Kate Palmer struggled to keep awake as the ‘Grow your own vegetables’ woman droned on and on. She’d begun her lecture with beans – covered at length and clearly her passion – and she’d now got to brassica. ‘That’s your cabbage and your broccoli, ladies,’ she explained to the less initiated members of the Tinworthy Women’s Institute. Kate, sitting near the back on one of the highly uncomfortable chairs, decided that, in an effort to stay awake, she’d try to count all the women she recognised from behind. She’d only lived in Lower Tinworthy for around six weeks but she’d met quite a few of them on account of their bumps, lumps, arthritis and other assorted conditions, which came with the territory when you worked in the village medical centre. This was such a contrast to the life she’d led in West London. She’d moved to Cornwall with her sister, Angie, to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. It had been the location of many idyllic childhood holidays and they’d always loved it here. Kate hoped fervently that living in such a tranquil location would give Angie some measure of rehabilitation from the demon drink, gin in particular. Hence the Women’s Institute meeting; Kate was determined her sister would find something wholesome with which to fill her time.
Kate looked round at the rustic wood-panelled interior of Tinworthy Village Hall and at the collection of notices displayed. She could decipher the Gardeners’ Club, Mothers and Infants, Tinworthy Train Enthusiasts, the Dramatic Society and the Over-Sixties’ Club, none of which seemed particularly relevant. The Women’s Institute – that backbone of rural life – wasn’t exactly her cup of tea either, but she’d been hopeful that her sister might become interested. She glanced at Angie sitting alongside and decided that probably hadn’t been such a brilliant idea, as Angie was fiddling with her phone and paying no attention whatsoever to the lady speaker and her brassica.
‘Now, when it comes to your carrots,’ the speaker continued, ‘you should always––’
The ladies of Upper, Middle and Lower Tinworthy were never to know what they should always do with their carrots.
Suddenly, the speaker was cut off by a piercing scream. It came from the kitchen area at the back of the village hall.
There was a moment of complete shocked silence.
‘What on earth was that?’ Angie whispered.
Then chairs were scraped back in the general stampede towards the corridor that led to the kitchen.
‘Kate Palmer!’ someone yelled. ‘Come here quick! We need a nurse!’
Kate pushed her way through the throng of women to the kitchen doorway. Betty Calder was half standing, half slumped against the doorframe. She looked like she was about to collapse, her face floury white. She raised a quivering arm and pointed wordlessly through the half-open doorway. Kate looked past her to get sight of what she was pointing at and there, lying flat on the floor, with a large knife sticking out of her chest, was Fenella Barker-Jones, hygienically clad for cake-cutting in plastic apron and latex gloves. There was a growing pool of blood round her body.
‘Someone call an ambulance and the police,’ Kate yelled as she ran to Fenella. She felt for a pulse without expecting to find one and tore away the apron to better examine the wound. The expression on Fenella’s face told Kate – who had thirty-six years’ medical experience – that the poor woman was dead; she looked wide-eyed and horrified, as well she might. Fenella Barker-Jones! She who had won the cake-baking contest at the start of the evening (although everyone knew it was Mrs Tilley, her cook, who’d done the baking).
Fenella, the Women’s Institute chairwoman, the doyenne of the amateur dramatic society, the leading light of the Conservative Club and respected member of the Tinworthy Parish Council! She who, only twenty minutes ago, had introduced the guest speaker before disappearing into the kitchen to sort out the refreshments. And now here she was, lifeless, on the wooden floor.
For a brief moment Kate was stunned, but then her training kicked in and she gathered herself together. As she bent over Fenella’s body, it was obvious from the angle of the knife that it had gone straight through her heart. She’d seen many dead bodies in the course of her career, but never anything quite as dramatic as this. What disturbed her most of all was the look of total shock and disbelief in Fenella’s wide-open eyes. At least death must have been instantaneous.
‘Stand back!’ she ordered as several of the women nosed forward.
They’d gathered around but most were too horrified to go near the victim. Some were phoning the police, the doctor, their husbands. Betty, who’d crept out to help Fenella in the kitchen, was slowly coming round, but another woman had passed out, a couple were openly weeping and most were staring open-mouthed in morbid fascination.
‘Who the hell would do something like this?’ one woman shouted at no one in particular.
‘Plenty might have wanted to,’ someone else replied, ‘but who would actually stick a knife into her?’
‘We’ve only had that knife a few weeks,’ muttered a large lady with pink hair. ‘And it was mighty expensive. I suppose she must have been slicing that cake of hers.’
‘Don’t be daft! How could she do that to herself just slicing the cake?’
Everyone’s eyes swivelled to the tabletop where Fenella’s beautiful cake had been arranged into tidy overlapping slices, ready to be served with the post-talk tea.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Betty Calder said as she stood up shakily, assisted by several others, and started heading towards the outside door.
‘Don’t go out there!’ someone shouted. ‘He could still be out there! Be sick in the loo! There might be a serial killer on the loose!’
Kate reckoned that this was about to become the most memorable – certainly the most sensational – evening ever experienced by the Tinworthy WI.
Five minutes later the wail of the police siren and the ambulance could only just be heard above the frenzied chatter in the kitchen and shortly afterwards several uniformed policemen burst through the door, accompanied by a non-uniformed older man.
‘Stand back!’ The older man examined Fenella. ‘Who found this lady?’
‘Betty Calder got to the door first,’ someone replied, ‘but she fainted and now she’s in the loo being sick. But it’s Nurse Kate over there who’s been in charge.’ They all pointed in her direction.
‘Detective Inspector Forrest,’ he said to Kate as he dug out his card. He had close-cropped dark hair, sprinkled liberally with grey, and kindly brown eyes. And there seemed to be unmistakeable traces of an American accent. ‘You’re a nurse?’
‘I’m Kate Palmer. And yes, I’m a nurse, working at the medical centre.’
Just then Dr Ross, the senior physician at the medical centre, arrived. The doctor, after a minute, turned to Kate and the detective. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that this woman’s dead.’
‘OK, Doctor, but we hoped you could give us more detail than that. What would you say was the time of death?’ asked the detective.
He leaned carefully over the body. ‘Not more than an hour ago.’
‘We could have told you that! She only introduced the guest speaker an hour or so ago,’ another woman shouted.
‘What about the cake then?’ A thin, elderly woman was gazing at the artistically arranged slices. ‘Shame to let it go to waste.’
The detective stepped forward. ‘This is now a crime scene. If all you ladies would be kind enough to go back into the hall and sit down,’ he said. He definitely had an American accent.
Kate went over to Angie, who’d been hovering in the doorway and who was visibly shaken.
‘Come on,’ she said, shepherding her sister back into the large draughty hall where everyone was now trying to find their seats.
‘My God!’ exclaimed Angie. ‘I thought we’d moved down to Cornwall to get away from knife crime! You look a bit shaky too, Kate.’
‘Are you really surprised? I came to this WI meeting for your sake, to try to integrate you into the area, and I thought I could have a nice little doze while you were educated in the delights of growing your own vegetables. Don’t forget I’ve been working all day.’
‘I don’t want to grow my own vegetables but I do need a bloody drink,’ Angie murmured, trawling in the depths of her shoulder-bag.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve sneaked in some gin?’
‘OK, I won’t tell you.’ Angie lifted out what appeared to be a bottle of Highland Spring Water, according to the label. ‘Nice drop of Bombay Sapphire and a splash of tonic. Nectar!’
Kate shook her head in despair at her incorrigible sister while at the same time wishing she herself had a shot of brandy or something to steady her nerves. She was used to keeping calm in a crisis but she was never going to be able to forget the sight of the knife stuck through Fenella’s heart, and all that blood.
The babble of conversation was deafening; most of the women were grouped and huddled in horrified conversation, panic still etched on their faces. Already there was a smell of fear and perspiration in the air. The military rows of hard, uncomfortable chairs had been hurriedly abandoned and were now completely out of alignment so nobody was sure where they’d been sitting. The guest speaker was packing up her vegetables and looked eager to escape.
How strange it was that Fenella should die in the very hall that her husband’s money had built! Seymour Barker-Jones was a great benefactor of the village. The village hall was an impressive and attractive stone-clad building with a steeply pitched roof, even if the interior was lined with cheap tongue-and-groove cladding, its grubby wooden floor only polished up for the children’s Christmas party (also paid for by Seymour) and the St Petroc’s Day celebrations and dance.
Angie swigged from her bottle and wiped her lips. ‘That detective inspector, or whatever he is, is rather dishy, don’t you think?’
‘I didn’t notice,’ Kate said truthfully. ‘I honestly could hardly take my eyes off Fenella.’
‘Poor woman,’ remarked Angie. ‘I wonder who she managed to upset?’
‘From what I’ve heard, she’s upset quite a few,’ Kate said. ‘I’ve seen her around, of course, but I’ve never had to deal with her so she was obviously quite healthy.’
‘Not so healthy now,’ said Angie, taking another swig just as the detective inspector entered the hall and headed towards the platform where the speaker was still frantically packing away the carrots and leeks.
‘Your attention, please!’ he bellowed. ‘As you’re well aware, a woman has been murdered this evening in the kitchen, right next door.’ He paused for effect. ‘My officers are combing the surrounding area looking for clues and will be here for quite some time. Now the first thing I need to know is if any of you were absent from this hall at the time Mrs Calder screamed – which was presumably shortly after the murder took place. I’m going to need all your names and contact numbers please. The constable will be coming round with a form for you to fill in with your name and number. I will be in touch with everyone over the next day or two to take a formal statement.’
‘Sandra Miller was out there having a crafty fag,’ a woman next to Kate shouted. She nudged Kate and whispered, ‘She smokes like a chimney and’ – she winked – ‘her husband’s been having it off with Fenella for years. Nothing would surprise me…’
‘I never thought I’d be leaving a building cordoned off with police tape,’ Kate said as they emerged into the dark, damp night air and headed towards her red Fiat Punto.
‘And whose bright idea exactly was it to retire down here and then join the bloody Women’s Institute?’ Angie asked as she got into the passenger seat and locked the door.
‘Well, you were all for it too, Angie. After all, we’ve been here six weeks now. I felt it’d be good for you to meet people and get involved in village affairs since you’re at home most of the time.’
‘This was some initiation! And I still haven’t a clue how to grow a carrot!’
Kate shuddered. ‘I’ll never forget that look in her eyes! It’s the stuff of nightmares.’
‘How old do you think she is? Was?’
‘Around sixty I’d guess.’
As they turned out of the car park Angie said, ‘Let’s get home quick! I’m glad we’re not walking tonight like you wanted us to! I don’t feel safe with a maniac out there.’
‘Well, I thought we needed the exercise, but I must admit I’m glad we’re driving now,’ Kate replied. She’d been thinking along much the same lines and was relieved to see so many police in the car park and here on the lane leading to the main road through the village. But her sense of unease returned as she headed down through the dark night to Lower Tinworthy and up the unlit winding lane to Lavender Cottage.
‘Park as close as you can to the door,’ ordered Angie, taking another hefty swig from her bottle, ‘in case he’s around somewhere.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Kate got out of the car and headed towards the door. ‘Why would he or she come down here?’
‘Well, why would anyone want to kill Fenella? It could be some random opportunist killer who could strike anywhere.’
‘I think you’re safe here. The dog would be barking his head off otherwise,’ Kate said as she fished out her keys.
As if on cue their springer spaniel, Barney, started barking. ‘It’s only because he’s heard my key in the door,’ Kate said. She locked the door carefully behind her, patted the dog on the head and said to Angie, ‘You go check on the locks upstairs and I’ll check down here.’ As she spoke Kate remembered that the lock on her own bedroom window was non-existent; something else that needed fixing.
The house was pleasantly warm thanks to the log burner and the oil-fired central heating they’d had installed before they moved in. That, and replacing the rotten floorboards in the kitchen, had drained what little was left in their respective bank accounts, and necessitated Kate having to work three days a week as a practice nurse at the local medical centre.
Angie, who’d been a not-very-successful actress in her day, had taken up what she fondly called abstract painting, and commandeered the pretty summerhouse at the top of the garden as her ‘studio’. Kate was not at all convinced that there was much prospect of income from Angie’s random daubs, splashes and zigzags of paint.
‘Oh God, I have to work in the morning,’ she sighed as she collapsed into an armchair, clutching a large brandy with one hand and stroking Barney with the other. She’d always wanted a dog but she’d got Barney from a rescue centre mainly for Angie’s benefit, in the hope that she would take him for walks and adopt a healthier lifestyle. In the six weeks they’d lived there, Angie had taken Barney for exactly two walks, so Kate wasn’t overly hopeful.
‘Will they expect you to work tomorrow after all this?’ Angie asked.
‘Of course they will! People aren’t going to stop needing medical attention just because there’s been a murder. I only hope I’m able to sleep.’
Kate tossed and turned and listened to her gin-sodden sister snoring away through the wall in the bedroom next door. That much-needed brandy had done little to obliterate the image of Fenella Barker-Jones lying in her own blood, her blonde coiffure still immaculate, that look of surprised horror in her eyes. She was also well aware that there was a killer out there somewhere but, hopefully, not in Lower Tinworthy. Kate couldn’t for a single moment imagine any of her nice elderly neighbours, or anyone she’d met so far at the medical centre, being murderous types. But Kate also knew, from watching her favourite crime programmes on TV, that appearances could indeed be deceptive.
One of the things she found most stimulating about her work as a nurse was the ‘detective skills’ involved in figuring out the conditions people were suffering from and the clues their symptoms provided. But most of all she was fascinated by the human mind. She had done several psychology courses, primarily because it helped in her role of counselling patients, and it was the part of her work she loved and found most satisfying. At the same time it also fed her fascination with the human psyche. What made people commit such terrible crimes? Up until now her interest in the criminal mind had been sated by books and TV crime drama. In fact, watching the likes of Morse, Midsomer Murders and Miss Marple were her main sources of relaxation after the stresses of a busy day. But now she was in the middle of a real-life murder mystery! She never could have imagined that she would find herself in such a situation in a quiet Cornish village. It seemed that Tinworthy wasn’t the gentle place she’d first thought.
The village of Tinworthy was divided into three: Lower Tinworthy was where they lived and Middle Tinworthy, which was half a mile up the winding road, housed the school, the medical centre and the large village hall in which most local events took place, including the WI meetings, as well as a large sprawling housing estate.
Kate had fallen in love with the pretty seaside village with its ancient bridge across the River Pol, the beach, the cliffs and the pastel-coloured houses clustered up the steep slopes on either side. There was a pub, several cafés, a small convenience store, a gallery and a few tourist shops. Kate had found Lavender Cottage on the internet while she was still up in West London. It was actually painted a pale-yellow colour, but it did have a whole hedge of lavender. It was also. . .
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