Ruth collects Kate from Sandra, the childminder who has looked after her since she was a baby, and drives home. Kate is chattering about the Year 6 trip (‘We’ve got to choose who we want in our cabin. Four people have chosen me already. I’ll need new leggings’) but Ruth is worrying. The worries keep pace with the car as they cross the Saltmarsh, rather as the clouds chase across the flat marshland, turning the grass indigo blue and purple. Ruth’s meeting on Pandemic Precautions was far from reassuring, partly because the universities have had no guidance from the government. Should they provide lessons online? But how would that work, in practice? Would all the students be confined to their rooms, only communicating electronically? That’s not the university experience that Ruth wants for them. And what about staff, already worried about vulnerable family members and their own health?
‘Look, Mum. There’s that lady,’ says Kate.
Zoe is standing in her garden, leaning on a rake. There’s no barrier between the two front gardens and Ruth’s is full of bindweed and startlingly tall yellow ragwort. The third house in the row is owned by Sammy and Ed, known to Ruth as ‘the weekenders’, who use it as a holiday home, though they’ve been visiting less regularly since their children grew up. They have concreted over the space at the front of their house, which they need because everyone in the family seems to own a monster jeep. The weekenders have also built an extension and landscaped the back garden. Ruth always feels that their cottage now looks embarrassed to be joined to hers. She thinks back to her mother’s photograph. The gardens had been neat and uniform then, behind their box hedge. She really must do some research into the history of the houses.
‘Doing some gardening?’ asks Ruth, as they get out of their car. It’s an inane question really but she’s still a little shy with Zoe. They had bonded over Lean Zone but Ruth hasn’t told Zoe that she won’t be going to any more meetings.
‘I’m just trying to clear some weeds,’ says Zoe. ‘It would be nice to have some old-fashioned cottage plants here.’
Ruth has a vision – she thinks it’s from a long-forgotten Rupert the Bear annual – of hollyhocks and rambling roses. Oh, yes there’s a bear in a pinafore coming out of the door.
‘I’ll help,’ she says. ‘I’m afraid I’ve let my garden get into a state.’
‘Mum never gardens,’ says Kate disloyally.
‘I’m a London girl,’ says Ruth. ‘I don’t really know what to do.’
‘I can help,’ says Zoe. ‘My mum was a keen gardener.’
‘Are your parents still alive?’ asks Ruth, noting the past tense.
‘No,’ says Zoe. For a moment she rakes away at the brambles. ‘They both died some time ago. Within a few weeks of each other. What about you?’
‘My mother died five years ago,’ says Ruth. ‘We didn’t always get on, but I’m surprised how much I miss her now. She was such a constant in my life.’
‘What about your dad?’ says Zoe.
‘He still lives in London,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s married again.’
Kate wanders inside in search of Flint. Zoe asks if Ruth will be going to Lean Zone next week and Ruth manages to say that she didn’t think it was quite her thing.
‘No problem,’ says Zoe. ‘I don’t know why I keep going really.’
Ruth and Zoe chat for a few more minutes and Ruth goes indoors to start supper. When she looks out of the window, distracted by the six thirty Radio 4 comedy, she sees that Zoe has stopped gardening and is staring back at the houses. Her expression is hard to read.
Tanya and Judy get back to the station at three. Nelson asks them if they’ve been eating chips.
‘Can you smell them?’ says Judy.
‘It’s the vinegar,’ says Nelson. ‘I can smell it a mile off. Reminds me of Blackpool.’ He says it longingly. ‘Find out anything interesting?’
‘Everyone seems shocked and surprised about Avril,’ says Judy. ‘Doesn’t mean it’s not suicide though.’
‘Team meeting in half an hour,’ says Nelson. ‘Young Tony’s going to talk us through the cold cases.’
Tanya wonders how long it will be before Tony stops being officially ‘young’.
Tony looks slightly nervous, thinks Tanya, but he speaks well. She notices that he has made notes on his phone and she approves. She’s had enough of Judy’s iconic notebook and Nelson’s aversion to technology.
‘Karen Head was a teacher, divorced with one child. I spoke to two of her colleagues at the school who said that she didn’t seem depressed. They’d been out for a staff party the night before she died. Karen’s ten-year-old daughter was staying with her father. He found Karen’s body when he brought her home. Cause of death recorded as paracetamol overdose.’ Tony scrolls down with a practised thumb, hardly pausing for breath. ‘I spoke to Rosanna Leigh’s mother. Rosanna was a retired midwife. Apparently, she had suffered from depression in the past. She’d come off antidepressants because she was worried about the side effects.’
One of the side effects was suicide, thinks Tanya. But she doesn’t say this aloud.
‘Celia Dunne lived on her own. Sounds as if she was a bit of a recluse. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone who knew her. It was some days before her body was found, hence the uncertainty over cause of death.’
Nobody says anything about this because they can all visualise the scene.
‘Well done, Tony,’ said Nelson. ‘I’d say that Karen Head, at least, fits the pattern.’
‘Maybe Rosanna and Celia as well,’ says Judy. ‘Rosanna took antidepressants. That doesn’t necessarily mean she was suicidal.’
‘Hanging yourself does though,’ says Tanya, realising, too late, that this sounds rather callous.
‘What about Avril Flowers?’ says Nelson. ‘What did you learn about her?’
‘Both her daughter and her cleaner thought that suicide was completely out of character,’ says Judy. ‘Avril sounded active and happy. Very involved in her local community. There were a couple of interesting connections to Samantha Wilson too. Both worked at a library, both were churchgoers.’
‘Neither of those things is exactly suspicious,’ says Nelson. Tanya is tempted to disagree. She thinks churches and libraries are both rather creepy.
‘What about the locked room?’ says Nelson. ‘Any theories about that?’
Tanya decides it’s time she spoke. ‘The cleaner, Tina Prentice, said that the door was locked from the outside,’ she says, ‘though she did say that, afterwards, she wondered if she’d been mistaken. It was one of those old-fashioned keys. It’s possible Avril could have manipulated it from the inside.’
‘We’ll see what SOCO have to say,’ says Nelson. ‘At the least they’ll be able to tell us if anyone other than Avril and the cleaner touched the door. We should talk to the libraries and the churches. See if the women had any acquaintances in common. Judy, you’re in charge but keep it low key. The other cases might well be suicide, but Avril Flowers is different. If the room was locked from the outside that points to homicide.’
‘It’s a locked room mystery,’ says Tony. ‘Like in the books.’
‘Nothing,’ says Nelson, ‘is like it is in the books.’