Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) (3 page)

Under the circumstances, Penny didn’t find that very funny.

She’d not experienced much death in her life, which was
unusual for someone of her age, she thought. She’d lived a self-contained
existence that focused only on work, and the people she met through work, and
consequently she’d never grown close enough to anyone to miss them when they
went. Her parents were still alive; though elderly, they got on with active
lives quite far away. She visited them at Christmas but their social lives left
her feeling quite tired as they explained to their daughter that she could only
come up and stay at certain times – when they weren’t on cruises, they were on
walking holidays, or city breaks, or coach tours, or hedge-laying weekends. She
suspected they were both bionic now. They’d had that many spare parts replaced
and upgraded – hips, hearing aids, eye laser treatment – they were officially
cyber-people. They’d last forever.

There was her sister too, of course. And she was only about
an hour away. But Ariadne had made her lifestyle choices, and Penny didn’t
understand them. They had argued so many times, with so many hurtful words. She
preferred to push that from her mind. They’d both made the sort of mistakes in
their sibling relationship that seemed too difficult to put right, now.

Or too much effort.

Penny stopped at the end of the parade of shops. The road
continued past the busy industrial estate, and up to the High School. She
didn’t fancy running the gauntlet of walking past a gaggle of sullen teenagers
so she turned and made her way back to the mini-market.

It was a mini supermarket with all the basics that you
needed from day to day. There was a noticeboard in the entrance with various
posters and papers pinned to it, which she skimmed past. She browsed along the
fruit and vegetables, heading for the bakery aisle at the back.

She knew why they put the bread and milk furthest away.
Shops banked on the fact that people came in for the essentials, so they wanted
to ensure that the customer passed as many tempting things as possible on the
way through to what they actually wanted. By the time Penny reached the bakery
section, she had already picked up a chocolate bar and some interesting pesto
sauce in a jar, and then forced herself to put them back again.

She was hoping to see if they did freshly baked baguettes
but her way was blocked by a woman as wide as she was tall, with the most
amazing sixties-inspired hairdo that she’d ever seen. The backcombed black beehive
shone with artificial glossiness, and it was teetering on the top of a face
that was almost entirely a wide, red smile. The woman had another woman
virtually pinned to the racking by her verbal onslaught.

“Dead! Yes!
Very
dead! But now I do wonder, you
know, how his brother is taking it. You know.” The beehived woman wiggled her
immaculate eyebrows. Her smile was one of the joy of gossiping, not some
inappropriate glee at another’s demise. Or so Penny hoped. “You know…” the
beehive woman repeated. “Eh?”

“Thomas? Oh my. Well, he’d be relieved, I imagine, but you
can’t really say that, can you?” the other woman said. “Not that I am relieved.
God rest his soul and all that. But Thomas…”

“No love lost between them, was there? Now then, that was a
bad business. Eh!”

“I was talking about that to my Barney. It strikes me that
he’d probably offed himself. Farmers. There’s a high suicide rate with farmers,
isn’t there? Milk prices. Guns, my Barney said. They have access to guns, you
see.”

Beehive woman sucked in her cheeks, her smile temporarily
fading as a mark of respect to the dead man. “David Hart never did seem like a
man who’d take his own life. Too stubborn, eh. What with the paths and his
selfishness and that business with them lot. Now, as for that brother of his…”

“Thomas wouldn’t commit suicide!”

“No,” the beehive woman said, her eyes alight with
mischief, “not at all. I mean that Thomas might have
done David in
! Eh?”

“No! He never would…” her companion said, delighted with
the shocking gossip.

Penny browsed along a display of mysterious Lincolnshire
plum bread that she had no intention of buying. Was it just bread with plums
in? She pretended to study the ingredients. She really wanted to be part of the
conversation. Eavesdropping was the next best thing.

“He might of done him in,” the beehive woman said. “People
are strange. I seen it on the telly.”

“No, surely not. My Barney said that it was suicide. My
Barney knows stuff. David had been quite odd lately. I mean, that new woman he
was seeing – you know who! – you’d think he’d be happy, even with
her
,
but he wasn’t, he was all strange.”

Beehive woman tutted. “No woman was ever going to make him
happy. That’s why he went through so many of them, eh. Or that’s what I heard.”

“I dunno that he had that many women. No, but my Barney
said that he wasn’t even going to
darts
!”

Now it was beehive woman’s turn to be shocked. “Not going
to darts!” she repeated in horror. “Not. Going. To. Darts! Eh? Eh!”

Penny wondered what was so important about not going to darts.
Was it code for something? What nefarious practices was this sleepy
Lincolnshire town really hiding? She couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.
“What’s the deal with not going to darts?” she asked, smiling hopefully at
beehive woman and her slender companion.

Beehive woman’s eyebrows nearly crawled off the top of her
forehead. Her thinner companion answered for her. “His team
lost
because
he wasn’t there!” she said with indignation. Both women made eye contact with
one another, and flared their nostrils.

Penny felt excluded. She muttered a meaningless
acknowledgment, and put the packet of plum bread back on the shelf. The two
women had half-turned away to continue their gossip more privately.

After all, it would not be right if just
anyone
could hear the rumours they were discussing, would it, Penny thought as she
gave up on her baguette hunt. She foraged her way along the aisle back towards
the till area.

She had decided not to buy anything, so she nodded at the
cashier as she sidled past the line of people waiting to pay for their goods.
She felt awfully guilty, as she always did, as if she were under some
obligation to buy something lest she be thought of as a shoplifter. She stifled
the terribly British urge to apologise for her empty hands.

“Were we not able to meet your grocery needs today, madam?”

It was every shopper’s worst nightmare. There was a
painfully keen and helpful member of staff, looming out in front of her,
sporting the name badge “Warren.” He was dressed in a tight beige shirt that
did not flatter him; he was a tall, stocky, fleshy sort of man, the type of man
who hunches his shoulders to seem less intimidating, but then immediately
counteracts that by standing way too close to people.

Penny stepped back.

He moved into the gap she had left.

Ugh. She could smell his shower gel. She said, “Ahh, sorry,
I was just browsing. I’ve just moved here. Just looking.” Just repeating
just
over and over again. Aargh. She felt pinned to the spot by her own politeness.

The man smiled, his pale eyes crinkling at the corners. He
wasn’t pretending to be happy to help. He really
was
very, very happy to
help. “Welcome to Upper Glenfield!” he boomed. “We’re a local shop but we’ve
got all the big-name brands. Everything you could need! Even marmite! Do you
like marmite? I’m the store manager. Warren Martin. Call me Warren. And if
there’s ever anything you think we should stock, do let me know! I’m
always
here!”

I bet you are. “Thank you. That’s good to know.” Help. Let
me out. No. I loathe marmite. Her gaze slid past the stocky manager to the door
behind him.

But he was immobile and blocked her exit, looming over her with
a happy smile. “So you’re living in Glenfield, then…”

“Yes.” She had just told him that, hadn’t she? He was smiling
in an increasingly unnerving way. She had to fill the expectant silence. “On
River Street.”

“Lovely cottages, them, I’ve always thought. I sometimes go
down there early in the morning to take photographs. I go there when no one is
around. It’s the light, you see. Such wonderful morning light.”

“Er … yes.” Nothing creepy about that at all, nope, not at
all.

His gaze flickered from her face to her left hand and back.
Her heart began to sink as his intentions registered in her mind. He took a
deep breath and made his move. “Small cottages, too. Not big enough for a
family… on your own, are you? So, if I might ask, if I might be so bold,
ahahaha, what brings you to Glenfield?”

She wondered, briefly, if she ought to meet his
expectations. She could spin a heart-rending tale of failed love affairs, maybe
a marriage break-up, how she was fleeing some dreadful past and was looking
only for a new shoulder to cry upon … his wolfish look was certainly hoping for
all that.

“I’ve retired,” she said, sharply, and stepped to one side.
She was being rude by walking away but then, she reasoned, he was being rude in
preventing her from moving on.

“Goodness me. You’re far too young to retire,” he oozed. “Now
then. I wonder if I might be allowed to help you to settle into the area? I’ve
been a long standing resident for many years. I know everyone. I am sure I can
help you to get to know people…”

It was exactly what she wanted. But not from this over-keen
man who was looking at her with more than friendliness on his face. She said, “What
a lovely offer. Thank you but–”

“Perhaps a meal?”

She tried not to groan. “Oh, no, I…”

“Lincoln is not far away. Have you been? Such an overlooked
city. It has some wonderful places to eat. The Bailgate area is particularly
sophisticated. I know a smashing pub. Tonight, perhaps? Yes! I am free from …
well, I shall get Colin to cover for me, so anytime from eight …”

She shook her head decisively. How had “let me tell you
about Glenfield” become “let’s go on a date in a nearby city”?

“Thank you, Warren, but no thank you. I must be going.” She
strode past him. These situations needed to be clear and unequivocal. She’d
learned that the hard way, some years ago. There had been a pleasant, if
slightly drippy, sound electrician on her production team when they were in
Cambodia and she had been too soft to give him the brush-off properly. This
meant he had followed her around hopefully for four months once they returned
to the UK and she had taken to hiding in cupboards just to avoid him. She’d been
caught by a security guard who had days of footage of her shenanigans, and she had
a lot of explaining to do.

It was far less cruel, in the long term, to simply say
“no.”

But Warren was undeterred. She began to recognise him as
one of those men who had been turned down so many times that he no longer
really registered a proper, clear refusal. He followed her out of the shop and
onto the pavement, saying, “It’s a simple neighbourly offer, that’s all. I’ll
show you the sights, tell you who is who and what is what…”

“No, but thank you.”

He was quite ugly when he was annoyed. “You needn’t act
like I’ve just propositioned you. I’m making a friendly gesture.”

“And I appreciate it,” she said tightly.

“You don’t seem to.”

She backed away, wishing for the first time that she had
her dog with her. Kali could at least look menacing. “I am settling in very
well, and I like living here, and I appreciate your offer but now I need to go.
Good day.” She added “leave me alone” in her head, and hoped he could read that
through the narrowing of her eyes.

“You women are all so …”

She turned and walked briskly away, not needing to hang
around to hear what he thought of all women. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy in
a way, my friend, she thought. You come on too strong and we run away and then
you get angry and try even harder the next time … it’s never going to work.

It was a shame.

And she had the prickling feeling along her spine that he
was staring at her as she went, and she wondered how much of an enemy she had
made.

Enemies were easy enough to handle in London. She’d made a
few, after all. But here in Glenfield, she was going to find it difficult if
people started to take against her before she really got established.

Warren would probably turn out to be a local mover-and-shaker
with influence in every corner of the town. She shuddered and headed for home.

But her cottage on River Street didn’t feel like home quite
yet. She’d lived in a small apartment in London, so she had been able to bring
most of her belongings with her, but even with her familiar items around, it
was an unfamiliar sort of place.

Kali was lying in the hallway, doing a fine impression of a
large black rug, but she kept her eyes on Penny in case she suddenly decided to
shower food everywhere. Dogs were ever-hopeful.

Penny prowled from room to room. It didn’t take long. The
cottage’s front door opened into a tiny porch where she kept boots and coats
and hats, and then that opened into the long, narrow hallway. To the right was
the main living room at the front of the house, and further down the hall was
the square kitchen. Bizarrely, the stairs to the two bedrooms and tiny bathroom
led up from a corner of the kitchen.

“I am going to put some pictures up,” she told the dog, who
cocked her head. “Don’t freak out when I start bashing into the walls with a
hammer, okay?”

Kali didn’t. She followed Penny into the living room and
watched as she began to put some nails into the walls. How could the dog go
crazy when it caught a glimpse of another dog half a mile away, and ignore this
racket? She was learning more about dogs. Ever-hopeful … and they made no
sense.