Expose! (9 page)

“Scarlett Fleming?
Dead?
” Mrs. Evans jaw dropped so low her dentures almost fell out. “
No!
When?”

“Last Sunday. She had a car accident in Spain.”

“Spain?
Spain?
” Mrs. Evans cried. “How can she afford to go to Spain?”

I shrugged. “She was going on a yoga retreat.”

“Yoga? Another of her fads that wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.” Mrs. Evans’s eyes flashed with fury. “Well, that’s very nice isn’t it? She tells me they can’t afford to pay me anymore and then clears off on some fancy holiday to Spain.”

“Perhaps she’d already paid for her holiday ahead of time?” I suggested.

“I’ve never known anyone live so high on the hog.” Mrs. Evans seethed on. “That new Range Rover cost a bomb, and of course she wouldn’t let anyone else drive it. Not even Mr. Fleming.”

“When were you asked to leave?”

“Last Wednesday. I’ve cleaned Headcellars ever since my Sadie was five years old. Scarlett used to bake butterfly cakes just because they were Sadie’s favorite,” she said, adding in a hard voice. “It was a horrible house. Haunted, you know. And what’s more, I left my best ostrich feather duster with the mahogany handle in the upstairs guest bedroom. When I went back on the Thursday morning to get it, they’d changed the locks! Imagine!”

“Really!” This came as no surprise. Mrs. Evans’s clients always changed the locks when she left. No doubt Douglas Fleming had caught her snooping and they’d tactfully decided to get rid of her by pretending they were economizing.

“The reverend isn’t back until next Tuesday,” Mrs. Evans said. “They’ll have to wait for the burial. It’ll be a big flashy do, money or no money, you mark my words.”

“Actually, she was buried at St. Peter’s this morning,” I said. “Douglas Fleming hired some cut-price freelance funeral service called Go-Go Gothic.”

“No!”
Mrs. Evans shook her head with disbelief. “That’ll put the cat amongst the pigeons. Those old biddies from the Women’s Institute aren’t going to be happy, and what about her relative from Atlanta?”

“I didn’t know she had family.” Douglas Fleming certainly hadn’t mentioned it. Taking out my notebook I scribbled down,
Relative. Atlanta.
“I’m writing the obit. What was their marriage like?”

“Scarlett definitely wore the trousers,” Mrs. Evans declared. “She bossed him around, but he liked it. They seemed happy enough, though she was always complaining that they didn’t have enough money—but who does in this day and age?”

“I hear they did a lot of amateur dramatics.”

“That’s right. You should have seen them in
Antony and Cleopatra
,” said Mrs. Evans. “They were just like Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. The death scene with the asp was very realistic. One of Barry Fir’s kids loaned them his mechanical snake.”

Mrs. Evans got to her feet and gave an almighty yawn. “Well, I think I’m going to nip upstairs for a quick nap. I take it you’ll be home for liver and onions tonight?”

“Sorry. I’ve actually got plans.”

“A date?” Mrs. Evans cried. “Is that why your eyes are all made up?”

“No. It’s work.” Even if I had a date I’d never tell her, though it was gratifying to know that Annabel’s makeup skills had been noticed.

Upstairs in my bedroom, I changed into a clean pair of jeans and long-sleeved sweatshirt. Mrs. Evans’s insights on the Fleming marriage had only thrown up more questions.

It was highly likely that Scarlett Fleming had a hefty life insurance policy that Douglas Fleming now stood to inherit. Wasn’t murdering for money one of the oldest motives in the books?

I left a
third
message on Neil Titley’s answering machine, but this time, I mentioned I wanted to write a day-in-the-life of a limo driver for the newspaper, which sounded innocent enough—and true. Wilf wanted the lowdown on these blokes and he was going to get it.

Thoughts of Titley brought me back to Eunice’s coincidental arrival at St. Peter’s and the evening ahead.

If Eunice had made that phone call, why would she ask me to go to the church?

As I headed for Dairy Cottage, I resolved to get the truth out of her—one way or another.

9

Eunice was not coping very well in the kitchen. < Dressed in a floral apron, splattered with what looked like most of the tomato coulis, her face was bright red. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. The room was stiflingly hot and there was the most ghastly smell of overcooked fish.

“I’ve brought you a box of Black Magic chocolates,” I said, giving her my best smile.

“Don’t give them to me now!” Eunice shrieked, brandishing a spatula. “Can’t you see I’m cooking? Mary! Mary! Come here,
quickly
! Our guest has arrived!”

Smoke started to billow from the Aga. Eunice gave a cry of dismay as it rapidly filled the kitchen.

“I’ll open a window,” I said, flinging the nearest one wide. As the air slowly began to clear, the sepulchral form of Eunice’s sister-in-law, Mary Berry, clutching a wrench, drifted toward me. I noted she had a smudge of grease on her forehead and wore a housecoat over a calf-length, black evening dress.

“It’s dreadful in here,” she said grimly. “If we don’t die of suffocation, we’ll die of food poisoning.”

Mrs. Berry peered at the chocolates, muttered, “Eunice hates Black Magic,” and slunk back to the pine kitchen table, which I now saw was strewn with several pieces of farm machinery.

I stood in the midst of chaos. Dirty pots and pans were scattered haphazardly over every available countertop. Five live chickens huddled under a small desk along with stacks of old newspapers. Laundry was piled in a heap in the corner next to a rusty, dilapidated washing machine. I changed my mind about taking off my safari jacket and just undid the buttons. There was nowhere to hang it.

In the end, I left the chocolates balanced on top of a row of empty milk bottles on the window ledge. “Can I do anything to help, Eunice?”

“Take in the starters. Oh!” My hostess flipped my safari jacket open with her spatula and scowled at my jeans and top. “I said formal attire.” Peeping from the hem of her floral apron, I saw a shimmering electric blue skirt.

“I came straight from the office,” I lied, stepping neatly away from the spatula. I didn’t want to get food on my favorite—and only—jacket. “It was a busy day.”

“It’s too late to change now. Mary!” barked Eunice. “Leave that wretched tractor alone!” She gestured for me to come closer and said in a low voice, “We’ll talk later, but what did Dougie say about me?”

“Well, he’s obviously still in a state of shock,” I said. “I think—”

“Sssh! Not
now
!
Later
.” Eunice hissed as her sister-in-law trudged toward us hefting an old car battery. “Mary always goes to bed early.”

“I’ll take that,” I said, bounding toward Mary.

“She can manage.” Eunice pointed her spatula at a wall of outdoor coats. “Go through that door into the hall. The dining room is the first room on the right.”

“Where are the starters?” I said, stifling the urge to snatch the spatula out of Eunice’s hand and beat her about the head.

“Mary will open the hatch.” Eunice waved her spatula—
again—
at a side table weighed down by stacks of moldy looking pamphlets emblazoned BAN CCTV! NO PRIVACY! Above them was a sliding frosted-glass window, underneath stood a mound of moth-eaten blankets and a half-chewed dog bone.

“Where’s Jenny tonight?” I tried to sound casual but my stomach churned with fear.

“In the barn,” said Eunice.

Thank God!
I’d have to get over my inherent terror of dogs, if Robin and I were to ever have a future.

Having dumped the car battery on the floor where anyone could trip over it, Mary Berry grasped the door handle and, after much heaving and groaning, the hatch shuddered open to reveal a gloomy room beyond.

“Pop around, Vicky dear,” Mary Berry said. “This is such a waste of time.”

I slipped out of the kitchen and into the hallway. To my delight, the interior walls still retained their original oak paneled wainscoting. These days most of the Devon long-houses had been ruthlessly modernized. Dividing walls were knocked down to let in more light and inglenook fireplaces were bricked up to stop drafts and keep in heat.

It would appear that Dairy Cottage had retained all of its seventeenth-century features including beautiful flag-stone flooring that shone like glass from hundreds of years of wear. It made me want to stop for a second to consider my own mortality.

But there was no time for that tonight. I pushed open the door to a dingy dining room. The ceiling was so low I could reach up and touch the beams without standing on tiptoe. At the far end stood a vast inglenook but no fire burned merrily in the grate. Even though it was May, the place was freezing. It probably faced north. The smell of mildew and dust was overpowering. I suspected it must have been years since this room had last been used.

I went straight to the diamond-paned, leaded-light casement windows and forced one open. Unfortunately, the stench of manure from the cowshed outside was even worse. I tried to close the window again, but it jammed. The evening was rapidly turning into a disaster and we hadn’t even sat down to eat what promised to be a somewhat challenging meal.

I took in my surroundings. Imprints on the faded red-patterned carpet showed that at one time there must have been far more furniture here than just the heavy oak sideboard, refectory table, and high-backed chairs. The yellowing walls had lighter rectangular patches where paintings had probably once hung. Presumably, they’d been sold.

I felt sad. I knew that ever since Mary Berry’s farming husband had been fatally electrocuted while trimming a roadside hedge, the two women had been struggling to make ends meet. I’d even persuaded Topaz—Dairy Cottage was on Grange land—to allow the ladies to live there rent free, but even so, it can’t have been easy for them. This lavish dinner must have cost Eunice a lot of money. I resolved to pretend to love every mouthful.

The refectory table had been laid with what I guessed was their best china—a complete set of matching plates and tureens carrying the Asiatic pheasant pattern—and polished sterling-silver cutlery. There were three chairs on either side with an elbow chair at each end.

Instinctively, I was drawn to a beautiful silver centerpiece of a male and female mallard swimming in a lake of solid silver. Out of habit, I picked it up, carried it to the window where the light was better, and turned it over. I could just make out the four distinguishing marks—Britannia and the lion’s head were fairly standard—though I couldn’t read the exact date mark or maker. This piece was definitely valuable and was most probably a family heirloom that had been passed down from generation to generation. I felt a quiver of excitement. Hadn’t something similar to this sold at Sotheby’s last year for thousands and thousands of pounds?

Dad would be thrilled to hear about this treasure, but I could never tell him. Although I shared his passionate love of silver—I had no desire to join the family business and couldn’t even begin to imagine stealing this from my poverty-stricken hosts.

All thoughts of the silver mallards vanished when I realized the table was set for four. I knew some widows still laid a place for their deceased loved ones. I hoped I didn’t have to conduct an imaginary conversation with Gordon Berry as in “He’ll always be with us in spirit.”

“What are you waiting for?” shouted Eunice. Her fer rety face peered through the hatch, then disappeared from sight.

I hurried over. “Coming!”

“Mary! Hand her the herrings!”

Mary Berry passed me two plates of gelatinous-looking roll-mop herrings. Each one was garnished with a tiny sprig of what looked like chickweed. “No one can eat this muck,” she muttered. I had a sinking feeling she might be right.

I set the plates down on place mats depicting various hunting scenes and returned for the other two. “Who is our fourth guest, Mrs. Berry?”

“Call me Mary,” she said. “Eunice bullied Robin into coming. She wanted a man’s opinion on her cooking.”

Robin was here!
I swear I nearly dropped the china. My hands literally began to tremble. I should have dressed for dinner but at least I was wearing eye makeup.

The evening had suddenly improved, especially now that I was officially on first-name terms with my prospective mother-in-law!

“I thought he was at sea?”

“Robin never tells me anything.”

“Do we have any nice candles?” I said brightly. “It would make the table look so romantic.”

“Doubt it,” said Mary. “You could try looking in the sideboard. We might have a couple of stumps we keep for power cuts.”

I found three, tucked behind several dusty bottles of homemade sloe gin. The candlesticks were tarnished but they’d have to do. I even found some Swan Vesta matches—though most had been used and put back into the box.