out Raquel’s connection to Terry. Ask. Keeley looked across the street to her café as if for luck. It still looked empty and abandoned, as indeed it had been for so long, and it was hard to imagine that in just a few weeks, it would be open for business and, she hoped, thriving. She tried to picture it in her mind, but instead the image now burning bright behind her eyes was a memory rather than a visualization. The memory of the times when it had indeed been thriving and busy, when her father was behind the counter. She felt sure that George Carpenter would have encouraged her in her plans, yet locals such as the Glovers acted as though she were somehow betraying his memory, an attitude that upset her. It wasn’t even accurate, she thought as she turned away and began to make her way down the hill toward the diner, to describe Belfrey as a “farming town.” Traditionally, it had always been a milling town, and the historic cotton mills still stood, now turned into museums or office space. Those who hadn’t chosen to work in the mills had gone instead to the mines in nearby Heanor. Of course, they were all closed now too. Farming was, she supposed, one of the few traditional large-scale industries left.
Other small towns in Amber Valley had succumbed to unemployment and the recent recession and were a shadow of their former selves, but Belfrey had remained afloat and was still sought after as a place to live. That was due in large part to its flourishing small businesses and various tourist attractions, such as the lush Water Gardens near the river and the country’s oldest working windmill. Keeley had half hoped the locals would be glad of her revamp of the shop, of her own small attempt to keep local trade booming. The Glovers at least had given the impression they would rather she shut up shop and left town. They were so hostile, it had been tangible. Hostile enough to send her an anonymous letter or set her shop on fire? It was possible. Passions certainly seemed to run deep here.
As she reached Raquel’s Diner, she took a deep breath, not sure she was ready for another showdown with its glamorous proprietor. She decided not to confront her directly with her blackmail theory, which would surely just cause Raquel to clam up.
The diner was empty of customers when Keeley walked in to see Raquel sitting in a corner, filing her nails and looking bored while a thin, pale girl in a red apron cleaned the counter, her expression listless. Raquel looked surprised when she saw Keeley, setting down her nail file and eyeing her warily.
“Come to check out the competition, have we?” she said, although her comment was lacking the level of sarcasm Keeley had come to expect. Keeley tried what she hoped was a warm smile on her, only for Raquel to ignore her and go back to her nails. Well, she hadn’t expected it to be easy. She ordered a cup of tea from the girl at the counter, waited for her to pour it, and then took it over to the table where Raquel sat. She pulled out a chair opposite the diner’s namesake, wh
o watched her with a frown.
“Mind if we have a little chat?”
Raquel looked surprised again; then her perfectly glossed lips curved into a catlike smile.
“Is this about Ben? I wouldn’t get too attached, darling, every single woman in Belfrey has had her eye on him for years.”
Keeley felt herself flush from the neck up as she recalled her own crush and lifted her mug to her face in an attempt to cover it. Thank God she had grown out of it.
“No, of course not. It’s not like that. Ben’s just investigating the murder at the café.”
“Oh yes, the murder,” the Raquel said, her voice light. Her motions with the file, however, became quicker and firmer. Keeley sat her mug back down, watching Raquel carefully. At least her gibe about Ben had led nicely on to the subject of Terry Smith.
“It’s been quite unnerving, coming back to such tragedy.”
Raquel paused in her filing for a few seconds before resuming with even more furious movements. If she wasn’t careful, she would have no nails left, Keeley thought.
“Hardly a tragedy,” she said in clipped tones.
“You weren’t a fan of his either, then.” Keeley made it a statement rather than a question. Surely the poor man had had some friends.
“I didn’t really know him, but I’ve heard from my customers that he wasn’t a nice guy.”
“He wasn’t a customer himself?”
Raquel stopped her nail filing then, setting the tool down on the red and white checkered tablecloth and looking evenly at Keeley.
“Maisie,” she said, addressing the girl behind the counter but keeping her eyes fixed on Keeley, “go and finish that washing up, will you.”
The girl scuttled into the kitchen without hesitation, no doubt used to being ordered around by her boss.
“Okay,” Raquel said, drawing out the second syllable, “what’s with the questions?”
Keeley took a sip of her tea, which was far too weak and full of sugar she hadn’t asked for.
Downward Facing Death Page 8
