THE FLOWER ARRANGER AT ALL SAINTS a gripping cozy murder mystery full of twists (Suzy Spencer Mysteries Book 1)

by Lis Howell

  By now she had given up on clean jeans for Jake but there would be hell if Molly forgot her roller-blades. Taking them blading on Easter Sunday was something Nigel had promised weeks ago. She imagined that the girlfriend would look gorgeous in lycra leggings.

  ‘But Mum,’ Molly was whining, ‘I can’t find the bag for them.’

  ‘Just grab them, and get in the car. I’ll find a plastic bag in the boot.’

  ‘I can’t carry them, not with Flowerbabe as well.’ Molly had recently taken to carting a grotesque baby doll around with her.

  ‘Jake, take Molly’s roller-blades. Don’t argue. Do it now!’

  They scrambled into the car with seconds to spare and Suzy swung it into the village. It took her about three minutes to call into All Saints and check that Phyllis was fine, and then she started uphill to the station. It meant driving past Tarnfield Scar, with its sudden dramatic cliffs cutting down to the Tarn river, and then on to a higher valley which dissected the slab of the Pennines and followed the Tarn east. At Tarnfield Junction the kids tumbled out in a state of panic and sudden diffidence. It was getting dark.

  ‘Here’s the ticket money. Pay the guard on the train. You’ve seen me do it.’

  ‘OK, Mum don’t fuss.’ But as well as giving her his usual perfunctory hug, Jake had kissed her.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ she murmured, sensing his nervousness. ‘You love blading and Dad will have got you fab Easter eggs. Save me some chocs. And I’ll meet you here tomorrow. Look after Molly. It’s only a half-hour journey.’

  Through the carriage window she could see the comforting outlines of women who’d been shopping. And there was a ticket collector on this train, patrolling up and down. Jake was thirteen and Molly was six, hardly a baby. It was quite safe. But as the train heaved noisily away towards the blackness of the eastern plateau she felt a moment of panic.

  Then it was quiet and still again, and she trudged slowly back to the car. She called Nigel on her mobile and tried not to react to his terse office-bound interrogation. Yes, the kids were on the train, they had everything they needed. Why does he treat me like some sort of inadequate? she thought. Perhaps because his girlfriend doesn’t need to lose pounds, and I bet her roots don’t show. It was funny how Nigel’s women ‘on the side’ were always cool, dark and willowy. She thought that people tended to go for the same type, yet his lovers — and she knew there had been quite a few — couldn’t be more different from her. It made her feel frumpy and unattractive.

  Well, tonight she had her freedom. She was going to open a bottle of white wine, ring her friend Rachel Cohen in London and talk for about an hour without anyone shouting ‘Mum’ at her. And then she’d watch a film. It would be fine without the kids — though even thinking about them made her strain to hear the distant growling of the train levering its way over the hills. It was silent. They’d gone.

  In the car she started to think what news she would have to tell Rache. They’d been best friends since starting work together in Manchester. They always had a giggle about Suzy’s attempts at flower arranging. She remembered how Mary Clark had approached her one Sunday, as if it were an honour.

  ‘We could really do with some help, especially for festivals, now Phyllis’s hand is getting worse,’ Mary had said. ‘So can we count on you for Harvest?’

  And Suzy had actually enjoyed making the huge hedges of chrysanthemums and autumn leaves. Mary and Phyllis had been to a decoration wholesaler’s in Leeds and come back with mounds of additional stuff — bright red and orange varnished berries, and some really vicious-looking reeds and rushes with wire spines.

  ‘They’ll stiffen up the displays,’ Mary had said, and Phyllis had twittered, ‘Oh, like “All Things Bright and Beautiful” . . . You know, the tall trees in the greenwood, the meadows where we play, the rushes by the water, we gather every day.’

  ‘You should have seen me struggling with the lungwort and hellebore,’ Suzy told Rachel.

  ‘Try antibiotics,’ her friend answered.

  Suzy took the turn down towards Tarnfield a little too sharply. Something shot from under the dashboard on to the floor. It was one of Molly’s blades. Oh bugger, she thought. Bugger, bugger, bugger. She tried to reach down with her left hand but it had fallen under the clutch pedal. With her scrabbling, she failed to change gear, and took the corner back into the village far too quickly. She tugged on the handbrake and the car careened right. There was nowhere to pull over, even if she could brake, so she turned the wheel, crossed the carriageway, and the car shuddered into Briar Lane.

  ‘Please God, let it stop,’ she prayed, but even as she did she knew God had bigger things on Her mind. The car rolled down the lane and hit the late Mrs Mary Clark’s garden fence.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ said Suzy as her chest gently bounced off the steering wheel and the sound of splintering woodwork rippled through the clear, still evening.

  * * *

  That wasn’t the only noise in Tarnfield. Up at the church, someone slammed the door of the flower vestry on the dark east side. A glance up and down the alleyway leading on to the High Street revealed no one in sight. The door was locked swiftly, and the figure slipped away into the village.

  3

  Easter Eve, continued

  Defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.

  From the third Collect at Evening Prayer

  ‘Time for a sundowner,’ said Alan Robie in his best plummy voice, as he opened the cottage door. He’d been for a Saturday evening stroll around Tarnfield and had been standing at the end of the High Street, looking down with satisfaction to the cottage he shared with his partner Stevie. This evening, his sense of security was greater than ever. He was so glad to be living here. He enjoyed village life, playing a full part in the parish as a member of the Parochial Church Council and the Bible study group, and helping the good lady flower arrangers from time to time with the heavier decorations. For years previously, his only recreation had been as a leading light in the amateur dramatic society in Norbridge, the town where he had practised law for thirty years. Being homosexual wasn’t what people expected from their family solicitor and he’d spent his time miserably lusting after the bereaved or newly divorced, knowing it was highly unprofessional.

  Each summer his one spurt of activity had been at the Edinburgh Festival. One evening, watching a dire modern version of She Stoops to Conquer in 1920s dress, he had been taken by the lithe figure of Stephen Nesbit. Later, in the harsh light of the Assembly Rooms bar, Stephen had looked every one of his thirty-three years, but Alan found his lined and tired face as much a turn-on as the choirboy looks he’d expected. He wanted to rescue Stephen from his life as an emotional victim and disappointed thespian.

  Within months of their meeting, Alan had taken over their lives, going for early retirement and buying the house in Tarnfield, bringing Stephen to live with him. They’d been there for five years, turning the place from a dreary nineteenth-century labourer’s cottage into an amalgam of styles and ideas which should have been ridiculous but wasn’t. Stephen was definitely into fabrics, with curtains and flounces on everything. Alan was much more macho, wanting stainless-steel kitchen units and white roller blinds. But thanks to their ability to buy the very best of everything, the mixture worked. Alan’s inheritance had come at just the right time.

  Stephen came to stand next to him by the french windows, which looked over their Tuscan-style patio. At the back, the eastern fells rose steeply, so that the light was fading as they watched.

  ‘It should be a nice day tomorrow,’ Stephen said.

  They were going to visit some lesbian friends down in North Lancashire. Stephen was particularly excited. Though he loved the cottage and could cope with Tarnfield, he liked the emotional thrills and spills of gay politics and needed his fix of the bigger picture. But Alan was the boss. Stephen snuggled up to him in a puppyish way. One of the delights of their relationship was its private code. They allowed themselves no affectionate gestur
es outside the cottage, but inside it was an erotic dream, the conventional Alan besotted by the camp, risqué, streetwise Stevie.

  ‘People can suspect what they like,’ Alan had said. ‘But why should they know?’ Coming out wasn’t his style.

  ‘We’ll get away in time after the service tomorrow, won’t we?’ Stephen said in his sweetest voice. He didn’t mind the churchgoing — in fact he’d recently taken a new interest — but he didn’t want Alan hanging round puffing his pipe, talking to the other middle-aged men for ages about the current gossip. Their friends would be annoyed if they kept them waiting again, as they had done when the former vicar had had his breakdown and Alan had gone into Mr Reliable mode, taking over the crisis and spending hours sorting things out.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Alan had his own reason for getting Stephen out of church. Nicholas Melling, the new vicar, was a good-looking lad, though he was taking his role too seriously. He was too febrile for Alan’s taste, which veered towards a ‘bit of rough’. Stephen on the other hand seemed entranced by the Reverend Nick. He simpered at everything he said, and had started to play his keyboard again, badly, in the hope that they might do a ‘jam session’ sometime. Alan was suspicious of all this modernity at All Saints. He sighed.

  Stevie had gone to get the gin-and-tonics. Alan loved habit and routine. This was what they always did on Saturday evenings. And tomorrow it would be Choral Eucharist for Easter Day, then the trip south, which they made every three months to catch up on the news. He liked Stevie’s old friends from the gay scene, but was always glad to get back on the road to Tarnfield.

  Steve returned to his side and Alan put his hand affectionately on his right buttock. If they weren’t out to dinner or seeing a film on Saturday nights, they usually went to bed and ate supper later in their dressing gowns, watching telly. Standing together, Alan felt the pure happiness which life with Stevie brought him, even with the occasional tearful rows and tantrums.

  ‘It’s a pity that Sammi and Wendy invited us tomorrow, you know,’ Alan said, ‘because the Bells asked me if we’d like to go there. I’m not sure if they realize . . .’

  Oh, dream on, thought Stevie. Sometimes a reality check was needed. Everyone here knows about us. They’re just too polite to say anything. Well, perhaps polite was the wrong word for some of them . . .

  ‘But I’ve had a few nasty looks from Tom Strickland.’

  ‘Don’t be paranoid, Stevie. Tom Strickland is all bark and no bite.’ Alan’s voice was husky with affection. ‘And you’re all right here. No one in Tarnfield will harm you.’

  He turned towards his lover protectively. This will take his mind off Tom Strickland, he thought, as the sun finally went down. He put his arms round Stevie’s smaller, slighter figure.

  ‘Oh Al, I do love you,’ whispered Stevie. ‘I’d die if you ever left me alone again.’

  * * *

  Across the Green in their council semi, Tom Strickland and his wife were settling down for their favourite Saturday night entertainment. He lowered himself into his chair, and wiped the back of his hand under his large, mottled nose. His big frame was hunched now, and he slumped rather than sat in front of the TV while he fiddled with the remote. He and Vera liked their Saturday night telly. They weren’t highbrows, Tom thought, but at least he was a churchwarden.

  Mind you, his influence mattered less now. He frowned at the screen. He had been right-hand man to the former vicar. But the Reverend George Pattinson had had a breakdown of some sort and been sent on extensive sick leave by the Bishop, which was disappointing in someone who was officer material. That was why the Bishop had asked his curate, Nick Melling, to run the show.

  Tom Strickland shook his head. In his opinion, Nick Melling had some very weird ideas. Tom liked his clergymen to be warm, jolly and upper crust. George Pattinson had been just right. All this modern first-name stuff, clapping and guitar songs in church, was going too far, he thought. Of course Phyllis Drysdale tried to keep tradition going but she was an irritating old bat who was willing to compromise. Tom was firmly conventional.

  It was a pity that Mary Clark had pegged it. He’d admired Mary for years. She’d have put Nick Melling in his place. Why she’d married that wet bloke Clark, he’d never understood. Robert Clark was another person who was trying hard not to fall out with the new vicar, but Tom thought that was a waste of time. He even suspected that Nick Melling might be a queer, like that nancy-boy Stevie Nesbit who lived with Alan Robie. And Alan seemed such a decent bloke too. Disgusting. What was the church coming to?

  It needed sorting out. But as an ex-squaddie, I’ve never minded doing things that bothered other folk, Tom said to himself. He decided to have a couple of beers at home till his favourite show was over, and then walk the dog up Tarnfield Fell to a snug little pub he knew, where he could have a few shorts. He smiled as he got the right channel and the TV programme flowered into life. He had every confidence the church would get back to normal soon. He chuckled grimly and raised his pint pot to his lips.

  * * *

  I’d go out again, except I don’t want to bump into Tom Strickland, mused ‘Lady’ Jane Simpson as the locals mockingly called her. And I do wish Phyllis Drysdale had taken my advice, she thought irritably. Surely there was no need for all those arum lilies? The daffodils would have been tasteful enough, and Jane had been loath to contribute extra money to the flower-arranging fund. She took off her rather worn Burberry mackintosh and beige cashmere beret, then shook out her greying blonde hair — which she highlighted herself every two months — and went into the front room of Tarnfield House to turn on the electric fire and try to get the place warm.

  The room badly needed decorating, but she wasn’t sure if they could afford it. Jeff had never been much good at DIY, and now he was over seventy there would be no chance of his even trying! She looked away from the growing patch of damp above the deep cornice.

  Standing in the gloom, gazing out of the big Victorian bay window, she saw her husband going across to the Plough. He never bothered to say goodbye these days. Heavy and bad-tempered, Jeff Simpson was an unhappy man. Jane sighed. His family had been in business in Tarnfield for over a century but Jeff had been forced to sell up. It still rankled. The Simpsons had once been the equivalent of the local gentry — trade of course, but ‘well-to-do’. Things were different now.

  And worry over their son Russell didn’t help. He had refused to get any qualifications and worked in Newcastle in some sort of meaningless modern job to do with marketing and ‘clients’. Jane knew he was constantly asking for handouts, and spent money like water. Jeff and Russ had never really been close, perhaps because Jeff had been so much older when Russ was born. At one time it had been vital to provide an heir, but now she wondered if there would be anything left for Russell to inherit. Not that he showed any sign of producing progeny in turn. He was far too busy drinking, clubbing and driving down rural roads at breakneck speed with his pal Matthew Bell from Bell’s Wood Yard.

  The electric fire was making little impression on the big, dank room. I’ll walk over to The Briars and see Robert Clark, Jane decided, though she would have to avoid Tom Strickland on one of his evening prowls. She preferred not to remember that she and Tom were distantly related though it had served her purpose once before. She glanced at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, then the noise of a pick-up truck hurtling past made her look out of the window. Frank Bell, driving like a maniac, she thought. Monica Bell was nice enough but the Bell men were rough diamonds and it was a shame Russell was so friendly with Matthew. What he needed was a nice girlfriend.

  Walking would keep her warm. She pulled on her beret and Burberry again, and set off, in the opposite direction to the Bells’ pick-up.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, outside the large modern house next door to their wood business, Frank and Monica Bell were unloading the shopping from Tesco’s in Carlisle in the growing darkness. Monica had been to Carlisle in the Volvo. She was going to do
a big family roast on Easter Sunday, and she’d invited Robert Clark as well as the rest of the family. Monica Bell liked her food. She had put on weight over the last year or two, but her hair was still brown and curly, and thanks to her hysterectomy she’d seen the menopause off a few years earlier. Monica thought looks were an overrated asset. She had health and strength, and a good husband. What more could you want in your fifties?

  She was keeping her fingers crossed that Matthew would be prepared to stay at home for Easter Sunday lunch, and not escape in his boy racer car with his best mate, Russ Simpson from Tarnfield House. She’d bought nineteen-year-old Matthew’s favourite Tesco trifle and some extra drinks. There were a lot of bags to cart into the house. Her husband Frank had been out, she noticed, because he was on the doorstep wearing his wellies when she backed the car into the drive. He was really balding now, and he looked rather miserable, like a hungry vulture.

  ‘You were a long time,’ he said crossly. So that was his problem! Frank liked to know where she was.

  ‘Yes, it was busy,’ she answered. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Delivering some shelving to the church. I didn’t go in, though. Didn’t want to bump into Phyllis Drysdale. She might have asked me to be in the Bible study group. Or arrange flowers!’

  Monica laughed. ‘She really annoys you, doesn’t she?’

  ‘You can say that again. She wasn’t so bad when Mary Clark was alive. But she’s become even more of a nag now. You’d think she’d have learnt I’m not the Bible-bashing type.’

  ‘I know.’

  Monica had been through this, hundreds of times. Frank had no objection to her churchgoing but he would have nothing to do with it himself. Except of course to be indispensable as handyman and supplier, and so entitled to express his view all the time. Her husband was one of those men, she thought shrewdly, who crave attention but had been brought up to believe that ‘putting yourself forward’ was a cardinal sin. Frank pretended to be sensible, but underneath he was inclined to let his heart rule his head. It was a good job she was so practical.