Chapter Eleven
“So, it wasn’t gambling debts,” Mrs. Billings said to me of Mr. Newman.
“Unless his loan shark chased him and shoved him in,” I suggested, but Mrs. B didn’t seem convinced and there wasn’t much point pushing that theory anyway: It wasn’t going to stand up to scrutiny.
“Poor, poor Doug,” Mrs. B said. “And Jo and them kids. And Meg, especially Meg. She’s not a young dog.”
Mrs. Billings put the radio on; it was time for a bulletin. The report was long, but with little of note so far about either Lennie or Mr. Newman, just that the police were treating both deaths as “unexplained.”
“And unexplainable.” Mrs. B shook her head sadly and I realized that, from her point of view, there was a lot that was not known, such as, did they die together or at different times?
There was nothing on the bulletins about the state of decomposition.
How did they die? Had Mr. Newman come across Lennie’s body, or had he—could he have—been hiding him?
That would be a good lead to get out there, with all the barns and outhouses around the farm.
“They’ll want to do a postmortem,” she said.
“On whom?” I asked and she thought for a minute, before saying:
“Both of them.”
I wondered what that would bring to light. Would Lennie’s cuts and bruises still be visible? Had he broken any bones in the collision? Would Mr. Newman be written off as an accidental drowning? Or would a spade mark in the middle of his face give the lie to that?
When I said, “Do you think there’s anything in the kidnapping theory for Lennie Green?” Mrs. B didn’t take the bait.
And so we carried on. All that Mrs. Billings and the local radio station could talk about was the bodies, but no one came to Langley Hall asking about them.
Mrs. Billings wore black for days, along with a remembrance poppy for some reason.
“If anyone hurt either Lennie Green or poor old Doug, I’ll string them up myself,” she said.
I wondered exactly what that entailed and what her chances of achieving it were, particularly if I fought against it, which I would. Maybe if she got Mr. B involved? Would he help?
“Have them police officers been back here?” she asked me. “The ones who came because you were at the same party?”
“No,” I said. “Why would they?”
“Just wondered,” she said, pulling biscuits, sugar, and milk from her bag and switching the kettle on. I was annoyed to see she had brought Bourbons, although I had been clear in ordering Rich Tea.
I watched carefully for any sign of what she was thinking.
Mrs. Billings wasn’t an idiot. Not only was I sure she had Lennie’s phone, but she’d been reading his memoir; it was unrealistic to think she knew nothing.
I wondered if I was going to have to bump her off as well.
She would certainly be easier to do away with than James, one good shove down the stairs should do it, and with the way she wielded the vacuum cleaner, it would be a simple thing to pass off as an accident.
Maybe that was the moral of this story: Think twice before you hide a body because you’ll end up hiding more. But as I watched Mrs. B enjoying a Bourbon, her favorite, the idea of dispatching her made me feel sad.
I told myself she must be waiting for a simple explanation to emerge.
After all, she’d known me all my life, she was friends with my mum, and James was from a respected village family—his mum was a supervisor at the SPAR and his dad was on the council for years.
Surely, she wouldn’t think that James and I had done what we actually did.
Or, maybe she was keeping quiet out of loyalty to my mum and the history we had.
I didn’t like to think about how far that loyalty may or may not stretch.
If I took too long to act, circumstances could overtake me, then I’d have years in a prison cell to reflect on what I should have done.
And looking on the bright side, if I did help her shuffle off this mortal coil, it would be an opportunity to hire a cleaner who actually cleaned.
But I still didn’t want to, so I decided to monitor her for signs and hints about what she knew and what she was going to do.
***
After a decent gap, to make it look like I had other things to do, I delivered the T-shirt I had made for Arty.
“I love it!” he said. He tried it on there and then, as “Rivers of Babylon” serenaded us from his phone, jiggling to the music, and I must say, he did look good. He also looked good without a shirt at all. On the way back to the house, I tried to forget I’d had that thought.
“What do I owe you?” he asked.
But he owed me nothing; the cost of the materials was small, I still had plenty left over, and the pleasure of delivering it was payment enough. “Would you like another T-shirt?” I asked and he said he would.
Within a couple of weeks, there were two of us on the estate dressed like rag dolls.
I branched out into waistcoats, shirts, and a couple of cravats, just in case he had a special occasion.
I couldn’t bring myself to offer to measure him for trousers; I felt the blood rushing through me at the mere thought of it and wondered if this was passion or a hot flush.
Thinking about Kaboolu, I started making small labels with “Daisy Daydream” written on them and sewing them into the clothes. I remembered my mum saying that one day people would envy us for what we could do with a needle and thread.
I wouldn’t accept any money from Arty. The new project gave me some respite from worrying about the bodies and the police and what they may or may not be thinking. While I was sewing I imagined setting up an empire of Daisy Daydream clothes, like Kaboolu, but with branches all over the world.
Sometimes we got together on Arty’s lunch break and looked through his copy of Miller’s Antiques Encyclopaedia, a comprehensive guide that he kept in his car for when he went to flea markets at weekends.
Then, I would go back to the house and fantasize about running away with Arty to run an antiques shop by the coast.
I began taking various items from the house down to show him, a few of the smaller items, the Victorian clock, some silver, pieces of jewelry. We looked them up and he put prices to them. It turned out some of them were very valuable, particularly the jewelry, but that wasn’t a surprise to me.
Arty’s passion for the pieces I brought him reminded me of how I had been.
“Look at the craftsmanship in this!” he said, opening a locket, and we wondered who the picture inside was of, if the answer was in Langley Hall somewhere.
“Think of the history this has seen!” he exclaimed of a doll. “Look at the life it’s lived!” as he examined a crack in a butter dish. Then he gave me an estimate for it. It ended up being left for Mrs. B, but even she had her standards.
***
Not long after the discovery of the bodies, an invitation arrived through the post. There was to be a fundraiser in memory of Lennie to raise money for his good causes.
It was to be an auction, which was something I’d never been to, but when I showed it to James, he assured me it would be both expensive and dull.
“They’ll be selling theater tickets with meet-the-cast backstage passes and weekends on luxury yachts, or hampers of stuff you would never use. They know someone who’s big in a TV production company, so there might be a walk-on part on a TV show.”
“But we’re not going?” I asked, horrified, as James propped the invitation up on the mantelpiece. It was to be hosted by Margery again, and her husband, who I now learned was called Gordon.
“Why wouldn’t we go? We always go to these things.”
“It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to go,” I said. “Under the circumstances.”
“Try looking at it from the point of view of someone who doesn’t know the circumstances. Imagining you don’t know we’re responsible for Lennie’s death—excuse me, you’re responsible—I’ll ask you again: Why wouldn’t we go?”
“Because there’s nothing in it for you.”
And that, James conceded, was a fair point, but we had to go anyway because it would look suspicious for him to decline an invitation for the first time in recorded history.
***
“You’re driving again,” James said on the night of the fundraiser, “but be careful this time.”
“I can’t drive. I’ll be too scared,” I told him, the emotions of that night were starting to come back to me and I hoped desperately for something to happen to stop us going. I even thought seriously for a minute about burning Langley Hall down, with or without us in it.
“We can’t do anything out of the ordinary,” he reminded me. “Just take a few deep breaths before we set off.”
And so, it was decided. In preparation, I let James’s suit back out again and added a bit to the waistband of his trousers. If nothing else, it would be a distraction to see his bafflement when he realized he was going to need a belt.
When the night came I wanted to go in a loose yellow dress, with daisies embroidered around the hem, which was the last thing my mum and I had made together.
Over the years I’d had to add some panels in, to let it out, but it was worth it because it took me back to happier days and reminded me that there had once been someone who was on my side.
It helped me stay calm. But James wasn’t keen.
“What in god’s name are you wearing?” he said, when I appeared downstairs.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It looks like it was cobbled together from old rags.”
Which it pretty much was. I shrugged.
“Go and get changed.”
Instead, I put on the same gray silk dress I’d worn on the night of the accident, which had survived the hot wash surprisingly well.
It was just a bit smaller now, but I had shrunk as well.
The stress had put the snacks in the priest hole largely out of my mind.
I accessorized with another tablecloth-scarf.
“It’s not meant to be a reconstruction!” James yelped, hoisting up the trousers I’d adjusted.