Everyone moved carefully the next morning, afraid of tearing open a wound that just might have the opportunity to heal itself if left alone. I went to the kitchen and made my tea. Sheila bustled in and out, stopping occasionally to shake her head at nothing in particular. At last she joined me.
“She was stitching you up, Sheila,” I said, my emotions continuing to alternate between sympathy and anger toward Isabel. I’d said it the afternoon before, but I didn’t mind repeating myself. “Making it look as if it were you trying to poison me. She didn’t care where she threw suspicion—you, Geoffrey Addleton, Linus.”
Sheila couldn’t reply as Linus walked in.
We exchanged good mornings as Sheila set down tea in front of him before making her excuses—something about dusting the grand dining hall.
Linus filled me in on more details of Isabel’s case. The problem was, poison points toward premeditation, not a passionate act in a moment of madness, and so it could go badly for her. Addleton stood by his statement that he had no knowledge of Isabel’s actions, and Linus promised to do everything he could to help Addleton. I saw this as a selfless, noble gesture, but Linus said what good would it do him to have Cecil mourn for a father—Addleton—locked away because he had protected his mother.
At that moment, Cecil pushed open the kitchen door and looked in. “Father—oh, hello, Julia.” He looked like a young man who had aged a decade overnight, but he held his head high, and I admired him for that.
“Hello, Cecil. I’m very sorry.” What an inadequate statement, but what else was there to say?
“And I’m sorry, Julia, for all the trouble that’s been caused. I hope that…you are all right.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Father, I’ll go with you this morning to see the solicitor about Mother’s bail”—he cleared his throat—“but this afternoon, Willow and I had planned to visit a farmshop in Stratford St. Mary. She thought it might be good to focus on something positive. Will you go with us?”
“Thank you, Cecil,” Linus said, smiling. “Yes, I would like that.”
“And you, Julia. You were the first one to think of a farmshop. Please come.”
“Thank you, Cecil, but I’ll wait for you to tell me about it. My day off, you know.”
Cecil left, and I smiled at Linus. “He called you ‘Father.’ ”
Linus nodded. “He and Geoffrey have a great deal to work through, and I won’t stand in the way of that. But Cecil is still my son and heir to the estate.” He patted my hand. “And now, Julia,” he said, looking more like himself, “if you have a few minutes, I have something in the village I want to show you. I’ll cycle in and meet you on the high street.”
I went to borrow a coat from Sheila when my phone rang.
“Jools,” Dad said, “the toxicology results are in.”
“Yes, Mr. Sexiest Man in Britain 2012, host of A Bird in the Hand television program on BBC Two, and Indiana Jones of ornithology. However did you manage that?” I laughed at his silence. “Well, what did they find?”
“Freddy Peacock had high levels; the sandwich, tea, and whisky in his room, the same. That sandwich of yours…” He paused. “Well, she’ll pay for that.”
Let her pay or not, I was finished with Isabel Fotheringill—I had a tourist center to run and a Christmas Market breathing down my neck. “Dad, we’ll need to talk about the Boxing Day Bird Count—why don’t Michael and I put an agenda together for you?”
Linus stood outside my Pipit Cottage. He had leaned his bike up against the wall, and held his helmet under an arm, although he’d left the trouser clip on. When I got closer, I saw that the door of the cottage was open. He smiled, and nodded for me to enter.
It took my breath away—here it was, my little cottage looking just as it always had, as if toxic mold in the walls had not turfed me out months ago. I walked three paces, which took me from the sitting room to the kitchen, where I opened cupboards and knocked on the new wall. I twirled like a little girl in a party dress.
“Really?” I asked Linus. “I can come back?”
He nodded. “Really.”
I ran up the stairs to find my bedroom in perfect order. I ran down and looked out the French doors to my little back garden.
“Would you like me to have the gardeners over to tidy up?”
“Not a bit of it,” I said, admiring the tangle of leafless stems against a dark yew. “It’s perfect.”
In my room at the Hall, the alcove had blue-and-white crime-scene tape crisscrossed over the archway, but the rest was accessible. I stood on a chair and pulled my case off the top of the wardrobe, opened it, and began throwing clothes in. Soon after, I dumped them out and folded each piece properly, so that they would actually fit. My phone rang and I practically sang my “Hello.”
“Are you packing?” Michael asked.
“I am,” I said, holding up my flirty pink dress. “And you—you should start packing, too.”
“Sorry?”
“It’s moving day—for both of us. My cottage is finished.”