Chapter 7
Julia’s tummy rumbled. Her tummy had been expecting a Scotch egg.
It had been eagerly anticipating the hardboiled egg, covered in free-range pork sausage-meat, breadcrumbed and fried in hot oil to a delicious crisp.
But there had been no Scotch egg. Not even a basket of bread at the Riverside.
They had only just sat down at their table when Walter Farmer arrived and took Tabitha in for questioning.
Julia had walked Jake home, fetched her car and dashed over to Berrywick police station.
And there she sat, waiting. Tabitha was in an office in the back with Walter Farmer. DI Hayley Gibson, according to the tight-lipped receptionist, Cherise, was not on the premises. In desperation, Julia had tried to phone the detective inspector, but Hayley was either busy, or not picking up.
Julia’s stomach gave another desperate rumble.
If only she’d thought to grab a snack when she dropped Jake off at home.
As it was, she had unearthed two dusty humbugs from a corner of her handbag.
She had eaten one. Then she had waited five minutes – she timed it on her watch – and eaten the other.
Instead of filling her up, the two little sweets had set off the rumbling and grumbling, and now she was hungrier than ever.
She wondered if Cherise could hear it from the desk.
She hoped not. Audible bodily functions were embarrassing, no matter that everyone had them.
Finally the door that led into the offices behind the front desk opened. DC Walter Farmer stood back, holding it politely to let Tabitha pass. For someone who had spent an hour in police custody, Tabitha looked quite calm.
‘There you are! Thank goodness!’ Julia said. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home.’
‘Thank you for coming to fetch me, Julia. You’re a good friend.’
‘Nonsense – you would do the same for me. Are you free to go?’
‘For now.’ Tabitha’s face fell, and she spoke quietly. ‘I can go home, but I can’t leave Berrywick.’
‘What? Why? And for how long? What about the wedding?’
‘The police are saying that the note I wrote to Basil Crow made a credible threat to the victim.’ At this, Tabitha’s calm face broke, and her warm brown eyes filled with tears.
‘That’s nonsense! Of course you wouldn’t hurt anyone, let alone murder a man over some parking dispute. The police must know that.’
Julia looked around for Walter Farmer. He was behind the counter, head down, talking to Cherise. He was deliberately avoiding looking at the two women in the waiting room.
‘I explained that when I said I’d take further action, I meant that I’d go to the council. Not that I’d kill the man,’ said Tabitha. ‘Of course, Walter knows I wouldn’t kill anyone, don’t you, Walter?’
He looked over, reluctantly, in response to his name.
Julia looked at him expectantly. ‘Walter, you can’t honestly think that Tabitha had anything to do with the man’s death! And she has her niece’s wedding in Ghana to go to.’
Walter gave up trying to avoid eye contact.
‘Mrs Fullergood told me all that, Julia. And, as I said to her, no matter my knowledge of her personally, procedure has to be followed. The regional police are all over this. The new boss, the one who took over from Superintendent Roger Graves – Superintendent Lance Frederick – he’s asking for twice-daily updates.
This is on his orders. Tabitha has to stay in Berrywick until further notice. ’
‘But she has booked her tickets to Ghana. She has to—’
‘I’m afraid my hands are tied. This is coming from high up.
’ Walter pointed to the ceiling, as if the big brass were arranged up there like angels on the Sistine Chapel.
He looked deeply uncomfortable. ‘Tabitha, I’m sorry about this.
I’ll do what I can. But for now, please, just go home, and don’t leave the area. ’
Tabitha gave a resigned sigh and said, ‘All right, Walter. Keep in touch, and let me know if there’s any change. This really is a very big worry for me.’
‘I know. And I’ll do my best to resolve it quickly.’
‘And will you please give my regards to Amaryllis? It can’t be long now.’
‘The due date is four weeks from Thursday,’ said Walter. His expression carried elements of disbelief, excitement and terror.
‘Ah, not long to wait. Goodbye, Walter.’
The two women left the police station. Julia pressed the remote control in her hand, and her car answered with a flash of lights.
Tabitha went wordlessly round to the passenger side and got in, pulling the seat belt across her body and clicking it firmly into place.
She sighed. She looked exhausted, not surprisingly.
‘There is some good news,’ she told Julia, with a weak smile.
‘It turns out that Basil Crow didn’t get the note.
I’m so relieved. I kept thinking that the last thing he read, the last message he got, was that note from me…
But it turns out he didn’t see it. It had slipped down under the windscreen wipers and the police almost missed it themselves. ’
‘Well, that is good news. I know how bad you felt about it. But honestly, I’m furious with Walter!’
‘It’s not his fault,’ said Tabitha. ‘As he says, I did make a threat, even if Basil didn’t find the note. And it’s procedure. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.’
‘Hmmph,’ said Julia, who was not cut out for waiting and seeing.
An hour later, having dropped Tabitha home, Julia was raiding the fridge, her tummy now growling like a cave of bears after a long, bleak hibernation.
Fortunately, she had a selection of excellent local cheeses, as well as early asparagus and a few eggs.
Now that the weather was warmer, the girls were laying enthusiastically again.
The sourdough bread was a day or two old, but perfect for toast. She was able to whip up a good plate of very late lunch.
She sat down at the kitchen table, a glass of apple juice at her elbow. ‘It might not be a Scotch egg from Riverside, but it does look delicious,’ she said to Jake, as she grated a scattering of strong cheddar over the steaming asparagus. She bit into the toast, with its melting farm butter. ‘Yum.’
Chewing slowly, she thought about Tabitha’s predicament.
It struck her – not being the wait-and-see sort herself – that there might be some way to hurry along the process to end the ridiculous restriction on her friend’s movements.
Clearly Tabitha didn’t have anything to do with Basil Crow’s death, but who did?
Thinking back to the gossip at Second Chances, it occurred to her that Basil Crow seemed like a man who was not very well liked.
A man with more than a few enemies. Starting with what sounded like a disgruntled ex-wife, Nicky’s second cousin, who seemed also to be Gina’s stepsister. Or something like that.
Perhaps, thought Julia, she could speed up the investigation with a bit of background digging into the ex-wife.
Not that she intended to get involved, but she might find something useful that she could pass on to Walter.
Chivvy things along. It might help get Tabitha off the hook and on a plane to Ghana in time for the wedding.
She didn’t have to find the actual killer, just show the police that they should be looking a lot further afield than gentle Tabitha Fullergood.
Knowing Nicky, Julia anticipated that a quick chat on the phone would unearth a wealth of information, and she wasn’t wrong. Nicky was delighted to share the benefit of her experience with, and information about, Basil Crow.
‘It was a while ago now. I must have been about fifteen when it all fell apart, but some things you don’t forget,’ she said, with a dramatic pause for effect.
Julia responded appropriately, encouraging Nicky, ‘Please. Do go on.’
‘Well, like I said, Basil was married to Delilah. She was my second cousin, on my dad’s side, but she was closer to my mum’s age, because, you see, her mum…’
There followed an extensive intergenerational tour of Nicky’s family, which Julia let flow over her for a minute, until she could bear it no longer.
‘I see,’ she said, cutting in. ‘And you say the marriage didn’t go well?’
‘Not at all. They separated. It was a big to-do. And then they divorced. The first divorce in the family. The first I’d ever heard of, personally. It was a family scandal.’
‘Do you know why they split up?’
‘Affairs, I think. His. No, hers. No, his.’ Nicky paused to think, and Julia remembered that the problem with Nicky was that she never let not knowing the answer to a question stand in her way.
‘No, I have a feeling that maybe there was another woman. But I can’t be sure. You know how it is – Mum and Dad wouldn’t say it in so many words, especially in front of me. I was all ears, of course.’
‘What was he like?’
‘I don’t remember him well at all. I only remember I didn’t like him much, but I’m not sure why.
Oh, except that once he made a joke about my dog, Poppy, being fat.
Poppy looked chubby, because she was a cross with a pug and her legs were very short for her body.
Her belly was almost scraping the ground.
But I ask you, what sort of person bullies a dog for her appearance? ’
Julia assumed this was a rhetorical question, rather than one that required an answer. It turned out she was correct, as Nicky went on.
‘Anyway, my mum always said he was a bad egg. Delilah remarried not long after the divorce. They own the pie shop in Hayfield. Bought it quite recently.’
‘The Village Pie Place?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been there. The lamb and mint is sublime.’
‘I hear you, Julia, but for my money the rosemary chicken is the one to beat.’
‘I shall have to rush over and try the rosemary chicken. But back to Basil. Did you ever hear about him after the divorce?’
‘No. I don’t remember anyone mentioning him. Just glad to be rid of him, I suppose. No need to dwell on a person’s mistakes, is there? Move on, that’s the way.’
Julia did exactly that. She moved on to another question. ‘And Delilah, she was Gina McFarlane’s stepsister, was she?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Oh, Gina said Basil Crow was married to her stepsister. I assumed she was the same person as your cousin’s… whatever… But he must have been married twice, I suppose. Well, three times, actually, because according to the news reports, he is survived by his wife, Mary.’
‘Three times? Talk about spreading the joy,’ said Nicky, with a sniff.
‘If that’s all, Julia, I’d best be going.
Sebastian has a friend over, and it’s ominously quiet down the hall.
I’d best check on them. Last time they were this quiet I found them teaching the hamster to swim in the dog bowl.
You’d be surprised how well the hamster managed, I mean, when you look at its poor little feet… ’
As Julia put the phone down, the doorbell rang.
On the doorstep was Dylan. Julia hadn’t seen him since the last book club meeting, where they had spent the tea break talking about Julia’s daughter, Jess – one of Dylan’s favourite subjects despite both he and Jess denying they were trying to keep up a long-distance relationship while she remained in Hong Kong.
Dylan had said he’d pop in for tea, and she hadn’t forgotten so much as momentarily not remembered that it was happening today.
She opened the door, and Jake poked his nose out to greet Dylan, but quickly withdrew when he saw that a large ginger cat – a newcomer to the neighbourhood – was seated on the wall. Despite learning to tolerate Chaplin, Jake was still not convinced that cats, in general, were safe.
‘All good, Mrs B?’ asked Dylan, noting her rather flustered air. ‘Have I got the right day?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. Today’s the day.’ She stood aside and ushered him into the kitchen. ‘I’m running a minute or two behind schedule. I have just put the phone down with Nicky and got a bit waylaid.’
‘Ah, well, no hurry. And I can see how that would happen; Nicky does like to talk.’ He said all of this with the gentle good humour that had first drawn Jess to him.
‘She does, too. Although, to be fair, in this case, I had phoned with a question.’
‘Well, you’ve no one but yourself to blame then,’ he said, smiling.
‘It was about the man who died. He was married to a cousin of hers. And, it seems, possibly to someone else.’
‘You’re detectiving again, are you?’
‘Oh, no. Nothing like that.’ Julia laughed a brittle laugh and waved her hand as if to bat away such a crazy notion. ‘Just curious about a few things, that’s all. Like why he seems to be so unpopular.’
‘Nobody knows a fellow like his ex-wife,’ said Dylan, with a weary wisdom that belied both his youth and his single status.
‘That’s probably true,’ said Julia, thinking of her ex-husband, Peter, and the myriad little things she still knew about him years after their divorce – how he took his tea in the morning versus in the afternoon, his distrust of spotted dogs, his sweet tooth, the angle at which he arranged his slippers by the bed so that he could swing his legs out and slip his feet into them in one swift motion.
She smiled to herself as she filled the kettle, reflecting how lucky she was to be able to look back on her ex-husband without pain or malice. Not like so many people who loathed their exes and wished them ill. Was an ex-wife of Basil Crow’s among them?
Dylan sat down at the kitchen table and asked, ‘So who was the other ex-wife, apart from Nicky’s cousin?’
‘I’m not sure. A stepsister of Gina McFarlane’s. Or perhaps not. The story is a little vague, but it seems there was at least one additional wife. Anyway, no doubt the police are on top of it.’
‘I hope so,’ Dylan said with a shrug. ‘Although, it shouldn’t be hard to find out about the wives. I mean, if you want to know.’
‘True. It must be part of the public record.’ Having stood for a minute holding the kettle full of water, she ventured, ‘Do you feel like joining me in a bit of research, Dylan?’
‘I thought you weren’t detectiving, Mrs B?’
‘Well, no harm in having a little poke around the internet while we have our tea, is there?’
‘It might be fun.’ Dylan had his phone out and was already tapping away. ‘Ah, yes. Here we are…There are a bunch of sites where you can trace marriages. Easy-peasy.’
‘Let’s do it on my computer – it’s easier to read,’ Julia said. She flicked on the kettle on her way to the sitting room to fetch her laptop and her glasses. Sitting next to each other at the kitchen table to the sound of the kettle’s hum, they found a few options.
‘There’s one that gives you a free trial,’ Julia said. ‘Let’s try that.’
Dylan’s quick fingers opened the site and got started. ‘Let’s see now. Basil Crow…’
Julia made tea while Dylan typed in the name.
Minutes later, they had two cups of tea, and the names of no less than three ex-wives.