Chapter 16
‘Hello? Who’s there? What’s going on?’ Biddy had her hands on her hips and was looking around, a confused look on her face. ‘What’s the police van doing in the drive, and where is everyone?’
At the sight of Hayley Gibson and Bob Jones, she paled. Julia watched as the horrible recognition dawned – after all, Biddy had seen the two of them mere days ago, when the colonel had died. She would know that their presence was unlikely to signal good news.
Biddy looked at the little group, and then down at their feet, taking in the body that was still exposed.
‘Oh no,’ she said. She seemed to sway. ‘Oh no. It’s not… Ian… Oh, my dear boy… What happened? Is he dead?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Bob, not known for mincing his words or beating around the bush, unless it was to work Shakespeare into the answer.
Biddy ran the last few feet, and fell to her knees next to the lifeless body of the young gardener. Before anyone could stop her, she took his face in her hands and then collapsed onto him, weeping. Her tears dripped from her cheeks to his.
‘Dear Ian. Dead! No!’
Bob’s face took on his ‘Shakespeare Loading’ expression, and he intoned, ‘As the Bard said, Golden lads and girls all must as chimney sweepers come to dust.’
Julia thought this rather too soon and rather too blunt for the current circumstances, and indeed, it set off even more heart-rending sobbing from Biddy.
It was heartbreaking to witness. The sound of the woman’s crying, and the way she touched him so tenderly, kissed his cheeks. It was more than just shock and horror; she was distraught. Julia had had no idea that the gardener and the housekeeper were so close.
‘Miss, please,’ Bob said gently. ‘Could you please not touch the man?’
Hayley spoke more forcefully: ‘Step away from the crime scene.’
‘Crime scene?’ Biddy straightened up to look at her. ‘No, no. There was an accident, surely?’
‘Please, move away, so we can determine exactly what occurred here,’ said Hayley. ‘Now, please…’
Biddy tried to get up, but her legs buckled. Julia reached for her arms. ‘Let me help you, Biddy. Come on. Up you get.’
Biddy staggered to her feet, leaning heavily on Julia as she did so. Julia caught Hayley’s look and walked Biddy away from the body, into the garden.
‘Don’t go far,’ said Hayley. ‘I’ll need to talk to you.’
Slowly, Biddy managed to get her sobbing and shaking under control.
She took a few shuddering deep breaths, and calmed herself enough to release Julia’s arm and stand on her own.
The two of them sat down on a stone bench in the rose garden, out of sight of the body.
They were close to the edge of the property, and two horses from the riding school next door watched over the fence with curiosity in their big brown eyes.
‘I’m sorry you had to come across the body like that. It’s awfully upsetting,’ said Julia.
Biddy nodded slowly. She was clearly in a state of shock.
Even so, her response had been so extreme.
Julia had witnessed her fair share of grief, both in her work as a social worker and right here in Berrywick.
Biddy’s reaction had been more than that of a fond colleague.
Julia wondered about her relationship with Ian.
Were they perhaps more than co-workers? But what?
Biddy must be a good twenty years older than Ian.
Surely they couldn’t be romantically involved? Or could they?
‘My poor Ian,’ Biddy said sadly, not even bothering to wipe the tears that ran down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. ‘I can’t believe this. My little boy.’
‘Your… Ian… he wasn’t… was he… your son?’ Julia didn’t know what to make of Biddy’s words. Surely it couldn’t be? Surely someone would have mentioned the relationship? But the woman’s grief was such that it might in fact be the case.
‘No. Not my son.’ Biddy took another deep breath, and wiped her tears on her sleeve. ‘I suppose I can tell you. It’ll come out now anyway. Maybe not everything, but this. Nobody at the manor knew our secret, but Ian…’
Her voice broke. Julia waited. The bees were busy in the blowsy roses, and the silence was filled with their industrious buzzing.
Finally, Biddy spoke: ‘Ian was my nephew. He was my sister Ellen’s son.’
This fit better. But Julia wasn’t sure why this should have been a secret.
Biddy was acting like this was a startlingly explosive piece of information.
It was mildly surprising, at best. In fact, Julia wondered why it was a secret at all.
Perhaps so that people didn’t think he’d got the job through family connections?
Before she could frame a discreet follow-up question, Hayley Gibson appeared.
‘There you are. Biddy, I’m sorry to make you wait. I’m ready to talk to you now.’ She looked at Julia, and when Julia failed to move, said, ‘Julia, you can go.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Julia, springing to her feet. ‘Oh! I can’t go. Jake and I came with you, in your car.’
‘DC Walter Farmer is about to go back to the station. If you’re quick, you’ll catch him,’ said Hayley.
Julia hurried back to the driveway, where she saw Walter slam the car door and edge his car forward.
‘Walter, stop!’ she cried, breaking into a jog. Jake enjoyed this sudden and unusual activity, and bounded along, circling her and barking with joy. The barking got Walter’s attention and he stopped the car.
Julia ran to his window, puffing. ‘Give us a lift to the village?’
‘Hop in,’ he said. ‘I can take you home.’
Julia let Jake into the back seat, and buckled herself in the front.
‘Thanks, Walter. I’m glad I managed to catch you. How are you? How are Amaryllis and dear little Hugo?
‘Ah, we’re all grand. Bit tired – we’re still up at night – but the little boy is a treasure!’ he said. ‘And so clever. You wouldn’t believe it. He’s trying to talk already. It’s mostly baba dada but he looks right at you, and he’s communicating, you know? He even tries to call the cat, psspsspss.’
‘Gosh, he does sound clever. You should bring him to visit again. He enjoyed playing with Jake the last time, and Jake would love to see him.’
It was true that Jake was very good with babies. He understood that his job was to be very gentle and calm, and to make sure they were safe and happy at all times, even when they crawled on him and tugged a little too enthusiastically at his ears or his tail.
They were soon at Julia’s gate. She thanked Walter for the lift, sent her best to the family, and waved at the retreating brake lights.
She sighed with relief as she turned to walk up the path with Jake bounding happily ahead of her to the front door.
It had been a long day, with an awful upset.
She was tired and rattled and all she wanted was to put her feet up with a nice cup of tea.
She even had a tin of ginger biscuits, home-made by Tabitha, and a nice new novel from the library.
The thought of the comforts that awaited her lifted her spirits somewhat after the afternoon’s grim discovery.
‘Oh no,’ she said, her mood dampened by the sight on her doorstep.
It was a brown paper bag. Recent experience had taught her to treat such items with suspicion.
Quite rightly, in this case. She opened the top of the bag enough to peek in and there, as expected, nestled plump, red tomatoes.
Someone had sneaked in and left them there!
She whipped her head round, to see if she could spot the culprit, but whoever it was, was long gone.
She picked up the bag with a sigh, envisaging another hour or two of tomato prep, another batch of soup or sauce in the freezer. And she still had Sean’s tomatoes to deal with! She felt almost tearful at the thought.
Stepping into her house, she felt immediately more peaceful.
The tomatoes were a problem for another day, she said to herself, putting the paper back down on the kitchen table.
She put the kettle on and took the teapot from its shelf, along with a big cup and saucer and a plate, on which she placed two ginger biscuits.
And then, after a moment’s hesitation, a third biscuit.
She deserved a treat after the trauma she’d been through.
And she’d had nothing to eat since that cinnamon bun at the Buttered Scone.
Granted, it was the size of a grown man’s head, but it was long since gone.
Julia took the tea tray through to the sitting room, where her book lay tantalisingly on the coffee table.
She sank back into the sofa, waiting for the tea to brew.
Finally she was home, alone and with nothing to fix or sort out or take care of.
She would have her tea, speak to Sean and then settle down with her book.
Except…
What was that?
She pulled herself up to a sitting position. There in front of the fireplace was Chaplin, and, in front of him, a small grey mound. The small grey mound was furry and had a pointed little nose and a long, leathery tail.
‘Rat!’ she cried, to no one. ‘Chaplin! You terrible ferocious feline, take it out!’
Chaplin batted the grey, furry mound with a quick pat-pat-pat motion.
The scaly tail moved. The poor thing was still alive!
Now she’d have to rescue it. And do what with it, she didn’t know.
Take it out of the house, for starters. She got up, knocking the table and rattling the teacup.
Tea sloshed into the saucer. This was not how she had imagined her afternoon developing.
Chaplin looked up proudly as she neared the scene of the crime.
The rat was immobile. Maybe it was dead after all.
Julia felt guilty for rather hoping for this outcome.
It was easier to deal with a dead rat than an injured one.
Chapin gave it a final tap with his paw and stalked over to the armchair.
He gave her a look as if to say, ‘My job’s done. Over to you.’
Unsure of the rat’s medical status, she was reluctant to have anything to do with it.
She looked around for an implement. Next to the fireplace was a set of fire tools.
She picked up the heavy iron poker. It was rather excess to requirements – she wasn’t planning to defend herself against an attack rat – but she couldn’t see anything more suitable.
Keeping the maximum possible distance from the rat, she reached out and touched it gently with the tip of the poker.
She reared back, lest the animal rise up and scamper around the sitting room.
There was no rising and no scampering. The rat was dead.
‘Poor little thing,’ she said, sadly. ‘So much for my peaceful afternoon on the sofa.’ She headed into the kitchen to fetch an old newspaper from a stack she kept in the pantry. ‘You’d think after coming upon an actual dead person, I’d be spared a dead rat. To say nothing of the tomatoes…’
Julia felt like she might succumb to the tears that had been threatening all day. But she heard her mother’s voice in her head – No good feeling sorry for yourself, lassie. Buck up and buckle down. She smiled at the memory, and the sage advice.
‘Better sort this out, and I’ll get back to my tea and my sofa,’ she said, taking the paper back to the sitting room.
She opened it and laid it down in front of the fireplace next to the rat, which was now indubitably dead.
She reached for the little shovel from the set of fire tools and scooped up the corpse.
‘Sorry, little chap,’ she said, placing the soft body gently on what she saw was last week’s copy of the Southern Times. The rodent looked peaceful lying in the centrefold, as if he’d dropped off to sleep after a good helping of cheese and a read of the paper.
It gave Julia quite a start to see that the rat was in fact resting on a formal studio portrait of the colonel, pink-cheeked, very much alive, his white moustache in fine fettle.
She realised she had opened the paper to a big spread on the colonel’s death, written by her friend, the journalist Jim McEnroe.
She’d read the article when the newspaper had first arrived, and found nothing she didn’t know.
On the opposite page of the centre spread was a photograph of the study in Greystone Manor.
It was odd to see the familiar room again – the bookshelves, the fireplace with its mantelpiece clock and ironmongery, and the sofa behind which the colonel’s body had been found.
The photograph had been taken after the fact – there was no sign of the colonel or any mess.
It wasn’t a great-quality pic. Jim had probably snapped it with his phone.
It was captioned: The wood-panelled study, scene of the grisly crime.
The scene looked anything but grisly. It looked calm and peaceful and civilised.
But Julia knew that a man had died there, hit on the head by another person, with something hard and long and heavy.
Julia sighed. She wasn’t going to solve a murder staring at the newspaper, and she had a rat corpse to dispose of.
She picked up her poker and shovel, in preparation for wrapping the rat.
She was about to return them to the rack, but something niggled and made her hesitate.
She felt the heft of the ironmongery in her hand.
She looked down at the picture, where a similar set was pictured, standing by the fireplace in the study at Greystone Manor.
The niggling feeling was starting to resolve into a thought. On the fuzzy newsprint, she couldn’t make out which implement was what in the set of fire tools.
Was it possible that the dead rat had led her to the murder weapon?