Chapter 6
This faux pas became even more apparent when Nigella opened the door wearing an off-white-coloured sundress with a cornflower blue cardigan over it. On her feet were light brown flats in some velvety soft leather, which were sure to have been horrendously expensive.
“How … um, artistically you’ve dressed, Arden,” she said as she made her way out. “Boys!” she yelled.
I glared at her. “I realise my mistake,” I said.
Archie and Luca came bounding up to us and then straight past to where Kennedy was waiting beside me. “Puppy!” they squealed.
“Doggy, doggy, doggy!” chanted … er, Luca, I think.
I looked down. Clearly, in a moment of inspiration, Nigella had dressed them in matching T-shirts, which had been monogrammed with their initials. It was “A.P.” who was chanting doggy, while “L.P.” was trying to hug Kenny.
“Boys, be gentle with Kenny. He’s a living creature, not a toy,” said Nigella.
“We won’t hurt him, Mummy! We love him!” Archie said. “Can we take his lead, Mr Forrest, pleeeeeeease?”
“Of course, you can, but hold it firmly. He gets excited, and we don’t want him anywhere near the road.”
They grabbed the lead in both hands. I was expecting a tantrum to start about just one of them holding it, but they quickly figured out a way they could both grasp at the same time. They made their way down the path and turned left towards the church when they hit the street.
We hung back a few metres to give them their air of independence as well as have the chance of a private conversation.
“Any word on his condition?”
Nigella shook her head. “But his parents are over from France now – they retired to the Dordogne, such a lovely region – anyway, they made it over this afternoon. So at least if the worst happens …”
“And the police have no leads,” I said, summing up for us before she had to dig deep to admit it. She nodded tightly.
“Christ,” I muttered. And then, as we turned the corner, I said it again much louder. “Christ!”
In front of us was a media scrum beside an impromptu political rally with some sort of vigil wedged in between it.
“Good God, there must be two hundred people. I was expecting a couple dozen,” Nigella said. “Boys! Come here, stay with us.”
We approached as a foursome (plus dog) and soon found ourselves beside several villagers. A familiar blonde woman turned and glared at me. Nigella mwah mwah-ed her friend. The woman, Margo Cadbury-Smythe, gave me a filthy look. Somehow, I’m sure, this was my fault in her eyes.
“Margo, you remember Arden,” Nigella said diplomatically.
She gave a short sniff as an answer. Without paying me any more notice, she began to fill Gella in on the current lay of the land.
“There’s the girl who does the politics reports on BBC South West Tonight.
Too much blush. The ITV one is around here somewhere, too.
I saw him earlier. Awful tie. There’s some local news, not any national newspapers, though. ”
Looking around, I noted Katrina Pettigrew a few metres away from us. She seemed stressed from the number of people around her. I waved, but she looked past me as she focused on what was happening at the front of the crowd.
Ahead of us, several members of the press were trying to grab Guy and Riz’s attention.
Simon was standing nearby but off to the side.
Guy approached the raft of microphones. “Good evening, everyone. Thank you all for coming. It means so much to us here in Lilbury that so many of Jed’s friends have come out to pray for his swift recovery—”
Before he could say more, a reporter interrupted. “Jenny Begood-Toomey, Bournemouth Times – Mr Frobisher, are you and Mr Patel suspending your campaigns?”
Guy was annoyed but plastered on a smile. “Of course not, Riz and I agree on certain actions for this, but we will not be suspending the campaign—”
Another reporter perked up. “Terry Cloth, Bristol Online – Mr Patel, does the Labour leadership approve of you running campaign events with the Tory candidate?”
Riz plastered on his own smile and joined Guy, but you could tell he was suppressing a sigh. “This isn’t a campaign event. We’re both here to send good wishes to Jed and urge anyone who might have information to contact the police—”
The impromptu press conference carried on in this vein for several more minutes. Both candidates fielding increasingly bizarre claims of what not jointly laughing over the body of a man left for dead meant for British democracy.
That’s when I noticed the evening was about to turn to real shit. A plain car, which screamed driven by the coppers, pulled up nearby and out hopped two officers. “Shit,” I said too loudly, and several people turned around to glare at me. Archie and Luca giggled at the swearing.
Getting out of the car was DI Gary Neuberger. The man who had been happy to try and pin Arabella’s murder on me.
“What’s he doing here?” I whispered to Nigella.
“He’s leading the investigation, I assume,” she said giving him a glare as well.
The detective walked over with the other officer. Neuberger was middle-aged with short spiky grey hair. He dressed a little too cool to be a policeman in my view. The man beside him … wait, man? A few months ago, he’d had a different partner, a woman, the perma-sour-faced DS Wales.
“She must have had the baby,” Nigella said, reading my mind. “Mat leave. I wonder if the baby was born with a face like a smacked arse, too.”
I sniggered as I took in the man. He was …
not unattractive. A big bruiser would have been an accurate description.
He was wearing a shiny suit, which did nothing to make him look less like a gorilla.
He was forty-ish and had short brown hair combed down in a Caesar cut and a square jaw.
He wasn’t ugly, but you wouldn’t call him handsome.
The kind of man one went to when one wanted a brutal encounter.
They made a beeline for me.
“Oh, come on, I barely know Jed,” I muttered. I grabbed Kenny’s lead off the boys. “Here, gimme. I need him more than you two.”
“Mr Forrest, what a surprise to see you here,” said Neuberger as they came up to us. We were quite far back, and the journalists’ flurry of questions were sucking all attention away from any conversations in the crowd.
“I live here, detective. So, is it, really?” I could be a sarky bastard to them now. I was completely clear of any suspicion. There was nothing they could pin on me.
Neuberger turned to Nigella: “Mrs Pettoni, how nice to see you.” Nigella bared her teeth in an approximation of a smile.
“Are you working on the vicar’s case?” she asked. “I do hope you’ll do better this time. Arden can’t solve all your crimes for you.” And with that, she turned back to the scene in front of us, dismissing the men.
Neuberger ignored the snub. “This is my new partner, DS Jack Maslin, recently transferred from the Met.”
Maslin gave me the once-over and then the most perfunctory smile I’d ever received.
“Pleasure,” I said.
“DS Maslin will be working with me on the Fulford case. I do hope we won’t be seeing too much of you.” He nodded his head, and they took their leave. Maslin gave a look over his shoulder as they made their way through the crowd.
“Ugh,” Nigella muttered in my ear. “What ghastly men.”
I couldn’t agree more. Just Neuberger being near me made my skin crawl. Alright, I hadn’t been completely innocent towards the end of the … shall we say … Arabella/Tarquin debacle, but I was when it started, and Neuberger had still decided I was a person of interest.
Even when I’d stopped Tarquin from killing both myself and Eleanor Hetherington, and given a wealth of evidence to convict him for Arabella’s murder, Neuberger had spent a day in a police interview room trying to find a way to pin some sort of obstruction of justice or aiding and abetting charge on me.
The duty solicitor had been flabbergasted by his attempts to spin my relationship with Tarquin into some sort of murderous partnership.
Something she had basically told him to knock off unless he wanted an official write-up of his conduct to be made when the interview concluded.
Which it did, not long after she’d threatened that.
I really should have sent her some flowers.
I put the man out of my mind and returned to the press conference.
“I’d like us all to take a minute of silence to send thoughts and prayers to Jed,” Guy was saying. “For those who aren’t religious, please take this time to reflect, and if you know Jed personally, focus on those moments where you saw him at his best.”
A reporter tried to ask something else, but Guy had called time on questions.
It was quite masterful, actually. He had a knack for handling the press.
His authoritative nature and well-cut suits were beginning to make me look forward to that date we had scheduled.
I found myself picturing a life as a political spouse.
Would I be more of a Cherie Blair or a latter-day Bill Clinton?
I caught Guy’s eye before we both lowered our heads in solemnity, and he gave me what can only be described as a look of pure lust. He winked and licked his lips.
I felt filthy knowing a man had given me those eyes in a public place.
In front of a church, no less. A part of me was horrified I’d basically eye-fucked a Tory in public as well.
As the moment of silence began, I could feel my cheeks flushing. Archie and Luca leaned in between me and Nigella and one of the boys casually took my hand and held it as they copied all the adults in silence.
It was a nice feeling, being given a seven-year-old’s trust in a moment of reflection. I just wish I wasn’t having impure thoughts about a man they called “Uncle Guy” while it was happening.
There was the normal rustling and coughing as the minute progressed. Someone’s phone beeped, and there was another rustle as they quickly reached to turn it off. A muttered “Sorry.”
Then a second phone went off.
“People have no respect,” Margo said.
Another phone. Then another. By now, people were looking up.
Then my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I heard Nigella’s phone too.
The sound was near constant.
I looked up and saw Guy, Riz, and Simon all pulling their phones out as well.
One by one, people around me started to gasp, to go bug-eyed, and form Os with their mouths in shock.
Then a flurry of journalists began to press forward. To Guy, who stood in front of them, with his face completely drained of all colour. He seemed frozen.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Nigella turned to me, her phone in her hand, her face mirroring Guy’s. On it, she had an email open. It showed a picture of – oh dear – a naked man taken on what looked to be an old-fashioned digital camera. I squinted to get a better look. He was young and attractive. It was Guy.