Chapter 6
Henny Penny led the chickens out of the coop and into the garden.
She walked with a confident posture that reminded Julia of her gym mistress at school, who had exhorted the girls, ‘Heads up, shoulders back!’ Something that Julia tried to practise to this day.
Penny strode purposefully to the vegetable bed.
The other chickens followed after her more tentatively, their bobbing heads glancing left and right.
Henny Penny ducked under the low-hanging branches of the tomato and aubergine plants, which had been firmly staked to prevent their stalks breaking and collapsing under the weight of their abundant fruit.
Julia made a mental note to pick the ripe tomatoes when she got home.
There were so many. More than she and Jess could eat, even if she made tomato soup for tonight’s supper, as intended.
When she picked them later, she would send some to the neighbours, Coral and Hester.
Henny Penny emerged from the bushes with an irate caterpillar wriggling in her beak. Jake regarded her with a melting look of adoration, as if marvelling at what a fine and clever hen she was.
‘Come on, Jakey, your turn for breakfast,’ said Julia, and walked over to the bucket where his food was kept.
He turned a few inelegant circles in his excitement, smacking the red petals off a poppy with his tail.
Julia led him away from the flowers and vegetables, and poured the biscuits into his bowl.
As usual, he gobbled them up as if he’d not seen a morsel since the Great Famine.
The bowl moved forward an inch with each hard push of his nose.
The clattering and scraping of the metal bowl on the paving brought Julia’s neighbour Hester to the low wall between their gardens.
‘Someone’s enjoying his breakfast,’ Hester said. ‘Been starving him, have you?’
‘Yes. I decided to save money by feeding him once a week instead of every day. Today’s the day he gets breakfast.’
Hester laughed. ‘One thing about my bees, they do take care of their own meals. They’re spoiled for choice, buzzing about the gardens and the meadows with all the summer flowers out.’
‘Not only do they feed themselves, they feed you! Hear that, Jake? When did you last make me a piece of toast?’
Jake looked rather ashamed of himself for this oversight.
‘Not to worry, you’re a good chap,’ she said, giving his shiny brown rump a pat.
Hester came round the end of the fence with a brown paper bag cradled in her arms. ‘I picked these tomatoes specially for you. They really are delicious this year, and so plentiful,’ she said, holding it out.
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Julia, trying not to show her reluctance to accept the bulging bag. ‘Jess loves our English tomatoes.’
She peeped inside. The tomatoes did look wonderful: red and yellow, large and small, even a couple that were striped and dappled with a dark green and purple. Their distinctive fresh green gardeny smell drifted up.
‘Well, there’s plenty more where those came from,’ said Hester.
‘Coral discovered vegetable gardening for the first time when she moved in here. She went a bit overboard on the planting. Apparently she thought each seed would grow into one tomato, instead of one whole plant! If you need more, I can go and pick…’
‘No, no!’ said Julia quickly. ‘This is plenty, thank you. More than! A bushel! An abundance indeed. Lovely to see you, Hester. I’d best be going, I’ve got to pack up some donations for Second Chances. Jess and I are meant to be there at ten, and look at the time!’
‘Right you are. Have a good day. And let me know when you’re ready for more tomatoes!’
Julia had been surprised to get a phone call from Biddy early that morning, telling her that she could come back and finish packing up Marigold’s earthly goods. It seemed rather soon, just two days after the sad demise of the colonel.
‘Mr Gregory is eager to get the house in order,’ Biddy had explained over the phone. She didn’t exactly sniff, but a sniff of disapproval was somehow implied. ‘He’d like the Coach House cleared as soon as possible.’
And so it was that Julia and Jess were back at the Coach House at Greystone Manor, boxes and packing tape in hand.
There was a distinctly sombre air about the place this time – or so Julia imagined.
The house looked greyer and colder. There was a thin layer of cloud in the sky, and the sun seemed wan.
Even the crunch of gravel seemed subdued when they drove over it.
The gardener, Ian, was lightly working a fork over an empty bed in a desultory sort of way, although he did still manage a wave and a smile.
Garforth – hardly garrulous at the best of times, it must be said – was almost wordlessly solemn when he let them in.
Julia and Jess set to work packing kitchen items into boxes.
Julia was very pleased with the quality of the contents – colourful cast iron pots without a chip, non-stick frying pans without so much as a scratch on them, elegant brushed stainless steel implements, sturdy new wooden spoons – but didn’t like to enthuse too heartily, given the circumstances.
They had filled two or three boxes when Biddy arrived to check on them.
‘Thank you for coming back so promptly. Sorry I wasn’t here to greet you.
There’s so much going on. Clara is coming home, of course.
She was in Africa somewhere and Greg had to tell her over the phone.
She managed to get a flight quickly, and she should be here today.
And the police and the forensic people are back and forth.
As you can imagine, Gregory needs help with planning the service, the police…
but he wants the house and garden looking shipshape.
Beth worries what people will think, even though I keep telling her nobody will be looking at the house. Anyway, thank you.’
‘You are welcome. Oh, and speaking of shipshape,’ said Julia. ‘I think I saw the handyman chap who was here on Monday in the village. Tall guy, grey hat…?’
‘I didn’t see a handyman here on Monday, and the grey hat would be unusual. The handyman hasn’t been in a while, and anyway, he always wears a blue beanie, winter and summer.’
‘That would be Johnny Blunt,’ Julia said with a smile. He had never been seen without that blue beanie, and was one of the first people she had met when she moved to the village.
‘That’s the man. Anyhow, I’d best be going, just shout if you need anything.’
‘We’ll be fine, please don’t worry about us. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate. We can just get on with things.’
‘Thank you,’ said Biddy, with a grateful smile. ‘Come to the kitchen in the big house at about twelve thirty; I’ll make us all a bite to eat.’
Engrossed in the busyness of packing some hours later, they were alerted to the fact that it was lunchtime by a long and tuneful growling noise emanating from Jess’s stomach.
She looked at her watch and exclaimed, ‘Twelve forty-five! Come on, Mum, we’d better get to the kitchen before they eat all the lunch. ’
‘It’s not the school lunch hall, survival of the fittest and fastest,’ said Julia. ‘I’m sure she’ll save us something.’
She was correct. Their sandwiches – egg, tomato and cress, this time – were waiting for them under a clean tea towel.
There was no sign of Biddy, but Garforth, the butler, was at the kitchen table chewing solemnly on the last bite of his sandwich, the plate in front of him empty but for a few crumbs.
‘Hello, Mr Garforth. How are you doing?’ Jess enquired kindly, sitting down across the table from him with her plate.
‘Adequately, under the circumstances. Thank you.’
‘Poor you. Such a shock. It must be very hard, losing someone you worked with every day.’
‘Indeed,’ he said stiffly, getting up from the table.
‘Were you and the colonel close?’ Jess continued.
Garforth looked taken aback at the intimate line of questioning. Julia surmised he clearly didn’t hang around much with the youth, who were given to direct and personal questions.
‘We had known each other a long time, and been through a lot together,’ he said, without giving any details. Biddy, who had just come in, watched the interaction with a hint of a smile.
‘Well, that’s very sad. I’m sorry for your loss, and I hope you’re taking good care of yourself.’ Jess reached over and patted Garforth’s hand, to his clear consternation.
‘Indeed,’ he said, after an awkward pause, and stood up.
When the butler was gone and out of earshot, Biddy said, ‘Garforth knew the colonel for more than thirty years. They were in the army together. The colonel saved his life, you know. Apparently, Garforth was straight out of training when he got himself into some sort of trouble in the field. I don’t know the details – neither of them spoke much about it, really.
But the colonel went in under fire and pulled him out.
Risked his life, he did. He earned himself a medal for it. ’
‘Really? Wow. Like one of those crosses or something?’ asked Jess, her eyebrows raised.
‘I’m not sure what sort of medal it was. I haven’t seen it. It’s not the sort of thing one would wear about the house, I suppose. Earned himself Garforth’s absolute devotion, too.’
‘I can imagine. Goodness, imagine knowing if it wasn’t for that man, he’d be dead.’ Jess seemed quite taken with the dramatic story.
‘They lost touch, but Garforth looked him up some years later – it must have been more than ten years ago now. Once they’d reconnected, he came to work for the colonel here at Greystone Manor and from that day to this, he hardly left his side.
He was more than a butler: he was the colonel’s right-hand man, his assistant, his secretary. He handled everything.’
‘Poor Mr Garforth, he must be so sad,’ said Jess. ‘I wonder what he’ll do now?’
Julia, who had been eating more and talking less than her daughter, had finished her lunch and was eager to get on with the job. ‘I’m going to wash my hands. I’ll see you back at the Coach House, Jess.’
‘I’ll be right behind you,’ said Jess, turning her attention back to her meal.
As the warm water ran over her hands, Julia’s mind wandered to the niggling matter of the grey-hatted man.
Why had no one mentioned him, or seen him, except her?
And why had he left the Topsy Turnip so quickly?
If, despite the pouch of tools, he hadn’t been at Greystone Manor to fix something, who was he?
There must be some reasonable explanation for it, she thought, drying her hands.
She stepped out of the guest loo and almost collided with Garforth in the passage. He let out a yelp of surprise, just as she said, ‘Oops, sorry!’
They both laughed small, embarrassed laughs.
‘I was so busy in my own head, I didn’t see you,’ she said. ‘In fact, I was thinking about that chap I saw here on Monday. The tall man in the grey hat. By coincidence, I saw him in the village yesterday.’
‘I’ve no idea who you’re talking about,’ said Garforth, with no trace of the humour they’d shared a moment ago.
‘Not an artisan of some kind?’
‘No. There was no one here,’ he said grimly. ‘You must have been mistaken.’
‘Most likely,’ she said, although she knew that she wasn’t mistaken. Julia had met her fair share of liars in her time as a social worker, and she would bet good money that Garforth was hiding something. ‘I’d better get back to the Coach House. Lots still to do.’
It seemed odd that no one else had seen the Invisible Man arriving, visiting or leaving.
And it was equally odd that Garforth seemed to be lying about it.
But odd was none of Julia’s business. In fact, when it was at the scene of a death, odd was the business of the police.
Julia took out her phone and called DI Hayley Gibson.