Birthdays Can Be Murder (3 page)

Jenny shrugged her wide shoulders and returned to her notebook and the task in hand. She had, after all, a menu to prepare. And yet she felt inexplicably disturbed. It was as if something dark and heavy, something that went far beyond the accidental drowning of a young gardener, hung over the country house, just waiting to gatecrash the party.

Jenny shuddered and told herself not to be such a twit.

The Beeches boasted its own large lake – as opposed to the small ornamental pond – and where there was a lake, there were usually fish.

It took her only half an hour to find her way to the two-acre expanse of water, and as she carefully negotiated the winding track around it, she felt herself begin to relax once more. The sun sparkled on the silver-topped water and the sounds of moorhens echoed peacefully from the reed beds. There was a lone angler on the far side of the lake and she made her way towards him. It was not until she was almost upon him that the fisherman turned his head, and she realized who he must be. The bright fair hair and pale blue eyes were the same. Only the square-jawed face was different from that of his twin sister.

‘This is private property,’ Justin Greer said shortly, his voice as clipped as only Oxbridge can make it. His eyes, as they looked her over, were wide and wondering. Like most men, he was fascinated, attracted and yet unsettled by Jenny’s size and grace. Fat, according to modern society’s way of thinking, should mean obese and ugly – not unexpectedly beautiful.

‘I know,’ Jenny snapped, in no mood to pander to anybody’s ego. ‘Can you tell me what fish are stocked here, Mr Greer?’

‘Why? Thinking of doing a spot of poaching?’ he shot back, clearly amused.

‘Only in white wine sauce with capers,’ she shot back just as briskly, and finally got his attention.

Justin Greer stared at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing. ‘You can only be the fancy cook my sister has hired for the party. I hope you realize you’re about as popular around here as a flea circus at a dog show?’

Jenny smiled coolly. ‘I had noticed,’ she agreed dryly. ‘Even Martha’s cat is against me.’

‘Oh,
that
animal,’ Justin said archly, winding in his reel and watching the float come bobbing back, ‘is against
everyone
. Vera is terrified of it, as is my mother. Even Chase gives it a respectfully wide berth. Martha found it half-wild as a kitten. And it gives the postman merry hell. But besides all that, you’ve come at a very awkward time. One of our gardeners has managed to get himself drowned.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Course you do. I suppose those two CID plods are still around?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Jenny said, truthfully and gratefully.

‘Hmm. Well, I’ve had enough of their never-ending questions, I can tell you. So I thought I’d take myself off fishing and keep out of their way for a while.’

Jenny didn’t blame him. She was rather hoping to keep out of the way of the CID herself.

‘Well, er…?’ Justin said, rising an eyebrow at her.

‘Jenny Starling,’ she introduced herself with a smile.

Justin gave her another penetrating look, then began to dismantle his rod. ‘I’m sure there are plenty of fish in there,’ he nodded over the lake, ‘that could benefit from your expertise, not to mention almonds, batter and so on, but catching them is another matter. They don’t appear to be biting.’

‘What were you trying for?’ she asked as he began to stow his gear.

‘Pike.’

Pike – an excellent food fish, Jenny thought, and one that wasn’t anywhere near as popular as it should be. Of course, they were vicious. A pair of teeth with a fish attached at one end as an afterthought, as one angler of her acquaintance had memorably described them. Lean and mean and absolutely delicious if boned and cooked right. Yes, she could do with a few good pike. She glanced down at his bait and her eyebrows rose. ‘You’re after pike with bread?’ she asked, only just managing to keep the disdain from her voice. ‘For pike you need worms – and a ledger.’

For the first time Justin Greer looked at her with something other than superior disdain or reluctant lust in his eyes. As he rose, he found himself staring straight into her eyes and blinked in surprise. At six feet tall, he was used to looking down on women – both literally and figuratively. But, something told him, a man looked down on this woman at his peril. And that the peril would be considerable, and real!

‘I know that,’ he replied testily. ‘I just didn’t happen to have any worms on me,’ he groused, and patted his pockets facetiously. ‘I might try again tonight. And if I do happen to catch a few of the beggars, oh, fancy cook, then what precisely would you do with them?’

‘Bake them, of course,’ Jenny said promptly. ‘With rashers of fat bacon, butter and half a pint of tartar – or perhaps caper – sauce.’ Well aware that she was being tested, she gazed back at him steadily, and eventually Justin began to smile. He couldn’t help it.

‘Perhaps my sister knows how to throw a party after all,’ he acknowledged dryly.

‘Of course I do, brother dear.’ The voice cut across their duel of wits like the crack of a whip, and both of them jumped apart like guilty schoolchildren.

Alicia, her white dress floating around her, looked like a fairy princess as she joined them. ‘Didn’t I tell you this was going to be the best party ever?’ She linked her arm around her brother’s and gave his biceps an affectionate squeeze.

Together, the Greer siblings tended to be somewhat overwhelming, Jenny noted wryly.

‘I’m beginning to believe you,’ Justin said. ‘Miss Starling and I have been coming to an agreement.’

‘Oh?’ Alicia looked at them, a little warily, Jenny thought. ‘About what?’

‘Pike,’ Justin said.

Jenny felt like telling her not to worry. She had no intention of trying to entice her precious twin away from her.

Alicia managed to shrug nonchalantly. ‘Oh, talking about the party …’ she began, her voice cajoling and light as a feather.

Justin looked at her, one fair eyebrow lifting suspiciously. ‘Yes?’ he asked cautiously. ‘I know that tone of voice, sister mine. What are you after now?’

‘You really are a sod, Justin,’ she said archly. ‘But as it happens, I do need a new gown.’

‘What, another one?’ Justin’s tone was scandalized but indulgent. ‘You already have a wardrobe full.’

‘But I’ve worn them all once,’ Alicia said quickly. ‘Come on, Juzz, this is our party, after all, and I’ve invited all the local press. You wouldn’t want me to be seen in that Henley Regatta blue thing again, would you? Or last Ascot’s taffeta horror, hmm?’ she wheedled, her eyes laughing, and turned to Jenny for support.

‘We ladies need to keep up appearances, don’t we?’

Jenny smiled and said nothing. She had far more sense.

With an enormous sigh, Justin retrieved his wallet and extracted a credit card. ‘All right, just this once. But what happened to this week’s allowance?’

Jenny wondered how many women in third millennium Britain had to beg money from the men of the family and were indulged with an allowance. Reluctantly, and against all her better judgement, Jenny found herself beginning to feel sorry for Alicia Greer.

Not that she seemed to need it. For at that moment, Alicia was expertly tucking the card between her meagre breasts and beaming widely. ‘I had to get Keith a new solicitor,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘The old one would have let his wife get away with murder.’

Instantly, an ugly red tide of colour crept over Justin’s face. ‘You selfish cow,’ he snapped. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that Margie Harding has two children to look after? Perhaps she needs a good solicitor too. After all, lover boy is going to be all right, isn’t he, with a rich little wife to keep him in luxury?’

‘Justin, shut up!’ Alicia snapped. ‘You know Keith isn’t like that, but you’re too damned stubborn to admit it. Just because Dad got lucky and rich, you think a motor mechanic is beneath me, but he’s a better man than you. Oh!’ she broke off abruptly. For a second, Alicia stared at her twin, a stricken look on her lovely face. ‘Oh, Juzz, I didn’t mean it,’ she said quickly. Impulsively, she clutched his arm tighter and smiled tremulously. ‘You know you’re still the number one man in my life. After Daddy, of course,’ she simpered.

Jenny felt her jaw drop open in amazement. Did women still behave like this?

‘And where does that leave lover boy?’ Justin asked mockingly. ‘Number three?’

‘No,’ Alicia said, her voice suddenly cold. ‘He’s the most important thing in the world. Oh, I don’t expect you to understand,’ she went on, so condescendingly that Jenny actually winced. ‘But you understand, don’t you, Miss Starling?’ Alicia appealed, catching her completely unawares.

‘Hmm? Oh, yes, of course,’ she mumbled half-heartedly. Actually, she was thinking that melodrama like this should be damn well outlawed.

‘You’ve never been in love, Justin,’ Alicia stated as a matter of fact, turning to her twin once more. ‘That little doll you’ve pinched off poor Arbie hardly qualifies as the love of anyone’s life.’ She couldn’t resist the dig, but then, once again, seemed to immediately feel guilty. ‘Oh, Juzz, please understand. You must.’ Once again she squeezed her brother’s arm and leaned her lovely head on his shoulder. ‘I’d do anything for Keith. You’re so wrong about him, you know. Being a gold-digger, I mean. He doesn’t want me for my money, he loves me. He truly does. He even made me sell my Jaguar because he doesn’t want to be seen riding with me in it, like a kept man. Now would a man out to live the high life do that?’

The poor kid’s really head over heels, Jenny thought uneasily. In her opinion, upcoming twenty-first birthday party or not, the Greer siblings could both do with a bit more growing up!

‘So that’s why you brought that little clapped-out, secondhand junk pile, is it?’ Justin asked, obviously amused. ‘And I thought it had something to do with your gambling debts.’

‘You bastard!’ Alicia yelped, but she was already laughing. ‘Anyway, Keith’s coming to our party, and that’s that,’ she returned, straight back to the attack. ‘It’s high time everybody got used to having him around.’

Justin said nothing for a moment, but Jenny had never seen anybody look less pleased. ‘Nobody’s going to get used to your bit of rough on the side,’ he finally said, so callously and deliberately insulting that the colour, rather unsurprisingly, drained from Alicia’s beautiful face.

‘I’m not going to fight with you, big brother,’ she said after a short, painful silence. ‘You might be older than me by about fifteen minutes, but you’re still so immature it’s pathetic. But, in spite of everything, I love you, Juzzy.’

Justin seemed to be as willing to call a halt to the hostilities as his sister, it seemed, for he forced a smile onto his face. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the house.’

Alicia caught Jenny’s embarrassed eye and laughed. ‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to get used to us, Miss Starling. Justin and I fight all the time. We enjoy it! Mostly.’

Jenny shrugged. ‘It’s all right by me. I wasn’t really paying much attention anyway.’ Which was perfectly true. Family in-fighting, as a spectator sport, held about as much appeal to Jenny as going on a diet.

T
HAT AFTERNOON, JENNY
went into the village shop for some basics. As she glanced into the freezer section and eyed the rather limited range of seafood on offer, she was glad of her contacts in a little fishing village in Devon, who would be sending her order up by special courier. Expensive, of course, but it meant extremely fresh produce, very quickly delivered. But the Greers could obviously afford it, and she’d long since learned that it didn’t pay to scrape on these sorts of things.

Now, as she stood dithering in the shop and checking it out for any suspicious signs such as peeling paint, or a pool of water on the floor, she became aware of two elderly ladies bearing down on her. Stepping quickly to one side before any elbows could be poked in her ribs – for Jenny had great respect for old ladies in a hurry – she watched them pass her and descend on their prey. Their target was a harassed-looking woman with frizzy blonde hair and tired eyes, who watched their approach like a rabbit would watch a particularly hungry weasel. Jenny felt instantly sorry for her, and wondered if she’d be needed to come to the rescue.

‘Oh, Margie, there you are. We were just hoping to catch you, weren’t we, Maisie?’ the first old woman began with the opening salvo. Her equally aged friend nodded wordlessly, but with such a barely repressed smile of eagerness that Jenny wondered uneasily what petty sin the luckless Margie had committed.

‘I was saying just the other day, I’ve knitted a cardigan for Jeremy’s boy, but it’s too small! Can you imagine me doing something as silly as misjudging my own grandson’s size? Still, they grow so fast, don’t they? Anyway, so I asked Maisie, didn’t I, Maisie, if she knew anyone who had a little boy who it might fit.’

The other woman nodded again.

‘And she said that your Johnnie would be just the job. And I thought, of course, she’s right! Margie Harding’s little boy. So, you will take it off my hands, won’t you, dear? No charge, of course, it was my own silly fault for not knitting the right size.’ Maisie’s companion gave a sudden and judicious sniff and swept on remorselessly. ‘I don’t know what young men are thinking of nowadays. I really don’t. In my days, marriages were for life.’

Jenny winced.

Margie Harding smiled painfully. ‘Thank you, Mrs Haines. For the cardigan, I mean. I’m sure Johnnie will love it. But you must let me pay you for the cost of the wool, at least.’

‘Oh no, love, wouldn’t dream of it.’ Jenny watched the old women beam with pride at their good deed for the day and then hurry off, no doubt to start knitting something else for little Johnnie. There was no doubt in Jenny’s mind that they meant well and probably had no idea of the humiliation they had just caused.

Margie Harding watched the women out of sight with haunted and bitter eyes, then quickly turned and hurried out of the shop. Jenny, following more slowly, stepped into the deserted village street and looked around. The blonde-haired young mother was just turning into a small village hall. It was not, thankfully, one of those awful 1960s boxes, but an older building, obviously donated to the village by the old squire. A large sign on the tiny front lawn proclaimed that the Rousham Green Spring Jumble Sale was ‘still on’. And that more volunteers were needed to keep the village hall open until Saturday.

Jenny thought of the order of mussels, whelks and eels that she had yet to phone through to her contact in Devon, and abruptly decided that a quick visit to the jumble sale was a much more appealing idea.

Once inside the hall, she was pleasantly surprised by the quality of used goods on offer. And, from the rear of the rather dimly lit room, she could hear two women talking.

‘This is the only blouse we have with a rounded collar, Mrs Harding. But it’s not blue, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, that’s all right. I think I can dye it to the colour I need. It has to match my suit, you see. I, er, have to go and see someone about a job.’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ The volunteer who’d been roped in to ‘do’ Fridays was in fact the village’s retired schoolteacher. She was also embarrassed by Margie Harding’s obvious penury.

Did everyone in Rousham Green know everyone’s business? Jenny thought indignantly on the other woman’s behalf, then flushed at her own stupidity. Of course everyone did. No doubt Margie Harding’s erring husband was the talk of the village.

But in that, at least, she was wrong. For now there was something far juicier than unfaithful husbands to gossip about.

‘It’s such a shame about Jimmy Speight, isn’t it?’ the volunteer said in a very theatrical whisper that would have carried clear out into the street, had the door been open. ‘He was one of my ex-boys, you know. Not very academically bright, but a very nice lad, for all that.’

Margie looked up at her blankly. ‘Sorry?’

‘Oh, didn’t you know?’ the other woman gushed, hardly able to believe her luck in actually coming across someone who hadn’t heard the latest news. ‘They found Jimmy Speight dead in the pond. Up at the big house. They say he hit his head on a branch and fell in.’ The older woman nodded her blue-rinsed head self-importantly and leaned a little closer. Paradoxically, she made no attempt to lower her voice. ‘Mrs Perkins has a lad in the force, you know, and she says he told her that they found a branch in the pond floating near the body. Had blood on it, they say. And you could tell where the branch had come off one of the beech trees. That Inspector Mollineaux they’ve got out there was most particular about that, so Mrs Perkins says. He’s had an expert crawling all over the tree, apparently. The police are so clever nowadays.’

Having successfully given out her precious gems of knowledge, she straightened up and shook her head sadly. ‘Just fancy having those trees growing so close to that little bridge of theirs. And why build a bridge across a pond anyway? It was just asking for trouble, don’t you think? I’m surprised somebody hasn’t hit their heads on it and fallen in long before now. Still, accidents happen, I suppose,’ she added doubtfully.

‘Yes,’ Margie Harding agreed, her voice so small it could barely be heard.

Feeling rather annoyed at herself for letting her curiosity get the better of her, and having checked that there weren’t any skirts or blouses in her size, Jenny headed for the door. As she did so, two women made their way to a small table that was serving as a cash counter.

As Margie Harding cradled the precious blouse to her, she looked out of the window in the direction of the big house. Her eyes glittered oddly in the sunlight dabbled with dust motes.

‘I hope your job interview goes well, Mrs Harding,’ the volunteer said quietly in farewell, as she offered the blonde mother a brown paper bag containing her purchase.

Margie Harding started and then smiled.

Too wide, Jenny thought instantly. That smile’s way too bright. And for some reason, she’s lying about why she needs that blouse. Then, before she could get herself in any deeper, she walked firmly to the door and opened it. Jenny had a nasty habit, through no fault of her own, of getting caught up in other people’s problems. This time, she vowed to steer well clear of trouble.

She glanced once more at the telephone kiosk next door to the pub, her own mobile phone having been left carelessly behind at the big house. Devon still patiently waited for the rest of her seafood order. As she walked along the pavement towards the kiosk, she nearly jumped out of her skin when a squeal of brakes shrieked in the sleepy afternoon air.

She and everyone else outside abruptly stopped and looked up the road. Two young mothers collecting their offspring from the village primary school instinctively grabbed their children’s hands as an extraordinary-looking car in bottle green shot around the bend and into sight. As it screamed past and, with another squeal of brakes, turned into a tiny, single-pump garage opposite the shop, Jenny felt the heat from the machine scorch briefly across her face.

‘That bloody Justin Greer is going to come to grief one of these days,’ one of the young mothers said venomously. ‘You see if I ain’t right. He drives that Aston Martin like he’s Lewis bloody Hamilton.’

‘I know. He’ll knock some poor sod over before long. He should realize there’s old folks in this village. They ain’t as quick on their feet as us. You should hear ’em go on about it at the pub.’

‘Men!’

Jenny heartily agreed with the sentiments. Young men in sports car were a menace. Except, to be scrupulously and honestly fair, she couldn’t quite picture Justin crashing his car. Annoying though it undoubtedly was to admit it, he was one of those people who seemed able to do everything well. Which was a shame really. A good dose of humility would probably do him the power of good, Jenny mused sourly.

‘I wonder how Jean’s doing. Do you think we should go and see her?’ The first young mother abruptly changed the subject.

‘I heard the police were with her. Bernie too. They brought him home from work.’

‘It must be awful to lose a son like that. He was only seventeen, wasn’t he?’

‘I reckon he was last birthday. Mind you, they don’t know that that is his birthday. Not for sure, anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’ The second mother’s voice rose in surprise, causing her companion to put a warning hand on her arm.

‘He was adopted, wasn’t he? Bernie Speight ain’t, well, you know, quite up to it in that department.’

‘Never!’

With this latest cringe-making revelation, Jenny very quickly left the two women to their gossip. She went to the telephone, punched in the Devon area code and a certain number, and then reeled off her order to the specialist fishmonger. With promises that she would receive nothing but the best produce ringing in her ears, she left the kiosk and made straight for the pub.

After the day she was having, she needed a drink.

At that time in the afternoon the pub was about to close, since the landlord was opting not to take advantage of all-day opening laws. But a customer was a customer. As she took a stool at the bar, Jenny looked around and took inventory. No noisy slot machines but a good dartboard. Slightly uneven tiled floor, with a solid wooden bar. And best of all – no horse brasses. Against all the odds, the village pub had managed to stay just that – the village pub. The landlord, a pleasant-faced man with a broad Birmingham accent, beamed at her.

‘Eh, you must be the fancy cook Alicia Greer hired for the birthday party?’

Since she was the only other person in the place, Jenny resigned herself to learning yet more information about things she had no interest in. ‘Yes, that’s me,’ she admitted morosely.

‘So how’s things up at The Beeches then?’ the landlord asked avidly. ‘You know there’s been a tragedy up there?’

Jenny sighed heavily. Was she being paranoid, or was Fate
really
determined to get her mixed up in a suspicious death?

She left the pub ten minutes and one double vodka later. Standing on the pavement, she began to picture her menu. Visions of scalloped lobster with curry vied for supremacy with fillets of sole à la Dieppe. Of course, she couldn’t decide on the complete menu until she’d finally nailed the flighty Alicia down to actually going through it with her. And that reminded her.

The birthday cake.

Looking across the road, Justin Greer’s fancy car seemed to glow like a giant emerald in the sunshine, and she nodded firmly. That, at least, was one problem she could solve right now. Forgetting to look left or right, and as a result nearly sending a lone cyclist careening into the gutter, she marched across the road. She stood there for a moment in the garage courtyard, her sensitive nose twitching like a rabbit at the sharp astringent scents of petrol and the pore-clogging stench of grease.

It was unusual for a small garage to survive in these economic times, especially with the price of petrol at the level it was, and she wondered vaguely who was subsidizing the place. The pump was self-service, and a converted barn, that housed one or two cars in the process of being repaired, appeared to be deserted. But there had to be an office around the back somewhere.

Since a good cake needed at least a day to settle, she really had to get on with it tonight. Unless, of course, Justin was a sponge fanatic, in which case, the more last-minute the better, but she somehow didn’t think so. For all his startlingly angelic good looks, he struck her as a solid-cake man.

With a sigh, she set off across the cobbled yard, carefully avoiding spanners, hoses and the odd stack of tyres. As she’d thought, a tiny office, converted from an outhouse, was located behind the repair shop, the door of which now stood open. And coming from inside, she heard the unmistakable voice of Justin Greer. It would have been hard to miss, since he was shouting fit to bring down the rafters.

‘I’m warning you, Harding, stay away from her.’

‘Oh
hell
,’ Jenny muttered under her breath. ‘Here we go again.’

‘Or what?’ came back the equally belligerent reply.

Why couldn’t men use the good sense that God gave them? Jenny wondered as she marched determinedly towards the open door.

‘Or you’ll regret it,’ Justin’s voice snapped out.

‘I doubt it. Alicia is everything a man could want, or hadn’t you noticed? She’s young, beautiful, and in love with me. I don’t see—’

‘And rich, Harding,’ Justin interrupted with a sneer. ‘Is that what you think? Yes, I suppose you would, that’s what most people think. But the family business comes to me, Harding,
me, not Alicia
. Since Dad retired, I’m the chairman, not my dear sister. In fact, apart from her allowance, which
can be cut off at any time
, she might as well be penniless.’

‘Good.’

There was a brief silence, and Jenny found herself abruptly readjusting her opinion of Keith Harding. He had actually sounded as if he meant it. A fact that Justin seemed to have picked up on also, if the startled silence coming from the office was anything to go by.

‘Oh, I get it. You’re relying on the house, are you?’ Justin’s blond/silver head abruptly came into view as he came level with a grimy window. His profile was taut with rage, and Jenny began to think that he’d have to make do with a sponge for a birthday cake after all. She was not interrupting an argument of this ferocity. She had far more sense.