“Julia!”
I jumped at the voice behind me, whirled round, and fell back into the yew, clutching at branches, saved from landing on the soggy ground only when Cecil reached out and grabbed me.
“What is this?” he demanded. “Who is that with Willow? What are they doing here? What are you doing? What is going on—you haven’t been—”
“Cecil, please.” I clambered up, knocking his rain hat askew as I righted myself. Rain splattered my face, and I readjusted my hood as I spluttered, “I’ve just this minute arrived, and I have no idea—”
“Cecil!”
Willow and Tommy were picking their way back toward us, and Cecil left me to dart over and open the gate for them. Willow looked radiant. Tommy hung back, her eyes shifting from one face to another.
“Willow,” Cecil began, and I heard a pleading note in his voice. “Didn’t we discuss this and you agreed it might not be a good idea to—”
“Cecil, dear, let me introduce Tommy Pears.” Willow put her hand on Cecil’s arm and tilted her umbrella back to smile up at him.
Cecil automatically put his hand out. “How do you do, Ms. Pears? Cecil Fotheringill, happy to meet you.”
“Hello, Mr. Fotheringill,” Tommy said. “I’m afraid I’m responsible for this.”
“Tommy has been a great help to the police,” Willow explained in a rush. “Remember Detective Inspector Callow showed me the photo yesterday?”
“That was a poor decision on the part of the police,” Cecil complained. “Disturbing you during your school day.”
“Dear Cecil, it was better during my busy day, actually, because I had no time to dwell on it. But this is the truly remarkable part—I could only be sad when I saw him, but Tommy knew his name. He’s Bob. She and her family met him out by the abbey ruins. Julia was the one who remembered they’d been into the TIC and mentioned him. Tommy came out today, because she rather feels the same way I do, that we owe it to Bob to acknowledge what’s happened and ask him if there is some way we can help.”
A frown passed over Cecil’s face.
“Yes, thank you, Ms. Pears, for your assistance in this matter. We are, of course, truly sorry for this man’s death, and we are doing everything we can to help the police with their enquiry. And, of course, thank you, too, Julia, for your help.”
Poor Cecil—still at sea over Willow’s unexplainable attraction to a dead man. “Of course, we all want an end to the matter. But right now,” I offered, longing for someone to turn off the tap, “I don’t suppose anyone would like to get out of the rain?”
We paused in the covered entry to the church as we said our goodbyes. While Cecil engaged Tommy in a brief conversation about the estate, Willow walked me to a bench by the notice board. It held a poster with Tommy’s new design for the art competition. In the corner, she had sketched Willow, smiling, holding a paintbrush, and saying, “Brushes up!”
“We’re so close, Julia, I can feel it.” Her cheeks were pink and her eyes bright. “And I know I can be of assistance.”
“Willow, you can’t take this on—the police are handling it.”
“Yes, yes,” she said dismissively, and then tapped the tip of her umbrella on the stone floor. “Still, there’s something Bob wants me to remember. I need to clear my mind, and it will come to me.”
The rain continued relentlessly in its pursuit to drown the Fotheringill estate. I reckoned that Suffolk, known for its low rainfall, might be getting its year’s worth all in one day. As Tommy, Willow, and Cecil departed, a text arrived from Michael—Preparing 4 tomorrow evening with nightjars—followed by one from Vesta.
On your way back?
I had stayed away too long. I felt a pang of guilt—here I was, once again taking advantage of Vesta. I must stop. I had brought this up to her before, but her response had been, “And what about you working six days a week? This isn’t Charles Dickens’s blacking factory, you know.” No good pointing out I worked only five and a half days—I knew she was right. When I had opened the TIC just over two years ago, it had filled a vast hole in my life. But perhaps the time had come to put a bit of space between life and work.
Be right there.
Twenty minutes later I’d secured my Fiat in its lockup and arrived at the TIC to find Vesta sitting behind the counter with cups of tea on the table. Across from her, leaning forward and toying with a folded sheet of paper in his hand, Tony Brightbill.
What was Vesta thinking, inviting a murderer to tea?
That was my first thought, followed quick on by realizing no one had seen what I had—Tony Brightbill at the scene of a violent crime. Tea rooms, my eye—that had all been a ruse.
Brightbill stood, holding the paper close, and said, “Ms. Lanchester, I hope you don’t mind that I—”
“I asked Mr. Brightbill to stay,” Vesta cut in. “He’d wanted to speak with you, and I told him you’d be returning soon.”
Perhaps Vesta did have her own suspicions. She had thought it better Brightbill meet me here with her as witness rather than have him track me down at the end of a deserted lane.
“Well, you should be on your way now, Vesta,” I said. “Thanks so much for staying while I was out.”
“I’m in no hurry, Julia. Shall I put the kettle on for a fresh pot?”
“Not at all, we’re fine.” I sounded as if Tony Brightbill and I were about to discuss the virtues of real butter versus buttery spread. I dug in my bag for my phone. I needed to ring the police. “Would you both excuse me for a moment?” I asked, nodding toward the loo. “Oh, and—DI Callow is on her way.”
“Yes, she is,” Brightbill said.
Without thinking, I asked, “How do you know?”
“I rang her a quarter of an hour ago.”
I was gripped with a thrill of fear—he’d called the police here because he was going to confess, right in front of me. Did he require a witness? Did he feel the murderer’s need to be the center of attention? Was he about to lodge a formal complaint that I was harassing him?
“There you are now,” I said, a tremor to my voice. “Off you go, Vesta.”
She buttoned her raincoat in slow motion, watching me, her eyes drifting down to my shoes for the first time. As I had spoiled my trainers spying on Tony Brightbill, I didn’t believe this an appropriate moment to go into detail about my heavy-duty shoes.
“Sheila’s,” I said. Vesta nodded.
I watched her walk out, and only after she had disappeared did it occur to me that Brightbill could well have been lying about the police. Was Tess really on her way? I edged past him and stood in front of the counter, closer to the door, still unlocked. “Now, Mr. Brightbill, how may I—”
He unfolded the paper he’d been fingering and held it out. I saw it was the photo of the murder victim, computer-enhanced to have his eyes open and look almost alive.
“Bob,” Tony said. “Robert Brightbill. He was my brother.”