The Flower Girls (8 page)

Clatter!

Poppy heard the penny drop into the slot loud and clear. She felt a little sorry for the policemen, and she wandered towards them.

Seth continued. “Other than that, my staff can verify my movements, as well as Miss Lord.”

“I
do
thank you for all your efforts,” she said quietly. “I really, really do.”

They nodded at her, gave Seth a rather conciliatory look and made to leave without saying anything else.

It was Seth who forestalled them. “However, I have no objection to your going over my vehicles. I took the Range Rover to the station and left it there while I was away. As far as I know the other car hasn’t been used… Poppy, did you use a car?”

“No…I don’t know about Mrs. C…”

“She sometimes uses the little green car but more often than not she takes her own. However, do feel free to ask her. I want this bastard caught as much as you.”

Chapter 9

Poppy leapt awake. The movement was so violent she almost bounced off the bed. Her heart was thudding away. Reaching for the lamp, she closed her eyes against the flooding light.

What had happened? Had she been dreaming, was it a nightmare? No, it was something that haunted her mind. The realization that her sister was dead burst into her consciousness, and she sank back against the pillow. Her hand soothed her throbbing heart. “It’s all right,” she counseled herself but it was no use. It wasn’t all right. It was worse than a nightmare. The reality of Jasmine’s death was heartbreaking.

Yet it was not only that. There was something else. Something disturbing, it nagged at the back of her mind. What was it?

She turned over onto her side, then after a moment or two spun back again. Parched, she staggered from the bed. Once in the bathroom she took up a glass, filled it with water and drank greedily. Her reflection showed a woman with plump dark purple bags beneath her eyes. Those eyes looked smaller, as if shrunk by the tears she’d shed. Her sister was dead. The thought that she’d moaned about her to anyone who’d listen, that she’d fretted about the life that Jasmine lived and felt anger and at times despair of Jasmine ever doing something normal, seemed horrid now. She should just have loved her sister for what she was and not condemned the girl for not being what she, Poppy, wanted her to be.

“Champagne and cider,” she muttered. “That’s what we were, Jasmine champagne of course, bright and bubbly and restless. But what am I, dull and ordinary, wanting everything to be tidy and neat and with purpose.” Miserably, Poppy slumped back into the bedroom. Under the duvet her mind spun around like a whirlpool. Something was in there and she couldn’t quite rescue it. She closed her eyes, trying to relax, stretching out her legs, letting her arms and hands go limp but it didn’t work. Nothing worked. And then it came to her and it was so shocking she gagged.

* * * *

The house was silent. It was very early, just turned six a.m. Quietly she snuck into the library. Seth’s papers were there, neatly piled just as she’d left them. She flicked through his written pages she’d typed only yesterday, finding what she wanted in chapter three. A battered, bloody body of a woman had been discovered in a remote area in Devon. Naked, the back of the head beaten to a pulp. The main character said, “Someone must have really hated this woman.”

“Oh God,” Poppy said and moaned softly. It was all here and it wasn’t fiction, there was too much of a coincidence, surely. The description was sickening, even typing it had turned her stomach. It was too real. This couldn’t be happening. Jasmine had been more than miserable—she was frightened. Terrified perhaps. Poppy remembered her telling her sister how she couldn’t come right away. That she had things to arrange. She hadn’t been able to just drop everything and get over here; if she had then Jasmine might be—

“Poppy, what are you doing?”

Seth stood in the doorway. He looked calm and composed, his face showing no sign of the agony she knew her tear-ruined eyes showed.

“No…nothing,” she managed. Her throat swelled with saliva, she wouldn’t be able to speak. Her desire to run away was uppermost in her thought but she knew she mustn’t.

“Nothing? You don’t
look
like you’re doing nothing; you look as guilty as sin.” He came deeper into the room.

Stay calm,
she cautioned herself,
there’s nothing he can do to you in this house.

Mrs. Carrington would soon be around. But what if the surly housekeeper was in on it, what if they
all
were?

Hey,
a small part of her piped up,
aren’t you getting to be just a tad hysterical and allowing an overactive imagination to take you where there’s no need to go? He has an alibi and you are being ridiculous, girl.

“I was looking at something, something I typed yesterday.”

“Really.” Seth, with deceptive quietness, had reached her side. He glanced down. The sheet of a paper with the terrible scene was there. He read it easily and after he had he sighed.

“Poppy, do you think that real? That I took Jasmine out on the moor, killed her brutally and then came back and wrote about it?”

Words wouldn’t come to her. Blankly she stared at him. She thought of what a divorce could mean; it could be costly to him. Rob him of all he loved. After all she knew that Jasmine liked money. She would have no conscience about taking him for every penny she could. She hated even thinking it but it was the truth. It was imperative she didn’t shrink from the truth.

Seth pushed a hand through his hair and then said, “I guess that would really be giving it away, wouldn’t it? And I wrote this months ago, Poppy, even before Jasmine went missing. It was over between us and I felt nothing for her. There was madness in her death, jealousy, rage; she couldn’t even stir up anger in me anymore. We both made a mistake in marrying; divorce is easy these days, Poppy. But I’m disappointed you could even think that I’d do something like that to any woman, let alone a woman who’d been my wife.”

And with that he turned and stalked out of the room. He closed the door softly behind him.

Urgently she chased him, opening the door and calling his name. He was in the passage and seemed like he’d storm through the front door and out of her life forever.

“I’m sorry, I…you have to understand, I can’t believe all of this.”

He stopped. Standing perfectly still, his back towards her, he said, “And you think
I
can, Poppy. You think I can understand why any man would bash her head in, destroy her beautiful face. Leave her out there all alone…” His strong shoulders sagged; he was carrying the world on his shoulders, even his middle bent under the strain. Ploughing the distance between them, she put her arms around him as if she could pull him up straight.

“I’m sorry, Seth. Believe me I don’t believe you could do that… I don’t know anyone who could.”

He straightened, leaning back against her and then slowly turning to gather her in his arms.

“If only she’d talked to me. If we hadn’t rowed every time our paths crossed.”

“Seth…” She held him.

“I didn’t want to throw her out like used rubbish. I wanted her to go, but of her own free will, but she hung on in here. She hated it but she wouldn’t go and she would never say why.”

“Maybe there was nowhere for her to go, not until I came. Maybe that was why she wanted me here, to help her rebuild her life. But some lunatic got there first.”

“But who was that lunatic, Poppy? Which of those men she met did this?”

“Men she met? You think she met men, strangers?” Now she leaned back, staring up at him.

“I don’t know for sure but people said they’d seen her with men. People around here, they gossip. How do I know they didn’t make it up?”

“We need to find out, Seth. We can do this together…you and me and the police. Oh, never mind the police. We can piece her life together on our own. We can, can’t we?”

He sighed; his hand went up to her hair and smoothed it gently. “We can try, Poppy…”

Chapter 10

The phone rang out a long time. She thought it would be the answer-phone and then Edward answered. He sounded slightly breathless, as if he’d had to run to answer.

“It’s Poppy,” she announced.

“Yes.” He sounded cautious. The word almost a question.

“Did you hear about her, about Jasmine?”

“Yes.”

Odd, no hushed words of sympathy. The silence grew.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, Edward, but when we last talked you seemed to know where she went…
some of the time
,” she added quickly, hoping not to put him off talking to her. “I wondered if you could give me a couple of the places you’d seen her at.”

“I didn’t see her,” he said. His voice was chips of ice. “The police have been here, I don’t know why they would do that.” He sounded a little peeved.

“It wasn’t anything to do with us,” she said. “I mean Seth and me. I never mentioned you to the police, I didn’t even think about you.”

“Well someone said something. Probably that old crow, Mrs. Carrington.”

“Please help us,” she implored.

“Help us? What does that mean?”

“Seth and I, we want to know where Jasmine went. Who she met.”

“I have no idea.”

“But you must have
some
idea, Edward. Please…if you know anything, however small.”

She hated to hear herself begging him yet she knew he knew more than he was letting on.

He talked to Jasmine—she allowed him of all people to call her Jas—she’d told him they were known as the flower girls. He
had
to know something.

“Seth and I aren’t friends. Besides he was married to her, he knows where she went. He knows everything.”

“He doesn’t. Please, Edward.”

“Try the President’s Club, that’s all I know.”

“And it’s where?”

He was abrupt but he gave her the name of the city. The phone rattled down. He rang off. For some reason he was annoyed with her. He didn’t want to be involved. It wasn’t as if he were in mouring either. It was a poor attitude to this whole thing. A prickle of suspicion crept over her. Did he know more than he was saying? Of course he did.

When she found Seth to tell him, she went over Edward’s attitude. It was odd to say the least, and so different from how he’d been with her. He was chilling, offering no words of sympathy. There’d been not one iota of sympathy.

“He’s getting married. Susanna Mainwaring. Rich old family. I saw his father yesterday and he told me. That’s why he doesn’t want to be involved.”

“He said the police visited him; he more or less hinted that he thought I’d sent them.”

“
I
sent them.” Seth was abrupt.

“But you never told me you did that.”

Seth shrugged.

“I wish you’d warned me.”

“I didn’t know you were going to ask him.” Seth was abrupt again.

“But it should be obvious I would ask him. He knew a lot about Jasmine. I think he knew her more than he lets on.”

“I
know
he did,” Seth said. He was staring at her, his eyes like twin emeralds and twice as cold.

“Were they involved?”

Seth dug his hands into his trouser pockets. The material ballooned with his agitation.

“I don’t know but I would assume so, knowing Edward as I do. But now he has this prospective bride he doesn’t want anyone to know what a rogue he is.”

“Rogue? What do you mean rogue?”

“It’s a polite word for what I really think. Anyway, where is this place that your sister frequented?”

Poppy noticed that his wife had become
your sister;
it was as if he wished to distance himself from Jasmine. Yet he’d seemed so distraught when he’d heard what had happened to her. The brutality had upset him. Or so it seemed. A voice whispered in her ear.

Why do you trust this man? Why believe any word that comes from him when it’s to do with Jasmine?

Their relationship was over, and according to Jasmine it had been an unmitigated disaster. He wanted rid of her and Jasmine had hinted that she was afraid of him. Yet here she was, naïve in the extreme, trusting everything he said and did. Blinded by his attractiveness.

Now she was wishing she hadn’t told him what she’d learned. It would be easy to go alone. But she couldn’t lie to him; deceiving him would be behaving as Jasmine had. She couldn’t do that…could she? No it wasn’t in her nature; it might not do her any good but she couldn’t be a liar. Stumbling vocally, she gave him the details.

He was waiting for her to reveal more but there was no more, she just stared at him. In the end he raised his hands in a helpless gesture, turned on his heels and marched from the room. She had exasperated him and she wasn’t even sure if that were a bad thing or not.

A trawl through the yellow pages revealed a host of car hire firms. They would bring the car to her, how convenient was that? She could drive to the city alone. Perhaps it wouldn’t even be a bad thing for her to find a place in the city to live until she made up her mind what she wanted to do.

Footsteps in the hall caused her to look up—she was a little surprised to find that her heart leapt in anticipation that it was Seth coming back but it wasn’t Seth. It was Mrs. Carrington, as sour-faced as ever.

“Mr. Sanderson has said that Mr. Carrington can drive you into the city if you like. Or take you to the station. Whichever would be convenient for you.”

He’d seen through her, weirdly read her thoughts. Although they might not even be her thoughts, did she seriously wish to go alone, step into a nightclub that was probably not her scene at all, and ask strangers if they knew her sister? It was foolhardy and in the circumstances downright dangerous. Had Seth even thought about that or did he not care? She was a first class idiot, but pride wouldn’t let her back down. Besides he didn’t know it was a nightclub, she’d just named the city where Edward said Jasmine went. He knew Poppy had lived in the States; he probably thought she knew her way around. If only…

“If Mr. Carrington could take me to the station tomorrow I’d be grateful. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.”