Small Town Suspicions (Some Very English Murders Book 3) (11 page)

“What?” Penny exploded in righteous anger. She was kneeling
on the ground, at Francine’s side, instantly. Kali leaped over as well, keen to
not be left out. “What did he do? Where is he? I’ll…”

“No, no. He just took me for a ride. He took advantage of
my good nature. I paid for stuff, more stuff than I should have. I agreed to go
on dates out of my comfort zone. I just wanted to please him. And all the while
it was like a bet with his mates to see what I’d say yes to.”

“He didn’t…” Penny left the question hanging, but Francine
knew what she meant.

“No. He never forced …”

“I’m still angry.”

“I know. I feel silly. I am silly. It wasn’t the reason I
came here. It was
part
of the reason. It was all building up together.
And it made me realise how alone I was in a place and a company where everyone
thought the worst of everyone else and therefore acted accordingly.”

“Have you resigned, or taken a sabbatical?”

“Resigned. I rented out my flat, too.”

“Oh goodness. On a six month lease?”

“Yes.” Francine looked up, and her eyes were watery. “Don’t
worry. I don’t expect to live with you for six months. And you’re right. I need
to move out. I suppose I hoped I’d have some kind of epiphany, like you did,
and it would all fall into place. I’m forty-two and it was all supposed to be
sorted by now. You know, life.”

“I’m older than you and it hasn’t fallen into place for me
yet,” Penny said. “Growing up into an adult is a myth.”

“But I want to grow up,” Francine said, sounding plaintive.
“I’ve always had men after me, but none of them lasted and I don’t know why.
I’ve worked hard and tried to please but it has never been enough. So I made a
drastic change, like you did, but I still feel adrift. What now?”

Penny thought about some of the men that had dated
Francine. They had never been very social together in London, but the world of
television was small and so she knew of some of the relationships. To a man,
they had been attracted to Francine’s little-girl demeanour and had soon
revealed themselves to be overly dominant, overly needy or simply overbearing.

“Stop trying to please,” Penny said. “Be yourself.”

“I am myself,” Francine said. “That is who I am. I want to
please others.”

It was true. No one was more herself than Francine. “Maybe
…” Penny said, thinking slowly and carefully, “Maybe you’re just fine as you
are, but London wasn’t ever the right place for you, and it’s going to take
time for you to settle down. Look. Don’t worry about finding somewhere else to
live. Stay here a little while longer.” It was hard to say, but it was the
right thing to say. She was ashamed to find she’d never really considered
Francine to have deeper feelings before.

“Thank you. Do you mean it?”

That hurt. “I am
always
going to be honest with you.
I promise.”

“Thank you again. I really liked Darrell, too, you know. I
really liked him. I thought he was the one. I thought I was not working hard
enough at the relationship. I thought he was being very kind and generous in
giving me chance after chance.”

“That sounds really unhealthy.”

“I think so, now, when I look back. But why was he like
that? Why would anyone be so mean?”

“People can be horrible.”

“Why?”

She thought about Drew and what he’d said about the pupils
at the school. “Perhaps they had issues in their past and they can’t function
properly,” she said, and she saw immediately that she had finally said the
right thing.

It was easier for Francine to feel sympathy than anger.
“Yes, of course. Poor Darrell.”

I’d punch Darrell in the face if I saw him
, Francine
thought. “Poor Darrell,” she murmured.
And then I would spit in his fancy
London coffee.

Thinking of coffee made her think of Alec Goodwin, and it
seemed a good change of subject.

“I know I’m not all sweetness and light,” Penny said. “Not
like you. But I admire that in you and I don’t think you should lose it. Don’t
fret too much about people being mean. It’s their problem, not yours. Stay nice
and you’ll always have friends – true friends. What’s the alternative? Darrell
will probably end up like Alec Goodwin, living alone and reclusive.”

“Maybe he was happy living like that,” Francine countered.
She, too, seemed grateful for the conversational segue. “I wouldn’t want to
judge another’s lifestyle choice.”

“Perhaps. I wonder why Alec was like that, though? I wonder
what happened? I mean, he used to have friends. Carl Fredericks, for one.”

“Yes … have you found out anything more about him?”

Penny shook her head. “Cath’s doing the official digging.”

“Why wait for her?”

“Because she’s the police.”

“Ahh, details,” Francine said, and laughed. She wiped away
a stray tear, and then patted Penny’s knee. “Why don’t you go out and look at
his bulb business. It’s not far away, is it?”

“What would I learn from that?”

“You learn a lot from seeing where people live, and how. I
did …”

“When? What are you talking about?”

Francine bit her lip but she smiled slightly. “Well, I went
to see this famous, reclusive artist myself, you know.”

“When?”

“Oh, ages ago now. Well, last Thursday.”

“The Thursday before the weekend that he died?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my goodness. What was he like? Did he show any signs of
stress or strain? What did he say?”

“Don’t get excited,” Francine said. “Nothing. None of that.
I didn’t see him at all. It was evening. I walked down and I was just going to
look at his house from the outside. But when I got there, I thought, well, I
might as well go and knock on the door. Maybe he’d show me his paintings.”

“Oh my…”

“He didn’t answer. So I went around the side of the house.
I wasn’t snooping, I promise. I saw there was a conservatory or something along
the back, and I peeped through a window. I could see his easels and clay work
and everything, and I was sure I saw him disappear through a door, so I knocked
on the glass, but he didn’t come out. And then some dogs started barking behind
me and I was afraid, so I left pretty quickly. And that’s all.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Penny asked.

“It wasn’t relevant. Okay, I felt a bit like I shouldn’t
have gone there. And then I wondered if he was already dead when I went around,
and I was sort of afraid I’d be a suspect.”

“Oh, Francine. Anyway, Reg Bailey saw him on Friday, don’t
forget.”

“Thank goodness!”

Penny laughed. “You ninny. No, you’re not a suspect.”

“The thing is, though,” Francine said. “Those dogs of his.
They were barking like mad and one of them started to run towards me over the
garden. So if he was really killed, the dogs would have been barking, wouldn’t
they? So that would have alerted Barry Neville, who lives next door.”

“I think they are Barry’s dogs, too.”

“They were in Alec’s garden,” Francine pointed out.

Barry Neville was coming up too often in conversation and
Penny’s suspicions were growing. “Interesting,” she said. “And maybe you’re right.
I think a trip out to see Carl Fredericks in on the cards.
And
Barry
Neville.”

“I knew it,” Francine said.

“Hi Drew. How are you?”
Penny said on the phone on Sunday morning.

“I’m doing okay. How’s your
hangover?”

“How did you know I had a
hangover?”

“Intuition. Also, you drank
a bottle of wine on Friday night and you sang a song about fairies and elves.”

“Oh, yeah, that. It was a
lovely meal, by the way. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. But that’s
not why you’re calling me, is it? Out with it, Penny.”

“Okay. Well, you know how I
said I wouldn’t go off following people any more?”

Drew sighed. “Yes.”

“So, I want to go and look
at where Carl Fredericks lives. And I’m doing this the sensible way – by asking
you if you would like to come?”

“Hang on,” Drew said. “The
sensible way is by dragging me into it as well?”

“Yes. And you did say, ages
ago, that you’d take me out on the Fens and tell me about them.”

“I seem to remember you
poo-pooing the idea, though. You said you couldn’t imagine anything worse than
a guided tour of a sluice.”

“A woman may change her
mind,” Penny said with exaggerated aloofness. “Are you free today?”

“From midday, I am. Okay
then. I’ll pick you up, shall I?”

* * * *

“Flat” seemed like the
understatement of the year. The Fens weren’t landscape. It was the total
absence of landscape that disorientated and confused Penny as she stared out of
the window. The oppressive weather had broken overnight, and the day was bright
and clear and fresher than it had previously been. Still, they had the windows
rolled down and their elbows out, and she wore large sunglasses to feel a bit
like Jackie O.

“There’s nothing here,” she
said. “Nothing. Just sky.”

“Sky isn’t nothing,” Drew
said. “There’s clouds. Birds. Colours.”

“Yes but other than that, there’s
nothing, and it goes on forever. It’s actually like being at sea.”

“It was sea, once, and I
think one day it will be sea again, and cabbages will cost more.”

Penny laughed. “Excuse me?”

“This is all artificial,”
Drew explained. “As far as I understand it, it was marshland for centuries.
Aeons, however long one of them is. I think the Romans did some drainage and
cut some ditches, but when they left, it was pretty much a lawless place. Until,
of course, Charles the First needed to raise some cash because Parliament was
getting all bolshie with him.”

“He did ask for it,” Penny
said. “The bolshiness, I mean.”

“He was misunderstood.
Anyway, so he started to sell off parcels of this marshland to rich folks,
telling them they could drain it and use it as agricultural land and they’d be
rich. The Dutch had done it, and they had developed some techniques for
draining the soil.”

“Yeah, but where does the
water go?” she asked.

“It’s still there. That’s
why there are so many pumping stations and sluices out here. It’s continual.
Much of this land is actually below sea level.”

“That must be at a high risk
of flooding, then. Why bother? This area isn’t that big.”

Drew laughed. “Look at it.”

“What am I looking at?”

“Crops. Fields. Incredibly
fertile land. I mean, a seriously large proportion of much of our market garden
produce comes from here. That’s what I mean by the price of cabbages going up
if it all floods again. This peaty soil is perfect. And not just for cabbages,
either.” Drew slowed the car down. There were no vehicles to be seen, either
behind them or in front of them. The road was arrow-straight, with a ditch
either side. “Look in there.”

“What is it?”

“I’m guessing it was tulips.
I should bring you back in springtime when it’s just ablaze with colour from
horizon to horizon. Honestly, now people come from Holland to see
our
bulb fields.”

“And that’s what Carl
Fredericks does,” Penny said. “Grows flowers.”

“Bulbs, I think,” Drew said.

They drove on. The road
occasionally made inexplicable right-angled turns, and they passed sporadic
outcrops of houses and buildings that looked tiny, dwarfed by the empty sky.

Eventually they came to a
junction. To the right, the road ran on in a straight line, heading for Boston.
There was a sign pointing to the left, advertising Fredericks’ Bulb Growers.
The road was tarmac, but single-track with grass, very neatly clipped, close to
both sides.

Drew pulled into the turning
but then stopped and killed the engine. “Come on,” he said. “Get out for a
moment.”

Penny unfolded herself and
stretched her legs as she stood up straight. She wrinkled her nose. “What’s
that smell? I mean, it’s not unpleasant.”

“Just pollen and agriculture
and stuff,” he said. “The one smell you don’t want to encounter out here is
when they’re dredging the dykes.”

“I
beg
your pardon?”
Penny said. “I have got to assume that has a totally different meaning to what
it would sound like in London…”

Drew raised his eyebrows
innocently. “The dykes? The narrow drainage channels that run along the edge of
the fields. In some places, dyke means a raised bank, but not here. The Romans
dug the Carr Dyke, as it happens, and it still exists. But they get clogged
with weeds and so on, so periodically they need to drag all the vegetable
matter from the bottom, and they just dump it on the banks. And it stinks.”

“Delightful.” Penny gazed
around, staring out to the shimmering horizon. The atmosphere was hazy with
heat and the colours were washed out and faded. “What am I supposed to be
looking at?”

“The little things,” Drew
said. “Here.” He waved his hand and pointed at the grassy verge. “Marsh
mallow.”

She blinked in surprise at
the purple-flowered plant. “Is it edible?”

“The roots are, and that’s
where marshmallows came from, originally. And here, orchids!”

“Oh my goodness.” Penny bent
to look at the delicate drooping blooms. “It’s a proper chequer-board pattern
on the petals. I have never seen anything like it.”