Chapter 27
Julia knew she had to tell Hayley Gibson what she knew about Greg and his whereabouts at the time of his father’s death. But she didn’t relish the prospect. It would seem to the detective that Julia, once again, had been snooping in things that perhaps weren’t her business.
She stayed sitting on the bench by the river after Edna left, messing around on her phone, watching the birds, thinking about how to present the situation in a way that made her look, well, less interfering.
In the end, it was her tummy that made her steel herself, get up off the bench, and go and do the thing she had to do. It growled and griped and demanded a sandwich.
‘I might as well kill two birds with one stone,’ she said to herself, standing up and taking out her phone. She messaged Detective Inspector Hayley Gibson and asked her to meet her for lunch at the Buttered Scone.
Hayley phoned her straight away: ‘What’s up?’ she asked, warily. She was not a detective for nothing.
‘Maybe I just want to have lunch with you,’ said Julia. ‘Did that occur to you?’
‘Well, I don’t have time to be running around the village having lunches just for the laughs,’ said Hayley, in her usual blunt way. ‘So if you really didn’t have a reason to see me, then I’m afraid I can’t make it.’ There was a teasing note in Hayley’s voice. She knew Julia too well.
‘Oh, fine. I came across something about Greg Loxton that might be of use to you,’ said Julia.
‘What?’
‘Just come to the Scone. I’ll tell you in person. We can eat something.’
There was a pause while Hayley considered this. ‘Okay, you’ve twisted my rubber arm.’
At the Buttered Scone, Julia ordered a cappuccino, stirred in a spoon of sugar, and slurped it down as speedily as she was able to safely do without scalding herself. It helped to stave off starvation until Hayley arrived.
‘So what’s up?’ the detective said, as she sat down.
‘Let’s order first, I’m starving,’ said Julia.
‘Actually, I am too. I had to go on some fool’s errand to regional headquarters to update our friend, Superintendent Fredericks. And there is no update in the world that satisfies that man, barring a solved case. Never mind. I’ll have the house special toastie.’
Flo came over, notebook in hand. ‘Afternoon, ladies. What do you fancy?’
Julia ordered: ‘Two of the special toasties please, Flo.’
‘And a glass of water for me, please,’ said Hayley.
‘Right you are, back in a minute.’
When Flo was safely out of earshot, Julia explained the surprise piece of information she’d unearthed that morning.
‘I was at the hairdresser,’ Julia began, and paused for a moment for Hayley to comment on her hair, which she didn’t.
Julia continued: ‘She said that a client’s father died while the client was at the hair clinic upstairs, having a consultation.
She described him as a nice-looking chap in his early thirties, with thinning hair, who lives in one of the big houses near the riding school.
It must have been Greg. How many men of that age with thinning hair who live in big houses near the riding school recently lost their fathers? ’
She didn’t mention her phone call to the clinic.
‘It does sound like it could be him,’ Hayley agreed. ‘But he said that he was with Kevin Moore. Why would he make up some story? Why not just say he was at the hair clinic? It’s a perfectly valid alibi.’
Julia frowned, thinking about the psychology of a man like Greg. ‘Where were you when you asked him? Was there anyone else there?’
Hayley thought for a moment, and said, ‘DC Farmer questioned him, not me. And, come to think of it, Walter had another young uniform chap with him that day. Luke. It’s part of some sort of job-shadowing thing the department has implemented.
You might have seen him doing some of the grunt work up at the manor. ’
Julia remembered the young policeman that she had seen in the gardens of the manor. A young man with a particularly fine head of hair, she remembered.
‘In that case, I reckon he was embarrassed to admit in front of the two younger men that he had been going to the hair clinic. The guys at the golf club call it Bald Busters, apparently.’
Hayley snorted. ‘That’s actually quite funny. Bald Busters.’
Julia couldn’t help a smile. ‘It is a bit funny. But that young Luke has lots of lovely thick dark hair, a noticeable pelt, so perhaps poor Greg felt some weird kind of masculine insecurity, and felt shamed into lying? Men are very peculiar about going bald.’
Hayley sighed and shook her head at the ridiculousness of such a response. ‘Even if that’s all true, the alibi seems unnecessary and odd. Why Kevin? Why the Swan?’
‘Well, I thought about that. The hair clinic is very close to the Swan. I suppose he thought that if anyone saw him in the vicinity, he’d have an explanation for his presence.’
Hayley nodded. ‘That, or it wasn’t much of a plan.
He just blurted something out on the spur of the moment.
It often happens when people are questioned by police.
They get into a panic and make up random things that don’t hold up under scrutiny.
I’ll get DC Farmer to go back to Greg and check his story, but what you say sounds…
possible, I suppose, if unusual. Greg hadn’t been to visit Kevin at the Swan to discuss the Residents’ Association.
But he hadn’t been killing his father, either.
He’d been talking to Bald Busters about hair plugs. ’
‘The motive made so much sense,’ said Julia, with a frustrated sigh. ‘You can’t go wrong betting on greed, as a general rule, can you? Like a man wanting to hasten the dispersal of his inheritance.’
‘Yes, it is a strong motivation. But the evidence suggests this is not what happened. Let’s see what Walter finds out, but as far as I’m concerned, Greg is looking like a non-starter.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it. It would be horrible, him killing his own father, of course, but also going to jail, being a new dad and all.
’ Julia took a sip of her coffee, now at a reasonable temperature, and said, ‘Oh goodness, there was so much going on that I forgot to ask about Beth. How is the baby? What did they have?’
‘Nothing, yet. The baby is still firmly in place, and she’s been sent home and told to rest.’
Flo appeared behind Julia and spoke, giving them both a start: ‘Is it Beth you’re talking about?’
The woman had an unerring sixth sense when it came to gossip. She placed an oozing cheese toastie in front of each of them and stood there, hands on hips, ready for a chat.
‘Yes,’ said Julia. ‘She thought she was having contractions a few weeks early, but it seems she wasn’t in labour.’
‘So I heard. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d gone into labour early, though, what with all that’s been going on at Greystone Manor.
The stress, you know… It can set things off.
And that Beth is certainly one who stresses.
Worries a lot about what people think, that kind of thing. That could bring a baby on.’
Flo was considered an expert on many things – including, it now seemed, obstetrics.
‘Well, not in this case,’ said Hayley. ‘It was a false alarm, apparently.’
‘Ah well, the baby will come when it’s good and ready,’ said Flo. ‘I hope Beth is resting up for that last week or so. They’re less trouble in than out, that’s for sure.’ She laughed cheerfully at her own little joke. ‘Anything else for you?’
‘Just the bill thanks, Flo,’ said Julia. She waited until Flo was out of earshot and talking to another customer before continuing where they’d left off.
‘I’m glad Greg won’t be in the cells when Beth does go into labour,’ said Julia. ‘That would be awful for everyone.’
‘Yes. Although I’d like a strong suspect, at this point. As I said, I’m getting pressure from Regional Superintendent Lance Fredericks. I thought I was onto something with the inheritance. Ah well, back to the bloody drawing board, as usual.’
Julia felt a prickle of recognition, the feeling she got when there was something important knocking around her brain. It presented itself in due course: ‘Of course, Clara would have a similar motivation. The estate was to be split equally between the children. Maybe she wanted her payout?’
‘That’s true, as far as motivation goes, although women don’t usually go in for bludgeoning. It’s too brutal and bloody, and it takes too much strength.’
‘She’s used to blood; she’s a medical nurse by training.’
‘Really?’ Hayley clearly hadn’t heard.
‘Yes. Biddy told me she’d worked as a nurse before she moved into the project management side of public health.’
‘Even so… To kill a person – two people – in such a physical way, you need strength and heft and height.’
‘Well, the colonel was elderly, and he was sitting at his desk.’
‘That’s true, Julia. And forensics did show that Ian was kneeling when he was killed, and the blow came from directly above.’
They chewed thoughtfully on their toasties.
‘I think it’s time for a follow-up conversation with Clara,’ Hayley said, grimly.
‘I wonder if there was something going on that we don’t know about, some reason she would have been desperate to get her hands on the money?’ Julia said. ‘Her work.’
Julia stopped speaking. ‘Oh heck, of course it wasn’t her. She wasn’t even in town at the time of the colonel’s murder.’
‘Of course. She was in Malawi, for her work.’ Hayley looked down at her notes. ‘Public health… something to do with a malaria prevention programme.’
‘Yes,’ said Julia. ‘She was talking about the gorillas, wasn’t she?’
‘I’ll get Walter to check the flight logs to see when she returned from Malawi,’ said Hayley. ‘But it looks like Greg and Clara are going to be struck off the suspect list. Which now consists of, basically, no one. Which means going back to the beginning and taking a fresh look at these cases.’
‘Speaking of going back, I’m going back to Greystone Manor tomorrow.’
‘I thought you’d finished there?’
‘I thought so too. I did finish with Marigold’s house, but Biddy’s starting to go through Colonel Loxton’s things, and she asked for my help. Good for Second Chances, but I feel a bit odd about going back there after all that’s happened.’
‘Well, you did find two dead bodies there,’ Hayley said gruffly. She blushed in the awkward silence that followed, and then added, ‘What I mean is, I can see why it isn’t exactly a place of happy memories.’
‘Jess is going to come and help me, so that’ll be nice,’ Julia said, looking on the bright side.
‘I suspect she won’t be in Berrywick for much longer.
She’s started to look for a job, and that will likely be in London or one of the other cities.
She’ll probably go and stay with her dad for a bit, so I’m making sure to enjoy her company while I can. ’
After saying goodbye to Hayley, fortified by the toastie and the cappuccino, Julia now had the strength to go past the greengrocer to buy something for supper.
Jess had said she’d be home. There would be the usual caprese salad, that was for sure – the tomatoes and basil were the gift that kept on giving – and she thought she’d let the fresh produce gods guide her on the main course.
A young fellow was packing bunches of fresh asparagus onto a shelf.
‘Picked this morning,’ he said, when she leaned over to look. ‘They still had dew on them when they came in.’
‘I’ll take three bunches, please. It’ll make a lovely risotto.’
‘That it will.’ He handed them over with a smile. ‘I like to add a bit of lemon zest to mine. Give it a try.’
‘What a good idea! I bet it gives it a nice zing. I’ll do that, thanks.’
Julia felt a zing herself, as she set out to walk home. It took the form of a little jolt of happiness that she had had the good fortune to find herself living in a friendly village where shelf packers hand out recipe tips along with the freshest of local produce.
The sound of kitchen appliances greeted Julia when she arrived home. Dylan and Jess were in the kitchen, watching the beater going round and round in its bowl. They didn’t hear her come in, and looked up in surprise. Jess turned off the mixer and a blessed silence suffused the place.
‘Hi, Mum, we’re making strawberry ice cream with our fresh strawberries and a dash of honey from Hester’s beehives. We are lucky to have a beekeeper for a neighbour.’ She looked down at the recipe, and read: ‘Fold in the strawberry mixture and freeze.’
Dylan picked up a bowl of bright red mush. ‘I’ll pour, you fold.’
Julia put the asparagus in the fridge, and said, ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to put my feet up for a few minutes.’
‘Okay, Mum, see you later.’
No mention of her hair, Julia noted. One did wonder why one spent two hours in the chair and an inexplicable amount of money.
She realised that her irritation might be because she’d slept poorly, and had a busy morning, and that it might be eased by a small lie-down.
Chaplin came trotting after her as she walked down the passage to the bedroom.
He was a wily beast, and would have surmised that there was the chance of a snuggle on the bed.
He wasn’t wrong. Julia lay down with a sigh, and felt the tension unravel in her neck.
Chaplin tucked himself in next to her, his warm flank pushed against her waist. She took a minute to enjoy his purring reverberating into the side of her body…
Julia woke up with a start. For a moment, she thought it was morning, and that she had failed to set her alarm clock.
Her heart rate shot up as her fuzzy head tried to work out what exactly she was late for.
She leapt up, earning her a withering look from Chaplin.
It took her a moment to realise that it was the late afternoon, and that what had woken her was not an alarm, but a thought:
Clara was lying.