The Cherrywood Murders

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths; Mystery; Private Investigators

Synopsis

From Book 1:

A wonderfully charming and quintessentially British cosy murder mystery, packed full of witty one-liners and an eclectic cast of characters. Perfect for fans of Fiona Leitch, Hannah Hendy and Robert Thorogood.

It has been a year since Tess had to trade the hustle and bustle of London life for pulling pints and moonlighting as a Cher impersonator in a backwater country pub.

The sleepy Yorkshire village of Cherrywood would always be home, but a return to rural life wasn't quite the path she'd paved for herself. Still, being back with her oldest friends, Raven and Oliver, was a definite upside and she was beginning to settle into the slower pace.

That is until Clemmie Ackroyd, a stalwart member of the community, is brutally murdered. Ruled a robbery gone wrong, it's an open-and-shut case for the police, but something isn't quite adding up for Tess.

Then an unexpected face from the past shows up in the village, pointing fingers, and Tess finds herself resolving to get to the bottom of Clemmie's death - even if that means getting up to her neck in jam, Jerusalem and deadly secrets at the Women's Guild . . .

(P) 2023 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: May 25, 2023

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

‘It’s a bad business, this,’ Neil Hobson said soberly as Tess poured his pint. He nodded to the local paper on the bar, bearing the latest report on the police investigation into Clemmie Ackroyd’s murder. ‘Never thought I’d see the like.’

Tess left his pint to settle. ‘I know. A murder, in Cherrywood! The worst crime I can remember happening around here was when Rita Sullivan was caught cycling without lights. Who on earth could have it in them to hurt Aunty Clemmie?’

The murder of the softly spoken former nursery teacher, affectionately known to those she had taught as ‘Aunty’, had shaken Cherrywood to its core. Clemmie had been a sweet old lady with a kind word for everyone, and it made no sense at all that someone could have wanted her dead.

‘You’ve not heard then?’ Neil asked, one eye on his pint as Tess topped it up.

‘Heard what? There’s not been an arrest?’

‘Yes, this morning. Not only that, he’s been charged – Terry Braithwaite, Fred’s youngest. Robbery gone wrong, or that’s what police are giving out.’

Tess frowned. ‘They’ve solved the case that quickly? It can’t be right, surely.’

‘Why not? You know better than anyone that he was always a wrong ’un, Terry Braithwaite. Won’t be his first time inside.’

‘I know, but . . . murder?’ Tess said. ‘Police can’t have investigated thoroughly in a month.’

Neil shrugged. ‘All that means is it must’ve been an open and shut case. Nice to be able to sleep easy again, eh?’

‘Yes,’ Tess said vaguely, putting his pint down on the bar. ‘I suppose so.’

Neil paid for his drink and went back to his table while Tess lapsed into a thoughtful silence – until a moment later, when the door to the Star and Garter opened and Raven walked in. Tess groaned as her best friend joined her at the bar.

‘I was hoping you’d forget,’ she said.

‘Of course I didn’t forget, darling. Gin. Double.’

Tess sighed and did as she was told, pouring a double measure from one of the optics before throwing in some ice and a slice of lemon. No tonic. Raven didn’t approve of watering down perfectly good spirits with anything as vulgar as mixers.

‘You’re not really going to make me do this dreadful thing, are you, Rave?’

‘Trust me, you’ll be thanking me later.’ Raven gave her gin a suspicious sniff. ‘Hang on. What brand is this?’

Tess cast a look behind her at the spirit optic. ‘Tanqueray. That’s all right for her ladyship’s refined palette, isn’t it?’

Raven sniffed it again. ‘It bloody isn’t Tanqueray, it’s Morrison’s own. Ian and Bev must’ve been refilling the bottle with a cheaper brand.’

Tess shook her head. ‘How do you do that? I’ve never known anyone else who could identify gin brands just from the smell.’

‘Years of practice, darling.’ She swallowed a mouthful of her drink. ‘Anyway, never mind what brand it is right now. I’m just grateful for some Dutch courage before I have to make polite chitchat with Grandmother in an hour.’

‘You know, Rave, we could just not go.’

Raven sighed besottedly. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen Sam.’

‘I can’t believe I’m joining the Cherrywood Women’s Guild to help you pull,’ Tess muttered. ‘Of all the places to pick up men.’

‘We’re not joining. We’ll just go to this one meeting.’

‘Hmm. If they let us off that easily.’

Tess had a very specific idea of what Cherrywood Women’s Guild meetings must be like. There was barely a member under sixty, with the group consisting largely of the more terrifying variety of older village lady. In Tess’s mind the meetings resembled a scene from The Night of the Living Dead, only with knitting. Her general feeling was that if she ended up joining the Guild at thirty and committing herself to jam-making and cat-collecting for the rest of her time on earth, then she might as well go straight to the churchyard and start digging herself a spot.

‘Sam’s worth it, Tessie, honestly,’ Raven said, flicking out her black bob. ‘I defy you not to melt in a puddle at the man’s feet. Hiring him might be the best thing my gran ever did for me.’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Except I forgot, sorry. You’ve sworn off men for life.’

‘Not life. I might think about getting out on the dating scene again when I hit seventyish.’

‘Seriously, it’s been a year. You can’t write yourself off just because some greasy London sort did you wrong.’

‘I bloody can,’ Tess said, scowling. ‘This time eighteen months ago, I had a boyfriend, a job with great pay and prospects, an exciting life in the big city . . .’ She lifted the split ends of her brown hair, which she’d accidentally spilt a bit of someone’s pint on earlier. ‘Now look at me. I’m stuck doing minimum-wage work in the same dull Yorkshire village I grew up in, I’m sharing a place with you that only barely crosses the line from “closet” to “flat”, I stink of John Smith’s and the highlight of my social calendar is going to a Women’s Guild meeting.’

‘Come on, admit it. For all your whinging, there’s a part of you that’s glad to be home. Me and Oliver are here, aren’t we?’

Tess summoned a smile. ‘I did miss you guys when I was down south.’

‘I don’t see what’s so great about London,’ Raven said. ‘People selling sheds they’ve sloshed a bit of Farrow and Ball over for a million quid plus and calling them des res maisonettes. Over a tenner a pint in every bar. Cherrywood isn’t so bad – at least you can afford to live in it.’

Tess glanced behind her at the brass plaque mounted above the bar, engraved with the pub name over the slogan ‘Ye Olde Traditionale Englishe Pube’. She grimaced. It was hard to take yourself seriously when you worked in a Traditionale Englishe Pube.

‘It’s just such a big step down, going from PA at a London insurance firm to pulling pints in a backwater country pub,’ she said, propping her chin on her fist. ‘I mean, career-trajectory-wise I feel like a total failure.’

‘You’re not a failure. You’re just . . . regrouping.’

‘More like I’m stuck in a rut. Let’s face it, I’ve been here a year and I’ve had zero luck finding anything else. I’m unemployable anywhere but behind the bar in an Englishe pube.’

‘Oh, rubbish. You need to cut out this “poor me” stuff and give yourself a kick up the bum.’ Raven frowned as the strains of something that might loosely be described as music drifted through from the function room. ‘Darling, what is that godawful noise?’

‘“Dancing Queen”, I think.’

‘It sounds like a moose being waterboarded.’

‘It’s Beverley and the am-dram gang,’ Tess said. ‘They’re using the function room to rehearse their summer production of Mamma Mia. Coming soon to a village hall near you.’

‘You mean after the Shakespeare in the Park travesty last year, Bouncing Bev’s still soldiering on? Sweet Baby Jesus.’

Tess nodded to the door of the pub. ‘Speaking of which . . .’

A lanky, fair-haired young man in a clerical shirt and dog collar had just come in. He made a beeline for where Tess was serving, pulled up a stool and slumped face-first against the bar.

‘Pint of Prozac and a gun please, Tessie.’

‘What’s up, Oliver?’ Raven asked, giving the vicar’s head a sympathetic pat. ‘You didn’t catch Peggy Bristow helping herself to the communion wine again?’

‘Miss Ackroyd,’ he muttered. ‘She’s home. And she’s worse than ever.’

Raven shot a look at Tess. ‘Prue Ackroyd’s back in Ling Cottage?’

‘She can’t stay away for ever,’ Tess said.

‘Yes, but it’s only been a month. There are some pretty horrific memories waiting there for her. I don’t know why she doesn’t put the place up for sale.’

‘After Aunty Clemmie had her head bashed in in the study? Would you buy it?’

‘Good point,’ Raven said.

Tess grabbed a glass and started pumping Oliver a pint of best. ‘Did you two hear about Terry Braithwaite?’

‘That they’ve charged him for the murder?’ Raven nodded. ‘It’s all over the village.’

‘What do you think of that?’

‘It’s good, isn’t it? People can feel safe again now they know the person who did it is locked away. And I suppose there’s a sort of closure for us, as a community.’

‘I don’t know, guys. It doesn’t sit right with me.’

‘Why not?’ Oliver asked, still facedown against the bar.

‘It just feels too . . . neat, I suppose. Too easy.’

‘Tessie, you need to stop watching repeats of Murder, She Wrote,’ Raven said as she finished her gin.

‘I just want to be sure justice is being done, that’s all. Aunty Clemmie might be not much more than a statistic to the police – just an insignificant old lady who was in the wrong place at the wrong time – but she meant a lot to this village, didn’t she? She taught half of Cherrywood when we were nursery tots, the three of us included. I want to know whoever did this to her is going to be punished for it.’

‘I’m sure the police know what they’re doing,’ Oliver said. ‘They must have plenty of evidence against Terry to charge him.’

‘I suppose.’ But there was something still niggling Tess. Some sixth sense that said things weren’t quite right.

‘I wonder if she’ll be there tonight,’ Raven said. ‘Prue Ackroyd, I mean.’

‘Why, what’s tonight?’ Oliver asked.

Tess pulled a face. ‘Raven’s forcing me to go to a Women’s Guild meeting. This sexy new gardener her gran hired is giving a talk and I’ve been recruited for wingman duties.’

‘You should see him, Ol. He’s an angel,’ Raven said in a voice that was more than half sigh. ‘I think he’s The One, you guys. Baby-making genes if I ever saw them. I knew it the minute I spotted him raking leaves with his shirt off.’

‘You know, as a metaphor, angels aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,’ Oliver said. ‘The cherubim are ugly buggers. Bodies covered in eyes, according to Ezekiel.’

Tess grimaced. ‘Covered in eyes? Well that’s the stuff of nightmares. Cheers, Ol.’

‘All right, smartarse, then he’s got abs like a Chippendale and a fully biteable pair of buttocks,’ Raven told Oliver. ‘Are you and Ezekiel happy with that description?’

‘Ecstatic,’ Oliver mumbled to the bar. ‘The image of you biting some poor lad on the backside is the only thing that gets me through evensong.’

Tess sighed. ‘Depressed vicars and sex-crazed heiresses. Another day, another dollar.’ She tugged at the back of Oliver’s collar to make him lift his head and slid his pint to him. ‘Here you go, Ol. Get that down you and tell us what Miss Ackroyd’s been doing to make life at the vicarage a living hell.’

Oliver took a pull on his beer to fortify himself.

‘Well, she turned up at church this morning, sitting in her and Aunty Clemmie’s usual pew like nothing had happened,’ he said. ‘Paler, but as frosty as ever. Then after the service, she asked if she could come see me at the vicarage this afternoon.’

‘And?’ Raven said, leaning towards him.

‘I thought she’d want to talk about her sister. I was flattered, to be honest. I mean, I know that’s the last thing I should be thinking when I’ve got a bereaved parishioner in need of spiritual guidance,’ he said, flushing. ‘But ever since I was given this parish, it’s felt like the old guard at St Stephen’s haven’t taken me seriously. Everyone still sees me as little Oliver, who was our paperboy, and his old man used to repair the telly when it went on the blink and his mum worked down the bakery. Miss Ackroyd’s the worst of the lot.’

Raven shuddered. ‘She always was. The Beast of Cherrywood Primary.’

‘Exactly. To her I’m the same snot-nosed eight-year-old who doodled willies in his exercise books.’ He took another deep swallow of his pint and stifled a burp. ‘She’s just got this look on her, you know? Like it’s a wonder an idiot like me can tell one end of a baby from the other and doesn’t dunk them in the font arse-first.’

‘She looks at everyone like that, Ol,’ Tess pointed out.

‘It’s just a lot to live up to,’ Oliver muttered, half unconsciously zipping up his fleece to cover his dog collar. ‘Being a young vicar’s hard enough without working in the village you grew up in. This is exactly why vicars never apply for their home parishes. A prophet’s never respected in his hometown and all that.’

‘So why did you?’

He shrugged. ‘Suppose I got attached to the place.’

‘Miss Ackroyd must respect you a bit if she came to you for bereavement advice,’ Raven said.

‘Except she didn’t. I just assumed. What she actually wanted was to tell me off about the bloody KJV.’ He glanced upwards. ‘Sorry.’

‘The what?’ Tess said.

‘The KJV. King James Version of the Bible. We’ve dropped it from the ladies’ Bible study group in favour of a newer translation and she’s not happy.’ He winced. ‘She’s really not happy.’

‘Gave you a bollocking, did she?’

‘I thought she was going to yank me back to school by the ear and put me in Naughty Boy Corner.’ Oliver’s eyes had fixed on the doorway to the bar storeroom, just behind Tess. ‘Um, who’s that, by the way?’

Tess glanced over her shoulder at the pretty, tawny-haired girl refilling the peanut dispensers. ‘New barmaid – Tammy McDermot. She’s taken Emma’s old job.’

‘Has she?’ Oliver said, not removing his gaze.

‘Oh God, is it that time of year already?’ Raven muttered.

‘What time of year?’

‘The time of year when you develop a graphically unrequited crush on some girl, spend weeks getting up the nerve to talk to her, only to wimp out and end up crying into a bottle of wine at our place.’

‘Well. I like to fall in love over the summer. It gives me something to be miserable about come autumn.’

‘You’ve got no excuse to avoid talking to her this time,’ Tess said. ‘She’s about to relieve my shift. You can fill her in on your VKJ woes while you finish your pint.’

‘KJV.’

‘Whatever.’ She raised her voice. ‘Tam! I’m going to get off now. Will you be OK on your own?’

Tammy came through and smiled at her. ‘I’ll be fine, Tess. You go have a good time.’

‘I’m not sure a good time is really going to be on the cards, are you?’ Tess said, pulling a face.

‘You never know, it might be a laugh. Women’s Guilds are supposed to be dead edgy nowadays. I bet it’s all nude calendars and Class A drugs.’

Tess laughed. ‘I hope not. Left my crack pipe in my other jeans.’

‘Hi, Raven.’ Tammy turned to smile at Oliver. ‘And hi, stranger.’

‘Hi.’ He cleared his throat, deepening his voice slightly. ‘Er, hi. Good to . . . hi.’

‘Now I know I’ve seen you around,’ she said, tilting her head. ‘You’ll have to give me a clue. Mr . . .?’

‘Actually, it’s –’ Tess began.

‘Maynard! Oliver Maynard,’ he butted in. ‘But call me Oliver, please. Mr Maynard’s my dad.’ He let out a high-pitched laugh, then stopped abruptly, staring at her in socially mortified horror.

‘Right,’ Tammy said, looking amused. ‘Well, in that case I’m Tammy. Nice to meet you, Oliver Maynard.’ She held out a hand and he shook it limply, love hearts in both eyes and chirruping tweety birds circling his head.

‘OK, Rave, come on,’ Tess said, coming out from behind the bar. ‘The sooner we get to the meeting, the sooner we can get this hellish ordeal over with.’

Oliver was looking increasingly anxious at the prospect of being left alone with Tammy, who was regarding him with an expression of detached curiosity. The two women walked to the door and stopped.

‘One. Two. Three,’ Raven muttered under her breath.

‘Wait!’ came Oliver’s voice. ‘I’ll walk you to the meeting.’

‘OK, what was that all about?’ Tess asked Oliver as they made their way through the lovingly tended gardens of Cherrywood Hall towards the manor house. There was a fresh, earthy, delicious smell hanging in the air after a recent shower of rain, and the village was glowing with the tender pastels of spring.

Raven nudged him. ‘Not ashamed of our calling, are we, darling?’

He flushed. ‘Of course not. I’d never be ashamed of what I do.’

‘Then what was with the abrupt change of subject?’ Tess said. ‘You knew I was about to tell her it was Reverend, not Mr.’

‘Wanted to make a good first impression, didn’t I?’ He sighed. ‘Let’s face it, guys. People think vicars are weird.’

‘No, they don’t.’

‘Come on, you know they do.’

‘Well . . . OK, some people might,’ Tess conceded as they took a shortcut through the Japanese garden and turned their steps towards the large, gabled building in the distance. ‘Unusual, not weird. But that’s not everyone.’

‘Faith at that level is scary, Tess. It makes people nervous.’

‘You don’t make us nervous,’ Raven said. ‘And we’re just a pair of cynical heathens.’

‘You knew me before though.’ He absently plucked a cherry blossom from one of the candyfloss-pink trees that lined the path, sniffed it, then tossed it away. ‘When I meet people now, all they see is the collar.’

‘It’s not weird to people who have that same faith, is it?’ Tess said. ‘Maybe Tam’s a Christian too.’

‘I’ve never seen her at church.’

‘She doesn’t live in Cherrywood; she just works here. Besides, not being a churchgoer doesn’t mean she isn’t a Christian.’

‘Even Christians think vicars are weird,’ Oliver said gloomily. ‘I mean, maybe not when we’re giving sermons or selling iced fingers at the vicarage garden party or having tea with your nana. But we rarely fall into the category of potential boyfriends.’

‘Tammy’s very sweet though. Perfect vicar’s wife material.’

‘This is exactly what I’m talking about,’ Oliver said, scowling at a pagoda-shaped summerhouse as if it was personally responsible for his love-life woes. ‘I meet a girl and straight away everyone’s piling in with the vicar’s wife cracks. I wouldn’t mind getting her out on a date before you send her running.’

‘OK,’ Tess said gently. ‘You know I’m only teasing, Ol.’

‘I know.’ He summoned a smile. ‘Sorry, Tessie. Didn’t mean to snap.’

‘I don’t know what you’ve got to gain from lying to the girl,’ Raven said. ‘She’ll find out sooner or later. And when she does, she’s likely to be rather hacked off that you weren’t up front with her.’

Tess nodded. ‘Honesty from the get-go’s the best policy when it comes to fledgling relationships. Trust me, I’ve got that T-shirt.’

‘I think we’ve all got that T-shirt,’ Raven said.

‘All right,’ Oliver said with a sigh. ‘I just thought I could test the water a bit. Actually have a conversation where she looks at me like a normal, perhaps even shaggable, human male before she gets Vicar Face. You know, the one filled with dread that at any moment I might produce a collecting tin and tambourine.’

‘If it means that much to you, your secret’s safe with us,’ Tess said, patting his arm.

‘You could be having a highly shaggable conversation with her right now if you’d put your big boy pants on instead of running away,’ Raven told him with a stern look.

‘Well, you’d better get used to it because I’m about to do it again.’ They’d reached Cherrywood Hall now, and Oliver nodded to an elderly woman in tweed who was about to enter the building. ‘There’s Miss Ackroyd, which means I need to make myself scarce before I get another lecture on the deathless poetry of the KJV. See you later, girls.’ He gave them a hasty peck on the cheek each and scurried off.

‘Poor Oliver,’ Tess said when he’d gone. ‘The dating scene’s tough when you’re God’s representative on earth.’

‘He’s not the Pope, Tess. Anyway, never mind poor Oliver. What about poor Raven?’

‘Oh right, you’ve got problems.’

‘Yes, I jolly well have. I guarantee I’ll have my gran on my case as soon as I get through that door,’ Raven said, nodding to the manor house. ‘She’s worried Cherrywood Hall’s going to end up with English Heritage in fifty years if I don’t squeeze an heir out soon. All her nightmares now involve gangs of thuggish schoolkids wiping snot on the tapestries and feeling each other up on the Queen Anne bedsteads.’

‘Has she noticed you making eyes at Mellors?’

‘Darling, not only that – she actually seems to approve.’

Tess raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m not. I caught her smiling maternally at me the other day when she found me trying to make sultry conversation about bedding plants with him.’

‘I thought she’d have you disinherited and scrubbed out of the family Bible for flirting with the help.’ Tess shook her head. ‘Downton Abbey lied to me.’

‘Those bastards.’

‘Right?’

Raven laughed. ‘To be honest, I think at this stage she’d be happy if I got knocked up by the chap in the tinfoil hat who wanders around outside Morrison’s screaming about government brain implants. She’s desperate to see me produce the next in the Walton-Lord line before she pops off.’

Tess looked up at the old mansion, home to the Walton-Lords for seven generations. Raven was the last of them, and her grandmother was becoming increasingly panicked that at thirty, the family’s sole heir was still boyfriendless, childless, and apparently in no hurry to rectify the situation.

‘I can’t believe you’ll own all that one day,’ Tess said. ‘I mean, you, who used to eat crayons at nursery. Where’s my manor house?’

‘You can have mine if you want. I hated growing up in this pile. So rude of my father to drop dead like that.’ She tugged at Tess’s arm. ‘Come on. We don’t want to miss Sam.’

They entered through the double doors and made their way down an oak-panelled passage to the library.

‘So do the ladies all take turns to host?’ Tess whispered.

‘That seems to be how it works.’ Raven grinned. ‘Looking forward to our turn? You’d better remember not to leave your knickers drying over the mantelpiece.’

‘Oh no. Just tonight, Rave, you promised me. I am not joining the bloody Women’s Guild.’

‘Relax, darling, I’m kidding. We’ll tell them we’re just trying it on for size. Then you can help me chat Sam up, we’ll get him to sort you out with one of his sexy friends—’

‘Has he got any?’

‘Of course he has. Hot gardeners always have hot gardener friends. And once that’s all arranged, we’ll just tell Gracie it’s not for us.’

‘Gracie Lister?’

‘Yes, she’s the president.’

‘Might’ve guessed.’

When they reached the library where the meeting was due to take place, the chat was in full flow. Women were milling around, drinking tea and chatting. The meeting looked exactly the way Tess had imagined it.

‘Night of the Living Dead,’ she muttered to herself.

‘What?’ Raven said.

‘Oh, nothing. I think I just had my feminist card revoked, that’s all. It’s like stepping into the 1950s in here.’

Tess looked around the room, picking out familiar faces. She soon spotted Candice Walton-Lord, Raven’s grandmother – tiny, a little hunched, but with a steel in her blue eyes that suggested she wasn’t someone to cross, even at seventy-nine. She was talking to Beverley Stringer, Tess’s boss at the pub, who ran Cherrywood’s famously awful amateur dramatics group. The peroxide-blonde landlady was buxom in leopard-skin as always, and Tess could see Candice casting the occasional disapproving glance in the direction of Bev’s over-exposed cleavage.

Not far from them, under a bouncing champagne perm, was Gracie Lister. One of life’s chairmen, she had her chubby finger in a lot of village pies – as well as president of the Women’s Guild, she was parish council chair, a trustee of the village hall, and she ran a friendship group for dementia patients at the church. She was gesticulating enthusiastically as she chatted to Peggy Bristow, cleaner at St Stephen’s Church and self-proclaimed psychic. Several other women were seated on the uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs that had been laid out in rows in front of a projector and screen.

‘Oh great,’ Tess whispered to Raven. ‘There’s going to be a sodding PowerPoint. Gosh, it’s like all my Christmases have come at once.’

‘Don’t be such a grump. You never know, you might learn something.’

‘About gardening.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Raven, we live in a flat that’s barely six-foot square. We don’t even have a window box.’

Raven shrugged. ‘Well, maybe this’ll inspire us to get one.’

Tess skimmed the room again. Apart from the animated chatter of a little group of younger women who were standing near the table where teas were being served, there was a sober vibe. It was the first Guild meeting since Clemmie’s death, of course. Cherrywood had been doing its best to keep calm and carry on, ignoring the unfamiliar sight of police officers and yellow-and-black tape that had invaded the village in the wake of the first murder there in living memory, but as a community they were still grieving. Tess noted the hushed tones of Clemmie’s old friends as they no doubt discussed the latest development in the murder case: the arrest of Terry Braithwaite.

She scanned the crowd until she spotted the face she was really looking for. Prue Ackroyd. Clemmie’s sister was standing a little distance from the other women, talking in an earnest manner to Raven’s old nanny, Marianne Priestley.

And Tess wasn’t the only one trying to sneak a peek at the woman who was currently Cherrywood’s most notorious resident. She could see other eyes darting furtively in Prue’s direction.

It was funny how people could become starstruck by someone they’d known all their lives, just because that person had been in the papers. Even when it was for something as horrific as discovering the brutal murder of a family member.

Tess wondered what had prompted Miss Ackroyd to turn up tonight. Her sister had been killed the night of the last Women’s Guild meeting. Seeing those faces again, having all the memories stirred afresh, must surely be the last thing she wanted.

One month ago, Prue Ackroyd had come back from giving Peggy Bristow a lift home and found her sister lifeless on the floor, her head caved in with – of all the unlikely weapons – their mother’s brass carriage clock. The back door, it transpired, had been left unlocked, and it seemed that Clemmie, having disturbed the culprit burgling what he believed was an empty house, had paid the ultimate price. Terry Braithwaite was the son of a nearby farmer: a veteran felon who had done time on multiple occasions for theft and housebreaking. And yet . . .

It was all very odd. The place was so isolated, a mile’s walk from the village in the midst of rolling moorland. That meant it was likely to have been deliberately targeted – but why? The Ackroyd sisters weren’t rich. The only items reported missing had been old Mr Ackroyd’s fob watch, a couple of antique silver candlesticks and about a hundred quid in pound coins that Clemmie had been saving up in an old Bell’s whisky bottle. Nothing worth killing for. Terry was a thief, but did he really have it in him to kill a neighbour, his own former nursery teacher – and for so little? In all of Terry’s criminal past, he’d never been such a fool as to target houses in his own community. Something about it just didn’t add up for Tess.

If Clemmie was well liked in the village, then her stern, acerbic sister Prue definitely wasn’t. Her unpopularity, plus the fact she’d been the one to find her sister’s body, had soon set village tongues wagging.

‘Terry Braithwaite my backside,’ Tess heard Peggy Bristow whisper to Gracie. ‘I still say it was Prue who grabbed that carriage clock and planted it in Clemmie’s head. There never was any love lost between them. She’s only lucky she had an ex-con living nearby to pin it on.’

Tess could hear other snatches of conversation as she and Raven wove through the crowd.

‘. . . and I said, “For God’s sake, Ian, if you can’t reheat a steak and kidney pie without all hell breaking loose” . . .’

‘. . . yes, but it was only her fingerprints found on the thing . . .’

‘. . . practically melted the oven by the time I got home . . .’

‘. . . you know we’re not so innocent in this, Prue.’

Tess stopped short. The last comment had been made in a hushed, determined tone and it definitely didn’t sound like idle gossip. It had come from Marianne Priestley, who was still deep in conversation with Miss Ackroyd.

Tess’s eavesdropping was interrupted by Gracie Lister, the Guild president, coming over to welcome them.

‘Raven,’ she said when she reached them, beaming. ‘And Tess too. Surely you two young people aren’t joining us?’

‘Hi Gracie,’ Tess said. ‘Er, yes. That is to say, we’re just trying it on for size.’

Gracie smiled knowingly. ‘You know, you’re the fift. . .