Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) (21 page)

Control. Not money.

If it was all about money, then Mary or Thomas would have
killed David. That was clear.

But if it was about
control
…

Eleanor and David had dated. They had been supposed to
marry. But Eleanor had pursued glamour – she wanted a rich, attractive,
powerful man – and she’d turned to his more appealing brother. Meanwhile, David
had remained single, but with various lovers, over the years.

And Eleanor had had lovers too, once the shine of being
married to Thomas had worn off, and his career had nose-dived, and he was no
longer the James Bond-type she had married.

Perhaps Eleanor and David
had
got back together.

Something had happened. Because at the time of his death,
he had been seeing Mary, not Eleanor.

Mary was Eleanor’s friend. No, she was her ex-friend.

They’d been close friends for a long time until recently…

Penny’s heart was hammering double-time as it fell into
place, each thought slotting into its hole with a satisfying click.

Thomas might have had a Taser and this meant
Eleanor had
access to it.

Thomas had the means but Eleanor was the one with the
motivation. Perhaps she only meant to punish him, not to kill him! Penny
slammed the kettle back onto the stand and dashed through the cottage to find
her mobile phone. She had to speak to Cath – urgently.

There were unanswered questions and the edge of danger
about it all. She’d been threatened and so had Mary – Penny now decided that
those threats had to have come from Eleanor, and if she’d killed once out of
malice and control, who knew what she would do next?

Cath’s number just rang right through to voicemail.
Infuriated, Penny left a message.

“Cath! It’s Penny. It was Eleanor! She killed David. I’ve
got a letter. Not a confession, I mean, a threat, it kind of links it all
together, aargh. I really need to talk to you. Call me. Right now. I’m coming
up to Lincoln, I’ll find you. No, don’t call when I’m driving, I don’t have
hands-free, but–”

The voicemail storage ran out of space and the phone beeped
at her. Penny flung it into a bag and grabbed her car keys from the bowl by the
front door.

“Guard the house,” she told the bemused Kali. “I’ll be back
later.”

She drove like a loon to Cath’s house but as she suspected,
it was empty and quiet.

Next stop, Lincoln police station.

It was rush hour in the city of Lincoln and she still
hadn’t worked out the easiest routes around the place. The city seemed to have
two centres – there was the old part of town, the Bailgate area, which was at
the top of the imaginatively-named Steep Hill with the castle and the cathedral
and its twisty cobbled streets of souvenir shops. But at the bottom of the hill
(or, indeed, The Hill) was a more modern maze of shopping areas, with some roads
being traffic-free and some with an inexplicable one-way system around them. It
was bisected by a pleasant river, and more annoyingly, a main railway line. At
peak times, the crossing barriers seemed to be down, blocking the traffic, for
far longer periods than they were raised. Busy times in Lincoln seemed to
consist of everyone staying exactly where they were, but getting angrier by the
minute.

She followed some contradictory signs for a car park. They
must be puzzle signs, she through in exasperation as she was directed down a side
street and then abandoned, with no further signage or hints as to which way she
should turn. She should have come on the bike, she thought ruefully. Though the
old thumper was a lot slower than her car, what she lost in travel time, she’d
make up for in ease of parking. Eventually she was able to leave the car in an
on-street parking bay. She expected that she wasn’t going to have the right
change for the ticket machine but the goblins of mischief relented and the
meter accepted her slew of silverware. Soon she was on her way to the police
station on foot.

There was a plethora of entrances but she ran up the steps
to the public reception. There was an open waiting area, doors with buzzers and
keypad entries, and one man behind a sheet of plastic under a sign marked
“Enquiries.” He was writing in a notebook but he looked up as Penny hurled
herself into the reception area.

“I’m looking for Cath! Detective Constable Pritchard!” she
said breathlessly.

He seemed to take forever to lay down his pen and reply. “Now
then. Is she expecting you?”

“Yes. No. No! I left her a message. On her phone. She
hasn’t replied. It’s urgent.”

“And may I ask what it is concerning…?”

“A murder!”

He raised one eyebrow but his whole demeanour remained
placid and unruffled. Even his tone of voice didn’t change. “Is anyone’s life
in immediate danger? Have you dialled 999? I think there are many officers here
who are capable of dealing with such incidents. Not just DC Pritchard. We’re
all trained, you know. Even in Lincolnshire.”

She ignored the jibe at her southern accent which marked
her out as an incomer. “No, he’s already dead. I mean, it was a while ago. The
murder. I’ve worked out who it was!”

“The deceased? Do
we
know about it?”

“Yes, of course you do. Please, is Cath here? Can you, I
don’t know, radio to her or something?”

The man laughed and shook his head. “Can I take your name,
please, madam?”

“Look, I–”

One of the internal doors clicked and sprang open, and a very
tall, very wide female officer came through, speaking to the man behind her.
“That’s quite understandable, Mr Hart. Thank you for your time.”

“Thomas! Oh my goodness, have you been arrested? Let him
go,” Penny shouted to the bewildered officer. “He’s not the murderer!”

“That I’m not!” Thomas said. “Hey, I recognise you. It’s
the pest from the other night! Officer, this woman is harassing both me, and my
wife. I’ve already spoken to the police about
you.
Haven’t they put a
restraining order on you or something?”

“Is that why you’re here?” Penny asked, smiling nervously
at the frowning officers. This could get messy.

“No.” He glowered at her. “They asked me to come and talk
about my wife, that’s all. Not that it is any of your business.” He shook his
head, and looked suddenly sad. “There’s a murderer out there and all they can
do is bother innocent people. My brother, murdered. I know we hadn’t got on,
but he was still my brother. And he didn’t deserve what happened to him. None
of it. All his life.”

“Where is Eleanor?” Penny said desperately.

He shrugged. “It’s none of your business,” he repeated.

She pulled out the piece of paper with the threat scrawled
on it. “Well, she sent me this! Now who is harassing who?”

“You said you were here about a murder,” the desk sergeant
said from behind the plastic screen. “Not harassment.”

“I am. I’m here about both, I suppose. Please. I know I
haven’t made a great first impression but it’s about the murder of David Hart.
Thomas is innocent…”

“I know,” Thomas said angrily. “I just told you that.”

“But his wife is not!” Penny blurted out, loudly.

“How dare you!”

“Listen. Please.” She waved the paper in the air. “I’m
sorry, Thomas. I suppose you knew that before you married Eleanor, she was
involved with your brother David? And that she … oh goodness, this is horrible,
I am so sorry. But while you’ve been married…” She couldn’t say it.

But he could. He went puce in the face and muttered, “Yes,
yes. I know. She had affairs. I am not good enough for her.”

“Oh, Thomas.” Penny did feel pain for the man. But she
continued. “So, well, so she did have these affairs. And maybe one was with
David. But when Mary started seeing David, Eleanor was jealous. She couldn’t
stand it. I know you’ve got some device like a Taser or something, Thomas.
Eleanor had access to it. Maybe she didn’t mean to kill him, but … but now he
is dead.”

“Have you any evidence for these serious accusations?” the
tall female officer asked.

“I’ve got the threats she sent me – and Mary.”

“Mary?” Thomas said. “What threats?”

“I know Mary hasn’t reported it, but she has had some of
these letters too. Mary Radcliffe,” she added for the benefit of the officers.
“It’s all about the farm, and jealousy, but not from Thomas. Eleanor was
jealous of the money David had. The fact that the farm should never have gone
to him, according to…”

Thomas hung his head. “According to my father.”

“Did you know about David’s parentage?” Penny asked.

“I never knew who his real father was, no. But from an
early age it was obvious that something was different about David. At first I
followed my father’s lead. He would bully him something terrible. Then I just
wanted to get away. Maybe that was spineless of me, I don’t know, but it was
like I was being asked to choose between my parents and I couldn’t, so I left.
I was glad when he got the farm, I really was! David was a good farmer.”

“I believe you,” Penny said. “Did David know his real
father?”

“Until recently, he didn’t even know our dad … my dad …
wasn’t his real father.”

Penny was shocked. “You knew, but he didn’t? How did he
find out?”

“He heard it through gossip and rumours.”

“Who gossiped?” Penny asked, fearing she knew the answer.
More things were falling into place. She felt desperately sad for both David
and Thomas, two half-brothers who had argued yet who were linked together more
than they realised.

“Mary, of course,” Thomas confirmed. “She found out, and
she talked. And David heard about it … what a way to find out. He never ought
to have found out. It shouldn’t have mattered. It’s why I never said anything.
What would be the point?”

And that was why Mary was feeling so guilty. When David had
been found dead, and they’d thought it was suicide at first, she must have been
distraught, and blamed herself, Penny thought. What a mess. “And Mary knew
because Eleanor told her?” Penny asked.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Penny looked imploringly at the officer standing beside
Thomas. “You must find Eleanor!” she told her. “She is the killer. Don’t you
see, Thomas? I’m so sorry.”

The female officer twisted her mouth and frowned. “Hmm.
Let’s back up a moment. This Taser or whatever …”

Thomas’s shoulders sagged even further. “Yes. I did have
one. I do. I did. The thing is, it went missing, and of course I didn’t report
it because I should never have had it in the first place.”

The officer behind the screen stood up. The female officer
next to Thomas appeared to get even taller.

“You had a Taser and it went missing…” she repeated.
“Right. I suggest you tell me where we might find your wife, sir. And don’t
even
think
about telling me it’s none of
my
business…”

The police station seemed to erupt into action around them,
but Penny was a still and silent centre as the officers whirled around. She was
asked to step to one side, and then ushered into a bare waiting room, and after
half an hour was offered a pale cup of tea.

She paced and she prowled as she waited for news, until
finally Cath appeared in the doorway, smiling.

“We’ve got her.”

“I think summer is finally here!” Mary announced as she
entered the community hall looking as unsummery as it was possible to be, in
her long black skirt and fringed purple cardigan.

Everyone else at the craft group was wearing pale pastels
and fanning themselves with pieces of paper, including Penny. She greeted Mary
with a wave and a nod, and the older woman immediately ambled over and took a
seat next to Penny.

The others didn’t sidle away, exactly, but Mary couldn’t
attract close friends, even after the truth came out about the murder, and how
she’d been an unwilling victim of the hate mail sent by Eleanor. People were
sympathetic to her plight, but no one could forget how harmful her particular type
of gossip was.

But Penny had time for her. She felt a strange bond of
obligation to Mary; they’d both received those letters and they shared the
fright and pain of it. They had attended some craft fairs together, and Penny
had been surprised at how much fun she had. The fun factor was increased by the
fact she actually earned some money, of course.

Although it was somewhat awkward when Mary’s sales still consistently
didn’t even cover the cost of her table hire.

Ginni came up behind them as Mary unloaded her cards and
papers onto the table. “Mary, Penny. Oh, Penny! What a lovely drawing.”

Penny was finishing a sketch of Kali. She’d used a range of
dark, soft pencils and a looser style than she usually employed. She was quite
pleased with it, and thought that it might make a nice set of prints for
coasters and table mats and the like. “Thank you.”

“How is she doing?” Ginni asked. “Your dog, I mean. I saw
you walking with her when you first moved in but didn’t manage to say hello …
you were being dragged at some speed along the road, I’m afraid.”

“I’m pleased to say that hardly ever happens now. Unless I
walk her close to her feeding time and she decides she wants to get home.”

Ginni laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. Well done.”

* * * *

Drew must have been lying in wait for her as she left the
hall to walk home. He was leaning against a wall, and pushed forward as soon as
he spotted her. He was wearing his standard set of faded jeans, but as a nod to
the warm sunshine, he was sporting a white tee-shirt rather than his lumberjack
shirt or enormous and ragged-elbowed jumper.

“Now then,” he said in greeting.