Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen (book club books txt) 📗

‘Of course.’ Rapidly, Jude reviewed his own behaviour and found himself not guilty of any irregularity. He’d divided his friends and family throughout his time in the police, and if he was honest with himself he was probably enough of a control freak within his job to alienate people who didn’t like to work the way he did. It was why he relied so closely on a small group of officers and broke the traditional roles of rank where he felt it was beneficial. But disruptive?

It was a debate for the future. Rather than pursue it and make an immediate enemy of his new boss, he changed tack. ‘And the workshops?’

‘There will be a range of them, beginning this week. We’ll be using a local provider who tailors courses for public and private bodies.’

‘Right.’

Faye’s gaze, already keen, perceptibly sharpened. ‘You seem uncomfortable with that.’

If she thought she’d picked up some resentment in his attitude she was right. He couldn’t challenge her over the fact that he’d benefited disproportionately from being the right sort of person in Groves’ eyes, but his irritation was more akin to Doddsy’s. No matter how worthy, desirable or even necessary the workshops might be, he could ill afford a day or a half day, or even a couple of hours, out of his busy schedule in order to learn how to treat his colleagues with the respect he already accorded them. And there was something else. ‘Would this local provider be Claud Blackwell?’

‘Do you have a problem with him? He’s locally very well known and highly regarded.’

‘No. But it’s interesting his name has come up. It was his wife who found the body off the A66 yesterday afternoon.’

Faye’s eyes narrowed, and she picked at her necklace. ‘Is he a suspect?’

No,’ said Jude, after a moment’s consideration. ‘We haven’t ruled him out yet, but the investigation isn’t even a day old. He was at home when his wife found the man, still alive. I’ve no reason at all to think it might be him.’

‘Then there’s no reason to change our plans.’ She nodded towards him, graciously. ‘That’s all just now. But I’ll be very hands on, so you can expect me to be very much around and about.’

*

‘Gracie, Gracie, Gracie,’ breathed Giles’s voice into the phone. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’

Out in the car park of the Penrith Hospital, Gracie Pepper turned her back on the colleague who was waving in her direction, pretending she hadn’t seen. ‘Giles.’

‘But what am I going to do?’ he wailed.

She crammed the phone between her shoulder and her ear and scrabbled in her bag for cigarettes and a lighter. The spring wind played up, trailing a strand of long copper-coloured hair across her mouth as she tried to take a drag of the first cigarette. ‘Giles.’ She fought the wind and won, got a lungful of nicotine and retrieved the phone before she could drop it. ‘Do you need to talk?’

‘Of course I want to talk. We’re talking now, aren’t we?’

‘I can’t talk for long. Fag break.’

‘You should give up.’

‘I didn’t want this one, but I saw your message. It was the only way of grabbing a moment’s peace to call you.’

The panic she’d sensed in his voice broke into a chuckle. ‘I appreciate it. Sorry. I know you’re busy. And I know I ought really to talk to Janice because–’

He couldn’t possibly talk to Janice. Not about this. Gracie smiled and held the cigarette away from her. ‘It’s not a problem for me, darling. I’m all yours. Just let me know when.’

‘I’ll need to check my diary. And I don’t want it to look too obvious.’

For such a capable, successful man, Giles was given to surprising bouts of inadequacy. ‘Find a time to come and visit your Dad. Meet me at the hospital. And don’t get into a state, right? You don’t want anyone asking questions.’

‘Especially not Janice,’ he said, rather mournfully.

She shook her head in amusement. The tip of the cigarette glowed in the wind. ‘Whenever suits you. You know I don’t have any commitments other than work.’

A pause, in which she almost heard him pull himself together. ‘You need to get yourself a man, Gracie my girl.’

‘Oh, Giles!’ she said, one last time, this time with more than the usual measure of affection. ‘Just let me know, okay?’

Chapter 4

Very hands on was an ominous phrase, Jude concluded as he drove along the A66 towards Appleby; a veiled threat to him to behave. Whether it was personal, or whether it was a weapon Faye Scanlon was carefully deploying in an attempt to set up her position with regard to her junior officers, remained to be established, something he could easily determine by checking with Doddsy. On the whole he thought not, recognising in Faye someone who was fighting against some insecurity he couldn’t identify and she wouldn’t reveal.

Taking on a new job was difficult enough. Replacing someone who’d left more than a whiff of scandal behind, armed with a remit to right all the actual and perceived wrongs they had committed or allowed others to commit, was even harder. On that basis, he was inclined to give Faye the benefit of the doubt.

Maisie Skinner, Lenny’s older sister, lived in a cottage just below the viaduct, but she must be a woman who believed that life must go on and had insisted on meeting Jude in The Cosy Cupcake Cafe in the village centre. On another occasion Jude might have interpreted that as indicative of lack of regret at a loss and given her motives a second look, but he hadn’t got the impression from Chris’s account that Maisie and her brother were that close, and plenty of people preferred the protection of routine.

Appleby was going about its Monday business