Chapter 25
Julia didn’t make it home before the rain.
It is true that she had perhaps pushed her luck.
As well as doing shopping, she had popped by the library, where she had found Tabitha updating the unreturned books spreadsheet, and oblivious to the fact that she had missed numerous calls from Hayley and Julia.
‘I can go?’ she said, her eyes filling with tears, when Julia told her what Hayley had said.
‘You’d best get it confirmed by Hayley,’ Julia said. ‘But it seems you can.’
The two women hugged each other, both overjoyed, and Jake gave an encouraging bark, as if he, too, had been hoping for this outcome.
‘Oh, I have so much to do,’ said Tabitha suddenly. ‘I have to run.’
‘And I must get my shopping done before the rain,’ smiled Julia.
Julia had just left the shop with her bag of groceries when it started to drizzle. She took shelter in the covered entrance of the hardware shop and got out her umbrella, congratulating herself on her good foresight in bringing it.
‘Sorry, Jake, you’ll get a bit damp, but it’s only drizzling,’ she said, removing the sleeve from the umbrella.
The rain picked up its pace. Jake looked up at the sky warily.
Julia looked at the little fold-up umbrella, which she’d brought on the off-chance of a sprinkle, but which didn’t look up to the challenge of this more vigorous shower.
She decided to sit it out for a moment and see if the rain calmed down.
While she was deciding whether or not to take her chances out in the rain, a man ducked in next to her in the doorway.
It wasn’t a big shelter and he wasn’t a small man.
He was facing away from her, but she could see he wasn’t dressed for the weather.
He was in work clothes – khaki trousers and a dark blue jacket – with no waterproof outerwear.
She stared at the great expanse of blue fabric across his broad shoulders and his wide back.
His arms were so muscled that they stuck out a little way from his body.
There was something familiar about his build; she felt certain she’d met him recently.
It was on the edge of her consciousness.
‘For heaven’s sake. Everything else, and now this bloody weather. Of course, on the one day I trusted the forecast and didn’t bring a raincoat,’ he muttered to himself. He gave a deep sigh and said, forcefully, ‘I wish I lived in bloody Spain.’
She recognised the build, the voice. She knew who he was!
‘A warm swim in the sea and a delicious paella for lunch. That would do the trick,’ Julia said pleasantly.
He turned to face her, surprised at her comment. She was right – it was the boss man from Eco Evolve, the one who had turned up on the day Basil’s body was found. Jim had just mentioned him. Colin, his name was.
‘And a nice big glass of rough red wine with that paella,’ he said, playing along. A tiny smile nudged its way onto what had been a rather grumpy face. Despite his banter, he gave no sign of having recognised Julia.
‘On a Monday?’ Julia asked in mock disapproval.
‘Go on, treat yourself. We’re in Spain, after all, and it’s such a beautiful day.
’ He grinned now and swept his arm across the vista, as if presenting her with the delights of a Spanish beach and sparkling sea under a warm sun, instead of the dull, grey English rain pattering down on the dull, grey road.
‘Oh, all right, you‘ve twisted my arm about the wine,’ she said. ‘Just the one glass though – I’ve got things to do this afternoon. I’m going snorkelling, actually.’
They laughed.
‘Well, you have cheered me up,’ he said. ‘I was in a right nasty mood even before I got stuck in the rain without a raincoat.’
‘I’m not surprised. “Stuck in the rain without a raincoat”. If it’s not a saying, it should be. Like “up the creek without a paddle”.’ Out of politeness, she left out the other word traditionally included in that saying.
‘Yeah, well, it’s a saying now. We made it. “Stuck in the rain without a raincoat”. But the rain is only one of my problems,’ he said looking bitterly at the downpour. ‘The others are bigger, sadly.’
‘Work?’ she said. She thought she’d better come clean. ‘I recognise you. I saw you at the meadow the day Basil Crow died. You are the boss of the company developing the land, aren’t you? I’m Julia Bird.’
‘Colin Williams, Eco Evolve. I thought you looked familiar,’ he said. ‘Wait. You were the one who found him, weren’t you? You and your friends, you were at the site and you found him. What a dreadful situation. Poor Basil.’
‘Did you know him well? I imagine you came across each other often in your line of work.’
‘We did. I knew him well enough. We didn’t always agree on matters, of course – I’m a developer, and his job is to keep an eye on the environmental side of things, so in some ways, our interests were in opposition.
And he could be blunt. But he was always honest. I liked him.
I’m sorry he’s gone, and obviously I’m absolutely horrified at how it happened. ’
Julia believed him. He looked genuinely sad. His large head hung heavily, his big shoulders drooped. Somehow, his size made his sadness seem sadder.
‘And, to be honest, it’s caused a big headache for me,’ Colin said in a confiding tone. ‘We were getting going on the development and now they’ve stopped us again. The police.’
‘That must be a huge problem for you.’
‘Yes. The delay there has messed with the whole schedule. A day or two, fine, we can handle it, but to stop now that we’ve broken ground, it’s a pain.
And the police want to re-interview everyone.
That’s where I was this morning, at the police station, answering all the same questions I answered two weeks ago.
I got the top cop this time, some fellow from the regional office. Blunt, he was. Aggressive, even.’
That would be Superintendent Lance Frederick, thought Julia. The new broom was doing a clean sweep.
‘Why did he interview you again? Did he ask you anything new?’
‘Same questions, to which I gave the same answers! And a few more, because now they’re also poking around in my other developments.
So I’ve got to give them a whole lot more information on a whole lot of other things, which is great, because I have nothing else to do, and it’ll really help keep me busy on those long empty afternoons.
They are “going back to square one” for a “full review”.
’ He made little air quotes around the last few words.
Julia shook her head and tutted in sympathy. ‘Sounds like a real pain.’
‘Look, I’m a businessman. I want to build my buildings and make a bit of money.
I’m not in the murdering business. And, let me tell you, I don’t claim to be a genius, but if I was in the murdering business, if I was going to have a public official offed – which I would never do, obviously – but if I was, do you think I would kill him on my own building site?
Thereby putting myself in the spotlight and simultaneously setting my own development back for weeks?
’ He raised his voice, sounding utterly exasperated.
And, to be fair, he made a valid point. ‘No, I would not. I’ve seen the detective shows on TV.
I’d murder the guy in his own home and make it look like a robbery.
Or push him off a boat out at sea. Or, better still, I’d go and dump the body over at one of the other developers’ sites.
One of my competitors. Make it their problem.
But in my own backyard? I’d have to be a right idiot. ’
He sighed and shook his head. He spoke more calmly.
‘It makes no sense, no sense at all. But it’s all eyes on Eco Evolve, and now, as well as the rude superintendent guy, I’ve got some teenage police officer from out of town coming to poke around in my business.
I swear, she can’t be more than nineteen.
No offence, she might be a very competent young woman, but I’ve got a business to run. ’
This must be the help that Hayley had referred to, being given all the slog work. Julia couldn’t help but smile to herself.
He squinted up at the sky with a suspicious air. ‘Ah, well, the rain seems to have almost stopped. For now, at least. I’m going to make a run for it. I need to get back to the office to meet that young police officer.’
‘Yes, I suppose we should also take the gap before the next squall,’ said Julia. She shook her umbrella, getting ready to open it. With large Colin and the dog huddled in the shelter, she couldn’t safely unfurl it until she stepped out.
‘Thanks for the paella and red wine, Colin.’
‘The pleasure was all mine. Enjoy your snorkelling.’ He smiled, and paused to ready himself before leaving the shelter. He called out, ‘Adiós, Julia Bird’ over his shoulder as he lumbered into the fine drizzle.
Julia waited another moment in the doorway, mulling over their conversation.
She was surprised at how much sympathy she felt for Colin.
He wasn’t some selfish killer of wildflowers and birds.
He was a regular guy trying to make his living, and now he was embroiled in something sad and dark and horrible.
Someone he knew and liked had been murdered.
He’d seen him, dead in a field. As had she, of course.
She conjured up that awful sight in her mind.
She found that she could see it all as if it were a photograph.
The body. The moment she realised it was a man.
A dead man. The foot. The odd angle of the legs.
And when she got up close, the sight of the head wound, the hair damp and dark and bloody, unlike the ground around it.
Julia stepped out from under the shelter. It was drizzling very lightly by now, more of a mist really, but she opened the umbrella anyway, clicking the latch decisively into place.
‘Come on, Jake. Let’s go home,’ she said. And out they went.