Viridian Tears (8 page)

Chapter 7

Michelle avoided the trolley with the crushed remains of a potted day lily and shoved a pound coin in the next one. She pushed it through the supermarket doors and stood for a moment inhaling the smell of fresh produce. The ambiance was enhanced by the display of fresh herbs to her left and the heady scent of basil made her think longingly of the Italian Restaurant on Market Street. Prompted to move on by the person behind bumping into her, she trundled down the aisle.

She was looking for lemons and clear honey. She could feel the edges of a cold hovering in her ears and sinuses, and if she wasn’t careful she’d have full-blown sniffles by eight o’clock.

It came from standing about in cemeteries in the rain, she supposed. Lurking was a habit she’d grown more accustomed to the older she got. It was surprising what people let slip when talking to their dearly departed. It made for an astounding amount of information she could relay during her sessions with clients, and it was quite true when she told them the information came ‘from beyond the grave’.

She paused at the boxes of citrus fruit, tempted by the seasonal arrival of easy-peel oranges. She took a net of them. It was citrus, wasn’t it? Citrus was good for colds. She moved to the lemons. Forty pence each or three for a pound. She pulled a paper bag off the hook and took a pounds worth. Just the job to chase away the winter chills. All she needed now was a big jar of honey, some paracetamol and a bottle of whiskey and she’d be all set.

At the top of the jams, pickles and chutneys aisle, her progress was arrested by a vision. Federico, the waiter from the restaurant, was at the honey section, reading the labels on jars and apparently trying to choose one. This was her chance. She speeded forward, accidentally-on-purpose knocking into his trolley. “Sorry.” She smiled to cover her sudden nervousness. “They’ve got a mind of their own haven’t they, trolleys?” She paused, staring at his perfect olive skin and dazzling eyes. “It’s Federico, isn’t it? From the restaurant? Fancy seeing you in here.”

“That’s right.” He smiled back at her, his white teeth flashing in the overhead fluorescent lights. “You have the advantage of me.”

“Chance would be a fine thing.” She laughed and swatted playfully at his arm. “Just kidding. Michelle Havers? I always have the fettuccini with olives?”

“Ah yes.” His relief was apparent. “Mrs. Havers. How good to see you again.”

“Miss.” Michelle pretended to look at the honey. “What’s best here?”

“This one.” Federico tapped a jar marked organic. “Very good honey. Very good taste.”

“But you’re looking at a different one.”

“Ah, yes. That one is heather based, and I have allergies to consider.”

“You’re allergic to heather?”

“No, no. Not me.” Federico treated her to another smile. “My wife.”

“I…didn’t know you were married.” Michelle covered her shock with another smile and looked away, wondering if there was anyone else in the shop she could use to help her out of the awkward situation. Finding no one, she was forced to look at Federico again. “Has she got a cold too?”

“A cold? No.” He laughed. “I make her a honey glaze for prosciutto. Good Italian food, no?”

“I suppose so.” Michelle ignored his recommendation and put her usual brand in her trolley. “Well, I must go. Plenty to do, you know?”

“Yes. Always.” Federico nodded once and moved off, heading toward the deli counter. Michelle stared after him, biting her lip as he moved up the aisle, his bottom jiggling in the tight chinos he wore. She looked back at the shelf and added a jar of the organic heather honey to her trolley. She wondered if he was on the electoral roll or if she could snag his address from the restaurant. She pushed the trolley to the drinks section.

When she got home she squeezed half a lemon into a cup, added a spoonful of honey and a generous measure of whisky and topped it up with hot water. She sipped it if front of the computer while she performed internet searches on Shirley Burbridge and Federico. There was nothing new about Shirley or Edward but the time served a useful purpose in refreshing her memory.

Federico was more of a problem She didn’t know his last name and was stuck searching for ‘Federico,’ ‘Laverstone’ and ‘Corleone’s’. It gave her the address of the restaurant, which would have been helpful had she not been there a dozen times and the telephone number but there was no associated website. It would show her a map, print her directions to the restaurant from Timbuktu if she wanted them but wouldn’t tell her who worked there.

She glanced at her watch. It was only just after four and the restaurant didn’t open until six. She picked up the phone and rang them, expecting to speak to Mr. Corleone and was surprised by the flat, English accent of the man who took the call.

“Corleone’s.”

“Hello. May I speak to the staff manager, please? This is the Inland Revenue PAYE office in Peterborough.”

“Hold on, love, I’ll fetch him.”

There were some clunks and hissing and an Italian voice came on the line. “This is-a Corleone’s. Luigi speaking.”

Michelle frowned. “You’re the same person I was just speaking to, only putting on a terrible accent.”

“No no. This is-a Luigi. How can I be helping you?”

“I’m reviewing your tax returns and there’s a stain of what looks to be tomato sauce on the sheet. With regard to your list of employees, I can see the first name but not the surname or the address.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“So my question is this. What is the family name of your waiter Frederico?”

“Frederico? You mean Federico?”

“Er…I suppose so. The ink’s run so I can’t tell.”

“Poverelli. Federico Poverelli. Fourteen Bank Street, Laverstone.”

“Marvelous, thank you.” Michelle put the phone down, a smile on her face. A lot could be done with a word or two in the right ear, spoken by, say, the long-dead uncle of a council official’s wife. Mrs. Poverelli could find herself suddenly deported leaving Federico alone and in need of consolation.

The back door opened and Graham walked in. “Shell?”

Michelle closed the tab on her browser with the restaurant search and went into the kitchen. “What are you doing here? I don’t need you until eight o’clock.”

“I got the afternoon off. I wondered if we could have dinner or something.” He put a cardboard box on the counter top. “I bought some fresh fish. Thought we could have fish and chips, maybe.”

“Dinner?” Michelle looked pointedly at the kitchen clock. “It’s only twenty past four. Wouldn’t it be a bit early?”

“Not by the time I cook it.” Graham fished in the box. “Look. I got a bottle of Lambrusco to go with it. A touch of elegance, yeah?”

“Elegance?” Michelle was about to launch into the definition of elegance when she saw the look on Graham’s face. If she crushed him now he might never recover and, more to the point, he might realize she would never be in love with him and leave her high and dry. That would be the end of her burgeoning business as a spiritualist because she’d be forced to go back to office drudgery just to cover the rent.

“Tell you what.” She stepped closer and straightened his lapel. “I don’t really fancy battered cod. How about you take me to that Italian restaurant I like, eh? I really fancy a plate of fettuccini.” She tapped his cheek playfully. “Who knows? There might even be fellatio for you afterward.”

Graham turned his nose up. “I don’t really like Italian food. Couldn’t we do that another night? I right fancy cod and chips.”

“Pizza? You like pizza.”

“Yes. Can we have pizza? “

“You can have pizza at Corleone’s. They open at six so we’ll have time to eat before we go to Shirley Burbridge’s. I’ll book us a table, shall I?”

“All right.” Graham began to unpack the groceries he’d bought, putting the bag of fresh cod straight into the freezer with a heavy sigh.

Michelle stood over him and lightly kissed the top of his head. “We’ll have your cod tomorrow, eh? Maybe with new potatoes and peas and a butter sauce. You like butter, don’t you?” She shook his shoulder lightly and he grinned. “You do, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I like butter. ‘No buts, it’s got to be butter.’” An advertising slogan tripped off his lips.

“There you go. Italian tonight and I’ll cook tomorrow.”

“Okay.” He stacked the rest of the food in the cupboards, somewhat cheered and Michelle phoned to book a table relieved she’d averted an emotional disaster. When she replaced the phone on the cradle she picked up her honey and lemon again. It was long cold but the whisky still burned her throat as it went down. She popped a couple of paracetamol to be on the safe side.

“Have you thought of anything for the séance tonight?”

Graham turned and pressed the palm of his right hand to his cheek. He’d been raised by his aunt and Michelle could remember the woman having the same gesture. “It depends if they give us any time alone in the room.” He dug into his pockets. “I’ve got fishing line to move curtains and stuff. Puffers for cold draughts. Epsom salts if there’s a fire.”

“Nothing obvious. We can’t afford for them to twig it’s all fake.”

“’Course not, Shell.”

“See that they don’t.” She looked at her watch. “It’s quarter to five now so that gives us an hour. You get in the shower while I get dressed. We have to look our best for Mrs. High-and-Mighty, don’t we?”

“What should I wear?”

“Put on a shirt and tie. And trousers, not jeans, and shoes instead of those ratty old trainers.” She smiled at him. He was a genial man and a lot of women would be pleased to have him looking after them. He just wasn’t exciting. She needed a man who would make her heart beat faster every time she looked at him. Someone who would woo her with romance and make every night a wild ride of lust and passion. She nodded at Graham as he trooped up the stairs. Graham’s idea of passion was having chocolate sauce on his ice cream.

The boom of the shower going on upstairs shook her out of her momentary reverie and she sat at the computer again. She typed
Federico Poverelli
into the search engine and was rewarded with links to his Facespace page, a blog account and a newspaper article.

She scanned the latter. It was an account of a trial in Laverstone court where Federico had been accused of poisoning a woman called Emily Robbins. He’d been acquitted on the testimony of Edward Burbridge, who gave Federico an alibi for the day of the poisoning.

Michelle added the page to her bookmarks folder and turned to the blog. Federico was an ad-hoc blogger, interspersing pictures he’d taken of Laverstone with others of dishes he’d prepared and observances of English life from the point of view of an Italian man. She added that site and turned to the Facespace page. There he was, twinkling eyes and pencil moustache smiling out of the page. She hovered the mouse over the Add Friend button for a moment. On the one hand, she didn’t want to reveal her interest but on the other, she couldn’t see his complete profile without him friending her.

She clicked the button just as she heard the shower stop.

Chapter 8

Meinwen sat on one of the questioning trees at the edge of the crooked forest and opened a new page of her sketchbook. It was a curious area of Hobb’s Wood, where a series of pine trees had been bent to a ninety degree angle at their base. The area had become a tourist attraction although the reason for the odd growth pattern–and indeed the method–had been lost for years.

Meinwen knew. She’d explained it in her book
Wood and Stone: The Curious Desire to Affect Nature
due out in the new year and decided the entry merited a drawing. Not that she was a very good artist. She could make a fair facsimile of what she saw in front of her but she’d be the first to admit her work lacked passion. The trees had been bent deliberately in the nineteen thirties by placing boulders from the nearby river Laver on their developing trunks, then removed again a few years later to allow the saplings to develop the natural curves they now portrayed. The boulders were still visible in the walls of the nineteen forty-six Provincial Insurance building in King Street.

She’d found the original plans for the Masonic Grand Hall when she’d been researching the whereabouts of the seven missing ring stones. The trees were bent to make the timbers for a bow roof; the theory being that the naturally curved pines would produce a vaulted ceiling without the need for bracing struts. Unfortunately the outbreak of the war prevented frivolous construction and the plans had been lost with the death of the architect, leaving the curiosity of the crooked forest as a legacy for generations to come.