Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) (16 page)

“Who does he think he is, anyway?” Penny muttered to the
dog.

* * * *

The pizza tasted like cardboard with a bit of plastic
cheese smeared on the top. Penny would not let herself listen to her doubts.
She ate half of the pizza anyway, and slid the rest into the fridge to keep for
later. It might taste better once cold.

Then she dressed in warm, dark clothes; smart jeans, solid
boots, and a zip-up fleece jacket. She fussed Kali and gave her a biscuit, and
strode out into the night, though the striding lasted until the end of the
street whereupon she switched to a normal walk, because of her ankle.

What exactly were the police doing with the investigation?
A murder had been committed, she reminded herself. It took place over a week
ago! Yet she hadn’t seen increased patrols, or heard any definite news, or
anything. Their forensics and their technology were all very well, but they
needed to knock on doors and ask questions. If she were the police, she’d
consider herself – Penny – a suspect. Part of her wanted to have been formally
interviewed with a tape recording and everything, just like on the television.

She walked north, past a row of old cottages built in the
warm yellow stone from a local quarry. The Shires estate was at the top end of
town. First she went past the Abbeystead estate, which was one long curving
road with large detached houses scattered along it. They were “executive” homes
built in the 1990s for people who worked in the cities but wanted rural life.
Penny had known folks who’d moved out of London but who continued to work
there. They didn’t get to enjoy rural life at all, unless you counted the many
hours they spent in cars and trains, staring out of the window at fields.

The Shires was an older development that consisted of a
series of cul-de-sacs either side of the main road. They were all named after
trees. These houses weren’t in the local architectural style or even in the
local stone. She turned right along Oak Avenue, hunting for the right house.
She knew it would be a well-kept house with a blue garage door, on the
left-hand side, with a clipped lawn and a small fake wishing well out the
front. According to her informant in the greengrocer’s, anyway.

Her heart began to hammer and her palms went sweaty. It
wasn’t a panic attack, she knew. It was simply apprehension. A normal reaction
to an abnormal situation, as her counsellor had told her.

And what could be more abnormal than to knock on a
stranger’s door to talk about a murder?

She knew she was getting carried away with it all. She stopped
at the bottom of a driveway that led to a house that fitted the description
perfectly. She had misled Drew when she’d said she knew where Eleanor lived.
The woman she’d talked with in the greengrocer’s had been clear on details but
vague about the actual house number.

Still, this one fitted the bill.

She mentally rehearsed her speech a few more times. Penny
had decided to disarm Eleanor with honesty.

But she was rooted to the spot. She went through her piece
a few more times, but could not bring herself to walk up the driveway to the
front door.

A net curtain in the bay window twitched to one side, and a
pale face stared out at her. Penny’s mouth went dry. She had to approach the
door now, and it swung open as she reached the step.

An angular woman stood in the doorway. She had a pinched
face with layers of impeccable make-up accenting her fine cheekbones and
aquiline nose. Her hair was styled in artful waves around her head, and was a
rich, glossy chestnut of a colour and tone not often seen on a woman of her
years, although the main thing that gave her age away were the lines and loose
folds on her neck and the backs of her hands.

She frowned at Penny who immediately felt dowdy and
provincial. It was an amusing thought, given that she was supposed to be the
sophisticated southerner. “Can I help you?” Even the woman’s accent was
refined, with no trace of Lincolnshire in it. Penny couldn’t imagine her
uttering the standard local greeting of “Now then, bor.”

Penny smiled and stumbled into her prepared speech. “Hi. My
name is Penny May. Are you Eleanor Hart?”

“Yes. Why? What are you selling? Didn’t you see the signs?
We don’t purchase from door-step sellers.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not selling anything. I’m pleased to meet
you. I ought to tell you that I found David Hart’s body and I’ve become
interested in the situation. I understand that your husband and his brother did
not get along. I wondered if I might come inside and talk about that?”

Eleanor stared. Her red-lined lips opened in a perfect
circle for a few seconds. She swallowed and tried to say something, but nothing
came out.

Penny felt more and more foolish. This was a
stupid
idea. The Queen of Stupid reigned once more.

“Obviously I know that this is a difficult time,” Penny
added. Suddenly she was reminded of social convention, and indeed, common
courtesy. She felt herself flush. “I’d like to say that I am sorry for your
loss…”

Eleanor’s eyes were wide and shocked. “How
dare
you
come here,” she whispered, her voice croaking.

“I do appreciate this might be a bad time. Here. I’ve
written down my name and number, and popped my address on this card. You can
get in touch if you want to talk about anything. I’m an outsider, you see. It
might make things easier.”

“Are you with a church? Or a cult? We’re in the neighbourhood
watch.”

“No, nothing like that. I’m looking into the circumstances
of the death, and…”

“Are you with the police? We’ve already spoken to the
police.”

“No. I don’t think the police are looking in the right
places. I’m merely a concerned citizen who feels that society these days has
become too selfish. Wouldn’t communities be better if we looked out for one
another?” Penny was impressed by her sudden flight of fancy. None of that had
been rehearsed and planned.

Her expansive plea was clearly lost on Eleanor. “Community?
Ha! You’ve come to the wrong place if you’re looking for community. There is
nothing in Upper Glenfield. Nothing. Just insular, in-bred gossips and tiresome
meddlers. Such as yourself. Now kindly leave my property. I have nothing to say
to you.”

Penny held out the card with her contact details on but
Eleanor stared down at it, and kept her hands by her sides. “Please,” Penny
persisted. “Is your husband home?”

She only meant it as a lead-in to ask if she might speak to
him, but Eleanor reacted as if she was being threatened. “I don’t need him here
to defend myself,” she hissed, stepping back into her hallway. “You need to
leave. I give you fair warning that if you do not, I am quite within my rights
to use force and weapons if I have to.”

Weapons? What kind of arsenal did the woman have? Her
manicured talons looked fairly vicious. Penny took two quick steps backwards,
stumbling down the path. “You have a gun?”

Eleanor sneered. “No, but I can stun
any
intruder.
Mark my words. You do not wish to find out.”

Stun them? What, with cologne? “I am so sorry if I have
upset–”

The door slammed shut. Penny darted forward again and
pushed her card through the letterbox, then turned around and ran down Oak
Avenue as fast as her throbbing ankle would let her.

Penny’s mind was made up by the time she reached her
cottage again. Something sinister was afoot in the house of Eleanor and Thomas
Hart. So, they had weapons? Weapons that stunned? She thought of Thomas’s
background in the Army and his enmity with his brother. This had to be followed
up – right away. She had promised to ring Francine but that could wait. This
was important.

She dashed into her house, circumvented the alarmed dog, grabbed
her car keys and left again. She felt a pang as she floored the accelerator;
she wanted someone riding with her. She pictured Drew in the passenger seat,
sharing the thrill.

But he was too nervous about too many things. She didn’t
need that sort of man in her life.

For a big, strong blacksmith, he sure didn’t like to
embrace excitement and change.

Maybe she should have had Kali riding shotgun with her.

The oncoming glare of headlights made her blink and swerve,
and forced all other thoughts out of her mind as she concentrated on driving.
She knew she needed to go to the east of Lincoln and find a scrap yard; Lincoln
wasn’t a huge city, so she didn’t imagine there would be too many choices. She
was prepared to go around all of them until she found the right one.

As soon as she saw a chain fast-food restaurant, she pulled
up and let the engine idle while she made use of their free wi-fi, browsing on
her phone for all the metal recycling places in the Lincoln area. She scribbled
a list – there were two likely ones – and punched the first postcode into her
sat nav device.

“Lead on, Sat Nag,” she instructed it, and followed the
monotone instructions through the dark streets into a gloomy and deserted
industrial estate.

She slowed as she approached the first destination. The
streets here were very quiet and she felt conspicuous. Who drove around an
industrial estate at night? No one with good intent, that was for sure. She
parked half on the pavement and half on the road, and killed the lights.

She waited, looking around for signs of life as her eyes
adjusted to the gloom. A tiny battered red Metro bunny-hopped past, and she saw
an ashen-faced older man in the passenger seat. The driver was a spotty youth.
She remembered learning to drive like that.

A figure crossed the road far ahead, and disappeared into
bushes. Sleeping rough? Drugs deal? Some illicit assignation?

She shivered. It was time to go and find things out.

She closed the car door as quietly as she could, but it
still sounded loud in the empty air. She walked briskly, as if she had purpose.

What weapons, she couldn’t help thinking. A stun gun? What
was
a stun gun, really?

She stopped short, her heart hammering.

A Taser.

That had to be it, she thought in triumph. A Taser! David
was electrocuted, wasn’t he? People reported deaths from Tasers all the time.

Triumph temporarily over-rode her fear. It
had
to be
a Taser.

She continued on, but with more caution. If this was the
scrap yard where Thomas was a night watchman, and he was the killer, and he was
armed, then she had to be very careful indeed.

She came to the high, locked gates. The gates were solid
metal but they were flanked by a chain-link fence and she peered through to the
yard beyond. It was lit only by orange street lights and there were strange,
shadowy piles that rose like mountains in the distance. Nearer to her was one
of those cabins on legs that were supposed to be temporary, but judging by the
state of it, it had been in place for decades. One of the windows was boarded
up but the other showed light from behind more mesh.

This could be where Thomas worked, she thought. She stayed
by the fence, looking in, wondering what she really wanted to see.

It looked like a horrible place to work. And she doubted
that it paid very much. Yet his wife, Eleanor, oozed high standards. It wasn’t
going to be cheap to keep a woman like that in the manner she expected; hadn’t
Agatha hinted as much?

Eleanor didn’t seem overly enamoured with living in Upper
Glenfield, either. Thomas had been an international traveller, once; he’d been a
close protection officer. That sounded super-sexy and very glamourous and
attractive. Back then – yes, Penny could quite see how Eleanor would have
fallen for him.

And now? Working nights here, or a scrap yard just like it?

The farm was worth a great deal of money, she thought. Was
Thomas named in the will? That would certainly give him motive…

She hung onto the fence, her fingers curling around the
wire as she stared and thought. She had to find out about the will. Weren’t
they listed somewhere? She doubted there was public access to such things but
she wasn’t quite sure. A public records office? Or was that just for births,
marriages and deaths?

She played out a tempting scenario in her mind: she would
sneak into the scrap yard (somehow, though the actual details of how she’d
manage that were hazy) and enter the security cabin, which would be empty yet
unlocked (again, for reasons unknown). Thomas – for she would be at the correct
workplace – would have nipped off somewhere. A call of nature, perhaps. There
on the desk would be a copy of the will that he just happened to be reading. At
work. Like it was a normal thing to do. Then she’d take a snap of it with her
smartphone and escape home, undetected. She saw it play out with the gloss of a
movie.

It was a satisfying chain of events that spurred her on to
making her move. Penny began to walk sideways, away from the locked gate,
hunting for some gap in the fence. At the corner, she thought that she could
see a bad join between two panels. She began to prise at it.

Light flared all around her, and she was disorientated
until she realised it was coming from a flashlight behind her, making her own
shadow loom up large in front of her face. She whipped around, which was a
mistake, because now she was blinded from staring right into the torch’s full
beam. She pressed back against the fence and blinked rapidly.

“Who are you?” a man’s voice demanded roughly, interspersed
with some rich and fruity language. She’d heard it all before but it wasn’t
pleasant. “What are you doing here? Who are you?”

“Hi!” she said, brightly, as if she was out on an afternoon
shopping. “I’m Penny. I’m … er … wondering if Thomas Hart works here?”

The flashlight moved to the side and was angled to the
ground now, but all she could see was a dark silhouette. “It’s none of anyone’s
business,” he said.