by Debbie Young
Come home soon, May, and come home safe.
Ever your loving Joshua.
PS Do you still think of your cottage as home? I hope so.
Of course, who wouldn’t keep reading? Though it made me want to run next door and throw my arms about poor abandoned Joshua’s neck in pity.
My darling May,
So, Johannesburg now, eh? Another charming postcard. I had no idea what that great city might be like, except it seems as far away as anywhere in the world might be from here now. I suppose you will need that extra year for your analysis of South Africa, such a vast country. Wendlebury Barrow must seem so small by comparison – no wild game, no deserts or bush, just the common and the village pond, where you’ve as much chance of meeting a Martian as encountering an elephant.
It’s little compensation that the house seems bigger since Mother and Father died. Barely had I got used to cooking for just two of us than Mother was taken as well. I tell myself it was for the best, as she grieved for Father so, after fifty-seven years of marriage.
It pains me to sit alone in the kitchen these days, May. I have taken to eating more of my meals at The Bluebird for company. At least now I have the leisure and the liberty to do more beyond the home, and tomorrow I am going to join the Village Show Committee. They are always shorthanded, and I am hoping to donate a trophy this year in memory of my beloved parents. I thought it should be for Best Jam in Show, my mother having always made such wonderful preserves from the fruit on my father’s allotment. I hope you have not forgotten that night we lay concealed among the raspberry canes, gazing up at the stars, making plans for our future together?
I am fooling no-one, May, am I? Every time the trophy is presented, in my heart I shall be celebrating you.
Come home soon, May, and come home safe.
Ever your loving Joshua.
I sighed as I folded up the last letter and carefully reassembled the bundle. For the first time in my life, I felt ashamed of my aunt for responding to these earnest love letters with no more than a postcard. Then I blushed, ashamed of myself, for hadn’t I responded to her long letters to me in just the same way?
Perhaps the messages on her cards had not been as shallow as mine. Maybe it was more than friendship that she’d renewed with Joshua after his wife’s death. I wondered whether I’d ever find out.
But one thing I did know: this wasn’t the correspondence between murderer and victim. How could I ever have suspected Joshua of anything so hideous against his beloved May? Or Edith, or Linda, or me, come to that?
A sudden recollection made me get up from my desk to visit the larder. There they were, just as I remembered: row upon row of May’s home-made jam from last summer. All of them were raspberry. But it wasn’t jam that I put on my toast for supper that night. I had my first taste of Joshua’s honey.
28 Doctor’s Verdict
On my way to work next morning, as I passed the village shop, Carol waved at me frantically through the window. Although I was not keen to see her until the post-mortem exonerated her from guilt, or at least I hoped so, it would have broken village etiquette to ignore her, so I popped in.
As I entered, she leaned over the counter to get closer to me, even though there was no-one else to overhear us in the shop.
“It wasn’t natural causes. Linda Absolom died of fright.”
“Good Lord! How do you know?”
“Mrs Blake, who lives next door to the Absoloms, saw Mr Absolom coming home from the hospital. He’s moved back in with the children, at least for the time being. So much for his other woman, poor soul. They haven’t officially done the post-mortem yet, but when they got her into the ambulance, they said it looked like she’d died of fright. Rash all over, stuffocation , closing up of the throat. Horrible.”
I gasped, my own throat tightening out of sympathy. “I didn’t know fright could have that effect! That sounds more like an extreme allergic reaction, where your body goes into shock and starts shutting down. I’ve read about it on Facebook.”
“Oh, yes, not fright. It was shock. Prophylactic shock.”
I suppressed a snigger. Maybe Rex hadn’t been thoughtful enough to buy hypoallergenic prophylactics.
“Oh dear, that’s awful. I wonder what she was allergic to. Surely you can’t die of hay fever?”
Carol looked horrified at the thought that the fragrance of her flowers might have been the kiss of death. “Ooh no, I don’t think so. She never had any antihistamines on her prescriptions. Only something for her heart, I think it was. Which would make more sense of the fright theory. Weak heart, fright, bam!”
She thumped her hand down on the wooden counter, making me jump.
“Should you really be telling me about her prescriptions? Doesn’t that break patient confidentiality?”
“I’m only telling you. It’s not as if I’ve taken that Hippopotamus oath – I’m not a doctor as such. I only hand over the prescription bags. Anyway, the prescription requests are always here for anyone to see, if they want to.”
Yes, and I don’t think they should be, I thought, deciding to keep that to myself.
“She always looked healthy enough to me,” I said instead. “Though cross. Usually cross whenever I saw her.”
“I think cross was her natural state,” said Carol. “That’s the way it is with some people. No wonder her marriage was in trouble. Those poor children.”
The shop doorbell jangled, and one of the mums I recognised from the school run strode in, making me realise that it was way past opening time at Hector’s House.
“Sorry, Carol, I must fly. But thanks for telling me.”
That lets Carol off the hook, I considered as I marched swiftly up the High Street to Hector’s House.
“Anaphylactic shock,” I announced to Hector as I swung open the bookshop door.
“And good morning to you too,” he replied, switching on his computer. “Is that today’s excuse for your lateness?”
I glanced quickly towards the tearoom to make sure we didn’t have any customers yet. The morning rush had fallen away for the school holidays, but tended to pick up mid-morning when the mums took the children to the playpark nearby.
“It’s what Linda died of. Carol just told me in the shop.”
“How does she know?”
“The Absoloms’ next door neighbour spilled the beans.”
“Are you telling me Linda was fatally allergic to beans? That’s a new one on me.”
I filled the water canister in the coffee machine and selected two capsules to make our morning coffee.
“No, but she was allergic to something. That’s what killed her. We don’t know what.”
“So natural causes after all?”
“Seems so.” I shouldn’t have felt disappointed, but I did. “But that doesn’t make it any less mysterious. How can you die of an allergy when you’re safely inside a costume, not doing anything? It doesn’t make sense. And anyway, I’ve heard that you can’t suddenly develop an extreme allergy. I looked it up once when I was worrying about eating too much peanut butter. It builds up slowly, so you have advance warning and can take avoiding action, like carrying an EpiPen.”
“Not much about Show Day makes sense sometimes,” said Hector. “But if you like, there’s the medical dictionary over there. If in doubt, consult a good book. That’s my motto.”
At that moment, a group of three teenagers came in demanding milkshakes. While I made them up, Hector flicked on BBC Radio 1 for their benefit.
Once they’d departed for the playpark with their shakes in takeaway cups, we resumed the conversation.
“Apparently certain medicines can increase your vulnerability to allergies, making future attacks more severe. I’ve just been looking it up in this book.” He tapped a huge family medical encyclopedia that hogged a big space in the healthy living section.
“Carol told me Linda had a repeat prescription for heart medicine.”
“Good Lord, can’t that woman keep an
y secrets? This is why I always make sure to collect my prescriptions from the chemist in town!” He smiled as he said this, reassuring me that he didn’t have any dark medical secrets to hide. I grinned back.
“No, you’re right there. She even told me on Show Day that you were being Homer because the Greeks invented Homersexuality!”
I laughed aloud then froze as I realised what I’d said. I suspected that was one secret he didn’t want disclosed. To my relief, he laughed too, though looked slightly shamefaced.
“Ha, you rumbled me! I must confess, I did allow her to assume that I wasn’t a ladies’ man, when once at the village Halloween disco she seemed a little too eager to dance with me. Just for your information, Sophie, I am, by the way, very much a ladies’ man. But please don’t tell Carol.”
I gasped, and hoped he assumed it was with horror at her behaviour rather than with relief at his revelation.
“She is a bit of a Mrs Malaprop, isn’t she?” I was pleased to have the chance to impress him with a literary reference, and hoped he didn’t quiz me to see whether I knew where it came from. “She also told me that Linda had died of fright. It took me a minute to work out she meant shock.”
He gave a sad smile.
“Well, whatever it was, it amounts to the same. The poor lady’s still dead.”
Then the door swung open, setting the bell jangling. Enter stage right, Rex.
29 Recycling Rites
Not keen to see him after the previous day’s encounter, I ran to the back of the shop and busied myself in the tearoom, washing up the milkshake blender. I returned to the front of the shop to speak to Hector only when Rex had gone.
“What did he want?” Conscious that my heart was pounding, I patted my chest to soothe it.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t tell me Rex makes your heart beat a little faster too? How does that man have that effect on so many ladies?”
I shook my head in vigorous denial and told him about Rex’s little visit to me the day before. At the end, Hector smiled sympathetically.
“Don’t worry, he didn’t even mention that just now. He was only after a book he’d ordered. A biography of Laurence Olivier, would you believe? He really does give himself airs and graces. But it hasn’t come yet. Can you drop the distributor an email to chase it up when you’ve got a moment, please?”
I nodded, relieved. Grabbing the duster from behind the counter, I hoped the repetitive action of dusting the bookshelves might calm my nerves. Just then the doorbell jangled and in walked a delivery man with a parcel of about five books, judging from the size of it.
“Here you go, sweetheart, present for you,” he said, proffering the electronic tablet and stylus for my signature. “All right, mate?” he added to Hector, trying to be friendly, but Hector was already bashing away at his keyboard, engrossed in whatever he was doing.
I laid down my duster, took the scissors from the pencil pot on the top of the counter, and slit the brown sticky tape that sealed the parcel. With perfect timing, it contained five books we’d ordered from the same publisher, one of which was Rex’s Olivier biography. I waved it in front of Hector, who gave me a winning smile.
“I tell you what, to save us being subjected to an encore of Mr Stroppy’s visit, could you run down the road and pop it through his letter box? He paid for it when he placed the order, so there’s no need to see him. Just stick it in a jiffy bag first to keep it pristine. Then when you get back, you could put our paper recycling out for collection.”
Still basking in the implications of Hector’s confession, I trotted back to the stockroom and pulled down an old white padded envelope from the top shelf where we stored them for re-use. I was so wrapped up in romantic speculation about Hector that I didn’t notice I’d dislodged a large fat spider until it fell into my hair, waving it legs ferociously. Hector came running at my screams, then braked to a halt in the doorway when he saw my unexpected attacker.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, I thought for a minute you were being attacked by a crazed murderer, or at least had a major health and safety issue.” Carefully, with apparently more thought for the spider’s well-being than mine, he caught it up in his cupped hands and released it through the open window. Abashed by my squeamishness, I dashed off to deliver Rex’s book without demur.
Rex’s house, or rather Dido’s, was about half way between the village shop and Hector’s House. I confess I’d sped up as I’d walked to work that morning, really not wanting to encounter the man himself after our disagreement the day before. His front path was overflowing with butterfly lavender in full fragrant bloom. I couldn’t help treading on a few stalks as I ran up the path, so I hoped he wasn’t watching me, if he was still at home.
Once I’d deposited his book through the front door, I ran back down the path as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I stumbled as I jumped down the step onto the pavement, and almost fell flat on my face, my fall cushioned only by Rex’s recycling boxes, already put out for collection. Both of them tipped over, and the papers that had been held by a brick were soon flying down the street, with me rushing after them. Luckily the breeze was blowing in the direction of Hector’s House, so once I’d turned the boxes the right way up and replaced the brick, I was able to gather up any stray bits of paper as I headed back to the shop, stuffing them in my pockets rather than doubling back to put them in Rex’s box. The less time I spent outside Rex’s house, the better.
Hector was busy on the phone when I got back, and pointed at the cardboard wrapper from the books to remind me what I was meant to do next. I hauled the big box of cardboard from the storeroom on to the pavement. Only when I returned for the box of paper did I remember my pockets full of Rex’s scraps.
On the run from his house, I’d screwed up his paper scraps anxiously. In the interests of neatness, I flattened them out on the counter now, intending to add them to our own neat recycling box, burying them beneath a pile of old computer printouts so that there’d be no chance of Rex spotting them if he happened to walk by. Most of them were supermarket or petrol receipts, but to my horror there was a larger sheet of printer paper bearing a list of familiar phrases, each one allocated against the name of a famous writer.
It was Rex’s checklist for the notes he’d planted on the Wendlebury Writers’ float.
“My goodness, look at this, Hector!” I slammed my hand down on the counter for emphasis. “It was Rex who pulled those pranks. What an awful man! Pretending to be all charming to the ladies, then doing a thing like that! Why would he be so unkind?”
Hector let out a low whistle. “Just to put you off your stride, maybe? He’s very competitive. Weak ego, I reckon. Now that he hasn’t got his lovely assistants from his conjuring days to big him up, maybe making everyone else feel small makes him feel better.”
I nodded. “He did seem keen to beat everyone else on the coconut shy. How pathetic. Still, I don’t think he ought to be allowed to get away with it.”
As a sudden thought struck me, I clapped my hand over my mouth. “My God, I’ve just remembered something that proves he set up the Suffragettes too. I saw him drop a little key in the beer tent. At the time I thought it was for his codpiece.” Hector guffawed. “But now I realise it must have been for the Suffragettes’ padlock. What a complete git.”
“So, what are you going to do about it, Wonder Woman? Take away his coconuts?”
“No. But I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Once I’ve thought of exactly what to say, that is.”
“Good luck with that. Just don’t do anything silly. You don’t want him setting his white rabbit on you. You never know.” He smiled and winked. “Stay safe, Sophie.”
30 Writers’ Rights
On my way home, I had to drop another book into the pub: a cookery book which Donald the publican had ordered as a birthday present for his wife. I was the only customer there besides the inevitable Billy who was propping up the bar.
“So, girlie, what do you reckon on this business with Mrs
Absolom?” he quizzed me as I waited for Donald to emerge from the back room. “I reckon it was that Rex what done it.”
“Really? You think she was allergic to Rex? Now there’s a theory I can relate to. I don’t know what anyone sees in him.” All afternoon I’d been half expecting Rex to come barging into the shop to shout at me for damaging his lavender.
“No, but I reckon that varmint was up to something,” said Billy. “I heard the two of them having a humdinger of a row a few days before. She was giving him a hard time about the costumes.”
“I can’t think why. The costumes were beautiful. Carol’s wasted in that shop, you know. She’s very talented, creatively speaking. She could be a professional costume designer.”
Billy took a long slurp from his pint of bitter and scratched his head.
“It wasn’t so much the dresses as the flowers she was fussed about. Didn’t like the thought of having real flowers about her person. I could understand it if it was Rex wanting fake ones, like he must have used in his magic act. But it’s a funny sort of a woman what don’t like real flowers, if you asks me.”
I nodded. “I know, and the flowers Carol did were beautiful. I bought them at the auction afterwards. They’re lovely, though a bit highly scented for indoors. They attracted loads of butterflies when I hung them up in my garden.”
“She weren’t natural, if you ask me,” went on Billy. “Not a normal woman, that Linda Absolom.”
“What, you mean she found you attractive?” Donald quipped as he appeared behind the bar, looking pleased with himself for getting one over on Billy.
