Small Town Suspicions (Some Very English Murders Book 3) (16 page)

Not many others were going.
She pushed her way through the crowd, toward the exit at the front of the hall.

Ginni was standing on the
front steps, staring down the road at the retreating figure of her nephew.

“Ginni, I just want to say
that I’m so–”

Penny didn’t get to finish
her sentence. All she wanted to say was that she felt sorry for Steve. But
Ginni whirled around, her reddened eyes narrowed.

“Don’t,” she hissed, and
turned away, presenting a broad padded shoulder.

Penny swallowed her words,
and passed by quickly.

* * * *

She walked south out of
town. She wanted to talk to Barry again, but this time, not about Alec.

Barry and Steve had been
drinking together on the night that Alec had died. Barry and Steve, Steve and
Barry; any which way that she put the pairing together, it didn’t make sense to
her. Barry was nearly ten years older than Steve. They weren’t typical friends.
As one grew older, she had found that age differences between friends mattered
less, but when you were in your early twenties, it seemed to count for more.

Barry was a labourer. Steve
was a university graduate.

They were both local,
though. As Drew had often pointed out to her, she wasn’t aware of the family
links and connections that the more settled residents took for granted. So
perhaps there was something she was missing.

As she walked, she
remembered something that Francine had told her. She’d seen Steve act in a
volatile and over-the-top manner in the market. At the time, Penny had
dismissed it.

Maybe Steve really was a
hot-head. He couldn’t control himself; he had issues. It now looked likely.

The tape was totally gone
from the entrance to Alec’s property. She crunched up the gravel drive and had
only got halfway before she was beset by the two Staffies. The squat,
broad-chested dogs thundered towards her, mouths open in wide daft grins.

“Hey, Bob. Hey, Cassandra.
What have I got for you?” Penny found some stray kibble in her pockets and
threw a scattering to the dogs, who leapt upon the dry food eagerly.

“What you feeding to my
dogs? Bribery, is it, ha ha?”

“Hi, Barry.” Penny hadn’t
noticed him at first. He was standing in his garden with a can of beer in his
hand. His white vest was grubby, and he was wearing shabby shorts. By his feet
was a pile of weeds, and a wheelbarrow lay on the rough lawn behind him.

“Hi. You came round before,
didn’t you, with that other one?”

“Yeah. I’m Penny.”

“I remember.”

“Doing some gardening?”

“If you can call it that,
yeah. I ain’t much for it, like, but I do a bit. I ain’t too sure what are
weeds and what are plants, though. Have you come to see me, or me dogs, then?”

“Oh, the dogs, definitely.”
Penny crouched down and fussed both dogs for a short while.

“Well, they are better
company than me, ha ha.”

She stayed petting the dogs,
but looked up at him. He clutched his can of beer to his belly like a talisman.
“Barry, I wanted to talk to you about Steve.”

His eyebrows shot up. “I
thought you was going to say Alec.”

She shook her head. “We
spoke about Alec last time. I know you didn’t get on, and I’m not going to
bother you about him. No.” She drew in a deep breath. “You’ll hear about this
soon enough, anyway, but Steve has had a bit of a meltdown in the public
meeting about the Sculpture Trail.”

“What, just now, like?”

“Yeah. He got very angry and
ran off.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. And anyway, I
thought, as a friend of his, you would want to know.”

Barry rolled his beer can
between his hands but didn’t say anything.

Penny tickled one of the
dogs under the chin, and he rolled over to present his belly for a rub. “Is
this one Bob?”

“Yup.”

She obliged Bob’s demands,
and said, “You and Steve are friends, aren’t you? I hope I haven’t got the
wrong end of the stick.”

“Nah, he’s an all right sort
of kid, yeah. Yeah, your next question is gonna be, was he here that night Alec
was killed? Yes, he was. I already told the police that. We were chilling out
with a few drinks and that.”

“Right. And does he tend to
fly off the handle quite quickly, usually?”

Barry shrugged. “Couldn’t
say. It’s not like I ever pushed him to get angry, is it?”

“Is the Sculpture Trail causing
him a lot of stress? People do react strangely when they’re worried.”

Barry shrugged again. “Nah,
still couldn’t say. We never talked about it.”

“Right.” Penny waited.

“I reckon, though, if he
were stressed and all, it were probably more to do with uni and his family and
all that.”

Bingo,
thought Penny. She tried not to sound too eager for
more information.
Play it cool
, she reminded herself.
Like Cath would
.
“Oh? I imagine, then, he’s glad to have finished his studies.”

“Finished,” Barry said, “but
not completed.”

“I beg your pardon?” Penny’s
hand was still, now, on Bob’s round belly and he was squirming around on his
back to encourage her to continue. She ignored him. “Do you mean…”

Barry looked away into the
middle distance. “Ah, I shouldn’t have said anything, and that. But yeah. He
never did graduate and that’s gonna be on his mind, because no one else knows
about that. Keep it under your hat, eh? Don’t you be letting on that I said
anything. Or I’ll set Bob on you, ha ha.”

“And he is truly a ferocious
beast,” Penny acknowledged as the little bull terrier got to his feet and shook
himself all over. “Don’t worry. My lips are sealed. It explains a lot about
Steve, though. I do feel for him. He’s not finding all this very easy, is he?”

“Nope, he ain’t. People need
to get off his back a bit.”

Penny stood up and massaged
her knees. “He doesn’t do himself any favours by flying off the handle, though.
You might want to chat to him about that.”

“Maybe. We just talk about
dogs and stuff, really. Man stuff.”

Penny rolled her eyes at him
but he shrugged at her, and took a swig of his beer. “Well, I’ll let you get on
with your gardening. Thank you for talking to me, though.”

“S’all right. Don’t see a
right lot of folks down this end. Mostly scared off by Alec, and now by Alec’s
ghost no doubt. It would be just like the miserable old so-and-so to linger
around like a spirit, ha ha.”

“You don’t miss him much,
then?”

“Nah,” Barry said. Suddenly
a thought occurred to him. “Hey, I ain’t a suspect, am I?”

“You’d have to ask the
police that,” Penny said. She thought,
is he a suspect? He can’t be ruled
out.

“What about Steve? Cos he
was here with me, wasn’t he? We’re abil … alibs for each other.”

“Alibis, yes. I don’t know
if either you or Steve are suspects. But neither of you have been arrested,”
she added, “so that’s a good sign, right?”

“Hmm.” Barry rubbed Bob’s
head and then looked around for Cassandra, who was busy dragging the careful
pile of weeds to pieces. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Penny waved goodbye and
walked home, thoughtfully.

Was Barry really a
serious suspect?

And Steve?

She was growing ever more
suspicious of Steve Llewellyn.

On Wednesday morning, Penny took Kali out for a walk
through town. Kali’s reactions to other dogs were so much better, but Penny
still went out armed with lots of tasty treats to keep Kali conditioned to the
idea that other dogs meant yummy food was going to happen. She decided to take
her through town because it was good for the dog to visit new places, or places
she hadn’t been to for a while. They turned left at the crossroads and headed
north towards some new estates, and then doubled back and along a street that
ran parallel to the High Street. She came out on the other end of town, and
began to work back to the centre again.

She passed by the industrial units where Drew still had his
blacksmith’s workshop. He had said that he’d keep it on for a while, as he had
enjoyed ornamental ironwork as a hobby. She wondered if he had finally let it
go yet. He was so busy with work.

Next to that was the old fuel station and car repair place,
Alf’s Garage. She’d never been to it. The petrol was far cheaper at the larger
petrol station on the roundabout to the north of town where the bypass swung
around. It was open twenty-four hours and was a national chain. Alf’s, by
contrast, was a run-down concrete structure with two pumps and a ramshackle
shed on the side which claimed to offer bargain MOTs.

There was also a hosepipe which declared itself, somewhat
optimistically, to be a car wash. There was a white van being cleaned, and when
she caught a glimpse of ragged hair as the man bent down on the far side, she
slowed her pace.

Yes, it was Steve. The van was plain white but the rear
doors had a small floral design and a phone number painted on them.

Kali strained forward, her tail wagging. She was keen on
water. She was keen, that is, on trying to bite water. She would spend all day
chasing a hose pipe if you let her. Penny wasn’t sure if it was healthy, or
some strange doggy obsessive disorder.

Steve stood up and saw them looking at him. He snarled and
began to turn away. Penny made a snap decision, and dropped Kali’s lead.

The over-enthusiastic dog bounded over to Steve, all
flapping ears and flailing tail and foaming mouth, launching herself at the end
of the hosepipe.

“Oh no!” Penny said with all the fake horror of a 1960’s
B-movie. “Kali, come back!”

Kali had no intention of coming back, especially as her
finely tuned ears knew the difference between the sound of a strict order and
the more usual conversational stream of words that she generally ignored,
filtering only for the word “food” hidden in there.

Steve turned the hose so that the jet of water was directed
at the floor, rather than hit the dog. Kali thought he was playing with her,
and pounced on the bubbling stream, immediately getting soaked through. Steve
was horrified.

“It’s not my fault,” he began saying as Penny reached the
scene of watery devastation.

“I know, I know. Totally my fault. Don’t worry. She loves
water. Don’t you, you big monkey, hey, hey?”

“You let go,” Steve said. He still sounded belligerent and
Penny knew he was simply expecting a fight.

He assumed he was going to be blamed
, she thought.

“I did. She is so strong! Well, never mind. She’s happy
now. I’m sorry she disturbed you. She didn’t scare you, did she?”

Steve grimaced. “No. I wouldn’t be scared of no dog.”

“That’s good. Yes, I can see you’re a dog person.” She
could see nothing of the sort. He was staring at them both, unsmiling. She
continued, in a light and friendly tone, “You know, it’s amazing how many
people are scared of dogs! Especially with the way Kali looks. People cross the
road when I come along. It’s such a shame.”

“Yeah.”

“She just wants to play with you. Go on, wiggle the
hosepipe.”
I will get a smile out of you yet, you miserable boy,
she
thought.
No one can watch a sopping-wet dog play with water and not smile,
right?

Steve jerked the hosepipe slightly and Kali pounced, pawing
and biting at the water. When she looked up at them, her expression was
comical, with her wet matted fur, drooping ears and lolling tongue.

“She’ll stink your house out now,” Steve said.

“I’m used to it.”

“Right.” He splashed a little more water around and the dog
responded with an enthusiastic wag of her tail as she chased and pawed.

“Are you doing a little bit of work for your aunt?” Penny
asked while he was half-distracted.

“What? Oh, yeah. She doesn’t half obsess about this van
being spotless. She reckons it reflects on her business. I think I clean it
every other day.”

“Are you helping in the shop, too?”

“Nah. Flowers ain’t my thing. I’ve got other things to do.”

“Such as the Sculpture Trail?” Penny asked.

Steve snorted and Kali looked up in surprise in case she’d
done something wrong. He was more in tune than Penny had anticipated. He
apologised to the dog, and flicked more water her way. “All sorts of stuff,” he
said. “I’ve got the rest of my life to plan, you know.”

“Yes. I remember what it was like when I finished at
university. I’d studied art, like you. I was full of these ideas that I’d live
in Paris or Mexico or somewhere and eat strange foods and continue my
hedonistic student lifestyle. I was going to change the world!”

“Yeah, and did you?”

“Nope. I did get a good job with a television production
company. Well, I say good … I was at the bottom of the heap, and it was long
hours for low pay, but it was in London and I met some amazing people, and I
worked hard. And I progressed. The problem was, though, I ended up doing about
twenty-five years of working up the corporate ladder and I realised last year
that none of it had been my original aim. That’s why I gave it all up to come
here.”