The potting shed murder, p.11
The Potting Shed Murder, page 11
The crash had made Marianne laugh maniacally. The fear of being stuck in this restrictive world of insincere politeness and forced manners incensed her. Oh, the irony of the smashed wedding photo of this holier-than-thou philanderer and his frigid little stuck-up wife.
“You think that this poxy little nothing of a school is where I want my children to be? You think that THIS is what I want them to be defined by? You are a NOBODY, Mr Papplewick, and this school is NOTHING. It means NOTHING to me. It matters to NO ONE. How DARE you tie us up in this godforsaken nowhere of a so-called education system with no way out? We are BETTER than this, so sign the letter or so help me I’ll—”
She vaguely remembered being shocked at how calm he had been when he eventually spoke.
“You will what, Mrs. Forbes?”
Marianne had desperately tried to put two and two together, coming up with five, six and even twelve—whatever it took to take down this monster in charge of her child’s future. She quickly calculated that surely it must have been a mistress he was speaking to—perhaps someone she knew, a teacher perhaps? Someone in the village? What if it had been a parent—wasn’t that illegal? Yes, it must be a parent for him to mention consequences and risk. That was it. She had him!
“I’ll make you rue the day you met me, Charles Papplewick. When I’m finished, I’ll have you struck off the teacher’s register. I’ll make you regret the day you were born.” Her voice had been thick with furious triumph, and yet Charles Papplewick had still looked unperturbed as he stared back at her.
“I think that you should stop right there, Mrs. Forbes—don’t you?” he had said with a patronizing sigh, nodding his head towards the door and indicating that now would be a good time for her to leave.
That was when Marianne had leaned over and, without thinking, given him the hardest, most unrestrained slap across his face that she could muster. She had even shocked herself with its force, and they had stared at each other in startled silence for a few moments. Enough time for Marianne to see the imprint of her fingers appearing red and raw on Charles’s left cheek, and to realize that, even then, he hadn’t flinched.
“Good day, Mrs. Forbes,” he had said finally, and with that Marianne had turned slightly wobblingly on her feet and exited the room.
She had had to steady herself against a wall immediately after she’d left the office. Hearing voices and feet coming en masse from just around the corner, she had ducked through a door that read “Toilet,” only to find herself inside a set of children’s loos where the cubicles reached just above her shoulders. Nowhere to hide or catch her breath. Nowhere to collect herself together and think about what to do next. After a few minutes, she’d heard the bell ring for first assembly. Registration was obviously over, and the children would all now be meandering towards the main hall for the last assembly of the week. She had given it five more minutes for good measure and then the voices had grown increasingly fainter. The corridor was deserted and empty, and Marianne slipped out as quietly as she had slipped in. Her resolve may have dented slightly, but her rage was still bubbling beneath the surface.
That ought to have been the end of it. The Marianne that now stood staring anxiously out of her drawing room window desperately wished that she had simply accepted defeat and resigned herself to the fact that her three beautiful children would be attending the local high school after all. But the Marianne of last Friday was still smarting with the indignity of it all, and she hadn’t left it there at all. What was worse was the fact that she knew that her privately educated husband didn’t seem to care either way.
No, the Marianne of last Friday was still boiling over with bile and spite. She would continue to sort this mess out herself, and she had a hunch that the answer lay in whatever it was that Charles Papplewick was up to outside the boundaries of his marriage vows.
* * *
Daphne sat back in the battered leather driver’s seat of her Morris Traveller, having just driven from Minerva’s house in the woods. The discussion—if one could call it that, had come to a close when Silvanus entered the room looking solemn and concerned for his teary-eyed mother. Daphne felt dreadfully sorry for the little boy. She was acutely aware that children picked up on all sorts of things, whether a parent wanted them to or not, and Minerva wasn’t making a very good show of concealing her despair. Silvanus had asked if the school was open yet, and Daphne realized—catching Minerva’s startled eyes turn quickly towards her—that her friend had lied about why he hadn’t been able to attend school so far that week. Daphne, not wanting to be caught up in another lie—particularly where a child was concerned—made her excuses and left, but not before promising that she would bring her own children to play with Silvanus very soon.
She had given Minerva a reassuring hug at the door, reminding her friend that she was there for her, and that she could tell her anything, with no judgement forthcoming. Minerva had smiled sadly but had not imparted any more information before slowly closing the door, and that was that.
Now, pulled up on a grass verge a few minutes down the lane that led out of Cringlewic Woods, Daphne was taking a few minutes to think over the conversation that had just occurred. The woods were as dark, enclosed and dense as they had been on the evening of Silvanus’s birthday. The evening that Daphne had seen Minerva and Charles Papplewick with her own eyes. Not only had she caught Minerva in a lie about the last time that she had seen the headmaster alive, but she was also concealing the fact that they knew each other rather well indeed. Daphne could well understand that Minerva would want to hide a potential affair, but now was not the time to be lying about when you last saw the deceased person that you’re accused of poisoning, regardless of how outrageous, unfounded, and lacking in any such evidence of wrongdoing in the first place.
Daphne sighed and turned the engine back on to continue her journey home. All she could do was be there for Minerva if and when she needed her. As most of the rational residents of Pepperbridge parish presumed, the coroner’s report would in all likelihood state that Charles Papplewick had died of a sudden heart attack or a stroke, and that would be the end of the ridiculous speculation. Then Minerva could get on with mourning the loss of . . . whatever it was that Charles Papplewick had been to her.
It was barely lunchtime by the time she drove back past the gates of Pepperbridge Primary School and towards the little unit on the high street that she had so recently claimed as her own. “The Country Mouse’”—named after her feeling of being a city mouse transformed into a country one—was going to be a shop split into two parts: a front section where she would display her painted and restored vintage furniture, decorative antiques and vintage linens, and a back section that would be the workshop where she intended to do her restoration, wood sanding, fixing and painting. There was also a handy storeroom, a small toilet and a galley kitchen. Out back there was a convenient parking space for Aggie and a place where she could display her vintage garden items and pots.
All in all, the set-up was rather perfect, and such a result for a woman who a few months earlier had had no idea about what direction her career would take now that she had extracted herself from London and was ensconced into village life. It felt frustrating that, within the rush of excitement she got every time she had driven past the small shop over the past few days, there were now also tendrils of anxiety surrounding the death of the headmaster and the connection that he may or may not have had with her new friend. Life had an odd way of keeping balance, she thought, as she turned the key in the lock to the shopfront door. Excitement often tempered by anxiety; happiness slightly dulled by loss.
Moving from the stress that they had felt in London to the comparatively calm countryside had had its challenges, but it was definitely the best decision that they’d ever made. A move such as this inevitably came with stresses and worries of its own, including negotiating one’s way through new attachments, and accidentally stumbling across new people to care for and worry over. Daphne’s heart was a big one and she also had an inbuilt need to right petty injustices—even those, according to her husband, that shouldn’t concern her—and especially those where people didn’t have the strength or ability to stand up for themselves. She hadn’t changed as a person just because she happened to change her postcode, after all.
The storefront being just a little way down the road from the grocery shop belonging to the Warburton sisters was a fact that had initially concerned her. But having got into the habit of popping in for a few basic sundries when absolutely necessary (at incredibly random and often inflated prices) she had slowly come to appreciate the novelty of having the two eccentric and slyly humorous sisters nearby. The elder of the two, Nancy Warburton, would usually be at the helm of the store, peering over her glasses and standing silently behind the old-fashioned countertop. To the untrained eye, she looked harmless enough, but Daphne had no doubt that Nancy was as sharp as a pin. She reminded Daphne of the West Indian aunts at church during her childhood, who would start their conversations with over-enthusiastic compliments, only to end the discussion with a sharp and sudden sting of criticism that had obviously formed the entire purpose of the conversation.
Daphne had witnessed such “stings” on several occasions at the Warburton sisters’ shop, as unwitting “victims” would attempt to engage in friendly conversation. The most toe-curling scenarios would usually begin in a patronizing fashion towards the “ladies” as the shopper complimented the “fresh produce” displayed alongside the eclectic variety of Mr. Kipling cakes, McVitie’s biscuits, basic bleach, wrapping paper that must have dated from 1972 and overpriced, regal-looking toothpaste usually found at Harrods all held on the same shelf. Depending on the level of condescension, these conversations would culminate in an abrupt crash-landing, with the offender’s tail tremoring between their legs. Nancy Warburton, having waited patiently to impart a particularly sensitive piece of information about the person themselves, delivered her ace card in the most innocuous way, all the while slowly wrapping the customer’s purchases in brown paper bags and watching them squirm from behind her glasses.
Daphne had come to realize very early on that Nancy and Patsy Warburton appeared to know something about everything and everyone. The sisters had lived in the village for their entire lives and there were no secrets—either historic or recent—that were safe from their all-seeing gaze. Daphne wondered what they would have to say about the “not so Secret” accusations that were flying around about Minerva, and as she’d forgotten to bring any white spirit from home to clean oil-based paint from her brushes that morning, she was going to have to see if the shop was open and then regrettably find out.
CHAPTER 9
It was uncharacteristically restrained for the Warburton sisters not to position themselves as the all-knowing oracles at the center of a wave of local gossip. What Pepperbridge’s most well-informed matriarchs didn’t know about the goings-on among the residents of the villages usually didn’t warrant knowing about in the first place.
During one recent conversation with James, Daphne had likened the sisters to her own Grenada-born Aunt Hilda, who would make a habit of turning up uninvited to private events and celebrations (family weddings, funerals, birthday parties . . . ) for the specific intention of getting a free slap-up meal, but would then complain bitterly about any food not slathered and bathed generously in hot pepper sauce. Daphne had rationalized that the similarity lay in the fact that the Warburton sisters weren’t interested in any old bland, run-of-the-mill gossip. Indeed, they were only interested in the spiciest and well-seasoned of secrets—the sort that its participants had hoped to remain buried, made bland by time, distance and concealment. In the event either sister deigned it interesting enough to selectively distribute information about a particular situation, there was sure to be added seasoning to the tale—one that others had yet to be party to and that would burn the reputations of the unwitting subjects like a large dollop of hot pepper sauce.
If Nancy and Patsy Warburton were drawn to gossip like a Grenadian drawn to a bottle of hot pepper sauce at a picnic, then under the present circumstances, one would have assumed that not only would the sisters be imparting the most salacious details of events, but they would also be taking bets on the outcome of the eventual autopsy and the cause of death.
However—to the chagrin of those who had tried and failed to prize even a slither of information from the sisters on the pretext of purchasing a bag of sugar that everyone knew could be found at the nearby garage for at least half of the price—both women remained completely tight-lipped.
When Daphne eventually and rather reluctantly entered the inconveniently priced convenience store to buy white spirit, she overheard Mr. Laverley, who lived at Foxglove Cottage with his long-term lodger, Cedric, inquire to the sisters (who both stood behind the shop counter) as to whether a cause of death had been made known.
“I mean, it has been several days now, hasn’t it? That’s rather a long time to simply announce a heart attack, wouldn’t you think?” The question was asked with a frisson of excitement, and it was clear that as far as Mr. Laverley was concerned, the topic of Mr. Papplewick’s death was simply the best excuse for spreading gossip that he had had in months if not years.
Curious to hear what the Warburtons’ response would be, Daphne momentarily stopped browsing the shelves and pricked up her ears in dreaded anticipation of hearing her friend’s name maligned unfairly once again.
The inquiry was met with a sudden pause in what both women were doing, followed by a wall of stony silence that filled the air weightily, until Mr. Laverley was forced to repeat the question under the mistaken assumption that neither of the sisters— standing a mere three feet across the shop counter from where he was standing—had heard him.
Daphne moved closer with what she hoped implied a nonchalant indifference. She bent over to scan the bottom shelf in front of her, giving her a direct line of vision towards the till. She even used her pointed index finger to theatrically indicate that she was shopping and not listening intently, surreptitiously watching everyone’s next move.
Patsy, the younger sister of the two, had immediately stopped packing groceries into the awaiting brown paper and turned as white as a sheet. After the ensuing pause where she had stood stock-still, wide-eyed and mannequin-like, she pivoted to face the rear shelves, with her back to Mr. Laverley. She was now—it seemed to Daphne at least—pretending to look intensely at a shelf filled with headache pills, Tampax and condoms while mimicking Daphne’s finger pointing. As far as Daphne had heard, Mr. Laverley had not asked for a three pack of Ribbed and Dotted, yet Patsy was nevertheless scanning bottles, packets and tins as though her life depended on it.
Nancy, on the other hand, remained stony faced, staring through her bifocal lenses directly at Mr. Laverley without acknowledging or responding to the question. While she appeared less flustered than her sister, Daphne could also see that her left hand was gripping the countertop . . . and was that an almost imperceptible throb of a vein at her temple? It was clear to Daphne that not only had both women heard Mr. Laverley’s inquiry quite clearly, but that the two women were not as calm as they were attempting to convey. It was all very curious, and Daphne was left desperately trying to think of an excuse to continue perusing the shelves.
It was almost disappointing when the shop bell went, indicating that someone else had entered the grocery store. The spell was broken, and a rather confused Mr. Laverley paid for his shopping, leaving without an answer to his pertinently asked question.
Daphne was only a second or two out of the shop, white spirit in hand, when she turned and noticed that Nancy Warburton had closed and locked the door behind the last customer who’d followed closely behind Daphne. The “Closed” sign was quickly turned to face the street. Daphne hesitated, wondering whether she ought to inquire as to whether the ladies were all right. It wasn’t at all unusual for them to close the store at any time of day that they chose. They made a habit of closing at the most inconvenient of times—often lunchtime, which made one wonder whether they were burdened by the needs of commerce at all or whether the store was just a means of accumulating and spreading gossip . . . Although not today it seemed. Today was evidently not a day for spreading gossip, or indeed chewing the cud of speculation—and Daphne was more than a little interested to find out why.
Before she knew what she was doing, she had turned back to the shop and was now knocking on the door. She was just in time to see Patsy still behind the till counter and yet to retreat through the back door and up the stairs to the living quarters above. Patsy looked up to see who had the impertinence to be knocking and Daphne mimed an apology through the glass and pointed to the shelves, attempting to indicate that she had purchased the incorrect item.
Patsy hesitated—it was obvious that she was in two minds whether to simply ignore Daphne and pretend that she wasn’t there. In the end, she begrudgingly walked over to the door, opened it only a few inches and barked the words, “What do you want—can’t you see we’re closed?”
“Oh yes, I do apologize,” said Daphne, “but I’ve only just realized that I’ve bought the wrong thing. You see, I needed sugar soap—not white spirit . . .”
Patsy rolled her eyes and opened the door further, letting Daphne in. She walked towards the hardware shelf that Daphne had been hovering at only a few minutes earlier and grabbed a bottle of the yellow solution. “This?” she snapped impatiently.
