Friday, August 21
Long Barston, Suffolk, England
The last place one expects to find a dead body is a graveyard. Above ground, I mean.
It started with Angela Vine’s hen party, what we in the States would call a bachelorette. There were twelve of us. Besides me, the only American, Angela had invited seven girlfriends from her days at university and veterinary college plus her very pregnant sister from Sudbury—the designated driver and the reason the party was being held three weeks before the wedding.
The festivities began with a champagne brunch at the Henny Swan, a lovely pub on the River Stour, followed by Angela’s final dress fitting in Bury St. Edmunds. That evening we were joined by Lady Barbara Finchley-fforde, Long Barston’s local peeress, and Vivian Bunn, the bossy, opinionated, and lovable seventy-something with whom I was currently living.
After a smashing dinner at Finchley Hall, courtesy of Lady Barbara, we headed to the Finchley Arms for drinks and all-girl dancing. At nine thirty we were on our way to the Rectory, where Hattie Nuthall, the rector’s loyal housekeeper, had promised us quantities of strong black tea and something sweet.
As far as hen parties go, Angela Vine’s was pretty tame. Of course, when you’re marrying a clergyman in the Church of England, a certain decorum is expected. Anyway, Angela wasn’t the type to hire male strippers or swill massive quantities of booze.
Good thing. I have a graduate degree in British history and literature. More than two glasses of wine and I’m liable to start telling Beowulf jokes.
We marched arm in arm up Long Barston’s High Street, singing an off-key version of “Going to the Chapel.”
“I’m glad you came, Kate.” Angela threaded her arm around my waist. “We haven’t known each other long, but now you’re engaged to that handsome detective inspector, we have so much in common.”
“We do,” I lied. Actually, I had no idea what we might have in common. Gift registries? Baby plans? Not likely. I was a forty-six-year-old widow, the mother of two grown children. Angela was not quite thirty, just starting out in life.
In three weeks, she and Edmund Foxe, rector of St. Æthelric’s (I’d finally stopped calling him the dishy vicar), would be jetting off for a two-week honeymoon in Majorca. Then Angela would move into the Rectory, where she would make the perfect clergyman’s wife—caring, approachable, diplomatic, down to earth, and far too busy to pry into other people’s lives. She had her own veterinary practice, keeping Long Barston’s dogs, cats, budgies, hamsters, and occasional horses and farm animals in the peak of health. As much as I liked her—and I really did—Angela’s future was falling along pleasant but predictable lines.
Then there was my future—adrift, like my wedding plans, in a Never-Neverland of uncertainty. Tom and I, both widowed, both in our mid-forties, had been engaged for nearly three months. We still hadn’t decided when we would tie the knot, much less where we would settle down as a married couple or how we would solve the thorny problem of two careers on two very separate continents. I owned a thriving antiques business in Jackson Falls, Ohio. Detective Inspector Tom Mallory—soon to be detective chief inspector when the odious DCI Dennis Eacles departed for his new position at Constabulary Headquarters—was busy catching criminals and generally keeping the peace in the English county of Suffolk.
Tom had hinted at a ring, rather mysteriously I thought, but had yet to produce one. Not that a ring mattered to me in the slightest. What did matter was the question of our future domestic arrangements. Tom owned a lovely period farmhouse in the nearby village of Saxby St. Clare. It came complete with a thatched roof, an inglenook fireplace, an Aga cooker, a beautiful garden, and a mother-in-law—Tom’s mother, Liz, who, I suspected, was still plotting my overthrow.
Buckingham Palace wouldn’t be big enough for the two of us.
“Come on, Angie,” one of the younger women called over her shoulder.
Angela jogged up to join them, her short tulle veil bouncing behind her. By the time we reached the Rectory, we’d segued into “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Even Vivian, not famous for frivolity, joined in.
We tumbled, laughing, through the door to find a table spread with homemade French macarons, individual raspberry cheesecakes, and tiny heart-shaped petit fours decorated with pink frosting roses and a toothpick flag saying I Do.
Later, after the tea and sugar kicked in, the mood turned nostalgic as the young women told stories about Angela’s days at university and peppered her sister with questions about pregnancy
and childbirth. Angela was showing her ring around for the third time when Poppy, her best friend and former roommate at Leeds, took the empty chair next to me.
“Your turn soon, I hear,” she said, giving me a lopsided smile. Poppy was a tall girl with an angular face and a long-standing boyfriend who, according to Angela, had so far shown no sign of moving the relationship forward.
“I don’t know about soon,” I said honestly. “Tom and I are still making plans.”
“Angela told us how you and Inspector Mallory caught that killer last Christmas. But she never explained what you were doing in Long Barston.”
“No mystery. My daughter reads history at Oxford. She was one of the interns at Finchley Hall over the holidays. She invited me to stay with her for a couple of weeks.”
“Is that when you and Tom met?”
“Actually, we met a month before that in Scotland.”
“In Scotland?” Poppy sighed. “How romantic.”
“I was married to a Scot. He died four years ago. I went to the Isle of Glenroth to visit his sister. She owned a country house hotel there. Tom happened to be staying.”
“The Highlands.” Poppy sighed again. “Was it love at first sight?”
“Something like that.” I decided not to tell her about the brutal murders, my own brush with death, and how, for a time, I had suspected Tom was the killer.
Poppy’s eyes looked slightly glazed, and I wondered how much she was taking in.
She covered a yawn. “Has anyone ever said you look like Charlize Theron? When her hair was dark, I mean. And, of course, your eyes are blue instead of green.”
“Kate, dear.” Lady Barbara approached us. “It’s rather late for the senior set. Time Vivian and I were tucked up in our beds.”
“Of course. Let me say goodbye to Angela and Hattie.”
“No, no—you stay and enjoy the fun. Vivian will see me home.”
“Actually, I’m ready for a good night’s sleep myself.” That wasn’t quite true, but with Lady Barbara’s failing eyesight and the slight unsteadiness I’d noticed in Vivian recently, no way would I allow them to trek through Finchley Park alone in the dark.
We gathered our belongings, thanked Hattie for the boxes of goodies she’d packed up for us, and said our goodbyes.
We followed the gravel path through St. Æthelric’s graveyard. Above us, the sky was a deep inky blue. The nearly full moon glowed like a giant baroque pearl, lighting our path.
I let the older women walk ahead of me so I could keep my eye on them. They were giggling like schoolgirls, which made me wonder how many Pimms they’d downed at the Arms.
Something purple caught my eye.
It was a sock. In a shoe. Attached to a leg.
A man sagged against a headstone. His chin rested against his chest.
“Stop,” I called out. “Someone’s ill.”
Crouching, I placed my finger on his neck.
I was wrong. Someone was dead.
Laying just beyond the man’s outstretched fingers, partially hidden by a tuft of grass, was a piece of folded paper.
I picked it up and read Vivian Bunn, Rose Cottage, Long Barston.
“Who is he?” I asked Vivian as we waited for the police to arrive.
“I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
“Nor I,” said Lady Barbara.
“What was he doing with my name and address?” Vivian was clearly upset.
“We don’t know the paper was his,” Lady Barbara said. “Someone else probably lost it.”
As none of us believed this, we let the comment drop.
The night was chilly. Normally, I’d have immediately escorted the two older women home, but when I called Tom, he’d asked us not to leave the body until the police arrived. I found a place for Vivian and Lady Barbara to sit—one of the newer gravestones, a modern design with a flat rectangular top and an inscription that read To the Memory of Letitia Hubbard, Loving Wife and Mother.
Vivian screeched. “We can’t sit on Letitia.”
“She won’t mind.” Lady Barbara settled herself on the granite slab. “Letitia was always a very welcoming person.”
Vivian lowered her ample bottom. “Oo—like perching on a slab of ice.”
“Poor man. Should we cover him?” Lady Barbara began to unwind her soft woolen shawl.
“He doesn’t need it,” I said. “On the other hand, you do. Scoot together and both of you get under the shawl.”
Taking Vivian’s pocket torch, I went back to view the body.
The man had been somewhere in his seventies, I judged. I couldn’t see his face properly, but his white hair was short, still fairly dense, and neatly clipped. He was tall and well dressed, with wool trousers and a tweed sports jacket under a khaki raincoat—conservative except for the bright purple socks, which gave the corpse an almost jaunty appearance.
I saw no blood, no obvious signs of trauma, but a stain on the front of his crisp white shirt and a whiff of vomit told me he’d been sick. I was tempted to check his pockets for identification but curbed my curiosity. Tom would be there soon.
And then he was.
The emergency vehicle arrived first, lights flashing. Then Tom’s new black Range Rover, followed by a Vauxhall, one of the police cars. The Rover pulled up to the lych-gate.
As the EMTs converged on the body, Tom and his sergeant, DS Ryan Cliffe, strode toward us along the gravel path. Tom was in full-on policeman mode. He gave me a quick nod and a pat on the arm. “Thank you, Kate. Cliffe will drive Vivian and Lady Barbara home. We can interview them in the morning. Would you mind going along? If you’re up to it, come back. I’d like to take your statement tonight while everything is fresh in your mind.”
“Of course. But the man is a complete stranger. He was dead when we got here.” I handed Tom the note. “I found this.”
Tom took a look at the note. He gave Vivian a curious look but said nothing.
“This way, ladies,” said Sergeant Cliffe.
We dropped Vivian off first at Rose Cottage, her thatched-roof bungalow—one of the tied cottages on the Finchley Estate and my current home. Fergus, her elderly pug, was overjoyed. Time for his evening walkies. Then Cliffe drove around to Finchley Hall, the seat of the Finchleys since the sixteenth century. We left Lady Barbara in the capable hands of Francie Jewell, her cook, cleaner, and now—I’d recently learned—her live-in companion.
On the way back to St. Æthelric’s, I thought about the dead man. If he wasn’t local—and Vivian knew every living soul within a fifty-mile radius—what had he been doing in the graveyard after dark? Visiting a grave? Not likely. He’d probably been taking a shortcut as we had done, which meant he’d been on his way somewhere—to see Vivian seemed the likeliest answer, given the note. On the way, he’d experienced some kind of episode—a stroke, perhaps, or a heart attack. In any case, death had been unexpected. Presumably he’d parked his car nearby. The police would identify him and notify his relatives, whoever they were. Hopefully they’d be able to explain why an elderly stranger had come to Long Barston in search of Vivian.
Back at the church, Cliffe parked behind the emergency van. Reporters had begun to gather. A flash went off. Cliffe whisked me away before they could descend.
Tom was speaking with the head of the crime scene team. Seeing me, he broke off. “I know it’s late, but could we find a place to talk?”
“The Finchley Arms is still open.”
Ten minutes later we were seated in a corner of Long Barston’s oldest drinking establishment. The jukebox was silent. Most of the tables were empty. Only a few die-hards remained, determined to get in a last pint before closing time.
We ordered two mineral waters and chose a quiet table away from the bar.
“Who was he?” I asked Tom. “Vivian swears she doesn’t know him.”
“Good question.” He traced his finger along the condensation on the glass. “We found no wallet, no ID, no car keys, and so far, no car.”
“Someone robbed him?”
“Maybe, but apart from a slight redness on his neck, he had no visible injuries. He’d been sick several times. The coroner will do tests, but at the moment I’m inclined to believe he died of natural causes. He was a pensioner—that age, anyway.”
“And you have no idea what he was doing in Long Barston or why he had written down Vivian’s name and address?”
“Not a clue. Could you go through exactly what you saw?”
“I don’t think it will help. We left the Rectory a little before ten and cut through the graveyard. I stopped because I caught a glimpse of a purple sock. I felt for a pulse. He was already cold.”
“No rigor, though, which means death occurred fairly recently. Two to six hours is the best guess.”
“Wouldn’t someone have noticed him lying there?”
“It’s possible no one passed that way all evening. Did you see anyone? Hear anything? Notice anything unusual?”
“Just the note. If it hadn’t been for the purple sock, I wouldn’t have noticed him at all.”
“Where was the note?”
“Near him in the tall grass. I assume he dropped it when he had his attack.”
“Are Vivian and Lady Barbara sure they don’t know him?”
“They said they’d never seen him before in their lives.”
“Well, if you think of something—”
“I’ll be sure and let you know.” I threaded my arm through his. “Poor man. Someone will be missing him.”
“Time, lads.” Stephen Peacock, aging hippie and proprietor of the Finchley Arms, announced closing time. His wife, Briony, was already washing up behind the bar, her sleeves pushed up over her elbows. Arthur Gedge, the old gardener at Finchley Hall, slapped his flat cap on his head, nodded vaguely in our direction, and lurched toward the door.
Life as usual in Long Barston. But for one family, somewhere, this night would mean pain and grief.
The memory blindsided me—watching helplessly as my husband, Bill, lay on that pier in Scotland, cold as ice, his life ebbing away.
“Kiss me,” I told Tom, moving closer to him.
He did, a kiss so sweet I actually felt my heart warm.
“Are you all right?” He looked at me with concern.
“Sometimes a girl needs a kiss.”
“Happy to oblige, miss—any time.” He touched my cheek. “I’d better get back. Long night ahead. Tomorrow we should have some answers.” He stood and took a long, last drink of his mineral water. “What are you doing tomorrow? Can we meet for dinner somewhere?”
“Oh yes, please. Better make it late, though. Ivor and I are driving to the coast to do some appraisals. I’m not sure when we’ll be back.”
Ivor Tweedy, a dealer in fine antiques and antiquities, owned a shop in Long Barston—The Cabinet of Curiosities. We’d become friends last December when he’d helped me defend my daughter against a murder charge. And so, last May, when he’d needed someone to keep his shop open during his recovery from hip replacement surgery, I’d gladly stepped in.
“You mean the Suffolk coast?” Tom asked.
“A place called Miracle-on-Sea.”
“Old resort town. There was a holiday camp there—long gone now, I suppose. Ivor has a client?”
“We hope so. Some London developer is turning an old Victorian mental institution into deluxe flats and townhouses—Cliff House, they’re calling it. They’re selling off some of the old artwork—including what they describe as an exceptionally fine Dutch medieval painting. They’ve asked Ivor to do preliminary appraisals. If they like the results, he’ll handle the auction.”
“Sounds like a great opportunity.”
“Yes.” I couldn’t help feeling skeptical. “So did the sale of that ancient Chinese húnpíng jar last May, and we all know how that turned out.”
“That’s not likely to happen again, is it?”
“No—you’re right.” I really had to stop being so pessimistic.
We stood and pulled on our jackets.
“Come on—I’ll drive you home,” Tom said. “Text me when you get back from the coast tomorrow I’ll pick you up at Rose Cottage. We have decisions to make.”
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