The Flower Girls (7 page)

“Yes.” Poppy warmed to the young lad’s story. It was what she wanted to believe. She’d sensed an innate decency in Seth and Jason now was just confirming that.

It was Mrs. Carrington who broke the conversation. She swept into the room and called him sharply. “You have chores to do, Jason.”

He didn’t answer back but immediately joined his mother in the doorway.
Unusual in a teenager,
Poppy thought, but then she hadn’t known that many teenagers. She remembered Jasmine and how she would never do as she was told unless it was something she wanted to. Poppy half-smiled as she thought what a strop Jasmine would have pulled had their aunt ordered her to do her chores, as Mrs. Carrington had just done with her son.

“I’ll bring your lunch here, Poppy,” Mrs. Carrington said. Poppy looked up. It was the first time Mrs. Carrington had ever used her name. Poppy wondered why such a simple act should cause a warm glow to erupt but then realized she was very human. She wanted to be accepted on her own terms and not as an appendage of Jasmine.

“Thank you, Mrs. Carrington, but I can come into the kitchen.”

“Suit yourself.” The woman was abrupt again. Poppy smiled.

“I like to take a break.”

Mrs. Carrington nodded.

Aah, perhaps the iceberg’s melting just a little.

It was turned four when Poppy heard the front doorbell ring. There was impatience in the ring, it was as if someone felt the door wasn’t being opened quickly enough and kept a finger on the bell. Irritating. Poppy jackknifed out of the chair, practically running across the room and swinging open the library door so sharply the door escaped her fingers and slammed back against the wall.

Mrs. Carrington was at the door. The wind whipped through the hall. Two tall men were outside, smartly dressed. She couldn’t hear what they said and so stepped deeper into the hall. As she did so she heard Mrs. Carrington say, “Mr. Sanderson isn’t at home.”

One of the men obviously asked where he was for Mrs. Carrington shrugged. “Don’t know really, I assume London.”

“He hasn’t called?” Nearing the door, she heard the question. Mrs. Carrington had to have noted her tread for she turned around sharply. Expecting to be admonished for her temerity in coming to see whom it was, Poppy hesitated. But Mrs. Carrington asked her. “Has Mr. Sanderson called you, Poppy?”

“No, no he hasn’t.”

The men seeing her turned to look at her. It came to her suddenly that they looked like policemen. They had that smart clean-cut look, not the look of salesmen. One wore a dark gray suit, the other a navy thin pinstripe. They had neatly styled hair, the younger a bright ginger, the other a muted brown. It was the older one who wore the dark gray.

“I’m Mrs. Sanderson’s sister,” she confirmed. She caught the look the men exchanged.

“Perhaps we could have a word with you, Madam,” the older one said. “I’m Detective Inspector Forshaw and this is Sergeant Markham.”

“Of course. Please come in.” Casting a look at Mrs. Carrington, Poppy saw the older woman raise her eyebrows, but she stood back and ushered the men in.

“I was in the library, perhaps we should go in there.”

“Yes.” It was the younger one who spoke. “And perhaps you would join us?” He addressed Mrs. Carrington.

“I don’t think it’s my place.”

“Oh please do, Mrs. C, you’re far more familiar with things than me.”

The men exchanged another look. “It might be better,” the older man said.

Now in the library they stood apart, both men refusing a seat. Poppy stood closer to Mrs. Carrington, the men facing them.

We are a merry circle,
Poppy thought, wanting to be light-hearted but knowing all the time that two detectives wouldn’t be out on a terrible afternoon like this to sell dance tickets.

“Miss…” Inspector Forshaw began. She sensed a question.

“Poppy Lord.”

“Miss Lord, I’m sorry to tell you that we’ve found your sister.”

She missed the word sorry, feeling glad with the fact that they had found Jasmine. There was no question of her recognizing exactly what they were saying. She felt momentarily too excited. “Oh thank goodness. I don’t know why she went away when I told her I was coming.” She tried to smile. “But that’s like Jasmine, so unpredictable. Is she all right?”

“Miss Lord, your sister is dead. We found her body yesterday, or rather a shepherd did.”

“I don’t understand,” Poppy whispered, panic starting to grow. Her heart thudded like a runaway horse; she backed away from the circle, seeking a chair. Slowly she slid down, glad to feel the softness of the cushion against her thighs.

“There’s no easy way to do this.” His voice was soft and kind. “It seems that Mrs. Sanderson was attacked,
brutally
so. We couldn’t really be sure it was her but for dental records.”

“It can’t be Jasmine. You said a shepherd found her. Jasmine would rather eat rabbit dung than be found in shepherd country. My sister was a city girl.”

Mrs. Carrington had come beside her. Poppy felt her thin, rather bony arm go around her.

“Poppy,” she said softly.

“No…”She shook her head. Feeling her eyes well up with tears, she was crying for this poor girl who had been found, not for Jasmine. She’d promised she would always care for Jasmine; that they were apart didn’t mean she hadn’t cared for her.

“If you would like to—”

“No.” She choked on the word. “There really is no need for me to see this girl. I know it isn’t Jasmine. I know it.”

A firm voice echoed across to them. “What’s going on?” Turning to the door, Poppy saw that Seth was there. Seth in a black cashmere Crombie car coat over a light gray suit, looking like a million dollars. She’d never seen him so well dressed. He’d clear this all up. She just knew he would.

Chapter 8

It was very dark. A single light from a lamp glowed through the darkness. There was the flash of firelight on the ceiling but nothing else. Poppy lay on the settee. She hated herself for being a coward and for refusing to acknowledge even a modicum of truth.

Seth had gone with the police. He’d been gone hours.

Jasmine, why are you doing this? Why are you running away?

But there was only one person running and that was she, and she was running from reality. The police had to be pretty certain of the truth. They wouldn’t have come otherwise. They’d checked and double-checked, yet still deep inside her there was a glimmer of hope.

Through the silence of the house came the sound of a door closing. Not softly but not loudly either. Just clicking to a close. She didn’t move. Waited, holding her breath, praying for Seth to burst in with good news.

The door squeaked open. Seth was framed in the threshold. He looked terrible. His complexion was dredged of all color. His eyes, those wonderful green orbs, full of agony. She didn’t have to ask; instead she gave a slight moan and turned over, burrowing into the cushion. Trying to hide from confirmation of what she dreaded. But the police had checked Jasmine’s dental records; they had known it was her. Only Poppy found it difficult to accept. Now, looking at Seth, she knew for certain.

There was a clink of glass against glass. Seth was pouring drinks. If ever a man needed a drink she knew he did. Whatever he felt for Jasmine now, he’d once loved her. Probably, like many before him, adored her. He had to be in pieces. She had to help. With effort she pulled herself upright. He was coming towards her, a glass of brown liquid in his hand. “Drink this,” he commanded.

She took the drink; the smell told her it was brandy. She sipped obediently. It was well diluted with soda. His drink looked like it was straight and he threw it down in one.

“I can’t get the picture out of my head.” The sentence staggered out of him. Pulling away from the sofa, Poppy went to him, taking him in her arms and hugging him to her. Her hand went through his hair, stroking his scalp as if he were a small boy in tears.

“God, Poppy,” he said. “I’m so glad you didn’t go but I…” he swore bitterly, disentangling himself from her embrace. “I need to get drunk.” He staggered across the room and poured another brandy. This one he nursed and sipped. “I’ve seen so much in my life but this…it was so damned personal. How could someone do that to that beautiful girl?”

“Don’t tell me just yet…I need to know, but not now.”

“She’d taken a lot of cocaine; did you know she used drugs?”

Poppy shook her head adamantly. “She hated drugs. Our mother was an addict. She never wanted to finish up like her. She said so. I don’t believe she took it, but someone might have forced it on her.”

God!” He smote his fist into his hand. “Was that what it was all about? The coming and going—was she mixing with scum from the drug world and then couldn’t pay them or something? She had only to ask me!”

Poppy spoke calmly and softly. “Seth, she would
not
take drugs. She might do a lot of silly things but she wouldn’t take drugs. I know that for sure.”

“What do you know?” he raged back at her. “You hadn’t seen her for years. How do you know anything about your sister?”

It was true; she didn’t know what Jasmine had been getting up to. They only recently had started to correspond and from Jasmine there had been nothing but negative statements about her husband.

And you,
she asked herself,
what were you doing while your beautiful sister lay dead on the moors for possibly a week or so. You were making eyes at her husband. Feeling your heart quicken, enjoying the nearness of him.

Guilt overwhelmed her; she sank into the folds of the sofa, nursing the glass between her hands. She wanted to scream, she needed to let go somehow but she hung on to a vestige of sanity. She had to get through this.

“There are a lot of things I didn’t know, or even didn’t
want
to know about Jasmine, but I’m certain she wouldn’t take drugs. Did she drink much?”

Seth shook his head.

“No, so you see, she saw mother wilt and spiral downwards; she always said she would never do that. Never lose control of her body and mind; never let something get a hold of her. Whoever did this terrible thing made it look like she took drugs, please believe me, Seth.”

“I don’t know. She used to get pretty high.”

“What do you mean?”

His voice was steady, his words perfectly enunciated; without emotion he told her how excited Jasmine used to get. Giddy to the point of hysteria. Certainly that could mean someone on coke but then Poppy knew how excited Jasmine could get over things. Yet was it conceivable she’d take something that would alter her mind. Perhaps she
had
changed. After all if her marriage was so unhappy would she not be tempted to have something, some kind of crutch? But drugs? She’d never even smoked a cigarette. It just wasn’t like Jasmine. Besides she wanted to retain her beauty. Poppy’s sister had known that drugs could be ruinous to your looks. Jasmine was very vain, she knew she was beautiful and nothing was going to rob her of that beauty. She wanted to say all of this to him but not yet, not now. Instead she adopted a reasonable tone, tried to see things from his point of view.

“Let’s say for argument’s sake that she
did
take drugs. That that’s what made her change. You can’t tell me it was normal behavior to keep taking off as she did. If she was unhappy—”

At her words he slammed his glass onto the silver tray. He sounded wretched. “No, we were both unhappy. Marry in haste, regret at leisure, I feel disloyal saying that now, but we had nothing in common. She loathed it here and I didn’t want to go to London. I had my career; she had nothing…just this emptiness.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Seth. Jasmine was a seeker of pleasure. She flitted from job to job, different boyfriends. She got bored easily. She was like a beautiful butterfly.”

Seth turned around, not looking at her but staring into space. It was as if he were analyzing her words, trying to grasp at the enigma that was Jasmine. “Whatever she was, or whatever she’d done, Poppy,” he said at last, “she didn’t deserve to be beaten to death and left in a ditch.”

A sob filled her throat. Poppy swallowed hard. The hot tears were there, burning the back of her eyes. She needed to be alone.

* * * *

The police came back—of course she’d expected it—the first suspect in this type of murder was the husband. They wanted to look at the vehicles. They asked Seth to go with them to the police station, just to help with their inquiries.

“How long do you think my wife was out there?”

“A week or two.”

“I was away just now,” he said without rancor. “My sister-in-law can verify my absence.” He glanced at her as if anticipating her refusal. “But I was here when Miss Lord arrived; she’s been here about two weeks…”

“Well yes…you know Mr. Sanderson only came back the day you arrived to tell me…tell us…about my sister...” A swelling welled up in her throat.

But it was Seth who spoke. “Poppy, there’s time later for that. You’re not ready…please.” He came beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. She knew he was right. To the policemen he said, “And I have alibis aplenty. I’m going to write them down for you…what I am
not
doing is going to the station. You can have someone come here and take my DNA, you can do what the hell you like, but I am
not
sitting in a stinking room being interrogated for no good reason other than you’re taking the easy route. If I was you I’d be out there looking for whoever did this.” This last was spoken with something akin to pure rage. Even Poppy blanched at the venom in the words.

The detectives exchanged glances and then the older indicated with his hand that Seth should give them a list. He sat at his desk, drew out a piece of white typing paper and, picking up a ballpoint pen, commenced to write.

Finished, he gave the paper to the inspector who looked at it right away.

“You can see, I was in London. I had appointments all day and every day. When I travelled back I did so with Adam Naismith. He happened to be on the same train. You do know him, don’t you? He used to be a policeman too—in fact wasn’t he your chief?”