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

Francine’s mouth closed and opened. “Alec Horatio Goodwin,”
she said.

“How do you know that?”

“He’s a famous sculptor. He lives here in Upper Glenfield.
Surely you know that!”

Now Penny was as curious as Francine had been. “Since when
were you into sculpture?” Penny and Francine had worked together on television
productions in London, but Francine had never seemed the cultural type.

“Since I moved here, and did some research about the
personalities of the local area,” Francine said.

“
Moved
here?”

Even sweet Francine could pick up on Penny’s tone. Her
smile wavered. “Well, you know what I mean. Anyway. I am sure Kali would love a
walk! Walkies! Walkies, Kali, walkies!” Her voice rose higher and higher, and
Kali remained pressed to Penny’s leg, her brow furrowed and ears pricked
forward.

“She would love a walk,” Penny said. “I’ll just go grab her
lead.”

“Oh, let me.” Francine darted back into the hallway and
picked the lead off the hook behind the door. She passed it to Penny and said,
“And I’ll just go fetch my shoes, and –”

Penny clipped the lead to Kali’s collar and began to
retreat as if she hadn’t heard Francine. She had. And she felt like a terrible
person. But she desperately needed some space.

“I won’t be long,” she trilled with a falsely cheerful
voice. “I may as well make the most of this lovely evening. See you soon!”

* * * *

She
had
to walk along South Road, in the direction
of Alec Goodwin’s house. She was driven to it. She didn’t even pretend to
herself that it was anything other than pure, naked curiosity on her part.

The light was fading but she wasn’t worried, even when the
sparse street lights petered out. It would not be full dark for some time yet,
and the three-quarter moon was already rising. Kali stopped to sniff the new
and exciting clumps of grass that she hadn’t ever sniffed before, and her tail
wagged in delight from time to time when she discovered something particularly
rank and smelly. Penny didn’t like to look too closely.

She was going to have a proper sit-down chat with Francine,
she decided. She didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but it was time for her to
leave.

She wasn’t entirely clear on why Francine had come.
“Manifesting one’s destiny” sounded like something you’d say to yourself rather
than a painful truth. There had to be more to it, and it was one reason why
Penny was treading carefully. On the one hand, she needed to let Francine
reveal her real reasons in her own time.

But on the other hand, Penny wanted her cottage back.

Penny tried out various scenarios in her head, but they all
seemed to end with Francine in floods of tears.

Her mind was so pre-occupied with the right course of
action that she didn’t notice Kali was stressed out about something until the
dog lunged forward, dragging the lead from her hands. With a wild yelp, she
plunged into a hedge, her tail thrashing from side to side.

“Kali! No!” she yelled, and then remembered the positive
training she was supposed to be doing.
Tell the dog what you do want, not
what you don’t.
“Kali - sit!”

The dog’s tail thrashed once more and her hindquarters disappeared
into the foliage.

“Kali! Come here!” Penny
stopped and took a step back. She had to keep her voice calm and upbeat, she
reminded herself. Kali was a much better behaved and more relaxed dog these
days, but she had a long way to go yet before she’d win any prizes at a
behaviour class. Penny should have noticed the warning signs; it was her own
fault, and directing anger at the dog was pointless. Dogs did dog things. Penny
was still learning about dog training. She knew she had to sound happy. After
all, as the knowledgeable man in the rambling group had told her, who would run
towards someone who sounded angry?

It made sense. Penny could
see that there was only a field of crops on the other side of the hedge, so she
wasn’t worried about Kali wreaking havoc upon livestock. “Kali! I have lots of
yummy treats,” she announced in a sing song voice. “Come here, Kaliiiiiiii.
Come on, girl. Let’s go!”

There was a rustling, a
growl, some scuffles and then a black nose pushed through the hedge, followed
by the rest of the dog. She looked sheepishly to the floor, expecting to be
berated and shouted at. She was a rescue dog, with an unpleasant past, and her
submission to humans always broke Penny’s heart.

“Oh, come here,” Penny said,
dropping to her knees. She fished around in her pocket for a soft treat. Her
hands smelled of tripe most of the time, these days. There was also a smudge on
the thighs of most of her walking trousers, where she’d constantly wipe her
hands clear of dog drool.

Kali looked at Penny
sideways and licked her lips in nervousness, but when she caught the scent of
the meaty snack, she perked up and licked her lips in genuine anticipation. As
soon as she was close enough, Penny gave her the treat and lots of reassuring
petting. There was no point in telling her off now; she wouldn’t connect the
punishment with what had gone on just a few moments previously.

“What was all that about?”
Penny mused. Then she spotted the ragged remnants of a white carrier bag in the
hedge. It made sense. Kali hated them and would still flinch when anyone walked
past her carrying a similar bag.

“Come on, you. Happy now?”

Kali looked up, mouth open
and tongue lolling.

Dogs lived in the moment,
and it was a fine pattern to follow.

* * * *

It was easy to find the
right house. After all, there was a rather obvious police cordon outside. There
was a police car parked up on the grassy verge, a police van on the verge
opposite, and blue and white tape stretched across the gateway that was flanked
by high hedges.

She recognised PC Patel who
was standing by the tape. He blanched slightly when he saw her, but he quickly plastered
a professional smile on to greet her.

“Good evening, Ms May.”

“Hi, there. Um. Look. About
that biscuit I gave you, all those months ago. I’m sorry. I never got the
chance to apologise for ever-so-slightly poisoning you…”

“No, no, no. It’s fine. It’s
all forgotten.”

She grinned. “If I had known
you were here, I would have brought you a cake to say sorry properly…”

A female voice spoke sternly
from behind PC Patel. “Stop teasing my constable.”

“Cath! Sorry. I should call
you DC Pritchard. You’re all official.”

“I am.” Cath Pritchard
grinned back. She was in plain clothes, just a smart dark trouser suit that was
well fitted to her matronly figure. “I wondered how long it would take for you
to turn up.”

“Well, as I was of such
assistance last time, I thought my presence would be welcomed.”

“Not with the dog, I’m
afraid. Hello, Kali.”

“I’m just here to look,”
Penny said.

“Of course, and I think that
you can, at least from a distance. I think the Inspector’s special dispensation
from last time was never revoked, was it? Not officially revoked, as it was
never officially given. It’s just that we have our own dogs working part of the
area, though.” Cath nodded at Kali. “She can stay with PC Patel. You like dogs,
don’t you?”

“I
tolerate
dogs,” he
said stiffly. “I prefer cats.”

“She’s friendly,” Penny
said, holding out the lead to the young policeman. “I know she’s a Rottweiler
but she does love people. Generally. Just don’t wave a white carrier bag at
her, that’s all.”

PC Patel looked startled but
took the lead, and Penny ducked under the blue and white tape, following Cath
along a neglected and weed-strewn gravel driveway.

Penny was bursting with
questions, but she managed to bite her tongue. She looked around for a moment, absorbing
what she saw, wanting to get a feel for the place where Alec had lived. Ahead
of them was a square, boxy house in red brick, with a door in the dead centre
and two windows either side. Upstairs were two more windows. The wooden frames
had blue paint, peeling and cracked. It looked just like a child’s drawing of
what a house should be. All it needed was a smiling yellow sun hanging above
it.

“I’m surprised,” Penny said.
“It looks really small.”

“It is,” Cath said.
“Everyone thought he was a rich genius, but really, he was neither rich nor …
well, I don’t rate his art. I suppose you heard about all this while you were
at the Sculpture Trail meeting? We’ve had lots of busy-bodies come nosing down
here in the past hour.”

“Yeah. A young man called
Steve burst in. He’s Ginni the florist’s nephew. Everyone’s talking about why
he was here in the first place, and why he ran away.”

“It is a bit strange, why he
was here. But as for running off – that’s normal. People panic and act in all
sorts of ways.”

Penny paused. “He also
mentioned there was a van here as well as a car. Where is it?” She could only
see a car, a small hatchback.

“There wasn’t any van here. That’s
Alec’s little car, there. Did he give a description of the van?”

“Not really. He said it was
red, then changed his mind and said it was white.”

“That,” said Cath, “sounds
very suspicious. But he was in a panic when he made the call. It has freaked
him out a lot, from what I hear. He can have some counselling, if he likes, at
some point.”

They walked around the side
of the house, and Penny saw there was a single-storey building at the far end
of the long, overgrown garden. The building was made from prefab concrete
sheets, and had a tin roof. It looked like the emergency housing the government
had encouraged to be built after the second world war, but those structures
were never intended to be used for more than ten years. The grey walls had dark
patches blooming across them, and it didn’t look very safe or appealing. It was
bordered by a plain chain-link fence, six feet high, and it had the whiff of a
prison about it. Somewhere, a dog was barking. Penny turned back to look at the
main house. They were now standing on a green and cracked patio.

“This is his studio,” said
Cath, and she waved at a long room like a conservatory that was tacked onto the
back of his house. Like the windows and doors, the main framework was built in
wood, and it seemed to be single-glazed. “What do you know about the deceased?”

“Not a lot,” Penny
confessed. “And what I do know, I only learned today at the meeting. He was
called Alec Goodwin, he was a sculptor, Francine thinks he was famous, and he
kept himself to himself. He probably didn’t eat squirrels. Oh, and he was found
dead by Steve.”

“He was found over there,”
Cath said, and pointed to a screened-off area. It was on the edge of the lawn,
where the patio ended.

Penny’s flesh tingled. “Oh.
Is he still … behind there?”

“No, he’s gone off for all
the usual tests and so on. But the forensics bods are behind that screen, doing
their wizardry, so you can’t go there. We’re not sure if the death is
suspicious, yet, to be honest, but we can’t take any chances until we know for
sure.”

“What’s in that place behind
the fence? That shed,” Penny asked.

“A man called Barry Neville
lives there. He rents it from Alec Goodwin.”

“Wow. Someone
lives
there? Is that even legal? It looks like it’s going to fall down. This Alec guy
wasn’t much of a landlord, was he?”

Cath shook her head. “He
wasn’t much of a homeowner, full stop. Come into the studio. Touch
nothing
.”

They stepped off the patio,
and into the long conservatory. The lights were on, and moths were buzzing
around. It smelled of turpentine and oils and wood and glue, and stirred
Penny’s happy memories of her art student days. She inhaled deeply. “Aah.”

Cath looked at her in
horror. “Urgh, more like.”

Penny ignored her. She
walked slowly through the chaos and debris of a working artist’s studio,
itching to open the cupboards and flick through the sketchbooks. “He wasn’t
just a sculptor, was he?” she said. There were canvases, stretched over wooden
frames, stacked up against a wall, some as tall as she was. Palettes with
caked-on paint littered a long bench along one wall. Everywhere there were
stained mugs and cups with brushes sticking out of them. There was also a table
with clay figures laid out to dry on boards. They seemed to be animal shapes,
but stylised and simple, reminding her of the bold forms of Brancusi and even
Henry Moore. She liked them more than his paintings, which were dark, and had
great slashes of red and black across them.

“No,” Cath said. “You’re
right. He did all kinds of art.” She came to stand next to Penny as they both
contemplated his current work. It was a large square canvas mounted on an
easel.

“And did he make his living
selling this stuff?” Penny asked.

“I think so. We don’t know
much about him. Hopefully you and your gossip-radar can pick up on some
information around the town. I do know he used to be a courtroom artist, but he
came here years ago and has lived in seclusion ever since, all alone, but for
Barry out there in that shack with his dogs.”