Chapter 9
It was fortunate for Tabitha that Julia had stopped to give her a lift, because the tartan trolley bag was full to bursting and weighed a tonne once Aunt Jemima’s treats had been packed in. It would have been a big job, dragging it home over the cobblestones.
‘You wouldn’t think a few teabags and biscuits would take up so much space, would you?’ said Tabitha, huffing, as she wrestled the bag upright in the car’s boot. ‘Ready?’
Julia nodded, and they both pulled it out, lifting from the knees to protect their backs, depositing the trolley onto the pavement outside Tabitha’s house.
‘Oooph,’ said Julia, when they let go. ‘Heavy.’
Tabitha reached back into the boot for an additional, smaller shopping bag, which contained an orchard’s worth of Chocolate Oranges.
‘How are you going to get all of this onto the aeroplane?’ Julia said, dragging the trolley up the path to Tabitha’s front door.
‘Oh, I knew from my last visit that I would arrive with sacks of things like some female Ghanaian version of Father Christmas. I booked an extra suitcase.’
‘Clever. Although you might need two,’ Julia said, surveying the bags that were lined up neatly against the wall in Tabitha’s little entrance hall.
‘I think I’ll make it. Tea?’
The two women took their tea outside, where Tabitha had erected a small wooden pergola over a little mosaic table and two chairs.
The pergola was dripping with purple wisteria flowers that smelled like heaven.
Bees buzzed lazily above their heads as they sipped their Earl Grey and nibbled at Tabitha’s home-made shortbread.
‘Why is your shortbread better than everyone else’s?’ Julia asked.
‘I recite the poetry of Shakespeare while mixing the dough in an anti-clockwise direction.’
‘Really?’
‘No, of course not.’ Tabitha laughed heartily, causing her curls to bob about and her dangling silver earrings to tinkle gently. ‘The only secret to shortbread is lots and lots of good farm butter.’
‘Well, it’s delicious, as usual,’ Julia said, taking another bite.
‘You’re lucky to get a piece. I made it yesterday to take to Mary next door, and kept a few pieces for myself.
’ She pointed her half-eaten shortbread in the direction of the brick house partly visible above the wooden fence.
‘I made minestrone soup for her, too, and dropped it off. She wasn’t there, but I left it on the doorstep. I hope she got it.’
‘Mary, Basil’s wife? The widow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know her well?’
‘Not at all. We say hello when we pass on the road, chat about the weather or the blossoms, neighbourly sorts of conversations. But they kept to themselves, other than his outbursts. I got the feeling she was embarrassed about Basil’s bad temper and all the ridiculousness about the parking, and tried not to engage too much with the people in the road.
And they didn’t speak at all to their neighbours on the other side – lovely people – because Basil had an argument with them about the dustbins the day they moved in. And, seemingly, regularly thereafter.’
‘Poor Mary. He can’t have been fun to live with. Difficult and, from what I understand, a bully.’
Tabitha shuddered. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’
Julia leaned back in her chair and tilted her head, staring up at the wisteria.
She made herself focus on the busy buzzing of the bees, and the sweet smell of the wisteria.
She would enjoy the moment, appreciate the lovely day and her time with her friend.
The fragrant steam coming from her teacup, the buttery shortbread. Except, she couldn’t.
‘Maybe the neighbours on the other side killed him,’ she said, to Tabitha’s horror.
‘Julia! People don’t go around killing each other over dustbins and parking spaces.’
Julia made a sort of non-committal grunt. In her experience, these petty matters were exactly the kinds of things that brought out the worst in humanity – although, granted, murder seemed a bit of an overreaction.
‘Did you see them together, Basil and Mary?’ she asked. ‘How was he with her?’
‘I didn’t see them enough to get much of a feel for them as a couple…
Mary!’ said Tabitha loudly – and confusingly, as far as Julia was concerned, until she looked up and saw a slight woman in a long floral dress and sandals coming down the path towards them, a tiny Yorkshire terrier tucked under her arm.
‘Hello, Mrs Fullergood,’ she said. ‘I really wanted to thank you for the soup and the biscuits.’ She had an awkward, rather wooden manner, which Julia supposed came from embarrassment about her late husband’s feud with their neighbour.
‘It’s my pleasure. Something to nibble on, and you can always pop the soup in the freezer for later. And do call me Tabitha, please.’
The little dog reacted to Tabitha’s speech with a flurry of yapping.
‘That’s enough, Brutus, come on,’ she said tiredly.
‘Mary, this is my friend Julia Bird. She was visiting.’
‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Crow,’ said Julia.
‘Julia Bird…’ said Mary, frowning. ‘I know the name. I heard it just the other day. Wait… Oh my… You… Aren’t you the one who found Basil? At the meadow site…?’
‘I am,’ said Julia, with some reluctance. She had been curious to find out more about Mary, but, on the other hand, she really did not want to have the conversation that she was about to have.
‘Oh,’ said Mary. She went pale and reached for the pergola pole for support.
Tabitha stood up and gestured towards her chair. ‘Please sit, Mary. You two talk, and I’ll put the kettle on and freshen the tea. I’ll be back in a moment with a cup.’
Mary nodded and sat down, the little dog on her lap. Her hair had been scraped into a messy bun, and her face looked tired and drawn – hardly surprising – but Julia could see that she had a delicate, understated beauty.
Mary leaned in and asked quietly, ‘How was he? How did he seem? Was he… peaceful?’
‘Yes, yes, he was peaceful,’ Julia said. It was true, in so far as the dead were indeed always at peace, no matter what had come before. ‘It was almost as if he was asleep. I had the sense that his end was quick.’
Brutally quick, if truth be told.
‘I am pleased to hear you say that, Julia. Thank you. I can’t bear to think of him suffering. He was the kindest, gentlest man,’ said Mary tearfully, stroking Brutus’s tiny, silky head.
‘Was he?’ Julia asked, careful to keep the disbelief from her voice.
‘He treated me like gold. Absolute gold. He adored me and I adored him. We’ve been married five years and there was never a harsh word spoken between us. And he was such a good dad to his little Billy.’
‘How lucky that you had each other. But so sad for you to lose him, I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t know what Billy and I will do without him. I have never been with a man so devoted… And he’d had very bad luck with wives. He admitted that he had terrible judgement and chose poorly – until me, of course.’
‘Yes, he’d been married a few times, hadn’t he?’
‘Four times. I was number four. The first wife, Delilah, lives in the village. She and Basil didn’t speak but she and I will nod and smile if we see each other. And you might have come across my immediate predecessor, Jacqueline.’ She pronounced the name in the French way.
‘No. But I’ve only been in Berrywick a few years.’
‘She’s… how to put it…?’ Mary put her head back and looked up into the wisteria for inspiration, and finally said, decisively, ‘French.’
‘French?’
‘Very emotional. Dramatic. Moved here when she was a child and her mother married Carter McFarlane. But she has some very foreign notions.’ Mary looked awkward.
Julia could tell that she was trying not to speak badly of Basil’s most recent ex.
‘She was awful to poor Basil. Very demanding. Thought the worst of him, which was very hurtful. He was such a dear, gentle chap…’ She seemed about to dissolve into tears, but rallied to add, ‘But their daughter, Madeleine, is a sweet thing. My boy Billy loves her.’
Tears came to her eyes. ‘I only wish I could have stopped things somehow. Distracted Basil. Or gone with him to the site. Billy and I were at the cinema. I took him to see… What was it now…? That one with the monkey, animated thing. They all rather blur into each other, as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, we were in Hayfield in the cinema, and when we came out, there was a message to call Berrywick police.
The first thing I did, before I phoned the police, was to phone Basil.
He was always my first call. But he didn’t answer.
’ She pulled the little dog to her and pressed her face into its fur.
The dog looked up at Julia with a resigned expression.
Tabitha came out of the house with a teapot in one hand, and a clean cup and saucer in the other, just as an awful sound came from Mary’s throat. It was something between a gulp and a choke and a sob. The sound of emotional agony. The little dog squirmed and tried to lick her face.
Tabitha put the cup and the tea on the little table, and wrapped her arms awkwardly around Mary and Brutus, rocking the younger woman gently and murmuring comforting noises into her ear.
Mary drew a big shuddering breath, and said, ‘He didn’t answer because he was dead.’