Murder Served Cold Read online

  In all the years I’d known him, he’d always been so strong and in control. So sure of himself. A bit too much, sometimes, I thought grimly as I remembered that last terrible row we’d had. But now, he looked like he didn’t know who or where he was. He looked, too, like a man who’d completely run out of options.

  “Will, I’m – I’m so sorry I haven’t been to see you sooner.” My tongue seemed to have fused to the roof of my mouth as I stumbled over the inadequate words. “And – and I’m so very sorry about your mum.”

  “I got your card.” His words were clipped.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back for the funeral. It must have been tough for you.”

  “Tough?” He looked up, his eyes meeting mine for the first time. He looked so angry I backed away.

  “Look, I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say,” I murmured, my words falling over themselves as I floundered about, not knowing what to say next – but not knowing how to stop talking either. “I knew I’d say the wrong thing. I shouldn’t have come. I can see that now. I’m just making things worse, idiot that I am. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About your mum. And everything. And your dad, too, of course. It’s really sad. I – that’s all. I’ll go now. Sorry.”

  The rain had begun in earnest as I turned from him and hurried away. But he called after me.

  “Katie?”

  I kept walking.

  “Oh, all right then, Kat. Wait.” He caught up with me before I reached the gate and put his hand on my arm to stop me. “Come back, please. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have barked at you like that. As for you not being at the funeral, your mum explained. To be honest, I didn’t even notice who was there and who wasn’t. Look, we’re both getting soaked out here. Come in and have coffee and we’ll catch up. I’ve got ten minutes before I have to go and take some feed up to the stock in Top Meadow.”

  Without waiting for me to say yes, he strode across the yard where the fat splodges of rain had now all joined up into one large puddle that was getting bigger by the minute. I half ran, as I always did, when I tried to keep up with his long legs.

  “But what about your dad?” I said, as I tried not very successfully to dodge the puddle. “I thought you were on your way out to look for him?” I stopped dead as a horrible thought occurred to me. “Oh, my God, Will. Do you think he’s had an accident? Have you spoken to the police? You don’t think he’s—?”

  He turned back and frowned at me. “I think he’s sleeping it off somewhere. He’s done it before. I’ve already checked the obvious places. The only question is – where? Come on. You’re standing in the middle of a puddle; in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  ‘What’s happened to him, Will?’ I asked and could have bitten my tongue off for asking such a stupid question. It wasn’t like I needed a degree in psychology to work out the answer to that particular question myself.

  He opened the back door and, with a sharp command, quietened both dogs.

  “You must have seen the state of him, last night,” he said, bleakly.

  I bent down to take off my wet shoes, saw the mud-streaked state of the floor, and decided not to bother.

  “He – was a bit, er…” I paused for a moment as I wondered if I was about to break some barmaid code of conduct, but what the heck? Will was, or at least used to be, a mate. “He was already in a bit of a state when he came in, reeking of whisky. He stayed for about an hour, downed several pints with whisky chasers, then left. And you’re saying he never made it home?”

  Will shook his head. “I don’t know where else to try. I’ve been from here to the pub and all round the village and back, expecting to find him sleeping it off under a hedge somewhere, like he was the last time. I’ve also been down to the pond and walked as far as I could up the river. Shouting. Calling. Nothing. He seems to be on one permanent bender at the moment. He could be lying dead in a ditch for all I know – except I’ve looked in all the ditches.”

  Chapter Four

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t contact the police?” I asked, my voice crackling with panic. “I mean, anything could have happened to him. And if you’re that worried—”

  “Nothing will have happened to him.” Will sounded as worn out as he looked. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m just tired, that’s all. Didn’t get much sleep last night and then up at dawn this morning. Dad will turn up. He always does. When he sobers up. Which he’ll do for a couple of days, then something will set him off and it starts all over again.”

  “Was there something in particular that ‘set him off’ as you put it, this time?”

  “Damn right there was,” Will growled and kicked the door shut. “I had to take some lambs to market yesterday so I was out for best part of the day, more’s the pity. Like I don’t have enough to do around here without the market run on top. Dad always used to do it and I was pretty damn mad at him by the time I got home. Ready to have it out with him about not pulling his weight.”

  “Your dad doesn’t do the market run any more?” I was surprised. John always used to love going to the livestock market. It gave him chance to catch up with all the other farmers and have a good old moan about everything, the way farmers do when they get together. “You always used to whinge about how he’d never give you the chance to do it.”

  “Yeah, well. That was then. This is now and it’s one job I can well do without. He hasn’t done it since Mum died. Don’t suppose he wants his old mates to see what a mess he’s become.”

  “That’s so sad. Poor guy.”

  “Like I said, I was going to have it out with him yesterday,” Will went on. “Tell him straight. He was in the kitchen but as soon as I saw him, I could tell he’d been drinking. And before I could say anything, he’d launched into this mostly incoherent tirade about Marjorie Hampton. He didn’t make a lot of sense but the gist of it was she’d come up to see him, something about a footpath.”

  “She was saying something like that to me yesterday morning in the salon when I was rinsing off her hair. But I’m afraid I wasn’t really listening.”

  “Best way to deal with her. That’s what I do. I told Dad to take no notice of her, that she’s nothing but an interfering busybody. But I’m not sure he heard me. He just grabbed the whisky bottle, which by that time was almost empty, and stomped off to his room with it. Then, about half an hour later, I heard the front door slam and realised he’d gone out. I reckoned he’d gone to the pub. I don’t get it. There’s hardly enough money to pay the animal feed bill, not to mention put food on our own table, and yet he always seems to find money for booze from somewhere. I had a word, quiet like, with Donald the other day about whether Dad was running up a massive bar tab, but he said no.”

  “It’s true. Donald keeps account of the tabs on a chalk board behind the bar and I certainly don’t remember seeing your dad’s name there.”

  Will shrugged. “Who knows? Anyway, when I tackled him about it, he said it was none of my damn business. Or words to that effect.”

  I shook my head and sighed. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? He was always such a careful, together man. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him the worse for drink, not even that time at the harvest supper when someone was a bit heavy-handed with the fruit punch and we all ended up tipsy, even your mum and my gran. But not your dad. He was the only sober one in the village. And that included the vicar.”

  Will gave a little half-smile at the memory. Then his smile faded abruptly. “Not any more, he’s not,” he said bleakly.

  “How long’s he been like this?”

  “Ever since the funeral. He started that night, after everyone had gone home, and has been drinking steadily ever since. It’s like he’s got a flipping death wish, the stupid old fool.”

  “He’s grieving, Will,” I said gently.

  “And I’m not?” Those three quietly-spoken words told me, more plainly than anything else could have done, the depths of his grief. That and the ble
akness of his eyes. Once again I felt guilty that I hadn’t been there for him, my oldest friend.

  “Of course you are.” My voice was husky as I squeezed his hand. “Now, what about that coffee you promised me?”

  I followed him down the long dark hall and into the kitchen where I’d spent so much of my childhood, bottle-feeding orphan lambs in front of the range or sitting at the big scrubbed table, trying to talk Will into doing my maths homework for me. Mum used to grumble I spent more time at Will’s house than my own. But then, Will’s house didn’t smell of perm lotion or hum with the constant buzz of gossip. And Sally baked proper cakes and wasn’t forever on some daft diet, the way Mum was.

  The outside of the farmhouse was more or less the same, even down to the Victoria plum tree that Sally had trained up the front, one branch as tantalisingly close as ever to the upstairs landing window where Will and I would risk life, limb and Sally’s anger every autumn as we reached for the luscious purple-red fruits.

  Nothing had changed at the farm. Except, of course, for the unnaturally clean yard. And the broken door. And the grimy windows. But it was still essentially the same cluster of honey-coloured stone buildings, perched on the top of Pendle Knoll, with its spectacular views down across the valley to the Mendip hills in the distance. A view that hadn’t changed significantly for hundreds of years, since the days when the infamous Judge Jeffreys had roamed the West Country, looking for rebels to hang.

  Inside the farmhouse, however, was something else. In Sally’s time, the kitchen had been warm and welcoming, always smelling of furniture polish and baking. Now it was freezing and I didn’t want to think about what it smelt of. Even the big cream range that Sally always polished until it gleamed had given up and gone out. She’d have been heartbroken.

  At the sight of us, a black and white cat shot off the table, where it had been eating the remains of what I imagined was a microwave curry of some sort, judging by the lurid colour. But even the cat, it seemed, had wisely decided to pass on the unappetising lump of sweaty cheese and the grey-blue slices of mouldy bread that spilled across the cluttered table.

  “Jeez, what a tip.” The words were out before I could stop them. “Oh Will, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Forget it.” Will switched on the electric kettle, then rummaged among the teetering pile of crockery in the sink for mugs. “Dad’s as much use as a chocolate teapot these days so I’m running the farm single-handed. It’s all I can do to look after the livestock. There’s precious little time left for housework at the end of my day.”

  Nor for eating properly, either, I thought, as pity wrenched my insides. But this time I kept my thoughts to myself. Instead, more from a desire to change the subject than anything else, I asked, “Where are the cows? I’ve never seen the yard so clean.”

  “I’m so glad something meets with your approval.” A hint of the teasing smile I remembered so well tugged the corner of his mouth as he rinsed out two mugs. “We got out of dairy. There’s no money in milk production any more so we sold the herd a while ago now. Just as well, as things turned out. If I was having to cope with twice-daily milking on my own, on top of everything else, I’d have given up. We’ve only got beef cattle now – and the sheep, of course. They’re the reason Mum started the farm shop in the first place.”

  It was more than a year since I’d been in Sally’s farm shop, back before Sally became ill with the cancer that had overwhelmed her with such sudden, shocking swiftness. Ratface and I had been on a rare visit home and Mum had more or less insisted I go up to the shop to collect some pies that Sally had put by for us.

  I wasn’t keen. The last thing I wanted to do that morning was bump into Will again. We’d done so in the Winchmoor Arms the previous night and to say that Ratface and Will hadn’t hit it off would be like saying Tom and Jerry weren’t exactly best buddies. It wasn’t helped, of course, by the way Ratface kept saying ‘ooh arr’ in a poor and extremely annoying imitation of a Somerset accent and making jokes about local yokels that were about as funny as a party political broadcast.

  But I needn’t have worried. Will wasn’t around. Just Sally, as pleased as ever to see me.

  The farm shop was in a small stone building that used to be the cheese store, back in the days when cheese was made on farms and not in factories. Sally had stocked the shop with chest freezers full of home-reared lamb, chiller cabinets stuffed with home-made pies and cakes, and shelves that groaned under the weight of jars of her pickles and jams.

  She was a small, compact woman with enough energy to power the National Grid. Always busy, always with some new project on the go, always full of life and laughter. It hurt to think of all that brightness snuffed out. Sally Manning, I thought, as a lump in my throat the size of a hen’s egg made swallowing difficult, was one of the good guys. It was so unfair.

  I blinked away the tears that were making my eyes sting, accepted the mug of coffee Will handed me, and pulled a face. “No milk?” I asked.

  He picked up a carton from among the debris on the table, sniffed it and tossed it into the overflowing bin. “Not unless you fancy taking a bucket to one of them up in Top Meadow,” he grinned, knowing how jumpy I got anywhere near the rear end of a cow. Or, to be strictly accurate, either end of a cow, ever since the head-butting incident.

  “Your dad wasn’t the only one wound up about Marjorie Hampton.” I changed the subject quickly. “Gerald Crabshaw was in full rant in the pub last night. I thought at first he’d said she’d killed someone and that we had a nice juicy murder on our hands in Much Winchmoor, which would have livened the place up a bit. But he was talking about the farm shop. He shut up quickly enough when your dad came in, though.”

  Will put a third spoonful of sugar into his coffee and stirred it vigorously. “That’s just Gerald, trying to put one over on Marjorie as usual. He’s had a down on her ever since he lost his license for drink driving after one of Donald’s late night lock-ins. Gerald’s convinced she was the one who tipped the police off. Apparently, she’d had a go at him only a couple of days before about driving his Porsche when he’d had one too many. So, chances are, he was right. It’s the sort of thing she would do.”

  “But in what way could she have been responsible for the…” I shied away from Gerald Crabshaw’s melodramatic turn of phrase. “The difficulties of the farm shop? I assume it does have difficulties?”

  “It’s all but closed. Which is a shame because things were going really well until Mum…” He paused, and I reached across and squeezed his hand. “Until Mum got ill. Remember old Mr Taylor who had the Post Office?”

  I nodded, took a sip of coffee, then wished I hadn’t. It tasted like the inside of a hen house. “Dad told me he’d retired,” I said as I tried to suppress a shudder. “That he sold the shop to a developer who promptly turned it into a holiday cottage.”

  “Couldn’t blame the poor old chap for selling up, although there were lots around here who did. He tried to sell it as a going concern but nobody wanted to know and he was getting desperate to move up north, closer to his daughter, which is what he did. But Mum worried about how the old folk were going to collect their pensions and wanted to save them the hassle of having to catch the bus into Dintscombe and back every week. So she persuaded the Post Office to set up what they call an outreach service in the farm shop.”

  “And that worked, didn’t it? I remember Mum telling me about it.”

  “It certainly did. Worked really well to start with. Mum used to love chatting with them all and started buying in a few bits and pieces of groceries. Tea, coffee, baked beans, that sort of stuff, which seemed to go down really well. But then, Marjorie Hampton decided it was too far for the old folk to come all the way up here to collect their pensions and that Mum’s prices were too high. Do you want some more coffee, by the way? See? I remembered how you drink it by the gallon.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said quickly, wishing there was a convenient house plant I could tip it into. But
Sally’s lovely collection of pot plants had, judging by the desiccated remains on the window sill, died with her. “I’m trying to cut down on caffeine. Go on with what you were saying. What did Marjorie Hampton do?”

  “She took it upon herself to organise a minibus to take them all into Dintscombe, to the main Post Office and then on to the supermarket. She even got some local bigwig to sponsor it as well, so it didn’t cost them a penny in fares. And, of course, they jumped at it. Why wouldn’t they? Then the Post Office had one of their regular culls of rural outposts and the one at the farm shop had to go.”

  “So that’s what Gerald Crabshaw was on about. How awful. It must have been a desperate blow after all your Mum’s hard work.”

  “Not really.” Will took a sip of coffee, pulled a face and added yet another spoonful of sugar. “She’d become ill by then and it was all Dad and I could do to keep the farm ticking over, without taking on the shop as well. And when she died, neither of us had the inclination to do anything about it. Dad because he can’t see his way out of a bottle at the moment and me because – well, the truth is, I can’t bear to go in there, knowing Mum’s not going to come bustling in any moment. I’ve tried a couple of times but only got as far as the door. I’m a right wimp, I know. But I just couldn’t…”

  His voice trailed away and there was such unbearable sadness in his eyes that I forgot about the stupid row and remembered we were mates. I put my mug down and moved across to take the chair next to his.

  “It’s ok.” I put my arm around his shoulders and hugged him hard. “Your Mum would understand. She wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up about it. That wasn’t her way.”

  Will sat there for ages, saying nothing, staring straight ahead. I sat there too, and for once, didn’t say a word. Just held him. Gradually I became aware of the silence, the sort I hadn’t heard for years. It was broken only by the ticking of the clock on the old dresser, the dog snoring at Will’s feet and the distant bleating of sheep. To my surprise, I found I kind of liked it. Even though I always said I preferred the hum of city traffic to the unnatural silence of the middle of nowhere.