The potting shed murder, p.10
The Potting Shed Murder, page 10
* * *
The impact of Charles Papplewick’s loss on the community was huge, and so it was naturally assumed that it must have been an unimaginable blow for his widow. No one would have been surprised if Augusta had laid low for a few weeks—it was a tragic loss after such a long marriage, after all. However, having sensed that losing her husband potentially meant losing her hold on village affairs, Augusta had deemed it necessary to insure that she was as impeccably dressed as ever, and above all, ready and present at the school gates. In addition to the necessary optics of being the village matriarch, it didn’t do any harm for her to be there to receive the embarrassed condolences from those who had avoided doing so in person at her home. She had taken note of those who had sent cards or flowers and how soon after the events, placing them on the rung beneath those who had delivered tokens of their sympathy. On the very last rung of the ladder were those who realized that their avoidance of visiting the formidable Mrs. Papplewick would backfire within forty-eight hours, as she stared them squarely in the face and made sure to inquire pointedly how they were a millisecond before they could stutter out their belated condolences.
She also wanted to keep an eye out for Minerva. They may have stopped burning witches and cuffing harlots into the stocks on Pepperidge Village Green several centuries ago, but the ritual of trial by gossip had steadfastly remained, and Augusta wanted to make sure that she was there to fan the stake flames if and when Minerva Leek dared to show her face.
* * *
By Wednesday morning, with still no sign of Minerva and Silvanus (or indeed Marianne, for that matter), Daphne decided to bite the bullet and drive over to where Minerva lived. It felt like a lifetime ago that she had been at Silvanus’s sweet birthday party, and she had even started to question whether she really had seen an intimate tryst between Minerva and Charles Papplewick.
Pulling up at the cottage, Daphne noted that there were tendrils of smoke twisting from the gamekeeper’s cottage’s crooked chimney—a sure indication that someone was using the wood-fired stove in Minerva’s little kitchen.
Walking up the grass-tufted cobbled pathway towards the front door, Daphne wondered what she should say. In fact, she now wondered why she was even there. Their fledgling friendship was still in its early stages and she suddenly felt rather silly. She had only been a member of this community for six months, while Minerva had apparently lived here all her life. If, as Daphne suspected, Minerva was still in the dark about Charles’s death, who on earth was Daphne to be knocking on her door and bestowing the bad news about someone that Minerva clearly knew far better than Daphne? And yet there was something so vulnerable and innocent about Minerva—despite them both being round about the same age. Minerva seemed like someone who needed protecting, and Daphne was—she smiled wryly to herself remembering the time she confronted a group of rowdy teenagers on a south London bus—going through her crusader phase . . .
In the end, she needn’t have feared. The door was yanked open and a tear-stained and red-faced Minerva appeared merely a foot away from Daphne. She looked dreadful. Unkempt and wild, distraught and tearful, with dark puffy shadows creating heavy bags under her red rimmed eyes. For a split second, the two women stood staring at each other, before Minerva let out what could only be described as a gut-wrenching moan and collapsed, crying into Daphne’s now open arms.
“There, there . . . It’s all going to be OK—I promise.” Daphne didn’t quite know what she was promising, but she simply held Minerva’s convulsing head on her tear-soaked shoulder.
* * *
It had taken quite a while for Daphne to get to the bottom of Augusta’s claims. Without her husband’s cloak of protection, it really wasn’t Augusta’s place to be sweeping through the school corridors and entering the headmaster’s office at will—but few were willing to confront her. The official line was that she was deep in the throes of mourning, and as such, she ought to be allowed to spend time in the office where her husband had spent so much of his time. There would be personal items and mementos to clear out before the end of term, and before thoughts of introducing the new headmaster would be discussed. That was the “official” line. The truth was that no amount of mourning had dulled Augusta’s ramrod-straight back, her arrogant sense of entitlement, or the sharp delivery of her cutting tongue. Therefore there was no one brave (or stupid) enough to deny her entry.
Daphne had heard via the school gates that Augusta’s primary accusation was that Minerva and her clan of “Wiccan harpies” had been blackmailing Charles for several months, leading to his eventual poisoning. It was a wildly eccentric notion, and what they might have been blackmailing him about, no one seemed to know. How they had come to poison him was lesser known still. The facts were comically thin on the ground, the motive completely unsubstantiated and the entire idea wildly fantastical, but that hadn’t stopped more than a few eyes looking out for Silvanus and his mother to arrive at school over the past few days.
* * *
Daphne immediately felt guilty for not having visited her friend sooner. Minerva’s reaction to seeing her had been instantaneous and emotional, and truth be told it had caught Daphne off guard. True, she was growing fond of Minerva—hence her presence at her front door now—but she had also assumed that after the initial delay in reaching her, there might also be other, closer friends or family members who would have been shielding her from the vicious tremors of village gossip. What about the other women in the enclave of Cringlewic Woods? Daphne hadn’t seen any of them at Silvanus’s party.
Daphne ushered the runny-nosed and red-faced Minerva into the tiny kitchen, made her sit down on a crooked farmhouse chair covered in chipped yellow paint, and checked if there was a pot of boiling water on the stove—another ancient range that seemed to feature in all country kitchens regardless of how big or small, this time a small Rayburn—so that she could make a cup of strong tea. One thing Daphne had realized about country life is that a cup of hot, strong tea proffered in an old-fashioned farmhouse kitchen seemed to be everyone’s initial answer to most situations—that or a strong G&T, depending on the time of day.
Daphne knew how Minerva liked her tea without needing to ask. The familiarity of that realization cheered Daphne somewhat as she handed the drink to Minerva in her favorite mug—another thing that she had noted. She had already stirred in the required one-and-a-half sugars and the small dash of semi-skimmed milk, and Minerva had accepted it gratefully. The two women sat in companiable silence for a while, until Minerva had gathered herself together enough to stop the half sobbing, half gulping and was breathing at a normal rate. Daphne looked around for evidence of Silvanus’s presence before beginning to speak, meeting Minerva’s eyes as her friend nodded silently towards the little boy’s bedroom, indicating that he was out of earshot enough for them to talk discreetly.
“I guess that you’ve heard the news then . . . ?” Daphne asked tentatively.
“Yes.” Minerva’s response was barely audible, yet wracked with such sadness and thick with such emotion that the single word seemed to transmit a thousand thoughts.
“I’m so . . . sorry.” Daphne was at a loss for what to say. It was clear that Minerva was hurting, but Daphne didn’t want to pry into the relationship between Charles Papplewick and her friend until she was ready to reveal it herself.
“What are they saying?” Minerva eventually asked, cutting through the silence that had fallen once more.
Daphne knew that Minerva was asking what was being said at the school gates. She was a woman who had tried so desperately not to stand out for the sake of her young son, and now her name appeared to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
“Well . . .” Daphne began, “there’s just a lot of silly nonsense that Augusta is spouting. She’s clearly still in shock and of course, no one is taking it seriously.” How many ways could one skirt a topic? Daphne wondered. She couldn’t quite bring herself to articulate what Augusta had been saying, but judging from Minerva’s reaction, she seemed to have a pretty good idea that whatever was being said was negative enough to keep herself hidden away from the peering eyes and wagging tongues of Pepperbridge.
“I didn’t do anything, you know,” she said sadly, not looking directly at Daphne and instead sipping her tea as a means of distraction.
She bent her head down and sighed with such sadness that Daphne believed Minerva’s heart to be broken. She really must have loved him, she thought to herself.
“I . . . that is he, he was . . .” Minerva’s voice trailed off into silence again, and then suddenly, almost as though a mask had slid over her face, she sat up straight and looked Daphne directly in the eyes for the first time since she’d arrived. Her voice now sounded far more measured than her bewildered hesitance of the previous half hour. “He . . . was a nice man. A kind man and a good headmaster . . . but, I, I hardly knew him really. In fact, the last time I saw him was in the school playground last Thursday, with you . . .” She faltered, and her eyes flickered around the room, suddenly unable to settle on a single point. Minerva continued with what sounded like a rehearsed conversation. “Why would she lie about me to everyone like that? Why would she say I had anything to do with his death? I hardly knew him.”
Daphne sat stock still. She hadn’t been expecting that. She had quite clearly seen Charles and Minerva embracing in the forest during Silvanus’s tea party on Friday evening. Why would Minerva lie to her—and what was she concealing? There were so many questions, but Daphne sensed that now was not the time to ask them. Whatever relationship they’d had was Minerva’s business, and Minerva’s business alone . . . As she watched Minerva start to cry all over again, Daphne hoped with all of her heart that it wasn’t also police business.
* * *
On the other side of the parish, there was another school mother sitting wide eyed, nervously peeking through the drawing room window that overlooked her front drive. Throughout the chaos of the weekend and the subsequent gossip, most people (aside from Daphne) hadn’t particularly noticed that there was another set of absentee children and parents at the school gates.
Marianne Forbes sat biting her lip and staring through the distorted glass of her twelve-pane Georgian sash windows, onto the brick path that led to her front door. The unseasonably wet weather looked as gloomy and gray as her mood. Her eyes were uncharacteristically moist with tears and her fidgeting hands had wrung themselves raw.
“But what if someone saw us . . . ?” she uttered with strained despair, not once taking her eyes from the glass.
From behind her, her husband responded with barely contained impatience and a distinct lack of sympathy. His eyebrow raised at his wife’s use of the word “us.”
“Well, if they did see you, we’ll just have to deal with it when we need to, won’t we?” he answered scathingly.
CHAPTER 8
There were few things that Marianne Forbes didn’t like about herself, but her inability to contain her anger and frustration at the unfortunate hand fate had dealt her was definitely one of them. It was a rare occurrence, but sometimes—in the face of a perceived threat to her relentless quest for social progress—she just saw red and blew a gasket. When that happened, all thoughts of being a “lady,” and feeling superior to the residents of Pudding Corner, were thrown out of the window with her elocution-lesson-mastered RP vowels.
Last Friday morning had been one of those rare moments when she had completely lost all rational thought and words had simply come tumbling crudely out of her mouth. Not just words, she was embarrassed to say, but a few vicious threats, several rather fruity profanities and—horror of horrors—a slap . . . Not that Charles Papplewick hadn’t deserved it, with his poker-straight face, calmly refusing to budge an inch on his decision. That had been bad enough, but from the very beginning of the heated exchange, she had sensed that the headmaster’s concentration hadn’t even been fully engaged in the conversation. If there was one thing worse than being refused her demands, it was to be ignored.
The morning had started off well enough. Marianne had just left a group of parents chatting in the school playground, having dropped a few major hints that Silvanus Leek’s party, which was due to take place later that evening, was one that “no responsible parent or upstanding member of the Pepperbridge community would allow their child to attend. Of course, it’s a safety issue, you understand—nothing personal towards travelers. . .” There had followed an awkward silence where the mothers who had indeed intended to take advantage of a birthday tea which would absolve them from cooking when they got home, weighed up the repercussions of noncompliance on either side.
Despite missing the irony that Minerva Leek had lived in the parish for her entire life—which was thirty-six years more than she herself had—Marianne nevertheless felt satisfied that she’d taken control of a minor opportunity for social mutiny among her minions. One had to keep on top of the social ranking, even in a village playground filled with Boden mums. She had looked around for Daphne, to see whether she too could be “encouraged” to boycott the tea party—although judging by the budding friendship that seemed to be sprouting up between her and Minerva, she doubted her chances. It was a strange choice of friend really; what possible gain was there for Daphne to become friends with the likes of Minerva? Life was all about “sides” and it paid to choose the correct one. Was it an “outsider” thing? Perhaps poor Daphne hadn’t yet realized that there was a social cachet to having a Black friend these days—especially a well-spoken one up from London, and as such, Marianne was more than willing to keep her among her group.
Regardless, Marianne had been a woman on a mission that morning, and she’d slipped away from the group of mothers and swept into the school reception, demanding to see Charles Papplewick. The end of term was looming, which meant that another year would be wasted. She had already passed the deadline for September entry, but she was willing to try anything to get her child into the best school around—even if it meant tearing her darling Giles prematurely away from his new friends at Pepperbridge High and disrupting his academic year by starting him afresh for a second time the following January.
The school receptionist had asked whether she had already made an appointment directly with the headmaster’s secretary, Mrs. Musgrave.
“You do need one, you know. You can’t just pop in whenever you feel like it or everyone would be doing it!” Her disapproving tone had made it clear that she wasn’t a big fan of the pushy parent with the supercilious attitude standing in front of her.
Marianne’s eyes had narrowed as she peered at the receptionist, who stared back smugly and unflinchingly at her. Neither woman liked the other and they were both fully aware of it. Unfortunately for Marianne, the woman behind the reception desk appeared to hold all the cards. The “standoff” was broken when a phone from inside the office began to ring.
Raising an eyebrow, the receptionist said curtly, “If you’ll excuse me, I have to answer that, but I will pass on your request to the headmaster . . . when he’s available.”
It was a clear dismissal followed by a fake smile to indicate that the conversation was over.
Marianne had slowly turned on her heels towards the exit. It was only when she had dashed past reception and darted quickly into the school corridor, out of sight, that she lifted the mobile phone from the pocket of her waxed Barbour jacket. She smiled to herself as she saw the words “School Office” at the top of her recent calls list. With the receptionist momentarily occupied, Marianne headed determinedly towards Mr. Papplewick’s office. She’d hesitated only for a moment, leaning her ear against the door to make sure that he was alone before she confronted him. God forbid his awful wife was in there with him. Even Marianne reluctantly had to admit to herself that she was no match for Augusta Papplewick. Augusta had ruled the roost in Pepperbridge for almost as many years as Marianne had been alive. In some ways Marianne almost admired her . . .
With her ear up against the door, she had heard silence at first, and then a soft response from Mr. Papplewick. He must have been on the phone.
“It’s all right, my darling, it will all be fine,” she had heard him say. “I’m telling her tonight. She needs to know, and I can’t live a lie any longer. I only wish that it hadn’t taken this long. Just remember that I love you and please stop worrying.”
The old goat! Marianne had been thrilled that she would catch him off guard in the midst of some sort of deviant behavior. At best this might have been a piece of information that she could use as ammunition, and at least it might crumble his reserve in the next few minutes. She’d turned the handle and marched in—ready to fight by using any means necessary.
She couldn’t have imagined that just a few minutes later, her own far more raucous conversation would be similarly overheard by a shocked and decidedly less invested Daphne Brewster.
When Marianne had stormed out of Charles Papplewick’s office, she was furious. The conversation hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped. In fact, it was safe to say that it had been a disaster. A one-sided argument that had reduced Marianne to a screaming and caterwauling harridan. No amount of cajoling, threatening and eventual attempts at blackmailing had made him budge. He did not feel that the eldest of the Forbes children was the right choice of pupil for the highly rigid and academic St. Jude’s. He could not stop them from sending their child there if they had the financial means to do so, but he could not in all conscience write a recommendation that would mean lying about the boy’s academic prowess. If that was all Mrs. Forbes had to say, then the matter was, regrettably, now closed.
That had been when Marianne had decided to use the ace up her sleeve that she had accidentally stumbled across.
“I’m warning you just one last time . . .” she had roared, “just pick up the bloody phone or write the damn letter and I’ll be out of your hair forever, because so help me God, if you don’t do something to get my child into that school, then I promise that you’ll be sorry!’ She had thumped her hand on the headmaster’s desk, ostensibly to emphasize her anger but mainly because if she didn’t hit something inanimate in the immediate vicinity, then Charles Papplewick’s face—the true intended target—would surely be next in line. A framed wedding photograph featuring a smiling young Augusta and a rather more strained and serious-looking Charles had toppled onto the floor upon impact, shattering its glass into hundreds of pieces.
