Small Town Christmas (Some Very English Murders Book 6) (6 page)

“I’ve seen them.”

“Right. So can you call over there and tell him I can’t
make it tonight?”

“Of course. Anything for you, Penny. All you need to do is
ask.”

She grinned. “Thank you so much.”

He walked her to the door. “Are you sure you don’t want a
lift?”

“No, but thank you. I am going to the pharmacy and then to
bed. I hope I’m better soon. I’m in the choir now, and we’re practising nearly
every other evening for the carol concert. You know, it’s got so big that we
have to use the High School hall!”

“I bet you walk there, too,” he said.

“Of course.”

Reg was standing nearby, and he was watching her intently.
Penny felt funny. He had probably heard about the allegations.

They might not be allegations,
Penny remembered
miserably.
The whole thing might actually be my fault.

I might be a murderer.

She swallowed, and waved goodbye, and made her way home
with a heavy heart and a thumping head.

Why was Clive up the ladder?
The question plagued
her. It seemed like a simple solution – he was trying to sabotage things, and
lost his balance. The obvious answer must be correct.

Why was the ladder accessible?
She had to accept
that it was her fault. She had left it out.

Penny felt sick.

She let Kali out into the back garden for a run around,
while Penny stood at the back door and threw the ball for her, half-heartedly.
Then she dragged herself back inside, and made a cup of tea, which she didn’t
want to drink.

She could not fight it any longer.

She wanted to be comforted.

She wanted to be safe.

She was going to do it.

She was going to
put a onesie on.

* * * *

If you had asked her later if she had slept well, she would
have said that she did not. She felt as if she was floating in and out of a
dream-state, where every bone in her body ached.

Yet she must have been deeply asleep because she was jerked
awake, quite late, to a hammering on her front door.

She groaned and grabbed her head. Kali was barking, but the
tone of her bark was not alarmed. In the same way that a parent can often
distinguish between their baby’s different cries, it was possible to identify
various meanings to a dog’s bark.

So it wasn’t anything terrifying
, Penny told
herself.

She rolled out of bed and padded down the stairs. She
ordered Kali into the living room, and pulled the interior door closed, before
she let the visitor into the hallway.

“Oh! Hi, Drew. What’s up?”

Drew seemed enormous. He was bundled up in many layers, and
she could only see his eyes and the tip of his nose. Even filtered through the
scarf over his face, his breath hung in white clouds in the freezing air.

“I was waiting for you,” he said, and there was a new tone
she had never heard before in his voice. He was annoyed.

She stepped back. “Come in, out of the cold,” she said.

He shrugged. “I’ve been in it for two hours. I am used to
it, now.”

She snapped. She was feeling too ropey and unwell to put up
with any childish sniping. “Why on earth did you stay out so long? For
goodness’ sake, come in and let me close the door.”

“I was waiting for you,” he said, but he accepted her
invitation and followed her into the kitchen, grumpily shedding layers of clothing
as he went.

“But … oh. I’m sorry.” She sat down heavily at the kitchen
table. It was chilly and she folded her arms over her body. “I asked Jared to
call by the Forest School and tell you that I couldn’t make it.”

“I was there all afternoon but I didn’t see him. Why didn’t
you call me?”

“I’ve broken my phone. I dropped it yesterday. Oh,
goodness. I haven’t even told you what has happened. It’s been a blur. I’m ill.
Yesterday … it all went wrong.”

“Is this about Clive?”

She nodded miserably.

“How did I know you were mixed up in this?”

Penny felt her bottom lip begin to tremble, and she was
mortified. She didn’t break down in front of people! She hung her head.

Immediately, Drew was at her side. He dragged a spare chair
around so that he could sit next to her, and he embraced her, pulling her
close. She began to sniff, and then it all poured out – the questioning, the
accusation, and her monumental mistake with the ladder. The fact that she
didn’t have her nice warm walking boots, that she needed to buy a new phone,
and she had waved goodbye to her decent gloves, too.

And she also told him that she thought she was coming down
with a cold.

He sighed. “Well, that’s me infected now, isn’t it?”

She leaned into him harder, and sniffled. “Yes, sorry. I
would have thought your immune system is impervious, though, what with you
working outside all the time.”

“I thought so, too, until I started working with kids.
Honestly, they are walking germ-factories.”

“Ugh, gross.”

Drew pulled away from her and studied her with a new
expression of surprise and amusement on his face.

“What?” she asked.

“I’ve just clocked what you’re wearing. What on earth…?”

She smoothed down the fleecy yellow fabric defensively.
“It’s a onesie. Destiny bought it for me.”

Lately, her teenage niece had taken to amassing a large
collection of colourful onesies. They were all-in-one garments of soft fabric,
often with hoods and occasionally tails, that she would change into as soon as
she got home from school. “It’s like wearing a hug,” she had told her mother
and Penny.

Penny recognised the troubled young woman’s need to be
somewhere safe and comforting, and didn’t mock her, which had led Destiny to
believe that Penny wanted one herself.

“It’s spectacular,” Drew said.

“I resisted wearing it but I felt so rubbish today that it
seemed like the perfect thing. And actually, it’s not bad. I’ll wear it again.”

“Not out in public.” Drew laughed. “Well, I am sorry for
the misunderstanding, and for disturbing you when you were resting. But I’m not
sorry to have seen this vision. It will last with me for a long time. I’ll be
off, now, though, and let you get back to bed. My hands have just defrosted.
Seems like an ideal time to get back out in the freezing night.”

“Sorry. But thank you for coming.” She rose to let him out.

“I hope you feel better soon. And don’t worry about the
Clive thing. Anyone with half a brain will soon see that it wasn’t your fault –
he made the choice to go up the ladder, didn’t he? We’ll do the badger watching
another night.”

“Definitely.”

* * * *

Penny felt a thousand times better on Wednesday morning,
and she used her sudden burst of energy to surge around to the industrial
estate and confront Jared to find out why he hadn’t passed the message on to
Drew.

She scanned the large board in the carpark. There was a map
of the units laid out, and she spotted the small company that he managed the
technology for. She stamped into the lobby and startled the lady that was
sitting behind the reception desk.

“I’m looking for Jared Boot, please,” Penny said in a tone
of voice that was very clearly
not
a request.

The receptionist did not hesitate. She reached for the
phone and within a few minutes, Jared appeared at the back of the lobby.

“Hi, Penny!” He seemed delighted to see her. But he didn’t
stop to talk to her inside. He was swinging his coat on as he walked towards
her, and he steered her back out into the shared car-parking area that formed
the centre of the array of industrial units.

She was in no mood to return his friendly greeting. As soon
as they stepped into the cold grey day, she said, “Jared, why on earth didn’t
you pass my message on to Drew for me?”

He kept smiling. And he ignored her question. “Are you
feeling better today? Should you really be out and about? You still look peaky.”

“Yes, I’m fine, and yes, I should. Come on, answer me. Drew
froze half to death while he was waiting for me.”

Jared’s smile finally faded and she did not like what she
saw replaced on his face. “More fool him, then, for staying out in the cold,”
he said. “No one made him do that. But he’s not that bright, is he?”

“Jared! I asked you for a favour!”

The crafty look that made her shudder disappeared. He
looked sad. “I am sorry,” he said quietly, and she wanted to believe him. He
shrugged, and she didn’t believe him. “I meant to tell him, I really did. I got
back here, and it was raining, and then I was called to do something, and … and
anyway, Penny, he’s not right for you. He’s a lump.”

“Excuse me?”

By now, Jared was bright red, and he stared at the ground,
nervously fluttering his pale hands. “Penny, you’ve only just started seeing
Drew, and I know you’re new to the area, sort of, still, and I think you could
do better, because really, you know, he hasn’t stuck at one thing for very
long, and also, you know, why is he still single, at his age, you know?”

“He is
not
single,” she said slowly and
deliberately. “He is with me.”

“Until he was with you, he was single, though, and that’s a
bit odd for someone who’s older.”

“I was single, too.”

“Yeah but … you’re different. And I want you to know that I
would do anything for you!” he blurted out in an unexpected rush.

She shook her head, but he was still looking down. She felt
sorry for him. “Oh, Jared. Anything except pass a message on, right?”

“Penny, please … do you think … I think you need … I …
we
… ”

She had a horrible feeling he was about to suggest that she
drop Drew, and get together with him. She tried to speak gently while making
sure she was very, very clear about her meaning. “No, Jared. Listen to me. I am
with Drew. We’ve both been single for a while, but it’s working out nicely. I
am interested in him. I tend to be interested in men my own age. Jared, you’re
a lot younger than me. There are plenty of women who would be happy to date
you. But I am not one of those women. I am upset that you lied to me – no,
listen, that’s what you did. You promised me one thing but you did not do it. I
won’t sugar-coat this. I’m upset. And there is no chance we could ever get together.
There never was.”

She knew, as did most women who reached their late middle
age, that any sign of ambiguity would be seized on by a desperate would-be
lover. She had to be unequivocal.

She hated it; she would have preferred to have let him down
more gently. She remembered the problems she had had when she first moved to
Glenfield, and the unfortunate things that happened with Warren.

That could not be allowed to happen again.

Jared made a squeaking sound. He cleared his throat, but
found nothing to say.

He simply turned tail and fled back into the unit where he
worked.

* * * *

“I suppose I ought to be flattered,” Penny said on the
phone, later, as she talked with her friend Francine who lived locally.

“Ooh yes! He could be a toyboy!” Francine squealed in
excitement. “How trendy.”

“I don’t mean that. Ugh, I can’t even imagine. What do
women see in the idea of a younger man?” Penny shuddered. She stretched her
legs out on her sofa, and cradled the phone against her ear. “Give me a man who
knows life, any day. I prefer a man who can run his own house, empty his own
bins, and has a calendar that shows when everyone’s birthdays are.”

“Maybe Jared does all that.”

“He is barely into his thirties. He probably still eats
takeaways four times a week and can’t sort his laundry into separate piles. Nope.
Not for me. And anyway, he’s going the wrong way about it, if he wants to make
a good impression on women.” Penny shook her head even though Francine couldn’t
see her. “I do feel sorry for him. I mean, the way he showed himself up. He’s
probably feeling very small right now.”

“He’ll be all right. We’ve all made fools of ourselves from
time to time.”

“You more than most,” Penny said.

Francine laughed merrily. “Oh, yes! Remember when I was
dating Bill Travis?”

Francine’s short-lived relationship with the Detective
Inspector had ended badly, in a bowl of gazpacho soup.

Penny laughed too. “Oh, it’s good to chat to you. So much
has happened lately and the business with Jared is just the horrible mouldy
icing on an unpleasant cake of stress.”

“I’m only down the road,” Francine reminded her. “Shall I
come over?”

Penny paused. Then she said, “Yes. Please do. In fact, do
you feel useful? I have a heap of website orders I need to fulfil – a Christmas
rush for my prints and handmade bags – I’ll pay you in tea and cake.”

“You’re on. See you soon.”

Every time the phone rang, or a car pulled up outside her
house, or someone walked past the window, Penny flinched.

She hadn’t heard anything further from the police since she
had been questioned about her whereabouts, and her responsibilities for the
ladder.

The suspense ate away at her. What were they doing with her
things? Was some unfortunate piece of evidence make it seem like she had pushed
Clive off the ladder? She was glad that she had so much work to do. Francine
had helped when she came over, and they had made a good start, but there was a
lot to do – far more than she had realised.

I’ve let things slide
, Penny thought.
It’s
understandable.
Except that all the people who have paid money in good
faith, of course, they won’t understand. They just want their goods delivering.