Chapter Six
From the Hambleton Amblers Not Ramblers Facebook Page:
Please be aware that because of today’s extreme heat our Abbey-to-Abbey Saunter is being postponed until next week. Stay cool, Amblers!
‘Liz Newsome – just because the woman clocked you from her horse, it does not mean she’s out to get you.
’ Pat sounded weary as she fanned her shining face with her floppy white sun hat.
Once again, the patio doors of the garden centre were wide open, but today this only served to make the interior almost as hot as outside.
The young lad stacking trays of dirty crockery from people’s Sunday brunches was bright pink under his apron and black T-shirt.
‘You didn’t see the way she looked at me,’ said Liz, fumbling for a tissue. The pollen count seemed to have gone up a notch overnight and her itchy eyes felt like they must be bulging from her head.
‘According to Jean and Donald, she’s like that with everyone.
Both Sidrah and your pal Zippy Doodah said how she was turning people away when they were calling to see how she was.
Anyway—’ Pat fished the coral-pink fan from her handbag and leaned back in her chair, allowing the cool draught to play over her face and neck.
‘So we’re thinking Mrs Neville Hilton the Second snuck into the garden via this back door?
Then let rip at Neville and …’ She let her words tail off as she made a discreet but graphic gesture with the fan.
Liz emitted two worried sneezes. ‘And then lied to the police about being there,’ she concluded, blowing her nose.
Pat looked across at Thelma who was writing in her old green mark book. ‘You’re being very quiet,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Thelma. ‘I was just jotting down everything I saw, I didn’t get the chance before church. Now—’ She looked up ‘What was it you heard again?’
‘There was some argy-bargy in the garden, and Ffion shouted have pity or for pity’s sake or some such at Neville,’ said Pat a trifle impatiently.
It was so hot she had neither energy nor appetite to eat her Melmerby slice, which wasn’t like her at all.
Thelma nodded, and considered a moment. ‘Does none of that strike you as odd?’ she said eventually.
‘Not particularly,’ said Pat. ‘Why should it? People say all sorts when they’re upset.’
‘And we’re only hearing what people heard from this Judy person,’ said Liz.
‘Exactly,’ said Thelma. ‘That’s my point exactly—’
A shrill cascade of trills broke into the moment and they all wordlessly looked at Thelma’s phone, sitting on the table next to her iced mango juice.
‘Jax Hilton,’ said Thelma.
‘Jax Shally,’ said Pat. ‘Ringing for the third time. Turn it off.’
‘It might be important,’ said Liz.
‘Or,’ said Pat, ‘it might be “Hi. How are you getting on with solving my ex-husband’s death? Shall I leave it with you?”’ Her mimicry was spot on and the other two smiled.
‘I can’t turn it off,’ said Thelma. ‘Teddy’s going to let me know when he’s likely to be finishing his Sunday deliveries. We’re planning an expedition to the pick-your-own.’
‘Rather you than me in this heat,’ said Pat.
‘Anyway,’ said Liz. ‘Go on with what you were saying.’
She eyed Thelma’s drink. How many sugar cubes were in a glass of mango juice? A lot, she guessed gloomily. They’d had a rather nice mango drink at home but following Jacob’s blitzkrieg it had been summarily replaced with bottles of sparkling water.
‘Well,’ said Thelma. ‘There’s a couple things that strike me about this altercation. First of all, there’s the question of where it took place.’
‘In the garden,’ said Pat.
‘But no one saw it in the garden,’ said Thelma. ‘Judy Bestall only heard it. She was in the back field, remember – she couldn’t have actually seen anything much through that hedge. But remember, too, it was the first of the hot days so in all likelihood the windows would have been open.’
‘So, this row was happening inside?’ said Liz. ‘That would make more sense.’
‘You wouldn’t row with your wife outside,’ agreed Pat. ‘You’d get them inside the house then give them a roasting.’
‘No,’ said Thelma. ‘Not in the house. The Old Barn is set back from the field. If they’d been in the house, Judy might have heard raised voices but not made out the words.’
‘The Snuggery!’ said Liz.
Thelma nodded. ‘It’s right next to the back hedge – and one of the living room windows directly faces it.’
‘And it’s where Neville was found dead,’ agreed Pat. ‘Okay, so let’s say Neville was arguing with Ffion inside the holiday flat.’
‘But why were Neville and Ffion in the Snuggery and not the house?’ said Liz, fumbling for a tissue.
Thelma gave them a look they knew well – her ‘denouement look’ as Pat termed it.
‘If it was Ffion,’ said Thelma.
There was a pause as these words sunk in.
‘But surely this Judy said she’d heard Ffion?’ said Liz.
‘She heard a woman and assumed it was Nev’s wife. But she didn’t see her. And Ffion had gone off to Carlisle on some horse event, remember.’
‘So she told the police,’ said Liz darkly, remembering the stony-faced figure on the horse.
‘People didn’t seem to think so,’ said Pat.
‘She could’ve lied,’ said Liz. Both a liar and a murderer? She shivered.
‘But did anyone actually see Ffion?’ said Thelma.
‘That’s the question. Everyone’s saying she lied to the police, but the police would’ve checked her story.
And there was an event in Carlisle that Friday.
I looked it up – it started at eight thirty so Ffion would have had to leave Hollinby at six thirty at the latest.’
‘Maybe she got there late,’ said Pat.
Thelma nodded. ‘That is possible, but when you look at the fact this row was in the Snuggery, you have to at least consider the possibility it might have been someone else.’
‘Who?’ asked Liz.
Thelma shrugged. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is the million-dollar question.’
‘Maybe a burglar?’ suggested Liz. ‘Nev saw something wrong, maybe the door open, went in and confronted him?’
Thelma shook her head. ‘Her. Judy assumed the voice belonged to his wife, remember.’
‘Her then,’ said Pat. ‘You can get female burglars.’
‘But remember the phone call Neville got at Rotary,’ said Thelma. ‘Calling him back to the house. You wouldn’t get a burglar doing that – and you’re less likely to have a total stranger screaming the odds at you.’
At that moment there was another burst of sound, this time a tinny version of the theme from Flashdance. Pat rolled her eyes, retrieved her phone and pointedly turned it off.
‘Thank you and goodnight, Ms Shally,’ she said. ‘So where were we?’
‘If it wasn’t Ffion, who was Neville arguing with?’ said Liz. ‘And why?’
Thelma patted the green mark book. ‘The only clues we’ve got are what was said—’
‘And that’s all second hand.’ Pat gloomily gave herself another fan with the sun hat.
In response, Thelma turned the battered green tome towards her friends, who both smiled faintly at this remnant from their former life, conjuring benign ghosts of spelling scores, dinner registers, lists of readers.
On an empty page of the squared paper, Thelma had neatly drawn two columns.
‘What Judy Bestall heard, and repeated to others, falls into two parts,’ she said, pointing to the page.
Her neat, clear-varnished nail indicated a sentence written at the top of the first column in her neat, rounded teacher-script.
That’ll teach you. The nail moved to the second column where was written: Have pity on me.
‘That’s what Jean and Donald said Judy heard,’ she said.
‘But how can that help?’ said Pat. ‘They were just repeating what this Judy Doody told them.’
‘No, they weren’t repeating,’ said Thelma. ‘That’s the whole nature of hearsay. The mind of the listener picks up on the detail that seems important to them.’ Her friends looked at her blankly. ‘Remember Margo Benson’s chimney?’
Light slowly dawned.
‘Everyone was up in arms,’ said Liz slowly, ‘because someone thought they’d heard Margo say she was walking around with the flu.’
‘When all along,’ said Thelma, ‘it was her chimney flue that was blocked.’
‘I don’t see how that helps us there though,’ said Pat.
Thelma turned to Liz. ‘What did Sidrah tell you Judy heard?’
Liz frowned. ‘“You should go to a charm school” and “For pity’s sake”,’ said Liz.
Thelma nodded, writing furiously.
Thelma turned the book round again and the three friends looked at the neat handwriting. In the first column was written: That’ll teach you and You should go to a charm school; in the second: Have pity on me and For pity’s sake.
‘I think we can guess the first part,’ said Thelma. ‘If you take the words teach and school.’
‘Education!’ Liz’s triumphant cry made people on adjoining tables look round in surprise. ‘She was saying something to do with education!’
‘Nev worked for Lodestone Trust,’ said Pat slowly.
Thelma nodded. ‘And before that he was a head teacher – and an Ofsted inspector.’
‘So, this person – whoever they were – was shouting something about education,’ said Pat. ‘But what about the other part? Have pity on me – for pity’s sake?’
Thelma frowned. ‘That’s the bit I’m struggling with,’ she admitted.
‘Whoever she was, she must have been asking him to stop doing something,’ said Liz. ‘Have pity—’
‘For pity’s sake,’ said Pat. ‘That’s not asking anyone to stop anything—’
‘It’s how the words were spoken that doesn’t match,’ said Thelma stirring her mango juice.
‘Judy Bestall was quite clear the tone was angry – shouting. You don’t generally beg for mercy in angry tones – and you’d tend to say, “for pity’s sake” if you were feeling exasperated, not angry.
’ She sighed and took a sip of her drink.
‘And of course there is always the possibility it was Ffion shouting at him after all.’
‘Well, we’ve got somewhere,’ said Pat. She thought for a second. ‘I could always email Chris Canne at Lodestone. See if he knows anything about Neville. Maybe that’s why he was looking so uneasy at the funeral.’
‘And I could talk to Becky Clegg at St Barnabus,’ said Liz. ‘She used to work with Neville when he was a head teacher over in Northallerton.’
‘That’s if we want to,’ said Thelma calmly. The three looked at each other. There was a lot to be said for just letting the whole matter slip into that vast catalogue of the strange and unexplained.
‘It’s that lass, that Chelsey,’ said Liz eventually. She faced her friends, resolutely dismissing any thoughts of a scary woman on horseback. ‘It’s her I keep thinking of – her feeling like it was her fault in some way.’
‘Exactly as Ms Shally expected you’d feel,’ said Pat tartly.
Thelma stiffened. ‘Talking of.’
They all followed her glance. Yet again the brassy ponytail was threading its way through the slicing beams of sun, atop an ensemble of emerald green and a glittery gold sun visor.
‘I tried ringing but you weren’t picking up,’ Jax announced, sitting herself down. ‘All day I’ve been saying to myself: I wonder how they got on in Hollinby yesterday. So’ – she looked expectantly round – ‘how did you get on in Hollinby?’
Liz and Pat watched as Thelma gave a brief but circumspect account of their trip to the Hollinby Quernhow Village Festival.
All three were feeling (yet again) ambushed, and at the same time instinctively reluctant to share much of their thinking.
There was the unvoiced certainty that, however vague their theories, there was a pretty good chance they’d end up plastered across Jax’s various social media platforms within the hour.
As Thelma finished, Jax nodded. ‘I said to myself: Jax, there must’ve been something going off. You don’t just drop down dead like that. And there’s Ffion screaming in his face.’
‘If it was Ffion,’ said Pat.
‘Who else would it have been?’ said Jax.
There was a slightly loaded pause and Thelma put a protective hand on the green notebook.
‘I’ve always said to myself, I’ve an odd feeling about you, Miss Ffion,’ said Jax.
She sighed a long deep sigh. ‘I don’t mind telling you, this whole thing has proper shook me up. ’
‘How’s Chelsey?’ asked Pat in a pointed tone, which was totally lost on Jax. The brassy ponytail shook glumly. ‘Terrible,’ she said. ‘A right state. And there’s me having to do all me Friday and Saturday holiday lets on my Jack Jones.’
‘Has the lass seen anyone?’ ask Liz worriedly.
Jax rolled her eyes. ‘She finally gets in to see the doctor – but you wouldn’t believe the waiting list for counselling.
Nearly a year! I said she should go private but she’s not got that sort of money.
No, the only thing that’ll put Chelsey’s mind at rest is if we can tell her exactly what happened to poor Nev. ’
She looked at the three friends. The three friends looked back.
‘What had you in mind?’ said Thelma noncommittally.
‘What someone needs to do,’ said Jax, ‘is physically go into that flat. See if there’s anything they can find out. Something to take to the police to prove Ffion was lying to them.’
There was a pointed pause, marked by a suppressed sneeze from Liz.
‘What about the people staying there?’ asked Pat. ‘They won’t be happy to have us all traipsing in.’
Jax shook her head. ‘She’s cancelled all the holiday lets, so the place is just sitting there empty.
And, anyroad, I have to do a clean in there – the place hasn’t been touched since they found Nev.
I just need someone to come in with me.’ She looked at them appealingly, ponytail bent in supplication.
‘I’m like Chelse, I just can’t face going in there on my own. ’
‘I’m going to St Barnabus to talk to Becky Hunter,’ said Liz firmly.
‘And I’m going to Lodestone to talk to Chris Canne,’ said Pat equally firmly.
Jax turned her stare on Thelma. ‘Come on then, Thelma,’ she said. ‘How about it?’