Chapter 90
Joyce
Oh, I can’t sleep. It’s Bernard, Bernard, Bernard, of course. I’m already wondering about the funeral. Will it be here? I do hope so. I know I hadn’t known him long, but I’d hate to think of him in Vancouver.
So I’m back here at two in the morning to give you some news. Don’t worry, no one has died this time.
After Ian we had all been wondering what’s to become of us here at Coopers Chase. Who was going to take it over? I don’t think anyone was too concerned; it seems to be profitable enough, so we knew there would be takers. But who?
You can probably guess who found out.
Yesterday, Elizabeth “accidentally” bumped into Gemma Ventham, Ian’s unfortunate widow, at the new deli they’ve opened in Robertsbridge.
It used to be Claire’s Hairdressers, until there was a small incident, and Claire was forced to hang up her scissors for good.
Is there a badge hairdressers have to hand in?
Either way, the local GP’s wife lost the top of an ear, and that was that.
They say Claire’s in Brighton now, and that’s probably for the best.
Gemma was with a man who Elizabeth described as “a tennis-coach type,” though she conceded that these days he might have been “a Pilates-instructor type.” Certainly not a grieving widow, and I think we all agreed that she’d earned a bit of happiness, so good for her.
She has also, it seems, earned an awful lot of money. This is what Elizabeth got out of her. I don’t know exactly how, but I do know that at one point she had pretended to faint, because she actually grazed her elbow in the effort. She always finds a way, that one.
Anyway, Gemma Ventham has sold Coopers Chase Holdings to a company called Bramley Holdings.
Of course, we’ve tried to find out as much as we can about Bramley Holdings, but thus far, no luck.
We even called in Joanna and Cornelius, but they’ve turned up a blank.
They promised they would keep looking, although you can hear that Cornelius’s patience is beginning to wear a bit thin.
But here’s something else keeping me awake. That name.
Bramley Holdings? It is ringing a bell, and I can’t work out why. Elizabeth says they take names off the shelf, and perhaps she is right, but an alarm is ringing in my brain, and I can’t switch it off.
Bramley? Where have I heard that before? And I know I’m an old woman, but don’t say apples. Something else. Something important.
Anne, who edits Cut to the Chase, came to see me today. People will always come and see you when you lose a friend. By now we’ve all worked out the right things to say. We’ve said them often enough.
I don’t think she is doing it just to be nice, but Anne has asked if I will write a column in Cut to the Chase.
She knows I like to write, and she knows I have my nose in everything, so would I write something about the comings and goings at Coopers Chase?
I said yes, of course, and we are going to call it “Joyce’s Choices,” which I like.
I had suggested “Joyce’s Voices,” but Anne had thought that might sound a bit mental health.
She wants a picture of me, so I will go through a few tomorrow and pick out a nice one.
We are off to see Gordon Playfair tomorrow as well, the farmer at the top of the hill.
He’s the only person any of us can think of who was here in the early 1970s and is still here today.
He was nowhere near Ventham when he was murdered, so I don’t think we can count him as a suspect, but we’re hoping he might remember something useful from all those years ago.
I must try and sleep again.