Chapter Three #2
Springing Chelsey on them unannounced was, they all later agreed, something of a master stroke of manipulation on Jax’s part.
Sitting there clutching a mango and peach smoothie, the girl looked painfully young and vulnerable.
She reminded all three ex-teachers of a child starting in a new class, wide-eyed and unsure in a world suddenly unfamiliar and hazardous, and although they all felt annoyed with Jax, that didn’t diminish the sympathy they felt for the girl.
They regarded her awkwardly, unsure what to say.
Jax, however, had no such qualms. ‘Go on, Chelse,’ she said firmly. ‘Tell them what you told me, about finding Mr Hilton.’
Chelse nodded obediently and took a deep shuddering breath; the hands clutching the glass shook. ‘Sorry,’ she said brokenly. ‘Sorry—’
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about,’ said Liz gently but firmly. ‘I can’t imagine what a horrible experience it was. Anyone would be upset.’
Chelsey nodded. ‘I just keep seeing him there,’ she said. ‘On the sofa, with that look on his face.’
‘Chelse love,’ said Jax. ‘You need to get your head round it and move on. Now come on, these ladies haven’t got all day.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about it,’ said Chelsey, her voice distressed. ‘Could I have done something? Stopped it from happening somehow?’
‘Chelsey,’ said Jax with the air of a zealous paramedic. ‘Get a grip, love.’
Liz glared at their ex-colleague. ‘Anything can bring on a heart attack,’ she said to Chelsey, passing her a balsam tissue. ‘At any time. Really, there’s nothing you could have done.’
‘Liz is absolutely right,’ said Thelma in a tone she’d used so many times over the years with upset children. ‘The police said he’d been dead for hours.’
‘The police—’ Chelsey seized on the word. ‘They kept asking me the same questions, over and over again, like they thought I knew something.’
‘They have to do that,’ said Pat soothingly. ‘It’s how these things work.’ She was feeling a complex mix of emotions: annoyance with Jax, sympathy for Chelsey, plus a very strong urge to simply walk away and check out the sale in the Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
Chelsey nodded and blew her nose.
‘Come on, Chelse,’ urged Jax. ‘Tell them about finding Mr Hilton.’
‘Never mind that for now,’ interjected Thelma smoothly. ‘Tell us about when you arrived that morning. Whether you noticed anything odd.’
Chelse visibly relaxed and even looked a bit less stricken. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Just that Mrs Hilton’s car wasn’t there, but she often goes away on a weekend with her horses.’
‘So, you parked up—’ prompted Thelma.
‘That’s right. I was in a hurry because with four places to do you need to get a shift on. And – oh—’ She stopped herself, frowning. ‘There was one thing—’
‘Go on, lovey,’ encouraged Liz.
‘It sounds silly,’ she said apologetically. ‘But I had to move the wheelie bin.’
An investigating police officer could well have dismissed this event but Pat, Liz and Thelma were not investigating police officers and knew all about the potential significance of wheelie bins, moved or unmoved.
‘You don’t normally?’ asked Pat, growing interested in spite of herself.
Chelsey shook her head. ‘No. Mr Hilton always puts it out on the street on a Friday night; he used to tell me all the time how he’d do it straight away every time he got back from his Friday-night meeting. Made a big thing of it, he always did.’
There was a pause. All three women could well imagine Neville Hilton making a big thing of putting wheelie bins out.
‘There’s trade waste collection on a Saturday,’ said Jax authoritatively. ‘It’s different from normal waste. A load of holiday cottages use it but you have to remember to put your bin out where they can see it.’
‘It hadn’t been put out like normal; it’d been left in the driveway blocking the way to where I park,’ said Chelsey.
‘So, you moved the wheelie bin and went inside,’ prompted Thelma.
Chelsey nodded. ‘It were clean,’ she said. ‘Spotless. Everything washed up and put away, nothing left out.’
Thelma frowned.
‘What?’ said Pat.
‘Some of the messes I walk into,’ said Jax importantly, ‘disgusting. Proper animals some folks.’
Thelma ignored this. ‘Did you notice anything else?’ she asked.
‘Just the body. Sat there, eyes open.’ Chelse’s voice shook and Liz covered her hand with her own.
‘I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been,’ she said to her.
‘Forgive me for asking,’ said Thelma. ‘Did you happen to notice what Mr Hilton was wearing?’
Chelse frowned. ‘Just normal clothes,’ she said. ‘Well, normal for him.’
‘He wasn’t,’ said Thelma, ‘wearing painting clothes?’
‘Oh no.’ Chelse shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. Jacket and trousers – not a suit – and a checked shirt and a tie.’
‘Just the sort of thing he’d wear to Rotary,’ said Liz.
‘And this yellow line?’ Thelma asked the question almost casually.
‘Oh yeah.’ Chelsey frowned, eyes once more fearful. ‘That. I’ve no idea what that were doing there.’
‘What was it like?’ asked Liz.’
Chelsey frowned. ‘Well, it were yellow,’ she said. ‘And it were a line. I don’t know what else I can say really.’
‘What shade of yellow was it?’ asked Pat, by now thoroughly engrossed.
‘Pale,’ said Chelsey. She looked around and nodded to a woman in a primrose-yellow top sitting at a table across the café. ‘About the same shade as that lady’s T-shirt. Maybe a bit paler.’
‘And thick?’ said Thelma. ‘Or thin?’
‘I dunno really.’ Chelsey looks confused.
‘I mean not thin, thin – but not thick either.’ She shivered, eyes widening.
‘It was weird,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like it.
’ She half closed her eyes. ‘I’ve been dreaming about it,’ she said.
‘Like I’m somewhere normal – and suddenly there it is on the wall … a pale-yellow line …’
The trio watched the two figures retreating across the rapidly filling café, Jax with a proprietorial hand between Chelse’s shoulder blades.
Thelma looked grave. ‘In cases like this,’ she said, ‘it’s always the innocent who suffer. Finding Neville like that – it’s something that’ll always stay with her.’
‘Poor lass,’ said Liz. ‘Poor, poor lass.’
‘Never mind “poor, poor lass”,’ said Pat. ‘Madame Jax Shally just wants to have her cleaner back up and running.’ She looked grimly at her friends. ‘The phrase “thundering cheek” comes to mind.’
‘What was she playing at?’ said Liz, blowing her nose in exasperation. ‘Bringing the poor lass here like that and making her go through it all over again?’
‘And then expecting us to go and investigate what happened,’ said Pat. ‘Who does Ms Shally think we are – a Miss Marple tribute band?’
‘It’s that lass that bothers me,’ said Liz. ‘She’s never going to get over it, thinking she’s responsible in some way.’
‘Well, if you want to go trawling round Hollinby Quernhow Village Festival this weekend, fill your boots,’ said Pat, finishing her Melmerby slice.
‘I have other plans.’ Her words were firm, her mind filled with the glorious prospect of a weekend with just her and Rod in the house.
Padding round in her favourite faded sundress, reading in the garden, maybe binge-watching that new season of Real Housewives of Tampa Bay.
‘I’m not saying we should get involved,’ said Liz hastily.
Her weekend was also full. Her grandson Jacob was staying over and Liz had a nasty idea he planned to go through her food cupboard and weed out what he termed ‘unsuitable food’.
Forestalling and ensuring there was at least some food left would take both time and patience.
All at once they both became aware that Thelma was saying nothing. Saying nothing but stirring her coffee in that very familiar way.
‘What?’ said Pat with a long-suffering sigh.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Thelma. ‘I was just wondering.’
‘Wondering what?’ said Liz.
Thelma looked at them. ‘A couple of things really,’ she said.
‘According to Chelsey the flat was left spotless – but then Jax said the person staying there had had to leave in a hurry. Surely if you were called away by some crisis, you wouldn’t stop first and clean somewhere that would be cleaned anyway? ’
Pat shrugged. ‘Some people are like that,’ she said. ‘It’s a point of honour to leave places cleaner than when they found them.’
‘What was the other thing?’ asked Liz.’
‘It was something Jax said. Why did Neville go into the holiday flat?’
‘There could be any number of reasons,’ said Pat dismissively.
‘But why didn’t he put the wheelie bin out first?’ Thelma’s words seemed to cast a chill across the warm room. They all instinctively felt there was something odd about that misplaced wheelie bin.
‘Chelsey said he always put the bins out when he got back from Rotary,’ said Liz slowly. ‘But he didn’t.’
‘So, what stopped him?’ asked Thelma.’
‘A heart attack?’ said Pat pointedly.
‘No,’ said Liz, ‘if you’re feeling ill, you’d go into your own house – not a holiday let—’
‘Exactly,’ said Thelma. ‘So the chances are he was fine when he got back – and for whatever reason didn’t put the wheelie bin out because of something that happened. And that’s what made him go inside the holiday let. And now I think on it, there’s a third thing.’
‘What?’ asked Pat uneasily.
Thelma steepled her fingers in thought. ‘Derek said he left Rotary early because he got a call … So, who was the call from – and why did it make him go back home – but not into his own home?’