Small Town Suspicions (Some Very English Murders Book 3) (20 page)

“Have they got kids?”

“Yes,” Penny said. “With
stupid hippy names. Star, Destiny and Wolf. How cruel.”

“I don’t know,” Drew said.
“I quite like them. ‘Destiny’ is hardly unheard of. They are individual. And
it’s common to have uncommon names these days, so I doubt they’d get teased.
One of the lads at the school I’m working at, he’s called Prince.”

“No way!”

“Seriously. Prince. But
although it seemed odd at first, it soon becomes just a name, you know? Anyway,
so you’re an aunt!”

“Hmm.” Penny felt a pang of
guilt, and it took her by surprise. She had lost touch with her nieces and
nephew just as much as she had with Ariadne and Owen. “I suppose that I am. I
don’t take my duties seriously, though.”

Drew wisely refrained from
comment. He poured some sparkling drink. “Here, try this. It’s elderflower.”

She sniffed and it prickled
her nose. “Oh! It smells much better than elderflowers do.”

“Oh, did you make the
mistake of picking them and bringing them inside?”

“Yes,” she said. “I thought
they’d make a nice floral display. But everything smelled of tom cat wee.”

“They are said to be bad
luck inside a house,” Drew said.

“I am not surprised.”

They fell silent for a
moment. Penny didn’t want to talk about Ariadne. But now she was thinking about
her more and more, and realising that some of her past actions were not,
exactly, stellar.

In fact, she may have
behaved in a very unpleasant way.

Which led her to a choice.
Continue, or change?

Change was hard.

Drew must have been watching
her internal dialogue. He pulled the knapsack over and said, “Time for pudding,
then!”

“Oh, more cheating. We’re
not foraging for it.”

“The truffles weren’t really
cheating. They
were
foraged. But if you could tell me in which region I
can find naturally-growing battenburg cake, I’d be very impressed.”

She laughed and the tension
was broken.

As they packed up to go
home, Drew remarked, casually, “So have you heard the news about Steve, then?”

“Ginni’s nephew? The
Sculpture Trail guy?”

“That’s exactly it,” Drew
said. “He’s not the Sculpture Trail guy any longer.”

“Who is?”

“I don’t know, and I
wondered if you did.”

“I didn’t even know about
Steve,” she said. “Was it because of his meltdown the other night?”

“I heard he flipped out in
public, yeah.”

“I wonder what he’s going to
do now,” she mused as they walked back towards Drew’s car.

“I wonder what’s going to
happen to the trail,” Drew said.

Penny and Francine walked with Kali through the town
centre. Francine wanted to visit the market, and Penny was just pleased to be
out and about. The evening with Drew had been fun, and although Francine
pressed her for gory details that simply didn’t exist, Penny found she was
content with things as they stood – at least for the moment.

Penny waited outside the covered market hall with Kali while
Francine dived inside to look at the fish stall. She’d only been gone three
minutes when she came running out again, her hands empty.

“The Sculpture Trail’s been sabotaged!” she gasped out. “I
just heard!”

Penny was surprised. “But the Sculpture Trail doesn’t even
exist yet,” she said. “You can’t sabotage an invisible walking trail.”

“The wooden poles, and the things that Steve had started to
do before he stopped, was all being kept in a back room at the Community Hall,”
Francine told her. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“The hall!”

Francine strode off, and Kali followed, leaving Penny to be
hauled along in their wake. And they were not the only ones making their way
there. Mary was there, and Agatha, and Reg, and a few others that had nothing
better to do with their day.

And also there was Ginni, who must have left her shop in
the charge of someone else.
Possibly Steve
, Penny thought.

Francine had no qualms about forcing her way into the hall
with everyone else. Penny dithered for a moment, wondering whether it was all
right to bring Kali in. Francine beckoned at them frantically, and Penny rolled
her eyes and followed.

Kali wanted to sniff all the new smells in the hall but
Penny clicked her tongue and got her to walk nicely to the back, where everyone
was gathered around an open doorway.

Penny peeked in.

It was a scene of devastation. The store room ran the
length of the back of the hall, and it looked as if a hurricane had blown
through. Wood was scattered around, and she assumed those were the remains of
the poles for the trail, now broken and shattered. Large sheets of paper with
scribbled drawings on were ripped up and torn. There was smashed clay in lumps
and finished fired pottery shards on the floor.

Penny stayed in the hall, peeking in. People chattered in
shock and horror, but with an undercurrent of excitement. It was natural human
curiosity, but still it left a bad taste in Penny’s mouth.

Francine had pushed forward into the store room, and was
gazing around, her usually narrow eyes wide in shock. “Who could have done
this? Oh, poor Steve.”

“He was off the Sculpture Trail anyway,” Penny said in a
low voice, aware of the proximity of Ginni.
And maybe that was why … he
could have done this out of spite.

Ginni heard her speak. She walked past Penny and joined
Francine in the back room.

“I’m so sorry,” Francine said. “It looks like it’s all
over.”

Ginni looked around, and straightened her back as she
lifted her head. “No. It simply means we begin again.”

“How? This will be the third attempt. It won’t be done for
this August’s fair, will it, eh?” Agatha said, who was standing just behind
Penny, and peering around her arm into the store room. “Maybe it’s a sign.
Maybe it’s best to stop trying to hurry it forward, and look at it for next
year.”

“How long until the fair?” Francine asked. “A week?”

“A week,” said Ginni, her firm jaw raised and set. Penny
wished she had a camera. Ginni wouldn’t have looked out of place as a stone
statue in revolutionary Russia.

Francine was as transfixed by Ginni as Penny was. “One
week,” she echoed. “Right. So, is any of this salvageable?”

Agatha nudged Penny with her elbow. “What are they doing?”

“It looks like they are sorting out the wooden poles,”
Penny said.

“I know that, eh, but what are they
doing?
”

Penny sighed. “Something impossible.”

Francine and Ginni had rolled up their sleeves and were
sorting through the chaos and the rubbish. Penny watched them for a moment,
then said, “You can’t do this on your own.”

She meant that she was prepared to help out, even though it
seemed doomed to failure. But Ginni stopped and threw up her head.

“Yes. Yes! You’re right!” She swallowed and pinked
slightly. “I might have to concede that in some respects, ahem, I could have acted
hastily and somewhat foolishly in the past. However, it may never be said that
I am too stubborn…”

Agatha coughed and choked but Ginni ignored her.

“And I feel,” Ginni continued, “that if I might be allowed
to eat a little humble pie, then perhaps we can, indeed, galvanise the whole
town into action. You’re perfectly correct, Penelope. We cannot do this on our
own. But with the community behind us … why yes, we might move mountains!”

“How … what?” Penny said. “I mean, that sounds great in
practise, but you will need longer than a week.”

Ginni turned and met her eyes, and Penny tried not to step
back, such was the force of the woman’s glare. “We are
women,
” she said
firmly. “We get things done.”

Ginni turned back to Francine. “Right. We shall tidy up, and
list what remains useable. Then we will retreat to the local pub and create an
action plan. Paper and pen?”

Francine had already grabbed a sheet of paper from the
carnage on the floor. “Let’s do it.”

Penny backed into the hall, away from the feverish energy
that was crackling in the store room between the two surprising and formidable
women. Agatha and the others remained, and most were silent as they listened to
the plans tumbling around from Ginni and Francine.

Well,
Penny thought.
Francine had been a great
television producer. She might just pull this off. Her lateral thinking and
problem solving, married to Ginni’s bulldozer personality … yes, of all the
people in this crazy town, they are the ones to sort the Sculpture Trail out,
indeed.

* * * *

She was only a few yards from the community hall when Drew
pulled up in his car. Kali bounded up and put her paws on the open window,
shoving her head into the car to greet him.

“I am so sorry! Kali, down, you great lump.”

The dog thumped back to the ground, unrepentantly wagging
her tail.

“Is it true?” Drew asked, sticking his hand out of the
window to scratch Kali’s head.

“That the art for the trail has been trashed? Yes, it is. I
don’t know who, though I have my suspicions. But something even stranger is happening
in there. Ginni and Francine are having
ideas.
”

“Oh. Oh, er, right. I’ll not go in,” he said.

“Best not.”

“Anyway. I was on my way to see you.”

“This way?” she said.

“Okay, so I was on a detour to check this news out first.”

“I’m shocked at you, Drew,” she said, laughing. “You say
you’re not interested in gossip!”

“Being with you has obviously affected me,” he said darkly.

She bit back her flirty retort, and instead she said, “I
can’t imagine anyone making you do something you didn’t want to do.”

“Huh. Anyway … I thought you’d want to hear this. And it’s
sort of gossip, except it isn’t, it’s news. I mean, it’s gossip if I heard
about it from someone else, but news if it’s happened to me, right?”

“I think that’s how it goes,” said Penny. “So what is your
news-not-gossip?”

“Barry came to see me.”

Penny gaped at him. “He did? Why?”

Drew was still absently stroking Kali. “I’m not totally
sure. I mean, everyone around here knows one another, and everyone certainly
knows me and they know I’m doing work at that school. Barry said it was because
of that, because I’m down to earth and don’t have any ‘side’ as he calls it.”

“But what did he say?” Penny implored, half-expecting a
full confession to murder.

“He said that Steve was avoiding everyone and everything,
and that he was in a bad way. And he also said that he knew that him and Steve
were each other’s alibis and that it looked dodgy and he didn’t want to seem to
be colluding with him.”

“Colluding?”

“Okay, so Barry didn’t use those exact words, but that’s
what he meant. And the thing he wanted, was that he wanted to go and speak to
Steve and try to help him, but he didn’t want to do it on his own, because of
all that.”

Penny frowned. “Let me get this straight. Steve is all
upset, and Barry wants to talk to him, but he wants your help to talk to him?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Wow. That’s interesting.”

“He seemed really embarrassed, did Barry. He apologised for
not being very ‘manly’ and I laughed at him for that, but he meant it. He
thought he was being ‘soft’ for wanting to help his friend but he knew it was
what he had to do.”

“Are they really friends?”

“They are. I think they just enjoy how easy it is to be in
one another’s space.”

“The simplicity of their company,” Penny mused, suddenly
struck by the notion.

“Yeah, if you say so.”

“Have you been to see Steve, then?”

“No,” said Drew. “Not yet. We’re going to seek him out
tonight, with the help of a few cans of beer and maybe a bag of peanuts.”

“The tempting lure of peanuts.”

“Do you think Steve was anything to do with what’s going on
in there? Could he have trashed the Sculpture Trail?”

She nodded sadly. “I think so. Perhaps you can find out
tonight. Good luck.”

Drew waved and began to put the car into gear. “Thanks.
I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Please do. Oh, and Drew – I think it’s a really nice thing
that you’re doing, you know.”

He laughed it off. “Just being neighbourly.”

She watched him drive away. Kali was sitting down, and
looking up at her with a bored expression. She’d sniffed everything within
range, and was patiently waiting to move on.

Penny was thoughtful. Drew really did believe Barry and
what he had said. Drew took people at face value.

Penny was not so sure.

Penny didn’t hear from Drew that night, and she assumed he
was still with Barry on his mission to help Steve. She sent a text message to
him the following day, but there was no reply until the evening.

“Went well.”

That was it? She glared at the screen.
You infuriating
man. What about Steve? What about Barry? What was that man hiding?

She had spent the day completely absorbed – as much as she
could be – in her arts and crafts work, and Francine had been conspicuously
absent until she barged into the cottage at half past five, clutching two bags
of hot chips wrapped in paper, and saying,

“You’ve got to come to the meeting!”