Small Town Secrets (Some Very English Murders Book 2) (12 page)

She’d go up to the fast food place on the northern edge of
town, she decided.

Maybe Nina would be there.

* * * *

Penny decided to walk up through town and out along the
northern road that led to a large roundabout. Here, there was a twenty-four
hour fuel station and the fast food place. One highway ran north to Lincoln,
and another main road went to the east. South, there were two roads – one led into
the town, and the other was the western bypass. Penny had heard that the
building of the bypass had been the source of much contention in the town, and
even now, twenty years later, it still split opinion. Some were in favour of
the bypass, claiming that the lorries and trucks thundering through Upper
Glenfield’s quiet and narrow roads were ruining the buildings and making the
streets dangerous. Those who opposed it were the local traders, who said that
the lack of passing traffic would kill their businesses.

Yet since the bypass had been built, Upper Glenfield had
remained a thriving town, and Penny liked being able to buy her meat from the
butcher’s and her veg from the greengrocer’s.

The roundabout was a busy one and it took her some time to
cross the roads. Most people drove up to the fast food restaurant, and it
wasn’t designed for pedestrians to access. She had to hurl herself over the
road in a gap between two cars and a tractor, which was mercifully chugging
along slowly and creating a huge tailback.

The fast food restaurant could have been anywhere in the
world – they all looked the same. She’d been in identical ones in Mongolia,
Australia and Japan. The serving staff were all young, and had wide, fake
smiles.

But Nina’s became genuine when she recognised Penny as she
approached the brightly-lit counter. Nina tapped her colleague on the arm.
“Davey, I’ll get this.”

“Aren’t you going on your break?”

“In a moment. Hi, Penny. What can I get you?”

“Something that’s really bad for me.”

“That’s pretty much everything we serve here. Care to
narrow it down at all?”

“A cheeseburger, I think. Thanks.”

While Nina rang the order through, adding on fries and a
drink, she said, “So, how is the calendar coming along? I saw some of the shots
that dad took at the shoot in the forge. I think they turned out really well.
That husky is so cute.”

“I haven’t looked at them yet. Have they been uploaded?”

“Yes, most of them, I think.”

“I’ll check them out.” If my access to that website hasn’t
been compromised somehow, she thought.

Then there was an awkward silence as Penny tried to come up
with a subtle way to ask about Nina and Warren. But there was none, so she
simply took a deep breath and blundered in. Bare-faced cheek hadn’t worked for
her yet; she’d tried it before. But there was always a first time.

“Nina, did anything happen between you and Warren that
upset your dad?”

The young woman laughed, which was totally unexpected.
Penny had thought that Nina would be upset about the whole thing, like her dad
was. And when Lucy had mentioned it, back in the shop at the dogs’ home, Nina
had reacted badly. But maybe it was getting easier with distance.

 Nina’s laughter faded, and she sighed and said, “Oh, what
do you think? Warren had always left me alone before. You know, when I used to
come home and visit my folks. But when I came back this time, because of
splitting up with … Gordon … obviously he saw me as fair game because of being
single. I don’t know if you know, but Warren was really… umm…”

“I know,” Penny assured her. “He was persistent. He came
onto me when I first moved here.”

“Right. Okay, so you know what he was like. And I went with
dad to the camera club because I’d had the idea for the calendar, and Warren
was there, and he was all over me, and it was horrible but nothing I couldn’t
handle, you know? I mean, I’m twenty-six and I’ve been away from home for eight
years. I’ve dealt with creeps before.”

“Of course,” Penny said. “I don’t doubt it.”

“Well, you might not, but dad did. He went into full-on
over-protective father mode. Oh – here’s your order. Look, I’m on my break now.
Do you want to go outside and sit in the sun?”

“Sure, that would be great.”

They settled themselves on a wooden bench at the back of
the restaurant and away from the roads, though the traffic noise was still
loud. Penny tipped the thin American-style fries into the cardboard lid of the
burger box, and pushed it across the table so that Nina could help herself.

“Your dad is pretty angry about Warren,” Penny said. “Is he
just angry about, um, men in your life?”

“Oh, dad is angry about everything, all the time.” Nina
shook her head sadly. “It was a mistake coming home, but dad always sounded so
sad on the phone when I spoke to him, and when my relationship broke down, he
rang me every day, telling me I needed to be in the family home to recover.”

“I think I can understand that. He wants to look after
you.”

“I know,” Nina said. “I’ll always be his little girl. I get
that. But he’s so strangely needy, and I don’t know why. I have
got
to
move out again. I took this job just to get out of the house for a few hours a
day. I’ve got some savings, and I think I might rent a bedsit or flat in
Nottingham. I’ll have better job prospects there.”

“Have you told your dad this?” Penny asked.

“Goodness me, no, not yet. I don’t know if he’d be angry or
upset. Both, probably.”

Penny tucked into her burger and Nina sighed. She reached
out for the drink she’d brought with her, and froze, her hand in mid-air.

“Dad.”

Penny turned and saw Eric coming around the side of the restaurant,
his face tense and drawn, and his brows low. “Nina! There you are.” When he saw
Penny he became even more angry, and he strode over the parched yellow grass to
reach them.

“What’s up, dad?” Nina asked.

“They are questioning your mother! The police!” he said,
and he glared at Penny. “This is all your doing, isn’t it?”

“I’m not up there, questioning her. I’m not the police,”
Penny said defiantly.

“What are they asking her? Why her?” Nina said, her voice
strained.

Eric set his mouth in a thin line and fixed his gaze on
Penny. She stared back. “Are you going to tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Nina pleaded.

Penny turned back to the young woman, and said softly, with
as much kindness as she could, “It’s probably nothing but they just need to
check out the discrepancies, that’s all. I do have some information about this
… don’t ask me how … but your mum wasn’t at the party that she said she was
at.”

“Right.” Nina nodded and fiddled with her drink. Then she
looked up at Eric, and asked, flatly, “So, is she having an affair, dad?”

“We’re a family!” he hissed back.

“That’s not an answer. Is she? I mean, I wouldn’t blame
her.”

Penny wanted, very suddenly, to be anywhere but where she
was. Eric’s face was pale and he looked about to explode. “How dare you!” he
said, his voice rising. “You need to come home, right now.”

“What, like I’m fifteen? Dad, I’m an adult, and I’m at
work. You can’t just order me.”

“You are living under my roof, and–”

“Well, maybe that’s about to change.” Nina stood up and
began to gather the litter onto the tray. “I’m going to move out. I need to get
a better job so I’m going to move to Nottingham.”

“You can’t!” he yelled. “You
can’t.
We’re a family.
Your mother needs you, Nina. Don’t you see? She needs you, or she wouldn’t be
having an affair.”

“Don’t you dare put this on me!” Nina shouted back.

Penny tried to hunch her shoulders and make herself
invisible. Father and daughter faced one another, both furious and both
stubborn.

“We need you!” her father repeated, illogically, as far as
Penny was concerned.

“You need to have a look at yourself,” Nina shot back. She
snatched up the tray. “I need to get back to my shift. I’ll be moving out,
soon. I need a life again. I need to get my own space, new friends, a new life.
A new boyfriend, maybe.”

“Men!” Eric spat. “Men are bad for you. Haven’t you
learned? I’ve warned
him
to stay away, too.”

Warren? Penny thought. But he’s dead.

“Who? Who – Gordon?” Nina asked, the tray trembling in her
hands.

“Of course. He can’t come slinking around here, trying to
get into your good books again. You’re my little girl, Nina. We need you at
home, now.” Eric’s voice was losing its hard edge. He sounded brittle and
fragile.

Nina’s mouth was half-open. “Has he rung the house?”

“He won’t be ringing again.”

“Dad … no.” She slammed the tray on the table again, and
looked in wild confusion from Penny to Eric and back again. Then, without
another word, she fled, running through the staff entrance at the back of the
restaurant, punching in the key code to the security door.

Penny picked up the tray as she stood up. “I’ll just, er…”

“You’ll just keep your nose
out!”
Eric hissed, and
disappeared around the side of the restaurant.

Penny stared after him. “Or what?” she said to the empty
air. “Or what will you do, Eric?”

Penny walked slowly back into Upper Glenfield, feeling
unsettled and slightly ill. Perhaps it was the burger she’d eaten, but it was
more likely to be the family rift she’d just seen exposed.

As she walked along the pavement, past the new housing
estates and into the older part of town, she pulled out her mobile phone and
called Drew. Apologetically, he said he was about to take a group out for an
afternoon’s field-craft session, but he promised to call her as soon as he
could. She sighed.

The town was quiet, as if it were sleeping in the summer
heat. She turned left and walked along the High Street. The butcher’s display
of meat was sparse, and mostly hidden away in the chillers. The greengrocer had
a wide range of fruits but nothing tempted her.

When she reached the hairdressing salon, she was hailed by
Agatha who was sitting on a deckchair on the pavement with a book in her hand.
She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat that perched at an odd angle on her
towering beehive. “Penny, my love! Enjoying the heat? Eh?”

“Not really,” Penny said. “Will it be like this until
September?”

“No, we’ll have some cracking thunderstorms soon, I reckon.
We get more rain in summer than in winter, here, you know.”

Penny found it hard to believe. A day of rain would be a
blessing, she thought. “So, what’s new, Agatha?” she asked, leaning against the
wall to get under the shade of the shop’s canopy.

“Not a lot, my love. They haven’t found the murderer yet,
have they? Ooh, that is a bad business. Found out in the sticks, all alone,
robbed and strangled. Well. Warren Martin must have been leading a double life,
eh?”

“Indeed he must,” Penny said. “Any other unusual goings-on
around Glenfield at the moment?”

“I thought you said you weren’t investigating.”

“I’m not,” Penny said with a grin. “I’m gossiping.” With
the blessing of the police, she added in her head.

“It’s too hot for anyone to get up to much,” Agatha said.
“Even whoever was harassing poor old Reg Bailey has stopped.”

“Yes, but Drew put up the CCTV, didn’t he? That’s going to
be a deterrent.”

“True,” Agatha said, fanning herself with the paperback she
was holding. “I don’t know what the world is coming to, when someone decides to
target an innocent widower like Reg.”

“Where does he live?”

“Cuthbert Road, one of those really posh detached houses on
the other side of the river,” Agatha said. “I don’t usually reckon much to the
folks down there, but the one thing you can say about Reg is that he worked
hard all his life, and everything that he has, he earned. I’ve got a lot of
respect for a man like that.”

“Does he have any enemies?”

“None!” Agatha declared vehemently. “Who would want to take
against him, eh?”

“Maybe whoever was harassing him was mistaken. Maybe they
had the wrong person. Had he lived there long?”

“Twenty years, since his wife died.”

“I’m going to wander down.”

Suddenly Agatha was suspicious. “Why?”

“To look at the pole that Drew made for him,” Penny said,
as innocently as she could. “And I’ve nothing else to do today, and I’ve not
really been down that road.”

Agatha seemed unconvinced and Penny felt her eyes on her
back all the way back down the High Street.

* * * *

Cuthbert Road oozed money. The houses were large and
detached and had long, sweeping driveways cluttered with expensive German cars
and the occasional Jaguar. The gardens were hidden behind large hedges but
Penny could peep through the gates and gaps to see elegant, manicured lawns.
They were the sort of lawns upon which one would drink Pimm’s while wearing
broad straw hats.

Many of the houses already had various security systems in
place, but she recognised Drew’s ornamental ironwork as she got closer to a
wide, five-barred gate. At the hinged side of the gate was a decorative black
pole with scrollwork, and a small camera in a hard-wearing protective cage at
the top.

The gate was being painted by an old man in shirt sleeves
and pale cream trousers. He looked up as she approached, and eyed her without a
smile, but with no challenge or malice on his round, lined face.

“Good afternoon,” she said politely.

“Afternoon.” The small-town pleasantries done, he returned
to his task.

She stopped, and he looked up again, his white eyebrows
wiggling with curiosity.

“Can I help you?” he asked mildly.

“I was admiring the ironwork,” she said. “Was that the one
that Drew made?”