The Flower Girls (19 page)

“All right. But at your house. I’ll come there if it’s all right.”

“Of course. I’ll arrange it and come and pick you up but I really think you need to see him alone.”

“I don’t mind that, just so long as you’re around.”

“I will be.”

They parted on the car park; she didn’t know why but when she’d walked him to his car, she said, “I’d love a hug,” and then blushed to the roots of her hair. He obliged. Tenderly, holding her against him. She inhaled the scent of him, closed her eyes against remembrance of those wonderful intimate moments. He kissed the top of her head, then smoothed back her hair before releasing her.

I love you, Seth,
she whispered to herself,
and no matter what happens, I always will. Every relationship, every crush I’ve experienced, all pale into insignificance when I think of you and how I feel.

But she merely touched his sleeve and before he climbed into his car, she sped away across the car park and didn’t look back.

Chapter 24

Robert Donnington looked as he always did. Immaculate. Rather like Inspector Foreshaw but his clothes were far more expensive. They had that sharp cut that expert tailoring gave. His pale blue shirt was silk, as was his plain brown tie. He’d slightly overdone the after-shave. His silver hair glistened, his shave was close. Poppy felt just a tad intimidated. It was as if Donnington were a boss and she up for interview. He didn’t possess the art of putting someone at their ease, which was surprising because of his profession. She hoped it didn’t show that he made her feel that way.

Remember
he
wants to see
you
—you don’t want or need to see him—you have the advantage. Hold on in there.
She pushed back her shoulders and faced him square on, glad of the plain shirtdress she wore. Its block color navy, relief came with her red shoes, high-heeled, peep-toed. She also wore a red neckerchief, and gold looped earrings, her hair loose, a little subtle make-up.

Mrs. Carrington had brought in coffee and biscuits. After asking him if he wanted coffee and hearing his rather sharp refusal, she poured herself a cup, took it up, went and sat in the armchair. It took several minutes before he elected to sit on the sofa. He slightly hitched up his trousers by the immaculate crease. She saw his socks were black and white, his shoes gray to match the color of his suit.

On the two occasions when she’d seen him he’d been a little warmer and on the first occasion—at the hotel—downright flirtatious. Now he was more serious, which she preferred.

“What was it you wanted exactly?”

He took a moment to answer. “You’re very different from Jasmine,” he said.

“Yes.” She’d thought to say nothing but then decided to confirm it.

“She was so fascinating.” There was a tiny break in his voice. “I just couldn’t believe her…that she was real. When I first met her it was as if a bolt of lightning went through me. I know she knew it. Women do sense impact, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Edward was smitten with her. She came to the house, with Seth. She toyed with Edward, I know she did but she would never be serious about him. Jasmine knew he was going to get married to this girl with pots of money. She told me as much. We met in the village, at the damn post office of all places. She told me she was going to the city in two days; she told me where she would be staying. I said it would be nice for her and Seth but she laughed at that. She said she was going alone, that Seth wasn’t interested in that kind of thing…she said she knew I
was
.”

Poppy thought,
lamb to the slaughter.

But then he should have been stronger. After all he had a formidable wife and a lifestyle far removed from anything that Jasmine could answer. But some men were fools, she knew that and middle-aged ones…well. She took a sip of coffee.

He sighed unhappily. “She was a wonderful girl. I don’t want to make excuses for the way I behaved but I couldn’t seem to help myself. In the end she wanted me to leave Caroline. God…” He looked down. “I was really afraid.”

“Of Caroline finding out?”

“Yes, but more afraid of losing Jasmine because I couldn’t do what she wanted. Not with Edward’s marriage plans. His wife’s parents are very, very straight-laced. I thought all that had gone out of fashion, but not with them. I wasn’t certain that Susanna would be strong enough to stand up to them if anything went wrong. I was straight with Jasmine, I told her I couldn’t divorce Caroline, not then, not ever.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?”

“I need to.”

“I don’t need to hear it!”

He looked away from her, stood with jerky movements and practically dragged himself limply to the coffee pot. He poured some in a cup, and coffee spilled into the saucer. He tried to put the spilled coffee back in the pot but it spilled on his hand and on the table. Poppy leaped to her feet, went to him and took over. She took a couple of tissues from her pocket and dabbed up the mess, then after wiping the saucer, put the cup on it and took the cup to the small table that was adjacent to the sofa. Robert Donnington trailed behind her like a beaten dog and the hardness inside her melted. It wasn’t his entire fault. He’d fallen under Jasmine’s bewitching spell.

“Sit down and drink your coffee. I’ll listen to you,” she announced.

He did as she said. When he’d drunk about half of his coffee he put back the cup and saucer and faced her, then spread his hands.

“Jasmine was vicious. I had no idea she could be so malevolent. She threatened to tell Caroline, to make trouble, to tell Seth. At first I was scared but what could I do? I told her if she would do that then she would have to do it. I couldn’t give her what she wanted.”

“Did you tell the police any of this?”

He shook his head, just as she half-knew he would. Had he told the police they would have pursued him more than they had. He had every motive possible to rid himself of Jasmine and yet as she looked at him she saw he couldn’t have done it. He was a weak man but he wasn’t violent.

Are you sure?
a voice questioned.
Not positive but almost really sure.

Besides he had an alibi, he wasn’t around in the period that Jasmine was killed. But alibis weren’t foolproof. Not to a man with his influence. Looking at him, she said what was on her mind. “Did you kill Jasmine?”

He paled. “No.” After a pause he went on. “I can see how you might think that, but I didn’t. To tell you the truth I called her bluff, I told her she could go ahead and do that. If she wanted to ruin everyone’s life I wasn’t going to stop her. I thought, you see, that Seth was in love with her. I hadn’t realized that what she said was true, that her marriage was—as she put it—toast.” He waited several seconds. “Why was she like that, Poppy?”

If only I knew,
Poppy thought.
She was always willful and if she didn’t get her own way she could create mayhem.

But to Robert Donnington she just shook her head.

“Then, after that she started going out with someone else. The man who shoved her out of his car…what was his name?”

“Colin Redway. He’s not a very big football star but I gather he’s pretty flash. He had drugs in the car, probably made some money on the side. I can’t understand what Jasmine was doing with him, he was hardly her type.”

“She wanted to punish me, just as she used me to punish Seth.”

That made sense. It was the kind of methodology that Jasmine would use.

“I really loved her,” he said.

“But not enough, it would seem.”

“No, but then just as she tired of what Seth could offer her, so she would have tired of my life. I’m not in the heady circles anymore. My life’s pretty humdrum.”

“She probably didn’t even want to marry you,” Poppy said, though not wishing to be cruel. “But to cause mayhem and have fun at other people’s expense. I gather she and Caroline didn’t hit it off.”

“Goodness no.”

“Did Caroline find out?”

“She knows now, she didn’t before it all came out.”

“And are things all right?”

He examined his hands. “Things are superficially all right.”

Yes, she could imagine that. Image was everything to Caroline Donnington. She’d put up with Robert’s foolishness just so she could present the right picture of her life to the world outside. She had to be shallow but then it was none of Poppy’s business, she knew that. All that really concerned her was finding out who’d murdered her sister in such a brutal way.

“I’m so sorry about what happened to her. Whatever she did she didn’t deserve that,” Robert Donnington said, his voice breaking a little. “She was so different from anyone else, spiteful and dangerous but exciting and fun too. She had this marvelous sense of humor, something that’s lacking in…”

He didn’t say—he didn’t need to; Poppy guessed that life with Caroline wasn’t a bundle of laughs.

“Anyway…” He stood; now he looked a little stooped, as if the weight that had been supporting him had been taken away. “I really needed you to know. I know you don’t have a good opinion of me…but I really loved Jasmine, it wasn’t just a fling.”

Of course it was, but she didn’t say it. Better to leave it be. He might want to believe it wasn’t just a fling but how could it be anything else? He’d had no intention of leaving his wife and destroying his stature, but he wasn’t the only man in the world to do that. Jasmine played with fire, she didn’t care who was burned in the process. It took two to tango. Sadly Poppy felt her feelings for her sister freezing a little. Family loyalty kept her in there but before Robert left she needed to ask him something he might know the answer to.

“Robert, when I first met Edward I didn’t come as a surprise to him. He knew Jasmine had a sister—she told him but she never told Seth. Did she tell you?”

“Yes.” He moved back into the room. “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

“About what?”

“Let’s sit down again. I wasn’t going to say anything but since you ask…”

Tensely Poppy went and sat in the chair; he came and took the chair opposite. He frowned, flicked an imaginary piece of lint from the sleeve of his immaculate jacket.

“I know she mentioned to Edward that she had a sister but I don’t think she told him anything else but to me…well on those days, nights even, when we were together she told me a good deal.”

“Really? About our mother, about her life?”

“No, about you. Now, on reflection, I think she was jealous of you.”

“Jealous of me? Plain old me. I can’t believe it.”

“You were the smart one, that’s what she said. Pushy even. You were the one who went to college, took a business degree, ran a business; is this correct?”

“Well yes, but Jasmine had everything. Modeling, glamour…”

“I know. That’s how it would seem. You were the one in the US, making money…”

She guffawed at that. “Not a lot of money but I worked and was comfortable.”

“At first, when she started telling me about you I thought you were pretty awful. You seemed hard and a woman who could and would push people out of the way to get what you want. But then—I don’t know when it was exactly
—
I started to sense that perhaps she was exaggerating.
I might have made a fool of myself over Jasmine but I’m a decent judge of people. It seemed to me that she made things up about you. There was a lack of consistency over her ranting.”

“Ranting? But it doesn’t make sense.”

“You took the money to go to college and there was none left for her…”

Open-mouthed, Poppy listened to his version of her that he had from her sister. She wanted to cry out,
no, that’s not true
. Jasmine couldn’t wait to leave school, she had no interest in academia, and she wanted fame and glamour. Any form of study was hard slog to her. However, Poppy didn’t want him to lose his momentum. The bitter little lies ate into her—how could Jasmine do that and then, not many weeks on, write letters begging her to come to England to rescue her from a marriage to a man who frightened her. Unless…and the thought was so unpalatable she pushed it, for the moment, out of her mind.

“But I can see you’re nothing as she described.”

“I wonder why she told you and not Seth.”

“Probably because Seth would never have believed her. Seth wasn’t a fool about her—that was my department. She could manipulate me up to a point but she could never manipulate Seth.”

After he’d gone, his words having formed a bitter kernel inside her, she sat alone, thinking and wondering why Jasmine had acted as she had. Why lie about someone who’d always tried to be fair to her? Her sister was impossibly beautiful and yet Robert Donnington had said she was jealous of Poppy, when if everything stood the right way up, that should have been Poppy’s department. But she never had been jealous because she knew she wanted to plough a path different from her sister’s. They had nothing in common, if they were chasing the same dreams then perhaps…

She couldn’t say how long she stayed sitting in the library. Minutes, an hour? She was lost in thought, the past haunted her and she saw how different her life was from her sister’s. They were chalk and cheese, to use a cliché. Perhaps she took after their father. Mother had always had a self-destructive streak and perhaps Jasmine had inherited that from their mother. She was the sensible one, down-to-earth, good at school, rarely in trouble, not head girl but she’d certainly been a prefect in their last year. For all her charm and beguiling ways Jasmine had never wormed her way into the affections of any teacher. Academic work bored her, the only subject she shone at was drama and only then if she had a large part in a production. Had the part been small, necessary to give another kid an opportunity, then Jasmine had developed laryngitis or the flu or not been well enough to take part half way through the production. Jasmine was a pain to everyone but Jasmine.

Guilt overwhelmed Poppy. She shouldn’t be thinking ill of the dead and yet what else could she be but honest. Remembering Jasmine as the adorable little girl was certainly easier and safer. She’d been happy to let her younger sister be the center of attention. She’d never been interested in people drooling over her, she had been far happier in a quiet corner reading a book.