Small Town Shock (Some Very English Murders Book 1) (5 page)

“I did wonder about that.” Penny looked over the fields.
“It’s all crops, so why does he need electric fences? How dangerous can carrots
get?”

“That’s broccoli in there, or it was,” Drew corrected her.
“But it’s all harvested now. Heh, it can be vicious stuff … I never touch it,
myself. But you’re right. He doesn’t have …
didn’t
have … any livestock
at all any more. No, the electric fences were to annoy the local ramblers’
club.”

“Really?” Penny was immediately intrigued.

Drew nodded. “Yeah. He was really possessive about his
land. There was an ongoing thing about a footpath that the ramblers said was a
public right of way, because it had been used for a certain length of time so
it had passed into common usage or something, and was marked on an old map, and
he disagreed. Flatly refused. I don’t know what harm it would have been, but
anyway. In the ramblers’ group, there was one guy, Ed whats-his-face, who was
trying to take it to court and everything.”

“Did he have support? The ramblers, I mean?”

“From some people, yes. But Ed’s pretty new to the area and
some people think he’s a bit … of a hippy.”

“How long does someone have to live here to be considered
local?” she asked. “I need to know…”

“Oh, only two or three … generations.”

“Great.” She rolled her eyes at him and he laughed. “I
suppose you and your family have lived here since the Norman Conquest.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “We’re still bitter about it.”

A fat blob of rain fell and she shook her head, looking up.
“I guess I ought to be getting back. It was nice to meet you, Drew.” Certainly
nicer than meeting Warren, she thought. Way nicer.

“I’m walking back to town. May I walk with you?”

“If I say no, it’s going to be really awkward.”

“No, it’s fine,” he said, laughing as he fell into step
alongside her. “I’ll keep a discreet distance behind you.”

“Like a stalker.”

“Uh, yeah, okay. That will look weird. I’ll have to walk
beside you, then. Sorry.”

“I’ll suffer it this once.”

“Thanks.”

They soon reached the road. The rain was a light drizzle
now. Drew laughingly called it a “mizzle” – apparently a mixture of mist and
drizzle. When they got onto the pavement by the road, Kali decided she’d been
on her best behaviour for long enough, and lurched without warning down a ditch,
heading straight to some temptingly brackish water at the bottom.

“Get back up here!” Penny was dragged behind, trying not to
lose her grip on the lead, with her feet scrabbling ineffectively for purchase
in the treacherous mud. “Kali! No!”

Kali reached the bottom of the ditch and happily bounded
along for a few steps before deciding that she didn’t like the feeling of her
paws in mud, after all, and she tore back up to the pavement again. Penny felt
hot with shame as she scrambled up. “I am so sorry,” she muttered. “I’m new to
dogs, and … ugh. Just, ugh.”

“Don’t apologise! Are you all right?” Drew’s hands hovered,
as if he wanted to reach out and help. He dithered, and shoved them back into
his pockets.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Dented pride, that’s all.” Penny hauled on
the lead to get Kali closer. “She doesn’t listen to me but I am going to find
some training classes. I’ve got to.”

“How long have you had her?”

“About a week.”

Drew smiled. They moved off again, Penny keeping Kali at
her side. Her shoulders ached with the effort. Drew said, “It’s early days,
yet. But she looks strong. It’s that Rottie muscle around her neck and
shoulders. I don’t think that collar and lead is the best thing, you know.”

“Some bloke I met said I should get a choke chain,” she
admitted. That bloke had been a horrified man who’d been waiting for a bus,
minding his own business, and who had witnessed Kali leap at a passing terrier,
apparently intent on murder. She had resented his unsolicited advice.

Drew shook his head. “You haven’t, so I am guessing you
don’t like them.”

“No, I don’t. It doesn’t seem right to strangle the poor
thing. But the way it’s going, maybe I’ll have to try it.”

“No, don’t,” Drew said very firmly. “Not the choke chain. There’s
always another way. Watch her reactions. You need to bond with her, but take it
slow. It will happen.”

“I’ll keep trying.” They reached the crossroads in town.
“Here’s my street.” She wanted to ask where he lived, but her tongue seemed to
dry up.

He nodded, and rubbed Kali on the head. “Get in and out of
the rain. Don’t worry about your dog. I’m sure she’ll settle. Take care, now.”

“And you.” She tugged on the lead and walked away. She was
acutely aware of the large brown stain of mud that was inevitably spread across
her bottom. Her hair would be everywhere, and she’d be a general mess.

Not that it mattered or that she was in any way concerned,
of course.

Not at all.

Kali rolled her eyes up at her, mouth partly open as if she
was laughing at Penny. Penny frowned. Kali dropped her head and scurried on.

She thought about the dead man, David Hart. So, it wasn’t
just the farmer’s brother who might have taken against him, she said to herself
as she let herself in to the cottage and Kali shot down the hallway before Penny
could grab a towel for her paws. In the enclosed space, the pungent smell of
wet dog was immediately apparent. She paused, thinking. The local ramblers had
issues with the farmer, too.

If it wasn’t suicide – though she still thought it could be
– then it might have been an accident…
but what if it was murder?

I’ll follow this story, she said to herself. I’ll start
buying the local paper and learn who is who. It will give me something to talk
about, and I can become a part of this community. Shared experience, and all
that. After all, as I found him, I can contribute to the … to the, er, gossip.

There was a crash from the kitchen, and Penny sighed.
“Kali!”

Penny walked Kali early on Tuesday morning and then spent a
fruitless few hours on the mobile phone trying to organise getting broadband
internet sorted to her cottage. The previous owner hadn’t had a landline and
Penny was appalled to learn of the connection charges she was going to incur. Didn’t
these companies want her business? She was desperate to get online so she could
learn a little more about the community, and also about dog training.

I suppose I’ll have to pretend it’s like 1990 or something,
she thought, sitting glumly in the living room with a half-eaten sandwich in
her hand. Back when we had to learn things by observation and thinking, not
just googling. Huh. When I was a student, it seemed easy. But I suppose I
didn’t know what I was missing.

She was still trying to reconnect with her light and happy
mid-twenties self. She was doing this by listening to the music she had loved,
and dressing in bright, cheerful colours. Currently, some strange electronica
was wafting out of her iPod docking station and her stripy socks were
irritating her calves. Had the music really been this bad back then?

Kali stared fixedly at the sandwich which was limping hanging
from Penny’s fingers. The dog’s unceasing glare started to unsettle Penny so
much that she didn’t want to eat the rest of it. She stood up and went to the
kitchen, and half-heartedly did some cleaning up.

It was no good. She had to get active and involved. She
shook herself all over, just like Kali did, and ferried herself out to the mini-market
once more. She remembered they had a noticeboard of local events and groups. It
seemed like a good place to start.

* * * *

It was still overcast but the rain had eased overnight. She
was fed up of the long, drawn-out chilly spring now, and longed for summer to
make its appearance. She buttoned up her jacket as she approached the food
store. Partly it was against the cold, and partly because she remembered her
meeting with Warren and she wanted some kind of armour against his advances. No
doubt he tried it on with every new woman who came into the shop; she didn’t
flatter herself to think that his advances were directed to her alone.

The gossipers had mentioned that David Hart had possibly had
a string of women, too. Was that true, or was it sour grapes on the part of the
beehive woman? Certainly, she never believed gossip about other women’s love
lives as it was invariably untrue. Though perhaps he really had been more
successful in his affairs than Warren was. She could only see the farmer’s
lifeless face in her imagination, and it wasn’t one that screamed devilish
attraction, though.

The noticeboard was by the entrance and she kept alert to
the potential approach of Warren as she began to scan the posters. Upper
Glenfield Camera Club. Craft Group. Over-Fifties Aerobics. Gemstones for
Beginners with Reginald Artichoke. Was that a person or a pop group, she
wondered.

A short, stocky woman was pinning something up and it was
only when she turned around that Penny recognised Cath Pritchard, the detective
constable who’d first interviewed her.

“Now then! Hi, Penny, how are you?” She was dressed in a
comfortable looking long skirt and a fleece jacket that had gone bobbly with
wear. She was straightening her poster which appeared to be advertising some
kind of kitchenware party. Did such a thing exist? Penny wasn’t even sure. Foam
parties, yes. Dinner parties, okay. Kitchenware? “I hope your gruesome
discovery hasn’t put you off living here,” Cath added, stepping back to assess
her poster’s placement.

“No, not at all,” Penny said. “I’m settling in well. Can I
ask … if it’s all right, I don’t know … how did he die? I overheard people
talking about suicide and all sorts of things.”

“Huh, small town gossip,” Cath said, shaking her head in
disapproval. “People round here with nothing better to do. Don’t listen to
them. I can tell you how he died, though. It will be in the paper at the end of
the week, so it’s no big secret. Believe it or not, he was electrocuted.”

“Really! I didn’t think you could be electrocuted to death
by an electric fence. Goodness. I’ll take more care when I’m out and about. Perhaps
it was an accident? It could have malfunctioned.”

Cath shook her head again, grim-faced. “The shock throws
you clear. Well, not quite the shock itself.” She grimaced. “I’ve been learning
a lot about electrocution. Apparently your muscles all go stiff and that’s what
throws you across the ground. There isn’t anything magic in the electricity
itself.”

“But there isn’t enough power in an electric fence, surely?
Even to make your muscles go all stiff. Don’t people pee on them for a dare? Unless
he’d rigged it up to the mains. Do they run off the main grid? And he didn’t
like the ramblers, did he?” She stopped herself. She could hear her own voice
ranting on. So, this is what happened when you stopped working. With fewer
people to talk to, all the words bottled up and poured out in a flood when they
got a chance.

Cath pressed the final pin into the poster and stepped
back. “There’s definitely not enough power in the fence. It ran off a battery
pack, they say. Some fences are wired to the mains, and some aren’t. It’s an
odd situation.”

“Could someone have made him hold on to it?” The farmer was
killed by electricity. He was next to an electric fence. It was obviously
connected. “In fact, if you were determined to kill yourself, and had run out
of paracetamol or gin or whatever, you could just hang on, couldn’t you? Unless
the muscle thing is involuntary. Yes. Or could it have been tampered with, that
battery pack? Super-charged? You have checked, haven’t you?”

“The scene of crime team will be all over it. Our clever
techy boffin types are wildly excited,” Cath said. “They will work it out. But
I doubt that you could hang on to a fence until it shocked you dead, no.”

Penny’s mind was running overtime. It sounded unlikely to
have been suicide. The fence
had
to have been tampered with. There was
so much she didn’t know about electric fences, she thought in frustration. I
need the internet in my cottage! She was about to ask Cath if there was
anywhere with internet access in the town, when she spied Warren lingering by
the magazines a few feet away. As soon as she caught his eye, he turned towards
them and bore down on them both.

She couldn’t let Cath leave now – it would abandon her to the
clammy hands of Warren. “So, you’re running a kitchenware party!” Penny said
brightly, clutching at straws. Cath was already turning to go. Penny wanted to
look like she was deep in conversation and she walked alongside Cath as she
made for the exit.

“It’s just a little hobby to bring in extra cash for
Christmas,” Cath said. “And it’s nice to do something completely unrelated to
my day job, and feel like a normal person for a while. It’s being held tomorrow
night at my house. I had a poster up for a while but it got lost. Well, I say
‘lost’. Certain groups in the town are not afraid to take other people’s
posters down.” She sniffed. “The Camera Club are particularly underhand.
Anyway, do you fancy it? My party, I mean. It would be a great way for you to
meet people!”

It would, but it sounded dire. “What happens at this sort
of party?” Penny asked. “I went to one in London once. Except it wasn’t for
kitchenware. It was more … adult. And it was hugely embarrassing and I swore to
never go to one again. I bought some furry handcuffs and then got very drunk to
blot it all out. I rode home in a taxi and when I woke up, I had ‘Ginger
Rogers’ written in marker pen on my forehead. I still don’t know why.”

“Oh dear. I know the sort of thing you mean. I think my husband
would laugh his face off if I ran a party like that. But I’ve got two kids and
it’s bad enough keeping them out of the way when we’re all discussing plastic
storage boxes, never mind … all that other stuff. No, it’s just a bunch of
women who come and look at handy things for the kitchen and you can buy things
if you like. There will be nibbles. No marker pens. Go on. Do come.”