Chapter Three
From the Thirsk Garden Centre website:
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‘Yellow!’ said Liz, for what must have been the third or fourth time.
‘According to Jax,’ said Thelma – also for the third or fourth time. ‘A vertical yellow line, going from top to bottom, right in the middle of the wall.’
Liz frowned, shaking her head. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense.’
Her perplexed gaze roamed abstractedly round the Thirsk Garden Centre café as if seeking to draw reassurance from the summer normality.
The patio doors were flung wide to the morning sunshine but most people had chosen to sit inside, out of the direct glare and intense heat.
The place was bright with the pastel colours of summer T-shirts: yellow, lavender, pink, echoed by the displays in the Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
Sun hats were on tables or poking out of handbags like large floppy flowers and many a reddened upper arm was in evidence.
‘Better get used to it!’ the Look North weatherman had said only that morning. ‘This is our new normal, folks!’
‘Just because it doesn’t make any sense to us, doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason behind it,’ said Thelma calmly.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Pat, aiming her coral-pink handbag fan discreetly at her cleavage. ‘Just Madame Jax getting her knickers in a knot as per. There’s got to be some perfectly logical reason behind it.’
‘Such as?’ said Liz, still frowning worriedly. She could sense a sneeze brewing. This morning her head felt especially muzzy and bunged up.
‘He could have been redecorating.’ Pat’s tone was impatient, dismissive, as if men were found dead in front of painted walls every day of the week.
‘On a Friday night?’ said Thelma mildly.
‘He might have been trying out colours,’ said Pat airily, waving the fan. ‘That’s what we do – we get those little weeny pots of paint, just to see what they look like.’
‘Jax didn’t mention pots of paint or anything like that,’ said Thelma stirring her coffee. ‘Or that Nev had been wearing painting things.’
‘Anyway,’ said Liz, ‘surely the way you use those sample pots is in patches – not great big lines?’
‘Who knows what went on in Neville Hilton’s head,’ said Pat dismissively, shutting off the fan and returning it to her bag. ‘Here’s a thought – maybe he’d done that one line and the thought of all the upheaval involved caused him to – you know …’
She made a discreet but unmistakable gesture with her pastry fork.
‘Of course, we don’t know how ill Nev actually was,’ said Thelma.
‘Derek said he seemed fine at Rotary,’ said Liz. ‘But that’s Rotary.’ There was an unspoken pause as all three reflected on their experiences of all-male gatherings where it was perfectly possible for someone to be at death’s door without exciting any particular attention.
Thelma looked at Liz. ‘What time did Derek say Nev left the Rotary meeting?’ she asked.
‘About six thirty,’ said Liz. ‘And it’d have taken him about twenty minutes or so to drive back to Hollinby.’
‘Six thirty?’ Thelma frowned. ‘Isn’t that a bit early to leave a Rotary meeting?’
‘The meeting hadn’t actually got started,’ said Liz. ‘According to Derek they were all gathering in the Wheatsheaf, and Nev got a phone call, said he had to leave and headed off.’
‘What bothers me,’ interjected Pat, ‘is why Jax Hilton-Shally wants to see us again – after strong-arming us all into going to the funeral …’
The three friends exchanged eloquent glances that said all there was to say about their ex-colleague.
Back in the day Pat had nicknamed her ‘Shally’ – short for ‘Shall I leave it with you?’ During the times they’d all worked together at St Barnabus Primary School, that had been Jax’s special skill – getting others to sort out any problems that should come her way.
Jammed photocopiers, unmanned playgrounds, miscreant children (especially the latter) all would all be brought to staff by Jax accompanied by a bright, conclusive ‘Shall I leave it with you?’ And now all three had a nasty feeling that the former Mrs Hilton viewed the death of her ex-husband in the same way: a problem that needed sorting. Sorting by someone other than herself.
‘And we have lift-off,’ said Pat in an undertone as the blonde ponytail appeared at the entrance to the coffee shop. ‘Get ready to Stand Firm, ladies.’
‘I’ve not heard anything more from the police.’ Jax had been sitting with them some one and a half minutes and had not even touched her coffee. Another of Jax’s traits was her ability to Cut to the Chase.
‘You were expecting to?’ said Pat.
Jax fixed her with a look of offended widowhood. ‘We were married,’ she said in gently accusing tones, which successfully glossed over the whole issue of her defection. ‘Of course I want to know what happened.’
‘Do the police think there was maybe something untoward about Nev’s death then?’ asked Liz.
Jax nodded vigorously, ponytail bobbing on the top of a tight-fitting ensemble of spearmint and pink. ‘The police don’t. But I do. One hundred and fifty per cent I do.’
‘Why?’ asked Thelma, ignoring the dramatic but inaccurate maths.
‘I saw him,’ said Jax, ‘just the week before he died. And he were fine. More than fine.’
‘Heart attacks often come out of the blue,’ said Pat.
‘What I want to know,’ said Jax, ‘is what brought it on in the first place.’ Her tone was dark despite the warmth of the day. There was a chilly pause, broken only by an explosive sneeze from Liz.
‘You think there was more to it?’ probed Thelma.
‘All I’m saying is, according to Chelse, the look on his face was terrible. “Jax,” she says to me, “Jax, I can’t get it out of my mind – that look!”’ She took a conclusive sip of her coffee. ‘Not only that, there were something else that was odd—’
‘You mean apart from that yellow line on the wall?’ asked Pat.
Jax nodded. ‘Apart from that. Why was Nev there?’
‘Because it’s his property,’ said Pat mildly.
‘But why go in there at all?’ said Jax. ‘It’s a holiday let, not his home.’
‘Maybe whoever was staying in the outhouse had a problem with something?’ said Liz reasonably.
The ponytail swept dismissively from side to side. ‘There was no one there,’ she said. ‘According to the woman across the road, the person staying had had to leave early. Some crisis at home – so she’d gone that afternoon.’
‘And you think that whatever happened was something to do with the yellow line on the wall?’ ventured Thelma.
Again, that firm nod. ‘One thousand per cent. It’s got to be. The way Nev was staring at it. Chelse swears it wasn’t like that the week before, so why had someone done it?’
‘You’ve spoken to Ffion?’ asked Thelma. ‘Maybe she can shed some light on it?’
Liz felt an embarrassed flush, remembering the tight, dark figure glaring at her as, sneezing madly, she’d manoeuvred her car out of the way in a many-point turn.
‘Ffion?’ Jax’s eyes rolled expressively.
‘She’s full on with her horses, that one.
Not interested in the holiday let one iota.
She left all that side of things to Nev.
You could paint the whole flat sky blue and pink with yellow dots and she wouldn’t notice.
She said it must have been done by Nev at some point, but Chelse and I know that’s not the case.
Like I say, Chelse swears it was the first time she’d seen it and you can hardly miss a thing like that. ’
‘Did Ffion have anything to say about Nev’s heart problems?’ asked Pat.
Again, that dismissive flick of the head.
‘I asked her point-blank – had he been ill – and she just shrugged. But unless Nev had suddenly grown a mane and four hooves I don’t reckon she would have noticed one way or another.
And the thing is—’ There was something in Jax’s tone that made Liz look up, Thelma stop stirring and Pat pause, Melmerby slice halfway to her lips. ‘There’s something else.’
‘What?’ asked Liz anxiously.
‘Ffion told the police she was away in Carlisle on some horse do. But people are saying she wasn’t.’
Jax looked squarely at her three ex-colleagues. ‘I know you probably think I’m being OTT, but he was my ex and I did care for him.’ Her voice was strong, almost defiant. Were those tears in her eyes?
There was a pause.
‘So, what is it you want us to do?’ said Thelma gently, ignoring Pat’s stony expression.
Jax looked at her, once again the brisk, efficient person who could work their way through a pile of laminating faster than anyone else in Key Stage Two.
‘I want you to see if you can find out what happened,’ she said.
‘Ask around a bit. There’s some festival in the village this weekend.
I thought you could go along, talk to people—’ The reluctance on all three faces was plain to see as Jax continued speaking quickly.
‘Look, you’re good at this stuff. Everyone says so.
We all heard how you sorted out that business with them anonymous letters at St Barney’s.
And found out about what happened to poor Mrs Joy. ’
The three exchanged glances. The circumstances surrounding both those events had been complex and intensely personal to all three of them; in stark contrast none of them had so much as seen Nev Hilton for years.
Thelma was opening her mouth in an attempt to put this as tactfully as she could, when she saw Jax’s eyes widen in recognition at a point somewhere over Pat’s shoulder.
‘Chelse!’ she said. ‘We’re over here!’