The Spring Cleaning Murders (23 page)

“I hates to see you upset, girl.” Jonas lay back against the pillows. A shadow cast by the wardrobe door that Tobias had nudged open darkened the smudges under his eyes and deepened the hollows in his cheeks.

“I shouldn’t have bothered you with any of this.” I bent over to kiss his papery forehead. “You were sleeping so peacefully before I woke you up. There was the loveliest smile on your face. I think you must have been having good dreams.”

“I was.” He turned his face towards me but his eyes held a faraway look. “It was a beautiful spring morning, like yesterday before it turned to rain. The sky was bluer than hyacinths. There was flowers everywhere you looked, and buds on the trees and grass so green you’d think God got up before the crack o’ dawn to plant it fresh. My mother was in that garden, Ellie girl.” His voice dwindled to a whisper and I knelt down by the bed.

“What was she doing?”

“She was on the lawn, looking up at the sky. She had hold of a kite on a long, long string, and all of a sudden she let it go and watched it fly away.”

“Were you with her in the dream, Jonas?”

“I was the kite.” He struggled to open his eyes, but sleep had returned for him like a firm but gentle presence tugging him away from me. I felt a moment’s terror, but he stirred and squeezed my hand. “I be glad you talked to me, Ellie girl. What of Mrs. Malloy. Did you bring her back here last night?”

“I offered, but she insisted on staying in her own house.” He was nearly asleep again, and after smoothing out his sheet, I tiptoed from the room. Then, after taking only a couple of steps towards the stairs, I turned around and went back to make sure he was still breathing.

Nerves! I told myself. It was only to be expected that I would be jumpy. But I was bound to feel better if I ate something. After that I would go and see how Mrs. Malloy was doing and if she’d heard any more from the police. Crossing the hall, I heard footsteps downstairs. My heart skipped a couple of beats. And then I realized the intruder would of course be Freddy staking out the refrigerator. Only it wasn’t. When I pushed the kitchen door I found myself face-to-face with my husband.

“Ben!” I ran into his arms as if we had been parted for decades and separated by oceans and continents and all the hostile forces of the world. “I’ve wanted you so all morning, but I didn’t like to ring you at work, making a pest of myself when you had to be busy. In this day and age, a woman should be able to cope with the aftermath of murder without sniveling on her man’s shoulder.” I proceeded to demonstrate how far I had to go before finding true liberation, and he stroked my hair and kissed me in the most soothing way.

“Are you sure you like the idea of having me home?” he asked presently.

“That’s a silly question.”

“But I’m not just talking about today.” He stood, hands on my shoulders, his brilliant blue-green eyes looking intently into mine. “How do you feel about having a husband underfoot day in and day out?”

“What are you saying?” I was frozen in place, unable to think, let alone blink an eyelash.

“I’ve retired. Hung a ‘Closed’ sign on Abigail’s door and tossed the key in the air.”

“Ben!” was all I could manage.

“Oh, it’s all right; it landed in here.” He patted his jacket pocket. “So I can always go back if you throw me out.”

“Never!” I came jerkily back to life. “Tell me, what made you decide? Was it the picketers?”

“No.” Ben swung me around in a waltz only slightly restricted in its exuberance by the kitchen table and chairs getting in our way. “And I haven’t become a born-again vegetarian, Ellie. You’ll just have to blame my madcap behavior on spring fever.”

“I can’t.” I sagged against him feeling giddy, while at the same time life came sharply back into focus. “You did this for me. You’re worried about how I’m going to react to three deaths in such a short space of time. And it’s true, walking in on two bodies and having another woman die as a result of being hit by my car is a lot to deal with. But that’s no reason for you give up your career. When we talked about it before, you were adamant about not throwing in the towel, as you called it.”

“That’s true.” He sat down on the rocking chair in front of the fireplace and drew me onto his lap, his dark head resting on mine. “But I’ve been thinking things over since then, sweetheart. It’s been growing on me gradually that I was sticking it out at the restaurant just to prove a point—as much to myself as to Mrs. Barrow and her picketers. And those deaths did play a part in the decision I’ve made. They made me realize life is short and there’s so much more I want to do. Write another cookery book, have Jonas teach me how to garden. The grounds have been getting too much for him for a long time. Rather than hire someone to help him, I could pick up the slack.”

“Jonas will love to teach you,” I said. “In fact it might be just what the doctor ordered to help put him on his feet again. But, Ben, won’t you miss Abigail’s?”

“Of course.” He leaned back and the rocking chair gave a nervous groan under our combined weight. “But I’m excited about experimenting with new dishes for a cookery book. That’s something I haven’t done much of lately because customers come back for their favorites and don’t appreciate too much chopping and changing. And I’m not saying I won’t reopen in time. Perhaps just doing lunches and tea. I don’t know, Ellie, what I’m going to want down the road. And in the meantime we shouldn’t have a problem getting by on the income from Uncle Merlin’s legacy. Do you think you can live with that?”

“We’ll do fine, so long as I remember to be reasonably frugal.”

“Me too”--Ben smiled—”and I’ll try not to get too much underfoot.”

“Don’t worry.” I wound a dark tendril of his hair around my finger. “I’ll make sure you take afternoon naps.”

“By myself?”

“Not always.” I snuggled in close and then thought of something. “Ben, what about Freddy?”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I think he’s been itching to leave Abigail’s, but thought he owed it to me to stay on. He told me he’s in pretty good shape financially—he’s been able to save most of his wages living rent-free at the cottage and eating almost all his meals either here or at the restaurant. Give him twenty-four hours and Freddy will come up with a scheme for making us all rich and infamous.”

It would have been one of these golden moments, but for Trina McKinnley, Mrs. Smalley, and of course dear Mrs. Malloy.

While Ben went upstairs to encourage Jonas to share a potter in the garden, I dialed Mrs. M.’s number. No answer. And no need for me to be worried. But I was. Why hadn’t I overridden her insistence that she was perfectly all right staying in her own house and brought her here with me last night? What if she had tried to drown her sorrows in gin and taken a rumble down the stairs or overdone the sleeping pills? I looked her friend Betty Nettle’s number up in the directory and tried ringing her. Again, no luck. She could well be at work, although I would have thought that with two members of the C.F.C.W.A. so suddenly dead, she might have taken the day off.

Returning to the kitchen, I found Freddy there along with the children. True to form, he was supervising them in a game of jumping on and off chairs.

“Mummy.” Tam took a flying leap into my arms that sent us both hurtling against the hall door. “We’re playing zoos; Abbey’s a monkey and I’m a lion.”

“And who’s Freddy?”

“He’s the keeper man.” My daughter bounced around the room, her mouth spread wide to expose her teeth while she scratched at herself with one hand and held a half-peeled banana in the other.

“I was just about to lock them in the pantry, honestly I was, Ellie.” My cousin tried but failed to look virtuous.

“But he was afraid I’d bite him.” Tam, still clinging to me, giggled into my neck.

“And I kept ‘scaping up trees.” Abbey proved her point by climbing from a stool onto the edge of the sink.

“It’s not my fault.” My cousin collapsed in a chair. “Neither you nor Ben bothered to ask what I thought when you decided to have children. But I try to pitch in and help make something of them. Think of all the outings I’ve offered to take them on.”

“You wanted to take Tam to get his nose pierced.”

"There you go, coz, raking up the past.”

“Me? You’re the one who suggested taking Abbey to a hypnotist who would regress her into former incarnations.”

“I thought it would be fun for her.” Freddy swiveled round to face the sink. “You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you, Abbey, finding out you were a princess in one of your former incarnations?”

“I am a princess,” came her response.

“I thought carnations was flowers.” Tam slid out of my arms and crawled across the floor to growl up at his sister.

“Only think, Ellie.” Freddy stood up and stretched. “How lucky for all of us that Ben has liberated me along with himself from the shackles of the workforce. As a man of leisure, I shall be forever at your disposal. An hour will not pass without my popping up to offer to take some burden off your shoulders. If you’ll teach me how to plug in the Hoover, I’m sure I could learn how to push the thing.”

"
There shouldn’t be any need for that sort of sacrifice,” I said, “not if Mrs. Malloy is back for good.”

“How is the old girl?” Freddy’s face sobered. He flopped an arm around my shoulder and planted a scratchy kiss on my cheek. “The village was abuzz with the news this morning. One of the waitresses was saying that Trina’s boyfriend Joe ...”

“Tollings,” I supplied.

“That’s right. It seems he and his wife ...”

“Marilyn.”

“Thank you.” Freddy clamped a hand over my mouth to prevent further interruptions. “According to Deirdre—that’s the waitress—the husband and wife were invited down to the police station early this morning, and I suppose we can assume it wasn’t for tea and biscuits. Deirdre is engaged to a constable, and according to him it’s just a matter of deciding which of the Tollings did it.”

“I’m glad to hear the police aren’t letting the grass grow under their feet,” I said, going over to lift Abbey down from where she now sat with her feet in the sink.

“So why do you look so grim?” my cousin asked.

“I’m worried about Mrs. Malloy.”

“Now look here, coz.” Freddy clapped a pontifical hand on my shoulder as I straightened up from setting Abbey down on the floor. “She’s a tough old bird is our Mrs. M. She’ll get through this.”

“I suppose so.” I was getting the children’s lunch when Ben came into the kitchen and offered to take over. And Freddy said he might as well hang around for a while, which meant he got in the way making numerous grandiose suggestions as to what we should eat.

“But I don’t like snails,” objected Tam just as Jonas came shuffling into the room. What little hair he had was standing on end, but he looked reasonably assembled in a plaid flannel shirt and a pair of baggy trousers of no particular color.

“Snails is good for the garden,” he informed my son before depositing himself at the table. “And that be just one of the pearls of wisdom I suppose I’m meant to pass along to—"

“I’m the new undergardener.” Ben gave him a sideways smile while continuing to stir a saucepan of Welsh rarebit. “I hope you plan to be patient with me, Jonas, because I’ve always been quite daft when it comes to the outdoors.”

“Me too,” chipped in Freddy. “It’s a pity we live in modern times because I’m sure I would have cut quite a figure striding up and down the lawn with a scythe.”

“You’d be far more likely to cut off both feet.” I settled Abbey at the table, fetched over the salad and dish of sliced beetroot Ben had prepared, and within a few minutes we were all eating our lunch. It pleased me to see Jonas sounding animated for the first time in weeks as he lectured Ben and Freddy on the right time to plant runner beans. Much as I loved my cousin, I hoped Freddy would allow Ben and Jonas to have their first gardening session on their own.

He must have read my mind, since he remained rooted to his chair as the garden door closed on Ben and Jonas’s comradely chatter. “Is it going to take you a while, Ellie, to get used to having Ben home?”

“I haven’t had a chance to really think about it,” I said, washing off Abbey’s and Tam’s faces, “but of course it will be an adjustment for both of us. It’s exciting, a little scary.” I stood with the facecloth in my hands, remembering how eager I had been to redecorate my bedroom. But that morning when I had woken to its familiar furniture and wallpaper, I had wondered what could have possessed me to want to change anything. There was so much comfort in the known, particularly when life demonstrated that it could turn topsy-turvy all in a moment. Now I found myself wondering where Mrs. Smalley had lived, and Trina McKinnley—when she wasn’t staying at Mrs. Malloy’s house.

“Freddy, would you mind staying with the twins while I go and phone Mrs. Malloy? There was no reply earlier.”

But there was still no answer. I couldn’t just wait, worrying that she, too, was lying dead in a bucket of suds. I was just about to go and check on her in person when the garden door opened and Ben reentered the kitchen with Tom Tingle at his heels.

“Look who’s here,” announced my husband cheerfully. “Mr. Tingle came by hoping to have a chat with Jonas about gardening and I’ve invited him to join me in my first lesson.”

“That’s lovely,” I said.

“You seemed to think it might be a good idea when we talked yesterday.” Tom sounded nervous, as if preparing himself to be ordered back outside with perhaps a couple of Wellington boots sent hurtling after him. “And I brought those books of wallpaper we talked about, so if it’s not too much trouble ...”

Or had he really come to find out what I knew about the murders? It was nasty of me, but you can’t sing in the bath in Chitterton Fells without half the residents knowing the title of the song and how many verses you got through. I told them that I was going out, but should be back shortly.

“To Roxie’s?” Ben asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Umm,” I said, trying to be cryptic. For all yesterday’s conversation Tom Tingle was still a virtual stranger. And who knew what he wanted to glean from this little visit?

“Freddy said he’ll watch the children,” I told Ben, “so there’s no need for you to interrupt your afternoon in the garden.”