Small Town Suspicions (Some Very English Murders Book 3) (22 page)

Ginni. Steve. Carl. Mandy.

It had to be one of them.

Or some of them, working together.

Didn’t it?

When Penny got back to the cottage, she was surprised to
find Francine there. Francine explained that she was taking a break, and making
lists of things to do. Later on she was planning to meet Ginni, leaving Steve in
charge at the florist’s shop.

When Penny mentioned the new development in the Alec
Goodwin case, Francine beset her with questions that she could not answer. They
resorted to the internet and discovered that poet’s narcissus was, indeed, a
type of daffodil – but that the bulb was far more poisonous than the usual
kind.

Poison, poison, poison.
Penny sat in the kitchen
while Francine made a cup of tea, and Kali skittered around, pushing her nose
into the corners and huffing in search of stray crumbs.

“Kali seems to be recovering well,” Penny said.

“Yes. I wonder what it was that made her ill?”

“So do I,” Penny said,
thinking, poison, poison, poison.

The fear gnawed at her bones, making her feel tired and
heavy. She was prepared to risk many things in the pursuit of truth, but not
her dog’s own life.

“Don’t worry,” Francine urged, plonking the mug of tea down
on the table in front of Penny. “Would you like me to take her for a walk, and
let you relax? You look like you need it.”

“Thank you. You have been so helpful. I don’t want to
impose on your good nature.”

“It’s no trouble!” Francine exclaimed. She knelt down on
the hard floor and opened her arms to Kali who trotted over in expectation of
food, or fuss, or both.

The scene was a long way from how they’d first met, with
Kali leaping out of the door to knock Francine over, the first time Francine
had come to visit.

“We love spending time together, don’t we, snuggles?”
Francine said, sniffing the top of Kali’s head. Then she stood up somewhat awkwardly.
“But she does love her mummy more.”

“I am not her mummy,” Penny said stiffly. “That’s just
weird.”

Francine looked at Kali and winked, but wisely did not
pursue it. “Seriously, it’s fine. We have fun together. It’s good for me, I
think. So you’re not imposing, all right?”

“I’m sorry. Okay, thank you for the offer, but I think I’m
going to take some time out to clear my head. You know, I’m going to do
something mad and spontaneous. Me and Kali, we’re going to go camping.”

Francine simply smiled brightly. “That sounds like a
wonderful idea!”

* * * *

Four hours later, in the late afternoon, and Penny was
starting to regret her decision, even though she’d only been walking for an
hour. She had an old rucksack and a sleeping bag, and she had managed to track
Drew down to borrow a tent from him, complete with hasty instructions on how to
put it up. He seemed amused but unsurprised by her sudden need to get away from
it all.

The rucksack’s straps dug into her shoulders, the weight
pulling on her upper bag. The waist band of the rucksack was broken and now
Penny was having flashbacks to her time in Girl Guides. Kali was oblivious to
Penny’s troubles and was scampering from side to side, delighted to be out on
an adventure.

Penny plunged on, letting her feet do the thinking for her.
She recited all the clues and suspects in her head.

A type of daffodil killed Alec.
This was a fact and
she kept returning to it. But there were other clues. What had she missed?
She’d been there from the start, after all. Right from when Steve had run into
the community hall.

She recalled what he’d said.

A van.
A van that might have been white, or might
have been red, or more likely it was a van that was dirty.

But dirty with something red?

Not blood. Think, Penny, think.

Dust.
The red Saharan dust that blew over the fens
in the summer. Yes. So it was a local van.

Ginni’s van was spotless. Steve saw to that. Or was that a
cover-up? She groaned and Kali looked up at her in surprise.

What else
, she thought, pleading with her brain to
make sense of it all.

The path she was following led into some woods. She’d
looked at a map and suggested her proposed itinerary to Drew, who had advised
her to make for this remoter spot. This small woodland didn’t have a car park
and was so less likely to have other walkers around. Even so, he had suggested
she did not pitch her tent until it was dusk.

He had also lent her his trowel, and winked.

She came into a pleasant clearing. It was no use. She had
to drop her pack and massage her aching shoulders and neck. Kali was wearing a
new harness, and Penny had tied a metal spike with a spiral base to the side of
her pack. She drove it into the ground and tethered Kali on a long line,
something she had not been able to do when Kali was wearing a head collar.

She poured a bowl of water and popped it into the shade of
a bush, and then let Kali explore the limits of her tethered freedom. Penny sat
in a sunny spot, perched on her pack, and rested her elbows on her bare knees.

What else?

Mandy, ex-criminal Mandy. The woman floated in her mind’s
eye, but all mixed up. Penny’s first sight of her had been as she was, twenty
years ago. The court case, the photographs, the artwork in Alec’s studio.

Mandy was the link.
Maybe she was the murderer, but
really? Just so that she could keep her job as a sales assistant?

Penny’s eyes were half closed as she looked into the past,
and she wasn’t watching Kali. All of a sudden, she was knocked off her
makeshift seat as Kali erupted into a torrent of angry, snarling barking. The dog
was foaming at the mouth as she leaped past Penny, and the long line caught
Penny in the middle of the back, pitching her forwards onto her knees.

“Kali!
Down!
” she yelled. Giving a positive
instruction was far more likely to get a result than simply shouting “no” – a
fact she wished she’d known from day one of dog ownership.

She shouted it again, and Kali stopped, and slowly lowered
herself to the floor, but her hair was standing up along her back. Anyone who
said that a dog couldn’t be tense while they were in a “down” position had not
seen a revved-up Rottie. Her ears were pricked, her forehead was furrowed, and
her breath was coming in sharp pants as she rolled her eyes, showing the
whites.

Penny got to her feet and brushed the dry leaves and grass
from her knees as she moved slowly and calmly towards Kali, approaching from
the side. She murmured a stream of “good girl, stay there, what a good girl” as
she worked her way to Kali.

Kali glanced up at her. Her fur was lying smooth again, and
though Penny didn’t like to assign human emotions to the dog, she did appear
somewhat sheepish.

“What set you off?” Penny said, trying not to sound cross.
She peered into the bushes.

Nothing. Nothing but a white carrier bag, caught on some
twigs. Penny walked into the undergrowth and pulled it free, balling it up so
she could take it home and dispose of it properly.

“It was a carrier bag. What did you think it was?” Penny
said to Kali.

Kali licked her lips and looked away.

“Oh, daft thing. It’s all right,” Penny said, and knelt
beside her to give her a reassuring fuss. Kali rolled, stiff-legged, onto her
side, presenting her belly for a rub. All was forgiven.

Penny pushed the rubbish into a side pocket on her rucksack
and then sat on it again. She was still thinking about Mandy, and the paintings
that Alec had done of her.

Mandy, who twenty years ago had looked like Francine did
now.

Francine, who had gone to see Alec but he hadn’t answered
the door.

Alec, who was quite possibly not entirely stable in his
mind, living in a lonely spot and avoiding company.

Penny tried to picture those events in her head. Francine
went to see Alec on Thursday night. Had he thought it was Mandy? Had it
triggered some strange flashback? Certainly, on Friday, Alec had gone to see
Reg and that’s when he’d asked to track “Amanda Fredericks” down, not knowing
that she had changed back to her maiden name. And then he’d spoken with Carl,
and Carl had given Alec the contact details for Mandy.

And Mandy had confessed, eventually, that she and Alec had
met up.

He would have seen, by then, that Mandy was much changed.
He would have known, by then, that Francine’s visit was nothing to do with
Mandy or the past.

Reactions,
Penny thought, opening her eyes and
staring directly at the now-slumbering dog.
We react on what we see,
viscerally, without thought or logic, don’t we? I wonder if Alec had reacted
like that, prompting a night of painting and art, going over the past, the
court case, Mandy and Carl.

Had Alec and Mandy had an affair?

Yet Alec’s evidence had convicted Mandy.

Penny got up and undid her bag, fishing around until she
could pull out a flapjack and a banana. She sat back down, on the grass this
time, her legs straight out in front of her. Kali wandered over and flopped
down with a groan and a sigh, leaning along Penny’s legs.

Mandy had confessed to gambling. Had she taken part in the
robbery to pay her gambling debts?

Something was still not adding up.

Mandy seemed like a “normal” woman. How
did
such an
average woman end up being part of a criminal gang?

* * * *

Penny slept surprisingly well. The tent didn’t collapse,
she didn’t freeze to death, and she found the perfect spot to use Drew’s
trowel.

She woke too early as the birds ramped up with an
incredibly noisy dawn chorus and the sun made the inside of the tent into a
furnace very quickly.

Kali was lying at the entrance to the tent, in the small
porch area, her head poking out under the flap so that Penny could only see her
body and wagging tail. Penny reached over, still sitting in her sleeping bag,
and unzipped the tent fully. Kali simply rolled out onto the grass.

Penny had packed cold food for her own breakfast and Kali’s
usual dry kibble. They ate sitting together, and Penny felt calmer, but no
closer to the answer of who killed Alec Goodwin.

What did the others think?
She knew, from her last
conversation with Francine, that she still thought Barry might be the culprit,
although she no longer thought Steve was in on the act. Steve was a golden boy
for her, now, which in itself made Penny suspicious of him. Penny thought he
was responsible for trashing the Sculpture Trail, in a fit of anger.

Penny’s heart pulled her back to Mandy, or Carl.

Or Mandy and Carl.

For both had lied.

She sighed. “Time to pack up and head home, Kali.”

Who knows
, she thought.
Maybe it would have all
changed while I was out here. And there’s a week until the Summer Fair and the
grand opening of the Sculpture Trail. Maybe my time would be better spent in
helping Francine and Ginni, not pointlessly pursing this case.

She stopped as she was pulling up a tent peg.

If I don’t pursue it, the police will eventually drop it,
and who will be mourning poor Alec Goodwin?

I have to continue.

It felt like she’d just committed to pushing a boulder up
an endless hill for the rest of her life.

Francine was out when Penny got back to the cottage.
Because of her early start camping, it was not yet ten o’clock but she was
ravenously hungry. Her belly was trying to tell her it was lunchtime already.

Penny went out to the garden, trying to distract herself by
drawing some flowers. She’g got no further than sketching out a few broad
leaves when her mobile phone rang. It was Ariadne; Penny had stored the number
when her sister had called the previous time and she hadn’t recognised it.

“Hi!” Penny said happily as she answered.

Ariadne did not sound quite so happy.

“What did you send me flowers for?”

“Er … to say hi. And I kind of got the impression you might
be going through a bit of a bad time,” Penny said. “They were to cheer you up.”

“A bad time? You have no idea. What use are flowers to
someone having a bad time?”

“They look nice.”

Ariadne swore under her breath. “You must have really nice,
simple bad times if they can be changed with a pretty bunch of flowers.”

Penny had little patience for her sister’s spite. She never
had. She snapped. “Right, okay, I won’t send you flowers again. Got it. Did you
ring me up to tell me how bad an idea it was? Or have you anything else to tell
me?”

“Like what?”

Penny rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Well, I don’t know,
do I? Or else I would not be asking.”
Aargh.
She made a face at Kali,
who ignored her.

There was a silence on the other end of the line. Penny
waited.

And waited.

Eventually, she said, in a much softer tone, “Ariadne,
you’re crying. I can hear you. I am so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Like what?”

Oh, don’t let’s start this up again.
“Seriously,”
Penny said. “Anything. You have my number and my address, now, from the
delivery card. I know we … I know
I
haven’t always been the best sister,
and I am sorry. Can I help you? I have some spare money.”

“I don’t think it’s a question of money.”

“Is it the kids? Are they all right?”

“You know what the problem is,” Ariadne said bitterly. “You
always knew. And my goodness, you let me know that you knew.”

“It’s Owen, isn’t it?”

Ariadne snorted but it became a muffled sob once more.
“Penny… I don’t know what to do.”